The thesis critically re-examines classical historical conceptions of Central Europe. Its chief concern is to critique the discourses that, in the main, equated geographical imaginaries of Central Europe with a German dominated territorial entity in the crucial, formative 1880 - 1918 period. It is asked whether these could have played a vital role in the great powers’ endorsement of the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The research hypothesis suggests that ‘conceptualisations of regional identity are exercises in geopolitics, which through the definitive discourse of Self and Other exercise influence over behaviour of political actors, thereby indirectly impacting upon international structure’. The research explores a broad range of Central European conceptions originating mainly in the former Austria-Hungary and the German Empire. Their respective influence on the discourse over Central Europe and their impact on how the notion itself was interpreted are analyzed partly through the use of contemporaneous and sometimes obscure secondary resources (newspaper and journal articles, printed volumes) that were written in a range of languages. A substantial body of archival evidence was also collected in various archives in the UK, USA, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic and Slovakia. The latter category of materials, some of which are little-known in the English-speaking academic world, was used in an attempt to evaluate how concepts of Central Europe influenced the behaviour of political actors in the key countries for this research (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Britain and the USA). The author employed a constructivist viewpoint. The constructivist perception of actors as dynamic units, the identification of a system as a changing social concept, and the attention paid to the use of notions and their influence upon socially constructed international structures, presents a valuable platform for re-examination of classical geopolitical concepts. Constructivism has already found its application in critical geopolitics. In terms of construction of non-nation state identities, the recent works of Veit Bachmann and James Sidaway (2009), Mindaugas Jurkynas (2007) or Michelle Pace (2007) provide interesting examples and applications. It is concluded that conceptualising Central Europe did possess a definite geopolitical purpose, though this varied over time and concept to concept. In many cases this also informed the attitudes of policy-makers to a significant degree, mainly in constructing a negative definition of the Other. However, the final decision to dismember the Dual (Austro-Hungarian) Monarchy was based on more pragmatic military considerations and the perceived near-collapse of the country in late stages of war, rather than any particular concept of Central Europe itself.

Taking inspiration from Foucauldian work on governmentality and historical materialist approaches, this thesis examines the political ecology of compulsory water metering in the South East of England. Here, three main contributions are offered. First, a genealogy of water metering (1840 to 2009) is developed in order to demonstrate the multiple ways that the meter has been used to help negotiate different understandings of the waterscape. Secondly, contemporary compulsory metering programmes are positioned as a socio-technical fix where water companies have attempted to, at least partially, resolve a tension between water stress and household water demand and, at the same time, secure the continuation of the broadly neoliberal waterscape. Finally, the thesis examines the unanticipated outcomes of compulsory metering; it focuses on how affordability has been reframed as an important and immediate governance problem that requires private water companies to take on new roles, sometimes reluctantly, as water welfare providers.

This thesis explores political reflections on the emerging risks of hazard and climate change in the post-developmental South Korean state. Several cases of both actual and anticipated risk are investigated regarding contribution to reshaping a political landscape in which change might unfold. Three analytical frames (changes in social expectation, institutional change and social innovation) are elaborated. In addition, the Risk Society thesis (and its Korean counterpart dual-risk society thesis), studies of disaster and climate change adaptation inform this research. Employing a multifocal lens, the thesis problematises conventional, apolitical approaches to disaster risk, particularly in terms of their dichotomous conceptualisation of society and nature. This research finds critical realism appropriate, due in particular to its ontological account of power relations and the driving forces of change. Using informal interviews, reviews of existing, relevant literature, as well as observation, this thesis reclaims the political space of the discourse of development and disaster risk. Issues of hazard, risk and climate change were found unfamiliar to most of the interviewees. There also emerged a translation issue between Korean and English during the stage of data analysis. The ways that these challenges were overcome are explained in detail. This thesis contains strong evidence to suggest that disasters triggered by natural hazards and changing risk perception in Korea have surfaced as a political issue. More importantly, this research finds that hazard and risk can shake the existing discursive space in which alternative ideas can possibly transform into wider societal change. For this reason, issues like DRR and CCA can also be kept apolitical by existing discursive alliances that can benefit from ideological and institutional stability. The thesis concludes by pinpointing the importance of steering different forms of freedom for the fruits of incremental change to transform into the disaster-specific resilience that is key to transformative CCA.

