Dilemmas of development in Oceania: the political economy of the Tongan agro-export sector

This article critically engages with the recent diffusion of the orthodox development model in Oceania and highlights some evolving dilemmas. In particular, it explores the social, economic and ecological tensions arising from economic reforms that are exacerbating the fragility of already vulnerable nation-states and communities. In order to illustrate its arguments, a case study of the impacts of agro-export growth in Tonga is presented. Attention is drawn to the socially inequitable and ecologically unsustainable outcomes of rapid growth in this sector. In analyzing the political economy of the squash pumpkin sector, the authors point to the important role that culture plays in mediating and conditioning development outcomes. Reflecting on the Tongan case, it is argued that to better understand the implications of orthodox developmental reform in the region, research must seek to more explicitly incorporate distributional and ethical analysis.     

Globalisation, Regionalisation and Local Voices: The Asian Development Bank and Rescaled Politics of Environment in the Mekong Region

Globalisation is manifested in the Mekong Region both through processes and discourses that reflect the ideology of a borderless world allowing easy passage of capital and commodities, and through resistance to such processes in an increasingly transnationalised civil society movement. However, more immediately significant supranational integrative agendas take the form of regionalisation, a process that has received less attention but which raises analogous concerns of re-scaled governance. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been a catalysing force for regionalisation amidst a host of regional processes and initiatives; as such it has found itself the object of critique as an institution and through the specific projects it has supported that have impacted on local communities and ecosystems. Meanwhile, local and NGO voices associated with the emergence of a vibrant civil society in Thailand and nascent civil society responses in neighbouring countries have challenged claims on resources made in the name of national development and regional integration.
This paper considers some key issues of re-scaling resource and environmental politics in the Mekong Region, and the extent to which challenges have been recast from national to regional development agendas. Politics of environment are shown to exist as a general rather than exceptional response to the region's development direction, and it is suggested that equitable and sustainable development increasingly needs to address simultaneously the re-scaling and reconfigurations of power in both environmental politics and the "infrapolitics" of environment. The paper is illustrated with case studies of dams in Laos and Thailand.     

The impacts of urbanization on soil erosion in the Loess Plateau region

The accelerated urbanization has resulted in new soil erosion in the Loess Plateau region since the 1980s. A concept of urban erosion and its impacts on environment are discussed. The experimental studies and field investigations show that those loose silt and earth piles formed by urban construction can be eroded seriously: Under stormy rain, the amount of sediment from steep man-dumped slope is 10.8-12.2 times that of from uncovered slope land; the result of experiments with the wind tunnel also shows that the damage to the surface structure of dry loess can cause serious soil erosion by wind in some cities of the region. Even if in the urban built-up area, there are many loose sandy soil, mud and silt, which are washed into rivers by city’s ground flow in the rainy season. So, anthropogenically induced soil erosion has made soil erosion more serious around the urban areas. And the urban eroded environment has several characteristics such as fragility, complexity, seasonality and quick variability. Urban areas witness a quick economic growth and have more construction projects than rural areas, which brings more intensive changes of environments during a short period of time or adds some new elements to the erosion system. Therefore erosion has experienced more intensive impact by human activities. So, the possible impact of urbanization on erosion environment must be taken into consideration when designing or planning to exploit natural resources or to develop urban areas in the Loess Plateau.     

太原盆地东南部农村聚落空心化机理分析

在分析和界定空心化聚落的基础上 ,用雷达模型揭示了空心化聚落的激发因素和潜育环境 ;依据相对空化率和绝对空化率区位商构成 2× 2阶矩阵 ,将该区聚落划分为 4个空心化等级 ;并利用家庭预算曲线和地价理论 ,探讨了空心化聚落的成因机制 ;在研究聚落空间消长和应力状况的前提下 ,提出了反映聚落空心化的 5种过程模型 ,最后探讨了制止聚落空心化的若干措施。     

塔里木河中下游区域开发对生态环境的影响及生态环境恢复与重建对策——以尉犁县为例

随着塔里木河流域进入大规模开发时期，区域开发活动对该流域生态环境的演变产生了重大的影响，虽然绿洲内部产出大幅度增加，但整体生态环境趋向恶化，制约了区域社会经济的可持续发展。以塔里木河中下游尉犁县为例，从分析区域开发活动入手，总结了区域开发对区域生态环境影响的有利与不利方面，进而，讨论了区域生态环境恢复与重建的对策。     

