Hard times in Apia? Urban landlessness and the church in Samoa

This paper presents findings from a study about the relationships between social change and settlement change in Samoa, where a form of landlessness is emerging in low income areas of the main town, Apia. It examines changing reciprocal kinship arrangements with respect to customary rural village plantation land and changes in both individual and household relationships with the church. Although these relationships are typically closely bound in Pacific island societies, recent field‐based research has revealed the expansion of landless urban settlements with households that are alienated from rural village‐based kin and, by extension, customary land.     

A typological framework for categorizing infrastructure vulnerability

The concept of vulnerability is increasingly important in engineering and the socio-economic planning sciences, particularly given the enormous costs associated with addressing it. The ability to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities is extremely challenging because it is influenced by a complex and dynamic set of interacting factors that can compromise social, economic and infrastructure systems. Where the latter is concerned, the ability to assess infrastructure vulnerability involves the consideration of a range of physical, operational, geographical and socio-economic characteristics. In this paper, significant elements of infrastructure vulnerability are identified and discussed with a focus on their intrinsic spatial nature and their propensity to interact across space. Further, the developed typology of vulnerability outlined in this paper emphasizes the need to ensure that policy, planning and disaster mitigation efforts are strongly integrated at global, regional and local levels.     

Geographic perspectives on vulnerability analysis

This special issue of GeoJournal is centered on geographic approaches to vulnerability analysis. Six papers addressing several core areas of active research in vulnerability analysis are included in this volume of work. In particular, network analysis methods, geographic data acquisition and use, measurement of vulnerability, evaluation of spatial and temporal variability in vulnerability, as well as related theoretical and policy issues are examined in detail.     

The chemical evolution of dwarf spheroidal galaxies: dissecting the inner regions and their stellar populations

Using three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of isolated dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs), we undertake an analysis of the chemical properties of their inner regions, identifying the respective roles played by Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) and Type II supernovae (SNe II). The effect of inhomogeneous pollution from SNe Ia is shown to be prominent within two core radii, with the stars forming therein amounting to ∼20 per cent of the total. These stars are relatively iron-rich and α-element depleted compared to the stars forming in the rest of the galaxy. At odds with the projected stellar velocity dispersion radial profile, the actual three-dimensional one shows a depression in the central region, where the most metal-rich (i.e. [Fe/H]-rich) stars are partly segregated. This naturally results in two different stellar populations, with an anticorrelation between [Fe/H] and velocity dispersion, in the same sense as that observed in the Sculptor and Fornax dSphs. Because the most iron-rich stars in our model are also the most α depleted, a natural prediction and test of our model is that the same radial segregation effects should exist between [α/Fe] and velocity dispersion.     

The influence of bed forms on reference concentration and suspension under waves and currents

Hydrodynamic, suspension and bed-form measurements were made 2 km off the Dutch coast near Noordwijk aan Zee in ∼14 m water depth for a period of 32 days in 2003. Tidal currents were just able to suspend sand at the bed at peak spring tide but most suspension and transport occurred as a result of the combination of waves and currents. Burst-average (17 min) sand concentration profiles (C¯-profiles) from an acoustic backscatter instrument were used to define the (varying) location of the sea-bed, following the method used by Green et al. [Green, M.O., Dolphin, T.J., Swales, A., Vincent, C.E., 1999. Transport of mixed-size sediments in a tidal channel. Coastal Sediments ‘99, edited by N.C. Kraus, and W.G. McDougal, ASCE, Long Island, New York, pp. 644–658]. Reference concentrations at the sea-bed (C₀) and at 1 cm (C₁) were examined in relation to both the hydrodynamic conditions and the type of bed forms present. The C₀ predictive equations of Green and Black [Green, M.O., Black, K.P., Suspended sediment reference concentration under waves: field measurements and critical analysis of two predictive models, Coastal Engineering, 38, 115–141, 1999](short-wave ripples) and Nielsen [Nielsen, P., Suspended sediment concentrations under waves, Coastal Engineering, 10, 23–31, 1986](all bed forms; includes ripple steepness), both of which require knowledge of the bed-form type, were not as successful in explaining the variance in our C₀ data as a regression of C₀ against the skin-friction Shields parameter θ′_cw that ignored bed-form type (73% of variance explained). The values of the reference concentration C₁ were compared with the Lee et al. [Lee, G.-H., Dade, W.B., Friedrichs, C.T., Vincent, C.E., Examination of Reference Concentration Under Waves and Currents on the Inner Shelf., Journal of Geophysical Research, 109, 1–10, 2004] equation which predicts C₁ from the product of the Shields parameter and the inverse Rouse parameter; 51% of the variance in C₁ was explained.     

Mosquitoes in the mix: How transferable is creative city thinking?

This paper contributes to recent debates about whether urban policy discourses are transferable and what is at stake in their translation. It draws on discussion of Darwin (Northwest Territory, Australia), a tropical savanna location that the local government wants to promote as a 'creative city', without quite knowing what this might require. We discuss relevant debates on research knowledge construction, the creative city and the path-dependent character of neoliberal governmental objectives. We then turn to the geographical, demographic and cultural characteristics that make Darwin a challenging and distinct context for translation of global theories of creative city rejuvenation. As well as arguing a case for more nuanced, locationally specific, analysis of the capacity of places to embrace travelling policy discourses, we suggest ways in which creative city research can be refreshed through engaging with literatures on (post)colonial urban politics and intersections with policy initiatives other than those targeted at 'creative industries' per se . We systematically outline the particular challenges that tropical cities in remote locations provide to accepted wisdom about creativity-led urban planning.     

Assessment of Density‐Induced Tracer Movement in Groundwater Velocity Measurements with Point Velocity Probes (PVPs)

The concept of equivalent freshwater head was adapted to predict the conditions under which density‐driven flow would adversely impact measured groundwater velocities using point velocity probes (PVPs). Theoretically, vertical flow will result from any density contrast between the PVP tracer and the groundwater. However, laboratory testing of tracers with salinities ranging from 0 to 2000 mg NaCl/L showed that horizontal velocities could be determined with good accuracy with up to 60% of the total flow being vertical due to density effects in a gravel medium. The available data suggest that density effects are less likely to be pronounced in sandy sediments. The relative amount of vertical flow due to tracer density can be estimated from vertical and horizontal velocities measured with PVPs, or from the ratio of vertical to horizontal hydraulic gradients. The equivalent freshwater gradient produced from a given tracer salinity at 10 °C (a typical groundwater temperature at moderate latitudes) can be estimated from 7.80 × 10^?7 × (M_NaCl), where M_NaCl is the mass of NaCl added, in mg, to 1 L of site groundwater in the mixing of the tracer. Equations for other temperatures were also determined.