The Dynamic Relationships Among Human Activities, Place Attachments, and the Environment

This project investigates what role environmental factors have in mediating the connections between human activities and the development of place attachment for these activities. The results of the research contribute to a generalizable theory of attachment to places and what role environmental conditions have in influencing the psychology of place connections. Broader impacts include the wide distribution of the research findings to stakeholders who are positioned to foster business and economic development opportunities within communities. The project provides STEM training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate student researchers, and for an early-career researcher. This research builds a generalized theory of the influence that external pressures have in influencing attachment to place. It takes a mixed-methods approach, including mapping geographic patterns of human activities, to analyze place attachments to natural landscapes. The research findings are applicable to explain human activities and connections to places in communities that are experiencing externally driven changes (e.g., natural disasters, land use changes, shifts in weather patterns) and how those changes impact place attachment. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.