New populations in the British city centre: Evidence of social change from the census and household surveys

Encouraged by government policies to promote city centre living and to increase residential land use on brownfield sites, there has been considerable repopulation of the city centre. Through detailed small-area census analysis of Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea, supplemented by household surveys and key informant interviews, the research points to a range of population characteristics and changes occurring in the British city centre. Certain characteristics such as a high proportion of lone person households, fewer children and low car ownership remain fairly consistent. However, substantial population expansion affirms that a large part of the population is “new”. Between 1991 and 2001, men came to outnumber women, and each of the city centres saw a relative expansion of its young adult population. The new residents have a higher appreciation than longer term residents of proximity to work and leisure facilities, and of the stylishness of city centre living. Most of the new residents rent their accommodation, generally in flats, and the predominance of renting is associated with a transient attitude to city centre residence among the new population. Socio-economic evidence indicates a striking rise in social status or gentrification in all the city centres investigated, especially where high status private housing developments encourage the trend. With policies promoting residential development, the city centre is becoming increasingly socially exclusive.     

Collins Glacier Retreat Process and Regional Climatic Variations,King George Island,Antarctica

This paper investigates the recent climatic variability and changes in snow line and ice front position in Collins Glacier, King George Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctic Peninsula. This region has recorded one of the largest temperature increases in the past fifty years and has been demonstrated to be highly sensitive to climate changes. To monitor recent changes (1983–2006), we determined the fluctuations of the terminus and snow line of the glacier via remote sensing data and field observation in the summer of 2013. We conclude that the Collins Glacier has responded slowly to regional climate changes (decades or even centuries), as glacial responses to climatic events do not depend solely on one environmental variable. The glacier presented more retreat and elevation of the snow line in the north sector. The retreat data are correlated with the mean monthly temperature and annual number of days of melting‐degree variations.     

Land Cover Classification Using High‐Resolution Aerial Photography in Adventdalen,Svalbard

A methodology was tested for high‐resolution mapping of vegetation and detailed geoecological patterns in the Arctic Tundra, based on aerial imagery from an unmanned aerial vehicle (visible wavelength – RGB, 6 cm pixel resolution) and from an aircraft (visible and near infrared, 20 cm pixel resolution). The scenes were fused at 10 and 20 cm to evaluate their applicability for vegetation mapping in an alluvial fan in Adventdalen, Svalbard. Ground‐truthing was used to create training and accuracy evaluation sets. Supervised classification tests were conducted with different band sets, including the original and derived ones, such as NDVI and principal component analysis bands. The fusion of all original bands at 10 cm resolution provided the best accuracies. The best classifier was systematically the maximum neighbourhood algorithm, with overall accuracies up to 84%. Mapped vegetation patterns reflect geoecological conditioning factors. The main limitation in the classification was differentiating between the classes graminea, moss and Salix, and moss, graminea and Salix, which showed spectral signature mixing. Silty‐clay surfaces are probably overestimated in the south part of the study area due to microscale shadowing effects. The results distinguished vegetation zones according to a general gradient of ecological limiting factors and show that VIS+NIR high‐resolution imagery are excellent tools for identifying the main vegetation groups within the lowland fan study site of Adventdalen, but do not allow for detailed discrimination between species.     

Development of a drought vulnerability index using MCDM and GIS: study case in São Paulo and Ceará, Brazil

Natural Hazards - Although climate change vulnerability research in general has increased over the last decade, Latin American countries have more directed more limited efforts toward vulnerability...     

An overview of geological originated materials as a trend for adsorption in wastewater treatment

Adsorption is a unit operation widely used for the tertiary treatment of the most diverse effluents,whose mechanism is based on removing recalcitrant compounds from the organic and inorganic origin.In this process,choosing a suitable adsorbent is a fundamental point.This review article focuses on the adsorbents with natural geological origin:minerals,clays,geopolymers,and even wastes resulted from mining activity.Therefore,over 450 articles and research papers were explored.These materials’main sources are described,and their characteristics,composition,and intrinsic properties are related to adsorption.Herein,we discuss the effects of several process parameters,such as p H,temperature,pollutant,and adsorbent concentration.Furthermore,equilibrium,kinetics,and thermodynamic aspects are also addressed,and relevant regeneration prospects and final disposal.Finally,some suggestions and perspectives on applying these adsorbents in wastewater treatment are presented as future trends.     

