In Oversea Journals …: the Regimes of New Zealand Rivers

LE RÉGIME DES RIVIERES EN NOUVELLE ZÉLANDE: Maurice Pardé, Revue de Géographic Alpine     

IN OUR CONTEMPORARIES: 1. In New Zealand Journals …: Agriculture in the North ISLAND

STUDIES IN FARM MANAGEMENT: WAIRARAPA INLAND HILL
COUNTRY: F. G. Spite, N.Z. Journal of Agriculture
STUDIES IN FARM MANAGEMENT: AN EGMONT COUNTY FARM: G. R. Moss and A. C. Burgess, ibid.
STUDIES IN FARM MANAGEMENT: HAWKES BAY HILL COUNTRY SHEEP FARM: F. H. Collin, ibid.
STUDIES IN FARM MANAGEMENT: A PIAKO DAIRY FARM: S. D. Clay, ibid.
STUDIES IN FARM MANAGEMENT: DEVELOPMENT OF A WAITOMO PROPERTY: W. L. Osborn, ibid.
STUDIES IN FARM MANAGEMENT: MANAWATU SAND COUNTRY FAT-LAMB FARM: J. A. Graham, ibid.     

IN OUR CONTEMPORARIES: 1. In New Zealand Journals…: About the Pacific

THE COOK ISLANDS: R. G. Crocombe, Post-Primary School Bulletin
VILLAGE LIFE IN FIJI: R. R. Nayacakalou, ibid.     

An analysis of phytolith assemblages for the quantitativereconstruction of late Quaternary environments of the Lower Taieri Plain,Otago, South Island, New Zealand I. Modern assemblages and transferfunctions

An analysis of modern phytolith assemblages is presented.Phytolith assemblages were studied in modern surface soils and sediments of 28sites from east Otago, New Zealand, within a range of vegetation types andmicroclimates. No simple distinction could be made between vegetation types onthe basis of phytolith assemblage composition. A Principal Components Analysis(PCA) of the phytolith data set revealed that festucoid, chloridoid andspherical phytolith morphotypes formed strong associations with sites fromwetland, grassland, and forest vegetation types, respectively. Moreimportantly, a comparison of sample replicates from each field site using Squared ChordDistance (SCD) assemblage analysis showed that wetland and grassland sitestended to produce more internally consistent phytolith assemblages than forestsites. Environmental variables including pH, conductivity, altitude,precipitation and temperature were also gathered for each site. The ability ofeach environmental variable to reflect variance in the entire phytolithdata set was estimated by a series of Redundancy Analyses (RDA) with MonteCarlo permutation tests of statistical significance. After a forward selectionprocess, transfer functions were generated using Partial Least Squares (PLS)regression and calibration with jack-knife validation. The final transferfunctions have root mean squared errors of prediction for pH (0.47), logconductivity (0.38 S cm), average annual precipitation (63mm), and average annual (0.28 °C), spring (0.38 °C) andautumn temperature (0.41 °C); the smallest group of environmental variablesexplaining the most variance in the modern phytolith data set. The most usefultransfer functions for application to fossil phytolith data andpaleoenvironmental interpretation are pH, log conductivity and annualprecipitation. The relationship between changes in pH and annual precipitationand phytolith assemblage composition found in this study presents aprima facie relationship with the potential to providedirect proxies for soil weathering and indirectly for paleoenvironmentalreconstruction.     

IN OUR CONTEMPORARIES: 2. In Overseas Journals

T he M ost I mproved S ubject I n T he S chool C urriculum GEOGRAPHY: Sir Cyril Norwood, Geography , Vol. 31, Pt. 1, March 1946.     

In Pursuit of Moving Targets: New Zealand Population Geography in the South Pacific

New Zealand population geographers in the South Pacific islands early focused on resource issues, especially in Fiji and the smaller island states politically linked to New Zealand. This later extended into analysis of the structure of village level economic and social development, notably in Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Fiji. These analyses contributed to a clearer understanding of the substance of development at a key turning point in the region's history - the transition to independence. Migration, or mobility, and urbanisation attracted enormous interest throughout the region, with lengthy debates ranging over migration models, urban permanence, the ideology of return and metaphors of mobility, establishing the most distinctive thrust of New Zealand research in the region. Practical research, involving censuses and consultancies, has directly contributed to development. Despite the valuable historical legacy the extent and significance of New Zealand work on the population geography of the Island Pacific has now dwindled.