Bridging the gap between environmental planning education and practice

Abstract

Environmental plans provide an effective medium to examine the gaps between environmental planning education and practice. Although many studies have focused on the theories and procedures of environmental planning, few studies have directly addressed the education gaps in environmental planning practices. This paper provides a measurable approach to identify the environmental education gaps by evaluating environmental plan quality based on a set of indicators. The descriptive results indicate that major environmental education gaps exist in many region-wide, global-wide, long-term, cumulative, and strategically critical environmental elements. The regression results further highlight the factors that can reduce the gaps in environmental planning education. This study finally provides a framework of environmental planning education core courses to bridge the educational gaps. © 2010 WIT Press.