The benefits of a high-resolution analysis of transit accessibility

Accessibility is an important consideration in sustainable mobility policies, particularly for transit users. Measures suggested in the literature are based on coarse aggregate spatial resolution of traffic analysis zones that is sufficient for managing car travels only. To reflect a human door-to-door travel, transit accessibility demands an explicit view of the location of origin, transit stops and destination, as well as of the temporal fit between transit lines timetable and traveler’s needs. We thus estimate transit accessibility based on mode-specific travel times and corresponding paths, including walking and waiting, at the resolution of individual buildings and stops. Car accessibility is estimated at a high resolution too. A novel representation of transit network as a graph is proposed. This representation includes all modal components of a transit travel – walking, waiting at a stop, transit ride, transfers between lines, thus enabling unified view of a travel, regardless of mode. The use of modern high-performance graph database allows construction of high-resolution accessibility maps for an entire metropolitan area with its 100–200 K buildings. The application is tested and applied in a case study involving the evaluation of the 2011 bus line reform in the city of Tel Aviv. Specifically, we demonstrate that while the reform increased the average accessibility for the entire city the increase was not uniform with different areas of the city experiencing different absolute accessibility by transit and relative accessibility in comparison to car travel. The bus reform did in fact benefit travelers that experienced low relative accessibility, but the benefits are mainly accruing to longer trips. Our approach and computational methods can be employed for directly investigating the impacts of transportation infrastructure investments.     

Identifying synergies and trade-offs in the sustainability–security nexus: the case of the Israeli–Palestinian wastewater treatment regime

ABSTRACT

The literature on environmental security often stresses the complementarity between sustainability and broader security goals. Less emphasis has been placed on possible trade-offs between security objectives and aspects of sustainability. This study examines the conditions under which these synergies and trade-offs are likely to occur, and how the trade-offs can be reconciled, especially during times of peacebuilding. As a case study, we analyse the effect of Israeli security concerns on environmental infrastructure designed to treat wastewater in the West Bank. This study identifies several sustainability–security trade-offs: (1) economic—in which security concerns raise costs of wastewater infrastructure, thereby crowding-out other potentially productive investments; (2) equity—in which security concerns result in disproportionate exposure of populations to environmental hazards; and (3) environmental—in which security concerns increase ecological footprints. Yet, our case study also indicates that both sides used a variety of creative measures to reconcile these trade-offs.

EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis GUEST EDITOR K. Aggestam     

THE POTENTIAL OF MAIL SURVEYS IN GEOGRAPHY: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE*

Faced with soaring survey costs, geographers may increasingly consider mail or telephone surveys as alternatives to in-person interviews. This study goes beyond comparisons of response rates to analyze possible biases of administration methods in geographic studies. An empirical comparison between an in-person interview survey and two mail surveys of recent home buyers’ housing preferences revealed that the mail surveys provided better representation of this population, as they had a higher completion rate (though lower response rate). While respondent attributes differed across administration modes, no direct effects of administration method on responses were found. Mail surveys appear to be a viable alternative to personal interviews in a wider set of cases than geographers usually assume, though more empirical work is needed to determine the extent of such cases.     

Hydrochemical characteristics of shallow groundwater in aquifer containing uranyl phosphate minerals, in the Köprübaşı (Manisa) area, Turkey

The concentrations of uranium, iron and the major constituents were determined in groundwater samples from aquifer containing uranyl phosphate minerals (meta-autunite, meta-torbernite and torbernite) in the Köprüba?? area. Groundwater samples from wells located at shallow depths (0.5–6 m) show usually near neutral pH values (6.2–7.1) and oxidizing conditions (Eh = 119–275 mV). Electrical conductivity (EC) values of samples are between 87 and 329 μS/cm^?1. They are mostly characterized by mixed cationic Ca dominating bicarbonate types. The main hydrogeochemical process is weathering of the silicates in the shallow groundwater system. All groundwater in the study area are considered undersaturated with respect to torbernite and autunite. PHREEQC predicted UO₂(HPO₄) ₂ ^2? as the unique species. The excellent positive correlation coefficient (r = 0.99) between U and PO₄ indicates the dissolved uranium in groundwater would be associated with the dissolution of uranyl phosphate minerals. The groundwater show U content in the range 1.71–70.45 μg/l but they are mostly lower than US EPA (2003) maximum contaminant level of 30 μg/l. This low U concentrations in oxic groundwater samples is attributed to the low solubility of U(VI) phosphate minerals under near neutral pH and low bicarbonate conditions. Iron closely associated with studied sediments, were also detected in groundwater. The maximum concentration of Fe in groundwater samples was 2837 μg/l, while the drinking water guidelines of Turkish (TSE 1997) and US EPA (2003) were suggested 200 and 300 μg/l, respectively. Furthermore, iron and uranium showed a significant correlation to each other with a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.94. This high correlation is probably related to the iron-rich sediments which contain also significant amounts of uranium mineralization. In addition to pH and bicarbonate controlling dissolution of uranyl phosphates, association of uranyl phosphates with iron (hydr) oxides seems to play important role in the amount of dissolved U in shallow groundwater.     

