The spatial knowledge politics of crisis mapping for community development

Crisis mapping, the combination of software-as-a-service mapping and reporting aimed at large numbers of individuals, is proposed for chronic problems as well as acute issues; it is universalized for global south disasters as well as global north community development. It supposedly affords a new spatial knowledge politics (SKP) that unfolds in local communities. We tested the role of spatial knowledge politics in crisis mapping for community development by co-developing, with local organizations, four applications based on the prominent mapping-telecommunications crisis platform, Crowdmap by Ushahidi. We assessed crisis mapping’s effectiveness in North American community based activities in Francophone and Anglophone Canada. We found persistent technical challenges, consistent with the literature, although crisis mapping allowed increased opportunities for the developer to insert their knowledge. Analysis of the contributions illustrated the use of crisis mapping to report on place-based features that enabled contributors to connect, but also limited the ability to express location and place in 160 characters. It revealed tensions in conceptualization of local spatial knowledge politics as witness versus political influence. Crisis mapping could simultaneously aid and disrupt traditional place-based politics of community based organizations. Our critique serves as a test of crisis mapping’s universality for other fields and its promise of a new SKP.     

基于IHPACT等式的可持续消费分析——以水足迹视角下张掖市低水消费模式为例

"低碳"已成为全球瞩目的焦点话题,成为人类社会的共识,而对于21世纪人类面临的最为严峻的现实问题之——水资源危机,迫使人们不得不及早关注"低水"问题。人口的增长、技术的变化和消费的增加被认为是产生环境危机的最主要的三个原因。当前消费引起的环境问题却没有得到足够的重视和深入的研究。经典的IPAT建立了人文因素与环境影响间的影响关系的账户恒等式,通过对IPAT等式的扩展,得到分析影响可持续消费影响因素、指导可持续消费政策制定的IHPACT框架,并从水足迹视角,基于黑河流域张掖市水足迹调查与核算数据,探讨了该分析框架的可行性与必要性。研究结果表明：减少食物消费中水足迹奢侈品肉类的消费（多吃蔬菜少吃肉）可以有效地调节居民消费水足迹;消费能力的进一步提高将增加居民消费水足迹,但以水足迹表征的环境影响与消费能力两者间环境Kuznets曲线假说成立,即消费能力的提高最终将会降低消费的环境影响。     

Conceptualizations of local knowledge in collaborative environmental governance

A major challenge to integrating local knowledge into collaborative environmental governance processes stems from the underlying differences between positivist science and local knowledge; these differences often result in strong differences of opinion regarding which forms of knowledge are valid in environmental decision-making. Previous research on these issues has mainly focused on the attitudes of scientists towards local knowledge. Studies of the views of local and non-scientific actors regarding their own knowledge are much less common. Through a qualitative case study of water allocation planning in South Australia, we analyzed participants’ conceptualizations of local knowledge and the role of local knowledge in collaborative governance. We found that participants defined local knowledge broadly across a number of dimensions and that many acknowledged variability in the nature and quality of different types of local knowledge. While most recognized the value of local knowledge in supporting technical investigations and developing policies, very few participants identified a role for local knowledge in the early stages of the collaborative process (i.e., in framing problems or establishing research protocols). Previous research has highlighted “epistemological anxiety” among scientists and resource managers toward local knowledge as a significant barrier to its effective use in environmental decision-making. This study suggests that state and local actors, and scientists and non-scientists, share similar reservations about local knowledge and highlights the need for researchers and practitioners to take into account the attitudes of all types of participants when considering how to overcome the epistemological challenges related to integrating local knowledge into collaborative management.     

裘布依公式在实际应用中的缺陷分析

主要通过对裘布依公式中：1）实际流量（Q）-降深（s）曲线与理论的差异,2）实际井径对流量的影响与理论的差异,3）井中最大流量,4）影响半径等问题的分析,指出裘布依公式的缺陷,并分别提出了一定的解决方案。同时还结合土力学的相关知识,从“达西定律的适用范围”,“渗透系数的不唯一性”,“地基沉降导致含水层变形”三个方面分析了公式的不足之处,更全面地对问题进行了剖析。     

Reinterpretation of the exposed record of the last two cycles of Lake Bonneville, Western United States

