The water harvesting landscape of Budj Bim and Lake Condah : whither world heritage recognition

In July 2004 the Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape was inscribed onto the National Heritage List. The place accorded with the criterion of A. Events, Processes (in demonstrating a place of Indigenous-European colonization conflict), B. Rarity (in demonstrating the context, historical and philosophy of benevolence of Governments to Indigenous people), F. Creative or technical achievement (in demonstrating technical accomplishment in construction the system), and, I. Indigenous tradition (in demonstrating longevity and continuity of cultural practices). Such affords Budj Bim, that hosts a unique Indigenous water harvesting and aquaculture infrastructure system dating some 7,000-10,000 years within a country that the Gunditjmara have managed for some 20,000-50,000 years, national standing. Within the lands gazetted is a complex and multi-faceted system that would today be categorised as a major integrated landscape planning and catchment management scheme that includes demonstrable major site engineering, hydraulic engineering, and aquaculture and water management scientific evidence and process knowledge and application.

Learning from sustainable landscapes of death in Bali : landscape planning and Tri Hita Karana

Landscape planning in many countries is predicated upon on fulfilling the functions for human living objectives. Many land use practices have been plotted for living, busines~, trading, industrial, farming as well as providing places for dead people primarily through cemeteries. Research in Palm Beach County, FL, has demonstrated the need to plan for 30 years of demand of land use functions to service death (Coutts, Basmaj ian et al. 20 I I). Coutts et al assert that planners are required and responsible for the planning of funeral necessities. Therefore, the protection of landscapes of death is an important consideration in the planning of landscapes. Bali is popular with its beautiful landscape, hospitality, and traditional architecture as demonstrating the integrity between human, environment and God, as expressed in the Balinese Tri Hita Karana concept. Balinese commemorate life from birth to death through their traditional ceremonies which informs their traditional cultural landscape. One of the most important landscapes, which cannot be separated fi·om Balinese life are graveyards which are used for deceased ceremonies. This landscape is an integral part of traditional village patterns across Bali. Culturally, Balinese people have their own traditional cremation ceremony which is call the Ngaben Ceremony. The Ceremony takes place in graveyards and thereupon ashes are placed in the sea waters surrounding Bali. An interesting point of planning in Bali is how to enable eco-friendly interment extensions to villages. This is occurring because of the increasing number of corpses that require cremation thus necessitating no accretions in land provision of graveyards. This research investigates the landscape of death in Bali expressed in its traditional values in the area of planning which implicate sustainable environments and land conservation topics. Other functions of graveyards, as noted by Strangstad ( 1988), include ceremonial and their role as educational tools for history lessons, art, sociology, geology, English lessons, as well as for scavenger hunts.

The conservation of Balinese traditional architecture: the integration of village pattern and housing pattern in indigenous villages

Bali Island is known not only for its culture and flourish of nature, but it is also for its traditional architecture which is embedded by the traditional philosophies including Tri Hita Karana, Tri Angga, Tri Loka etc. The Indigenous villages, as rural settlements, disclose their Indigenous traditions and values of Balinese culture and architecture which have been inherited from generation to generation. Many scholars have documented the Indigenous villages of Bali in relation to the nature, socio-culture, norms, as well as its architecture. In this paper, through an extensive literature review, and the use of observation, interview and documentation of extant Indigenous villages in Bali, the author explores how the village pattern is relational to the housing pattern in the Indigenous villages in Bali within the landscape that is Bali Island.

Economic sustainability of the Flambeau Mine Ladysmith, Wisconsin

Today sustainable development is a very pertinent issue. Communities do not want companies, specifically mining companies, to deplete a natural resource and leave. The goal is to minimize the negative impacts of mining and the boom/bust cycles of natural resource extraction. In this study a three part framework was developed to analyze the sustainability of the Flambeau Mine in Ladysmith, Wisconsin. The first and second part dealt with an in-depth local and regional analysis and whether the community was developing within its own vision. The third part used nine sustainability measures including: 1. Need Present Generation 2. Future Need 3. Acceptable Legacy 4. Full-Cost 5. Contribution to Economic Development 6. Equity 7. Consent 8. Respect for Ecological Limits, Maintenance of Ecological Integrity and Landscape Requirements 9. Offsetting Restoration This study concluded that the Flambeau Mine was sustainable relative to the first two criteria and that it can be considered mostly sustainable relative to the nine criteria. Overall it can be stated that the Flambeau Mine was a beneficial project to the Ladysmith Wisconsin area. Additionally it appeared to decrease the public’s negative perception of mining. Recommendations for future analytical work are made. Suggestions are made as to how mining companies could increase the potential for the attainment of sustainability in projects. It is recommended that this framework be used by other industries.

