Addressing the socio-environmental factors and communication

intervention associated with littering behaviour in Abbotsford’s Parks

Introduction

Christina Owen1, Darien Francis1, Mariano Mapili1, Gloria Borrows2 & Michelle Riedlinger2

Departments of 1Geography and the Environment & 2Communications, University of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada

Study Area

Our community service research examined local

environmental, socio-demographic and

criminological data to identify factors that can

explain and can be used in designing anti-littering

strategies in selected parks in the City of

Abbotsford, in the Province of British Columbia,

Canada (Figure 1).

Eventually, we created an interactive GIS that

contain photos of litter and their locations in the

park to communicate what we learned to students

at the University of the Fraser Valley, the City of

Abbotsford Parks and Recreation Staff, and to the

residents of the City of Abbotsford.

Figure 1. Study sites: five park-neighbourhoods identified

by the City of Abbotsford to have littering issues

Materials and Methods

Results

Using ArcGIS 10.4.1 for spatial analysis and IBM-

SPSS 24 for statistical analysis, we used

environmental data from the City of Abbotsford’s

WebMap, the 2016 Canada Census and the 2016-

2017 crime data from the City’s Crime Map, and

we carried out litter audits (Figure 2) in the parks

and surveyed park users and residents who live

close to the parks. See Figure 3 for a summary of

our methods.

Figure 7. Parks with streams have significantly higher

reported crime rate.

Litter Audit

Environmental Features

Socio-Demographic Surveys

Criminality

We would like to thank the CityStudio student

researchers for their work on the research project

and for the City of Abbotsford for the GIS files and

the logistical support during the five litter audits

and for inviting the students to demonstrate their

interactive GIS to City staff and officials.

ANOVA test on our litter audit reveals that the amount

of common types of litter in Ravine and Goldfinch Parks

are significantly higher (P<0.01) as compared to those in three other parks without streams (Figure 7).

Acknowledgement

Communication Intervention

We also found the level of education, transience,

and journey methods as well as population density

as the socio-demographic factors (Figure 6) are

significantly (p<0.05) different in study sites and

non-study sites.

Our spatial and statistical analyses revealed several

environmental features that were significantly different

in littered versus non-littered parks.

• Large litter are common in and close to streams that

run through two problem parks. (Figure 4)

• The same two problem parks with streams have

higher crime rates.

• See Figure 5 for other significant environmental features.

Figure 2. Litter audit in a problem park where a

streams run through

Figure 4. Litter in the stream that runs through a

problem park

Figure 3. Summary of methods used in the

community service research

Figure 5. Significant Environmental Features

Figure 6. Significant socio-demographics

Figure 8. Students presenting their Interactive GIS of

their litter audit at TedX Abbotsford.