Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Hamburg, 2005. / Title from PDF file.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Waikato, 2004. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Feb. 7, 2006). Includes bibliographical references (p. [349]-374).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Colorado, Boulder, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [356]-404).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of British Columbia, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 374-417).

Sugarcane cultivation is expanding throughout the Pacific coast of Guatemala, with political and ecological consequences for subsistence communities. The majority of sugar production occurs in the departments of Santa Rosa, Escuintla, Suchitepequéz and Retalhuleu on the Pacific coast. As sugarcane expands into fincas (large plantations owned by an agricultural elite), the amount of land available for rent to landless or land-poor farmers is reduced. Sugarcane expansion provokes various forms of environmental degradation, including deforestation, air pollution, water contamination, and draining of rivers and wetlands. Sugarcane cultivation also provokes health problems for workers and those who live near these sites, including kidney failure, dehydration, and respiratory and skin problems. As sugarcane expands, subsistence communities in the surrounding area are subject to these detrimental effects of sugarcane cultivation. Building academic knowledge on the impacts of sugarcane expansion is necessary in order to be better equipped to be in solidarity with, or support subsistence communities facing this expansion. It is crucial to meaningfully involve subsistence communities in this process of knowledge production since it is the inhabitants of these places, not researchers, who are the experts on these issues. In this thesis, I describe a feminist community-based research project in the community of La Montaña, Guatemala, on the impacts of sugarcane in their community. The key goals of this research were to 1) collaboratively identify with participants specific areas of interest regarding sugarcane impacts, and investigate these areas; 2) analyse data with an awareness of gender and 3) share research findings with the community to facilitate the possibility of action or critical reflection. I used public group discussions, semi-structured interviews, participant observation and drop-in sessions to collect data. Through this process, the issues of political inaction (as a response to sugarcane) and deforestation (driven by sugarcane) emerged as two key areas of interest which I explore in this thesis. The main finding of my research was that sugarcane cultivation is a divisive force in La Montaña: while community members agree on the negative aspects of sugarcane cultivation, they disagree about how to address this issue. As I find, these divisions occur along the axes of gender and age. These divisions also constitute an obstacle to a collective political platform to address sugarcane expansion, and a potential site for intracommunity violence as sugarcane continues to expand. These findings were presented to the community in a public presentation in February 2015, to provide a space for critical discussion of these issues. Overall, this research identifies a key difficulty that subsistence communities face in the context of agroindustrial expansion: as the importance of collective action grows, so too do intra-community divisions. This research highlights the need for long-term solidarity-building work in communities on the Pacific coast of Guatemala, in order to be able to achieve the changes that community members feel powerless to enact alone. / Graduate

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-26T13:32:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 texto completo.pdf: 1562008 bytes, checksum: 8448998bfce6287c1003568729e72993 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-08-29 / The space-time models, developed for analyses of diseases, can also be used for others field of study, including concerns about forest and deforestation. Therefore, this dissertation uses a methodology for detection of space- time clusters of cases that were mapped through the investigation of deforestation in Amazonas State. The methodology includes the location and the year that the deforestation s alert occurred. These deforestation s alerts are mapped by the DETER (Detection System of Deforestation in Real Time in Amazonia). And to find historic information about clusters which have a cylinder format, through the retrospective analyses. Also to find significant cases of deforestation. The area of study, took place the south of Amazonas State, including Boca do Acre, Labrea, Canutama, Humaita, Manicore, Novo Aripuana e Apui County. This area has showed a significant change for the land cover which has increased the number of deforestation s alerts. Therefore this situation becomes a concern and gets more investigation, trying to stop factors that increase the number of cases in the area. The outcome shows an efficient model to detect space-time clusters of deforestation s alerts. The model was efficient to detect the location, the size, the order and characteristics about activities at the end of the study. Two clusters were considered alive clusters and kept alive until the end of the study. These clusters are located in Canutama and Lábrea County. / Os modelos espaço-temporais desenvolvidos para análises essencialmente empregadas, em dados epidemiológicos humanos, têm um grande potencial para aplicação em estudos florestais e de desmatamento. Neste sentido, esta dissertação aplica uma metodologia para detecção de conglomerados espaço-temporais de casos, em dados oriundos do monitoramento do desmatamento no estado do Amazonas. Com a utilização de um modelo que a metodologia consiste em incorporar simultaneamente a localização e o ano em que supostamente ocorreu o alerta de desmatamento, divulgado pelo DETER (Sistema de Detecção do Desmatamento em Tempo Real na Amazônia) e, verificar, através da abordagem retrospectiva, a existência de conglomerados, históricos e ativos de geometria cilíndrica, de ocorrência de casos significantes, bem como ordenar e localizá-los. Foi escolhida para este estudo a região sul do estado do Amazonas, compreendendo os municípios de Boca do Acre, Lábrea, Canutama, Humaitá, Manicoré, Novo Aripuanã e Apuí. Esta região tem apresentado mudanças constantes de uso do solo, o que tem gerado grande incidência de alertas de desmatamento nos últimos anos. Portanto, esta região faz jus ao estudo de vigilância no sentido de controlar e coibir essas ações antrópicas na região. Os resultados revelaram que o modelo se mostrou eficiente para detectar conglomerados spaço-temporais de alertas de desmatamento, bem como sua localização, tamanho, ordem e características referentes à sua atividade até o final do período estudado. Dos conglomerados detectados dois foram considerados ativos (permanecem ativos até o final do período estudado). Estes conglomerados ativos estão localizados nos municípios de Canutama e Lábrea.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:51:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T13:56:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Dissertacao (Mestrado) / IPEN/D / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN/CNEN-SP / FAPESP:04/04148-3

