Sharing academic space

This paper is a personal reflection on my participation in the panel “The Spaces of Critical Geography” at the ICGC in 2002, where my position as an European Americanist working in Asia was helpful in disrupting any tendency towards conflation of location, nationality, identity, and academic practice. These reflections focus on three topics: my interactions with various hegemonies and hierarchies; my relationship with the English language; and the contribution I believe critical geography can make to contemporary academic practice across the disciplines.     

Participatory methods of incorporating scientific with traditional knowledge for volcanic hazard management on Ambae Island,Vanuatu

Ambae Island is the largest of Vanuatus active volcanoes. It is also one of the nations potentially most dangerous, with 60 million m³ of lake-water perched at over 1340 m in the summit caldera and over the active vent. In 1995, small phreatic explosions, earthquake swarms and heightened gas release led to calls for evacuation preparation and community volcanic hazard awareness programs for the ~9500 inhabitants. Differences in perspective or world-view between the island dwellers adhering to traditional beliefs (Kastom) and external scientists and emergency managers led to a climate of distrust following this crisis. In an attempt to address these issues, rebuild dialogue and respect between communities, outside scientists and administrators, and move forward in volcanic hazard education and planning for Ambae, we adapted and applied Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) approaches. Initial gender-segregated PRA exercises from two representative communities provided a mechanism for cataloguing local traditional viewpoints and hazard perceptions. Ultimately, by combining elements of these viewpoints and perceptions with science-based management structures, we derived volcanic hazard management guidelines, supported by an alert system and map that were more readily accepted by the test communities than the earlier top-down plans imposed by outside governmental and scientific agencies. The strength of PRA approaches is that they permit scientists to understand important local perspective issues, including visualisations of volcanic hazards, weaknesses in internal and external communication systems, and gender and hierarchy conflicts, all of which can hinder community emergency management. The approach we describe has much to offer both developing and industrialised communities that wish to improve their awareness programs and mitigative planning. This approach should also enhance communication and understanding between volcanologists and the communities they serve.     

虚拟现实技术及其在地理学中的应用

虚拟现实是一项涉及计算机图形学、人机交互技术、传感技术、人工智能等领域的综合集成技术。它用计算机生成逼真的三维视、听、嗅觉等感觉，使人作为参与者通过适当装置，自然地对虚拟世界进行体验和交互，最终使得参与者产生身临其境之感。在分析虚拟现实定义及软件硬件构成的基础上，提出了虚拟地理环境的概念及其技术实施路线，探讨了现实技术在地理学中的应用前景。     

新时期地理学的特征与任务

地理学是“探索自然规律,昭示人文精华”的一门学科,具有综合性、交叉性特点。20世纪80年代以来,地理学在全球环境变化研究计划中扮演了重要角色,地理学的理论、方法和技术已经成为解决人类社会面临的可持续发展问题的基础。起源于全球环境变化研究,并结合了社会科学研究的“未来地球”研究计划,代表了新时期地理学发展的方向。当代地理学研究方法已经从勘察、观测、记录、制图等传统的研究方法向空间统计、对地观测、GIS、室内外模拟、建模、决策系统等现代科学方法转变,逐渐走向综合性、定量化;随着地理学面临的问题更加复杂、更加综合,地理学研究议题变得更为综合和多元,吸引了更为广泛的学科参与,地理学视角在越来越多的领域得到重视,概念和工具所属的学科边界正变得模糊。新时期的地理学正在走向地理科学。中国是研究人类社会的可持续发展问题的一个理想的地理科学试验场所,中国地理科学未来的发展需要以综合的角度加深对人地复杂系统全面而综合的理解,需要加强全球性问题的研究,全面提升中国地理科学国际化水平,普遍提高先进技术解析地理现象的能力,系统实现地理科学的社会服务价值,促进中国从地理学大国走向地理学强国。     

