Digital effects in the spatial economy of film: towards a research agenda

A new assemblage of digital technologies, organized around compressed software formats and broadband Internet infrastructures, is reconfiguring the motion picture industry. In this paper, I review the impacts of digitization upon the spatial economy of film in the United States via a commodity chain framework. The discussion raises some important themes for conceptual debate in economic geography.     

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.     

Geographic Information Technologies and the History of a Shoreline: The Case of Chapter 91 in New Bedford,Massachusetts

Abstract

This article discusses the use of geographic information technologies to assist researchers in the exploration of historical databases. The case study is a pilot project in which we used geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS) to study the history of the Public Waterfront Act (the “Chapter 91” program), a policy designed to balance private property rights, public interest, and environmental protection in the Massachusetts tidelands. The issues discussed range from the role of GIS in society and its limitations as a representational tool to the ability of current GIS to deal with historical data and to manage temporal attributes.

     

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。     

基于3S技术和USLE的深圳市茜坑水库流域土壤侵蚀强度预测研究

基于RS、GPS和GIS(3S技术)的集成提出了USLE 6大因子的算法,在建立的专题地理信息数据库基础上,运用USLE对深圳市茜坑水库流域的土壤侵蚀强度进行预测和估算.结果表明:整个流域90.5%的区域土壤流失强度为中度以下,强度侵蚀以上的区域虽然仅占整个流域面积的9.5%,但是年土壤侵蚀量达到了整个流域土壤侵蚀量的49.4%.流域土壤侵蚀强度和植被覆盖情况明显相关,茜坑水库流域的东北山区部分是整个流域的严重侵蚀区.研究证明:在3S技术集成支持下,采用USLE对流域的土壤流失强度进行预测和估算的方法具有直观、方便、快捷的优点,成果能充分满足小流域水土保持工作的需要.     

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\     

Lesser-known consequences of managing marine fisheries using individual transferable quotas

Managing marine fisheries using output controls in the form of individual transferable quotas (ITQs) can be an attractive alternative to more traditional input controls. There are now a number of examples of where ITQ-managed fisheries have been able to reduce the impact of the major management problems in global fisheries, namely, gross over-capitalisation and effort. However, ITQs are not the perfect management tool and one of the lesser known consequences of ITQ-managed fisheries where ITQs consist of a harvest right is the implicit relationship between ITQ property rights and rights of access to the fishing grounds. This implicit spatial right to the grounds can provide obstacles in the way of allocating water-space within fishing grounds for alternative uses such as marine-protected areas, large-scale aquaculture, and wind farms. These lesser-known consequences of ITQ-managed fisheries are discussed here.