Valorization of Agricultural By-Products Within the “Energyscapes”: Renewable Energy as Driving Force in Modeling Rural Landscape

Due to several growing environmental constraints, renewable energy sources currently play an increasingly crucial role that, owing to their high temporal and spatial variability, needs a careful planning approach. It is important therefore to develop a framework that examines the distribution of different energy sources in a spatio-temporal context. From an energy point of view, a regional territory, such as an internal southern Italian region (the Basilicata Region), can be considered as a paradigmatic case study, because it is characterized by significant sources of renewable energy (e.g., biomass, wind, solar, hydro) connected to its morphological and environmental structure, as well as to its agricultural and food productions. The present paper in based on an analysis of the spatial supply and relationships between renewable energy potentials and rural land, through the use of a Geographic Information System that has been implemented with the aim to analyze the energy system, as well as to optimize the valorization of biomass resources that may be still unutilized within the bioenergy production chain. This study has been carried out even to bridge the gap between energy systems modeling and landscape planning. Within this context, an “Energyscape” may be considered as the effect resulting on the rural landscape from a combination of the supply, demand and infrastructure for energy. This framework could be therefore a starting point for an interdisciplinary analysis able to figure out optimal solutions in decision-making processes, which duly respect the protection and restoring of endangered ecosystems, supporting the decision about an optimal spatial localization of energy plants as well.

     

“Now is Not the Time to Take a Breather”: United States Federal Land Management Agency Professionals’ Perceptions at the 40th Anniversary of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977

Poor air quality has long been one of the dominant transboundary issues facing protected areas worldwide. In 1977, the United States Congress amended the Clean Air Act to address federally-managed lands containing valued air resources (i.e. scenic views). Forty years later, we interviewed professionals from the U.S. National Park Service, Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management (n=38) regarding their perceptions of the legacy of the Clean Air Act and other federal policies relevant to air resources, as well as their perceptions of the future of air resource management on U.S federal lands. Results were analyzed using a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis supported by in vivo, thematic, and salience coding. Our findings illustrate national progress in air resource management, potential policy directions, and highlight the influence of emerging technologies and governance in air resource management within protected areas.     

Characteristics of Agricultural and Livestock Products Trade Flows between China and the “Belt and Road” Initiative Region: From the Perspective of Biocapacity

In the context of global ecological overload, international trade has become one of the most important ways to make up for the ecological deficit. This study takes the “Belt and Road” Initiative as the study area to analyze the biocapacity and ecological footprint characteristics between China and other countries along the “Belt and Road” Initiative. Trade flow characteristics were explored from the perspective of biocapacity. The import and export of virtual land was used to assess the effect of trade on compensating for the resource gaps in crop and grazing land. The main results show that: 1) In 2005-2014, the majority of “Belt and Road” countries were experiencing increasing degrees of overload. In China, cropland takes up the largest proportion of biocapacity, while the ecological footprint is dominated by the carbon footprint. 2) The trade flow of agricultural and livestock products in the mainland of China shows a trend of increasing imports and decreasing exports, which increases dependence on specific regions. 3) In 2005-2014, China’s trade in cereals and oil crops along the “Belt and Road” Initiative were generally net imports, and the share of cereals traded along the “Belt and Road” Initiative is increasing gradually, but that of oil crops decreased rapidly. 4) The import trade has alleviated ecological deficit, as the selected products compensated for 1.03 times of the cropland deficit and 0.65 times of the grazing land deficit in China. This study is helpful to understand the relationship between the land use and trade deeply, and provide decision-making references for reducing ecological deficits, optimizing land resource allocation, and promoting win-win cooperation among China and other countries in the “Belt and Road” Initiative.     

“Where to put the spare cash?” Subprime urbanization and the geographies of the financial crisis in the Global South

This article investigates the geographies of subprime urbanization, and by extension, the displacement of 2007–08 financial crisis to the Global South. Previous research examined the formative ways that technological innovations enabled mortgages to deterritorialize and circulate on secondary markets. Less is known about how cities with underdeveloped financial systems and housing markets have been impacted. The case of Tangier, Morocco, is used to argue that the geography of the crisis must be understood as a particular mode of urbanization, subprime urbanization, predicated upon the creation and exploitation of housing submarkets into new geographical frontiers. Subprime urbanization emerged in Tangier in response to the historic contradictions of regional disinvestment in northern Morocco. Weak financial inclusion for local low-income homebuyers led State bureaucrats to increasingly use housing policy to encourage European investment into Moroccan property markets, thereby transforming policy away from improving homeownership access and inclusion toward an urban model centered on the logics of international property speculation.     

