Wind and water: Environmental learning in early colonial New Zealand

Abstract:  In the 19th century, pamphlets and handbooks written for intending settlers often depicted New Zealand as environmentally benign. Upon arrival, however, the newcomers experienced episodes of stormy weather and flooding. They also found greater variations across the country, between the seasons, and from year to year, than they had been led to expect. Primarily by experience, but in part guided by Māori informants, rural people learned to recognize the signs of impending storms and flooding in lowland rivers. They also came to appreciate the less predictable features of eastern South Island weather systems, and found ways to reduce their economic and environmental impact.     

These roads were made for walking? The nature and use of rural public transport services in Garut Regency,West Java,Indonesia

Public passenger transport services receive relatively little space in the literatures on rural transport in developing economies, which mostly focus on the provision, or socioeconomic impacts, of roads. The implication is either that rural people are able to purchase or have access to motorized transport – or that they can walk on thoroughfares intended for vehicles. Statistics from Indonesia show that a low proportion of rural households own motor vehicles, but that rural bus services have seen a substantial expansion since the late 1970s; however, the coverage of the rural population is not complete. Based on survey data from villages ( desa ) in West Java, Indonesia, this paper explores several issues with respect to bus operations and motorcycle taxi ( ojek ) services in rural areas: the nature of public passenger services, the users of those services and the nature of trips made.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article: Rabat: Urban Apartheid in Morocco . Janet Abu -Lughod . Marketplaces in a Developing Country: The Case of Western Nigeria . Isaac Ayinde Adalemo . Farming Development and Space: A World Agricultural Geography . Bernd Andreae . Section and Party: A Political Geography of American Presidential Elections, from Andrew Jackson to Ronald Reagan . J. Clark Archer and Peter J. Taylor . Women and Space: Ground Rules and Social Maps . Shirley Ardener , ed. European Progress in Spatial Analysis . R. J. Bennett , ed. The Origins of Academic Geography in the United States . Brian W. Blouet Geographic Perspectives on Global Problems . Ronald Reed Boyce . Seasonal Dimensions to Rural Poverty . Robert Chambers , Richard Longhurst and Arnold Pacey eds. The New Nationalism and the Use of Common Spaces: Issues in Marine Pollution and the Exploitation of Antarctica . Jonathan I. Charney , ed. Communications Tomorrow: The Coming of the Information Society . Edward Cornish , ed. The Design of Suburbia . Arthur Edwards . Explorer on the Northern Plains: Lieutenant Gouverneur K. Warren's Preliminary Report of Explorations in Nebraska and Dakota in the Years 1855–56–57. With an Introduction by Frank N. Schubert . The Changing Climate: Responses of the Natural Flora and Fauna . Michael J. Ford . Essentials of Physical Geography . Robert E. Gabler , Robert J. Sager , Sheila Brazier , and Daniel L. Wise. The Road to Jaramillo . William Glen . Valued Environments . John R. Gold and Jacquelin Burgess , eds. Proximity and Preference: Problems in the Multidimensional Analysis of Large Data Sets . Reginald G. Golledge and John N. Rayner , eds. A Search for Common Ground . Peter Gould and Gunnar Olsson , eds. Geography: Its History and Concepts . Arild Holt -Jensen . A Population Geography . Huw R. Jones . The Human Mosaic: A Thematic Introduction to Cultural Geography, 3rd ed. Terry G. Jordan and Lester Rowntree . Urban Social Geography: An Introduction . Paul Knox . The Anatomy of Job Loss: The How, Why and Where of Employment Decline . Doreen Massey and Richard Meegan . The Information Society as Post-Industial Society . Yoneji Masuda . Map Librarianship, 2nd ed. Harold Nichols . India: Cultural Patterns and Processes . Allen G. Noble and Ashok K. Dutt , eds. The God that Limps: Science and Technology in the Eighties . Colin Norman . Geography: An Introductory Perspective . Robert E. Norris , Keith D. Harries and John D. Vitek . The Politics of Technology Assessment . David M. O'Brien and Donald A. Marchand . Ethnic Segregation in Cities . Ceri Peach , Vaughan Robinson and Susan Smith , eds. Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1980 . Bernard Quinn , Herman Anderson , Martin Bradley , Paul Goetting and Peggy Shriver . Energy in Australia: Politics and Economics . Hugh Saddler . Development from Above or Below? The Dialectics of Regional Planning in Developing Countries . Walter B. Stóuhr and D. R. Fraser Taylor , eds. Human Impact on the Ecosystem . Joy Tivy and Greg O'Hare . Plants and People: Vegetation Change in North America . Thomas R. Vale . The Mapmakers: The Story of the Great Pioneers in Cartography from Antiquity to the Space Age . John Noble Wilford .     

