Defining community revitalization in Great Lakes Areas of Concern and investigating how revitalization can be catalyzed through remediation and restoration
December 1, 2022 - Norris, Carly; Nigrelli, Caitie; Newcomer-Johnson, Tammy A.; White, Dalon P.; Beaubien, Gale B.; Pelka, Amy; Mills, Marc A.
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EmailJournal or Book Title: JOURNAL OF GREAT LAKES RESEARCH
DOI:10.1016/j.jglr.2022.05.006
Abstract: An international effort to restore contaminated areas across the Great Lakes has been underway for over 50 years. Although experts have increasingly recognized the inherent connections between ecological conditions and community level benefits, Great Lakes community revitalization continues to be a broad and complex topic, lacking a comprehensive definition. The purpose of this study was to generate a tes -table AOC-Revitalization Framework for linking remediation and restoration success, represented by Beneficial Use Impairment (BUI) removal in U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOC), to community revi-talization. Using directed content analysis, we conducted a literature review and identified 433 potential revitalization metrics and indicators and grouped them into 15 broader community revitalization attri-butes to develop the following definition of Great Lakes community revitalization: locally driven commu-nity resurgence resulting in resilient and equitable enhancements to social, economic, and environmental community structures. We surveyed experts within the Great Lakes AOC program on the likelihood reme-diation and restoration success, would positively impact revitalization attributes. Focus groups triangu-lated survey results. Results identified BUI removal was expected to positively affect revitalization, but the type of revitalization outcome was based on the BUI being removed. The AOC-Revitalization Framework is the first to empirically outline these possible linkages, providing a clear testable structure for future research; it can be used to better understand how environmental improvements are or are not leading to community revitalization and more accurately identify components of revitalization impacted, thus supporting more equitable representation, communication, and measurement of the relationship. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of International Association for Great Lakes Research. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).
Type of Publication: Article