Uncertainty Evaluation of the Surface Water’sHeavy Metal Health Risk in Baiyun Mountain

The water environmental health risk assessment relates environmental pollution with human health, taking its risk degree as evaluation index, quantitatively describing the risk that pollution does great harm to human body. To understand the surface water’s heavy metal health risk in Guangzhou Baiyun Mountain, this study measured the nine sampling points in Baiyun Mountain’s south mountain and north mountain, including these physical and chemical indicators, such as water temperature, pH value, Cd, As, Cr, Hg, Pb, Mn, Cu,Zn and Ni, constructing the uncertainty evaluation model of the surface water’s heavy metal health risk in Baiyun Mountain(heavy metal including radioactive substances, chemical carcinogens and body toxic substances, etc.), having a fuzzy classification of the health risk assessment standard of the surface water’s heavy metal, further determining the membership degree and the belonging of the risk grade. By comparing the evaluation results of the uncertainty model and the deterministic model, the study found that: the surface water’s heavy metal health risk level was higher in Guangzhou Baiyun Mountain in 2012, being of the high grade and above, even achieving the highest grade; the surface water’s heavy metal health risk level of the north mountain was higher than the south mountain; the uncertainty evaluation model of the surface water’s heavy metal health risk was more reasonable and comprehensive to reflect the real situation of the surface water’s heavy metal quality concentration than the deterministic model. Besides, in the relevant references these questions on the total score of the health risk of the uncertainty evaluation model, the membership degree formula of the risk grade, etc. need further discussion.     

Nuances of neighbourhood: Children’s perceptions of the space between home and school in Auckland, New Zealand

This paper examines primary school children’s experiences of travelling between home and school within three neighbourhoods. Our investigation is set in Auckland, New Zealand, where parental practices such as chauffeuring are commonplace, yet are increasingly recognised as limiting children’s physical fitness and environmental awareness. Drawing on children’s voices, writing and photographs, we investigate how children currently travel to school, how they would like to travel, and how their perspectives on neighbourhood space vary by age, socio-economic status and school location. Findings reveal that over half of the participants did not like the way they travelled to school. Most desire to travel independently within public space, but are limited in their ability to do so, given the fears and obstacles that prevail within their neighbourhoods. We contend that restricted use of public space diminishes children’s agency in inner suburbs. Our analysis reveals that children favour ‘active travel’ for many of the same reasons as health professionals and transport planners. We conclude that as long as children are seen as innocents in need of protection, they will have limited agency in travel decisions and highly contingent access to public space.     

The ideology behind the technology - Chilean microentrepreneurs and public ICT policies

Digital divides are differences in access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) which tend to reflect the social and regional inequalities between and within countries. This paper presents a case study from Chile, which is among the leaders in Latin America both in levels of e-readiness and in social and regional inequality. The Chilean state’s ICT policies are situated within the “Third Way” approach of the centre-left government, reflecting the tensions between a pro-active and positive view of neoliberal globalisation, and state social programmes to support poorer sectors of society.The paper presents a multi-level analysis of two elements of Chilean ICT policy: Chilecompra, an online public e-procurement system aimed at creating transparent and competitive transactions in line with neoliberal economic theory, and Red Comunitaria, a network of Community Information Centres which offer free internet access and training to individuals, including microentrepreneurs. Interviews were conducted at the national, regional and local level. Findings were that the Community Information Centres (telecentros) had indeed furthered digital inclusion while in the meantime the shift to e-procurement had excluded many microentrepreneurs who had not registered with the system of Chilecompra. The larger of the local enterprises had registered but were having difficulties competing online with bigger companies located in the regional and national capitals.The paper argues that while both state policies see themselves as successes, the political objectives underlying the technology mirror the Chilean government’s struggle to simultaneously embrace neoliberal globalisation while working towards greater social and regional cohesion. At the local level there is evidence of the failure to reconcile the two approaches which may be indicative of a more general tension between these goals.     

‘Body training’: Investigating the embodied training choices of/for mothers in West London

Framed by the UK Government’s efforts to combat social exclusion by encouraging a shift from welfare to work through (re)training, this paper explores the types of training courses being offered to and taken by women with young children in West London. Drawing upon qualitative research, the paper explores the actual and desired uptake of ‘body training’ courses among mothers, linked, in part, to the current ‘body work’ skills gap in the local economy. The encouragement given to women and the interest they have in engaging in ‘body training’ is, we suggest, linked to the discursive construction and performance of a highly feminised and, often, maternal identity, which emphasises women’s caring role and the caring self. By probing the body/training nexus through the motivations and choices of mothers in West London the paper raises questions about gender identity and stereotyping in relation to training-for-work policies and the role of training in (re)inforcing the woman-body coupling within Western dualistic thought.     

