Governing Metropolitan Lisbon: A tale of fragmented urban governance

This article is concerned with the nature of the present governance framework in the Lisbon metropolitan area and with the conditions responsible for the lack of any consistent intergovernmental and inter-tier co-ordination. It shows how Lisbon, where a form of metropolitan government was introduced only in 1991, is different from other European cities, but at the same time similar with regard to the limits associated with the associative or (polycentric) model adopted. The article concludes by discussing alternative scenarios for the reform of metropolitan government as well as the institutional and policy challenges facing the Lisbon metropolitan area. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Social license to operate: Not a proxy for accountability in water governance

With the emergence of more collaborative, watershed governance arrangements and the engagement of various actors in decision-making processes, new questions emerge about the potential roles for these organizations and agencies in both upholding accountability, and in being held accountable. Therefore, this study explores the intersection between alternative collaborative watershed governance approaches, and the simultaneous emergence of the concept of social license as an accountability instrument in relation to water governance. Based on an empirical analysis of a case study in southeast British Columbia, where water quality contamination is primarily the result of coal mining, this study seeks to: (1) examine how social license is understood by a range of watershed actors; (2) better understand whether social license may be useful as a watershed-based or community accountability instrument as new collaborative modes of watershed governance emerge; and, (3) explore how social license may be enforced or enabled. Findings show how industry efforts to earn social license have created benefits, such as enabling community-based water monitoring, thereby building capacity for deeper community engagement in governance processes and a greater ability for the community to uphold accountability. However, we confirm that social license is not a proxy or silver bullet for enhancing accountability in collaborative watershed governance. Our findings reveal four specific limitations regarding the use of social license as a principle for accountability in collaborative watershed governance.     

Navigating the tensions in collaborative watershed governance: Water governance and Indigenous communities in British Columbia,Canada

First Nations in British Columbia (BC), Canada, have historically been—and largely continue to be—excluded from colonial governments’ decision-making and management frameworks for fresh water. However, in light of recent legal and legislative changes, and also changes in water governance and policy, there is growing emphasis in scholarship and among legal, policy and advocacy communities on shifting water governance away from a centralized single authority towards an approach that is watershed-based, collaborative, and involves First Nations as central to decision-making processes. Drawing on community-based research, interviews with First Nations natural resource staff and community members, and document review, the paper analyzes the tensions in collaborative water governance, by identifying First Nations’ concerns within the current water governance system and exploring how a move towards collaborative watershed governance may serve to either address, or further entrench, these concerns. This paper concludes with recommendations for collaborative water governance frameworks which are specifically focused on British Columbia, but which have relevance to broader debates over Indigenous water governance.     

Contested hydrosocial territories and disputed water governance: Struggles and competing claims over the Ilisu Dam development in southeastern Turkey

Dam development in southeastern Turkey is a highly-disputed issue, fanned by the Turkish–Kurdish conflict, socio-environmental and historical–cultural concerns, and international geopolitical interests. This paper focuses on discussions around the Ilisu Dam and shows how different actor coalitions imagine different hydrosocial territories regarding this mega-hydraulic project currently under construction. Imaginaries, counter-imaginaries and endeavours to materialize them go far beyond technical projects, portraying the dam to (re)configure the territory physically, ecologically, socio-economically, symbolically and discursively. The paper embeds competing hydro-territorial constructs and claims within an analysis of governmentality and the multi-scalar and multi-issue politics of dam opponents.     

Poisoning the well: neoliberalism and the contamination of municipal water in Walkerton, Ontario

In May of 2000, thousands of residents of the town of Walkerton, Ontario became ill from drinking municipal water contaminated by Escherichia coli and Campylobacter jejuni bacteria. Seven people died, while many suffered debilitating injuries. A highly unusual and risk prone local hydrological regime, coupled with manure spreading on farms near municipal wells, and lax oversight by municipal water utility officials, were quickly blamed by Ontario government figures, including then premier Mike Harris. However, the scandal surrounding Walkerton's tragedy and a subsequent public inquiry into the incident also implicated neoliberal reforms of environmental governance introduced by Harris's government subsequent to its election in 1995. This paper examines the Walkerton incident as an important example of a “normal accident” of neoliberalism, one that can be expected from neoliberal environmental regulatory reforms arising from systematic irresponsibility in environmental governance. This irresponsibility is promulgated by an overarching hostility to any regulatory interference with free markets, as well as specific regulatory gaps that produce environmental risks. The paper also serves as a case study of the extent to which neoliberalism is constituted by environmental governance reform, and conversely, how environmental governance reform is reconfigured as part of the emergent neoliberal mode of social regulation.     