Reply to “Comments on Climatology: The Challenge for the Eighties Revisited”

Book reviews in this article

The Heated Debate: Greenhouse Predictions Versus Climate Reality. ROBERT C. BALLING JR. San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1992. xxxvi and 195 pp., diags., tables, index, and biblio. $21.95 cloth (ISBN 0-936488-47-6).

Mountain Weather and Climate, 2nd edition. ROGER G. BARRY. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1992. xx and 402 pp., maps. diags., photos, index, and biblio. $89.95 cloth (ISBN 0-415-07112-7); $29.95 paper (ISBN 0-415-07113-5).

Late Quaternary Environmental Change: Physical and Human Perspectives. MARTIN BELL and MICHAEL J. C. WALKER. Essex, England: Longman Group, 1992. xiv and 273 pp., maps, diags., index, and biblio. $39.95 paper (ISBN 0-582-04514-2).

Planning for Earthquakes. PHILIP R. BERKE and TIMOTHY BEATLEY. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. xv and 210 pp., maps, diags., photos, tables, app., acronyms, index, and biblio. $38.00 cloth (ISBN 0-8018-4255-7).

Industrialization and Development in the Third World. RAJESH CHANDRA. London: Routledge, 1992. xvii and 124 pp., maps, figs., photos, and index. $14.95 paper (ISBN 0-415-01380-1).

Waste Location: Spatial Aspects of Waste Management, Hazards and Disposal. MICHAEL CLARK, DENIS SMITH, and ANDREW BLOWERS, eds. London: Routledge, 1992. xv and 257 pp., maps, diags., index, and refs. $85.00 cloth (ISBN 0-415-04824-9).

Water Diversion and Export: Learning from Canadian Experience. J. C. DAY and FRANK QUINN. Waterloo, Ontario: Department of Geography, University of Waterloo, 1992. xx and 215 pp., 14 maps, 4 diags., 17 tables, 12 photos, glossary, and biblio. $25.00 (Can.) paper (ISBN 0-921083-42-4).

The Native Population of the Americas in 1492, 2nd edition. WILLIAM M. DENEVAN, ed. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. xxxviii and 353 pp., maps, figs., tables, index, biblio. $45.00 cloth (ISBN 0-299-134-30-X); $14.95 paper (ISBN 0-299-13434-2).

Touring North America (series). ANTHONY R. DE SOUZA, ed. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992. 13 volumes; pages varying from approximately 100 to approximately 300 each; maps, diags., indices, and biblios. $9.95 each paperback; $25.00 each volume in cloth; boxed gift set of all 13 volumes in paperback $129.95. (ISBNs for cloth and paperback editions range from 0-8135-1870-9 to 0-8135-1895-4 inclusive).

Urban Transport Planning: A Developmental Approach. HARRY T. DIMITRIOU. New York: Routledge, 1992. xviii and 346 pp., diags., index, and biblio. $92.50 cloth (ISBN 0-415-03857-X).

Colonialism and Development in the Contemporary World. CHRIS DIXON and MICHAEL HEFFERNAN, eds. Rutherford, NJ: Mansell, 1991. viii and 232 pp., maps, diags., index, and biblio. $70.00 cloth (ISBN 0-7201-2072-1).

The Betweenness of Place: Towards a Geography of Modernity. J. NICHOLAS ENTRIKIN. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. xii and 196 pp., notes, and indices. $38.50 cloth (ISBN 0-8018-4083-X); $13.95 paper (ISBN 0-8018-4084-8).

The Women Outside: Meanings and Myths of Homelessness. STEPHANIE GOLDEN. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. ix and 265 pp., index and biblio. $25.00 cloth (ISBN 0-520-07158-1).

The Transformation of Agriculture in the West. DAVID GRIGG. Oxford, England, and Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1992. xiv and 141 pp., maps, diags., index, and biblio. $19.95 paper (ISBN 0-631-17094-4).

Derelict Landscapes: The Wasting of America's Built Environment. JOHN A. JAKLE and DAVID WILSON. Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1992. xviii and 342 pp., illus., index, biblio. $65.00 cloth (ISBN 0-8476-7735-4); $23.50 paper (ISBN 0-8476-7736-2).

