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Garrett Smith

Adjunct Lecturer in Sustainable Built Environments and Landscape Architecture

Programs

  • Landscape Architecture
  • School of Landscape Architecture and Planning
  • Sustainable Built Environments
Garrett Smith
garrettsmith@arizona.edu

Areas of Expertise

  • Advanced statistics and research methods
  • Data science
  • Geospatial analysis
  • Recreation ecology

Degrees

  • PhD in Arid Land Resource Sciences, The University of Arizona
  • MS in Environmental and Conservation Planning, The University of Arizona
  • MA in Graphic Design, Savannah College of Art and Design
  • BS in Printing, Georgia Southern University

Biography

Garrett Smith PhD is a recreation ecologist who uses diverse spatial and social (quantitative and qualitative) methods to investigate complex issues surrounding public land management on parks and protected areas. Garrett's research is concentrated around understanding the spatial and social dynamics of recreation and how these impact recreational users, the landscape, wildlife, and the managers that write management plans to address them. Garrett, since being hired at CAPLA, has started to explore how big data and simulation modeling can be used to understand the spatial and temporal flow of recreational users to and across publicly managed landscapes that are adjacent to and/or accessible from large urban areas. To incorporate all the expertise in and around CAPLA, he is also looking to study the importance of access to parks and protected areas to the formation of a sustainable city and how residents of the adjacent cities relate to these areas. Garrett is an avid ultramarathon runner and enjoys running for long periods in the mountains to gain a greater understanding of the issues that he studies and to become fully immersed in a wide array of ecosystems to gain a greater appreciation of how they function. 

News, Research and Projects

cars parked along road

Philip Stoker Leads Effort to Modernize Lake Tahoe’s Sustainable Recreation Plan

For decades, the Lake Tahoe Basin has worked to balance preserving the region’s renowned natural beauty and recreational opportunities with accommodating the millions of visitors and growing communities drawn to the area. A team of researchers from the University of Arizona, University of Utah and Vancouver Island University is taking on that challenge through a two-year, $350,000 project to modernize Lake Tahoe’s sustainable recreation goals.