A GIS Based Assessment of Land Suitable for Growing Hoop Pine in the Atherton, Eacham and Herberton Shires of North Queensland

The area of private land suitable and available for growing hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) on the Atherton Tablelands in North Queensland was modelled using a geographic information system (GIS). In Atherton, Eacham and Herberton shires, approximately 64,700 ha of privately owned land were identified as having a mean annual rainfall and soil type similar to Forestry Plantations Queensland (FPQ) hoop pine growth plots with an approximate growth rate of 20 m3 per annum. Land with slope of over 25° and land covered with native vegetation were excluded in the estimation. If land which is currently used for high-value agriculture is also excluded, the net area of land potentially suitable and available for expansion of hoop pine plantations is approximately 22,900 ha. Expert silvicultural advice emphasized the role of site preparation and weed control in affecting the long-term growth rate of hoop pine. Hence, sites with less than optimal fertility and rainfall may be considered as being potentially suitable for growing hoop pine at a lower growth rate. The datasets had been prepared at various scales and differing precision for their description of land attributes. Therefore, the results of this investigation have limited applicability for planning at the individual farm level but are useful at the regional level to target areas for plantation expansion.

Translating policy: Power and action in Australia's country towns

Controversies In its present condition, rural Australia is characterised by a discourse of decline that sees country towns and regions as places of demoralisation and despair. From a Foucauldian governmentality perspective, those who live in these spaces are not so much 'powerless' to the demands of urban-based governments and global capital, as rendered governable according to the socio-political ambitions of late capitalism. While important insights have been derived from such analyses, it is argued in this paper that excessive attention is often paid to the power of the state with little concern for the various ways in which local people engage with, and transform the strategies and effects of state power. Rather than utilising the concept of resistance to make sense of these interactions, a sociology of translation is adopted from the Actor Network Theory literature. Applied to two case examples, it shows how governmental policies and programmes are frequently the outcome of the interactions and negotiations that take place between all those enrolled in the actor-network.

Motivations and perceived influences on rural and urban general practitioners when prescribing conventional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or COX-2 inhibitors

Background and objective: Prescribers in rural and remote locations perceive that there are different influences on their prescribing compared with those experienced by urban prescribers. The aim of this study was to compare the motivations and perceived influences on general practitioners (GPs) when prescribing COX-2 inhibitors rather than conventional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) between rural and urban-based GPs in Queensland, Australia. Methods: A questionnaire was administered to two geographically distinct groups of GPs, one urban (n = 67) and one rural (n = 67), investigating the reasons that the GP would prescribe a COX-2 inhibitor rather than a conventional NSAID or vice versa and also focusing on patients requesting a prescription for a COX-2 inhibitor. Results and discussion: A 51% response rate (n = 68) was achieved. The difference between the rural and the urban GPs was that the urban GPs were more likely to perceive that they were influenced to prescribe COX-2 inhibitors by their patients' knowledge of these new (at the time) drugs. GPs in both the rural and urban areas perceived the COX-2 selective inhibitors to be safer than conventional NSAIDs, and that there was little difference in terms of efficacy between the two drug classes. However, GPs from both of the study areas stated that conventional NSAIDs were preferred over COX-2 selective inhibitors, primarily due to their expense, if their patients were not at risk for developing a GI bleed. Conclusion: The motivations and perceived influences to prescribe a COX-2 inhibitor in rural and in urban areas of Queensland, Australia were very similar. Almost all surveyed GPs in rural and urban areas had patients request a prescription, or enquire about the COX-2 inhibitors. Urban GPs were more likely to feel pressured to prescribe a COX-2 inhibitor than their rural counterparts, agreeing with other research which found that patient pressure to prescribe appears to be greater in urban general practice.

Applying network analysis to the conservation of habitat trees in urban environments: a case study from Brisbane, Australia

