Seeding nature, ceding culture: Redefining the boundaries of the marine commons through spatial management and GIS

The oceans are not only being transformed through privatization as management moves towards market mechanisms, the oceans are also being “zoned”, with zoning increasingly proposed as the ideal conduit for weighting different uses of the ocean. This is concomitant with a move towards ecosystem-based management that also partakes in a policy environment imbued with the commodification of nature, in which environmental services are ranked and valued according to neoliberal percepts. Crucial to these projects are the utilization of GIS technologies. This paper considers these zones of preservation and sites of conflict through an ethnographic case study of the scallop fisheries of New England, examining conflicts between harvesters, different projects to map the fishery, and ongoing efforts to reseed scallop beds. The paper explores how participants themselves articulate the changing practices of fishing and farming, redefining boundaries of nature and culture. While reseeding projects, for example, arguably participate in the market logic of neoliberalism, at the same time they may resist and redefine the terms, as communities see themselves sowing the seeds of their own sustainability and changing the terms of what counts, literally, as nature.     

Neoliberalism and natural resource management: Agri-environmental standards and the governing of farming practices

Private standards and certification schemes are widely acknowledged as playing an increasingly important role in agri-environmental governance. While much of the existing research concludes that these mechanisms consolidate the global extension of neoliberalism – enhancing the power of corporate actors to the detriment of smaller producers – we argue that this overlooks the complex ways in which standards are used by governments and farmers in the governing of farming practices. Focusing specifically on a process standard – Environmental Management Systems (EMS) – promoted by the Australian government as a way of verifying the ‘clean and green’ status of agricultural exports, we examine how one regional group of producers has sought to use EMS standards in practice. Our analysis of a case study in the state of Victoria appears to confirm that EMS was a successful instrument for the extension of neoliberal governance, reinforcing the production of neoliberal subjectivities and practices amongst farmer participants and enabling the government to compensate for gaps in environmental provision. However, it would be a mistake to interpret the development of this EMS scheme as an example of naïve farmers manipulated by the state. In practice, farmers used the opportunities provided by government funding to undertake actions which expressed their own agri-environmental values and practices. Establishment of an EMS and associated eco-label enabled producers to demonstrate and extend their capacity to act as good environmental stewards. Our research highlights how the local application of environmental standards negotiates and shapes, rather than simply contributes to, neoliberal rule.     

A large methane plume east of Bear Island (Barents Sea): implications for the marine methane cycle

A pockmark field extending over 35 km² at 74°54N, 27°3E, described by Solheim and Elverhøi (1993), was re-surveyed and found to be covered with more than 30 steep-sided craters between 300 and 700 m in diameter and up to 28 m deep. The craters are thought to have been formed by an explosive gas eruption. Anomalously high concentrations of methane in the shelf waters around the craters suggest that a strong methane source near this area is still active today. Methane enrichment more than 10 km away from the crater field indicates the large dimensions of a plume and the amount of gas released from sources below the seafloor of the Barents Sea shelf. From the characteristic vertical decrease of methane towards the sea surface, it is concluded that biota are extensively using this energy pool and reducing the methane concentration within the water column by about 98% between 300 m depth and the sea surface. Degassing to the atmosphere is minimal based on the shape of the methane concentration gradient. Nevertheless, the net flux of methane from this area of the Barents Sea is about 2.9 × 10⁴ g CH₄ km^–2 yr^–1 and thus in the upper range of the presently estimated global marine methane release. This flux is a minimum estimate and is likely to increase seasonally when rough weather leads to more effective vertical mixing during autumn and winter. The amount of methane consumed in the water column, however, is about 50 times greater and hence should significantly contribute to the marine carbon inventory.     

