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Applications of Geospatial Technologies to Promote
Environmental Education and Sustainability
V. Chris Lakhan,1 Abdolhossein Parizanganeh,2 and Sajid R. Ahmad1
1Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Windsor
Windsor, Ontario, Canada N9B 3P4
2Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences,
Zanjan University
Zanjan - Iran
ABSTRACT
This paper focussed on the application of geospatial
technologies in the form of global positioning
systems, geographical information systems (GIS),
remotely-sensed satellite images, and a Virtual Globe
to collect, analyze, and visualize environmental
survey data from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Data
from 9,062 survey questionnaires were first analyzed
with loglinear modelling techniques. After
statistically identifying that educational attainment,
age, gender, and location, were major factors
influencing concern for the environment and
sustainability issues, a GIS was used to map and
visualize the spatial differences in education and
concern for the environment. Numerous areas
throughout Iran were identified as having low concern
for the environment. These areas could be considered
as “hotspots” and should be the focus of spatial
targeting. With the geospatial results policy planners,
community leaders and environmentalists could now
prioritize areas in order to deliver effective
environmental education programs and environmental
sustainability practices.
Keywords: Geospatial Technologies, Geographical
Information Systems, Virtual Globe, Loglinear
Modelling, Spatial Targeting, Iran, Hotspots,
Environmental Education, Sustainability.
1. INTRODUCTION
While various strategies to improve environmental
governance and to ensure environmental sustainability
have been advocated yet environmental problems
continue to escalate, especially in many countries of
the developing world. One reason for the lack of
progress in attaining environmental sustainability
could be attributed to deficiencies in environmental
education at local and national levels. According to
[1, p. 37], “if real sustainability is to become
increasingly meaningful and mainstream, rather than
devalued and marginalized, education in all forms and
in all sectors has a vital role to play.” Given the
necessity to promote environmental education this
research demonstrates the application of geospatial
technologies to examine and target those areas and
regions with inadequate levels of educational
attainment. The assumption was made that high levels
of educational attainment will correspond with higher
concerns for the environment, and greater knowledge
of sustainability practices. To demonstrate the
effectiveness of geospatial technologies for
addressing and alleviating issues pertaining to the
delivery of environmental education, this research
utilized survey data collected with geospatial
technologies, and acquired by interviewers from the
Islamic Republic of Iran.
2. STUDY AREA AND DATA ACQUISITION
The focus was on Iran because the expectation was
that the country should be at the forefront of effective
environmental governance given the stipulation of
Article 50 of the Constitution which deemed
environmental protection to be a public duty in order
to safeguard the quality of life for both the present
and future generations. Recent findings by [2],
however, found that Iran is confronted by a broad
spectrum of environmental problems ranging from air
and water pollution, deforestation, desertification, soil
losses, pesticide contamination, excessive industrial
and agricultural wastes, and degradation of terrestrial
and aquatic ecosystems. The U.S. Energy Information
Administration [3] also reported that overfishing in
lakes and rivers has resulted in declines in fishing
stocks, wetlands and reservoirs are increasingly being
degraded, and oil and chemical spills in the Persian
Gulf and Caspian Sea continue to pollute the seas and
endanger aquatic life.
To obtain insights on why environmental problems
remain pervasive geospatial technologies were
employed to determine the levels of concern the
citizens have for the natural environment, and their
participation in sustainability issues and initiatives.
To parameterize the geodatabase with relevant
attribute data a questionnaire was designed to acquire
data from a broad cross-section of Iranians. To
balance time and cost and still acquire a
representative dataset, this research took into
consideration Iran’s population of nearly 68 million
people, where the male population is about 1% greater
than that of the female population. Nearly two-thirds
of the country’s population live in urban areas.
According to [4], “Iran also exhibits one of the
steepest urban growth rates in the world largely driven
by internal migration”. Six cities in Iran already have
more than one million people, and another six have
more than 500,000 people.
The demography of Iran dictated how the
questionnaire was designed and administered. The
decision was made to obtain data from 10,000 survey
questionnaires with representative samples taken from
each of Iran’s 30 provinces. Each questionnaire
collected data pertaining to age, gender, religious
background, residential location, education,
knowledge of sustainability, sustainability initiatives,
and personal concern for the environment.
