Books,Places, Regions—A Natural Blend

Abstract

Children love books, and through carefully chosen ones geographic concepts can be conveyed. Books are good resources—great background material for describing a place, emphasizing the culture of a region, highlighting a geographical issue, or clarifying where a place is in the world. This article explains how literature encourages geographic thinking, builds geographic skills, and develops lasting mental maps of places and regions.     

遗产旅游地居民的地方认同——“碉乡”符号、记忆与空间

文化地理学者对“地方”这一理论视角主观性意义的强调,使得“地方认同”等呈现人与地方情感联系的概念被重新审视。在当今中国申遗热的背景下,当地人的地方认同在各方力量对遗产归属与表述的争夺中重塑,如果将这种重塑放在多尺度的分析框架下,就可以发现地方认同不仅仅局限于某一特定封闭的地点,在本土、全国以及跨国空间中呈现不同的表述。开平碉楼与村落作为广东首个世界文化遗产,并且是中国唯一以华侨文化为主题的世界文化遗产,是研究遗产生产对地方认同变迁影响的典型案例。结合文献分析、观察法与访谈法等,阐述遗产旅游发展背景下当地居民的地方认同变迁,分析开平作为“碉乡”的具体内涵。研究发现：遗产申报和维护使碉楼被硬性确立为地方的象征,具有高度符号化的特点;“碉乡”形象在居民地方认同中的展开并不完整;“碉乡”在历史延续中存在着多重割裂;“碉乡”的空间边界既明确又封闭。     

数字地名词典中的类型表达和管理

在数字地名词典中恰当地表达和管理地名的类型知识,有助于数字地名词典快速、有效地处理地名相关查询.为此,该文首先从数字地名词典的应用需求出发,分析类型在数字地名词典中的作用,进而设计一个地名类型本体模型.该模型表达了地名类型之间的继承关系以及对空间关系的约束.在本体模型基础上,提出了相应的查询处理策略并进行了系统实现.     

地图数字化与汉字数字化的关系

通过论述汉字信息在地图信息中的重要地位,说明开发地名数字化系统的必要性;并且通过分析汉字的“音、形、义”的结构特征,阐明了地名数字化系统的继承性、层次性、稳定性和开放性。从而说明开发地名数字化系统的艰巨性。     

Spatial and temporal deformation characteristics of marine alluvial deposits due to land reclamation: implications from InSAR observation and geotechnical estimate

Ground deformation of reclaimed land is a key issue for reclamation design, construction and sustainable development in coastal areas as this consolidation process of the underlying compressible marine sediment sequences over very long‐time periods could lead to damage of both ground constructions and underground facilities. In this case study, we have investigated the spatial and temporal characteristics of residual reclamation settlement of Chek Lap Kok Airport, Hong Kong, one of the largest land reclamation projects worldwide. A total of 25 time series ENVISAT ASAR datasets, acquired between December 2003 and October 2008, were used to retrieve settlement rates and deformation history at high resolution and accuracy by means of advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR). The InSAR‐derived results show a fairly homogenous and stable pattern in the sectors of the airport site corresponding to the two original islands of Chek Lap Kok and Lam Chau. In contrast, a relatively high spatial settlement variability, ranging from moderate (3–7?mm/yr) to strong (>10?mm/yr) settlement rates, was discovered within the majority of the reclaimed portion of the airport. A joint analysis of InSAR observations and geological materials indicates that the variability of the recorded residual settlement was highly correlated with the variations of thickness and pre‐consolidation state of alluvial deposits below the reclamation. A quantitative comparison analysis also has been carried out between time series InSAR observations and theoretical estimates of residual settlement modelled by geotechnical investigations. The results imply that a primary consolidation process in alluvial deposits below the reclamation might be delayed with respect to the predicted results and may still have been occurring in most reclaimed areas during the investigation period (2003–2008); the time to complete it could stretch to decades depending on hydraulic conductivity and natural drainage conditions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

大城市健身消费与地方建构

随着全球消费社会的到来,消费如何重塑人地关系日渐成为人文地理学研究的选题, 西方学界自20 世纪90 年代即开启了消费实践与地理学的全面联结。这种学术观照自然而然地延展到消费关系中折射出来的地理想象、地方认同和空间生产等主题之中。作为城市化衍生的生活方式,健身消费成为身体地理、空间想象和地方建构等研究交汇的重要议题。研究援引建构取向的地方理论以及行动者网络理论,分析行动者对“健身”的转译过程,指出行动者的消费关系社会性地建构了一个地理想象的“健康天堂”,健身的消费想象,与话语权力的凝视和影响是高度相关的。地理空间生产一种功能性消费关系和节点型人地关系,后者将本土消费关系想象式地嵌入到全球消费文化脉络之中,将人地关系从本土联结和延伸到全球。 通过身体实践的方式,行动者网络下的健身消费关系将微区位建构为多层次的地方。地方是一个现实与虚拟、本土与全球交互的关键节点,一种多向度的节点型人地关系可以在地理微区位中得到体现。     

Spatial Patterns of Seasonal Level Diurnal Variations of Ozone and Respirable Suspended Particulates in Hong Kong

In this study we analyzed the diurnal spatial patterns of cycles of ozone (O₃) and respirable suspended particulate (RSP) matter in Hong Kong between 2001 and 2011. We used harmonic analysis to reveal the diurnal cycle in the seasonal-level spatial patterns. The diurnal cycle of O₃ is stronger in the northeast rural areas of Hong Kong than in the urban center due to the lower titration effects of nitric oxide in the rural areas. For RSP, the southern sections show the strongest diurnal cycle and the northeastern sections show the weakest diurnal cycle, which could be explained by the heavy vehicular traffic in the southern urban areas and light vehicular traffic in the northeast rural areas. The diurnal patterns of O₃ and RSP both show stronger cycles in the summer months, which might be related to the diurnal rainfall pattern. The time of maximum for O₃ is around 1400 Local Standard Time (LST) in the afternoon in summer, whereas a wider range in the time of maximum, between 1100 and 1400 LST, was observed in winter. The spatial pattern of the time of maximum for RSP showed a gradual progression from the center of the city to the west, between 1300 and 1700 LST, which is consistent with rush hour traffic.     

Making sense of place through multiple memory systems1

The first part of the paper develops the argument that geographers should learn to decompose human memory into its constituent parts because then and then alone will we become attuned to the full range of ways in which we incorporate places into our beings. The second part of the paper articulates Stephen Hill's comments on episodic memory with my recent work on wisdom.     

The Geographer and the Fengshui Practitioner: So close and yet so far apart?

Fengshui deserves serious scrutiny from geographers. Fengshui has been a highly significant influence on the shaping of human environments in the Chinese cultural sphere for at least 4000 years. Efforts to eliminate it in the twentieth century, by Chinese governments intent on modernisation, have failed. Advice on fengshui is still eagerly sought today by families and businesses in Chinese communities, whether on the mainland, offshore or overseas. The first part of this paper briefly introduces fengshui . The second part applies Lefebvre's three modalities of space to the time-space manipulations and outcomes of the operation of fengshui . The third part explores what fengshui offers a postmodern world, concentrating on (a) the nature of the 'harmony' it seeks to establish between people and nature; (b) the nature of fengshui 's time-universe; and (c) the extent to which fengshui 's goals of time-space harmony offer a framework for approaching sustainable development.