Building Temporal Topology in a GIS Database to Study the Land‐Use Changes in a Rural‐Urban Environment

This article addresses the issue of linking temporal and spatial information into a GIS database structure to investigate the land‐use changes in a rural‐urban region over a thirty‐five‐year period. More specifically, it describes the application of a programming package developed to build temporal topology in an historical land‐use GIS database to efficiently perform spatiotemporal queries. The program was created within the MapInfo environment using MapBasic language. Different types of information, such as the rate of change, the relationship between the change of land use and zoning regulations, and land‐use succession were extracted from the database. A user‐friendly interface was also developed to easily address spatiotemporal queries to the database. This approach represents a flexible and performing tool for scientists and planners who need to efficiently capture essential spatiotemporal information required for geographical inquiry and decision‐making.     

Manuscript Reviewers for Volume 53

Books reviewed: Bassin, Mark, Imperial Visions: Nationalist Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far East, 1840 – 1865 Shortridge, James R., Our Town on the Plains: J. J. Pennell's Photographs of Junction City, Kansas, 1893 – 1922 Jakle, John A. and Sculle, Keith A., Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age Boeschenstein, Walter, Historic American Towns along the Atlantic Coast McKee, Jesse O., Ethnicity in Contemporary America: A Geographical Appraisal Luciuk, Lubomyr Y., Searching for Place: Ukrainian Displaced Persons, Ottawa, and the Migration of Memory Hausladen, Gary, Places for Dead Bodies Phillips, Richard, Watt, Diane and Shuttleton, David, De‐Centering Sexualities: Politics and Representations beyond the Metropolis Goldin, Liliana R., Identities on the Move, Transnational Processes in North America and the Caribbean Basin McDonald, David A., On Borders: Perspectives on International Migration in Southern Africa Fox, Roddy and Rowntree, Kate, The Geography of South Africa in a Changing World Takeuchi, Keiichi, Modern Japanese Geography: An Intellectual History Amery, Hussein A., and Wolf, Aaron T., Water in the Middle East: A Geography of Peace Karl, Thomas R., Nicholls, Neville and Ghazi, Anver, Weather and Climate Extremes: Changes, Variations, and a Perspective from the Insurance Industry Pittman, Blair, Texas Caves     

亚洲中东部岩石圈塑性流动网络与构造应力场

:板块边缘驱动作用主要通过岩石圈下层的网络状塑性流动实现其向板内的远程传递 ,并控制上层的构造变形。相应地造成构造应力场的的多层分布格局 ,主要包括下层 (含下地壳和岩石圈地幔 )、多震层 (属于上部地壳 )和浅层 (浅表地壳 )应力场。这些层中最大压应力方向可分别采用塑性流动网络共轭角平分线、震源机制解和井孔应力测量等方法加以确定。根据对亚洲中—东部下层与多震层应力场的对比表明 ,大部分地区二者的应力方向基本一致 ,表明了下层对上层的控制 ,这对了解板内应力场的一般趋势与格架提供了基础。靠近驱动边界的局部地段 ,由于上部地壳直接的传递作用 ,往往导致上、下层应力方向的显著偏差 ,有可能成为进一步了解深浅层联系和差异的一种方法     

水环境污染的修复技术

由于人口增加 ,经济建设发展 ,人民生活水平提高 ,需水量也日益增长。中国水资源紧缺 ,而水污染又加重了水资源危机。水资源及水污染的修复技术的探讨有利于改善人类的生存环境。文中叙述了中国水资源紧缺、地下水超采引起的环境地质灾害 ,提倡节约用水 ,降低万元产值耗水量 ,提高单位水资源的投入产出率 ,开发节水型农业体系。建议以流域为单位 ,实行统一管理调配 ,利用地下水开采所腾出库容 ,拦蓄洪水及将处理后的污水回灌地下 ,以减少灾害 ,增加水资源量。文中还综述了地面水污染、水质富营养化、海水古咸水入侵 ,酸雨影响地下水水质及垃圾堆放场下淋滤液对地下水的污染 ;探讨了用絮凝沉淀、好氧厌氧生物处理工艺、脱氮除磷工艺、膜分离技术及高浓度有机有毒废水等在水污染治理方面的修复技术 ;探讨了对地下水中病原微生物、重金属离子、溶解有机物、硬度、三氮的截、坝、投、抽、排等的修重技术。