The 30th International Geographical Congress 16-20 August, Glasgow, UK

The 30th International Geographical Congress (IGC) was held on August 16-20 in Glasgow, the United Kingdom. Approximately 2000 geographers from more than 80 countries and regions participated in the IGC. The Geographical Society of China (GSC) attended the conference with a 60-odd-number delegation from Chinese mainland. Nearly 20 geographers from Taiwan and Kong Kong, as well as overseas Chinese attendees took part in the IGC.Professor Ken Gregory, chair of the IGC 2004 from the …     

The Freight Balance,Exemplified By The Ports In Trøndelag,Norway

In Norway, as in most other countries, official shipping statistics are scarce and give little information beyond the number and tonnage of vessels arrived from and departed to foreign countries (1). These statistics give no figures for the amount of cargo carried, and no information as to the type of vessels, only their nationality.

To get the "freight balance" for Norway, i. e. the balance between seaborne cargo (by weight) to and from foreign countries, we may use the trade statistic figures and corrigate for the railway-traffic. The West-European countries, importing bulky raw materials and exporting manufactures, have usually uneven freight balances, with an excess of inward bound cargo. The freight balance for Norway is also uneven, but here the outgoing cargo exceeds the ingoing, due to the transit of Swedish iron ore through the port of Narvik. In 1951 the outgoing cargo amounted to about 14 million tons (including 8 mill, tons Swedish ore), and the ingoing cargo to 7% mill. tons.     

Comments On Mather,Field, Kalkstein,And Willmott'S “Climatology: The Challenge For The Eighties”

Abstract

Measuring land-cover change is an essential part of sustainable conservation planning. This project uses Landsat MSS and ETM+ data to document forest cover change in the Toledo District, Belize, from 1975 to 1999 and provides an initial assessment of why these changes took place. Supervised and subpixel classification methods were employed. The results showed an aggregate forest loss of almost 10 percent, which is approximately 36,000 ha. Deforestation expanded significantly in the most populous Mayan areas of central Toledo District and along the Guatemalan border. Subpixel classification results showed that in 1999 the most densely forested areas were in northern Toledo District in the Maya Mountains.

     

A Bibliography Of The Geographical Llterature On The American Indian, 1920–1971

The legal city and the urbanized area fail to depict accurately the physical area of urban development and therefore prevent an accurate calculation of population densities. When underbounding occurs, densities tend to be unrealistically high and with overbounding they are low. Delimitations made by air photo interpretation demonstrate that the physical city, measured on a 21/2 acre scale of generalization, provides a more accurate basis for calculating population densities of urban areas than either the legal city or urbanized area because the bounding problems are eliminated.     

Fear,crime, and space: The case of Viçosa,Brazil

Crime is both a factual and perceptual component of the urban landscape, seemingly both a societal pathology and the consequence of economic disparity between social groups. Crime has a spatial structure that can be revealed by mapping. Urban crime has a spatial multiplier effect that changes the values and perceptions of how people see urban space, and which jeopardizes the quality of life of a city's inhabitants. In this research we examine the question of whether the geography of actual criminal acts is echoed by peoples' perceptions of crime, what might be termed their “spaces of fear”. We ask how the fear of crime is associated with reported urban crime. Urban crime incidents have been increasing in Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil. We assembled crime information about Viçosa from two sources: first, crime as reported to the police and second, crime as perceived by city residents and measured by surveys and interviews. Reported criminal acts reveal a clustered geography, focusing particularly on the Downtown area, where there is a concentration of urban wealth and potential victims are more numerous. Offenses against property were focused on Downtown, while offenses against the person were located mostly in peripheral areas. The widespread feeling of insecurity in the city's neighborhoods, reflecting the fear of becoming a victim of violence and crime, was common throughout the city. Results confirmed the conclusion of past studies showing that the fear of violence and crime are not directly related to increasing numbers of criminal reports. Sites with higher incidence of crimes are not places with higher levels of fear. Rather than being geographically explainable “spaces of fear”, the spatial distribution of the fear of violence and crime appears to be unrelated in Viçosa, and neither is clustered or dispersed in any measurable way.     

Urban Pulse—The Struggle for Water,Life, and Dignity In South African Cities: The Case of Johannesburg

The struggle for water is a key feature of life in Johannesburg, as it is in all South African cities. This article describes a court action that was brought against the City of Johannesburg by the people of one neighborhood, Phiri, in an effort to secure an adequate supply of water. It is shown how the people of Phiri argued for the removal of discriminatory technology in the form of prepayment meters and for an increase in the quantity of water. Furthermore, it will show how race, class, and geography are articulated in the post-apartheid city.     