Environmental governance and the hybrid regime of Australian natural resource management

In this paper we explore hybridity in Australian natural resource governance, both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of neoliberalism. We develop an understanding of this governance regime as an assemblage of subjects, ethics, ends and techniques that constitute a hybrid of practices directed by three mentalities of government: neoliberalism, localism and ecocentrism. This three-way parentage engenders particularly complex internal dynamics - tensions and congruencies, grounds for contest and opportunities for collaboration - that shape and transform the regime. Our analysis clarifies the formative roles of the three logics and in so doing offers a new perspective of tripartite governance dynamics. We conclude by showing how the co-existing mentalities compete to establish NRM policy that is in accord with their respective ends and ethics, subjectify problems and other actors to fit with their own agendas, and attempt to secure primacy for those technologies congruent with their logics. At the same time, as mutually constitutive forces of the regime, they exhibit varying degrees of adaptivity as they co-opt or accommodate technologies favoured by their competitors.     

The limits to good governance and the state of exception: A case study of North Sea fisheries

This paper explores a series of maxims, widely known in policy and academic circles as the ‘principles of good governance’, which state that policymaking in the European Union (EU) should be participatory, conducted as close to citizens as practicable, transparent, accountable, effective and coherent. These maxims were introduced into EU fisheries management as part of a radical reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in 2002. This reform was instituted in response to criticisms of a prevailing management regime alleged to be inefficient, undemocratic, and potentially responsible for an environmental crisis: the exhaustion of key fish stocks. The research for this work has found that there are limits to the actual achievement of good governance in EU fisheries. In practice governance innovations are very often contradictory and rife with tensions. I reason that such problems result not merely from policy implementation failures; they constitute a more endemic feature of the CFP reforms. We can begin to understand these limits to good governance principles by looking to Agamben’s permanent state of exception thesis. Agamben’s theory helps to show how these contradictions and tensions occur under new governance regimes, because the relationship between democratic norms (like good governance) and political power is no longer clear. I argue that this blurring has been exploited by groups seeking influence in these new regimes. They do this through citing a supposed need for emergency measures to mitigate crisis. Although this research broadly supports the state of exception thesis, my analysis leads me to question some aspects of its application in contemporary governance spaces.     

The environmental planning and management approach towards the development and management of the Osun natural spring project,Ibadan, Nigeria

There is a general shortage of potable water in Nigeria, partly through the lack of natural provision and partly because of rapid urban growth that has largely been unplanned. The paper describes the recent redevelopment of a public water facility in a run-down area of Ibadan which is part of the Sustainable Ibadan Project. Despite funding from national and international bodies, the development is strongly based at community level. The local inhabitants feel they have control over their own water supply through their representatives on the various planning and managing committees. This aims to reduce vandalism and to increase pride and involvement in the community. The project is a pilot for other projects around Ibadan, some of which have begun and others are being planned. This paper describes the administrative structures and management principles that have been employed. It forcefully advocates community-based planning and management which respects both the environment and the water-users, and involves a major “bottom-up” element. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

海相沉积岩是中国石油工业未来的希望

回顾了中国陆相找油第一次创业的经验,认为中国的海相找油走过了一段“以南代北”和“以偏概全”的弯路。提出了该如何全面看待中国南方海相地层所遇到的破坏严重,地面暴露,保存条件差及油气层年代古老等问题。汇总了我国主要海相勘探区(塔里木盆地、鄂尔多斯盆地、四川盆地、渤海湾盆地)的油气勘探进展概况。建议中国的海相油气勘探因经验不足,可以借鉴俄罗斯海相古生界找油的经验。指出中国的海相沉积油气勘探可以包括十个领域:(1)稳定地台区的大型古隆起;(2)断陷盆地的海相沉积;(3)山间盆地海相沉积;(4)南方地区碳酸盐岩分布区;(5)南方复合盆地;(6)大陆架海域海相沉积;(7)西藏羌塘盆地侏罗系;(8)四川盆地的三叠系;(9)大型不整合;(10)逆掩断层带的海相沉积。     

The continuity of Basque political violence: A geographical perspective on the legitimisation of violence