In Australia more than 300 vertebrates, including 43 insectivorous bat species, depend on hollows in habitat trees for shelter, with many species using a network of multiple trees as roosts, We used roost-switching data on white-striped freetail bats (Tadarida australis; Microchiroptera: Molossidae) to construct a network representation of day roosts in suburban Brisbane, Australia. Bats were caught from a communal roost tree with a roosting group of several hundred individuals and released with transmitters. Each roost used by the bats represented a node in the network, and the movements of bats between roosts formed the links between nodes. Despite differences in gender and reproductive stages, the bats exhibited the same behavior throughout three radiotelemetry periods and over 500 bat days of radio tracking: each roosted in separate roosts, switched roosts very infrequently, and associated with other bats only at the communal roost This network resembled a scale-free network in which the distribution of the number of links from each roost followed a power law. Despite being spread over a large geographic area (> 200 km(2)), each roost was connected to others by less than three links. One roost (the hub or communal roost) defined the architecture of the network because it had the most links. That the network showed scale-free properties has profound implications for the management of the habitat trees of this roosting group. Scale-free networks provide high tolerance against stochastic events such as random roost removals but are susceptible to the selective removal of hub nodes. Network analysis is a useful tool for understanding the structural organization of habitat tree usage and allows the informed judgment of the relative importance of individual trees and hence the derivation of appropriate management decisions, Conservation planners and managers should emphasize the differential importance of habitat trees and think of them as being analogous to vital service centers in human societies.

Nature-based tourism and the valuation of its environmental resources: Economic and other aspects

Nature-based tourism has grown in importance in recent decades, and strong links have been established between it and ecotourism. This reflects rising incomes, greater levels of educational attainment and changing values, especially in the Western world. Nature-based tourism is quite varied. Different types of such tourism are identified and their consequences for sustainability of their resource-base are briefly considered. The development and management of nature-based tourism involves many economic aspects, several of which are discussed. For example, one must consider the economics of reserving or protecting land for this type of tourism. What economic factors should be taken into account? Economists stress the importance of taking into account the opportunity costs involved in such a decision. This concept is explained. However, determining the net economic value of an area used for tourism is not straightforward. Techniques for doing this, such as the travel cost method and stated value methods, are introduced. Natural areas reserved for tourism may have economic value not only for tourism but also jointly for other purposes, such as conserving wildlife, maintaining hydrological cycles and so on. These other purposes, should be taken into account when considering the use of land for nature-based tourism. According to one economic point of view, land should be used in a way that maximises its total economic value. While this approach has its merits, it does not take into account the distribution of benefits from land use and its local impacts on income and employment. These can be quite important politically and for nature conservation, and are discussed. Finally, there is some discussion of whether fees charged to tourists for access to environmental resources should discriminate between domestic tourists and foreigners.

Development and evaluation of neural network freeway incident detection models using field data

This paper discusses a multi-layer feedforward (MLF) neural network incident detection model that was developed and evaluated using field data. In contrast to published neural network incident detection models which relied on simulated or limited field data for model development and testing, the model described in this paper was trained and tested on a real-world data set of 100 incidents. The model uses speed, flow and occupancy data measured at dual stations, averaged across all lanes and only from time interval t. The off-line performance of the model is reported under both incident and non-incident conditions. The incident detection performance of the model is reported based on a validation-test data set of 40 incidents that were independent of the 60 incidents used for training. The false alarm rates of the model are evaluated based on non-incident data that were collected from a freeway section which was video-taped for a period of 33 days. A comparative evaluation between the neural network model and the incident detection model in operation on Melbourne's freeways is also presented. The results of the comparative performance evaluation clearly demonstrate the substantial improvement in incident detection performance obtained by the neural network model. The paper also presents additional results that demonstrate how improvements in model performance can be achieved using variable decision thresholds. Finally, the model's fault-tolerance under conditions of corrupt or missing data is investigated and the impact of loop detector failure/malfunction on the performance of the trained model is evaluated and discussed. The results presented in this paper provide a comprehensive evaluation of the developed model and confirm that neural network models can provide fast and reliable incident detection on freeways. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Monitoring growth in rapidly urbanizing areas using remotely sensed data

Urbanization and the ability to manage for a sustainable future present numerous challenges for geographers and planners in metropolitan regions. Remotely sensed data are inherently suited to provide information on urban land cover characteristics, and their change over time, at various spatial and temporal scales. Data models for establishing the range of urban land cover types and their biophysical composition (vegetation, soil, and impervious surfaces) are integrated to provide a hierarchical approach to classifying land cover within urban environments. These data also provide an essential component for current simulation models of urban growth patterns, as both calibration and validation data. The first stages of the approach have been applied to examine urban growth between 1988 and 1995 for a rapidly developing area in southeast Queensland, Australia. Landsat Thematic Mapper image data provided accurate (83% adjusted overall accuracy) classification of broad land cover types and their change over time. The combination of commonly available remotely sensed data, image processing methods, and emerging urban growth models highlights an important application for current and next generation moderate spatial resolution image data in studies of urban environments.