A substantially modified history of the last two cycles of Lake Bonneville is proposed. The Bonneville lake cycle began prior to 26,000 yr B.P.; the lake reached the Bonneville shoreline about 16,000 yr B.P. Poor dating control limits our knowledge of the timing of subsequent events. Lake level was maintained at the Bonneville shoreline until about 15,000 yr B.P., or somewhat later, when catastrophic downcutting of the outlet caused a rapid drop of 100 m. The Provo shoreline was formed as rates of isostatic uplift due to this unloading slowed. By 13,000 yr B.P., the lake had fallen below the Provo level and reached one close to that of Great Salt Lake by 11,000 yr B.P. Deposits of the Little Valley lake cycle are identified by their position below a marked unconformity and by amino acid ratios of their fossil gastropods. The maximum level of the Little Valley lake was well below the Bonneville shoreline. Based on degree of soil development and other evidence, the Little Valley lake cycle may be equivalent in age to marine oxygenisotope stage 6. The proposed lake history has climatic implications for the region. First, because the fluctuations of Lake Bonneville and Lake Lahontan during the last cycle of each were apparently out of phase, there may have been significant local differences in the timing and character of late Pleistocene climate changes in the Great Basin. Second, although the Bonneville and Little Valley lake cycles were broadly synchronous with maximum episodes of glaciation, environmental conditions necessary to generate large lakes did not exist during early Wisconsin time.     

北京市平原区中深层地下水位动态浅析

根据北京市的水文地质条件,阐述了中深层地下水位的变化趋势及降落漏斗的形成和演化。由于中深层地下水是生活和工业用水的主要水源,它的补给条件差,80％靠浅层水的越流补给。长期地下水监测资料表明,因不合理开采,已造成水位过度下降,漏斗面积不断扩大,局部水质恶化等环境地质问题。提出了相应防治措施,严格控制地下水资源开采,与地表水联合调度。     

Something in the Air: Civic science and contentious environmental politics in post-apartheid South Africa

The emergence of an environmental movement in post-apartheid South Africa has involved the reframing of the environment as a ‘brown’ issue, articulating the discourse of social and environmental justice and a rights-based notion of democracy. Environmental movements have pursued a dual strategy of deliberation and activist opposition. Environmental movements have deployed science to pursue the strategic task of democratic opposition and have established networks of environmental knowledge and expertise. Ecological modernization is the dominant approach to environmental governance and adopts a science-based policy approach. In this context the regulation and management of the environment is premised on the need for science, which provides the authoritative basis for a regulatory response. In local environmental movements, there exists a fundamental tension between a cumulative history of lay knowledge about pollution and the lack of official acknowledgement of qualitative narratives. This is accompanied by a lack and suspicion of reliable official data. Environmental movements have thus employed ‘civic science’ strategically to place the issue of air pollution on the political agenda. This paper uses the case of environmental politics in Durban to reflect on the ways in which civic science and lay knowledge, together constituting community hybrid knowledge, are produced and disseminated in order to pressure the state and capital. The three ways in which knowledge is deployed are: to frame environmental problems, in strategies of oppositional advocacy, and in deliberative policy forums. Empirical analysis shows that civic science is produced through knowledge networks, and both lay knowledge and civic science are opportunistically used by environmental movements to engage both inside and outside formal policy making arenas. This deployment of hybrid knowledge by environmental movements represents a broader challenge to the power of science and technology based on increasing evidence of the hazards and risks facing ordinary people in their daily lives.     

Early Holocene history of the southwestern Baltic Sea: the Ancylus Lake stage

One of the most discussed stages in the history of the Baltic Sea is the Ancylus Lake phase. This paper presents detailed information from the Darss Sill threshold area as well as the adjacent basins, i.e. the Mecklenburg Bay and Arkona Basin located in the southwesternmost Baltic. The threshold area was transgressed at the Baltic Ice Lake maximum phase and during the following regression about 10.3 ka BP a river valley was incised in the Darss Sill to a level of 23-24 m below present sea level (b.s.l.). Preboreal sediments in the study area show lowstand basin deposition in the Arkona Basin and the existence of a local lake in Mecklenburg Bay. The lowstand system is followed by the Ancylus Lake transgression that reached a maximum level of 19 m b.s.l. Thus, at the maximum level the water depth was about 5 m over the threshold, and the shore level fall during the Ancylus Lake regression must be in the same range. The Darss Sill area is the key area for drainage of the Ancylus Lake, and if the previously suggested regression of 8-10 m in southeastern Sweden is to be achieved, isostatic rebound must also play a role. The existence of the so-called Dana River in the Darss Sill area cannot be supported by our investigations. We observed no signs of progressive erosion of the Darss Sill area in the Early Holocene, and there are no prograding systems in Mecklenburg Bay that can be related to the Ancylus Lake regression. On the contrary, local lakes developed in Mecklenburg Bay and in the Darss Sill threshold area. In the Darss Sill area, marl was deposited in a lake in the valley that developed after the final drainage of the Baltic Ice Lake. Studies of diatoms and macrofossils, combined with seismic interpretation and radiocarbon dating, provide detailed information about the chronology and the relative shore level of these lake phases as well as about environmental conditions in the lakes.     