Multi-level governance of climate change adaptation through regional partnerships in Canada and England

Adaptation to climate change is widely recognized as a multi-level governance challenge because expected impacts and respective measures cut across governmental levels, sectors and societal domains. The present paper analyses the role of regional adaptation partnerships in Canada and England in the multi-level governance of climate change adaptation. We describe and compare three partnerships per country with regard to their evolution, membership and governing structures, coordination across levels and societal domains, and their adaptation activities and outputs. Although both partnership schemes represent new collaborative approaches, their genesis and governance differ. While the Canadian collaboratives are a government-centred approach that originated and partly operated top-down through a national programme for the period 2009–2012, the English partnerships follow a more pluralistic stakeholder-centred approach that evolved bottom-up already in the early 2000s. Both schemes have in common that they mediate between governmental levels, foster networking between public and private actors, and eventually build adaptive capacities and inform adaptation policies. We conclude that regional adaptation partnerships represent a new governance approach that facilitates climate change adaptation, albeit with limits. Since state actors play(ed) key roles in both partnership schemes, they do not represent a new sphere of authority outside the state. Instead of blurring or destabilizing governmental levels they complement (and perhaps even stabilise) them with multi-level interactions.     

Autonomy in a post-neoliberal era: Community water governance in Cochabamba,Bolivia

Bolivia’s leftward political shift, which is frequently described as “post-neoliberal,” is crucially linked to the ideal of autonomy. While autonomy has a long history among leftist theorists and social movements in Latin America, its contemporary importance is related to an ongoing effort on the part of scholars and activists to identify an alternative organizational form that eschews both state actors and private entities. Drawing on fieldwork conducted with a group of community-run water systems in peri-urban Cochabamba, this paper asks what autonomous water governance looks like in practice. By presenting a case in which the community water systems made a series of structurally limited “autonomous” decisions that ultimately bound them more closely to the local state and private sector, the paper argues that autonomy faces socio-ecological limitations when conceptualized as a project of internal self-governance. Socio-ecological processes take place at multiple scales and over long time spans; a radical politics of autonomy therefore necessitates a spatially extroverted project that focuses on building strategic alliances that strengthen community autonomy in the long-term.     

Common sense principles governing potable water recycling in the southwestern US: Examining subjectivity of water stewards using Q methodology

The potential to supplement potable water supplies with highly treated municipal wastewater, or sewage, is of increasing interest to water planners in many parts of the world. Most of the current social science focuses on public acceptance, however there is a relative lack of research that explores the subjectivity of people who are involved with water recycling or water planning. This study draws on Gramscian theories of governance and Q Methodology to analyze common sense principles that are held by water stewards who currently govern potable water reuse in the southwestern United States. Two competing perspectives emerged from the analyses, which I label neosanitarian and ecosanitarian. Drawing upon tenets established in the Progressive Era, neosanitarians believe that use of recycled water is an appropriate way to expand urban drinking water supplies. Drawing upon tenets established in ecology, ecosanitarians are not opposed to potable water recycling, however they are also interested in radical alternatives to the sanitary status quo. For example, neosanitarians favor advanced wastewater treatment, while ecosanitarians prefer composting toilets and preventative actions. Differences between the common sense views pivot on ideas about the most appropriate technology but also reflect contested visions of ideal society.     

