Heat wave risk assessment and mapping in urban areas: case study for a midsized Central European city,Novi Sad (Serbia)

Risk assessment and mapping methodologies for heat waves as frequently occurring hazards in central and southeastern Europe were applied in this study, and the impact of heat waves on the mortality of urban populations was determined as part of the assessment. The methodology for conducting the heat wave risk assessment is based on European Commission’s Guidelines for Risk Assessment and Mapping. The Novi Sad (Serbia) urban area was studied during summer 2015, which was one of the hottest summers in the last few decades. In situ air temperature measurements from urban stations and mortality of urban populations were used. Nocturnal urban heat island (UHI) intensity values between the various built-up zones and natural surrounding areas were used for the hazard level calculation. Temperature data from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. were used because during the night, the UHI intensity reached its maximum values. The average daily number of deaths by LCZs was used to define the impact level of the vulnerability index. Calculations for both hazard levels were completed during two intensive heat waves (in July and August 2015) when it was expected that there may be a high level of risk. The results and maps show that the urban area is complex, and the heat wave risk on the population is not uniform. The most densely built-up areas (LCZs 2, 5 and 6) have very high or high risk values that are influenced by a higher rate of mortality. The obtained results and maps can be used by local authorities to prevent and mitigate climate-related hazards, for medical institutions as well as urban planners and for ancillary local, regional or national services. According to these results, the local authorities could define hot spots where they can place medical and rescue teams and install points with water supplies, etc.     

Entrepreneurship, ethnicity and local contexts: Hispanic entrepreneurs in three U.S. southern metropolitan areas

Previous research suggests that entrepreneurship can provide ethnic minorities a springboard for economic advancement and social integration. However, self-employment rates vary significantly among ethnic groups, between men and women, and in different places. The prevailing literature suggests that personal characteristics, including human capital attributes, ethnic networking, institutional regulations, societal structures and discrimination, all contribute to the differential ethnic entrepreneurship rates. However, very few recent studies have analyzed how different urban socio-economic contexts influence this process. Using the 2000 Public Usable Microdata Samples (PUMS), this study examines how Hispanic entrepreneurs perform in three different metropolitan areas in the US South. The results show that the ethnic diversity, history of immigration, and the economic structure in each local area have provided different opportunities and challenges for Hispanics to start up and maintain their own businesses. This study suggests that the process of economic incorporation of ethnic minorities and immigrants depends significantly on the institutional capacity and social, cultural and political resources of local communities.     

岩溶区典型工业型城市地下水水化学特征及成因机制

文章以广西柳州市岩溶地下水为研究对象,在岩溶水文地质调查和样品采集测试的基础上,采用数理统计法、水化学方法（Piper图、Gibbs图、离子比值系数,矿物饱和指数计算）、因子分析法和模糊综合评价法,分析工业型城市岩溶地下水水化学特征及形成机制,开展岩溶地下水质量评价。结果表明,研究区岩溶地下水为中-弱碱性水,Ca2+、Mg2+、HCO₃?、SO₄2?是主要的阴阳离子,水化学类型以HCO₃-Ca型和HCO₃-Ca·Mg型为主,且城区的SO₄2?型水的比例远高于非城区。区内岩溶地下水水化学组分及演化主要受水－岩作用、工业污染、城镇生活污染和农业活动等主控因素的影响,贡献率分别为31.52%、25.15%、18.12%和10.74%。其中,城区的水化学组分受人类活动的影响程度大于非城区的。矿物饱和指数表明,区内方解石和绝大多数白云石为饱和状态,而石膏和盐岩均为溶解状态。不同功能区的水化学敏感指标有差异,工业区以重金属为主,农业区以三氮为主,生活区以K+、Na+、Cl?、SO₄2?为主。研究区整体水质较好,Ⅰ－Ⅲ类水的比例高达约87.39%;但不同区域的水质差异较大,其中城区的水质较差,超标因子主要为Al、Mn、Pb、Fe、Hg;非城区的水质较好,超标因子主要为三氮。研究成果可以为工业型城市岩溶地下水污染防治提供科学依据。      

Trace metal assessment in soils in a small city and its rural surroundings,Pensacola, FL,USA

