Rural settlements in transition – agricultural and countryside crisis in the Central-Eastern Europe

The paper presents a synthesis of French and Bulgarian researches on the transition in villages in Central Eastern Europe. The main points focus on three questions, the rural unemployment and the crisis of small towns, the demographical deterioration, the new relations between villages and towns. A generalization of the rural central places' visual change and metaphors is proposed, completed by a typology of rural settlements. The question of the rural administrative divisions is discussed, with its implication for the future. As a whole the paper gives a contribution to the problematic of the likely development in the rural evolution pattern throughout Europe. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

What kind of countryside do the public want: community visions from Wales UK?

This paper assesses how far community led rural visions accord with the current thrust of rural planning policy delivery in the UK. Adapting conventional visioning methods, qualitative techniques were used on eight different communities across urban, exurban and rural Wales to elicit views relating to the kind of local countryside(s) that were desired. The results show that the communities’ visions reflect an emerging consensus around local countryside priorities: multifunctionality, integration, wider countryside protection, development based on need, and local distinctiveness according with the thrust of current planning policy at national and local levels. However, there is a clear dichotomy between this and the reality of what communities actually experienced in developments affecting their countryside. Here, universal criticism was encountered over the type, pace and scale of development, the lack of rural specificity and the failure to take account of local community needs and priorities. It is hypothesized that tensions between national and local politics and stakeholder power relations are playing a crucial role in distorting the delivery of town and country planning. It is recommended that rural policy delivery must become more “joined up” and rural proofed at national and local levels concomitant with a change in the operational culture of agencies at the forefront of rural delivery. Essentially, effective engagement of top down approaches synergising with bottom up community led ideas is long overdue.     

Water and sanitation in the Buenos Aires metropolitan region: Fragmented markets, splintering effects?

This paper discusses the provision of water and sanitation services and the related urban impacts in Buenos Aires circa 2005. The first part of the paper focuses on the metropolitan region (BAMR) which is larger than the area served by the Aguas Argentinas S.A. (AASA) concession (i.e. the capital and its conurbano). It highlights a form of institutional fragmentation that is reflected in the diverse management practices of the numerous service providers and results in differentiated levels of and access to services. The paper discusses the technical, economic and regulatory factors that have historically resulted in this institutional fragmentation. The second part of the article focuses on AASA’s water concession agreement. It demonstrates that, although the agreement had an in-built splintering logic, its implementation led to a more “integrated approach” based on the “reality on the ground”. On the whole, the conclusion regarding the application of the splintering urbanism concept to Buenos Aires is a mixed one and depends on the scale of observation. Although at regional level (BAMR), a form of “institutional fragmentation” would appear to be obvious, it is the result of a long and complex historical process and, while recent neo-liberal reforms in service provisions have “cemented” this fragmentation, they did not actually cause it. If we take the AASA service area in isolation, the trend in the decade following the contracting out of the service has been one of improved service provision and access—although this was not achieved through increased integration of the supply system. Finally, in the case of the Buenos Aires metropolitan region, the splintering urbanism thesis defended by Marvin and Graham needs to be nuanced in several significant ways.     

On the way to a better state? The role of NGOs in the planning and implementation of protected areas in Brazil

Protected areas are considered some of the most versatile as well as important instruments of nature conservation and environmental policies. The `classic' model of nature conservation aims at the isolation of large areas in order to preserve their `pristine' nature from human interference. However, the transfer of this model to developing countries led to serious conflicts with local people. From a socio-geographical viewpoint, protected areas can be understood as regulative tools for the shaping and controlling of space. This approach helps to recognise the influence of distinct modes of appropriation of space and nature on the emergence and course of conflicts. In the present article it is used to analyse the leading role played by Brazilian NGOs in the transformation of the classic model of protected area management at the beginning of the nineties. Two case studies – dealing with the implementation of the Amazonian Mamirauá Reserve and with the reform of the Brazilian protected area legislation – are used to illustrate not only the success of the new approaches, but also the expectations and contradictions which surround the future development of protected areas in Brazil.     

Would you like to know more? The effect of personalized wildfire risk information and social comparisons on information-seeking behavior in the wildland–urban interface

Natural Hazards - Private landowners are important actors in landscape-level wildfire risk management. Accordingly, wildfire programs and policy encourage wildland–urban interface homeowners...     

Social actors and their role in metropolitan governance in Montréal: towards an inclusive coalition?