Assessment of wetland fragmentation in the Tarim River basin, western China

The wetlands in the middle and lower reaches of the Tarim River are a rich area of biodiversity and natural resources in the inland arid region of China. However, this wetland area has decreased in size during the past several decades. Water quality and biodiversity has declined due to expanded agricultural activities since 1960s. Using remote sensing (RS), geographic information system (GIS) and global positioning system (GPS) techniques, we investigated the dynamics, spatial patterns and fragmentation of the wetlands in the middle and lower reaches of the Tarim River from 1980 to 2000. We found that the total area of the wetlands was reduced by 45.8% and the density of the patches increased four times from 1980 to 1990. From 1990 to 2000, though the total area of the wetlands slightly increased the number of the patches increased three times and the density of the patches doubled. Based on the analyses of transition matrixes, diversity and fragmentation indexes, and spatial distribution alternation of the wetlands, we found the landscape diversity and fragmentation indices increased while wetland dominance index decreased dramatically. Among the wetland types, the areas of the river-channel, reservoir and pond wetlands increased while the areas of the lake and marsh wetlands decreased continuously.     

Environmental significance of bedrock jointing in Southern Ontario,Canada

The bedrock surface of many glaciated areas is obscured by thick drift deposits. In southern Ontario, Canada, the buried bedrock surface is dissected by channels, infilled with glacial deposits as much as 150 m thick, that are part of a wider mid-continent preglacial fluvial system that predates formation of the modern Great Lake basins. The infills of bedrock channels form major groundwater aquifers, influence regional groundwater flows and contaminant migration to Lake Ontario, and may localize the release of thermogenic methane and radon within heavily urbanized surface environments. A quantitative comparison of the regional pattern of bedrock joints and the orientation pattern of buried bedrock channels and modern river valleys shows that all these orientation patterns are virtually coincident. Buried bedrock channels in south-central Ontario are not part of a simple antecedent drainage system but were likely predesigned by bedrock joint patterns that have subsequently been propagated upward into overlying Pleistocene sediments. Joints in sediments are of considerable environmental significance (for example, subsurface contaminant and gas migration in fine-grained clayey sediments) and of many origins (stress release, desiccation, etc.) but are widely assumed to be a predominantly surface-related phenomena; the existence of deeper joints has been noted by some authors but their origin is obscure. Data presented herein from south-central Ontario confirm that, in addition to surface-related joints, a second population of bedrock-related joints, reflecting the upward propagation of bedrock fractures, is present in Pleistocene sediments of south-central Ontario.     

Assessing meteoric water composition and relative humidity fromO andH in wood cellulose: paleoclimatic implications for southern Ontario, Canada

An empirical model is presented that derives the initial isotopic composition of water used by terrestrial plants and the relative humidity that prevailed during photosynthesis from the isotopic composition of oxygen and carbon-bound hydrogen in the plant cellulose. The model uses fixed values for the fractionation factors that describe the evapotranspirative isotopic enrichment of leaf waters and the biochemical fractionations occurring during cellulose synthesis. When applied to cellulose extracted from fossil plant matter, the model can be used to generate quantitative estimates of the temperature and moisture regimes of the past. The application of the model is demonstrated by consideration of δ¹⁸O and δ²H results on cellulose from fossil wood collected at Brampton, Ontario.The Brampton data yield records of systematic changes in the temperature and moisture regimes of the eastern Great Lakes region over the past 11 500 a. Both mean annual temperature and photosynthetic humidity increased substantially from values much lower than the present at the end of the Wisconsin Stage, to values higher than the present in the mid-Holocene. The phase relation of the paleotemperature and paleohumidity curves engenders differentiation of the climatic history at Brampton into four characteristic zones: (I) a period of ameliorating climate predominantly much colder and drier than now, lasting until about 7400 B.P.; (II) an “early Hypsithermal” period of warm and dry conditions, that transformed after 6000 a B.P. into (III) the “main Hypsithermal” time of warmth and pronounced moistness. Subsequent climatic detrioration led to establishment of (IV) cool, moist conditions like the present sometime within the last few thousand years.     

Water and power networks and urban fragmentation in Los Angeles: Rethinking assumed mechanisms

Los Angeles is often described as the epitome of urban fragmentation, a notion which in this context is frequently connected to, or even conflated with urban sprawl. At the same time, the city features integrated water and power networks which have been under public ownership for over 70 years. We thus have an apparent paradox in the context of the debate on ‘splintering urbanism’, between socio-spatial fragmentation and the integration of networks. In discussing the idea that deregulation of infrastructural networks exacerbates urban fragmentation, the authors use the case of Los Angeles in order to highlight the central role of private interests in management decisions concerning infrastructure networks. The authors carry out their analysis in an historical perspective, revealing that network integration and universal access can often serve private interests more than the public good. Urban fragmentation in Los Angeles, they conclude, is the result of a complex process of instrumentalisation of network development and management.     

