Background levels of urban land contamination

The research work reported in this thesis is concerned with the development and application of an urban scale sampling methodology for measuring and assessing background levels of heavy metal soil contamination in large and varied urban areas. The policy context of the work is broadly the environmental health problems posed by contaminated land and their implications for urban development planning. Within this wider policy context, the emphasis in the research has been placed on issues, related to the determination and application of 'guidelines' for assessing the significance of contaminated land for environmental planning. In concentrating on background levels of land contamination, the research responds to the need for additional techniques which address both the problems of measuring soil contamination at the urban scale and which are also capable of providing detailed information for use in the assessment of contaminated sites. Therefore, a key component of the work has been the development of a land-use based sampling framework for generating spatially comprehensive data on heavy metals in soil. The utility of the information output of the sampling method is demonstrated in two alternative ways. Firstly, it has been used to map the existing pattern of typical levels of heavy metals in urban soils. Secondly, it can be used to generate both generalised data in the form of 'reference levels' from which the overall significance of .background contamination may be assessed and detailed data, termed 'normal limit levels' for use in the assessment of site specific investigation data. The fieldwork was conducted in the West Midlands Metropolitan County and surface soil has been sampled and analysed for a measure of plant-available' and 'total' lead cadmium, copper and zinc. The research contrasts with much of the previous work on contaminated land which has generally concentrated on either the detailed investigation of individual sites suspected of being contaminated or the appraisal of land contamination resulting from specific point sources.

Accommodating intraocular lenses:a review of design concepts, usage and assessment methods

The correction of presbyopia and restoration of true accommodative function to the ageing eye is the focus of much ongoing research and clinical work. A range of accommodating intraocular lenses (AIOLs) implanted during cataract surgery has been developed and they are designed to change either their position or shape in response to ciliary muscle contraction to generate an increase in dioptric power. Two main design concepts exist. First, axial shift concepts rely on anterior axial movement of one or two optics creating accommodative ability. Second, curvature change designs are designed to provide significant amplitudes of accommodation with little physical displacement. Single-optic devices have been used most widely, although the true accommodative ability provided by forward shift of the optic appears limited and recent findings indicate that alternative factors such as flexing of the optic to alter ocular aberrations may be responsible for the enhanced near vision reported in published studies. Techniques for analysing the performance of AIOLs have not been standardised and clinical studies have reported findings using a wide range of both subjective and objective methods, making it difficult to gauge the success of these implants. There is a need for longitudinal studies using objective methods to assess long-term performance of AIOLs and to determine if true accommodation is restored by the designs available. While dual-optic and curvature change IOLs are designed to provide greater amplitudes of accommodation than is possible with single-optic devices, several of these implants are in the early stages of development and require significant further work before human use is possible. A number of challenges remain and must be addressed before the ultimate goal of restoring youthful levels of accommodation to the presbyopic eye can be achieved.

A methodology, using aerial photographs, for mapping urban land-use in Nigeria

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Remote sensing applied to land use and erosion hazard studies in Jamaica

The northern half of the parish of St. Catherine in Jamaica was selected as a test area to study, by means of remote sensing, the problems of soil erosion in a tropical environment. An initial study was carried out to determine whether eroded land within this environment could be successfully interpreted and mapped from the available 1: 25,000 scale aerial photographs. When satisfied that a sufficiently high percentage of the eroded land could be interpreted on the aerial photographs the main study was initiated. This involved interpreting the air photo cover of the study area for identifying and classifying land use and eroded land, and plotting the results on overlays on topographic base maps. These overlays were then composited with data on the soils and slopes of the study area. The areas of different soil type/slope/land use combinations were then measured, as was the area of eroded land for each of these combinations. This data was then analysed in two ways. The first way involved determining which of the combinations of soil type, slope and land use were most and least eroded and, on the basis of this, to draw up recommendations concerning future land use. The second analysis was aimed at determining which of the three factors, soil type, slope and land use, was most responsible for determining the rate of erosion. Although it was possible to show that slope was not very significant in determining the rate of erosion, it was much more difficult to separate the effects of land use and soil type. The results do, however, suggest that land use is more significant than soil type in determining the rate of erosion within the study area.