Some spatial aspects of environmental impact statements in Israel

While many studies have analyzed EIS procedures, only a few have analyzed EISs as part of the development process. When viewed from this perspective, EISs are shown to have a skewing effect on territorial development; they address mainly infrastructure projects, and consequently delay them, but hardly touch any of the residential projects which the infrastructure is designed to serve. This discrepancy can have deleterious consequences due to residential encroachment on various infrastructure facilities, as well as due to the growing shortfall of transport and environmental infrastructure. When EISs are analyzed in terms of project area, areas where impacts and benefits are felt, and administrative control zones, it becomes apparent that the impacts and benefits analyzed may be affected by the spatial scope of administrative control and project areas. A case in point is the ‘Kalanit’ landfill in Israel. Here the benefit and impact areas analyzed in the EIS were affected by the jurisdiction of the committee that requested the EIS and to which it was submitted. This discrepancy between benefit, impact and administrative control areas is also at the source of the emerging interest in cross-boundary EIA.     

Metropolitan dynamics in Israel: an emerging “metropolitan island state”?

This study analyzes metropolitan dynamics in a small country with an “island state” context of closed boundaries, using commuting data and mobile phone tracking data. We examine whether the Israeli context encourages the formation of a monocentric “metropolitan state,” characterized by increasing links between localities throughout the country and its principal metropolitan node (Tel Aviv)—rather than with secondary metropolitan areas—and by fuzzy, overlapping metropolitan boundaries. Commuting data from the 1995 and 2008 censuses show that metropolitan expansion processes in Israel are gradual. Mobile phone tracking data for 2013 reveal similar patterns, confirming the urban structure’s stability and the reliability of tracking data as a means of assessing metropolitan processes. The “island state” context supports growing monocentricity, but, when it comes to commuting and travel for other purposes, Israel is not yet a metropolitan state; metropolitan boundaries are not as fuzzy and rapidly changing as expected.     

Vertical extension of the urban <Emphasis Type="Italic">heat island</Emphasis> above Moscow

The vertical extension of the urban “heat island” (UHI) has been studied on the basis of long-term data of contact air temperature measurements at three places for the example of Moscow. The existence of steady thermal anomaly related to the city in the form of a UHI in the surface layer at any time of the day and also the existence of a cold layer over it at heights higher than 100 m at night were confirmed. The mean daily altitudinal extension of this anomaly is approximately 300 m.     

Novel mass-aggregation-based calibration of an acoustic method of monitoring bedload flux by infrequent desert flash floods

The monitoring of bedload flux under flash flood conditions has been successfully achieved since 1992 using slot samplers in the semiarid Nahal Eshtemoa. In the present study, a surrogate bedload monitoring technique - the Japanese plate microphone - has been deployed and calibrated against data from the slot samplers. Since a slot sampler has a sensitivity threshold that becomes especially important when transport rates are low, different averaging periods should be considered for high and low fluxes. In order to overcome the deficiencies of time-based aggregation used hitherto, we have developed a new method involving mass aggregation and commensurably variable intervals, thereby enabling a more accurate analysis and optimizing the bedload sampler's capabilities. The data derived with this new method has then been utilized to calibrate the Japanese plate microphone. The Eshtemoa is an ephemeral gravel bed channel with a high proportion of fine gravel (< 0.02 m); for these conditions, acoustic sensors have not been calibrated as yet. Two multiple linear regression models incorporating the effect of median bedload grain size on pulse rate have been established to predict bedload flux and cumulative transported bedload mass. The coefficients in these models are statistically significant. Good predictions are obtained for bedload flux (adj. r² = 0.83) and for cumulative bedload mass (adj. r² = 0.98) during flood recession. Overall, the multiple linear regression models, used in conjunction with the mass aggregation method of estimating bedload flux, suggest that field calibration of acoustic devices is feasible under these conditions for ca. 90% of the duration of bedload transport. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.