Permeable homes: A historical political ecology of insects and pesticides in US public housing

This paper traces changes in the political ecology of insects and chemicals in US public housing since Congress founded public housing in 1937. Drawing upon the literature of critical geographies of home, urban political ecology, and medical history, it argues that the constitution of “public” and “private” space within public housing was deeply entangled with pest control practices there. Prior to 1945, reformers treated the housing as a commons, in part compelled by the mobility of bedbugs and the pesticide used to combat them, both of which were seen as serious health threats. Managers were also motivated by social welfare ideologies, while residents eagerly assisted with communal control policies in order to achieve freedom from the health insults of bedbugs. Following 1945, however, new synthetic pesticides like DDT seemed to stay safely within one apartment unit, encouraging housing managers to abandon community-oriented pest control practices. Meanwhile, curtailed budgets, particularly after the Housing Act of 1949, left the infrastructure of public housing to decay, rendering units more physically permeable even as managers neglected the communities there. The new pesticides nearly eradicated bedbugs, but tenacious populations of German cockroaches blossomed thanks to the permeable buildings and synthetic pesticides. Residents grew increasingly resistant to pesticide use as they observed that cockroach populations went unabated. The paper serves as a case for applying political ecology frameworks to domestic spaces, and also argues that housing quality and domestic pesticide use are not merely private responsibilities but should be regarded as environmental justice issues.     

A geography of men’s fear

Men are at significantly greater risk than women to violent crime victimization in the US, especially in the public sphere. Despite this, their fears and vulnerabilities have received considerably less attention in recent social discourse than have women. Men’s risk in, and fear of, public space is overshadowed by their apparent fearlessness in public space. This paper begins to address this apparent paradox using the conceptual lenses of masculinity and control. I explore fear and fearlessness among men as objects and subjects of masculinity. Stated fearlessness among men is counterbalanced by a chronic fear of violent crime victimization. Conditioned fearlessness combines with actual risk and chronic fear to shape men’s experiences in the public sphere. I study the dynamics of men’s fear using data gathered from a group of young men and women in Philadelphia. Gendered differences in fear and how environments are perceived and judged as to their relative safety are demonstrated and explored. Compared to women’s fears and perceived geographical vulnerabilities, the men of this study demonstrate a persistent and chronic wariness of their environmental context that precedes any judgment of perceived safety. Violence and fear among both men and women in this study is further explained as a function of racism and economic marginalization.     

Placing sexuality in health policies: feminist geographies and public health nursing

Despite the increasing public profile of same-sex issues, health policies are often shaped by heteronormative assumptions. The health concerns of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual/transgender, two-spirit, intersex, queer and questioning (LGBTTTIQQ) people are complex and require broadening from an often exclusively sexual health and risk focus to a more holistic approach. In this context, this paper illustrates how a critical feminist geography of health, with its focus on the mutual construction of gender relations, space and place, potentially enhances and extends current understandings of public health policy and practice. Moreover, the use of a policy lens foregrounding gender and other power relations suggests that feminist research and coalitions facilitate participatory processes that address “the politics of discourse.” In particular, public health nursing practice can enhance the construction of spaces of resistance that challenge heteronormative discourse through research strategies focused on sexual minority communities’ health experiences and their visions for supportive care. In this respect, two strategies consistent with public health priorities to increase knowledge and participate in alliances are described. Ethnographic research with childbearing lesbians demonstrates that attention to institutional dynamics that foster safe spaces can facilitate access to public health services. Public health nurses’ involvement in community coalitions can enhance dissemination of community knowledges. The implications for gender inclusive and place-sensitive public health nursing practice include the development of sensitive educators, meaningful educational curriculum and related program planning, explicit policies, community partnerships and political leadership in institutional and research venues.     