This study assesses the origin and pollution of trace metals in surface soils in a region with contrasting land uses (urban vs. rural). Principal component analysis (PCA) reveals that Cr and Ni are predominantly of geogenic origin. These two trace metals are also the only ones with statistically significant correlations with soil particle size and organic matter content. Copper, Pb and Zn, and possibly Hg, are of anthropogenic origin, but their concentrations rarely reach levels described as strongly polluted by pollution indexes. The concentrations of these anthropogenic trace metals are statistically not different in urban and rural areas, except for Pb that is higher in the urban area. This general lack of a difference between the two land uses indicates that the influence of this small urban area on trace metal concentrations in soils is minor. Lead and Zn have the most, but still a modest number, of strongly polluted sites, mainly in an industrial part of the city. GIS analysis shows that, based on the pollution load index (PLI), overall concentrations of trace metals also reach their highest levels in that industrial area. These observations indicate that the influence of industry on trace metal pollution in soil exceeds that of other urban activities in the region. Local background concentrations were found to be very different from general crustal background concentrations. This demonstrates the importance of the careful selection of a background type in studies like this.     

Conservation planning in the west, problems, new strategies and entrenched obstacles

The United States is often considered the progenitor of conservation planning in the world, the first to establish a vast public domain, for example. But with continued population growth, conservation planning on private lands—rural and at the urban fringe—continues to be a substantial challenge due to a tradition of local home rule in land use planning and strong private property protection afforded by the US Constitution. New “bottom-up” collaborative approaches, as well as other innovative strategies seem to be emerging. How effective these will be given pressures for growth and high property values remain to be seen without a rethinking of ideas of nature, a rebalancing of the role of property in American local fiscal regimes, and of private property rights.     

Social policy and social inequality in Nigeria: Examples from four states,using indicators of level of living approach

Summary and Conclusion In this paper, it has been demonstrated that wide disparities exist among the various local government areas of different states of Nigeria, notwithstanding the country's golden social policy goal of building an egalitarian and oppresion-free society. If the results obtained in the four states used as case studies above are anything to go by then Nigeria has to be more serious in developing ways and means of bridging the gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged areas of the country. Part of this would involve more positive discrimination in favour of the less privileged areas in subsequent resource allocations by governments, community leaders and individual philanthropists (Oyebanji 1984). Really there is no doubt that if all areas had equal amount of influence in the manner that common resources are distributed, there definitely would have been greater degree of equality. In general, the relatively more advanced areas in each state are either urban centers and/or the seat of government — whether state or local government — or those in which the efforts of governments have been heavily subsidized through community self-help projects. The reality of this situation in the Nigerian environment has already been established elsewhere (Oyebanji 1980). Consequently it will be of immense benefit to the states under study to promote both widespread urbanization on the one hand and the spirit of self-involvement on the other hand.Despite the social relevance of this type of research however, the limitation imposed by lack of valuable and reliable data in Nigeria is extremely serious. Nevertheless, if the social state of the nation has to be carefully monitored, there must be a very marked improvement in the present social data bank of the country. As the present study has emphasized, data on many vital aspects of level of living are either dearth or non-existent altogether. Consequently, social reporting in Nigeria currently has a long way to go. It is therefore important to point out that for now the results of this and similar studies should be regarded as exploratory but nevertheless very valuable.     

Opportunities provided by geographic information systems and volunteered geographic information for a timely emergency response during flood events in Cologne,Germany

The occurrence of disasters such as extreme flooding in urban environments has severe consequences, not only on the human population but also on critical infrastructures such as the road networks, which are of vital importance for everyday living and particularly for emergency response. In this article, our main goal is to present-conceptually and in praxis-a model that could be used from the emergency responders for timely and efficient emergency management and response in an urban complex environment. For the city of Cologne in Germany, we aim to indicate possible ways to decrease the emergency response time during an extreme flood scenario through the development of an accessibility indicator, which consists of different components. Therefore, we will investigate the opportunities that occur, in a flood risk scenario, from the use of geographic information in different forms such as Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and open-source data in an ArcGIS environment, to increase urban resilience through the decreasing emergency response time. We will focus on network analysis for the fire brigades (first acting emergency responders) during a flood scenario to calculate their emergency response ranges and emergency response routes through flooded road networks, for the assistance of the possibly affected hospitals, refugee homes and fire brigades, which can be flooded. At the end of the paper, we suggest that the vulnerable community of the refugees could be taken into consideration as a new source of VGI, as an additional component that would lead to the decrease in the emergency response time. The geo-located information that could be provided by the refugee community can be very useful in emergency situations, such as those examined in this article where timely information can be forwarded to the proper authorities for a more focused and timely emergency response, increasing the resilience of the urban population and their community.