The paleocurrents and morphology of Pikhåggrottene,Svartisen, North Norway

The Pikhågan caves at Svartisen, North Norway, are described and then analysed using passage morphology and scallop morphometry. The caves consist of a multilevel network of essentially horizontal phreatic tubes with a total length of 2,000 + m. Vadose elements account for only about 4% of the total passage lengths, while paragenetic roof alterations arc more common (?10%). Palcocurrcnt direction and flow rates as deduced from scallops suggest a uniform network flow southwards through the system, which also fits well with hydraulic laws for tube networks. This model requires a hydraulic conductivity between entrances formed by glacial truncation. Evidence of a subsequent sediment fill and paragenetic incision of roof half-tubes is demonstrated. These phases were followed by a lowering of the local watertable from above 610 m to about 575 m, when a phase of high discharge occurred. If this shift of watertable was caused by bedrock erosion, it probably took place more than 220 ka ago. Subsequently the watertable was lowered further to its present level (<560 m). Two alternative origins are suggested: first, a possible pre-glacial genesis of the phreatic network in a paleic valley system, second, a possible sub-glacial genesis. The paragenetic phase is regarded as the most likely to have occurred subglacially, while the coarse sediment infilling and the high discharge regime arc associated with deglaciations. The previously proposed proglacial genesis of this phreatic cave system is rejected because of the present topography and because of the slow paleocurrent regime inferred from scallop measurements.     

The first permafrost cycle in Færdesmyra,eastern Finnmark,Norway?

The author studied the causal relationships between palsa formation, the maintenance of palsas, their final thawing, and climate. His main approach was to compare his observations with other researchers’ observations of recent palsa formation and degradation, and the use of relevant palaeoclimatic data. A more than 10 km² large palsa mire complex in Sør-Varanger Municipality, northern Norway, was studied in terms of vegetation and stratigraphy 50 years ago, and then observed between 2005 and 2015, when the final palsa thawing occurred. The decisive climatic factor for the maintenance of existing palsas – annual mean temperatures below -1 °C, stated earlier by researchers – seemed to be valid also in the studied case. However, the results showed that new palsa formation may require a series of consecutive years with temperatures between -1 and -2 °C in annual mean temperatures. There is a possibility of detecting former palsas (i.e. since thawed) by stratigraphic investigations in cases of lateral erosion of palsas. Stratigraphic corings and field observations in the selected study area did not indicate earlier periods of palsa thawing prior to the modern one. The author concludes that the present thawing thus reflects a reversal of the final cooling stage of the present interstadial (Holocene).     

The Growth of Ranchettes in La Plata County,Colorado, 1988–2008

Ranchettes are low-density, rural parcels typically from thirty-five to seventy acres that have proliferated across the Rocky Mountain West. They consume large amounts of land and increase fragmentation, leading to potentially negative impacts on the ecology and cultural identity of local places. Although many anecdotal accounts decry the rise in ranchettes, few studies measure their prevalence or spatial patterns. We use archival and contemporary land ownership data to measure ranchette development in La Plata County, Colorado, an amenity-rich county popular for recreation, retirement, and ranchettes. Results show continual yet slowing growth across the decades with patterns of growth spreading in a contagious effect around initial nodes of development.     

The Elk Creek Carbonatite,Southeast Nebraska–An Overview

A framework geophysical program in southeastern Nebraska during 1970 identified a near-circular feature having gravity relief of about 8 mgal and a magnetic anomaly of about 800 gammas. Analysis of the geophysical data provided a model of a cylindrical mass of indefinite length with a radius of 5500 ft (1676 m) and beveled at the basement surface at about 600 ft (183 m). At the approximate depth at which Precambrian rocks were expected, the initial test hole (2-B-71) encountered an iron-rich weathered zone overlying carbonate-rich rock. The carbonate rocks consist essentially of dolomite, calcite, and ankerite and lesser amounts of hematite, chlorite, phlogopite, barite, serpentine, pyrochlore, and quartz and contain barium, strontium, and rare earths. Total REE, P2O5, and 87Sr/86Sr ratios confirm the carbonatite identification. Texturally, the rocks range from fragmental to contorted to massive. Associated with the carbonatite are lesser amounts of basalt, lamprophyre, and syenite. Additional exploratory drilling has provided about 80,000 ft (24,384 m) of rock record and has penetrated about 3400 ft (1038 m) of carbonatite. The carbonatite is overlain by marine sediments of Pennsylvanian (Missourian) age. The surrounding Precambrian basement rocks are low-to medium-grade metamorphic gneiss and schist of island arc origin and granitic plutons. The Elk Creek carbonatite is located near the boundary between the Penokean orogen created at about 1.84 Ga (billion years) and the Dawes terrane (1.78 Ga) of the Central Plains orogen. This boundary strongly influenced the geometry of both the Midcontinent Rift System (1.1 Ga) and the Nemaha uplift (0.3 Ga). It is assumed that the emplacement of the Elk Creek carbonatite (0.5 Ga) was influenced similarly by the pre-existing tectonic sutures.     