The influence of bedrock orientation on the landscape evolution, surface morphology and denudation (10Be) at the Niesen, Switzerland

Landscape evolution and surface morphology in mountainous settings are a function of the relative importance between sediment transport processes acting on hillslopes and in channels, modulated by climate variables. The Niesen nappe in the Swiss Penninic Prealps presents a unique setting in which opposite facing flanks host basins underlain by identical lithologies, but contrasting litho-tectonic architectures where lithologies either dip parallel to the topographic slope or in the opposite direction (i.e. dip slope and non-dip slope). The north-western facing Diemtigen flank represents such a dip slope situation and is characterized by a gentle topography, low hillslope gradients, poorly dissected channels, and it hosts large landslides. In contrast, the south-eastern facing Frutigen side can be described as non-dip slope flank with deeply incised bedrock channels, high mean hillslope gradients and high relief topography. Results from morphometric analysis reveal that noticeable differences in morphometric parameters can be related to the contrasts in the relative importance of the internal hillslope-channel system between both valley flanks. While the contrasting dip-orientations of the underlying flysch bedrock has promoted hillslope and channelized processes to contrasting extents and particularly the occurrence of large landslides on the dip slope flank, the flank averaged beryllium-10 (10Be)-derived denudation rates are very similar and range between 0.20 and 0.26 mm yr−1. In addition, our denudation rates offer no direct relationship to basin's slope, area, steepness or concavity index, but reveal a positive correlation to mean basin elevation that we interpret as having been controlled by climatically driven factors such as frost-induced processes and orographic precipitation. Our findings illustrate that while the landscape properties in this part of the northern Alpine border can mainly be related to the tectonic architecture of the underlying bedrock, the denudation rates have a strong orographic control through elevation dependent mean annual temperature and precipitation.

Geophysical mapping of the sediment architecture in the Orkhon Valley, Mongolia

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) and capacitive coupled resistivity (CCR) measurements were conducted in order to image subsurface structures in the Orkhon Valley, Central Mongolia. The data are extended by information from drill cores to the entire transects distinguishing different sedimentary environments in the valley. The Orkhon Valley is part of the high sensitive Steppe region in Central Mongolia, one of the most important cultural landscapes in Central Asia. There, archaeological, geoarchaeological and sedimentological research aims to reconstruct the landscape evolution and the interaction between man and environment during the last millennia since the first settlement. In May 2009 and 2010 geophysical surveys have been conducted including transects with lengths between 1.5 and 30 km crossing the entire valley and a kilometre-scaled grid in the southern part of the investigation area. The geoelectrical and GPR data revealed the existence of two layers characterized by different resistivity values and radar reflectors. The two layers do not only represent material contrasts, but also reflect the influence of sporadic permafrost which occurs in several areas of Mongolia. The results help to reconstruct the evolution of the braided Orkhon River and therefore give important hints to understand the environmental history of the Orkhon Valley.

An ITS architecture specification - The FOTsis project experience

The recent continuous development of Cooperative ITS has resulted in several initiatives which focus on different parts of the Cooperative environment landscape. The FOTsis project focuses on the infrastructure side of the Cooperative environment and will deploy and test 7 services designed to maximise the benefits of the integration of the road operator and infrastructure-based information providers into the ITS environment. This integration can take place in any of the stages of data collection, processing and actuations of the services, but also support and trigger external tasks such as operations of the emergency response entities, etc. This paper describes the current status of the project and focuses on the specification of the supporting architecture to the services tested: references, a brief outline of the requirements’ definition, and the FOTsis architecture proposal, with some conclusions about the architecture tests conducted. The outlook on the project’s next steps is given in the last section of the paper.

Climatic analysis methodology of vernacular architecture

Vernacular architecture has demonstrated its perfect environmental adaptation through its empirical development and improvement by generations of user-builders. Nowadays, the sustainability of vernacular architecture is the aim of some research projects in which the same method should be applied in order to be comparable. Hence, we propose a research method putting together various steps. Through the analysis of geographical, lithology, economic, cultural and social influence as well as materials and constructive systems, vernacular architecture is analyzed. But, all this information is put together with the natural landscape (topography and vegetation) and the climatic data (temperature, winds, rain and sun exposure). In addition, the use of bioclimatic charts, such as Olgyay or Givoni’s, revealed the necessities and strategies in urban and building design. They are satisfied in the vernacular architecture by the application of different energy conservation mechanisms, some of them are shown by different examples in this paper.

An ITS architecture specification - The FOTsis project experience

The recent continuous development of Cooperative ITS has resulted in several initiatives which focus on different parts of the Cooperative environment landscape. The FOTsis project focuses on the infrastructure side of the Cooperative environment and will deploy and test 7 services designed to maximise the benefits of the integration of the road operator and infrastructure-based information providers into the ITS environment. This paper describes the current status of the project and focuses on the road safety approach within the project: safety services and safety impact assessment. The outlook on the project's next steps is given in the last section of the paper.

Madison, Wisconsin, 1855 (Raster Image)

This layer is a georeferenced raster image of the historic paper map entitled: Map of Madison and the Four Lake Country : Dane Co. Wis. It was published in 1855. Scale [ca. 1:53,000]. The image inside the map neatline is georeferenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Wisconsin South NAD 1983 coordinate system (in Feet) (Fipszone 4803). All map collar and inset information is also available as part of the raster image, including any inset maps, profiles, statistical tables, directories, text, illustrations, index maps, legends, or other information associated with the principal map. This map shows features such as roads, railroads (active and projected), drainage, selected points of interest, township and range boundaries, and more. Includes index and text.This layer is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps from the Harvard Map Collection. These maps typically portray both natural and manmade features. The selection represents a range of originators, ground condition dates, scales, and map purposes.