     

Temporal changes in P-wave velocity in Southern California

P-wave delays at Tinemaha, China Lake, Pasadena, Riverside, Hayfield and Barrett, stations of the CIT Southern California seismic network, are measured for three explosions in the Aleutians and six deep-focus earthquakes in the Marianas. Except at Riverside, no change in P-delays exceeding the experimental uncertainty, ± 0.2 sec, is found during the period from 1965 to 1971. At Riverside, however, P-delay in 1971 is at least 0.4 sec smaller than that in 1965, indicating a temporal P-velocity increase beneath Riverside from 1965 to 1971. Evidence supporting this result is obtained from the P-times at Riverside for quarry blasts at Corona (Δ ≈ 20 km). Precise travel-time measurements are made for eight blasts since 1949. The travel time changes as a function of time, ranging from 3.3 to 3.7 sec. This range of variation seems to be larger than the experimental uncertainty. The trend for the period from 1964 to 1969 is consistent with the temporal change in the teleseismic P-delays observed at Riverside. The observed change in P-delays is not related in any obvious way to past seismic activity; rather it might represent a large-scale fluctuation of the property of the crust caused possibly by change in the tectonic stress and fluid-vapor flow, and may be related to future earthquake activity.     

Opportunities provided by geographic information systems and volunteered geographic information for a timely emergency response during flood events in Cologne,Germany

The occurrence of disasters such as extreme flooding in urban environments has severe consequences, not only on the human population but also on critical infrastructures such as the road networks, which are of vital importance for everyday living and particularly for emergency response. In this article, our main goal is to present-conceptually and in praxis-a model that could be used from the emergency responders for timely and efficient emergency management and response in an urban complex environment. For the city of Cologne in Germany, we aim to indicate possible ways to decrease the emergency response time during an extreme flood scenario through the development of an accessibility indicator, which consists of different components. Therefore, we will investigate the opportunities that occur, in a flood risk scenario, from the use of geographic information in different forms such as Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and open-source data in an ArcGIS environment, to increase urban resilience through the decreasing emergency response time. We will focus on network analysis for the fire brigades (first acting emergency responders) during a flood scenario to calculate their emergency response ranges and emergency response routes through flooded road networks, for the assistance of the possibly affected hospitals, refugee homes and fire brigades, which can be flooded. At the end of the paper, we suggest that the vulnerable community of the refugees could be taken into consideration as a new source of VGI, as an additional component that would lead to the decrease in the emergency response time. The geo-located information that could be provided by the refugee community can be very useful in emergency situations, such as those examined in this article where timely information can be forwarded to the proper authorities for a more focused and timely emergency response, increasing the resilience of the urban population and their community.     

The cultural politics of local economic development: meaning-making, place-making, and the urban policy process

A major concern of work in urban and political geography in recent decades has been to analyze how and in whose interests local space economies are produced and reproduced. A common focus is on the role local elites play in gathering support for their development agendas. Drawing from these literatures, this paper focuses on how various visions of the future of localities are contested in the local policy process. It argues that this struggle can be usefully understood as a cultural politics in which meanings are defined and struggled over, where social values are naturalized, and by which `common sense' is constructed and contested. The use of the term `cultural politics of local economic development' is, then, intended to indicate that meaning-making and place-making occur simultaneously in struggles over the future of space economies. It is also an attempt to overcome the problematic distinction between `culture' and `economy' that continues to haunt a great deal of work on urban politics. Through a case study of urban politics in Lexington, Kentucky in which discursive strategies are highlighted, it is argued that this approach is useful in that it provides insight into non-elite perspectives on local economic development and that it underscores the role played by everyday life in constituting political action. The paper concludes by suggesting that any problematization of the conceptual distinction between `culture' and `economy' must be carried out in and through detailed analyses of how groups involved in social struggle frequently construct rhetorical strategies in reference to it.     

