Adapting to the effects of climate change on water supply reliability

This paper presents preliminary results from an assessment of the barriers to adaptation to water supply shortage in a case study catchment in south east England with multiple supply companies. The investigation applies a conceptual framework, which distinguishes between generic barriers affecting the ability of supply companies to make adaptation decisions, and specific barriers to the implementation of each option. The preliminary analysis suggests that whilst there is a widespread awareness of the challenge of climate change, and a conceptual understanding of the need for adaptation, some of the generic barriers that will affect detailed evaluations and actual adaptation decisions have yet to be approached. The analysis also shows that different individual adaptation options are assessed differently by different stakeholders, and that there are differences in the barriers to adoption between supply-side and demand-side measures. First, however, the paper develops the general conceptual framework for the characterisation of the barriers to adaptation used in the study.

Asymmetric response of demand-supply mismatch to investor's sentiment

We look through both the demand and supply side information to understand dynamics of price determination in the real estate market and examine how accurately investors’ attitudes predict the market returns and thereby flagging off extent of any demand-supply mismatch. Our hypothesis is based on the possibility that investors’ call for action in terms of their buy/sell decision and adjustment in reservation/offer prices may indicate impending demand-supply imbalances in the market. In the process, we study several real estate sectors to inform our analysis. The timeframe of our analysis (1995-2010) allows us to observe market dynamics over several economic cycles and in various stages of those cycles. Additionally, we also seek to understand how investors’ attitude or the sentiment affects the market activity over the cycles through asymmetric responses. We test our hypothesis variously using a number of measures of market activity and attitude indicators within several model specifications. The empirical models are estimated using Vector Error Correction framework. Our analysis suggests that investors’ attitude exert strong and statistically significant feedback effects in price determination. Moreover, these effects do reveal heterogeneous responses across the real estate sectors. Interestingly, our results indicate the asymmetric responses during boom, normal and recessionary periods. These results are consistent with the theoretical underpinnings.

Sustainable development, rolled-out neoliberalism and sustainable communities

Recent contributions by geographers on the relationships between states and citizens have documented the rise of rolled-out neoliberalism. Development agendas are, it is argued, increasingly dominated by the principles of market-driven reforms, social inequality, and a drive towards enhancing the economic competitiveness of the supply side of the economy. However, at the same time, a parallel set of discourses has emerged in the development literature which argues that it is principles of sustainable development that have, in practice, become dominant. The emphasis is, instead, on democratic empowerment, environmental conservation, and social justice. This paper examines the relationships between these ostensibly very different interpretations of contemporary development with an assessment of one of the Labour government's most ambitious planning agendas-the publication in February 2003 of the document Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future. The proposals are promoted as a "step change" in the planning system with a new emphasis on tackling shortages of housing in the South East and reviving the economy of the Thames Gateway area. The paper assesses the different ways in which such programmes can be interpreted and argues that contemporary development practices in countries such as Britain are constituted by a hybridity of approaches and rationalities and cannot be reduced to simple characterisations of rolled-out neoliberalism or sustainable development.

Adapting to climate change impacts on water resources in England - an assessment of draft Water Resources Management Plans

Climate change is expected to produce reductions in water availability in England, potentially necessitating adaptive action by the water industry to maintain supplies. As part of Ofwat's fifth Periodic Review (PR09), water companies recently released their draft Water Resources Management Plans, setting out how each company intends to maintain the balance between the supply and demand for water over the next 25 years, following Environment Agency guidelines. This paper reviews these plans to determine company estimates of the impact of climate change on water supply relative to other resource pressures. The approaches adopted for incorporating the impact in the plans and the proposed management solutions are also identified. Climate change impacts for individual resource zones range from no reductions in deployable output to greater than 50% over the planning period. The estimated national aggregated loss of deployable output under a “core” climate scenario is ~520 Ml/d (3% of deployable output) by 2034/35, the equivalent of the supply of one entire water company (South West Water). Climate change is the largest single driver of change in water supplies over the planning period. Over half of the climate change impact is concentrated in southern England. In extreme cases, climate change uncertainty is of the same magnitude as the change under the core scenario (up to a loss of ~475 Ml/d). 44 of the 68 resource zones with available data are estimated to have a climate change impact. In 35 of these climate change has the greatest impact although in 10 zones sustainability reductions have a greater impact. Of the overall change in downward pressure on the supply-demand balance over the planning period, ~56% is accounted for by increased demand (620 Ml/d) and supply side climate change accounts for ~37% (407 Ml/d). Climate change impacts have a cumulative impact in concert with other changing supply side reducing components increasing the national pressure on the supply-demand balance. Whilst the magnitude of climate change appears to justify its explicit consideration, it is rare that adaptation options are planned solely in response to climate change but as a suite of options to provide a resilient supply to a range of pressures (including significant demand side pressures). Supply-side measures still tend to be considered by water companies to be more reliable than demand-side measures.