Because the authority of science is thought to legitimise governmental regulations to restrict the emission of so-called greenhouse gases (GHGs), in this thesis I study the making of authoritative scientific knowledge through the lens of a controversy about climate reconstruction. While controversies in climate science are typically explained with vested interests that have turned an innocent form of knowledge into the victim of the political opponent’s misuse, I draw on insights from science studies to illuminate a more nuanced and symmetrical critique on climate science, the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and climate reconstruction in particular. To that end the thesis focuses on three interconnected ideas which dominate the controversy: the idea of an objective scientific method, which places emphasis on the empirical testing of theory, the idea of an unbiased expert, which shifts my analytical focus onto norms and markers of expertise, and the overarching idea of science legitimising political programmes of action, which all of the protagonists subscribe to. First, climate reconstruction promises to be an empirical test for the scientific theory of AGW, but in the controversy over an iconic reconstruction so-called climate sceptics accuse scientists of having violated the scientific method. Second, in public investigations examining these allegations, the scientists and their critics draw on scientific norms to contest respective claims to expertise. Third, in consequence of these inquiries and the so-called ‘Climategate’ affair, which corroborated the critics, independent scientists re-analyse climate reconstruction: if climate science legitimises policies aiming at the restriction of GHG emissions, its authority qua science will have to be re-established. This dependence on science in difficult political decision-making puts a heavy burden on the former and obstructs the latter, and it characterises the climate change debate in the United States. Further research on the role of science in the politics of climate change would benefit from taking more explicitly political cultures into account.

This research examines major hydrological ecosystem services produced by the Indo-Gangetic Basin and selected mountain catchments in the Himalayas. Key focus is given to quantity and quality related hydrological attributes that underpin many hydrological ecosystem services. A quantitative assessment of changes in these hydrological attributes in the context of plausible land use and cover change scenarios is crucial for policy making processes to sustain important hydrological benefits. Using a process-based advanced hydrological modelling tool, i.e. WaterWorld (www.policysupport.org/waterworld), the research estimates baseline hydrological fluxes and compares them with the same fluxes under future plausible land use scenarios. The research has used globally available datasets of hydro-climatic, bio-physical, and environmental properties available in the web-based ‘SimTerra’ database. Fieldwork was also conducted for selected catchments to improve the quality of datasets for modelling and to integrate the local understanding of watershed conservation and hydrological ecosystem services into the research. The vast expanses of croplands in the lowland areas are consuming the majority of available freshwater. The research also highlights the important role of crops carrying hydrological ecosystem services (in embedded form as ‘Virtual Water’) to local and distant consumers. Projected cropland growth uses additional water which will affect water availability for other hydrological ESs. In this situation, the agricultural and water resources related policies should be focused on the efficient use of freshwater resources. In addition, water consumed in crop production processes should be better integrated in hydrological ecosystem services research. Both Protected Area and human dominated catchments in the middle-mountainous region of the Himalayas are supplying valuable hydrological ecosystem services to downstream users. Conservation efforts of upland people have had a positive impact on water quantity and quality related attributes. Although the conservation intervention has improved the upland forest cover and increased annual evapotranspiration, the bigger increase in fog inputs at the same time has resulted a marginally increase of annual water availability in the downstream. Thus, a positive contribution of fog water inputs is a new phenomenon for the mountainous region. Upland communities’ voluntary role in watershed management is clearly reflected through their participation in various conservation activities. Since conservation practices are essential in improving hydrological ecosystem services, a payment for the ecosystem services programme might help them to achieve their goal.

