Changes and continuity of wood-pastures in the lowland landscape in Czechia

The term wood-pastures is usually applied to areas with trees or other woody vegetation, scattered through a mainly grazed grassland area, and reflects one of the oldest land use types in Europe, which plays important ecological, agricultural and socio-cultural roles. However, a rapid decline in their area due to changes in land use and a lack of tree regeneration has recently been observed all over Europe, which has led to the necessity of a deeper understanding of their behaviour in relation to different factors via a detailed analysis of the history of the changes in their distribution over space and time. Despite the recent increase in the number of related studies, information on historic patterns of wood-pastures in many European locations, such as Czechia, remains incomplete. The goal of this study is to assess the habitat continuity of current wood-pastures and to analyse the land-use/land-cover changes of historical and current wood-pastures in lowlands and warm landscapes of hills and basins of Czechia. To achieve this, nine sites covering a total area of 98.6 km² were studied in Czechia. The situation on three time horizons (1820–1840s, the early 1950s and today) was analysed. The results have shown that almost all wood-pastures from the 1st half of the 19th century have now been lost and most of the currently existing ones were formed from the 1950s till today. Most wood-pastures, which were lost by the 1950s, were turned into open habitats, such as arable lands, and the ones lost from 1950 were turned into forest. New wood-pastures are mostly formed from open habitats, often in former military areas.     

“粤东”一称地理意义的历史演化与当代争辩

“粤东”是一个被广泛运用的地名,然而在古代与当代的地理意义迥然不同。即使在当代“粤东”也有几种解释,对人们的生产和生活造成一定影响。因此,探寻“粤东”较为合理的地理意义很有必要,能够为相关部门提供参考。文章首先根据历史文献,梳理了古代“粤东”一称地理意义的演变,然后以定量的方法统计当代学术界和媒体界对该词的使用。研究表明：由于古代“粤”的地理意义不断缩小,“粤东”的指代范围随之逐渐变小。当代“粤东”的地理意义至少有4种,以“粤东五市”最为学术界和媒体界认可。结合经济发展和自然地形特征,分析了当代“粤东”几种地理意义的优劣,最后提出“粤东”的统一定义：位于广东东部,包括潮州、汕头、揭阳、汕尾与梅州5市的区域。     

‘Paleoenvironmental study of modern charcoal making activity on forest soils in the Northern Vosges Mountains (Bitche,France): A multidisciplinary study of two remaining charcoal platforms and associated soils sequences’

This multidisciplinary study aims to decipher the impact of ancient charcoal production on past and present-day soils in the northern Vosges Mountains. Soil observations in the field and laboratory were complemented by charcoal and phytolith studies on large thin sections, molecular analyses of organic pollutants, and phytolith analysis on bulk samples. The complex technosol platform records an ancient natural soil sequence buried by a human-made platform on which charcoal accumulated. The current upslope soil is an entic Podzol. Palaeoecological data collected in the buried soil are reliable owing to low bioactivity due to soil acidity. Podzolisation predated the platform construction. The presence of ashes induced low soil alkalisation developed in the charcoal hearth remains and appears to have generated the migration of subsequent iron/clay/organic bands throughout the platform sediment and the buried soil. Charcoal studied in thin sections revealed mainly Quercus and Fagus taxa. Phytolith studies suggest that a less dense or degraded forest preceded platform construction, probably due to former woodland coppicing or earlier disorganised wood gathering. The specific distribution of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons sorbed on charcoal has persisted in soils throughout centuries, but we have no evidence that charcoal-making activities contributed to diffuse global pollution.     

Local traditions as a means for commercial production of historical beers: The case of Vossaøl,Norway

The aim of the article is to analyse challenges facing the commercial production of historical beers, which are ‘extinct’ beers. The concept of ‘fictive terroir’ is introduced to emphasize these challenges. The author addresses the following questions: What kind of knowledge is needed to produce historical beers? How can this knowledge be acquired? How can it be used commercially in craft breweries? The studied case is Vossaøl, a craft beer imitation of a beer produced in the early 19th century. The data were obtained from written sources and interviews with local home brewers and brewers at Voss Brewery in Norway. The study revealed the need to reconstruct the terroir in the early 19th century. Additionally, Voss Brewery had to acquire knowledge about how to process and combine the ingredients, which included the traditional yeast (kveik). Involving traditional home brewers was crucial to determine how ingredients could be combined to produce Vossaøl. The author concludes that a synthetic knowledge base was a useful point of departure in this respect. Participation in the traditional culture of brewing proved an important means when working with this knowledge base. The results are interesting in the broader context of the reconstruction of beverages and food.     