Why was urban overcrowding much more severe in Scotland than in the rest of the British Isles? Evidence from the first (1904) official household expenditure survey

This article presents an analysis of British urban working-class housing conditions in 1904, using a rediscovered survey. We investigate overcrowding and find major regional differences. Scottish households in the survey were more overcrowded despite being less poor. Investigating the causes of this overcrowding, we find little support for supply-side theories or for the idea that the Scottish households in our survey experienced particularly great variations in income, causing them to commit to overly modest accommodation. We present evidence that is consistent with idea that particularly tough Scottish tenancy and local tax laws caused excess overcrowding. We also provide evidence that Scottish workers had a relatively high preference for food, rather than housing, expenditure, which can be at least partly attributed to their inheritance of more communal patterns of urban living.

Can sentiment surveys pre-empt real estate market activities?

We evaluate a number of real estate sentiment indices to ascertain current and forward-looking information content that may be useful for forecasting the demand and supply activities. Our focus lies on sector-specific surveys targeting the players from the supply-side of both residential and non-residential real estate markets. Analyzing the dynamic relationships within a Vector Auto-Regression (VAR) framework, we test the efficacy of these indices by comparing them with other coincident indicators in predicting real estate returns. Overall, our analysis suggests that sentiment indicators convey important information which should be embedded in the modeling exercise to predict real estate market returns. Generally, sentiment indices show better information content than broad economic indicators. The goodness of fit of our models is higher for the residential market than for the non-residential real estate sector. The impulse responses, in general, conform to our theoretical expectations. Variance decompositions and out-of-sample predictions generally show desired contribution and reasonable improvement respectively, thus upholding our hypothesis. Quite remarkably, consistent with the theory, the predictability swings when we look through different phases of the cycle. This perhaps suggests that, e.g. during recessions, market players’ expectations may be more accurate predictor of the future performances, conceivably indicating a ‘negative’ information processing bias and thus conforming to the precautionary motive of consumer behaviour.

A vision for attaining food security

Food is fundamental to human wellbeing and development. Increased food production remains a cornerstone strategy in the effort to alleviate global food insecurity. But despite the fact that global food production over the past half century has kept ahead of demand, today around one billion people do not have enough to eat, and a further billion lack adequate nutrition. Food insecurity is facing mounting supply-side and demand-side pressures; key among these are climate change, urbanisation, globalisation, population increases, disease, as well as a number of other factors that are changing patterns of food consumption. Many of the challenges to equitable food access are concentrated in developing countries where environmental pressures including climate change, population growth and other socio-economic issues are concentrated. Together these factors impede people's access to sufficient, nutritious food; chiefly through affecting livelihoods, income and food prices. Food security and human development go hand in hand, and their outcomes are co-determined to a significant degree. The challenge of food security is multi-scalar and cross-sector in nature. Addressing it will require the work of diverse actors to bring sustained improvements inhuman development and to reduce pressure on the environment. Unless there is investment in future food systems that are similarly cross-level, cross-scale and cross-sector, sustained improvements in human wellbeing together with reduced environmental risks and scarcities will not be achieved. This paper reviews current thinking, and outlines these challenges. It suggests that essential elements in a successfully adaptive and proactive food system include: learning through connectivity between scales to local experience and technologies high levels of interaction between diverse actors and sectors ranging from primary producers to retailers and consumers, and use of frontier technologies.

Economic growth: a panacea for child labour?

In this paper, we test whether economic growth decreases child labour by bringing together data from the National Sample Survey of India and state-level macro data to estimate a bivariate probit model of schooling and labour. Our results lead us to conclude that contrary to popular wisdom, growth actually increases rather than decreases child labour because it increases the demand for child workers. The level of state NDP, village wages and household incomes are seen as the conduits through which growth influences the supply side of the child labour market.

Structure, conduct and the stochastic volatility of food markets: theory and empirics

The relationship between price volatility and competition is examined. Atheoretic, vector auto regressions on farm prices of wheat and retail prices of derivatives (flour, bread, pasta, bulgur and cookies) are compared to results from a dynamic, simultaneous-equations model with theory-based farm-to-retail linkages. Analytical results yield insights about numbers of firms and their impacts on demand- and supply-side multipliers, but the applications to Turkish time series (1988:1-1996:12) yield mixed results.

The Golden Dawn's 'nationalist solution': explaining the rise of the far right in Greece

The book is concerned with the rise of the Greek Golden Dawn. Although most literature focuses on demand and supply-side explanations, this book progresses beyond the state of the art by examining the Golden Dawn as an outlier and focusing on political culture as an explanation for its dramatic rise.

