Constructing Risk: multi-scale change,livelihoods and vulnerability in the Mekong Delta,Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Change has been at the heart of the livelihoods concept since its inception, allowing for a clear focus on how people perceive, respond to and experience risk. The ardent focus on ‘the local’ within livelihoods work, both in research and programmatic terms, has to some extent overshadowed attention on the role of wider-scale political economic and environmental processes in generating change and determining responses to change. Livelihoods in the Mekong Delta have never been ‘local’, having long been historically embedded in international, regional and national economic, political and environmental transformations. Drivers of change at these wider scales have intensified, complicating local responses to change, whether through economic, social or political means. A more nuanced appreciation of how scaled relations can be supported is required to better anticipate and respond to the political ecology of risk.     

The City of Maradl French Influence Upon a Hausa Urban Center

Abstract

The traditional Hausa city of Maradi, located in the south-central borderlands of Niger, rose to prominence during the 19th Century as a center of Hausa opposition to the Fulani-controlled Hausa state of Katsina. The intrusion of French influence during the 20th Century brought about a change in the situation and function of Maradi by creating a market and making it a node of transportation networks within the developing colonial economy. Following a major flood in 1945, the French relocated the city on higher ground and changed not only the site but the form and internal structure of the city. European urban planning with symmetrical street patterns and designated functional areas were imposed upon the Hausa landscape although traditional Hausa architecture was retained in the residential area. Today Maradi is the third largest city in Niger and has established its primacy within the south-central borderlands by the role and function it plays within the development of Niger. The city is an important market center with an extensive tributary area; it functions as a node for importing and exporting, a vital role for landlocked Niger, and it is centrally located within the economic core of Niger.     

The processes of incorporation and secession of urban and suburban municipalities: The case of Poland

ABSTRACT

The aim of the article is to explain the phenomena of mergers and territorial disintegration of Polish towns and cities from three perspectives: social, economic and spatial-primal. Administrative border changes are fundamental components of local urban policy guidelines in countries that have experienced a dual history in the socialist and post-socialist periods, such as Poland. The main method of the authors research was the application of statistical and cartographic methods focused on measuring quantitative administrative changes in urban areas and their demographic effects. The scope of the research covered all towns in Poland existing in the years 1945–2018. Since the changes in the administrative boundaries of cities particularly concern the rural areas in the vicinity of large cities, the suburban municipalities surrounding urban centres were analysed too. The findings underline the deterministic role of political systems in the territorial expansion of towns and cities, and indicates their role for current planning decisions. The authors conclude that noticeable differences between two analysed periods have had at least two significant causes. First, the political and economic systems determining the changes differed, and second, each system was accompanied by differing directions of economic development and therefore also different ‘urbogenic’ forces.     

权力、地缘环境与地缘位势评价——以中日钓鱼岛之争为例

权力是国际政治的一个永恒话题,然而,国际关系学对权力的研究缺乏空间维度。考虑空间距离、地缘环境（由地理环境、地缘关系和地缘结构3部分组成）等对权力的空间制约,权力在空间的不均衡分布就是地缘位势。据此理解,文章从权力的4个来源,即军事实力、经济实力、软实力和不平等相互依赖,并结合地理衰减原理构建了地缘位势评价方法。以中日钓鱼岛之争为例,定量评价了中日两国在钓鱼岛的地缘位势,结果表明：随着中国崛起,整体经济实力、军事实力和中日之间不平等相互依赖关系的转变,至2010年中国在钓鱼岛的地缘位势已经全面超越日本。这一评价结果既可以回应国人在钓鱼岛问题上的不同声音,同时也阐释了自2012年以来中国在钓鱼岛问题上积极的处理方式。     

Environmental Refugees? A tale of two resettlement projects in coastal Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT

Environmental change in small islands may be associated with migration as a means of adaptation. Both Manam and the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have experienced rapid- and slow-onset changes, respectively. These have been accompanied by the forced migration and ‘temporary’ resettlement of the Manam population and attempts at resettlement by Carteret Islanders. Neither has proved successful, thwarted by ‘host’ landowners, the impossibility of gaining adequate access to land and land rights, and government inactivity. Settlers have been perceived as outsiders and rival claimants to valuable coastal resources. Inability to resettle in national contexts raises issues of ambiguity, identity and citizenship. The problems experienced by quite small population groups moving short distances in similar cultural contexts are indicative of the potential future problems facing environmental migrants in other contexts.     

