Ocean tides around New Zealand

The distribution of amplitude and phase for eight ocean tidal constituents (M₂, S₂, N₂, K₂, K₁, O₁, P₁, Q₁) is presented as tidal maps for the New Zealand area. The distribution was calculated using a barotropic tidal model driven by TOPEX/ Poseidon data on the outer ocean boundaries. The maps exhibit the known features of the tides in this area such as a complete rotation of the semi‐diurnal tides around New Zealand and the reduced spring‐neap variations on the east coast. They also point out several new features for which there are few or no observations, such as diurnal trapped waves and shelf waves. A comparison of the model results with observations shows that sea level errors are within 0.1 m in amplitude and 10° in phase for the largest constituents at all locations, including sites where the data are of low quality and where the geometry is not adequately resolved. For locations where the geometry is adequately represented and the observations are of high quality, sea level errors are within 0.02 m in amplitude and 7° in phase. These results represent the most accurate and highest resolution calculations of tides and currents yet attained for this area.     

Use of hierarchical cluster analysis to assess the representativeness of a baseline groundwater quality monitoring network: comparison of New Zealand’s national and regional groundwater monitoring programs

Baseline monitoring of groundwater quality aims to characterize the ambient condition of the resource and identify spatial or temporal trends. Sites comprising any baseline monitoring network must be selected to provide a representative perspective of groundwater quality across the aquifer(s) of interest. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) has been used as a means of assessing the representativeness of a groundwater quality monitoring network, using example datasets from New Zealand. HCA allows New Zealand??s national and regional monitoring networks to be compared in terms of the number of water-quality categories identified in each network, the hydrochemistry at the centroids of these water-quality categories, the proportions of monitoring sites assigned to each water-quality category, and the range of concentrations for each analyte within each water-quality category. Through the HCA approach, the National Groundwater Monitoring Programme (117 sites) is shown to provide a highly representative perspective of groundwater quality across New Zealand, relative to the amalgamated regional monitoring networks operated by 15 different regional authorities (680 sites have sufficient data for inclusion in HCA). This methodology can be applied to evaluate the representativeness of any subset of monitoring sites taken from a larger network.     

Conceptualizations of local knowledge in collaborative environmental governance

A major challenge to integrating local knowledge into collaborative environmental governance processes stems from the underlying differences between positivist science and local knowledge; these differences often result in strong differences of opinion regarding which forms of knowledge are valid in environmental decision-making. Previous research on these issues has mainly focused on the attitudes of scientists towards local knowledge. Studies of the views of local and non-scientific actors regarding their own knowledge are much less common. Through a qualitative case study of water allocation planning in South Australia, we analyzed participants’ conceptualizations of local knowledge and the role of local knowledge in collaborative governance. We found that participants defined local knowledge broadly across a number of dimensions and that many acknowledged variability in the nature and quality of different types of local knowledge. While most recognized the value of local knowledge in supporting technical investigations and developing policies, very few participants identified a role for local knowledge in the early stages of the collaborative process (i.e., in framing problems or establishing research protocols). Previous research has highlighted “epistemological anxiety” among scientists and resource managers toward local knowledge as a significant barrier to its effective use in environmental decision-making. This study suggests that state and local actors, and scientists and non-scientists, share similar reservations about local knowledge and highlights the need for researchers and practitioners to take into account the attitudes of all types of participants when considering how to overcome the epistemological challenges related to integrating local knowledge into collaborative management.     

Chronology of the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic in NW Europe: developer-funded investigations at Dunbridge,Hampshire, southern England

This paper reports important findings relating to the chronology of Palaeolithic occupation, artefact typology and Quaternary fluvial deposits from a geoarchaeological watching brief undertaken over 17 years at Kimbridge Farm Quarry, Dunbridge, Hampshire. Sections were recorded and sampled and 198 artefacts, principally hand axes, were collected, with the primary aim of enhancing understanding of the geological context of the richest Lower Palaeolithic assemblage from Hampshire. Digital terrain modelling was used to characterize the three-dimensional form of the fluvial geology. Two gravel terraces have been confirmed: an upper Belbin Formation, which contained most of the archaeological artefacts, and a lower Mottisfont Formation. Results of specific note included recovery of artefacts demonstrating elements of ‘proto-Levallois’ technology from within the Belbin Gravel deposition. Fully developed Levallois technology was present across both the Belbin Gravel and the Mottisfont Formation at Dunbridge, the latter having an otherwise relatively sparse Palaeolithic content. Previously published OSL dating, supplemented by new data, has been combined with uplift modelling to suggest dates of MIS 9b and MIS 8, respectively, for these two gravels. This fits well with evidence from other sites in England and the near Continent for the timing of the earliest Levallois at around MIS 9. The results from the Dunbridge watching brief have demonstrated that this response provides a relatively cost effective method by which important scientific data can be salvaged from commercial quarrying.     

The bluestones of Stonehenge

How and why the bluestones arrived at Stonehenge, the UK's most revered ancient monument, has long held people's imagination. The key to understanding these questions relies heavily on the location of their sources. Following early studies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which proposed various places but in particular south‐west England, H.H. Thomas, in 1923, suggested that they came from the Mynydd Preseli, in north Pembrokeshire, Wales. Thomas proposed a number of key locations for the geographical origin of the stones. However, recent investigations have called those locations into question, identifying different sources albeit from the same broad area in north Pembrokeshire. Identification of these proposed new sites has led to archaeological excavations and important new discoveries including new suggested routes for the transport of the bluestones from the Preseli Hills to Stonehenge some 230 km away.     