Keeping the stress off the sheep? Agricultural intensification, neoliberalism, and ‘good’ farming in New Zealand

Under neoliberal schemes like audit systems, consumer demands born of concerns about food safety, the environment and animal welfare are theoretically poised to influence agricultural production systems (Campbell and Le Heron, 2007). Whether such influences might reverse or redirect the trend toward environmentally-damaging rampant productivism of the 20th century hinges in part on the subjective positions of farmers and the ways in which they inform how farmers respond to policy and market signals.In this paper we argue the need for a genuine engagement with both the complexities of farmer subjectivity and the interactions amongst farmer subjectivity and agro-ecologies, and animal bodies in particular. This paper presents a case study of sheep farmers on the South Island that reveals contestation and transitions in traditional markers of “good farming”, particularly animal health. We observe how such transitions arise from reconfigurations of the relationships between agro-ecological, political and social histories. In this paper’s formulation, neither state subsidies nor neoliberalism in agriculture is primary cause or ultimate effect of the transformation of agricultural practice. Rather, changes in the political economy expose contradictions in farmer subjectivities, the resolution of which may block or reinforce trends suggested by the political economy. We suggest that contested ideas about animal health within the social field of pastoral farming in New Zealand makes it possible that New Zealand’s sheep growers may take the high road of best environmental practice via highly audited environmental standards of production demanded by elite consumer markets, or that they may remain in the intensifying trajectory of continuing to drive the sheep’s body to its maximum possible intensity of production. The mixed legacy of neoliberal reform is that it has simultaneously enabled both of these contradictory trajectories in New Zealand pastoralism.     

Putting principles of linguistic rights into practice: Geographical perspectives on a contemporary European problem

The political salience of demands from minority and regional groups for greater language rights increases across Europe. To draw more geographical attention to a particular aspect of these developments, this article identifies the main generic problems of converting demands for ‘linguistic rights’ into applied language policies. It does this by first outlining how the historic process of nation-state building in Europe reduced linguistic diversity, but has not eliminated language demands emanating from regional minorities. It then analyses how the concept of ‘linguistic rights’, as a part of human rights in general, has been developing within the United Nations and bodies including the Council of Europe and the European Union. Having outlined the political-legal frameworks within which minority language rights are pursued, the article then discusses the major difficulties of putting them into practice in particular places and spaces. They can be summarised as: the weakness of relevant international agreements; the dominance of state sovereignty in determining language policies; the limited public support for minority language rights; the difficulties of defining minority languages and delimiting the geographical spaces they occupy; the challenges posed by the growing geographical mobility of populations; and the problem of balancing collective and individual rights. Two fundamental issues linking these different problems are identified. First, there are problems of definition: what constitutes a ‘minority’ or ‘regional’ language and within what geographical space(s) is such a language spoken? This spatial dimension underlies a second fundamental problem, namely that of resolving conflicts between individual personality rights and collective territorial rights in increasing hybrid geolinguistic situations created by the growing geographical mobility of populations. Sociolinguists study these issues, but usually treat these essential spatial dimensions in a superficial fashion. Thus, there is an opportunity for geographers to develop more sophisticated geolinguistic analyses as a contribution to this interdisciplinary field.     

Neighbourhood renewal: A toolkit for regeneration

A major criticism of urban regeneration policies during the 1980s and 1990s in England has been the failure to reduce the gap between the poorest neighbourhoods and the national average for the indices of long-term unemployment, crime rates, health chances and educational qualifications. The UK Government, since election in 1997, has undertaken a wide-ranging review of urban policy. New approaches and more effective use of public sector resources are being piloted in an attempt to identify the pathways to social inclusion, which seem to have been missing in previous regeneration attempts (Audit Commission, 1989; DoEE, 2000). This paper seeks to deepen our understanding of the appropriate balance between physical and social regeneration through proposing an approach that foregrounds the role of residents in neighbourhood regeneration.     

Mobile pastoralism on the brink of land privatization in Northern Côte d’Ivoire

Côte d’Ivoire’s adoption of land privatization policies promoted by the World Bank and European Union is producing new land use patterns in the countryside. A centerpiece of these policies is the 1998 Rural Land Law that aims to restructure rural economic life along agrarian capitalist lines. The purported “development” objective of land privatization is to stimulate agricultural productivity based on the assumption that land titling will lead farmers and herders to make greater investments in their production systems. This paper argues that the mobile livestock raising system of immigrant FulBe pastoralists in Côte d’Ivoire is threatened by the new land law. Since mobility is crucial to animal health and fertility rates, I argue that reduced mobility will lead to lower livestock productivity. Although the land law has yet to be implemented, its very existence is leading prospective claimants to test their land rights by planting orchards and lending land to immigrant farmers. The monetization of land lending and grazing rights is increasingly common. Land disputes over who has the power to allocate land are also on the rise. I argue that this heightened interest in “tenure building” is constraining herd mobility, especially for herders with limited resources to negotiate access to rangelands. On the other hand, land privatization is strengthening the hand of local cattle-owning farmers who increasingly practice mobile livestock raising and compete with FulBe herders for grazing lands. Under these new conditions of land access, control, and competition, FulBe herd mobility and productivity are at risk of declining.     