This study examines landuse change (LUC) in the Niger Delta of Nigeria, focusing on the drivers of change and the societal implications on the people in the Delta. This study applies both remote sensing and social research methods to evaluate the spatial and temporal change in landuse, population change, deforestation, and degradation within forest reserves; and the impacts of oil production and the effects of the changes on the Delta. A time series of Landsat TM images was used over the period from 1984 to 2011. The study evaluates a number of classification and post-classification change detection methods to examine LUC, while NDVI is used to monitor the degradation of forests. Accuracy assessment shows that Maximum Likelihood (ML) is the most accurate method, but results were still error prone. To improve classification accuracy, a Decision Tree Reclassification (DTR) method was developed that uses prior classifications and simple rules of those LUCs, which occur over time and those that do not. DTR improves the overall accuracy of the classification from 62% to 89%. The social methods used a mixed-method approach (questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussions). The methods were carefully selected and used to help explain the results of findings from remote sensing. The results are presented in two phases: (1) results of remote sensing showing the overall changes in the entire Niger Delta and specific case studies (2) results of social science survey showing the drivers of changes and their environmental and societal implications on the people in the Delta. The results show that nearly 9000 km2 forest has been lost in the Niger Delta region between 1984 and 2011, but the extent of deforestation varies from one forest type to another. Lowland rainforest is more exploited than freshwater swamp forest and mangrove forests, with approximately 40% of lowland rainforest areas lost. The urban areas expand by about 50% in lowland rainforest, but less urban expansion is noted in freshwater swamp forest (16%) and mangrove forest (38%). The study finds that assessing oil spill impacts using Landsat TM was not possible, but that oil production infrastructures (e.g. construction of canals) can be an important cause of deforestation in the Delta in exceptional cases. This is evident in the mangroves around Tsekelewu that are reduced from 200km2 in 1984 to 114km2 in 1987, because of the construction of artificial canals that have promoted regular inflow of seawater and the consequent destruction of freshwater mangroves. The results from social survey show also the drivers of LUC and deforestation in the Delta are probably multiphase including unenforced forest protection laws; corruption at all levels; pressure of immigration and increasing population; and indifference of local people to the state of the forest around them.

Water security in the Bolivian Andes is projected to decrease with population growth and climate change. As one of the poorest countries in the region, Bolivia is particularly vulnerable to such changes due to its limited capacity to adapt. Key gaps exist in our knowledge of the Andean cryosphere, including a lack of information on alternative mountain water sources, such as ‘rock glaciers’. The presence and hydrological importance of these cryospheric features is unknown for the Bolivian Andes. Yet, with current and projected [ice] glacier recession forecasted to negatively impact water availabilty, it is important to gather data and understanding on these cryospheric landforms. Consequently, this PhD has created the first rock glacier inventory for the Bolivian Andes, estimated rock glacier water stores, assessed their hydrological importance in comparison to glaciers and modelled the implications of projected rising temperatures on rock glacier activity and permafrost extent. This information has contributed to scientific knowledge about the Bolivian cryosphere and, more specifically, has increased knowledge of the frozen store of water in rock glaciers in the arid mountains of Bolivia where future water security issues are expected in response to climatic change. The rock glacier inventory for the Bolivian Andes was built through expert photomorphic mapping of freely available, high resolution satellite data (Google Earth), supported by a programme of field work during July - August 2011 and July - August 2012. A total of 94 rock glaciers were found to exist in the Bolivian Andes between 15° and 22° S, of which 54 were classified as active, estimated to contain between 0.05 and 0.14 km3 of water. At the national scale, research demonstrated that Bolivian rock glaciers were not as relatively important as hydrological stores when compared to estimations of glacier water equivalences. At the regional scale, three study regions were identified and analysed: Cordillera Real, Sajama and Western Cordillera. Along the Western Cordillera where glaciers are absent, the hydrological stores of the rock glaciers could be considered important. With current and projected glacier recession, it can be assumed that the relative importance of rock glaciers will increase in the Cordillera Real and Sajama. Climate modelling of the the 0 °C isotherm as a proxy for permafrost extent also highlighted this projected decrease. The projected impact of this warming on permafrost extent is modelled to be a loss of up to 95% by 2050 and 99% by 2080 from present day extent. These results were disseminated back to residents of La Paz through a conference held in the third field season (2014). This research is valued as important as continued climate change and population growth are projected to reduce water security in arid regions of the South American Andes. Due to its elevation and high levels of poverty Bolivia is vulnerable to climate change with limited ability to adapt. Specifically for the city of La Paz, its heavy dependence on the glaciers of mountains for potable water supply leaves it particularly vulnerable, especially during the dry season.