After twenty years of parliamentary democracy in Spain the Basque liberation movement ETA is still using violent methods. Considerable support for ETA has persisted in the Spanish Basque Country. Based on voting patterns in Euskadi the persistent support for ETA is studied. ETA support through voting for its political wing Herri Batasuna is concentrated in specific areas. Through ecological analysis the relative weight of cultural, socio-economic, demographic and locational factors in voting patterns is determined. At a local level particular cultural contexts reproduce support for violent separatism. The continuity of violence legitimisation is a Spanish Basque phenomenon as it is confined to the Basque-speaking parts of Spain. The small-size settlements of the Basque Country offer a context of social control which enables mass legitimisation of political violence.     

Experimental study on moisture evaporation of lime wastes and marine clay: implications for landfill storage management

A large quantity of by-product lime wastes with high water content produced from chemicals manufacturing processes has been stacked in an open area in Incheon, Korea. Highly alkaline leachate and fine dust emanating from the stacked lime wastes caused an environmental concern in the city. So evaporative drying and stabilization of the fine-grained wastes and use of the on site marine clay as a natural geomembrane liner using drying hardening were considered as a part of a landfill construction plan. Treatment of the lime wastes and marine clay was focused on maximizing the evaporative drying and the density. Evaporation experiments were conducted in field condition to understand evaporation characteristics and to evaluate actual evaporation rate of the lime wastes and marine clay. Local Class A pan evaporation data from a nearby weather station for last 30 years indicated that mean annual and monthly evaporations were 1,178.5 and 98.2 mm, respectively. Relative evaporations of the sludge lime, cake lime, and marine clay compared with the pan evaporation were 114.9, 61.9, and 119.0%, respectively. Estimates of annual evaporations from storage surfaces in the field based on the relative evaporation data were 1,353.6, 729.1, and 1,402.2 mm for the sludge lime, cake lime, and the marine clay, respectively. And annual net evaporations considering rainfall effect were estimated as between 879.9 and 1,082.9 mm for the lime sludge, between 473.9 and 583.3 mm for the lime cake, and between 981.5 and 1,191.9 mm for the marine clay. It was expected that the actual field evaporation rate would be varied with the moisture contents of the lime and the clay. Results of these experiments will provide useful implications for the drying behavior of the by-product lime and the marine clay and landfill or management plan of the storages.     

Management of spatially extensive natural resources in postwar contexts: working with the peace process

While extensively occurring natural resources play a fundamental role in the survival and recovery of postwar populations, their management is not presently part of the operational priorities in a peace process. Dependence on naturally occurring food, fuel, water, secure locations, and products that can be obtained and sold quickly for dislocated, war-weary populations is a primary approach to postwar livelihoods. The peace process, however, focuses on the logistical and institutional aspects of security, demobilization, reintegration and humanitarian efforts. The result is profound degradation of the spatially extensive resources necessary for longer-term recovery. The primary reason for the inattention to resource degradation in a peace process is that conventional conservation approaches do not fit with the priorities of a peace process or attend to the immediate needs of a postwar population; designed as they are for stable, peaceful settings. This article focuses on the need to derive postwar natural resource management approaches which can work with the in-place priorities of a peace process. Four such approaches are suggested, with successful examples from specific countries.

Vernacular heritage and evolving environmental policy in Australia: Lessons from the Murray–Darling Outreach Project

The interface between environmentalism and neoliberalism in industrialised nations is dynamic and evolving with each of these significant socio-political movements exerting influence on the other. In the context of Australian environmental policy, ideas of heritage, sense of place and belonging are increasingly invoked to support the current policy emphasis on the role of regional communities for realising goals for land and water conservation and environmental restoration. To explore the broader meaning and consequences of these developments, we focus on the manner in which ideas of heritage are employed and evoked within the Murray–Darling Outreach Project, a collaboration between the Murray–Darling Basin Commission, a key natural resource management agency, and the National Museum of Australia. The Murray–Darling Outreach Project has the aim of increasing community involvement in local environmental issues by promoting ideas of vernacular heritage.     