Educational attainment was categorized into four
groups, namely less than 6 years, 6 to 9 years, 10 to
12 years, and 13 to 16 years. The age of respondents
was grouped into five categories, these being less than
25 years, 25 to 34 years, 35 to 44 years, 45 to 54
years, and greater than 54 years.
3. DATA ANALYSIS
3.1 Loglinear Modelling
Of the 10,000 questionnaires which were
administered only 9,062 were fully completed. The
data from these questionnaires were then summarized
and tabulated in multi-dimensional frequency tables.
Loglinear models were then utilized to identify
associations and interrelationships of the principal
factors influencing personal concerns for the
environment, and knowledge of sustainability issues.
Details on the loglinear approach could be found in
several studies [5, 6, 7, 8], and a good example on the
application of loglinear models for analyzing
environmental data was presented by [9]. This paper
utilized hierarchical loglinear models because once a
higher-order effect is included in the model all its
lower-order effects are automatically included.
While space limitations do not permit a full
discussion on how loglinear models were selected it
is, nevertheless, worthwhile to note that the five-
dimensional frequency table, cross-classified the
dependent variable, personal concern for the
environment, with the independent variables
educational attainment, age, gender, and residential
location. Due to the large number of possible
loglinear models that could be constructed from the
five-dimensional frequency table, this research used
K-factors [10] to reduce the number of loglinear
models to be tested. The partial and marginal
association tests and backward elimination procedures
were applied to select the best loglinear model. After
testing of various models, the most parsimonious
model that was chosen highlighted that high
educational attainment had a close correspondence
with high concern for the environment. This was
especially evident from the graphical plots of the
results which highlighted that the youngest (<25
years) urban male respondents with the highest
education (>12 years) had the highest concern for the
environment (Figure 1). Similar results were obtained
for the youngest urban female respondents with the
highest education. While there was decreasing
concern for the environment with increasing age of
Figure 1: Increasingly Higher Concern for
Iran’s Environment by the Youngest Male
Respondents with Higher Levels of Education.
both male and female respondents from urban and
rural areas there were, however, noticeable
differences in concern for the environment by
respondents from urban and rural areas. The
differences in concern for the environment between
urban males (Figure 2) and rural males (Figure 3) of
the same age category are illustrated.
3.2 Geospatial Analysis
Although the loglinear modelling results and
associated graphical plots proved to be invaluable in
highlighting how the interacting factors of
educational attainment, age, gender, and location
influenced concern for the environment and
sustainability issues no clear insights were, however,
provided on the spatial variations in environmental
education and associated concerns for the natural
environment. Geospatial technologies were therefore
utilized to ascertain whether there were spatial
variations in concern for the environment across Iran.
To collect, analyze, and visualize the acquired data
geospatial technologies in the form of global
positioning systems (GPS), geographical information
systems (GIS), remotely-sensed satellite images, and
a Virtual Globe were utilized. The GPS was used to
acquire locational coordinates from all cities, towns
and villages from which questionnaire data were
obtained. A GIS was utilized to analyze and visualize
the spatial disparities in environmental education
because a GIS has the capabilities of data
management (acquisition and storage), data analyses,
data display and visualization [11]. The GIS
incorporated a spatial database and an attribute
database. A digitized map of Iran, with accurate
geographic coordinates, was created. Each of the 30
provinces was digitized and stored as polygons. The
coordinates for all cities, towns and villages were
stored as point data. The attribute data for each of the
9,062 respondents were stored in the geodatabase of
ArcGIS 9.2 [12]. In the attribute database the tables
related to gender, age categories of respondents,
educational attainment, and location of respondents
were joined and related.
Each of the mapped and surrounding areas was then
overlayed on Landsat Thematic Mapper remotely-
sensed images to show the associations between and
among environmental resources, environmentally
sensitive areas, educational facilities, and human
communities. The Virtual Globe provided by Google
Earth (http://earth.google.com/) was used to examine
the geographic features and the transportation
infrastructure of each of the surveyed areas. In
addition Google Earth was used, to some extent, to
delineate urban areas from rural areas.