This thesis integrates sedimentological, geochemical, magnetostratigraphic and spectral work from field and core data from the Middle Eocene, deep-marine siliciclastic sediments in the Ainsa Basin, Spanish Pyrenees. The deep-marine sediments of the Ainsa Basin comprise an alternation of coarse-grained sandbodies (submarine fans) and fine-grained packages of fan lateral-margin and interfan deposits. Time-series analysis performed on spectral gamma-ray and sandstone turbidite intensity data from 10 fine-grained interfan stratigraphic sections covering ~ 1.5 km of stratigraphy, and using multiple geochemical proxies (including high-resolution elemental XRF scanning, total organic carbon and carbon stable isotopes), all show that the interfan sediments contain a strong Milankovitch cyclicity. Orbital parameters most likely paced the cyclic delivery of the finer-grained sediments mainly by river- and delta-derived hyperpycnal turbidity currents. Sediment accumulation rates determined from spectral analysis reveal an overall decrease throughout the deep-marine stratigraphy from ~ 50 to ~13cm/kyr. Orbital tuning of the fine-grained sections using polarity reversals as anchor points permits the conversion from a depth-stratigraphy to a chronostratigraphy and also allows the estimation of the timing of initiation of each sandy submarine fan. The pacing of these sandbodies appears to have occurred at irregular time intervals and to have been of variable duration. They are, therefore, most likely controlled by the tectonic pulsating activity of the Pyrenean thrust systems linked with episodic changes in relative base level (e.g., overall tilting of the graded profile from source to sink, changing relative sea level).Climate may still have been important but only as a contributory rather than principal driver of submarine-fan development.

In 2006, bus rapid transit (BRT) swept through South Africa with six cities in various stages of planning and implementation. These BRT systems are modelled after Bogotá’s Transmilenio, whose accomplishments have been touted as a low-cost, highcapacity transport solution. The seemingly rapid and orderly process through which South African cities adopted BRT raises questions regarding the mobility of knowledge, specifically how and why cities adopt circulated policies. Peripatetic Planning interrogates the process of BRT adoption to understand the way in which connections between people, places and products influence local decisionmaking. It contributes to the scholarship on policy mobilities, which considers how and why cities are increasingly constituted through relational connections with distantiated sites, by focusing on the range of urban practices taking place in order to localize a particular case of best practice at the site of adoption. This thesis also advances South African urban studies by investigating the way in which localities are introducing transport solutions from elsewhere to transform the post-apartheid city. It similarly extends the literature on transport geography by examining the reproduction of BRT and the emergence of a South African form of BRT. The thesis traces the mobility of BRT across South African cities first by focusing on the materiality of the model and the process by which it mutates across divergent socio-political and spatial contexts. The second argument considers the role of the individuals and networks promoting the adoption of BRT. This leads to the third finding exploring the involvement of municipal politics in the determination to adopt mobile policies. Lastly, the thesis examines the multiple temporalities through which policy flows considering the gradual, repetitive and at times delayed adoption of BRT. Each of these arguments gathers support for the overarching undertaking to expose the critical role of localities in influencing peripatetic planning.

Areas of open ocean within the sea ice cover, known as leads and polynyas, expose ocean water directly to the cold atmosphere. In winter, these are regions of high sea ice production, and they play an important role in the mass balance of sea ice and the salt budget of the ocean. Sea ice formation is a complex process that starts with frazil ice crystal formation in supercooled waters, which grow and precipitate to the ocean surface to form grease ice, which eventually consolidates and turns into a layer of solid sea ice. This thesis looks at all three phases, concentrating on the rst. Frazil ice comprises millimetre-sized crystals of ice that form in supercooled, turbulent water. They initially form through a process of seeding, and then grow and multiply through secondary nucleation, which is where smaller crystals break o from larger ones to create new nucleii for further growth. The increase in volume of frazil ice will continue to occur until there is no longer super-cooling in the water. The crystals eventually precipitate to the surface and pile up to form grease ice. The presence of grease ice at the ocean surface dampens the e ects of waves and turbulence, which allows them to consolidate into a solid layer of ice. The ice then mostly grows through congelation ice forming beneath the layer of ice. A mathematical model describing the above processes is formulated and used to simulate ice growth. The model consists of conservation equations for mass and heat, with an imposed momentum budget. Simulations are realistic and numerical sensitivity experiments are used to investigate the dependence of ice growth on the ambient environment.