Emerging Memorial Landscapes of Labor Conflict in the Cotton Textile South

While research into the formation of memorial landscapes in the American South has focused on those resulting from racial conflicts, a new landscape memorializing labor conflict and class consciousness is also emerging in the region's textile-producing Piedmont. This memorialization poses significant challenges to dominant regional discourses of economic development and class mutuality in a region in which labor organizing and radical politics remain anathema. This paper examines this emerging landscape for what it can tell us about class relations in the region and the process by which memorial landscapes are formed.     

BEWARE OF NEW GEOGRAPHIES

The effort to make the discipline appear relevant and useful raises the danger of allowing applied geography to become yet another “new” geography. Though we must encourage the development of a viable applied geography, we must simultaneously make much greater use of our existing traditions and literature if we are to thrive in the long run as an academic discipline. Without a heritage, we are vulnerable.     

The “Soviet” factor: exploring perceived housing inequalities in a midsized city in the Donbas,Ukraine

In this paper, I revisit the role of Soviet legacy factors in explaining today’s housing inequalities in a midsized post-Soviet city by investigating social, demographic, economic and geographic determinants of perceived housing quality. Building on a sample survey dataset (n = 3,000) that brings together both Soviet legacy effects and more universal influences on housing inequality, it is shown that various aspects of Soviet housing policy can be traced as well-preserved legacies today. The survey was conducted in 2009 in Stakhanov, Ukraine, and the method of analysis is binomial logistic regression. By capturing both the social costs attributed to the post-Soviet transition crisis as well as the underlying legacy factors inherited from the Soviet epoch, the findings suggest that any analysis of housing inequalities or residential segregation in the post-socialist city must come to terms with the impacts of socialist-era economic priorities on the urban social landscape.     

Transient modelling of lacustrine regressions: two case studies from the Andean Altiplano

A model was developed for estimating the delay between a change in climatic conditions and the corresponding fall of water level in large lakes. The input data include: rainfall, temperature, extraterrestrial radiation and astronomical mid‐month daylight hours. The model uses two empirical coefficients for computing the potential evaporation and one parameter for the soil capacity. The case studies are two subcatchments of the Altiplano (196 000 km²), in which the central low points are Lake Titicaca and a salar corresponding to the desiccation of the Tauca palaeolake. During the Holocene, the two catchments experienced a 100 m fall in water level corresponding to a decrease in water surface area of 3586 km² and 55 000 km², respectively. Under modern climatic conditions with a marked rainy season, the model allows simulation of water levels in good agreement with the observations: 3810 m a.s.l. for Lake Titicaca and lack of permanent wide ponds in the southern subcatchment. Simulations were carried out under different climatic conditions that might explain the Holocene fall in water level. Computed results show quite different behaviour for the two subcatchments. For the northern subcatchment, the time required for the 100 m fall in lake‐level ranges between 200 and 2000 years when, compared with the present conditions, (i) the rainfall is decreased by 15% (640 mm/year), or (ii) the temperature is increased by 5·5 °C, or (iii) rainfall is distributed equally over the year. For the southern subcatchment (Tauca palaeolake), the time required for a 100 m decrease in water level ranges between 50 and 100 years. This decrease requires precipitation values lower than 330 mm/year. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

黄土高原地貌形态图谱三维符号指标体系与应用

长期以来,地貌学界和制图学界一般是采用文字、地图和图像等方式来描述黄土高原独特的地貌形态,故往往不够形象,缺乏系统性。采用地学信息图谱和三维可视化的方法,对挖掘揭示黄土高原地貌形态特征规律是一个有效的方法。黄土高原地貌形态图谱三维符号的指标体系,是将地貌学家和制图学家对黄土高原正负地貌类型的认知结果经过系统化、标准化和科学化的归纳和提炼,从中提取出的描述黄土高原地貌三维特征的参数集合。既是对黄土高原地貌形态图谱三维立体特征的充分概括,又是三维形式建模表达的参考和依据。根据黄土高原地貌类型的分类和侵蚀特征规律,该体系分为正地貌形态指标体系、负地貌形态指标体系和坡度一侵蚀特征谱系描述指标,采用定性和定量相结合的方法来制定指标体系的具体参数。最后通过实例来验证指标体系在构造三维符号时的应用。细致精确的描述单个地貌类型的三维形态,将有助于对黄土高原地貌特征的认识和研究,为水土保持和生态环境建设提供帮助,同时也为其他地貌类型的信息图谱研究提供借鉴。     

Hydrologic complexity and classification: a simple data reconstruction approach

Technological advances, by facilitating extensive data collection, better data sharing, formulation of sophisticated methods, and development of complex models, have brought hydrologic research to a whole new level. Despite these obvious advances, there are also concerns about their general use in practice. On the one hand, it is natural to develop more complex models than perhaps needed (i.e. representations having too many parameters and requiring too much data); on the other hand, it is often difficult to ‘translate’ results from one specific situation to another. Recent studies have addressed these concerns, albeit in different forms, such as dominant processes, thresholds, model integration, and model simplification. A common aspect in some of these studies is that they recognize the need for a globally agreed upon ‘classification system’ in hydrology. The present study explores this classification issue further from a simple phase‐space data reconstruction perspective. The reconstruction involves representation of the given multidimensional hydrologic system using only an available single‐variable series through a delay coordinate procedure. The ‘extent of complexity’ of the system (defined especially in the context of variability of relevant data) is identified by the ‘region of attraction of trajectories’ in the phase space, which is then used to classify the system as potentially low‐, medium‐ or high‐dimensional. A host of river‐related data, representing different geographic and climatic regions, temporal scales, and processes, are studied. Yielding ‘attractors’ that range from ‘very clear’ ones to ‘very blurred’ ones, depending on data, the results indicate the usefulness of this simple reconstruction concept for studying hydrologic system complexity and classification. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inverse flood risk modelling under changing climatic conditions

One of the most significant anticipated consequences of global climate change is the increased frequency of hydrologic extremes. Predictions of climate change impacts on the regime of hydrologic extremes have traditionally been conducted using a top‐down approach. The top‐down approach involves a high degree of uncertainty associated with global circulation model (GCM) outputs and the choice of downscaling technique. This study attempts to explore an inverse approach to the modelling of hydrologic risk and vulnerability to changing climatic conditions. With a focus targeted at end‐users, the proposed approach first identifies critical hydrologic exposures that may lead to local failures of existing water resources systems. A hydrologic model is used to transform inversely the main hydrologic exposures, such as floods and droughts, into corresponding meteorological conditions. The frequency of critical meteorological situations is investigated under present and future climatic scenarios by means of a generic weather generator. The weather generator, linked with GCMs at the last step of the proposed methodology, allows the creation of an ensemble of different scenarios, as well as an easy updating, when new and improved GCM outputs become available. The technique has been applied in Ontario, Canada. The results show significant changes in the frequency of hydro‐climatic extremes under future climate scenarios in the study area. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.