Searching for metadata using knowledge bases and topic maps in Spatial Data Infrastructures

Concern for environmental issues has become a reality in all sectors of society, mainly among researchers and professionals who work directly with environmental status. In this context, several studies have been undertaken on sustainable development of the Brazilian Amazon, generating a large amount of data and information. Environmental area characterization involves the knowledge about their natural, economic and social resources, as well as understanding the interaction and correlation among them. Such interdisciplinary character requires new solutions for knowledge representation. This study proposes to minimize metadata recovery problems in Spatial Data Infrastructures by using Topic Maps and Thesaurus. This approach applied to an interface aims to allow users to visually recover information from metadata catalogs.     

On the application of the maximum entropy meshfree method for elastoplastic geotechnical analysis

In this study, the Maximum Entropy Meshfree (MEM) method is employed for analysing geotechnical problems involving material nonlinearity, assuming small strains. The efficiency of the MEM method is evaluated through several solution schemes for the global governing equations as well as the local constitutive equations. The conventional implicit approach involving the Newton-Raphson method and an explicit adaptive dynamic relaxation technique are employed for solving the governing equations, while local constitutive equations are solved numerically as well as analytically. Two- and three-dimensional numerical experiments are performed to study the efficiency of different configurations of the solution scheme, which leads to some important conclusions about application of the MEM method in geotechnical problems.     

碳捕获和存储技术综述及对我国的影响

近十多年来,气候变化问题已被列为全球环境问题之首,并且日益成为国际社会关注的热门话题。其重要的焦点就是如何控制温室气体的浓度稳定在防止气候系统受到危险的人为干扰的水平上。为此,国际上提出了许多新观点和新技术以达到上述目标。其中的碳捕获和存储就是一项关注于研究和开发CO2的分离、捕获、运输和存储的技术方法。分析了碳捕获和存储所涉及的科学和方法学问题,包括概念、技术流程、技术潜力以及涵盖的环境、经济和社会因素。在此基础上,分析评价了其对我国能源和经济的影响。最后提出了我国今后在开展碳捕获和存储研究、能力建设等方面的建议。     

Insights and participatory actions driven by a socio-hydrogeological approach for groundwater management: the Grombalia Basin case study (Tunisia)

Sustainable groundwater management strategies in water-scarce countries need to guide future decision-making processes pragmatically, by simultaneously considering local needs, environmental problems and economic development. The socio-hydrogeological approach named ‘Bir Al-Nas’ has been tested in the Grombalia region (Cap Bon Peninsula, Tunisia), to evaluate the effectiveness of complementing hydrogeochemical and hydrogeological investigations with the social dimension of the issue at stake (which, in this case, is the identification of groundwater pollution sources). Within this approach, the social appraisal, performed through social network analysis and public engagement of water end-users, allowed hydrogeologists to get acquainted with the institutional dimension of local groundwater management, identifying issues, potential gaps (such as weak knowledge transfer among concerned stakeholders), and the key actors likely to support the implementation of the new science-based management practices resulting from the ongoing hydrogeological investigation. Results, hence, go beyond the specific relevance for the Grombaila basin, showing the effectiveness of the proposed approach and the importance of including social assessment in any given hydrogeological research aimed at supporting local development through groundwater protection measures.     

