Placing geographies of public health

Following the move to a 'post–medical' geography, a large amount of research has come to focus on public health issues. This paper explores these current geographies of public health and argues for the development of a more critical perspective. In particular, it draws on commentary that has emerged out of debates that have taken place within a body of literature usually identified as the critical 'new' public health. The paper goes on to argue that such scholarship offers crucial insights for the production of a critical geography of public health.     

Cacti–shrub interactions in the coastal desert of northern Sinaloa, Mexico

Spatial patterns and replacement in ten cacti were studied on an island of the coastal desert of Sinaloa, México. Four platyopuntias had 74–92% of their individuals beneath shrub canopies, whereas three globose cacti, one columnar cactus and two cylindropuntias had similar or higher percentages of individuals in open spaces. This study advances the idea that open-space colonization is enhanced by less harsh physical and biotic conditions in coastal deserts, and by certain morphological and physiological adaptations of cacti. The absence of nurse-shrub replacement is understood as a result of induced co-existence by physical damage from cyclones in the coastal zone.     

Luxury Tourism and Regional Economic Development in Mexico

This article argues that little attention has been paid to the territorial and socioeconomic impact of consumer–service globalization on Third World countries. It specifically examines the economic role of tourism in Mexico and its limited effect on the country's regional development. Despite governmental support in order to enhance economic growth, currency receipts, and employment, tourism contributes less than 5 percent to the gross domestic product, and the majority of tourism–related jobs are precarious and low–skilled. The promotion of luxury resorts in coastal areas has led to highly concentrated and fast–growing enclaves of mainly foreign investment. However, this strategy has failed to stimulate productive links between tourist centers and their hinterlands and has led to large–scale urbanization characterized by a considerable lack of basic services for the resident population.     

Managed relocation: an assessment of its feasibility as a coastal management option

Managed relocation is explained and examined as an option to add to the usual categories considered in relation to managing coastal erosion. The paper considers the relocation of buildings in one unit, as opposed to demolition and re-construction. The standard coastal erosion management options are briefly noted and how managed relocation can fit into these options is explained. This paper focuses on four case studies. Two examples are from the USA and two from the UK; of these, two (one in each of the UK and USA) took place during the nineteenth century. Managed relocation is proposed as being feasible in particular cases, particularly where there are isolated historic or high value buildings.     

Recent ventifact development on the central Oregon coast,western USA

The unusual location of ventifacts, on a boulder‐built jetty at the mouth of the Siuslaw River, Oregon coast, western USA, allows ventifact age and wind abrasion rates to be estimated with some precision. The jetty was built mainly between 1892–1901 and extended throughout the twentieth century. Consideration of historical shoreline position and the history of jetty construction and repair suggests the ventifacts have formed since about 1930. Morphologically the ventifacts are aligned south‐to‐north reflecting winter winds and sediment transport from the adjacent beach. Wind‐parallel grooves and ridges with sharp, sinuous crests are developed on inclined boulder surfaces on top of the jetty and reflect suspended sand transport in wind vortices. Deeply pitted surfaces on steep boulder surfaces nearest the beach reflect impact by saltating sand grains. Based on present wind regimes (1992–2000) from three regional weather stations, southerly winds above the sand transport threshold occur for 21·9–29·6 per cent of the time. Based on estimated depth of loss from boulder surfaces, wind abrasion rates are calculated to be on the order of 0·24–1·63 mm a^?1. This is the first well‐constrained field estimate of ventifact age and ventifaction rate from a modern coastal environment. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evolution and inheritance of a rock coast: western Galicia,northwestern Spain

There is increasing evidence that shore platforms and other elements of rock coasts may be inherited, at least in part, from interglacial stages when sea level was similar to today's. Most of this evidence, which includes ancient beaches and datable terrestrial deposits, has been obtained from areas of resistant, slowly eroding rock, where the platforms often appear to be much too wide to have developed since the sea reached its present level. It is much more dif?cult to demonstrate that inheritance has occurred in areas of weaker rock, which generally lack any datable material. The coast of western Galicia in northwestern Spain has shore platforms in igneous and metamorphic rocks that were deeply weathered during the Tertiary. These platforms are closely associated with ancient beaches from the last interglacial stage, and associated periglacial and ?uvio‐nival deposits that covered and fossilized most of the Eemian platforms and cliffs during the late middle and late Weichselian glacial stage. The sedimentary processes and the thickness and facies of the sediments were determined by the height, aspect and gradient of the coastal mountains, and their distance from the coast. Radiocarbon dating, sedimentary analysis and platform morphology indicate that the shore platforms of Galicia have been inherited from at least the last interglacial stage. They were fossilized in places beneath thick Weichselian deposits and then exhumed during the Holocene transgression. The abundant evidence for inheritance in Galicia has important implications for other coasts in fairly weak rocks where such evidence is generally lacking. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Oil-spill disasters and the rural hazardscape of Eastern Nigeria

The objective of the paper is to investigate the links between the patterns of incidents, the amount of hazardous materials locally present and capability of local emergency preparedness in rural local government councils. Four states Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Rivers State were used to examine the nature and pattern of oil-spill disasters in rural Nigeria. It is argued that oil-spill hazards are more than isolated engineering malfunctions. They can be alternatively understood as reflections of the social, economic and political contexts in which they occur. Discriminant analysis is used to examine the relationship between 71 country risk-related and preparedness variables and incident frequency. The findings illustrate the usefulness of contextual analysis in examining the restructuring of rural life and the capacity of fiscally and socially stressed rural communities to respond to environmental change.     

A millennial-scale record of Holocene tsunamis on the Kronotskiy Bay coast, Kamchatka, Russia

Deposits from as many as 50 large tsunamis during the last 7000 years are preserved on the Pacific coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula near the mouth of the Zhupanova River, southern Kronotskiy Bay. These deposits are dated and correlated using Holocene marker tephra layers. The combined, preserved record of tsunami deposits and of numerous marker tephras on Kamchatka offers an unprecedented opportunity to study tsunami frequency. For example, from the stratigraphy along southern Kronotskiy Bay, we estimate frequency of large tsunamis (>5 m runup). In the last 3000 years, the minimum frequency is about one large tsunami per 100 years, and the maximum about one large tsunami per 30 years; the latter frequency occurred from about 0 to 1000 A.D. This time interval corresponds to a period of increased seismicity and volcanic activity that appears to be recorded in many places on the Kamchatka Peninsula.     

沿岸上升流和沿岸急流的一个半解析理论

在考虑了陆架地形后，在垂直海岸的x z剖面上 ，对Boussinesq流体的非线性海洋运动方程求得了总动量守恒、温度守恒和位势涡度守恒的 普 适形式，进而得到流函数所满足的椭圆型二阶偏微分方程，在给定流体沿地形运动的条件下 ，算出问题的解. 计算结果表明，沿岸可以出现上升流也可以出现下沉流，它依赖于海洋的 大尺度背景条件. 计算所得的上升流、沿岸急流、温度的锋区结构与一些观测事实接近.     

福建沿海农村风能资源的开发利用

在调查基础，论述开发了风能资源的意义，并对福建沿海农村风能量资源进行了评价，提出了开发农村风能的措施。