How to Restore Ravines: Ecological Restoration and the Toronto Ravine System
School of the Environment, University of Toronto
How they used Delve
A Master of Environment & Sustainability student at the University of Toronto's School of the Environment used Delve to open-code ten stakeholder interviews about Toronto's ravine system, generating 190 initial codes and collapsing them into seven axial themes for a grounded-theory study of what ecological restoration means in practice.
“After obtaining transcriptions of my interviews, I uploaded these documents to delvetool, a qualitative data analysis software service. [...] After uploading the transcripts to delvetool, I utilized open coding. [...] Through the process of open coding these ten interviews, I created an initial 190 codes.”
- Field
- Environmental studies / ecological restoration
- Data
- Ten semi-structured interviews with ravine-restoration stakeholders recruited by snowball sampling, transcribed in Microsoft Word, plus participant observation at three Toronto ravine site visits
- Approach
- Grounded-theory-informed design: open coding of ten interview transcripts produced 190 initial codes, winnowed by axial coding into seven themes, alongside participant observation at three site visits
- Data types
- Interviews, Observation
Abstract
This paper addresses the following research question: what does ecological restoration mean to stakeholders engaged in restoring Toronto’s ravine system? Building on the International Principles and Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration, this proposal critically examines the relevance of two of its guiding principles. The discussion then shifts to an analysis of the Toronto Ravine Strategy and relevant literature on the Toronto ravine system. After this, a grounded theory-informed methodology is outlined, detailing interviews with 10 participants and visits to 3 sites. A section on findings follows, as well as concluding thoughts.
Citation
Nolan Scharper (2023). How to Restore Ravines: Ecological Restoration and the Toronto Ravine System. TSpace (University of Toronto).