Iranian Cities: Formation and Development. MASOUD KHEIRABADI. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991. xiv and 132 pp., maps, diags., photos, appendices, notes, glossary, biblio., and index. $27.50 cloth (ISBN 0-292-72468-3).

The Pentagon and the Cities. ANDREW KIRBY, ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1991. Urban Affairs Annual Reviews, vol. 40. x and 207 pp., tables, maps, index, and biblio. $43.95 cloth (ISBN 0-8039-3845-4); $19.95 paper (ISBN 0-8039-3846-2).

Geographic Perspectives on Soviet Central Asia. ROBERT A. LEWIS, ed. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. xv and 323 pp., maps, diags., index, and biblio. $69.95 cloth (ISBN 0-415-07592-0).

Conquest and Survival in Colonial Guatemala: A Historical Geography of the Cuchumatan Highlands, 1500–1821. W. GEORGE LOVELL. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992. xxxviii and 279 pp., maps, diags., glossary, notes, index, and biblio. $19.95 paper (ISBN 0-7735-0903-8).

Contested Lands: Conflict and Compromise in New Jersey's Pine Barrens. ROBERT J. MASON. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. xii and 257 pp., maps, tables, index, and biblio. $44.95 cloth (ISBN 0-87722-925-2).

Making Sense of Place: Children's Understanding of Large-Scale Environments. M. H. MATTHEWS. Savage, MD: Harvester Wheatsheaf, Barnes and Noble Books, 1992. xiv and 271 pp., maps, diags, tables, index, and biblio. $54.50 cloth (ISBN 0-389-20987-2).

Sources of Metropolitan Growth. EDWIN S. MILLS and JOHN F. MCDONALD, eds. New Brunswick: Center for Urban Policy Research Press, 1992. xxvii and 306 pp., maps, diags., index, and biblio. $29.95 cloth (ISBN 0-88285-135-7).

Resource Management in Developing Countries. PETER H. OMARAOJUNGU. Harlow, England: Longman, 1992. xvi and 213 pp., maps, diags., tables, index, and biblio. $39.95 paper (ISBN 0-582-30102-5).

A Moveable Shore: The Fate of the Connecticut Coast. PETER C. PATTON and JAMES M. KENT. Durham: Duke University Press, 1992. viii and 143 pp., maps, diags., index, and biblio. $49.95 cloth (ISBN 0-8223-1128-3); $19.95 paper (ISBN 0-8223-1147-X).

Agricultural Reform in China: From Communes to Commodity Economy 1978–1990. SIMON G. POWELL. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1992. viii and 231 pp., maps, diags., tables, and biblio. $69.95 cloth (ISBN 0-7190-3382-9).

The Caribbean in the Wider World, 1492–1992: A Regional Geography. BONHAM C. RICHARDSON. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. xvi and 235 pp., maps, tables, index, and biblio. $49.95 cloth (ISBN 0-521-35186-3); $16.95 paper (ISBN 0-521-35977-5).

Scavengers, Recyclers, and Solutions for Solid Waste Management in Indonesia. DANIEL T. SICULAR. Berkeley: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley, 1992. xii and 197 pp., maps, tables, photos, glossary, biblio., and index. $16.50 paper (ISBN 0-944613-13-6).

The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women. ELIZABETH WILSON. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. 191 pp., plates, index, and biblio. $35.00 cloth (ISBN 0-520-07850); $14.00 paper (ISBN 0-520-07864-0).

The Cultural Geography of the United States: A Revised Edition. WILBUR ZELINSKY. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1992. ix and 226 pp., maps, diags., index, and biblio. $21.95 paper (ISBN 0-13-194424-X).     

“How Much Does Property Cost Up There?”: Exploring the Relationship between Women,Sustainable Farming,and Rural Gentrification in the US

Using in-depth interviews with women engaged in sustainable farming in the western United States, this project explores an unanticipated finding: migration from an urban area to rural “Prairie County” was necessary for these farmers to secure farm land and sustain their farming operations. This article interrogates the role of migration in women’s access to farmland as both an economic and cultural phenomenon. My findings highlight the necessity of migration for women’s participation in sustainable farming and suggest that women’s success in sustainable farming may align with the processes of rural gentrification, by which cultural and economic in-migrants amplify their social privilege and transform the values and economy of rural communities. This project, then, situates gender as a key structure to understanding both the classed dynamics of sustainable agriculture and rural gentrification.     