加拿大Sudbury陨石冲击角砾岩中锆石显微构造与相变

关于加拿大Sudbury构造的成因,现在的学者大多认同其形成于陨石撞击。为了找到更加强有力的证据,文中对取自Sudbury冲击角砾岩中的锆石进行了研究。Sudbury冲击角砾岩是Sudbury构造的特殊现象,采用扫描电镜、结合拉曼光谱方法从角砾岩的锆石中发现了显微构造和相变的证据。所观察到的显微构造呈一系列面状构造(planar microstructure),在3个方向上平行展布,并相互剪切。Sudbury角砾岩锆石的典型Raman谱线中,除锆石的几个峰外,在640cm-1和817cm-1也可见两个峰,并可分别与铁橄榄石和一种ZrO2相匹配。该ZrO2相的谱线也不同于典型的斜锆石,却与López等合成的一种含有0.5%(质量分数)TiO2的ZrO2相非常相似。这些证据显示,一些锆石的颗粒边缘发生了如下反应:ZrSiO4+2FeOZrO2+Fe2SiO4,并已变成了一种ZrO2相和铁橄榄石(fayalite)。这些显微构造和相变特征都能够说明Sudbury角砾岩受到过高压冲击,并进一步支持Sudbury构造的陨石撞击成因。     

Mercury in lake sediments of the Precambrian Shield near Huntsville, Ontario, Canada

 Long sediment cores (>1 m) were collected from eight Precambrian Shield lakes in southern Ontario, Canada and analyzed for mercury (Hg), loss-on-ignition (LOI), and a suite of 36 other elements. Results indicated at least 100-fold variation in sediment Hg concentrations between lakes in close proximity (from 450 ppb), comparable to the variation reported for lakes across the whole of Canada. Strong areal correlations between Hg concentrations and LOI (r ² =0.77), between Hg and other trace element concentrations (Pb, Zn, Cd, Sb, As, Br), and similarities in the vertical concentration profiles of Hg and LOI, all point to the importance of organic matter in the release, transport and redistribution of metals in watershed systems. The spatial pattern of Hg concentrations in deep, precolonial sediments (>20 cm) was found to mirror the pattern of Hg concentrations in modern surface sediments, an observation that was confirmed in a follow-up survey (r ² =0.85;n=25 lakes), indicating that natural processes govern the unequal distribution of Hg among these lakes. Between-lake differences in surface sediment Hg concentrations normalized to organic carbon (Hg/C) were also reflected by Hg concentrations in smallmouth bass normalized to 35 cm length (R ² =0.63;n=15 lakes). The latter relationship suggests that smallmouth bass and lake sediment indicators provide mutually supportive information regarding Hg loading to the lacustrine environment from geological sources in the watershed system. Received: 31 October 1996 · Accepted: 27 May 1997     

