Geographical Research最新文献

River systems have been the subject of studies that address their ability to transfer water and sediments continuously and efficiently. However, works aimed at understanding the geological controls that promote disconnection and sediment storage in temporary semi-arid rivers are scarce. In the semi-arid Northeast of Brazil, the morphostructural context, in line with crustal mechanics, acts on the transmission of materials along the channels, conditioning the spatial juxtaposition between stretches of rocky and alluvial bottom resulting from the creation of accommodation spaces and sediment storage that promote primary river disconnection. By applying morphometric indices to the Carnaúba River watershed, state of Rio Grande do Norte, this work identified how the action of crustal deformations, conditioned by the reactivation of shear-zones, and drainage superimposition to lithological units discordantly disposed to the main channel, contributed to creating morphological compartments dominated by aggradation. The data indicate that the Cenozoic tectonics operating in the watershed created accommodation spaces controlled by knickpoints, grabens and rocky sills. These structures functioned as storage basins throughout the Quaternary and engender current scenarios of river disconnection that add to the intermittency characteristics inherent to the fluvial environment of the Brazilian semi-arid region.

In March of 2020, the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) escalated into a global health emergency. In Madrid, public institutions were overwhelmed by this crisis, and mutual aid networks were deployed in multiple neighbourhoods to assist thousands of families—approximately 15,000 households—with food and care in the absence of actions taken by the Madrid City Council. Drawing on a mixed methodology that combines discourse analysis and statistical data from social actors and multi-level institutions, this study aims to highlight the patterns of socio-spatial inequalities in Madrid in light of the urban impact of pandemic regulations and the role of public institutions in re-territorialising its already existing inequalities through legal zoning. In particular, this study examines the relationship between the territorial irruption of COVID-19-related collective action initiatives and the re-spatialisation of social inequalities in Madrid. In line with this objective, two additional questions are addressed. The study highlights the value of a legal geography theoretical framework in examining how law works as a political technology over territory and also shows how social organisations and networks have claimed legal regulations as bottom-up social change processes, challenging the dynamics in the political production of law. The aim of this work is twofold: on the one hand, we wonder to what extent the solidarity networks could be related to urban territorialities and the spatialisation of social inequalities in Madrid. On the other hand, we aim to show how a legal geography perspective could be useful in examining how law is used over territory as a political technology and as a surveillance tool and, conversely, how from social movements representing social networks in pandemic, many regulations are demanded and vindicated as bottom-up social change processes that mean a contention of former dynamics in the political production of law.

This paper explores the production and reproduction of changing hydrosocial dynamics in South China since the construction of the Dongshen Water Supply Project (DWSP), an inter-basin water transfer that supplies approximately 70% to 80% of freshwater from Mainland China to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Drawing on the idea of the waterscape, I conceptualise the DWSP as an embodiment of power and socio-environmental relations, encompassing a wide array of physical objects, institutions, and agencies. I show that, on one hand, the DWSP has expanded, improved, and renewed its physical forms over the past six decades and intertwined with various institutional and administrative changes that consolidate its role. On the other hand, the materialisation of the DWSP has been associated with diverging spatial configurations in both water-exporting and water-receiving areas. That has exacerbated disparities in water access, conservation responsibilities, and socioeconomic opportunities, perpetuating uneven waterscapes. This historical-material examination of the DWSP provides a nuanced understanding of how power and social relations can manifest through water and how hydraulic infrastructure is intimately linked with development, governance, and inequalities over space and time.

At the heart of this paper are concerns for food security and sustainability—two challenges of wide relevance for geographers. Our work focuses specifically on the Guinea northern savanna ecological zone of Ghana, where poverty is grim and livelihood opportunities are limited and the intersection of urban expansion and livelihood dynamics is not well understood. This study analysed trends in and effects of urban expansion on farmers’ livelihoods in four peri-urban communities around Tamale in the Republic of Ghana. The study employed a mixed methods design comprising quantitative and qualitative methods. It used geospatial techniques, secondary data, and a qualitative study involving 56 heads of households and seven key informants. Results indicate that while the surface area of farmlands reduced by 77% from 1996 to 2023, urban or built-up areas increased by 93% in the same period. Findings show that while urban expansion reduced the sizes of farmlands, households’ agricultural output, and income, it created nonfarm livelihood opportunities for some households. To minimise the effects of urbanisation-induced arable land shrinkage, affected households adopted three strategies: agricultural intensification, agricultural diversification, and adoption of nonfarm livelihood activities. Key policy initiatives by the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly are needed to protect agricultural lands to stem declining agricultural production and to ensure livelihood sustainability in the metropolis.