A re-evaluation of the timing of the earliest reported human occupation of Britain: the age of the sediments at Happisburgh, eastern England

Lower Palaeolithic artefacts have been reported at Happisburgh, north Norfolk, in sediments that have been assigned to the late Early Pleistocene, in either marine isotope stage (MIS) 25 or 21, using magnetostratigraphy, biostratigraphy and clast lithology. However, the proposal that these sediments were deposited by the ancestral River Thames is inconsistent both with the established late Early Pleistocene palaeogeography of the region and with the dispositions of the contemporaneous Thames terraces. The Happisburgh deposits were evidently emplaced by a local river, which reworked older sediments that from their lithology had been derived largely from the Bytham River rather than the Thames catchment. Nonetheless, the potential significance of this sedimentary succession for early human dispersal and behaviour requires a conservative assessment of its youngest possible age. Although its basal part is clearly Early Pleistocene, there is nothing to preclude an early Middle Pleistocene age for the overlying sediments that have yielded the artefacts and the mammalian biostratigraphic evidence. It is indeed arguable that these sediments date from the cooling transition at the end of MIS 15c, and are thus younger than the artefact-bearing succession at Pakefield. Pending the availability of additional dating evidence, future discussion of the Happisburgh site should be qualified with respect to any claim for an Early Pleistocene age for the human occupation indicated.     

A millennial long March–July precipitation reconstruction for southern-central England

We present a millennial long dendroclimatic reconstruction of spring/summer precipitation for southern-central England. Previous research identified a significant moisture stress signal in ring-width data measured from oak trees growing in southern England. In this study, we build upon this earlier work, specifically targeting south-central England, to derive a well replicated oak ring-width composite chronology using both living and historical material. The data-set includes 352 living trees (AD 1629–2009) and 1540 individual historical series (AD 663–1925). The period expressed by at least 50 trees in any year is AD 980–2009. Calibration experiments identify the optimal seasonal predictand target as March–July precipitation (1901–2007: r² = 0.33). However, comparison with the long Kew Gardens precipitation record indicates a weakening in tree-growth/climate response from ~1800 to 1920 which we speculate may be related to smoke and sulphur dioxide (SO₂) emissions at that time which may have also contributed to a decrease in tree productivity. The time-series derived using the regional curve standardisation method to capture lower frequency information shows a mediaeval period with alternating multi-decade-long dry and wet periods, with AD 1153–1172 being the wettest reconstructed 20-year period in the whole record. Drier conditions are prevalent from ~1300 to the early sixteenth century followed by a period of increasing precipitation levels. The most recent four centuries of the record appear similar to the mediaeval period with multiple decade-long dry and wet periods. The late twentieth century is the second reconstructed wettest period. These centennial hydroclimatic trends are in broad agreement with independent regional scale hydroclimatic reconstructions from tree-ring (East Anglia), historical, speleothem and peat water level proxy archives in the United Kingdom and appear coupled with reconstructed sea surface temperature changes in the North Atlantic which in turn influence the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and westerly airflow across the UK.     

Surface Heterogeneity Effects on Regional-Scale Fluxes in the Stable Boundary Layer: Aerodynamic Roughness Length Transitions

The effects of abrupt streamwise transitions of the aerodynamic roughness length ( $z_\mathrm{o}$ z o ) on the stable atmospheric boundary layer are evaluated using a series of large-eddy simulations based on the first Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment Atmospheric Boundary Layer intercomparison study (GABLS1). Four $z_\mathrm{o}$ z o values spanning three orders of magnitude are used to create all possible binary distributions with each arranged into patches of characteristic length scales equal to roughly one-half, one, and two times the equivalent homogeneous boundary-layer height. The impact of the heterogeneity on mean profiles of wind speed and temperature, on surface fluxes of heat and momentum, and on internal boundary-layer dynamics are considered. It is found that $z_\mathrm{o}$ z o transitions do not significantly alter the functional relationship between the average surface fluxes and the mean profiles of wind speed and potential temperature. Although this suggests that bulk similarity theory is applicable for modelling the stable boundary layer over $z_\mathrm{o}$ z o heterogeneity, effective surface parameters must still be specified. Existing models that solve for effective roughness lengths of momentum and heat are evaluated and compared to values derived from the simulation data. The existing models are unable to accurately reproduce both the values of the effective aerodynamic roughness lengths and their trends as functions of patch length scale and stability. A new model for the effective aerodynamic roughness length is developed to exploit the benefits of the other models tested. It accurately accounts for the effects of the heterogeneity and stratification on the blending height and effective aerodynamic roughness length. The new model provides improved average surface fluxes when used with bulk similarity.     

The real-time city? Big data and smart urbanism

‘Smart cities’ is a term that has gained traction in academia, business and government to describe cities that, on the one hand, are increasingly composed of and monitored by pervasive and ubiquitous computing and, on the other, whose economy and governance is being driven by innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, enacted by smart people. This paper focuses on the former and, drawing on a number of examples, details how cities are being instrumented with digital devices and infrastructure that produce ‘big data’. Such data, smart city advocates argue enables real-time analysis of city life, new modes of urban governance, and provides the raw material for envisioning and enacting more efficient, sustainable, competitive, productive, open and transparent cities. The final section of the paper provides a critical reflection on the implications of big data and smart urbanism, examining five emerging concerns: the politics of big urban data, technocratic governance and city development, corporatisation of city governance and technological lock-ins, buggy, brittle and hackable cities, and the panoptic city.