The article is about the role of civil society organizations in the governance of the Montréal metropolitan region. It identifies a high level of cooperation around metropolitan scale issues on the part of these organizations. In the Montréal region, government agencies as well as private corporations demonstrate readiness to work alongside civil society organizations on joint projects. Evidence of this type of collaboration is particularly strong in the case of economic development, neighbourhood revitalization and cultural initiatives. This form of cooperation is perceived as a manifestation of the so-called “Québec model” and is an asset for the Montréal metropolitan region. The article demonstrates that interventions that involve social organizations are more likely to be successful than those that turn their back on these organizations.     

Making the landscape “home”: Narratives of bushfire and place in Australia

This study investigated how the meaning of ‘home’ influences the social construction of bushfire in two Australian communities at high risk. An increasing number of Australians are living in proximity to areas of high bushfire risk due to climate, vegetation and demographic changes. Land and Fire Management Agencies recognise an urgent need to understand what motivates residents to take action to mitigate bushfire risk, and individual decisions whether or not to evacuate when bushfire is imminent. In bushfire policy and management, the home is considered to be synonymous with the house and associated built structures. Using a combination of visual and ethnographic research methods, we ‘mapped’ residents’ understanding of ‘home’. The findings suggest that the concept of ‘home’ embraces more than the private spaces of house and garden. Landscape practices such as gardening with indigenous plant species, ecological restoration, and habitual walking extend the home territory beyond the house and garden and into public landscapes. Physical elements of the landscape such as mountains and locally significant species of trees form part of the ‘imaginary’ of home. These findings are important to the on-going study of the meaning of home. The implications are also significant for land and bushfire managers as they suggest that community education programs that focus solely on the house may fail to connect with people’s wider sense of home in the landscape.     

Eco-environmental degradation in the northeastern margin of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau and comprehensive ecological protection planning

The regional hydrology and ecosystems of the northeastern margin of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau have changed over the past 40 years driven by intense human activity and regional climate changes. Annual mean air temperature has increased in the region. Streamflow from the northeastern margin of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau has decreased significantly. Overall, a number of Alpine step meadows and Alpine frigid meadows have seriously degraded. Degeneration of vegetation and grassland led to desertification and frequently induced dust storms. With the continuous increase in cultivated land area, grassland area in the region has dropped significantly since the 1960s. At present, degraded grassland occupies about 83% of total usable grassland area. As the number of livestock increased, range condition deteriorated and the carrying capacity was reduced. The forest area in the northeastern margin of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau has decreased by 20%, and the local ecosystem has become very fragile. Given the relatively stable weather conditions, the northeastern margin of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau can be characterized by its three major ecosystems: grassland ecosystem, forest ecosystem and wetland ecosystem, which are crucial in maintaining the ecological stability. Changes in these ecosystems could influence sustainable development in the region. To avoid further deterioration of the environment and ecosystems, it is important to establish and implement ecosystem protection planning. Some effective measures are essential in this respect, including technical and political considerations.     

Reconstruction in Moscow's historic centre: conservation, planning and finance strategies – the example of the Ostozhenka district

Reconstruction of the historic centre of Moscow and the construction of apartment blocks on the citys outskirts are the citys two main programmes within what must be regarded as its urban policy. With these priorities, the strategy of relying on a mixture of city and private investments, the city governments policies contribute to an increasing exclusiveness of the city centre. This process, which includes a process of gentrification, reflects the impact of the transition to a free-market economy. City planning and reconstruction projects are subject to the new, still chaotic, market opportunities and constraints while the soviet planning principles and organizations have not yet been replaced by efficient new ones. There is a lack of control and regulation, as well as a concentration of power in the mayoral cabinet on the one hand, but on the other hand, the finance strategies make large-scale regeneration possible. With entering the global economy, post-soviet Moscow is acquiring more traits of western, capitalist cities. These include marketing the centres historic character, subsidising private investment, and a new residential segregation based on capital.     

Reviving old technology?: Rural handicraft production in Southern Africa

The imperative for expanding employment opportunities in manufacturing activities in the developing world has led to increasing attention being devoted to issues of small-scale industrialization. In the present paper one element of small-scale production little studied by geographers is examined, namely, the sphere of rural handicrafts. Against a background of a survey of contemporary debates on the development potential of rural handicrafts, an examination is pursued of the historical evolution and current situation of rural craft producers in Southern Africa. Issues of concern include the organization of rural producers, the nature of the production system and the differentiation among rural handicraft schemes in the region.     

Ecological stability during the LGM and the mid-Holocene in the Alpine Steppes of Tibet?

