Last interglacial sea levels on the south coast of New South Wales

Remnants of the Last Interglacial shoreline occur at Middle Lagoon on the far south coast of New South Wales. Relict beach sediments can be traced to a height of at least +4.8 m and are indicative of a former mean sea level of about +3 m. Thermoluminescence (TL) ages of 126 ± 13 ka and 114 ± 15 ka were determined for beach and aeolian facies respectively. Sands in the lower part of an exposure on the adjacent Gillards Beach gave TL ages of 108 ± 13 ka, but sands in the upper part of that exposure gave an age of 19.9 ± 3.5 ka. This chronological evidence of a stratigraphic unconformity in what was initially taken as pedogenic differentiation at Gillards Beach is supported by contrasting electron traps and colour centres in crystal lattices of quartz grains in these two samples. No tectonic displacement is apparent. This site provides the first evidence of the Last Interglacial sea level for 1000 km along the coast between Gippsland and Newcastle.     

BUILDING A COLONIAL RESOURCE MONOPOLY: THE EXPANSION OF SULPHUR MINING IN NEW SPAIN, 1600–1820*

The discovery, extraction, and monopolistic control of key natural resources was a priority of New Spain's colonial administration. Managing the region's abundant resources, however, often proved difficult for the Spanish Crown. Human and environmental challenges impeded protoindustrial growth and development, and monopolistic control of resources often met resistance. In this article I examine these processes in the context of New Spain's little‐known monopoly on sulphur—a yellow, powdery mineral the Crown jealously guarded as its own. Sulphur was critical for gunpowder and explosives production, yet the Crown often failed to produce enough of it to meet the growing demand by its military and the silver blast‐mining industry. Colonial documents reveal administrators’ attempts to improve sulphur production through reform measures, which included advising sulphur miners on how to discover sulphur deposits and, eventually, how to develop their mines. Efforts to improve sulphur production were moderately successful, although the process was messy and inefficient.     

Divergent Perspectives on Water Security: Bridging the Policy Debate

Environmental policy discussion is replete with references to water security, food security, ecosystem health, community resilience, sustainable development, and sustainable urbanism. These terms are, by their very nature, ambiguous and difficult to define; they allow room, however, for a variety of actors to conceptualize water, food, ecological, economic, and urban problems in ways that allow them to move forward on contentious issues. This article focuses on the idea of water security and asks how it is conceptualized and used for regional policy debate in western Canada. We asked fifty-eight water stakeholders from the Saskatchewan River Basin to define water security, identify major barriers to security, and prioritize water problems. Responses showed there are myriad ways to think about water security, ranging from narrow conceptualizations, such as reliability, quality, and quantity, to broader sustainability perspectives about the nature of resource development and its social and economic consequences. The human dimensions of water security (governance, land use, and competing demands) were assigned higher priority than its biophysical aspects (flooding, droughts, and climate change). Framing water security to emphasize the human capacity to manage uncertain and rapid biophysical and societal change offers the opportunity to unite actors who otherwise would be separated by core environmental values, definitions of water security, provincial context (Alberta vs. Saskatchewan), and occupation.     

基于情景模拟的天津市滨海新区2020年暴雨内涝风险评估

基于多灾种复合动态风险评估理论,依据滨海新区2020年人口规划、土地利用规划以及社会经济发展计划,根据地面沉降和海平面上升预测结果设计了最不利、适中和最理想化三种情景;在此基础上,自行开发了基于GIS的洪水淹没区计算模块,模拟计算不同重现期暴雨内涝的淹没范围、淹没深度及淹没损失。结果表明:2020年,发生1 000 a一遇、200 a一遇和50 a一遇暴雨时,在最不利的情景一下:天津市滨海新区分别将有32.73%,29.34%和26.01%的土地不同程度受淹,受淹人口分别为338万、305万和264万,淹没损失分别达220.89亿元、181.39亿元和139.12亿元。     

内蒙古和林格尔新区核心区地下空间适宜性评价

本文以内蒙古和林格尔新区核心区为研究范围,利用已有调查数据,基于MapGIS平台,从水文地质、工程地质、不良地质及地貌4个方面选取9个因子组成了地下空间适宜性评价指标体系,采用层次分析法对研究区地下空间适宜性进行了评价。评价结果显示：研究区浅层地下空间较适宜区占总面积99.71%;中层地下空间较适宜区占总面积95.03%;深层地下空间较适宜区分布于研究区东南部,占总面积26.95%,次适宜区大面积分布于研究区中西部区域,占总面积72.27%。研究结果表明：研究区地下空间资源综合适宜性等级基本以较适宜、次适宜为主,区内不同竖向层次与不同区位地下空间资源的适宜性存在差异,资源条件总体上呈现\     

Political Ecologies of Gentrification

This article explores the possibilities for a political ecology of gentrification. Gentrification research, while firmly rooted in materialist social science, has not yet broadened its interests to consider ecological aspects of, or the role in gentrification of, discourses, social movements, and state policies of the environment. Understanding the political ecologies of gentrification involves recognizing the ways in which material relations and uneven resource consumption, concepts of nature, and the politics of urban environmental management affect gentrification processes. By synthesizing diverse literatures in urban studies, political ecology, urban environmental governance, consumption studies, and gentrification, this study argues that Vancouver, British Columbia represents a well-developed urban crucible for the new political ecologies of gentrification in North America. New developments in Vancouver increasingly contribute to gentrification using languages of sustainability and green consumption in a process of ecological gentrification.