Granitoid emplacement during syn-convergent transtension:An example from the Huamenlou pluton in North Qinling,central China

The Huamenlou pluton,is an elongated granite intrusion with high aspect ratio,emplaced within the southern margin of the North Qinling(central China).Here we investigate this pluton through multiple techniques including the fabric study,microstructural observation and zircon geochronology.Our zircon U-Pb data confirm that the granite crystallized at ca.462 Ma which is consistent with the ages of other linear plutons in North Qinling.Microstructural observations of the Huamenlou granites illustrate that the pluton has undergone superimposed deformation during its emplacement,from magmatic to hightemperature solid state conditions.The internal fabric obtained by anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility(AMS)and shape preferred orientation(SPO)show similar results.The fabrics are relatively concordant and generally vary from NE-SW to NEE-SWW which are roughly oblique to the trend of the pluton elongation and the regional structures.Meanwhile,scalar parameters reflect two completely different strain regimes for the pluton and its host rocks,i.e.,the fabrics within host rocks are mainly oblate while the central part of the intrusion displays mainly prolate fabrics.It is inferred that the structural pattern recorded in this pluton was caused by local dextral transtension in consequence of oblique convergence between the South and North China Blocks.We propose that the local transtension in convergence setting probably evolved from vertical extrusion tectonics that provided room for the magma emplacement and imparted prolate fabrics in the Huamenlou pluton.     

The urban role of a new university: a case study of Chieti-Pescara, Abruzzo, Italy

The results of the study on the urban role of the University by the Pescara School of Architecture show that a new approach for this subject is needed. A university should be considered not only as a culture-producing institution, but also as an income producer and distributor for the area. In other words it is possible to promote the university as a strategic investment for development; and as a modernization and requalification factor both of the local production and of the human settlement and territorial structures. In the Abruzzo Region, and particularly in the Chieti-Pescara area, the university as a strategic intervention and its possible interactions with the urban system, is closely related to the nature of the urban phenomenon in this particular geographical context. Funds invested by the State in the university flow directly to individuals through the economic behavior of the university users themselves, according to an only partially measurable process. At present, in the Pescara area, it can be assumed that such economic contribution to the local system development is greater that the proceedings of the tourism industry, in an area with a well established tourist appeal.     

广西都安县三只羊地区与贵州罗甸县大关地区岩溶石漠化进程对比分析

基于遥感数据得出贵州罗甸县大关地区和广西都安县三只羊地区三个时期的土地覆盖类型数据。通过对这些不同时期土地覆盖类型数据的分析,发现大关地区从1979年到2001年,植被面积减少,石漠面积增加,土地覆盖类型以灌木林→灌丛→荒草地→石漠的方向变化为主,岩溶生态环境朝着恶劣的方向即典型的石漠化方向发展;而都安三只羊地区则相反,从1976年至2002年,植被面积增加,石漠面积减少,土地覆盖类型的主导变化方向是石漠→荒草地→灌丛→灌木林,即反石漠化方向,岩溶生态环境总的趋势是朝着良性的方向发展。两地的石漠化进程不同的原因主要在于土地利用的方式不同,大关地区采取的是劈山造田的方式来解决紧张的人地关系;而三只羊地区则是采取生态移民的方式。      

Simulation-optimization approach to assess groundwater availability in Refugio County, TX

Sustainable management of groundwater resources is critical for viable development of semi-arid regions. Refugio County, TX, is predominantly a rural community that is in close proximity to two large urban areas of Corpus Christi and San Antonio. Large-scale water supply projects are being planned to export surplus water available in Refugio County to nearby growing cities. Being a coastal county with several sensitive bays and estuaries, these projects have caused concerns with regard to decreases in freshwater inflows to coastal bodies and raised the possibility of saltwater intrusion. A simulation model characterizing groundwater flow in the shallower unconfined and the deeper semi-confined formations of the Gulf coast aquifer was calibrated and evaluated. The model results were used in conjunction with a mathematical programming scheme to estimate maximum available groundwater in the county. Stakeholder concerns were incorporated as constraints, which included prevention of saltwater intrusion in the aquifer, limiting the amount of allowable drawdown in shallow aquifers, as well as maintaining current flow gradients especially near baseflow-dependent streams and rivers. For the conditions assumed in this study, the model results indicate that roughly 4.93 × 10⁷ m³ of water can be extracted in a typical year. The management model was noted to be very sensitive to the imposed saltwater intrusion constraint.     

