‘Land for infrastructure’ in Ho Chi Minh City: land-based financing of transportation improvement

This paper explores how land-based financing mechanisms are currently used in Ho Chi Minh City as a public-private funding strategy. The Land-for-Infrastructure (LFI) mechanism appears as a solution to produce infrastructures. We found that the implementation of the LFI mechanism remains difficult, but eventually can lead to success. By ‘trial-error-transcend,’ the City managed to build two essential roads while the developers received attractive investment opportunities in urban development. This mechanism cannot, however, be seen as a panacea for the local authorities due to constraints to replicate it and potential undesired ‘side effects.’     

The effect of FAR (floor area ratio) regulations on land values: The case of New York

This paper explores the stringency of floor area ratio (FAR), one of the land use regulations in New York, and analyses it by boroughs of New York. Stringency is presented when the regulated height is significantly lower than the free market height and the theoretical approach shows that the elasticity of the land value with respect to FAR is used to estimate the stringency. In particular, we overcome issues in previous studies by constructing a data set using publically available data through new methods. The results show that the FAR stringency in Manhattan is the highest in New York City and the stringency is lower as the distance from the centre of the city increases.     

油气集输站场生活污水土地处理技术

通过对土地处理系统的介绍，结合油气站场污水的特点，分析了不同土地处理技术在实际中的设置情况和方式，给出一般的面积计算方法和结果，总结了土地处理的技术特点和应用前景。     

新时期空间规划转向与政策绩效提升路径

公共政策限制或扩展了人的行为, 以此牵引空间需求并塑造城乡形态。而城乡 规划的本质即是人类社会对空间需求的集体 意志,是权衡社会、文化、经济和环境等无 边界因素之后的集体选择。城乡规划在新时 期融入了国土空间规划体系,但由于边界不 明确、作用机制不明朗、效果不直接、责任难 认定等原因,在积极贡献的同时,承受了较多 质疑甚至不实之责。为了更加清晰地认知空 间规划及其政策,可以借鉴西方城市发展和 规划理论探索经验,重新认知和区分规划领 域学理、法理、机理的内涵与差别,同时,探 讨提升空间规划政策绩效的路径,大体包括 推动经验判断转向情景演算、识别实施传导 机制、划定可试错的领域并完善纠错机制以 及促进规划政策全过程的知识积累等方面。     

Long-term impact of chronosequential land use change on soil carbon stocks on a Swedish farm

Agricultural practices and land use significantly influence soil carbon storage. The processes that are affected by land use and management are generally understood, but uncertainties in projections are high. In this paper, we investigate the long-term effects of chronosequential land use change from grassland to cropland and vice versa on soil carbon stock dynamics in four fields on a Swedish farm. Between 1850 and 1920, three of the fields were converted from grassland into cropland, and one was converted back to grassland in 1971. The fourth (control) field is a grassland that has never been ploughed. In 1937, the four fields were sampled at 111 points in a regular grid (25 or 50 m) and the dried soil samples were stored at our Department. In 1971 and 2002, the original grid points were revisited and re-sampled. Land use changes affected the soil C stock significantly. In 1937, carbon stocks were significantly smaller in the arable fields than in the grassland soil. In the field that was converted from arable back to grassland, soil C increased significantly at an average rate of about 0.4 Mg ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. A soil C balance model (ICBM) driven by standard meteorological data and soil carbon input estimated from yield records described soil carbon dynamics reasonably well, although the range of simulated relative changes in C stocks between 1937 and 2002 in the four fields (from −7.4 to +8.8%) was narrower than those measured (from −19.5 to +16.5%). There are only few long-term studies in Northern Europe available for quantifying the effect of land use change on soil carbon stocks and the results presented here are therefore useful for improving predictions of changes in soil carbon driven by land use change.     