RURAL POPULATION LOSS AND CROPLAND CHANGE IN THE SOUTHERN PLAINS: IMPLICATIONS FOR CROPLAND RETIREMENT POLICY*

Given steadily increasing federal expenditures to manage surplus crop production, it would seem to make economic and environmental sense to concentrate production on the best acreage and to retire marginal crop acreage to alternate uses. A major obstacle constraining adoption and implementation of cropland retirement programs in the past has been the fear that cropland retirement threatens the viability of rural communities. Regression of change in population and retail establishments on changes in farm structure, nonfarm employment, and agricultural land-use in the rural Southern Plains between 1930 and 1970 provides only weak evidence to support this fear. In fact, short-term cropland idling under post-1960 price-support programs appears to pose more of a threat to rural communities than does cropland retirement.     

Poverty and citizenship: Sociological perspectives on water services and public-private participation

This article focuses on the arguments used to support private sector participation (PSP) in the provision of water and sanitation services (WSS) since the 1980s. It addresses the following questions: what was the historical evidence informing the claim that promoting PSP would be the best instrument for reducing water poverty? What are the principles that provided the foundation for this claim? And, what has been the empirical record of the resulting WSS policies? It argues that early neoliberal WSS policies since the 1980s were not intended to expand services to the poor. A pro-poor rhetoric was added to these policies since the 1990s, probably as a result of increasing citizen unrest in developing countries and the failure of privatized WSS projects in the Americas and Europe. However, the claim that PSP can provide the solution to public sector failure in extending coverage of essential WSS to the poor has little ground both in the theoretical literature and in the historical record. As could have been expected from the accumulated knowledge about the relationship between market-driven WSS and the poor, the recent experience with PSP projects has been disappointing. In practice these policies not only have failed to extend these essential services to the poor but have also contributed to deepening existing inequalities of power resulting in the weakening of state, local government, and civil society capacities to exercise democratic control over private water monopolies in most developing countries. Reversing this imbalance is one of the crucial challenges ahead in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. However, the article argues that the inertial forces set in motion by the neoliberal model of water policy based on market-centred governance of water and WSS remains the crucial obstacle for the achievement of the goals.     

“地质调查+”支撑服务脱贫攻坚模式探索与实践——以赣南苏区为例

2016年以来,自然资源部中国地质调查局开展的地质调查支撑服务脱贫攻坚工作围绕赣南矿业经济发展、特色农业发展、饮水安全、特色旅游业、绿色矿业等需求,开展了矿产地质调查、土地质量地球化学调查、水文地质调查、资源综合利用、地质遗迹调查等工作,支撑赣南革命老区脱贫攻坚工作已见实效,形成了行业特色明显的"地质调查+"扶贫模式,走出了一条独具特色的"地质调查+"扶贫新路。     

烟台市“多规合一”存在的矛盾及解决对策

以烟台市为例,总结了现行国民经济与社会发展规划、土地利用规划、城乡规划和其他空间规划存在的差异,分析了现阶段“多规”实践中存在的突出矛盾,从体制、技术、程序层面研究解决对策,为下一步开展“多规合一”工作提供参考。     

德州市城乡一体化地籍管理系统建设初探

以山东省德州市为例,系统阐述了不动产统一登记背景下的城乡一体化地籍管理信息系统建设,基于ArcGIS图形平台和Oracle数据库平台,对已有农村集体土地所有权、集体土地使用权和城镇国有建设用地使用权登记信息数据等进行整合,设计开发了城乡一体化土地登记管理子系统、地籍图形变更子系统、地籍信息系统社会化应用系统,初步建成了不动产登记中的地籍信息数据中心。     

中国援助柬埔寨乡村供水项目水井施工工艺及解决问题的措施

本文主要介绍了中国援助柬埔寨乡村供水井项目概况,针对项目施工难点从水井结构、设备选型、施工工序等方面进行了项目水井施工工艺设计,就施工难点和前期施工中遇到的问题提出了解决措施,取得了较好的效果。     

西宁市农村居民点空间布局研究

分析农村居民点的空间分布特点并对其布局进行调整是土地整治的基础性工作,对提高村庄用地集约程度和保护耕地有重要作用。利用土地利用现状调查数据,运用GIS的空间分析技术和Fragstats的景观指数计算功能,以西宁市为例,在市域尺度上探讨道路、河流、坡度、坡向、耕地等环境因素与农村居民点布局的相关关系,并对西宁市农村居民点空间布局进行优化。西宁市农村居民点有较大的布局潜力,而且受耕地、坡度、道路、河流、坡向等环境因子的影响,可划分为优先发展区、重点发展区、保留发展区、搬迁区。市域尺度上的研究在一定程度上掩盖了县级、村级等小尺度斑块的破碎化,强化了相邻斑块的差异性。