菲力浦多目标单纯形法在地下水资源管理模型中的应用

常用的多目标管理模型的求解方法，都是将多目标转化为单目标后，利用单目标规划的方法求解，人为地确定其重要性，影响了模型的客观性。菲力浦多目标单纯形法首先寻找一个可行解，接着进行搜索以确定是否存在能使这个具体的解达到最大的权数，改进了传统加权法人为确定权数的随意性和难度，避免了管理模型求解的人为因素，使管理模型更具有客观性。最后将该方法应用于太原东山煤矿排水供水结合管理，计算结果正确。     

Potential contributions of extremophiles to hydrocarbon resources in marine extreme environments:A review

To understand the potential mechanism of marine extremophiles participating in the formation and the evolution of hydrocarbon resources in marine extreme environments, some typical kinds of extremophiles and their distributions in marine hydrothermal and cold vents are discussed and evaluated respectively. The potential relationship between extremophile activities and hydrocarbon resources in marine extreme environments are then discussed in details. It could be now preliminary concluded that archaea and bacteria are the two main kinds of extremophiles in marine extreme environments. The dominating microbe communities in hydrothermal vents are heterotrophic zymogens, sulfate reducers and methanogens, while the ANME-2 group (Methanosarcinales) surrounded by sulfate-reducing bacteria and ANME-1 group dominate in cold vents. Marine extremophiles would be able to use CH₄ and H₂S to synthesize energy for metabolism and to support food chains for other unique macrobiota nearby, which together present a high abundance but a low diversity with distinct characteristics of horizontal and vertical distributions. Marine extremophiles might play an important role either directly or indirectly in the processes of hydrocarbon formation and subsequent alteration, and could indicate the evolution of hydrocarbon resources in marine extreme environments. Our research thus has a great significance both in theoretical approach of potential hydrocarbon resources formed by marine extremophile activities and in practical exploration of the potential hydrocarbonsource sedimentary layers formed in the Earth history or the potential strata in southern China. __________ Translated from Earth Science—Journal of China University of Geosciences, 2007, 32(6): 781–788 [译自: 地球科学—中国地质大学学报]     

Managing for sustainability in an arid climate: lessons learned from 20 years of groundwater management in Arizona,USA

Substantial progress has been made within central Arizona in moving towards a more sustainable water future, particularly in transitioning the urban demand from a primarily nonrenewable groundwater-based supply to increasing dependence on the Colorado River, Salt River and effluent. Management efforts include a wide range of regulatory and voluntary programs which have had mixed success. The Department of Water Resources has learned a number of key lessons throughout the years, and this paper attempts to establish the water management context and identify those lessons for the benefit of others who may want to evaluate alternative approaches to groundwater management. Themes to be discussed include evaluating water management approaches in a public policy context, the effectiveness of alternative management approaches and the relative merits of regulatory vs. nonregulatory efforts, and the importance of high-quality data in making management decisions.

The influence of marine inflows on the chemical composition of groundwater in small islands: the example of the Cyclades (Greece)

 Marine contamination of groundwater may be caused by seawater intrusion and by salt spray. The role of both processes was studied in the Cyclades archipelago on four small islands (45–195 km²) whose aquifers consist essentially of fractured, weathered metamorphic rocks. Annual rainfall ranges from 400 to 650 mm and precipitation has high total dissolved solids contents of 45–223 mg l^–1. The chemical characteristics of the groundwater, whose salinity is from 0.4 to 22 g l^–1, are strongly influenced by seawater intrusion. However, the effect of atmospheric input is shown in certain water sampling locations on high ground elevation where the dissolved chloride contents may attain 200 mg l^–1. Received: 14 November 1995 · Accepted: 9 September 1996     

The contribution of marine magnetics in the Gulf of Saint-Malo (Brittany,France) to the understanding of the geology of the North Armorican Cadomian belt