4. GEOSPATIAL RESULTS
To comprehend the interactions of educational
attainment, age, location, concern for the
environment, and sustainability initiatives the ArcGIS
9.2 software was utilized to obtain a spatial
perspective of the results. The GIS results
demonstrated that respondents with different levels of
Figure 3: Education Levels Related to
Environmental Concern for Rural Males, Ages
25–34.
Figure 2: Education Levels Related to
Environmental Concern for Urban Males,
Ages 25–34.
educational attainment were in all 30 provinces of
Iran. Figures 4a and b provide insights on which
provinces have respondents with the highest
educational attainment (greater than 12 years), and
those provinces where respondents had lower levels
of educational attainment. Interestingly, only five
provinces in Iran have more than 40% of the
respondents with greater than 12 years of education.
This is demonstrated by Figure 5. On the other hand
there were seven provinces in Iran where more than
20% of the respondents had less than 6 years of
education. This is highlighted in Figure 6.
The GIS also revealed large spatial variations in
personal concern for the environment. This concern
varied between the different provinces. The stacked
bar chart (Figure 7) illustrates this occurrence. When
education was related to concern for the environment
it was found that with less than 6 years of education,
only 5% of the respondents in 23 of the country’s 30
provinces were highly concerned for the environment.
This is clearly demonstrated by Figure 8. However,
when respondents obtained between 10 to 12 years of
education it was observed that more than 10% of the
respondents in 23 of the country's provinces have high
concern for the environment. This finding is
emphasized by Figure 9.
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
By combining various aspects of geospatial
technologies results were obtained which permitted
not only the visualization of spatial disparities in
Figure 4a: Distribution of Various Education
Levels in Iran (Educ > 12 yrs and Educ 10–12
yrs).
Figure 5: Respondents with Educational
Attainment of More than 12 Years.
Figure 4b: Distribution of Various Education
Levels in Iran (Educ 6–9 yrs and Educ < 6 yrs).
education and personal concerns for the environment,
but also identified provinces where there were
deficiencies in environmental education. Obviously,
all the provinces (see Figure 10) where respondents
have low concern for the environment should be
targeted with effective environmental education
programs. The province of Sistan in particular
requires special consideration because more than 15%
of the respondents have no concern for the
environment. Figure 11 also demonstrates that
numerous urban areas in each of the provinces have
low levels of concern for the environment. These
areas could be considered as “hot spots”, and should
be the focus of spatial targeting. Without doubt, far
more effective environmental and sustainability
programs and initiatives should be undertaken and
encouraged, especially in targeted priority areas. It
will be beneficial to introduce GIS freeware programs
(for example, http://opensourcegis.org and
http://gislounge.com/ open-source-gis-applications/)
and associated open map sources (for example,
Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/), NASA
World Wind (http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/), and
Bing Maps (http://www.bing.com/maps/)) to policy
planners, environmentalists, and community leaders
in order to visualize, assess, and encourage
community participation in environmental protection.
In addition to enhancing environmental awareness at
the local, urban, and national levels relevant
environmental instructions, strategies, and practices
could be disseminated to promote environmental
protection and sustainability.
Evidently, this paper demonstrated that geospatial
technologies could be functionally useful for
identifying priority areas which will benefit from
additional environmental education programs. In a
policy paper [13] emphasized that geospatial
Figure 8: Provinces with High Concern for the
Environment and Educational Attainment of less
than 6 Years.
Figure 6: Respondents with Educational
Attainment of less than 6 Years.Figure 7: Environmental Concern (% by
Province).
Figure 9: Provinces with High Concern for the
Environment and Educational Attainment of
10–12 Years.
technologies are now essential and effective spatial
targeting tools which could be used to assess and
address a broad spectrum of environmental problems
and issues. The utilization of geospatial technologies
can, therefore, facilitate not only increases in
environmental education and awareness, but also help
to promote the diffusion of environmental education
so as to ensure environmental sustainability not only
in Iran, but elsewhere.
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Figure 10: Respondents with Low Concern for
the Environment.
Figure 11: Urban Areas with Low Levels of
Concern for the Environment Which Could Be
Targeted with Environmental Education
Programs.
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