Soil sealing,population structure and the socioeconomic context: a local-scale assessment

In the most recent decades European urban regions underwent functional changes reflecting heterogeneous land-use patterns and specific urban footprints. Several mono-centric cities shifted towards a scattered development with impact on the socio-spatial structure. Discontinuous expansion determined, in some cases, a net increase in land consumption. Using a multivariate exploratory approach, the present study analyzes the spatial relationships between 14 morphological variables and 22 socioeconomic indicators in Rome’s province. The aim of this study was to identify the demographic and socioeconomic indicators most associated to the transition from a mono-centric and semi-compact morphology towards a more dispersed settlement structure based on different sealing profiles observed at the local scale. Four groups of socioeconomic indicators (population structure, job market, economic specialization and settlement characteristics) associated to different sealing profiles (low, medium and high imperviousness) were identified and local municipalities classified accordingly. Although the urban–rural axis maintains an important role in the spatial organization of Rome’s province, other variables were found associated to areas with moderately low imperviousness, evidencing a specific demographic structure and persisting socioeconomic disparities at the base of the settlement model observed at the regional scale.     

Red Mangrove Seedling Survival, Growth, and Reproduction: Effects of Environment and Maternal Genotype

An adequate understanding of the nature and extent of response to stressors and resources by marine foundation plant species requires study of local adaptation and plasticity in traits. Analyses of variation among genotypes in growth and morphology and genotype × environment interactions are necessary for restoration in, for example, different combinations of tide, soil, and salinity regimes, and for assessing how foundation plant species will respond to global climate change. We conducted a field experiment to assess differences in responses among 86 half-sibling (same maternal tree) seedling families of the red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle) to different environmental conditions of hydrology imposed at low- and high-intertidal settings. At 3 years, Rhizophora survival and growth varied with maternal tree genotype, elevation, and genotype × elevation. This effect was independent of size of propagules at planting. Growth also differed among the five islands planted, a main effect that is a composite of a number of microenvironmental differences stemming from island size and shape, proximity to passes (and thus fetch), and island slope. Significant genotype × island interactions for some response variables further support the hypothesis that seedlings of different maternal genotypes can perform very differently under various suites of environmental conditions. Planted seedlings reproduced at an early age, and at 3 years there were differences in reproductive output among genotypes but not an overall mean difference between plants at low or high elevation. Whether our results show adaptation to local conditions or differences in plasticity among genotypes will require further study as the plants mature further to demonstrate fitness differences. However, either adaptation or plasticity provides a basis for maintenance of Rhizophora dominance over a wider range of environmental conditions and may be important for adaptation to conditions that will vary with global climate change.     

On the evolution of terrestrial planets:Bi-stability,stochastic effects,and the non-uniqueness of tectonic states

The Earth is the only body in the solar system for which significant observational constraints are accessible to such a degree that they can be used to discriminate between competing models of Earth's tectonic evolution.It is a natural tendency to use observations of the Earth to inform more general models of planetary evolution.However,our understating of Earth's evolution is far from complete.In recent years,there has been growing geodynamic and geochemical evidence that suggests that plate tectonics may not have operated on the early Earth,with both the timing of its onset and the length of its activity far from certain.Recently,the potential of tectonic bi-stability(multiple stable,energetically allowed solutions)has been shown to be dynamically viable,both from analytical analysis and through numeric experiments in two and three dimensions.This indicates that multiple tectonic modes may operate on a single planetary body at different times within its temporal evolution.It also allows for the potential that feedback mechanisms between the internal dynamics and surface processes(e.g.,surface temperature changes driven by long term climate evolution),acting at different thermal evolution times,can cause terrestrial worlds to alternate between multiple tectonic states over giga-year timescales.The implication within this framework is that terrestrial planets have the potential to migrate through tectonic regimes at similar‘thermal evolution times'(e.g.,points were they have a similar bulk mantle temperature and energies),but at very different'temporal times'(time since planetary formation).It can be further shown that identical planets at similar stages of their evolution may exhibit different tectonic regimes due to random variations.Here,we will discuss constraints on the tectonic evolution of the Earth and present a novel framework of planetary evolution that moves toward probabilistic arguments based on general physical principals,as opposed to particular rheologies,and incorporates the potential of tectonic regime transitions and multiple tectonics states being viable at equivalent physical and chemical conditions.     