The stability of a remediated bed in Hamilton Harbour,Lake Ontario,Canada

ABSTRACT In situ measurements of lakebed sediment erodibility were made on three sites in Hamilton Harbour, Lake Ontario, using the benthic flume Sea Carousel. Three methods of estimating the surface erosion threshold (τ_c(0)) from a Carousel time series were evaluated: the first method fits measures of bed strength to eroded depth (the failure envelope) and evaluates threshold as the surface intercept; the second method regresses mean erosion rate (E_m) with bed shear stress and solves for the floc erosion rate (E_f) to derive the threshold for E_m = E_f = 1 × 10^?5 kg m^?2 s^?1; the third method extrapolates a regression of suspended sediment concentration (S) and fluid transmitted bed shear stress (τ₀) to ambient concentrations. The first field site was undisturbed (C) and acted as a control; the second (W) was disturbed through ploughing and water injection as part of lakebed treatment, whereas the third site (OIP) was disturbed and injected with an oxidant used for remediation of contaminated sediment. The main objectives of this study were: (1) to evaluate the three different methods of deriving erosion threshold; (2) to compare the physical behaviour of lacustrine sediments with their marine estuarine counterparts; and (3) to examine the effects of ploughing and chemical treatment of contaminated sediment on bed stability. Five deployments of Sea Carousel were carried out at the control site. Mean erosion thresholds for the three methods were: τ_c(0) = 0·5 (±0·06), 0·27 (±0·01) and 0·34 (±0·03) Pa respectively. Method 1 overpredicted bed strength as it was insensitive to effects in the surface 1–2 mm, and the fit of the failure envelope was also highly subjective. Method 2 exhibited a wide scatter in the data (low correlation coefficients), and definition of the baseline erosion rate (E_f) is largely arbitrary in the literature. Method 3 yielded stable (high correlation coefficients), reproducible and objective results and is thus recommended for evaluation of the erosion threshold. The results of this method correlated well with sediment bulk density and followed the same trend as marine counterparts from widely varying sites. Mass settling rates, expressed as a decay constant, k, of S(t), were strongly related to the maximum turbidity at the onset of settling (S_max) and were also in continuity with marine counterparts. Thus, it appears that differences in salinity had little effect on mass settling rates in the examples presented, and that biological activity dominated any effects normally attributable to changes in salinity. Bedload transport of eroded aggregates (2–4 mm in diameter) took place by rolling below a mean tangential flow velocity (U_y) of 0·32 ms^?1 and by saltation at higher velocities. Mass transport as bedload was a maximum at U_y = 0·4 ms^?1, although bedload never exceeded 1% of the suspended load. The proportion of material moving as bedload was greatest at the onset of erosion but decreased as flow competence increased. Given the low bulk density and strength of the lakebed sediment, the presence of a bedload component is notable. Bedload transport over eroding cohesive substrates should be greater in estuaries, where both sediment density and strength are usually higher. Significant differences between the ploughed and control sites were apparent in both the erosion rate and the friction coefficient (φ), and suggest that bed recovery after disruption is rapid (< 24 h). τ_c(0) increased linearly with time after ploughing and recovered to the control mean value within 3 days. The friction coefficient was reduced to zero by ploughing (diagnostic of fluidization), but increased linearly with time, regaining control values within 6 days. No long‐term reduction in bed strength due to remediation was apparent.     

Geology of the Victor Kimberlite, Attawapiskat, Northern Ontario, Canada: cross-cutting and nested craters

The pipe shapes, infill and emplacement processes of the Attawapiskat kimberlites, including Victor, contrast with most of the southern African kimberlite pipes. The Attawapiskat kimberlite pipes are formed by an overall two-stage process of (1) pipe excavation without the development of a diatreme (sensu stricto) and (2) subsequent pipe infilling. The Victor kimberlite comprises two adjacent but separate pipes, Victor South and Victor North. The pipes are infilled with two contrasting textural types of kimberlite: pyroclastic and hypabyssal-like kimberlite. Victor South and much of Victor North are composed of pyroclastic spinel carbonate kimberlites, the main features of which are similar: clast-supported, discrete macrocrystal and phenocrystal olivine grains, pyroclastic juvenile lapilli, mantle-derived xenocrysts and minor country rock xenoliths are set in serpentine and carbonate matrices. These partly bedded, juvenile lapilli-bearing olivine tuffs appear to have been formed by subaerial fire-fountaining airfall processes.