生态区绿色勘查评价方法及评价标准探讨

绿色勘查为绿色发展在地质工作中的具体体现,我国在实施绿色勘查方面起步较晚,至今国家层面仍未出台统一的评价方法与评价标准,从而制约着对绿色勘查的认识及理解。通过查阅国家及地方关于地质勘查指导原则及规范标准,总结国内自实施绿色勘查以来取得的成就,分析国外矿业大国在不同生态区实行的地质勘查政策及评价标准。最终,结合我国地质勘查问题及现状、区域矿产资源分布与经济状况,提出不同生态区绿色勘查评价方法及准则。对地质勘查造成的影响进行量化,提出勘查工作在生态保护区、脆弱区、一般区分别达到95分、90分、85分以上者可称达到绿色勘查标准。并建议我国适当改变生态保护区、脆弱区地质工作政策,使环境保护与资源勘查、经济发展相协调。     

Networking for Local Agenda 21 implementation: Learning from experiences with Udaltalde and Udalsarea in the Basque autonomous community

Local Agenda 21 (LA21) is widely regarded as a key tool for implementing sustainability policies since local authorities are closer to ordinary people and some local managers and politicians have the ability to adapt organisations to new managerial atmospheres and social demands. However, local governments tend to lack the right economic, human and knowledge resources. Consequently, in the search for local sustainable development, networking and collaborative approaches to LA21 can help local authorities save resources and share knowledge and best practices. Although both research and politicians have tended to focus on LA21, we believe Regional Agenda 21 (RA21) needs to be emphasised as a complementary tool. This paper examines successful innovative practices in the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC) over a 4-year period, with a view to shedding light on the theoretical literature and to aiding regional and local authorities. Although research on policy networks has produced useful results, we are still some way from a plausible, consensus-based theory of policy networks. Based on experience in the BAC, the present article offers an integrated approach to understanding the antecedents and consequences of a regional knowledge-driven network for LA21 promotion. Although LA21 implementation has been studied before, evidence about networking at regional level is scarce. Other regions in developing countries could use this approach to achieve successful policy networks.     

Socioeconomic impact of oil in Nigeria

Taxes and royalties from the oil industry in Nigeria have made possible massive infrastructural and social development throughout the country; this single industry continues to be the most important contributor to the national treasury. Along with oil, however, have come environmental and social problems, some severe and, in the social sector, possibly of long duration. Questionnaires were employed to solicit environmental and socioeconomic information from residents in the oil-impacted area as well as to ascertain the views of the oil companies with respect to their Nigerian operations, in particular to their socio-economic responsibilities to the local residents. Responses point to serious discontent on the part of the impacted population, especially in the most important southern (Niger Delta) oil producing region. These negative attitudes in part are based upon the impacted population’s inability to secure for itself a sufficiently large number of oil industry jobs and in part to the presence in the local community of ethnic strangers who do have such employment. There is evidence of serious environmental damage, but its biological dimension has been overshadowed by claims for monetary compensation at the local level. Data derived from these investigations might well be applicable in the wider field of trans-national mining and petroleum extraction operations in developing countries, especially to the unwritten social obligations of the expatriate firm to local residents.     

The Importance of Regional,System-Wide and Local Spatial Scales in Structuring Temperate Estuarine Fish Communities

An extensive literature base worldwide demonstrates how spatial differences in estuarine fish assemblages are related to those in the environment at (bio)regional, estuary-wide or local (within-estuary) scales. Few studies, however, have examined all three scales, and those including more than one have often focused at the level of individual environmental variables rather than scales as a whole. This study has identified those spatial scales of environmental differences, across regional, estuary-wide and local levels, that are most important in structuring ichthyofaunal composition throughout south-western Australian estuaries. It is the first to adopt this approach for temperate microtidal waters. To achieve this, we have employed a novel approach to the BIOENV routine in PRIMER v6 and a modified global BEST test in an alpha version of PRIMER v7. A combination of all three scales best matched the pattern of ichthyofaunal differences across the study area (ρ?=?0.59; P?=?0.001), with estuary-wide and regional scales accounting for about twice the variability of local scales. A shade plot analysis showed these broader-scale ichthyofaunal differences were driven by a greater diversity of marine and estuarine species in the permanently-open west coast estuaries and higher numbers of several small estuarine species in the periodically-open south coast estuaries. When interaction effects were explored, strong but contrasting influences of local environmental scales were revealed within each region and estuary type. A quantitative decision tree for predicting the fish fauna at any nearshore estuarine site in south-western Australia has also been produced. The estuarine management implications of the above findings are highlighted.     

