What is the relationship between people and nature in their neighbourhoods? 

Local communities and nearby nature areas are dependent and mutually affect each other. Nature areas lower air temperatures, remove pollutants and provide space for recreation while community activities promote the importance of environmental protection. However, there may be disadvantages, wildlife from nearby nature areas may harm people and environmental protection limits development. Visitors to nature areas cause soil erosion, damage vegetation, worsen pollution and disturb wildlife. 

How do people acquire a sense of place in their neighbourhoods? 

People associate importance, meanings and memories with specific locations in their neighbourhoods based on their experiences. Individuals and organisations use different forms and types of media to express people’s sense of place. Individuals’ sense of place could be enhanced or contradicted by these different representations  

What is the relationship between locations in a neighbourhood?

Regions are areas with similar physical and/or human characteristics. Spatial patterns refers to services, events and objects arranged in recognisable shapes, geometry, clusters and at regular intervals. Spatial associations is the tendency of a pair of services, events and objects to locate near each other which suggests a connection between them.

How are neighbourhoods organised in Singapore?  

In Singapore there are more than 20 towns spread across the country, catering to different lifestyles. Each town has a town centre, serving as commercial and activity hubs for residents living in its neighbourhoods. Clusters of residential units form a precinct, which in turn form neighbourhoods that combine into a town. Town planning serve residents and provide for nature at distinct levels of the precinct, neighbourhood, town and create connections 

What are sustainable urban neighbourhoods? 

Sustainable development seeks to meet the needs of the present population by achieving high standards of living and ensure the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Economic, social and environmental sustainability are what we hope to achieve in urban neighbourhoods.

What ecosystem services are found in urban neighbourhoods? 

Urban neighbourhoods are ecosystems consisting of living communities and the non-living environment interacting with one another. Provisioning services available in neighbourhoods include fresh water and food. Regulating services in neighbourhoods include microclimate regulation, flood mitigation, air and water quality. Cultural services in neighbourhoods include aesthetics, education and recreation supporting services in neighbourhoods include soil formation, pollination and photosynthesis

What are common hazards in urban neighbourhoods?

Fires in neighbourhoods are commonly caused by faulty electrical appliances and wiring, unattended cooking fires, resulting in burn injuries, smoke inhalation and property damage.

Air pollution in neighbourhoods is commonly caused by burning vegetation, industrial and motor vehicle emissions, resulting in respiratory infections, heart disease and lung cancer.

Traffic accidents in neighbourhoods are commonly caused by speeding, red-light running and drunk driving, resulting in serious injury and loss of life. 

How to build sustainable urban neighbourhoods? 

Urban neighbourhood can seek to promote volunteerism among residents, strengthen relationships among residents and raise their awareness of potential hazards to improve disaster risk management and community resilience 

How to design fieldwork?

Craft research questions and hypotheses

Collect data through primary and/or secondary sources

Consider the limitations and risks

How to collect primary data? 

Sampling

Closed-ended questionnaire surveys 

Mental maps

How to process and analyse data?  

Closed-ended questionnaire surveys

• interpret responses using measures of frequency including counts and percentages

• interpret responses using measures of central tendency including mean, mode and median

Mental maps

• analyse how well maps represent reality and how features and labels are drawn or added

• examine how memories of experiences are represented on maps and described during semi-structured interviews

Patterns and relationships

• visualise positive and negative correlations using scatter plots and best-fit lines

• identify recognisable geometric shapes, clusters and repetitions

How to present findings?

Maps

• represent spatial information using dots, lines and polygons

• provide title, date, orientation, scale, legend, author and source(s) on maps

Graphs

• use bar graphs and pie charts to show distributions

• use line graphs to show trends and relationships between two variables

Photographs and texts

• use satellite and aerial images to display spatial information

• use colour-coded quotations and word clouds to represent qualitative analyses