Ground motion phenomena in Caltanissetta (Italy) investigated by InSAR and geological data integration

Urban areas are frequently affected by ground instabilities of various origins. The location of urban zones affected by ground instability phenomena is crucially important for hazard mitigation policies. Satellite-based Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) has demonstrated its remarkable capability to detect and quantify ground and building motion in urban areas, especially since the development of Advanced Differential Interferometric SAR techniques (A-DInSAR). In fact, the high density of reflectors like buildings and infrastructures in urban areas improves the quality of the InSAR signal, allowing sub-centimetric displacements to be reliably detected. The A-DInSAR techniques allow urban zones affected by ground deformation to be located and mapped, but clearly they are not able to point out the causes of the instability phenomena. These can only be highlighted by an integrated analysis of multidisciplinary data, like geological, geotechnical, SAR interferometric and historical data. The overlay of these data, which is possible within a Geographic Information System (GIS), is a useful tool to identify ground motion phenomena affecting urban zones. In this study we apply this kind of approach to Caltanissetta, a provincial capital in Sicily (Italy), where local damage has been detected. The reconstruction of the local near-surface geology shows the presence of zones affected by local natural hazard factors, essentially due to the local presence of soils with poor mechanical properties or swelling soils, high topographic gradients and steep slopes on loose soils. Processing 17 ASAR-ENVISAT SAR images covering the time interval October 2002–December 2005 by means of an A-DInSAR procedure, the Caltanissetta deformation map has been realized. It shows that most of the city is stable, with the exception of three zones, situated in the northwestern, northeastern and southern parts of the city, respectively. Two of them, characterized by high topographic gradients and steep slopes on sandy soils, are affected by subsidence ground motion. An uplift motion is recognized in the other zone, characterized by the local presence of expansible clays. Geotechnical swelling tests carried out on them have shown a swelling behavior. On site surveys have highlighted the presence of damage in the zones affected by ground motion.     

Anti-poverty politics in Toronto and Mexico City

In recent years, governments at different scales in both North and South have been experimenting with alternative methods of alleviating poverty, and redesigning social welfare regimes. While these changes are not entirely congruent across regimes in North and South, there are interesting points of overlap and intersection. The article lays out three broad alternatives to “roll-back” neoliberalism: intrusive liberalism; inclusive liberalism, and a renewed version of social citizenship. It then lays out how these alternatives have played out in anti-poverty politics in Toronto and Mexico City, two sites where creative strategies contesting neoliberalism have been pursued. While both cities occupy a critical place within their respective political economies, they are not usually compared because of their very different positions in the North American division of labour. Yet, as we argue, they face similar challenges in the form of poverty reduction strategies at the national scale that are based on neoliberal principles that do little to meet the needs of their inhabitants. In response, both cities have provided a site for mobilising resources behind alternative anti-poverty policies, inspired by the principles of social citizenship.     

香格里拉盆地地热地质特征及勘探前景

本研究工作的直接目标，是为在香格里拉县城附近钻探地下热水提供确定井位和钻井设计的地质依据。本次勘查研究，对已有资料进行了综合研究，在县城周边地区补充开展了地热地质测量、地球物理与地球化学勘探。本文是这些勘查研究成果的总结，文中论述了香格里拉盆地的地热地质背景、地球物理、地球化学特征与地热显示特征。经过综合分析，提出了盆地的热储概念模型，叙述了热储的地质结构。指出盆地内存在可供钻井开发的深埋藏层控型热储；盆地的北东部存在形成热储的地质条件，其构成热储的各项要素齐全，是前景良好的钻探靶区；预测在埋深1800m左右极有可能钻探到可供开发利用的热储层。