Web Use in Geographical and Environmental Education: An International Survey at the Primary and Secondary Level

This article aims to study Web use and Web-based co-operation and collaboration in geographical and environmental education at the primary and secondary level around the world. Recent trends and future opportunities and challenges are taken into account. The theoretical part of the study considers Web use and different forms of Web-based co-operation. Web use and co-operation in education are classified as co-operative learning, collaborative learning or communal learning. Web use in geographical and environmental education is noted to be growing in significance. Web-based co-operation at any level of intensity is associated with many opportunities and challenges. The empirical part of this study involves a survey of geographical and environmental education researchers in various countries about their views of Web use in education. The results of this survey indicate that the Web in general finds minimal use in geographical and environmental education. As access to the Web is limited and only some pupils can use it, co-operation, particularly collaborative learning on the Web, is still rare in geographical and environmental education. The most often used application is e-mail. Researchers recognise the potential of the Web to enhance local, national and international co-operation, and to facilitate a better understanding of geographical and environmental issues at the grass-root level. Web-based learning can also help to increase and deepen the pupils' cultural understanding. Before that, however, problems in access, costs and teacher training must be solved. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

云理论在资源环境领域中的应用前景展望

由中国科学家李德毅提出的隶属云概念是对模糊隶属度的发展,目前已经发展成为由云模型、云变换、云推理等组成的“云计算”理论与方法体系,其在地学界的应用尚未开展起来。模糊隶属云现象在资源环境领域普遍存在,例如环境污染等级的模糊评判、综合物化探异常含矿性的模糊识别、矿山安全评价、描述性地学数据的定量化处理、地学数据仓库的知识挖掘、地理信息系统中属性数据的不确定性处理、矿产资源评价预测等,迫切要求形成一系列数学假设和处理方法均符合多重模糊属性的处理方法。云计算理论与方法满足了这种客观需要,在地学信息处理方面具有十分广泛的应用前景。     

The role of environment and natural resources in territorial organization of the USSR economy

At present there is a tendency for the roles, in the economy, of the environment and natural resources to be interrelated. Economic factors have increasingly been affected by environmental impact in spatial economic organisation (ETO). The growth of production results in the constant increased consumption of natural resources. New sources (of inferior quality in the developed regions or in the regions with extreme conditions), formerly not exploited area now used. At the same time the following tendencies can be observed: increased concentration of production, more complicated branch structure, growth in number of manufacturing industries, decline in the share of mining in industrial output. This tendency is accompanied by the spatial disjunction of technologically interconnected industries (dealing with mining and processing of raw materials) and by the formation of new industrial integrations (not dealing directly with natural resources utilization). In this complicated situation the investigation of natural resources and of the environmental role in the spatial organisation of the economy is becoming of special relevance. In the author's opinion while investigating this problem the type of social system should be considered, as well as the level of development of productive forces and the combination of regional nature and economic conditions. Three aspects of investigation—branch, spatial and functional—are proposed. The analysis of natural resources and environmental impact the spatial organisation of the economy in each of mentioned aspects should be performed on different scales—local, regional, national and international levels. The approach to problem investigation is based on the analysis of data about the USSR. and exemplified. The investigators recommend the application of Soviet experience in this field by the geographers of other countries.     

Electron Probe Microanalysis of Environmental Samples: Preparation of Reference Materials, Correction for Particle Size Effects and Representative Results on Sediments Recovered from Snow, Power Station Fly Ash and Bone Samples

In this paper we report the results of electron probe X-ray microanalysis (EPMA) that was used to study environmental materials. The mode of preparation and certification of reference samples based on a basaltic glass matrix for environmental applications of EPMA is described. These samples were prepared containing scandium, strontium and barium (from 0.03 up to 7% m/m) and an evaluation was made of homogeneity, their stability to local heating, followed by analysis by independent methods for certification of composition. Matrix correction procedures for the EPMA technique have been developed for particles having a size commensurable with the volume of X-ray generation. An analytical equation for the size factor is proposed and two techniques for selecting optimum conditions for the analysis of environmental samples by EPMA are reported. These procedures provided satisfactory results when utilized in analysing sediments recovered from snow, coal fly ash and the bones of animals and fish, results from which can be used as indicators for evaluating the pollution level of the lower atmosphere, surface and ground water, as well as revealing pollution mechanisms.