Urban labour, voice and legitimacy:economic development and the emergence of community unionism

Community unionism has emerged in the past decade as a growing strand of industrial relations research and is influencing trade union strategies for renewal. This article seeks to further develop the concept, while exploring the potential roles for unions in communities subject to projects of urban regeneration.

European biorefineries:implications for land, trade and employment

Biorefineries are expected to play a major role in a future low carbon economy and substantial investments are being made to support this vision. However, it is important to consider the wider socio-economic impacts of such a transition. This paper quantifies the potential trade, employment and land impacts of economically viable European biorefinery options based on indigenous straw and wood feedstocks. It illustrates how there could be potential for 70-80 European biorefineries, but not hundreds. A single facility could generate tens of thousands of man-years of employment and employment creation per unit of feedstock is higher than for biomass power plants. However, contribution to national GDP is unlikely to exceed 1% in European member states, although contributions to national agricultural productivity may be more significant, particularly with straw feedstocks. There is also a risk that biorefinery development could result in reduced rates of straw incorporation into soil, raising concerns that economically rational decisions to sell rather than reincorporate straw could result in increased agricultural land-use or greenhouse gas emissions. © 2013.

Online grocery provision resistance:understanding urban (non-)collaboration and ambiguous supply chain environments

This chapter investigates the resistance by institutional actors in ambiguous supply chain environments for online grocery provision. Recent studies have shown that significant shifts in urban geographies are increasing consumers' expectations of online retail provision. However, at the same time there is also growing evidence that the collaborative practice in online grocery provision within the urban supply chains is resisted. That these trends are found despite growing demand of online provision highlights both the difficulty of bringing geographically dispersed supply partners together and the problems associated with operating within and across ambiguous environments. Drawing upon twenty-nine in-depth interviews with a range of institutional actors, including retail, logistics, and urban planning experts within an urban metropolis in an emerging market, we detail the different ways that collaboration is resisted in online retail provision. Several different patterns of resistance were identified in (non-) collaboration notably, ideological, functional, regulatory and spatial. © 2011, IGI Global. C.

Crisis and institutional change in urban governance

Recent studies of new institutional spaces typically underplay the uneven and contested process of institutional change by undervaluing the role of inherited institutions and discourses. This is a critical issue as neoliberal networked forms of governance interact with inherited institutional arrangements, characterised by important path dependencies that guide actors. Contradiction and tensions can emerge, culminating in crisis tendencies, and producing both discursive and material contestation between actors. It is with an understanding of path dependencies, ideas (structured into discourses), and (perceived and actual) crisis tendencies that this paper examines contested institutional change through a case-study analysis of one city, and a critical engagement with neoinstitutionalism. The purpose is to examine, firstly, the significance of inherited path-dependent arrangements in fostering conflict and crisis tendencies during interaction with emergent state action; secondly, the extent to which crisis is evident in processes of institutional change and the form that this takes; and, thirdly, the importance of ideas in producing institutional transformation. It is found that institutional conflict is evident between inherited institutions and emergent state action, and stems both from the way agents are organised by the state and from certain path dependencies, but that this does not lead to an actual material crisis. Rather, the nation-state, in partnership with senior city government actors, use ideational/discursive ‘crisis talk’ as a means by which to induce institutional change. The role of ideas has been in critical in this process as the nation-state frames problems and solutions in line with its existing policy paradigm and institutional arrangements, and with discourses further reinforcing existing material power relations.

A survey of urban open space using colour infra-red aerial photographs

There has been a dramatic change in the U.K. government policy regarding the establishment of new towns. The emphasis is now on the redevelopment of existing cities rather than on building new ones. This has created an urgent need to carry out detailed surveys and inventories of many aspects of urban land use in metropolitan areas: this study concentrates on just one aspect - urban open space. In the first stage a comparison was made between 1:10,000 scale black and white and 1:10,000 scale colour infra-red aerial photographs, to compare the type and amount of open space information which could be obtained from these two sources. The advantages of using colour infra-red photography were clearly demonstrated in this comparison. The second stage was the use of colour infra-red photography as the sole source of data to survey and map the urban open space of a sample area in Merseyside Metropolitan County. This sample area comprised eleven 1/4km2 squares, on each of which a 20m x 20m grid cell was placed to record, directly from the photography, 625 sets of data. Each set of data recorded the type and amount of open space, its surface cover, maintenance status and management. The data recorded were fed into a computer and a suite of programs was developed to provide output in both computer map and statistical form, for each of the eleven -1/4km2 -sample areas. The third stage involved a comparison of open space data with socio-economic status. Merseyside County Planning Authority had previously conducted a socio-economic survey of the county, and this information was used to identify ' the socio-economic status of the population in the eleven ilkm2 areas of this project. This comparison revealed many interesting and useful relationships between the provision of urban open space and socio-economic status.

