The rise and fall of the internal reserve

The 'internal reserve' distinguished world's best practice for the early garden suburb movement. These 'hidden' spaces were designed for a variety of reasons: to encourage the formation of community, promote safe play for children, offer sites for small-scale agricultural pursuits, address  topographic and drainage constraints, and facilitate conservation of natural features. They were a feature of progressive plans for British icon developments such as Hampstead Garden Suburb. As these plans travelled globally, however, the purpose of the internal reserve was less clear than their spatial form, and most languished as undistinguished, left-over spaces. The historical origins, development and demise of the internal reserve are surveyed, with a focus on the Australian experience against an Anglo-American backdrop.

Mapeamento dos compartimentos de relevo do município de Estrela do Norte-SP e adjacências

The Geomorphology is to study the relevant object, which is the substrate where there are social relations, where society draws the natural resources for their survival and structure its immediate surroundings. In this context, the geomorphological map is currently considered as an important tool in landscape research. The landscapes of the city of Estrela do Norte-SP and surroundings consist mostly of geological substratum of sedimentary rock formations of Adamantina and Santo Anastácio (IPT, 1981a). Geomorphologically dominated by large reliefs of gently rolling hills tops and pedologicamente, the Oxisols and Ultisols Red-Yellow (Oliveira et al., 1999), which historically without proper management, formed a serious degradation of erosive framework in the study area. Thus, this study aimed to produce a map of the major compartments of the municipality Estrela do Norte-SP and surrounding areas, using techniques of digital stereoscopy. In relation to the procedures used in developing the mapping of geomorphological compartments, the main references were Tricart (1965) and Ross (1992). To prepare the mapping applied to refund technique - 3D through the ALOS / PRISM images...

Studio dei metodi di valutazione della pericolosità associata ai "debris flow" in ambiente alpino

The present work concerns with the study of debris flows and, in particular, with the related hazard in the Alpine Environment. During the last years several methodologies have been developed to evaluate hazard associated to such a complex phenomenon, whose velocity, impacting force and inappropriate temporal prediction are responsible of the related high hazard level. This research focuses its attention on the depositional phase of debris flows through the application of a numerical model (DFlowz), and on hazard evaluation related to watersheds morphometric, morphological and geological characterization. The main aims are to test the validity of DFlowz simulations and assess sources of errors in order to understand how the empirical uncertainties influence the predictions; on the other side the research concerns with the possibility of performing hazard analysis starting from the identification of susceptible debris flow catchments and definition of their activity level. 25 well documented debris flow events have been back analyzed with the model DFlowz (Berti and Simoni, 2007): derived form the implementation of the empirical relations between event volume and planimetric and cross section inundated areas, the code allows to delineate areas affected by an event by taking into account information about volume, preferential flow path and digital elevation model (DEM) of fan area. The analysis uses an objective methodology for evaluating the accuracy of the prediction and involve the calibration of the model based on factors describing the uncertainty associated to the semi empirical relationships. The general assumptions on which the model is based have been verified although the predictive capabilities are influenced by the uncertainties of the empirical scaling relationships, which have to be necessarily taken into account and depend mostly on errors concerning deposited volume estimation. In addition, in order to test prediction capabilities of physical-based models, some events have been simulated through the use of RAMMS (RApid Mass MovementS). The model, which has been developed by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in Birmensdorf and the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF) takes into account a one-phase approach based on Voellmy rheology (Voellmy, 1955; Salm et al., 1990). The input file combines the total volume of the debris flow located in a release area with a mean depth. The model predicts the affected area, the maximum depth and the flow velocity in each cell of the input DTM. Relatively to hazard analysis related to watersheds characterization, the database collected by the Alto Adige Province represents an opportunity to examine debris-flow sediment dynamics at the regional scale and analyze lithologic controls. With the aim of advancing current understandings about debris flow, this study focuses on 82 events in order to characterize the topographic conditions associated with their initiation , transportation and deposition, seasonal patterns of occurrence and examine the role played by bedrock geology on sediment transfer.