土壤地理研究的发展

作者围绕14届国际土壤科学大会,介绍了国际土壤分类、土壤调查制图、世界土壤和土地数字化数据库、东亚土壤地理和土壤全球变化等方面研究的最新进展,指出我国应把土壤地理研究置于全球变化的总目标下,加强中国土壤系统分类的研究,开展1∶100万土壤—土地数字化数据库的工作、建立土壤地理信息系统以及防治土壤退化保证农业的持续发展。     

地学信息图谱方法前瞻

地学信息图谱是地理学发展的新契机。地学信息图谱研究不仅局限于表现,更是一种分析方法。地学信息图谱是图形、方法和认知三者的综合与统一。从地理学自身、GIS技术和"数字地球"战略三方面分析了地学信息图谱发展的背景。通过古代阴阳理论、物理学、生物学以及传统地图学,阐述了信息分析中的图谱方法。结合信息时代的特点,阐述了地学信息图谱方法的切入点。根据地理学发展的现状,提出地学信息图谱研究的起步工作主要有三方面：区域地理单元及其等级体系;地理单元的遥感影像特征分析;地学信息的表达方法。着重讨论了地学信息图谱研究关键要解决的三方面的地理学问题：地理对象的概括、地理学基本问题的分类、地理信息及其表达。     

Amplification or suppression: Social networks and the climate change—migration association in rural Mexico

Increasing rates of climate migration may be of economic and national concern to sending and destination countries. It has been argued that social networks—the ties connecting an origin and destination—may operate as “migration corridors” with the potential to strongly facilitate climate change-related migration. This study investigates whether social networks at the household and community levels amplify or suppress the impact of climate change on international migration from rural Mexico. A novel set of 15 climate change indices was generated based on daily temperature and precipitation data for 214 weather stations across Mexico. Employing geostatistical interpolation techniques, the climate change values were linked to 68 rural municipalities for which sociodemographic data and detailed migration histories were available from the Mexican Migration Project. Multi-level discrete-time event-history models were used to investigate the effect of climate change on international migration between 1986 and 1999. At the household level, the effect of social networks was approximated by comparing the first to the last move, assuming that through the first move a household establishes internal social capital. At the community level, the impact of social capital was explored through interactions with a measure of the proportion of adults with migration experience. The results show that rather than amplifying, social capital may suppress the sensitivity of migration to climate triggers, suggesting that social networks could facilitate climate change adaptation in place.     

Agri-food contestations in rural space: GM in its regulatory context

Why are genetic technologies necessary in the agri-food sector and why have they created such opposition in the rural domain? The paper attempts to place GM in its contested regulatory context, situated as part of three different and competing paradigms of agri-food and rural development: the agri-industrial, post-productivist and rural development models. Conceptually, it is argued that GM is currently positioned as a relatively new variant and component of the mutating and dominant agri-industrial paradigm. This sets the context and development of GM at a global level. The paper explores in its first part how the spread of GM relates to the maintenance of the unsustainable. Whilst this remains a driving force we see, in the second part, with reference to the unfolding nature of European regulation since 2000, the ways in which this agri-industrial imperative is shaped by particular State actions which blend this agri-industrial model with a wider set of consumer, private sector and environmental concerns. Overall, the EU has managed to translate a global agri-industrial imperative, despite significant external pressure, into a highly regulated ‘post-productionist’ framework in which both private and public interests are given responsibility for delivering consumer rights. This may, or may not allow room for rural sustainable development alternatives to take hold. At least it provides something of an opportunity.     

乡村湿地发展模式探讨:以泥仓溇乡村湿地为例

在当前城镇化快速发展的过程中,工农业发展对乡村湿地造成一定的影响和破坏。阐述了泥仓溇乡村湿地建设与保护的必要性,从改善区域水环境,科学分区管理,丰富生物多样性、传承湿地文化等方面对泥仓溇乡村湿地实施了因地制宜的生态恢复,构建良好的湿地生态系统,达到生态效益、社会效益、经济效益的共赢,以期为我国乡村湿地的生态保护与合理利用提供参考。