Reading representations of women’s war experiences in the Changi Chapel and Museum, Singapore

In this paper, we highlight the way Singapore commemorates its involvement during the Second World War. After briefly tracing the genesis of war commemoration within the nation, we turn to one specific problematic--the gendered portrayals of the war within a particular war memorial in Singapore, the Changi Chapel and Museum. Through a reading of landscape texts, interviews with key figures, visitors and other ethnographic data, we explore the specific ways in which women have either been omitted or stereotypically represented within the site. We proceed to provide possible reasons for this, arguing how the male-centric focus of the site may be due to the perpetuation of hegemonic ideals of war as being a traditionally “male” terrain, and the fact that “silence” is often part of women’s approach to their war experiences. We also argue that gendered portrayals of the war within the site is also an unconscious product of the patriarchal nature of the Singapore state and nation-building endeavours that have placed limits on a more substantial inclusion of women’s stories vis-à-vis the men’s.     

‘We do not want to leave our land’: Pacific ambassadors at the United Nations resist the category of ‘climate refugees’

The issue of the social geographical dimensions of climate change is timely and important. This paper sets out to explore one example of this: how people living in the Pacific who are most at risk of being made landless by climate change are portrayed in policy discourse, and how high-level international representatives of Pacific nations have responded to these portrayals. At the heart of this is contention over the portrayal of Pacific Island peoples as ‘climate refugees’. This paper analyses a number of documents since the 1980s, largely from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that deploy the identity construct of ‘climate refugees’. Fieldwork undertaken at the United Nations in New York in 2004 also enabled seven interviews with national ambassadors representing Pacific small island states. Interviews revealed how Pacific ambassadors have responded to the category of ‘climate refugees’, and positioned themselves in the discursive field surrounding the climate change debate. A poststructuralist framework, drawing on Foucault’s ideas of discourse and subject categories provided a means to critically scrutinise and better understand how people from Pacific countries are imagined in the wider, global geopolitical arena, but crucially, how leaders from these nations also construct themselves in relation to climate change and its associated impacts.     

Increasing fiscal resilience to disasters in the Pacific

Pacific Island countries are among the list of countries that face the highest disaster risk globally—in per capita terms. In recent years, governments in the region have been confronted by a rise in damages from extreme catastrophic events, many increasingly linked to climate change. These events pose significant challenges to Pacific governments in terms of maintaining fiscal stability and the operation of their limited and under-diversified economies and shallow financial sectors. Governments in the region generally play a leading role in domestic economies and are responsible for leading disaster prevention, mitigation, and recovery efforts. Accordingly, measures to improve financial sustainability and the public sector’s ability to provide public services in the aftermath of major disasters must be prioritized. This paper examines the literature on fiscal resilience to disasters, the estimated impacts of major events in the Pacific, and analyses the applicability of available financial instruments to facilitate both ex ante and ex post disaster fiscal risk management in the region. The paper also discusses policies that can improve resilience against fiscal risks.

     

Social and environmental regulation in rural China: bringing the changing role of local government into focus

China’s rapid economic growth following the 1978 reforms has resulted in significant economic, social and environmental change. These reforms and their outcomes have been subjected to considerable scrutiny. However, relatively little research has been directed towards the relationship between the changing role of local government, which has itself been subject to substantial restructuring, and the local mediation of the social and environmental impacts of rapid economic growth. This paper investigates the local manifestation of social and environmental change in Zhejiang Province. In particular, it considers the changing role of local government in the regulatory process, and features a case study of Huzhou Municipality. A synthesis of the factual knowledge and perceptions of 48 key-informants from government and public institutions and rural industries is used as the platform for an analysis of the changing nature of local regulation with respect to the provision of key public services (health care and education) and environmental protection (water pollution control). The results reveal the ability of local government to selectively implement national and provincial policies in light of local priorities, which is taken as indicative of the emergence of local agency within local development processes. The case study suggests a need to re-evaluate conventional wisdom on the absence of autonomy at local levels of government in China, particularly as it relates to the continued devolution of administrative responsibility and the emergence of increasingly powerful economic interests.     