Arid and Alpine ecosystems are known for extreme environmental changes during the Late Quaternary. We hypothesize that the world's largest Alpine arid ecosystem however, the Alpine Steppes of the Tibetan highlands, remained ecologically stable during the LGM and the mid-Holocene. This hypothesis is tested by distributional range of plant species, plant life forms and rate of endemism. The set of character species has a precipitation gradient between 50 and 350 mm/a, testifying for resilience to precipitation changes. 83% of the species have a wider vertical range than 1000 m used as a proxy for resilience to temperature changes. 30% of the species are endemic with 10 endemic genera, including plate-shaped cushions as a unique plant life form. These findings are in line with palaeo-ecological proxies (δ¹⁸O, pollen) allowing the assumption that Alpine Steppes persisted during the LGM with 3 to 4 K lower summer temperatures.During the mid-Holocene, forests could have replaced Alpine Steppes in the upper catchments of the Huang He, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween and Yarlung Zhangbo, but not in the interior basins of the north-western highlands, because the basins were then flooded, suppressing forests and supporting the environmental stability of this arid Alpine grassland biome.     

Who speaks? And who listens? The relationship between planners and women’s participation in local planning in a multi-cultural urban environment

In recent decades, the dominant planning discourse has undergone a great change from a previous top-down approach towards collaborative and communicative planning. Instead of merely planning for the people in a technocratic and positivist approach, planners are increasingly expected to pay attention to the voices of the citizens. However, within this new participatory approach there is a growing post-colonial and feminist critique pointing out that not all voices are being heard. This critique sheds light on inherent power relations within the collaborative and communicative planning discourse. In particular, the voices of women in marginalised neighbourhoods are often neglected (Sandercock Towards cosmopolis. Planning for multicultural cities. New York: Wiley, 1998; Cornwall World Development, 31(8), 1325–1342, 2003; Peleman Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 94(2), 151–163, 2003; Cameron and Grant-Smith Urban Policy and Research, 23(1), 21–36, 2005). Participatory planning in marginalised housing areas demands both a great sensibility to citizens’ everyday life worlds, and a more reflexive planner role. However, the complexities of the planner’s praxis and uncertainties in the planner’s roles become an obstacle to develop a more inclusive participatory approach. Difficulties of reaching out to the whole community is often recognised, but seldom fully dealt with, neither in theory, nor in practice.

Comparison of organic pollutants in urban deposits of Guangzhou and Hong Kong metropolitan areas

With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization in the Pearl River Delta region, organic as well as inorganic pollution is becoming a major environmental concern. Urban deposits including road dusts, corresponding gully sediments and topsoils proved to be useful tools for assessing the level and distribution of contaminants in metropolitan areas. Most of the previous studies utilizing urban deposits, however, focused on inorganic pollutants, while data on organic pollutants are rare. In this study, therefore, the organic pollutants in urban deposits of Hong Kong and Guangzhou were systematically investigated in terms of their abundance, composition and distribution. The road dusts, gully sediments and vehicular tunnel dusts as well as soils from different urban locations with variable traffic volumes （less than 1000 to more than 75000 AADT） were examined. The results indicated that vehicle-emitted particles were the major source of organic pollutants, while the contributions from background soils were very limited. Surprisingly, the soil in a remote island of Hong Kong with no vehicular traffic has also shown signs of pollution from vehicular particles likely through dry-wet atmospheric deposits. In general, the characteristics of organic pollutants in urban dusts from both cities are comparable although there were also some significant differences. For example, the amount of extractable organic matter in urban deposits of Hong Kong was significantly higher than that of Guangzhou. Differences in their extractable asphaltene contents not only reflected the differences in quality and types and fuels used in these cities, but also sample residence times, and thus different extents of weathering processes.     

Promises and actions: are universities the problem in building partnerships?

Urban planners have to develop a planning doctrine (Faludi and Van der Valk 1990). This concept stands for a body of thoughts concerning (a) spatial arrangements within an area, (b) the development of that area; and (c) the way both should be handled. To be successful, they need a planning community (planners, top officials and sub-national establishments for political support) that nurtures it. The planners of the Amsterdam General Extension Plan (1935) developed a doctrine that covers three levels of functions and activities: (1) Amsterdam is a regional centre, a closed functional system, an orthogenetic city. (2) a monocentric urban form and (3) homogeneous neighbourhood communities around a common neighbourhood centre (church, school, medical services, shops). Since the early 1970s Amsterdam has become (1) an international centre, a heterogenetic city, part of a network city system, (2) has developed into a polycentric urban region, and (3) has been acquiring ethnically mixed quarters, divided communities losing their basic function as common neighbourhood centres and even as control areas or domains (Hägerstrand 1970). So in Amsterdam the planning-doctrine was not particularly successful.     