The 2015 Summer Solstice Storm: One of the Major Geomagnetic Storms of Solar Cycle 24 Observed at Ground Level

We report on the 22?–?23 June 2015 geomagnetic storm that occurred at the summer solstice. There have been fewer intense geomagnetic storms during the current solar cycle, Solar Cycle 24, than in the previous cycle. This situation changed after mid-June 2015, when one of the largest solar active regions (AR 12371) of Solar Cycle 24 that was located close to the central meridian, produced several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) associated with M-class flares. The impact of these CMEs on the Earth’s magnetosphere resulted in a moderate to severe G4-class geomagnetic storm on 22?–?23 June 2015 and a G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storm on 24 June. The G4 solstice storm was the second largest (so far) geomagnetic storm of Cycle 24. We highlight the ground-level observations made with the New-Tupi, Muonca, and the CARPET El Leoncito cosmic-ray detectors that are located within the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) region. These observations are studied in correlation with data obtained by space-borne detectors (ACE, GOES, SDO, and SOHO) and other ground-based experiments. The CME designations are taken from the Computer Aided CME Tracking (CACTus) automated catalog. As expected, Forbush decreases (FD) associated with the passing CMEs were recorded by these detectors. We note a peculiar feature linked to a severe geomagnetic storm event. The 21 June 2015 CME 0091 (CACTus CME catalog number) was likely associated with the 22 June summer solstice FD event. The angular width of CME 0091 was very narrow and measured \({\sim}\, 56^{\circ }\) degrees seen from Earth. In most cases, only CME halos and partial halos lead to severe geomagnetic storms. We perform a cross-check analysis of the FD events detected during the rise phase of Solar Cycle 24, the geomagnetic parameters, and the CACTus CME catalog. Our study suggests that narrow angular-width CMEs that erupt in a westward direction from the Sun–Earth line can lead to moderate and severe geomagnetic storms. We also report on the strong solar proton radiation storm that began on 21 June. We did not find a signal from this SEP at ground level. The details of these observations are presented.     

Landslide inventory using image fusion techniques in Brazil

The present work aims to assess the accuracy of six fusion techniques (Brovey, IHS, HSV, PCA, WTYO and WTVE) in order to compile landslide inventories using orbital images (ETM+ and PAN HRV). The study area is characterized by steep terrain and dense forest in Caraguatatuba, São Paulo State, Brazil. In terms of spatial quality, the Wavelet Transform technique provided the best results, presenting correlations above 90%. As for spectral quality, the best results were obtained with the IHS fusion. Based on the results, it may be concluded that the IHS is the best technique for preserving spatial and spectral information from the original images, so as to more clearly identify landslide scars. However, it was still not possible to typify the landslides from remote sensing data. Nonetheless, it is believed that image fusion techniques adequately met expectations in terms of their capacity to identify landslide for the creation of an inventory for the studied area.     

Introduction: Coping with global change in marine social-ecological systems

Marine social-ecological systems are complex, inter-connected, and highly dynamic, in particular when forced with global changes. However, their human social components are often treated separately from their biophysical components, and by different scientific disciplines. To help bridge these gaps, and to explore conceptual, comparative, and governance issues relating to marine social-ecological systems and global change, an international symposium was held on “Coping with global change in marine social-ecological systems”. This short paper provides an introduction to this topic, and briefly describes nine papers which arose from this symposium and which comprise this special issue of Marine Policy. It is concluded that good progress is being made towards studying marine social and ecological systems as coupled systems, but that many issues remain to challenge natural scientists, social scientists, and humanists to work together. These include incorporating multi-stakeholder participation, the need for a long-term perspective, and development of flexible livelihood and governance strategies.