'Worlds of justification’ in the politics and practices of urban regeneration

A considerable body of research has developed on processes of neoliberal urban regeneration and gentrifi cation. On the one hand, there are many political economy accounts emphasising the role of economic capital in processes of urban change and gentrifi cation. On the other hand, there is a wealth of governmentality studies on the art of government that fail to explain how ungovernable subjects develop. Similarly, within gentrifi cation studies there are many accounts on the role of changing consumer lifestyles and defi ning gentrifi cation, but less concern with the governance processes between actors in urban regeneration and gentrifi cation. Yet such issues are of considerable importance given the role of the state in urban regeneration and dependence on private capital. This paper utilises the French Pragmatist approach of Boltanski and Thévenot to examine a case study state-led gentrifi cation project. Boltanski and Thévenot argue that social coordination occurs by way of actors working through broader value-laden ‘worlds of justifi cation’ that underpin processes of argumentation and coordination. The examined case study is a deprived area within an English city where a major state-led gentrification programme has been introduced. The rationale for the programme is based on the assumption that reducing deprivation relies upon substantially increasing the number of higher income earners. The paper concludes that market values have overridden broader civic values in the negotiation process, with this intensifying as the state internalised market crisis tendencies within the project. More broadly, there is a need for French Pragmatism to be more sensitive to the spatial processes of social coordination, which can be achieved through critical engagement with recent concepts of ‘assemblages’.

UK social housing and housing market in England:a statistical review and trends

Around 80% of the 63 million people in the UK live in urban areas where demand for affordable housing is highest. Supply of new dwellings is a long way short of demand and with an average annual replacement rate of 0.5% more than 80% of the existing residential housing stock will still be in use by 2050. A high proportion of owner-occupiers, a weak private rental sector and lack of sustainable financing models render England’s housing market one of the least responsive in the developed world. As an exploratory research the purpose of this paper is to examine the provision of social housing in the United Kingdom with a particular focus on England, and to set out implications for housing associations delivering sustainable community development. The paper is based on an analysis of historical data series (Census data), current macro-economic data and population projections to 2033. The paper identifies a chronic undersupply of affordable housing in England which is likely to be exacerbated by demographic development, changes in household composition and reduced availability of finance to develop new homes. Based on the housing market trends analysed in this paper opportunities are identified for policy makers to remove barriers to the delivery of new affordable homes and for social housing providers to evolve their business models by taking a wider role in sustainable community development.

Enabling long journeys in electric vehicles:design and demonstration of an infrastructure location model

This research develops a methodology and model formulation which suggests locations for rapid chargers to help assist infrastructure development and enable greater battery electric vehicle (BEV) usage. The model considers the likely travel patterns of BEVs and their subsequent charging demands across a large road network, where no prior candidate site information is required. Using a GIS-based methodology, polygons are constructed which represent the charging demand zones for particular routes across a real-world road network. The use of polygons allows the maximum number of charging combinations to be considered whilst limiting the input intensity needed for the model. Further polygons are added to represent deviation possibilities, meaning that placement of charge points away from the shortest path is possible, given a penalty function. A validation of the model is carried out by assessing the expected demand at current rapid charging locations and comparing to recorded empirical usage data. Results suggest that the developed model provides a good approximation to real world observations, and that for the provision of charging, location matters. The model is also implemented where no prior candidate site information is required. As such, locations are chosen based on the weighted overlay between several different routes where BEV journeys may be expected. In doing so many locations, or types of locations, could be compared against one another and then analysed in relation to siting practicalities, such as cost, land permission and infrastructure availability. Results show that efficient facility location, given numerous siting possibilities across a large road network can be achieved. Slight improvements to the standard greedy adding technique are made by adding combination weightings which aim to reward important long distance routes that require more than one charge to complete.