The Victor South pipe has a simple bowl-like shape that flares from just below the basal sandstone of the sediments that overlie the basement. The sandstone is a known aquifer, suggesting that the crater excavation process was possibly phreatomagmatic. In contrast, the pipe shape and internal geology of Victor North are more complex. The northwestern part of the pipe is dominated by dark competent rocks, which resemble fresh hypabyssal kimberlite, but have unusual textures and are closely associated with pyroclastic juvenile lapilli tuffs and country rock breccias±volcaniclastic kimberlite. Current evidence suggests that the hypabyssal-like kimberlite is, in fact, not intrusive and that the northwestern part of Victor North represents an early-formed crater infilled with contrasting extrusive kimberlites and associated breccias. The remaining, main part of Victor North consists of two macroscopically similar, but petrographically distinct, pyroclastic kimberlites that have contrasting macrodiamond sample grades. The juvenile lapilli of each pyroclastic kimberlite can be distinguished only microscopically. The nature and relative modal proportion of primary olivine phenocrysts in the juvenile lapilli are different, indicating that they derive from different magma pulses, or phases of kimberlite, and thus represent separate eruptions. The initial excavation of a crater cross-cutting the earlier northwestern crater was followed by emplacement of phase (i), a low-grade olivine phenocryst-rich pyroclastic kimberlite, and the subsequent eruption of phase (ii), a high-grade olivine phenocryst-poor pyroclastic kimberlite, as two separate vents nested within the original phase (i) crater. The second eruption was accompanied by the formation of an intermediate mixed zone with moderate grade. Thus, the final pyroclastic pipe infill of the main part of the Victor North pipe appears to consist of at least three geological/macrodiamond grade zones.

In conclusion, the Victor kimberlite was formed by several eruptive events resulting in adjacent and cross-cutting craters that were infilled with either pyroclastic kimberlite or hypabyssal-like kimberlite, which is now interpreted to be of probable extrusive origin. Within the pyroclastic kimberlites of Victor North, there are two nested vents, a feature seldom documented in kimberlites elsewhere. This study highlights the meaningful role of kimberlite petrography in the evaluation of diamond deposits and provides further insight into kimberlite emplacement and volcanism.     

Rural community well-being: models and application to changes in the tobacco-belt in Ontario, Canada

In this paper we develop a model of changes in rural community well-being. The model conceptualizes four interrelated dimensions of rural community well-being: physical, psychological, social, and economic. The model recognizes that a range of external forces (political, economic, etc.) exert pressures on rural communities, of which changes in well-being are one outcome. The paper then applies the model to changes which occurred in the tobacco growing region of southern Ontario, Canada. It is argued that this region was impacted by a variety of forces, some general to farming, others specific to tobacco farming, particularly between 1979 and the early 1990s. The empirical application is based on a personally administered farm survey (n=63) conducted between July 1996 and January 1997 and agricultural census data for the years 1981, 1986, 1991, and 1996. The paper concludes by suggesting that the model provides a useful framework for analysing the forces and changing conditions of other rural communities, not only in Canada, but beyond.     

Spaces of alienation in the tobacco fields: the case of migrant workers in Ontario,Canada

GeoJournal - In his book, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, Harvey (2014: 220 italics in original) identified the alienation of workers among the most “dangerous, if not...     

Poisons, pragmatic governance and deliberative democracy: The arsenic crisis in Bangladesh

The paper applies some of the principles of pragmatism to the environmental health crisis of arsenic pollution in the groundwater of Bangladesh. This hazard affects between 28 and 57 million people and it has been called “the largest mass poisoning of a population in history”. Such hyperbole aside, the authors consider the dysfunctional nature of central and local government in Bangladesh, which at all levels can be said to have failed water consumers. This leads to a discussion of the nature of governance generally, particularly with regard to two principles derived from the pragmatism of John Dewey: first, an orientation to political action through local, community-based experimentation; and, second, a conviction that participatory democracy draws its strength from the beliefs and attitudes distributed in social networks. The paper then assesses a number of interventions, for instance the World Bank’s large-scale Bangladesh Arsenic Mitigation Water Supply Project which has faced administrative problems since its inception in 1997 and was very slow to find its feet. NGOs with a stake in arsenic mitigation are also highlighted, particularly for their role in the so-called franchise state. It is argued that a number of conditions of inertia and resistance explain the sluggish response to the arsenic hazard. Indeterminacy about the science and technology of arsenic is one factor, and another is the distribution of power at the local level. The paper argues that future policies and projects would do well to consider deliberative democracy in guises appropriate to rural Bangladesh. This must include better information availability and opportunities for participation at the village level, for instance in civic science. The overall conclusion is that pragmatic principles are helpful in promoting community-focused mitigation measures but that accountability is essential if policies are to avoid problems of local power, patronage and clientelism.