中国历史时期土地覆被数据集地理空间重建进展评述

重建长时间序列具有空间属性的土地覆被数据集,对研究历史时期土地利用/土地覆被变化及其气候和生态效应具有重要意义。近年来,国内外学者就定量重建中国区域历史土地覆被数据集进行了积极探索。但由于历史时期土地利用数据来源多元、重建方法多样、验证方式各异等原因,不同学者的重建结果迥异,其中重建方法是导致差异形成的重要原因之一。本文从重建思路、假设和方法、结果验证等方面对覆盖中国区域的主要空间数据集进行了综合评述,结果表明：①基于历史记录的还原法和基于地理空间模型的重建法是历史土地覆被空间重建的主要方法,而根据建模过程,后者又可进一步分为“自上而下”的配置模型和“自下而上”的演化模型法。②基于数量重建进行空间重建是当前历史土地覆被数据集重建的主流,在缺少充分、客观历史数据的条件下,对基础数据、分布控制因素和限制因子进行合理假设是取得合理结果的重要条件。③为提高研究成果的解释力,需要对重建结果进行检验,直接验证法虽较为准确,但受时空尺度限制,具有显著的局限性,间接验证法可作为有效的补充。     

Internet-based applications for interrogating 50 years of data from the South African national water quality monitoring network

ABSTRACT

National and regional water quality monitoring networks have been operated in South Africa since the early 1970s. These originally had text-based inventories that were convenient for specialists who were familiar with the national networks and knew the locations of their sites of interest. However, within two decades the networks had expanded in geographical extent and variables monitored to such an extent that users needed spatial context in order to locate sites that fitted their information requirements. Mapping applications running on the Internet, such as Google Earth and Leaflet, form the foundation of a system for providing online inventories and summaries of the data available on the water quality database. The interfaces were constructed using available software, mainly ArcInfo and R. A recent concern is a decrease in the collection of water quality data, which is reducing the value of data summaries for water resource management.     

“THE END OF MODERN HISTORY”?*

ABSTRACT. The first half of the twentieth century marked both an end to confidence in human control of the earth and a prelude to the contemporary era of intense environmental concern after 1950. This conspectus of the environmental history/historical geography of the transitional years between 1900 and 1950 focuses on rising concerns over resource supplies and exploitation, particularly land settlement, timber supplies, soil erosion, and river-basin control. Conservation and the pervasiveness of ecological thinking and analogy form a strong underlying theme.     

基于GIS和空间句法的历史街区保护更新规划方法研究—以江门市历史街区为例

基于GIS和空间句法集成的思路,以江门市历史街区保护更新规划为例,结合实地调研从空间实体的“点、线、面”3个层面分别建立建筑、街巷和地块GIS数据库,利用GIS多因子评价对建筑保护价值进行综合评价,运用空间句法定性定量的分析手段剖析历史街区的街巷路网结构及用地布局,尝试探索建立在量化、实证分析基础上的历史街区保护更新规划的技术方法和流程.研究结果表明:通过量算空间句法参数可以直观解析历史街区空间形态结构和智能性水平,对研究区的规划定位能提供较好的参考;通过空间句法与GIS集成分析对街巷和用地布局的合理性进     

Study on the extremely cold winter of 1670 over the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River

The snow-cover days over the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River （MLRYR） in the winter of 1670 were extracted from Chinese historical documents. By these records, the winter temperature anomalies （compared to the mean of 1961-1990） recorded at seven meteorological stations and the regional mean winter temperature were estimated. The results show that： （1） There was an average of about 30 snow-cover days over the MLRYR region in 1670, ranging from 11-20 days in Shanghai and eastern Zhejiang to 5140 days in eastern Hunan Province. The snow-cover days averaged about 40 days in Anqing and Nan- cheng, and ranged from 30 to 40 days in Quzhou, Jingdezhen, and Nanchang; and （2） the regional mean winter temperature in 1670 was estimated to be approximately 4.0 ℃ lower than that of 1961-1990. The maximum negative anomaly of 5.6℃ occurred in Nanchang and the minimum anomaly of-2.8 ℃ was detected in Quzhou. Both of these were lower than that of the coldest winter during the instrumental observation period of 1951-2010. This research could not only provide a method to es- timate historical climate extremes, but also provide a background to understand the recent instrumentally climate extremes.     

Development and utilization of a national web-based chronology of hydrological events/Développement et utilisation sur internet d’une chronologie nationale d’événements hydrologiques

Abstract

Abstract The Chronology of British Hydrological Events (CBHE) has been created as an on-line information resource (http://www.dundee.ac.uk/geography/cbhe/) in order to enhance access to and use of historical facts pertaining to British hydrological phenomena. Its scope covers floods, droughts and all other notable historical phenomena of hydrological interest. This paper sets out the technical means by which the CBHE has been created, explains the benefits to hydrologists in creating such a facility, and illustrates its utility with a number of examples. Benefits include hydrological risk assessments, historical studies of individual events and objectives in environmental education. The scope for establishing comparable national chronologies for other countries is identified, along with prospects for enhancing the utility of such systems with additional functionality such as links to on-line gazetteers and maps.