Exploring Landcare Effectiveness Using Organisational Theory

Landcare is an important example of the potential of state-sponsored participation to establish viable local organisations and contribute to rural development. In this paper, the authors discuss their research using organisational theory to explore Landcare effectiveness. Data were obtained from a mailed survey to Landcare groups in the state of Victoria during 1998. Levels of group activity were used as a surrogate measure of group effectiveness. Groups were ranked according to their level of activity to assess the impact of factors likely to affect group performance, the efficacy of program logic, and the extent groups were contributing to program goals. Survey data suggested key aspects of Landcare Program logic were sound. Examination of the membership and activity profiles of groups suggested 90 per cent of the respondent groups were making a worthwhile contribution to program goals. This research also confirmed the importance of factors identified by others as significant influences on organisational effectiveness: the importance of having clear goals, objectives and plans; resource availability; facilitation by an outside agency; access to a funded group co-ordinator; and communication between stakeholders. Unfortunately, there are critical, ongoing management issues surrounding many of these topics.     

Runoff generation in zero-order precambrian shield catchments: The stormflow response of a heterogeneous landscape

Hydrometric and isotopic (oxygen-18) observations were used to delineate the runoff processes operating in several headwater catchments on the Precambrian Shield of Canada. The catchments comprise patches of conifer forest situated on thin soils among areas of lichen-covered granitic bedrock. Horton overland flow occurred from the lichen-bedrock areas in all precipitation events that exceeded 4–6 mm. Runoff from the forest stands occurred mainly as subsurface stormflow, but in some instances saturation overland flow was observed. The occurrence of saturation overland flow was controlled by the topography of the bedrock beneath the forest soils. The area contributing runoff and the pathway by which water was conveyed to the catchment outflow switched from the open lichen-bedrock areas producing overland flow on the rising limb of the storm hydrograph to the forest stands contributing subsurface stormflow on the recession limb of the hydrograph. The areal extent and position of the landscape units in the basin were important to the rate and magnitude of stormflow production. Runoff was generated from the catchments only during and immediately after snowmelt and/or rainfall events. The catchments were dry and/or frozen for about 70% of the year.     

Stochastic models of lunar rocks and regolith. Part I. Catastrophic splitting theory

It is assumed that a rock on the lunar surface loses mass as a result of bombardment by hypervelocity meteoroids. The mass of rock and its fragments can be modeled as a nonincreasing stochastic process with independent increments. In the case of a self-similar, one-shot splitting law, Filippov's extension of Kolmogorov's results produces asymptotic mass densities (number densities) which can be of lognormal, fractional exponential (Rosin-Rammler), or inverse-power (Pareto) types. The results are extended in three directions. A new explicit formula for the number density is obtained in the case where the splitting law is a two-term polynomial. The effect of splitting laws and splitting rates which depend on randomly varying parameters, e.g., meteoroid mass and velocity, is considered. The average number density with respect to a distribution of initial rock masses and initial rock birthdays also is studied. The asymptotic average density for an inverse-power distribution of initial masses has the same shape as the unaveraged density, but a beta (Β, 1) distribution of rock birthdays strongly alters the shape of the asymptotic number density. Research supported by Office of Naval Research, under contract NONR 4010(09) awarded to Department of Statistics, The Johns Hopkins University.     

Widespread 18O depletion in some precambrian granulites of Australia

In the Strangways Range a broad tract of lower Proterozoic mafic and silicic granulites with δ ¹⁸O = 0.1 to 7.3% is depleted in ¹⁸O on average by 2–47% compared with high-grade gneisses and granitoids of Canada and other shields. The Fraser Range mafic granulites (δ¹⁸O ~ 7.2%) are enriched with respect to unaltered sea-floor basalts (~5.7%).In some rocks depletion in ¹⁸O could be related to dehydration during granulite-facies metamorphism and removal of the resultant products of partial melting. In other rocks pre-granulite reaction between heated seawater and hot basic intrusives seems to be a plausible mechanism of depletion in ¹⁸O. A direct correlation between depletion in ¹⁸O and the abundance of brown granulite hornblende suggests that ¹⁸O-depleted water was present in certain mafic rocks before the onset of granulite metamorphism, whereas in others brown hornblende was introduced during a phase of the granulite facies metamorphism itself.     

Building a national capital in an age of globalization: the case of Berlin

Berlin is being remade as capital of a unified German nation state, just at the time when the role of nation states is being called into question by the claims of globalization, and the associated rise of global cities. The experience of Berlin suggests that it may be unhelpful to accept the world-city agenda as a universal template. Instead, it is necessary to explore the ways in which different agencies, companies and authorities negotiate the world around them, seeking to insert the city into pre-existing ideas and realities, as well as to influence and shape them, in what is best understood as a wider process of 'worlding'.     

Plate tectonic model for the oligo-miocene evolution of the western Mediterranean

This paper outlines a plate tectonic model for the Oligo-Miocene evolution of the western Mediterranean which incorporates recent data from several tectonic domains (Corsica, Sardinia, the Kabylies, Balearic promontory, Iberia, Algero-Provençal Basin and Tunisian Atlas). Following late Mesozoic anticlockwise rotation of the Iberian peninsula (including the Balearic promontory and Sardinia), late Eocene collision occurred between the Kabylies and Balearic promontory forming a NE-trending suture with NW-tectonic polarity. As a result of continued convergence between the African and European plates, a polarity flip occurred and a southward-facing trench formed south of the Kabylie—Balearic promontory suture. During late Oligocene time an E-W-trending arc and marginal basin developed behind the southward-facing trench in the area of the present-day Gulf of Lion. Opening of this basin moved the Corsica—Sardinia—Calabria—Petit Kabylie—Menorca plate southward, relative to the African plate. Early Miocene back-arc spreading in the area between the Balearic promontory and Grand Kabylie emplaced the latter in northern Algeria and formed the South Balearic Basin. Coeval with early Miocene back-arc basin development, the N-S-extension in the Gulf of Lion marginal basin changed to a more NW-SE direction causing short-lived extension in the area of the present-day Valencia trough and a 30° anticlockwise rotation of the Corsica-Sardinia-Calabria—Petit Kabylie plate away from the European plate. Early—middle Miocene deformation along the western Italian and northeastern African continental margins resulted from this rotation. During the early late Miocene (Tortonian), spreading within a sphenochasm to the southwest of Sardinia resulted in the emplacement of Petit Kabylie in northeastern Algeria.     

Transient ULF pulsation decay rates observed by ground based magnetometers: The contribution of spatial integration

Theoretical studies suggest that Joule dissipation in the ionosphere is the major source of damping for resonant ULF pulsations. The decay rates of transient pulsations (i.e. short-lived pulsations with latitude dependent periods) observed by ground based magnetometers are however generally larger than those predicted, and also larger than those observed in the magnetosphere. We have modelled the integration effects of ground based magnetometers on transient pulsations by considering empirical models of the associated ionospheric currents. The simulated ground magnetometer data show a smearing of the amplitude and period variations, which is more pronounced for smaller scale (specifically latitudinal) variations. The period increase with latitude is reduced, and may even be eliminated over appreciable latitude ranges. For all spatial scales the observed decay rates are typically 2–3 times larger than the true values, due to the additional decay resulting from spatial integration of the incoherent transient pulsations. Estimates of the ionospheric Pedersen conductance based on ground magnetometer observations of decay rates are correspondingly too small, and spurious gradients may be introduced. The present calculations reconcile observed decay rates on the ground with those predicted using the assumption that Joule dissipation is the dominant damping mechanism for toroidal mode resonant oscillations.