Planning for source water protection in Ontario

Ontario began developing a drinking water source protection planning process in 2000, after a rural community's water supply was contaminated by pathogens from agricultural runoff. An expert committee report has recommended legislating a new source protection “sphere of jurisdiction” for municipalities; however, no specific new municipal tools or authorities have been proposed as yet. This paper reports findings from an evaluation of the extent to which existing institutional arrangements for land use planning and water management facilitate or constrain source protection by municipalities. A case study of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo suggests there is the potential to link land use planning more strongly to water management through creative use of existing tools, forgoing the need for major institutional changes.     

Climatic characteristics of summer high temperature and assessment methods in the large cities of North China

Based on the high temperature data of June to August in 1961-2000 in North China, the high temperature weather processes are investigated, and a more complete data set for severe high temperature processes is created. The climatic characteristics of adverse high temperature weather in Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Jinan and Taiyuan are analyzed respectively. The major features of the East-Asia Subtropical High and Transformed Continental High are discussed. The outcomes indicate that the influence of both East Asia Subtropical High and Transformed Continental High on these weather events varies, by a larger margin, from one city to another over North China and they are also closely related to the relative humidity. It is found that the behaviours of East-Asia Subtropical High and Transformed Continental High are the major important systems that give rise to the summer high temperature weather over the region. Based on these findings, the 5-day, 10-day and monthly assessment models for such high impact events have been developed. The assessment outcomes prove to be useful in assessing severe high-temperature events in major cities of North China.     

Rights or Containment? The politics of Aboriginal cultural heritage in Victoria

Aboriginal cultural heritage protection, and the legislative regimes that underpin it, constitute important mechanisms for Aboriginal people to assert their rights and responsibilities. This is especially so in Victoria, where legislation vests wide-ranging powers and control of cultural heritage with Aboriginal communities. However, the politics of cultural heritage, including its institutionalisation as a scientific body of knowledge within the state, can also result in a powerful limiting of Aboriginal rights and responsibilities. This paper examines the politics of cultural heritage through a case study of a small forest in north-west Victoria. Here, a dispute about logging has pivoted around differing conceptualisations of Aboriginal cultural heritage values and their management. Cultural heritage, in this case, is both a powerful tool for the assertion of Aboriginal rights and interests, but simultaneously a set of boundaries within which the state operates to limit and manage the challenge those assertions pose. The paper will argue that Aboriginal cultural heritage is a politically contested and shifting domain structured around Aboriginal law and politics, Australian statute and the legacy of colonial history.     

RACIALIZED TOPOGRAPHIES: ALTITUDE AND RACE IN SOUTHERN CITIES*

ABSTRACT. This study examines altitudinal residential segregation by race in 146 cities in the U.S. South. It begins by embedding the topic in recent theorizations of the social construction of nature, the geography of race, and environmental justice. Second, it focuses on how housing markets, particularly in the South, tend to segregate minorities in low‐lying, flood‐prone, and amenity‐poor segments of urban areas. It tests empirically the hypothesis that blacks are disproportionately concentrated in lower‐altitude areas using gis to correlate race and elevation by digital elevation‐model block group within each city in 1990 and 2000. The statistical results confirm the suspected trend. A map of coefficients indicates strong positive associations in cities in the interior South‐where the hypothesis is confirmed‐and an inverse relationship near the coast, where whites dominate higher‐valued coastal properties. Selected city case studies demonstrate these relationships connecting the broad dynamics of racial segregation to the particularities of individual places.     

Branding the design metropole: the case of Montréal, Canada

As part of a broader process of inter-urban competition, city governments have increasingly sought to 'position' themselves as centres of creativity. In these branding initiatives, culture is viewed as a tool of urban regeneration and economic development. Our paper examines the case of Commerce Design Montréal, an annual design competition run by the City of Montréal, which aims to brand Montréal as a centre of design. Commerce Design Montréal is an example of a 'fast' policy initiated by the state, but carried out by business owners and citizens. As such, it represents a downloading of the responsibility for economic development to the private or individual scale and adopts only a partial view of the varied actors and uses that are implicated in the design process. The paper considers the opportunities and challenges that this model presents for promoting design as a form of urban regeneration in a neo-liberal context.     

Historical Auckland on foot

Abstract:  This paper discusses three walking tour guides prepared for the 12th International Conference of Historical Geographers. It argues that the guides are innovative in terms of format, content and ironic sensibility. It construes them as devices for re-imagining Auckland's urban heritage.     

土地利用规划电子政务系统的设计与实现

本文在分析了电子政务的内涵和作用的基础上,阐述了建设土地利用规划电子政务系统的必要性。依据国土资源电子政务系统建设目标和规范,在MapGuide平台上应用办公自动化、GIS、Oracle数据库等技术,确定了系统的总体设计。完成了土地利用规划电子政务系统的建设,实现了规划和国土资源管理的公平、公开、公正和公信,促进了规划和国土资源管理的科学化和规范化,大大提高了土地利用规划工作的效率。     

合肥市夏季热岛特征研究

根据2002牟夏季高温期间合肥市城市小气候考察的资料，分析了合肥市夏季城市热岛特征以及热岛强度的历史变化。结果表明：1）合肥市夏季热岛强度的日变化与冬季明显不同，夏季晴天一天中热岛强度只出现一个峰值，其基本特征与Oke提出的理想状态下的城市热岛强度日变化的模式曲线非常相似，而冬季与高纬地区的加拿大卡尔加里城市的热岛强度日变化特征接近。这反映了冬、夏两季人类活动、能源消耗量的不同；2）随着城市范围的扩大和城市绿化工程的实施，合肥市热岛面积、分布形状有了一定的改变，但主要分布特征和强度基本没有变化。     

城市热岛效应监测方法研究进展

城市热岛效应是一种由于城市建筑及人们活动导致的热量在城区空间范围内聚集的现象,是城市气候最明显的特征之一.由于城市热岛影响因素以及相互关系的复杂性,为了精确细致地描述其时空分布,人们采用了多种方法来研究城市热岛现象,主要归纳为：气象站法、定点观测法、运动样带法、遥感测定法以及模拟预测等.最后,认为各种测定方法都存在一定的缺陷,建议多种测定方法综合运用.     

The fall and rise of metropolitan government in Copenhagen

In this paper it is argued that the re-establishment of a metropolitan government in the Greater Copenhagen Area in 2000 (Greater Copenhagen Authority) is not to be seen as a return to the kind of regional, coordinative authority (Greater Copenhagen Council) that was abolished in the Thatcherite climate of the 1980s. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s new forms of urban governance, entrepreneurialism and a higher national priority to the capital region were introduced, which changed the conditions under which the new metropolitan government is operating. This `contextualization' of the analysis of the two generations of metropolitan government points to the fact that typologies of metropolitan government, such as the one put forward by Sharpe (1995), often lacks analytical cogency. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.