经济形态演变对海洋海岛生态环境的影响——以美国海峡群岛为例

海洋海岛生态环境脆弱,一旦遭受破坏难以修复。人类社会历经原始经济时代、农业经济时代、工业经济时代和知识经济时代,经济形态的演变影响着人类生存的生态环境。以美国海峡群岛为例,以时间和事件两个维度对海岛生态环境破坏、生态修复和环境保护进行梳理,侧重于知识经济时代在国家公园管理局管理下的生态修复和环境保护。其中信息知识、生态文明、高新技术是海峡群岛实现生态回归的重要因素。海峡群岛的发展历程和后期的生态修复与管理为其他国家海洋海岛经济发展提供借鉴。     

西安市土地利用与环境关系的协调研究

In this paper we adopt annual land use conditions change data, land sifting data, social, economic and population data and environment information of nine districts and four counties in Xi＇an city from 1980 to 2000 to analyze its structural and degree change of land use since the 1980s, and calculate the benefits and transformation of land use type. The results show that the non-agricultural land increased rapidly, especially the urban and rural residential spots and industrial and mining （RIM） land use increased mostly rapidly, an increase of 64%. Meanwhile, the intensity of land exploitation was accelerating, land was transformed to industries with better benefit and areas experiencing faster urbanization process. By analyzing the harmonious degree of land exploitation in economic and environmental aspects, we find out that the land use imbalance mainly existed in the municipal area of Xi＇an, and the imbalance index of land use based on GDP and non-agricultural population were respectively 12.37 and 14.67 in 2000, which were far higher than those in other regions. Nevertheless the environmental harmonious degree in the municipal area of Xi＇an ranges between 0.6 and 0.8, which was better than that of suburban area. Some proposals addressing to the problems of harmonious level in all scales, resources utilization, projects management and feasibility analysis and intensive urbanization are also put forward.     

Urbanisation and centralisation in Norway

The need for population data in regional analysis

Policies targeting regional areas have been a central part of the planning system in Norway, at least since the last war – as they have been in many countries and now even on the European level through the European Union (EU). These policies are dependent upon relevant data on different regional levels. Criteria reflecting population growth, distribution and structure, are often used in analyses, preceding concrete planning initiatives and economic redistribution measures.     

Assessing vulnerability to climate change and socioeconomic stressors in the Reef Islands group,Solomon Islands

This article assesses the vulnerability to climatic and socioeconomic stresses in the Reef Islands, Solomon Islands, an atoll island group in the Southwest Pacific. Climate change and the associated sea-level rise are often seen as the most pressing challenges to atoll communities, yet this study aims at critically re-assessing this view by placing climate in the context of a range of other internal and external stressors affecting local livelihoods, including population growth, inadequate land use practices, and lack of economic potential, as well as external factors such as poorly developed infrastructure, economic marginalization and weak governance of Solomon Islands. Findings suggest that some of these non-climatic stresses are currently – and in the short term – more important determinants of local vulnerability than climate change and sea-level rise. Certainly, these stresses are likely to be exacerbated by different elements of climate change in the short, medium and long term, but generally speaking climate change does not appear to be a major driver of the current changes in the islands. On the basis of these observations, the possible adaptation options, relevant to different time scales, are discussed.     

Life Geography from the Child's Point of View

Abstract

A second look is taken at “The Geography of the U.S. in the Year 2,000.” A new interplay is seen of the countervailing pressures to disperse and to agglomerate. Polynucleated urban regions are seen, organized within and around a global poly center. There are certain imperatives: those of demographic cycles and of the economic long wave. These will interact with information-age technologies to change family structures, life styles, and locational preferences. The unexpected also should be expected: “catastrophes” in which existing arrangements are transformed and new structures put into place to replace them. A key to understanding is to continually probe the second derivatives: change in the nature of change.     

Spatial Concentration in Australian Regional Development,Exogenous Shocks and Regional Demographic Outcomes: a South Australian case study

ABSTRACT

As a tribute to the massive contribution of our friend and colleague Graeme Hugo to the population and settlement geography of Australian rural areas, this paper presents a longitudinal study from his home State. It forms part of a wider study of the long-term demographic relationships between Australia’s rapidly growing regional cities and their surrounding functional regions. Of particular interest is the question of what effect the accelerating concentration of population and economic activity into a given regional city will have for the longer term demographic sustainability of its functional region as a whole. Taking the case of Port Lincoln, regional capital of most of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, it examines the nature of change in the functional region over the period 1947–2011, and investigates the forces feeding, and partly counteracting, the population concentration process, informed by concepts of evolutionary economic geography. In particular it traces the demographic impact (particularly differential migration and ageing trends) of exogenous shocks to the region’s essentially primary productive economic base during the period of major change from 1981 to 2011.     

南沙群岛区域地质地貌与古海洋

本文论述了南沙群岛海底地形、海底沉积物、区域地质、珊瑚礁地质地貌和区域古海洋。     

Sectoral Shifts and Occupational Migration in the United States

Abstract

This research is grounded in notions of differential economic restructuring across employment sectors and geographic space, as well as migration selectivity by occupation. A series of unconstrained competing-destinations models were employed to analyze the response by workers in thirteen occupational categories to sectoral employment change, average wages, and distance. As was hypothesized, workers in occupations that require high levels of education and skills are more responsive, in terms of migration, to economic opportunities in alternative labor-market areas. However, the results do not support the hypothesis that highly educated and skilled workers migrate longer distances. Further investigation suggests that opportunities for highly educated and skilled workers may be clustering in relatively few areas that are in relatively close proximity.     