The development of the aquatic ecosystem at Kråkenes Lake, western Norway, during the late glacial and early Holocene - a synthesis

This paper synthesises the palaeoecological reconstructions, including palaeoclimatic inferences, based on the available fossil record of plants (pollen, macrofossils, mosses, diatoms) and animals (chironomids, Cladocera, Coleoptera, Trichoptera, oribatid mites) in the late-glacial and early-Holocene sediments of Kråkenes Lake, western Norway, with special emphasis on changes in the aquatic ecosystem. New percentage and influx pollen diagrams for selected taxa provide insights into the terrestrial setting. The information from all the proxies is collated in a stratigraphical chart, and the inferred changes in the lake and its catchment are discussed. The individual fossil sequences are summarised by detrended correspondence analysis (DCA), and sample scores on the first DCA axes are plotted against an estimated calendar-year timescale for comparison of the timing and magnitude of changes in assemblage composition. The DCA plots show that the large late-glacial biotic changes were synchronous, and were driven by the overriding forcing factor of temperature. During the early Holocene, however, the changes in different groups were more gradual and were independent of each other, showing that other factors were important and interactive, such as the inwash of dissolved and particulate material from the catchment, the base and nutrient status of the lake-water, and the internal processes of ecosystem succession and sediment accumulation. This multi-disciplinary study, with proxies for changes in the lake and in the catchment, highlights the dependence of lake biota and processes not only on regional climatic changes but also on changes in the lake catchment and on internal processes within the lake. Rates of change for each group are also estimated and compared. The reaction times to the sharp temperature changes at the start and end of the Younger Dryas were very rapid and occurred within a decade of the temperature change. Aquatic organisms tracked the temperature and environmental changes very closely, and are probably the best recorders of late-glacial climatic change in the fossil record.     

The typology of the American metropolis: monocentricity,polycentricity, or generalized dispersion?

Although the spatial structure of employment in large US metropolitan regions is a well-researched topic, few studies focus on medium-sized and small US metropolitan regions. Consequently, there is no overall typology relating small-to-medium urban form to employment distribution. We address this gap by investigating the spatial structure of employment in 356 metropolitan regions. We conceptualize six typologies based on three categories that have overlapping properties: “monocentricity,” “polycentricity,” and “generalized dispersion.” The study has three main findings. First, the three types of urban form that we identify as “hybrid” outnumber the three “pure” types by almost four to one. Second, job dispersion is a dominant characteristic in almost 70% of all metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) (including the hybrid types), and polycentricity (56.7% of MSAs) is somewhat more common than monocentricity. Third, there is a strong relationship between population size and density. The population of medium-sized metropolitan areas is generally more dispersed than that of small and large metropolitan areas. Polycentricy emerges mostly in large metropolitan regions, while monocentrity is found in both small and large metropolitan regions.     

The Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS

Director: Professor Liu JiyuanDeputy Directors: Cheng Shengkui, Ouyang Hua, Li Xiubin, Sun JunjieAddress: 11A, Datun Road, Beijing 100101, ChinaE-mail: office@igsnrr.ac.cn Website: www.igsnrr.ac.cnThe Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), was merged from the Institute of Geography (established in 1940) and the Commission for Integrated Survey of Natural Resources (established in 1956) on June 16, 2000.The insti…     

Localized Effects of Globalization: The Case of Ciudad Juárez,Chihuahua, Mexico

This paper explores how the rise of global industrialization has altered the internal complexion of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, the largest and fastest growing of Mexico's northern border cities. First, we trace the political-economic history of Ciudad Juárez and other northern Mexican border cities in order to understand the context of rapid industrialization. Second, we document the dimensions of industrialization by tracing historic trends in population growth, industrial employment, and land-use change. Third, a deprivation index is developed to evaluate the effects of industrialization on quality-of-life at the neighborhood scale in Ciudad Juárez. Deprivation indices are calculated for 266 AGEBs (Mexican geostatistical districts) for the years 1990 and 1995, and changes in levels of deprivation are monitored over time. The analyses show that Ciudad Juárez has experienced unprecedented growth that altered the form, function, and social complexion of the city.