Determination and vertical distribution of nitrogen species in sediments of Funan Rivers, Chengdu City, China

Although numerous papers have been published on nutrients in Great Lakes, estuaries, continental shelf areas and marines in the aspects of determination, sediment-water-interface exchange, fluxes and budget estimation, eutrophication and microbial processes as well as modeling study, the knowledge of river condition （especially urban river） is uncertain and simply considered as a contributor to eutrophication of estuary. After a series of determinations of nitrogen species corresponding to ammonia-N （AN）, Kjeldahl-N （K-N）, and total nitrogen （TN） by means of National Standards for China, the nitrate ＆ nitrite （Nitr-N） and org-N were obtained by the difference of TN with K-N, and K-N with AN, respectively. Therefore, the behaviors of vertical distributions in overlying waters and porewaters in the Fu and Nan Rivers located in Chengdu City were achieved.     

Land-use planning for natural hazards in New Zealand: the setting,barriers, ‘burning issues’ and priority actions

Land-use planners have a critical role to play in building vibrant, sustainable and hazard resilient communities in New Zealand. The policy and legal setting for natural hazards planning provides a solid foundation for good practice. But there are many examples of ‘bad practice’ that result in unnecessary risks and, in some cases, exposure to repeat events and potentially devastating impacts. Much, therefore, remains to be done to improve hazards planning policy and practice in New Zealand. This article explores the questions: What role does land-use planning play in managing hazard risks in New Zealand; and what needs to be done to reduce hazard risks and build community resilience? The article starts by describing the milieu within which natural hazards planning takes place. It goes onto outline the stakeholders and institutional and legal setting for natural hazards planning in New Zealand, including barriers to realising the potential of natural hazards planning. This synthesis reveals a number of ‘burning issues’, including the need to: (a) Improve understanding about the nature of hazards; (b) Prioritise risk avoidance (reduction) measures; (c) Provide national guidance for communities exposed to repeat events and address the relocation issue and (d) Mainstream climate change adaptation. Each ‘burning issue’ is discussed, and priority actions are recommended to realise the potential of land-use planning to reduce natural hazard risks and build community resilience in New Zealand. Ultimately, the challenge is to develop a cooperative hazards governance approach that is founded on coordinated policies, laws and institutions, cooperative professional practice and collaborative communities.     

Urban land use/land cover changes in the Tema metropolitan area (1990–2010)

Land use and land cover changes are local and place specific, occurring incrementally in ways that often escape our attention. This study sought to detect changes in land cover in the Tema Metropolis of Ghana from 1990 to 2010. Multispectral Landsat Thematic Mapper data sets of 1990, 2000 and 2007 were acquired, pre-processed and enhanced. Unsupervised classification of the images was performed and six land cover classes (water, wetlands, closed vegetation, open vegetation, cropped lands, and built-up) were derived. The post-classification change detection technique was performed to derive the changes in land cover and their corresponding change matrices. Between 1990 and 2010, built-up areas expanded steadily to become the most prevalent land cover type in the metropolis, reducing vegetation cover dramatically. High population growth with its attendant rise in the demand for housing, and increasing commercial activities, were found to have influenced land cover changes over the period.     

Distribution and chemical speciation of heavy metals in the surficial sediments of the Bak?r?ay and Gediz Rivers, Eastern Aegean

The pollution of aquatic ecosystem by heavy metals has assumed serious proportions due to their toxicity and accumulative behaviour. The toxicity and fate of the water borne metal is dependent on its chemical form and therefore quantification of the different forms of metal is more meaningful than the estimation of its total metal concentrations. A five-step sequential extraction procedure was applied for the determination of the distribution of seven elements (Pb, Cr, Cu, Mn, Zn, Ni, Fe) in sediment samples collected from Bakır?ay and Gediz Rivers. According to this study, the results of metals are mostly retained in the residual, oxidizable and reducible fractions. Based on the chemical distribution of metals, we found that Cr, Zn, Cu and Ni are the most non-mobile metals. Pb is the metal that showed the highest percentages in the residual and reducible fractions. Mn is present in the higher percentages in the reducible and carbonate fractions. However, Fe is present in the greatest percentages in the residual fraction, which implies that these metals are strongly linked to the sediments. The risk assessment code as applied to the present study shows that about 12.3–26.9 and 15.7–33.5% of manganese at most of the sites exist in carbonate fraction in the Bakır?ay and Gediz Rivers, respectively. Therefore, Mn comes under the medium risk category in the Bakır?ay and high-risk category in the Gediz River. Speciation pattern of Cu, Zn, Pb, Cr, Ni, Fe shows low to medium risk to aquatic environment health in both rivers.