Multimodel assessment of water scarcity under climate change

Water scarcity severely impairs food security and economic prosperity in many countries today. Expected future population changes will, in many countries as well as globally, increase the pressure on available water resources. On the supply side, renewable water resources will be affected by projected changes in precipitation patterns, temperature, and other climate variables. Here we use a large ensemble of global hydrological models (GHMs) forced by five global climate models and the latest greenhouse-gas concentration scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways) to synthesize the current knowledge about climate change impacts on water resources. We show that climate change is likely to exacerbate regional and global water scarcity considerably. In particular, the ensemble average projects that a global warming of 2 degrees C above present (approximately 2.7 degrees C above preindustrial) will confront an additional approximate 15% of the global population with a severe decrease in water resources and will increase the number of people living under absolute water scarcity (< 500 m(3) per capita per year) by another 40% (according to some models, more than 100%) compared with the effect of population growth alone. For some indicators of moderate impacts, the steepest increase is seen between the present day and 2 degrees C, whereas indicators of very severe impacts increase unabated beyond 2 degrees C. At the same time, the study highlights large uncertainties associated with these estimates, with both global climate models and GHMs contributing to the spread. GHM uncertainty is particularly dominant in many regions affected by declining water resources, suggesting a high potential for improved water resource projections through hydrological model development.

Increasing thermal plant flexibility in a high renewables power system

Thermal generation is a vital component of mature and reliable electricity markets. As the share of renewable electricity in such markets grows, so too do the challenges associated with its variability. Proposed solutions to these challenges typically focus on alternatives to primary generation, such as energy storage, demand side management, or increased interconnection. Less attention is given to the demands placed on conventional thermal generation or its potential for increased flexibility. However, for the foreseeable future, conventional plants will have to operate alongside new renewables and have an essential role in accommodating increasing supply-side variability. This paper explores the role that conventional generation has to play in managing variability through the sub-system case study of Northern Ireland, identifying the significance of specific plant characteristics for reliable system operation. Particular attention is given to the challenges of wind ramping and the need to avoid excessive wind curtailment. Potential for conflict is identified with the role for conventional plant in addressing these two challenges. Market specific strategies for using the existing fleet of generation to reduce the impact of renewable resource variability are proposed, and wider lessons from the approach taken are identified.

Discrete demand side control performance under dynamic building simulation: a heat pump application

This study presents the findings of applying a Discrete Demand Side Control (DDSC) approach to the space heating of two case study buildings. High and low tolerance scenarios are implemented on the space heating controller to assess the impact of DDSC upon buildings with different thermal capacitances, light-weight and heavy-weight construction. Space heating is provided by an electric heat pump powered from a wind turbine, with a back-up electrical network connection in the event of insufficient wind being available when a demand occurs. Findings highlight that thermal comfort is maintained within an acceptable range while the DDSC controller maintains the demand/supply balance. Whilst it is noted that energy demand increases slightly, as this is mostly supplied from the wind turbine, this is of little significance and hence a reduction in operating costs and carbon emissions is still attained.

Synthesis and characterization of thermally stable second-order nonlinear optical side-chain polyimides containing thiazole and benzothiazole push-pull chromophores

Push-pull nonlinear optical (NLO) chromophores containing thiazole and benzothiazole acceptors were synthesized and characterized. Using these chromophores a series of second-order NLO polyimides were Successfully prepared from 4,4'-(hexafluoroisopropylidene) diphthalic anhydride (6FDA), pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA) and 3,3'4,4'-benzophenone tetracarboxylic dianhydride (BTDA) by a standard condensation polymerization technique. These polyimides exhibit high glass transition temperatures ranging from 160 to 188 degrees C. UV-vis spectrum of polyimide exhibited a slight blue shift and decreases in absorption due to birefringence. From the order parameters, it was found that chromophores were aligned effectively. Using in situ poling and temperature ramping technique, the optical temperatures for corona poling were obtained. It was found that the optimal temperatures of polyimides approach their glass transition temperatures. These polyimides demonstrate relatively large d(33) values range between 35.15 and 45.20 pm/V at 532 nm. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Supply, demand and a failure of understanding: addressing the culture clash between archaeologists' expectations for training and employment in 'academia' versus 'practice

A university degree is effectively a prerequisite for entering the archaeological workforce in the UK. Archaeological employers consider that new entrants to the profession are insufficiently skilled, and hold university training to blame. But university archaeology departments do not consider it their responsibility to deliver fully formed archaeological professionals, but rather to provide an education that can then be applied in different workplaces, within and outside archaeology. The number of individuals studying archaeology at university exceeds the total number working in professional practice, with many more new graduates emerging than archaeological jobs advertised annually. Over-supply of practitioners is also a contributing factor to low pay in archaeology. Steps are being made to provide opportunities for vocational training, both within and outside the university system, but archaeological training and education within the universities and subsequently the archaeological labour market may be adversely impacted upon by the introduction of variable top-up student fees.