北京丰台区土地利用变化及其经济驱动力分析

采用GIS技术和统计分析技术,基于1984、1992和1995～2001年土地利用图件和数据,分析了1984年以来北京丰台区土地利用变化历史过程及其空间分异特征。土地利用变化的基本特点是农业用地面积大幅度下降,非农用地面积快速增加,且随着时间的推移,变化高峰地域在由内向外传递。对1999年土地利用类型数据与经济产值数据匹配结果表明:土地经济产出效益巨大差异的存在是驱动丰台区土地利用从农业用地,尤其是耕地向非农业用地转化的最大动力所在。利用1992～2001年的非农业用地与固定资产投资、人口,二、三产业增加值进行的相关分析显示,固定资产投资、人口增长和第二产业的发展对非农业用地扩展有着显著的作用。     

A Review of “An Everyday Geography of the Global South”

Human interactions with the marine environment and pollution hold broad lessons for understanding environmental change. Expanding geographical inquiry beyond its traditional, land-based foci and delving deeper into marine environment and risk issues offers fruitful avenues by which to elaborate and refine our understanding of nature-society relationships. I present a case study of marine petroleum transportation risks in the Straits of Malacca to illustrate the complex history of political and economic processes across a range of scales and shaping the risks in the Straits. The inescapable tension between generalizing global social and environmental processes and recognizing the array of local differences drives ongoing policy debates in the Straits, as it does increasingly for many global environmental problems.     

A Rising Tide in Bangladesh: livelihood adaptation to climate stress

ABSTRACT

Bangladesh is at the forefront of countries experiencing and debating climate change, despite having contributed little to global emissions, and has the greatest vulnerability to climate change due to inadequate institutional support for the dense population dispersed in low-lying terrain. A micro-level study of livelihoods in the Panpatti Union, a district of the coastal zone exposed to climate stress and an array of other social, economic and political stresses, demonstrated that adaptation strategies to a range of shocks were both reactive and proactive. The persistent nature of shocks, and the limited margins in which to respond, meant that achieving sustainable long-term livelihoods was unusually difficult. Despite cases of dynamism and flexibility, where livelihoods had been effectively diversified, rural people largely failed to reduce their exposure to vulnerability. That was especially true of extremely poor, landless and female-headed households. In such challenging circumstances external interventions were required to ensure sustainable development, but were unlikely because of the isolation of Panpatti and the number of villages and people in similar circumstances. This emphasised the need to develop a more robust livelihoods framework to support the most vulnerable communities in severe economic and environmental contexts where climate change is likely to exacerbate all existing problems.     

Changes in growing season in the Northeastern United States

ABSTRACT

Changes in growing season length (GSL) are of concern for agricultural, phenological, economic, epidemiological, and bioclimatological reasons. This research identifies spatial and temporal changes over the last several decades in GSL, along with the day-of-year of the last spring freeze and first autumn freeze, for the northeastern United States – a region particularly susceptible to such changes due to the large population and intense economic activities. Results suggest that growing season has significantly increased in length since 1980 as compared to prior to 1980, and both spatial and temporal variation in GSL has decreased for the region over time. Changes to GSL for this region are driven more by a shift in the first autumn freeze date than the last spring freeze date. The areas of greatest increase in GSL in the pre- vs. post-1980 period tend to be in the high elevations, near large water bodies, and near the largest cities. Results will assist environmental planners as they prepare mitigation and adaptation strategies amid a changing environment.     

Time,Territory and Man: A Geographic,Instructional Approach to Growth and Change in China

Abstract

China, despite its failure to modernize in step with Europe's industrial revolution, has a long and rich history of commerical and economic growth, development, and integration. Economic growth and environmental change are presented here, and two dimensions—space and time—are invoked to describe the process as it took place in mainland China. The objectives are to present generalized abstractions of the Chinese earth space and environment within a chronological framework of growth and change in China. Three salient phases of progression are noted:

1) A traditional transition

2) A Western and Japanese influenced Commercial/Industrial transformation

3) A Socialist planned development

At each stage of the sequence, significant landscape and environmental changes have been imposed, and these are explored in order to determine key themes and alterations at a local, regional and national scale. Such a sequential model should permit the accurate simplification and increased cross-national understanding of complex phenomena and facilitate presentation of these phenomena in classroom situations.     

Logan Creek: a Missouri Ozark Valley Revisited

Abstract

In the 35 years since Margaret Riggs studied the contrasts in the cultural-economic geography along 23 miles of Logan Creek Valley in the Central Missouri Ozarks, several factors have brought change to the pattern of life and the geographic expression of man's occupance in the valley. Of special importance have been the changes in the attitudes and knowledge of the farmers concerning conservation practices and farming methods and their increasing dependence on off-farm employment. In this respect the valley is representative of large parts of the Interior Highland and Appalachian provinces. The discovery of lead ore in the vicinity has been the most recent and most powerful force of change, but the future of the occupants of the valley, particularly in light of the estimated 25 year life of the lead reserves, is speculative.     

21世纪中国主要粮食产区的空间格局特征

Grain production is an important issue for the national economy and the livelihood of the Chinese people. It serves as the foundation of national development and social stability. China is a major grain producer as well as a major grain consumer. The grai…