Communities worldwide face escalating flood risks due to climate change, a fact that emphasises the critical role of flood preparedness in community flood resilience. Globally, flood risk is expected to double by 2050. In the United Kingdom, where this study is set, approximately one property in six is already at risk of flooding, with that figure set to increase significantly in coming decades. Children and young people are often overlooked in work on flood resilience and response. Researchers working with flood-affected children have learned from their experiences and supported them in telling their stories and sharing insights about how to best manage flood risk in the future. Here, we advance a research approach that co-created with young people and teachers a suite of educational resources centred on using innovative 360° animation and immersive storytelling approaches. That work has allowed us to bring to life testimonies by children affected by flooding and to advance debates on how empathy can be amplified to widen engagement across a range of audiences and stakeholders. The tools we developed place the user in the centre of the child’s flood-impacted world, something that has received relatively little attention. The results provide significant new insights on the use of 360° storytelling approaches that can prompt enhanced, empathic responses that motivate users to want to learn more about flooding, help create a sense of solidarity, and inspire action. We argue that such empathy-driven, action-oriented responses are crucial when developing future flood preparedness plans and enhancing broader community flood resilience.

Knowledge co-production is needed as never before to support social change in the face of climate, water, biodiversity, and other sustainability crises. Co-production brings together diverse groups and their ways of knowing to generate new knowledges and practices that reconfigure or generate transformative social changes and that invite reflexivity. Within sustainability sciences, tensions exist between descriptive, analytical framings of co-production used to interrogate knowledge-power relations and instrumental or normative framings used to build such relations. The former has been criticised for being overly descriptive and difficult to translate into policy outcomes and the latter for failing to sufficiently interrogate power dynamics and for perpetuating existing inequities. As researchers, how are we to navigate this tension? Co-production praxis involves reconfiguring knowledge-power relations for just and transformative social changes. I suggest what is needed is a critical lens on those relations to underpin and guide feasible and action-oriented processes and outcomes for such changes. In three ways, I present and reflect on co-production contexts with different temporal, spatial and epistemological characteristics. These contexts are analysing historical co-production of knowledge of coastal freshwater floodplain Country of the Northern Territory, facilitating the Kunwinjku Seasons calendar and enabling reflexive co-production praxis with sustainability science researchers at a national science institution. I demonstrate the need within each context to weave analytical, practical, and reflexive work to reconfigure fairer societal outcomes and to pay greater attention to socio-institutional changes arising from our engaged work.

This study introduces a novel approach to urban liveability research by combining interviews with participatory mapping techniques. More specifically, the research integrates concepts from geographic information systems (GISs) with episodic narrative interviews to develop a qualitative GIS (qual-GIS) methodology to map and interpret the spatial experiences of recent migrants to Cairns. This qual-GIS approach involves participants annotating amenity maps with personal narratives, effectively geolocating subjective experiences, and providing visual representations of liveability insights. During mapping sessions, participants identified and highlighted significant locations by annotating maps with pens and sticky notes to express their spatial stories and place attachments. Analysis of annotated maps in ArcGIS enabled the juxtaposition of qualitative insights with quantitative data, offering a rich, spatially informed understanding of liveability in place. The maps transcended their function as mere analytical instruments or memory aides, and the activity evolved into a platform for migrants to articulate experiences of, and emotional ties to the city. This approach enhances understandings of urban liveability from first-hand experiences and establishes qual-GIS approaches as valuable tools in urban and regional policy and research.

Social-ecological memory (SEM) may be a key source of resilience in social-ecological systems (SES), allowing for renewal and reorganisation after disturbances. This study provides an overview of the genesis and evolution of the SEM concept, its research trends and gaps, and its potential applicability to geographical thought. Combining systematic review and bibliometric analysis, we collected 219 records published in the last two decades, which were reduced to 87 relevant records after applying the inclusion/exclusion criterion. The results indicate that interest in SEM research is growing, but wide acceptance and concordance around terminology are still lagging. The concept has substantially evolved and expanded over the last decade but remains mostly abstract and conceptual. Research has focused predominantly on European countries, rural contexts, and westernised societies, identified multiple disturbances and ecosystem services as driving the maintenance and evolution of SEM, and highlighted an unequal interest between social and ecological memory carriers. Our review underlines the strong pertinence of the SEM concept for the study and management of social-ecological systems, which would benefit from the development of application strategies and tools. In the future, researchers should seek to expand the idea of social-ecological memory into an applied field having clearer links and boundaries with more established concepts important in geography, among them traditional ecological knowledge.

Across the globe, interdisciplinary and creative approaches to climate change education are crucial at all levels, particularly in higher education. In this article, I draw from insights working with a class at New Mexico State University in the United States. The aim was to examine approaches to understanding, communicating, and representing climate change. Each student was asked to compose a narrative in which they imagined the year 2100 as a time when we have adequately mitigated and/or adapted to the climate crisis. The assignment set the tone for collective action and foregrounded the importance of story and imagination in building just and sustainable futures. The class complemented a public climate change speaker series and, as a second assignment, students suggested which speakers to invite to shape the series in the future. The two assignments opened new spaces to empower, learn with and from, and build connections between university students and academic staff to shape climate discourse and action in communities. Reflecting on what was learned, sharing an example of a climate futures assignment, and presenting views on a collaborative approach to climate change education all add, I hope, to the literature on imagining futures, empowerment, and authentic learning in climate change education.