Measuring the neighbourhood effect to calibrate land use models

Many spatially explicit land use models include the neighbourhood effect as a driver of land use changes. The neighbourhood effect includes the inertia of land uses over time, the conversion from one land use to another, and the attraction or repulsion of surrounding land uses. The neighbourhood effect is expressed in the neighbourhood rules, but calibration of the neighbourhood rules is not straightforward. This paper aims to characterise the neighbourhood effect of observed land use changes and use this information to improve the calibration of land use models. We measured the over- and underrepresentation of land uses in the neighbourhood of observed land use changes using a modified version of the enrichment factor. Enrichment factors of observed land use changes in Germany between 1990 and 2000 indicate that the neighbourhood effect exists. This suggests that it is appropriate to use neighbourhood rules to simulate urban land use changes. Observed enrichment factors were used to calibrate a land use model for Germany from 1990 to 2000 and the obtained neighbourhood rules were validated independently from 2000 to 2006. The results show that both the allocation accuracy and the pattern accuracy of the land use model improved for the calibration period, as well as for the independent validation period. This indicates that enrichment factors can be used to improve the calibration of the neighbourhood rules in land use models.     

Accurate segmentation of land regions in historical cadastral maps

Historical cadastral maps are valuable sources for historians to study social and economic background of changes in land uses or ownerships. In order to conduct large-scale historical research, it is essential to digitize the cadastral maps. As being established in antiquity, however, they suffer from significant noise artifacts attributed to hand-drawn cartography. In this paper, we propose a novel method of extracting land regions automatically in historical cadastral maps. First, we remove grid reference lines based on the density of the black pixel with the help of the jittering. Then, we remove land owner labels by considering morphological and geometrical characteristics of thinned image. We subsequently reconstruct land boundaries. Finally, the land regions of a user’s interest are modeled by their polygonal approximations. Our segmentation results were compared with manually segmented results and showed that the proposed method extracted the land regions accurately for assisting cadastral mapping in historical research.     

The territorial and landscape impacts of photovoltaic systems: Definition of impacts and assessment of the glare risk

The installation and operation of systems that exploit solar energy through photovoltaic conversion, recently promoted in some European countries by new sell-back tariffs, is a relevant transformation of the territory for various reasons (land use, elimination of the existing vegetation, visual impact on the components of the landscape, microclimate change, glare from the reflection of the direct sunlight). The weak energy intensity of the solar source coupled with the low conversion efficiency of the photovoltaic cells, make the physical dimensions of such systems relevant and, with them, also the environmental, territorial and landscape impacts that basically depend on the physical extent of the system. If it is well known that an incentive to the exploitation of renewable sources is one of the features of the policy of land conservation, including the one of the protected areas, at the same time the concerns of local communities and governments about the environmental, territorial and landscape impacts of this technology are increasing rapidly.Given this picture, this work is intended to clarify the territorial impacts of the ground mounted photovoltaic systems. Later, the paper concentrates on a specific impact, which is the assessment of the risk of glare by reflection of direct sunlight from the surfaces of photovoltaic modules. The methodologies that can be used to assess this impact and the outcomes of an evaluation carried out for a 5000 m² PV system currently designed on a hilly territory in Italy are presented.     

A comparison of historical land-use change patterns and recommendations for flood plain developments in three delta regions in Southeast Asia

Historical land-cover changes in three delta regions in Southeast Asia are assessed by using selected Landsat images from 1990 to 2005. Potential inundation areas of the delta regions for different return periods are estimated by using digital elevation model data and extreme-value distribution of annual maximum river discharges. The results indicate significant changes of natural land cover within the potential inundation areas due to agricultural exploitation and industrialization. Implications for flood-mitigation policies are discussed. There is a clear need for sustainable land-use management strategies in all three areas.     

Disentangling Textiles,Christine Boydell and Mary Schoeser (eds)

Abstract

In Australia Aboriginal people have always been “wrapt” in string, conceptually and practically in historical and Ancestral times. This article has a geographic focus on Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, and a temporal concentration on the 1930s and early 1940s. The Donald Thomson collection from the region will be the main source of images and objects relating to string. His collection provides a representative view of life during those times. Donald Thomson (1901–1970), anthropologist and photographer, was a man holding great interest in material culture and its role in the social lives of people. String in its various forms is a strong element of his Collection, beginning with the making of string to its final inclusion in objects of both ceremonial and everyday use. The raw materials, bundles of string and objects made from string such as nets, bags and items of body adornment were all collected. String worn on the body, part of bodywear, will be at the core of the discussion for this article. Past context plays an important role in understanding the contemporary use of string. The relevance of the items to contemporary fiber practise in Arnhem Land is essential. This article will examine continuity and change in the use and thoughts about bodywear made primarily from string.