Java, l'île principale de l'archipel indonésien a vu la construction, depuis les années 1960, de nombreux grands barrages. Leurs rôles sont multiples, passant du contrôle des flux liquides (écrêtage des crues et soutien des étiages) à l'approvisionnement en eau des grandes agglomérations urbaines et des terres agricoles. Ils jouent également le rôle important de fournisseur d'énergie. Depuis leur mise en eau, on assiste à un comblement rapide des réservoirs liés à des taux d'érosion qui figurent parmi les plus élevés du monde. La diminution importante de leur efficacité entraîne par conséquent de nombreuses répercussions néfastes sur le milieu et les sociétés. Les objectifs de cette recherche sont ainsi de déterminer, avec des approches multiples (SIG, télédétection, base de données hydro-climatiques, sondages lacustres...), les taux et les rythmes de remplissage de ces réservoirs, agissant comme indicateurs de l'érosion dans leur bassins-versants respectifs. Il s'agira de mettre en évidence les facteurs principaux influant sur cette forte sédimentation et de mettre en place des outils permettant de venir en aide aux organismes chargés de la gestion des bassins-versants javanais. / Since the Sixties, a large number of dams have been built in the Indonesian archipelago's main island, Java. Their rôle are multiple, going from liquid flows control (flood – peak shaving and low flow support) to water supply of great urban areas and agricultural lands. They also are an important energy supplier. After their watering, a fast filling of the tanks related to rates of erosion that appear among the highest in the world, has been observed. This significant efficiency decrease involves multiple negative impacts on environment and utilities. Through a multiple approach (GIS, remote sensing, hydroclimatic databases, lake surveys...), the objectives of this research are to determine the sedimentary transfer rates and pace within the studied basins, which act as erosion indicators in their respective basins. The key determinants affecting this high sedimentation will be highlighted and a software will be developed with the aim to provide Javanese river basins authorities with new tools.

Fast and accurate monitoring of tropical forest disturbance is essential for understanding current patterns of deforestation as well as helping eliminate illegal logging. This dissertation explores the use of data from different satellites for near real-time monitoring of forest disturbance in tropical forests, including: development of new monitoring methods; development of new assessment methods; and assessment of the performance and operational readiness of existing methods. Current methods for accuracy assessment of remote sensing products do not address the priority of near real-time monitoring of detecting disturbance events as early as possible. I introduce a new assessment framework for near real-time products that focuses on the timing and the minimum detectable size of disturbance events. The new framework reveals the relationship between change detection accuracy and the time needed to identify events. In regions that are frequently cloudy, near real-time monitoring using data from a single sensor is difficult. This study extends the work by Xin et al. (2013) and develops a new time series method (Fusion2) based on fusion of Landsat and MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) data. Results of three test sites in the Amazon Basin show that Fusion2 can detect 44.4% of the forest disturbance within 13 clear observations (82 days) after the initial disturbance. The smallest event detected by Fusion2 is 6.5 ha. Also, Fusion2 detects disturbance faster and has less commission error than more conventional methods. In a comparison of coarse resolution sensors, MODIS Terra and Aqua combined provides faster and more accurate detection of disturbance events than VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) and MODIS single sensor data. The performance of near real-time monitoring using VIIRS is slightly worse than MODIS Terra but significantly better than MODIS Aqua. New monitoring methods developed in this dissertation provide forest protection organizations the capacity to monitor illegal logging events promptly. In the future, combining two Landsat and two Sentinel-2 satellites will provide global coverage at 30 m resolution every 4 days, and routine monitoring may be possible at high resolution. The methods and assessment framework developed in this dissertation are adaptable to newly available datasets.

Caption "Trees in the r[e]lict for[e]st patch at the head of Grootkloof on Mynedoch (corrected to Lynedoch)" farm, 17 km NW Bedford town, Bedford CP. This forest has been opened up down the years.”