Closing the “Hole in the Sky”: The Use of Refutation-Oriented Instruction to Correct Students' Climate Change Misconceptions

This article discusses the implementation of a pedagogical tool aimed at the refutation of secondary school (grade ten-equivalent) students' persistent climate change misconceptions. Using a lesson study approach, the materials and intervention techniques used were developed collaboratively with geography teachers. The objective is two-pronged: to closely monitor how children learn through refutation-oriented approach and to document how teachers process the experience. A pretest and post-test comparison showed that there was significant improvement in the students' climate change conceptual understanding following the intervention.     

A Review of “Villages,Women and the Success of Dairy Cooperatives in India: Making Place for Rural Development”

Conceptual advances for understanding the organization of family farms have not yet initiated parallel debates about how they might be aligned with the methods used to understand them. Customization of a novel research approach—farm life history—for an investigation of the socioeconomic organization of forty Australian farms responds to this literature gap. Individual farm life histories were initiated using farm tours (truck journeys) in which changes to the composition of land parcels prompted research conversations. The researcher and participants benefited from using motorized transport and traveling while talking, but the benefits were experienced unevenly across research encounters.     

库车——“红色的山崖”

天山山脉南麓新疆库车县城以北60公里左右的山区,这里的风蚀雅丹地貌完全可以和流水侵蚀的丹霞地貌争奇斗艳。庞大的红色山体群形成于中生代的白垩纪,经亿万年的风剥雨蚀,洪流冲刷,形成纵横交错、层叠有序的垅脊与沟槽,远看如诗如画、仙天琼阁;近瞧若人似物、如梦似幻、惟妙惟肖、神韵万端,令人有鬼斧神工、奇景天成之慨叹。山体呈红色,原海底的岩石由于造山运动而形成的直立单斜岩石组成了层层叠叠的构造足迹,分外壮观,与附近不同色彩的山体错落有致、交相辉映。天山神秘大峡谷、红山石林和国道两侧雅丹地貌是著名     

Introduction to the JoPL special issue, “Holocene paleoenvironmental records from Arctic lake sediment”

The 18 papers in this Special Issue of the Journal of Paleolimnology report new records of Holocene environmental and climate change from Arctic lake sediment. At least 15 distinct physical, chemical, and biological properties were analyzed at lakes located across the North American Arctic and subarctic, and northwestern Europe. The studies are notable for their multi-proxy approach (eight present data for at least five different proxies), and for the high quality of their geochronological control. Three of the studies analyzed sediment from more than one lake to test the influence of contrasting physiographic settings on the response of proxies to the same climate forcing. The sedimentary sequences analyzed in seven studies extend beyond 11.5?cal?ka, providing evidence for pronounced climate shifts that took place during the late-glacial period. Two-thirds extend beyond 8?cal?ka; many of these records were interpreted in terms of the shift in temperature and moisture that occurred during the transition from the warm early to middle Holocene to the cooler late Holocene. These records contribute to the growing network of sites that is needed to reconstruct the spatial pattern of this pronounced paleoclimate transition, and to address how ocean-atmospheric circulation changed with the mean?state of climate.     

Geopolitics and “The Courage to Teach”: Identity,Integrity and the Subject of Political Geography

Abstract

Previous literature discussing and exemplifying the teaching of political geography has emphasized the material to be disseminated. Building upon those contributions, this paper offers a means of connecting student, teacher, and subject matter. Using the perspective of Parker Palmer, as illustrated in his book The Courage to Teach, it is suggested that placing the subject at the center of the classroom will result in the effective teaching of political geography. Two classroom exercises are used to exemplify the argument.     

The Application of Basement Tectonic Research to the Development of Natural Resources—Example Midcontinent North America

An understanding of an area in four dimensions is an important factor in utilizing our natural resources. The additional aspect of change through time, particularly the tectonic processes that have shaped the architecture of an area, can influence the interpretation of the origin and characterization of a resource. An example is provided of the influence that the patterns created during the formation of the continent in central North America demonstrates the continued influence of the original tectonic features and how they have persisted through time. It is this persistence and rejuvenation, that has controlled the occurrence of many of the natural resources on which we depend. Other references are provided to specific examples of the relationships between tectonics, particularly within the crystalline basement rocks, and our natural resource system.