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Harvard Forest REU Symposium Abstract 2018

• Title: Multivariate Analysis of the Towns within the Pioneer Valley
• Author: Anne C Kennedy-Yoon (Harvard University)
• Abstract:

  Are the demographics of a region indicative of the amount of land conserved of that region? This research examines potential correlations between demographic data and the amount of land conserved in the Pioneer Valley within Massachusetts. The goal of this research is to help land trusts identify landowners that are more likely to conserve their land but also to help develop a marketing strategy targeted towards the populations that historically have not conserved land. The only way to examine the effects of all of the variables at once was to use a multivariate analysis. I used R to run the analysis and group the towns within the region into distinct clusters, I then noted which clusters had higher amounts of conserved land and which variables might be influencing the clustering. The data shows that populations living in regions with high amounts of conserved land are those with more income from personal or family investments, whereas the populations living in regions with low amounts of conserved land have an especially low proportion of income coming from such investments. The populations that tend to conserve land have a high percentage of individuals employed in educational services, health care or social assistance, whereas populations living in regions with low amounts of conserved land tend to have a higher percentage of individuals employed in manufacturing and transportation. This methodology could be applied to a larger region in order to gain a better understanding of the potential correlations between population demographics and conserved land.

• Research Category: Regional Studies; Historical and Retrospective Studies; Conservation and Management