A good place to raise a family? Comparing parents, service-providers', and media perspectives of the inner and outer suburban areas of Melbourne

In Australia, the suburbs have historically been the favoured place to raise children. However this is being challenged both by social change and government policy encouraging innerurban renewal. We examined how inner-urban areas compare with more traditional suburban locations as places to raise a family. Recognising that there are many influences on perceptions of place, we included the opinions of parents, service-providers and the media in the two locations.

Research focused on two municipalities in Melbourne, one located >25km and the other <10km from the CBD. Themes were obtained and compared from in-depth interviews with parents, serviceproviders and analysis of municipality-specific and state-wide newspaper articles.

Service provision was the only theme common at all levels of analysis. For all other themes, differences occurred between perspectives of service-providers, media and parents, as well as between the two residential locations. These in-depth snapshots on the challenges and rewards of raising children in different urban locations can help inform government in planning healthy neighbourhoods that better serve the needs of contemporary Australian families.

Application of GIS-based computer modelling to planning for adaption to climate change in rural areas

A GIS-based computer modelling methodology was developed and applied to identify climate change adaptation issues arising in regional agricultural production systems (including forestry). Agricultural production in Australia is very susceptible to the adverse impacts of climate change due to projected shifts in rainfall and temperature. The methodology integrates land suitability analysis with uncertainty analysis and spatial (regional) optimisation to determine optimal agricultural land use at a regional scale for current and possible future climatic conditions. The approach can be used to recognise regions under threat of productivity decline, identify alternative cropping systems that may be better adapted to likely future conditions, and investigate implementation actions to improve the sub-optimal situations created by climate change. An example of how the methodology may be used is outlined through a case study involving the South West Region of Victoria, Australia. The case study provides information on the tools available to support the formulation of a regional adaptation strategy.

Monitoring protected areas using remote sensing technology

Due to irrational use of natural resources, human society is facing unprecedented threats. Remote sensing is one of the essential tools to determine changes in various forms of biological diversity over time. There are many methods to determine changes in protected areas, using satellite images. In this paper after introducing different change detection methods and their advantages and disadvantages, a hybrid method is used to analyse changes in forests and protected areas in a national park. Two Landsat images of Golestan National Park in Iran (taken in 1998 and 2010) were used. This hybrid approach combines Change Vector Analysis (CVA) for flagging the occurrence of changes, followed by signature extension to assign labels to changedpixels. The main objective of this paper is to propose a method for discovering and assessing environmental threats to natural treasures.