Extensible, not relational: finding bodies in the landscape of electronic information with wireless body area networks

This article examines a medical biotechnology known as a wireless body area network (WBAN) as a way to discuss how electronic information infrastructure is spatially extending human bodies into physical landscapes. The term extensible body is introduced, framed by the object-oriented philosophy of Graham Harman. WBANs are sensors placed on or inside of the human body to measure, record, and transmit data about the biological processes of a medical patient. I argue that these body-data should be considered components of bodies themselves, not representations of them. Further, I argue that the geographical discourse on relationality should be less about object relations and more about object extensions. Harman’s explication of the “quadruple object,” and specifically his use of real and sensual objects makes this possible. This questions the spatial beginnings and ends of categorical objects such as bodies and information, the implications of which could have profound impacts on how policies are framed in sectors such as public health, environment, planning, and medicine. The notion of extensibility is crucial in theorizing how, and where, the Geoweb exists as a spatial-technical assemblage of objects and information. The case of WBANs shows that a theorization of the Geoweb must include the built infrastructure of data storage as a spatial extension of being human.     

Small-scale landfills: impacts on groundwater and soil

In Brazil, the large quantities of solid waste produced are out of step with public policies, technological developments, and government budgets for the division. In small municipalities, the common lack of technological knowledge and financial conditions for suitable waste disposal has resulted in a large number of illegal dumps. Therefore, small sanitary landfill facilities are working with simplified operations focusing on cost reduction and meeting the economic and technological standards of the city without endangering the environment or public health. Currently, this activity is regulated at a federal level although there is some uncertainty regarding the risk of soil and aquifer contamination as theses facilities do not employ liners. Thus, this work evaluates a small landfill to identify changes in soil and groundwater using geotechnical parameters, monitoring wells, and geophysical tests performed by electrical profiling. It is verified that based on current conditions, no contaminants have migrated via underground water aquifers, and overall no significant changes have occurred in the soil. It is concluded that, despite its simplicity, the method investigated is a viable alternative for the final disposal of municipal solid waste from small cities, especially in developing countries.     

Contamination,risk, and heterogeneity: on the effectiveness of aquifer remediation

The effectiveness of aquifer remediation is typically expressed in terms of a reduction in contaminant concentrations relative to a regulated maximum contaminant level (MCL), and is usually confirmed by sparse monitoring data and/or simple model calculations. Here, the effectiveness of remediation is re-examined from a more thorough risk-based perspective that goes beyond the traditional MCL concept. A methodology is employed to evaluate the health risk to individuals exposed to contaminated household water that is produced from groundwater. This approach explicitly accounts for differences in risk arising from variability in individual physiology and water use, the uncertainty in estimating chemical carcinogenesis for different individuals, and the uncertainties and variability in contaminant concentrations within groundwater as affected by transport through heterogeneous geologic media. A hypothetical contamination scenario is developed as a case study in a saturated, alluvial aquifer underlying an actual Superfund site. A baseline (unremediated) human exposure and health risk scenario, as induced by contaminated groundwater pumped from this site, is predicted and compared with a similar estimate based upon pump-and-treat exposure intervention. The predicted reduction in risk in the remediation scenario is not an equitable one—that is, it is not uniform to all individuals within a population and varies according to the level of uncertainty in prediction. The importance of understanding the detailed hydrogeologic connections that are established in the heterogeneous geologic regime between the contaminated source, municipal receptors, and remediation wells, and its relationship to this uncertainty is demonstrated. Using two alternative pumping rates, we develop cost-benefit curves based upon reduced exposure and risk to different individuals within the population, under the presence of uncertainty.     

The Role of Uncertainty on Alternative Disaster Management Strategies

The work presented in this paper is an outgrowth of a multi—year study at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania on Managing Catastrophic Risks. We focus on the role of homeowners and insurance companies in managing the hazard from earthquake risk. Specifically, we consider alternative earthquake disaster management strategies for a typical homeowner and a small insurance company in the Oakland, California region. These strategies involve the adoption of mitigation measures and the purchase of earthquake insurance by the homeowner and the purchase of an indemnity contract (e.g., excess—of—loss reinsurance) by the insurer.

We focus on how uncertainty impacts these disaster management strategies. Specifically, we illustrate the impact of structural mitigation and risk—transfer mechanisms on the insurer's performance when there is uncertainty in the company's risk profile. This risk profile is captured through a loss exceedance probability (EP) curve, representing the probability that a certain level of monetary loss will be exceeded on an annual basis. Parameters considered in the sensitivity analysis that will shift the loss EP curve include: earthquake recurrence, ground motion attenuation, soil mapping schemes, and the exposure and vulnerability of the residential structures. The paper demonstrates how uncertainty in these parameters impacts the cost effectiveness of mitigation and reinsurance on the insurer's profitability and chances of insolvency, as well as the number of policies the insurer is willing to issue.