Marine magnetic data extracted from the geophysical database of the SHOM (the French Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service) offer a first overview of the magnetic offshore environment in the Gulf of Saint-Malo (Brittany, France). Their cross-interpretation with available geological and geophysical knowledge provides a new land and sea model of the western part of the Late Proterozoic North Armorican Cadomian belt. In particular, marine data exhibit relatively intense and heterogeneous magnetic signatures, mainly interpreted as the offshore prolongation of plutonic, volcanic, and metamorphic geologic formations recognized onshore. Imprints of major faults well known on land can be inferred at sea from discontinuities and shifting of magnetic anomalies or followed by high-resolution bathymetry. An impressive and dense dolerite dyke swarm propagated on more than 50 km from the coast seaward. Dykes are characterized by both 1-km-deep and less than 50-m-deep superficial magnetic responses, suggesting the existence of deeply rooted super dykes to which individual small-scale structures are connected.     

River-basin planning and management: The social life of a concept

The concept of a river basin as a management or planning unit has gone through several stages and is in a state of flux. From its western “discovery” in the 18th century to its advent as the overriding concept behind European water policy, the river basin has been conjured up and mobilized in evolving contexts with varying intentions. Associated with utopian ideas of the late 19th century, it supported ideas of full control of the hydrologic regime and multipurpose dam construction in the 1930-1960 period, then partly faded and was revived to address water-quality problems, before reemerging in the 1990s as the cornerstone of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), enriched and blended with watershed- and ecosystem-management approaches.This article recounts the evolution of the concept of a river basin and how it has been associated with various strands of thinking and sometimes co-opted or mobilized by particular social groups or organizations to strengthen the legitimacy of their agendas. Beyond its relevance as a geographical unit for water resources development and management purposes, the river basin is also a political and ideological construct, with its discursive representations and justifications, closely linked with shifting scalar configurations, both ecological and in terms of regulatory regime or governance. How interconnected and nested waterscapes can be managed by discontinuous nested political/administrative and social levels remains a fundamental question fuelling an endless search for elusive governance systems that would unite nature and society.     

The diel cycle of carbonyl sulfide in marine surface waters: Field study results and a simple model

The concentrations of atmospheric and dissolved carbonyl sulfide (COS) were measured during a Lagrangian study aboard the R/V Meteor in the northeast Atlantic Ocean, April/May 1992, and during a campaign on the research platform Nordsee in the German Bight (southeastern North Sea), September 1992. The arithmetic means and standard deviations of the COS saturation ratios were 1.27 ± 0.58 (northeast Atlantic) and 3.23 ± 0.73 (German Bight). Sea surface COS showed a pronounced diel cycle with highest concentrations in the late afternoon and a mean concentration amplitude of about 2. To account for this diel cycle, we analyze our results using a simple empirical model, which includes a zeroth order photoproduction constant, sea surface UV light intensity, and terms for hydrolysis removal and air-sea exchange. Fitted and observed COS concentrations agreed to within11 % (northeast Atlantic) and 14% (German Bight). The in situ COS photoproduction constants were (0.030 ± 0.008) fmol L^–1 s^–1 W^–1 m² in the northeast Atlantic (n = 8) and (0.17 ± 0.07) fmol L^–1 s^–1 W^–1 m² in the German Bight (n = 10). After normalization to the cloud cover corrected UV irradiance at 40 latitude, we obtained sea surface COS production rates of (0.034 ± 0.017) nmol L^–1 d^–1 in the northeast Atlantic and (1.62 ± 0.62) nmol L^–1 d^–1 in the German Bight. Currently available in situ photoproduction rates show a high degree of correlation with the UV absorbance (r ² = 0.98, n = 4) and fluorescence (r ² = 0.85, n = 4) of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM). The regional differences between the COS productivity in the northeast Atlantic Ocean and the German Bight is attributed to the distribution pattern of CDOM optical properties.