Dry-stone walls in Britain have a rich and enduring landscape heritage: they extend for miles across the countryside but are all too often overlooked. Contrary to common laments that describe walling as a dying craft, this thesis explores the social, cultural and historical geographies which frame walling as a thriving trade and lively hobby. It employs ethnographic and practice-led methodologies (undertaken primarily in Scotland) to understand the embodied, emotional and material dimensions of the dry-stone craft. Methods include observant participation of instructional courses, craft demonstrations and competitions; in-depth interviews with professional and amateur wallers; and, documentary analysis of textual walling material dating from the early 20th century. The thesis considers the place of the rural dry-stone wall and explains how economic, social and cultural developments have led to the construction of dry-stone features within more urbanised locales. In so doing, this research explains how walling has become a socially and culturally diverse activity, enrolled within narratives of contemporary forms of craftpersonship and community engagement projects. By engaging directly with dry-stone walling practice, this thesis also addresses recent disciplinary appeals to explore experimental and participatory approaches to doing research. Taking seriously knowledge acquired through the body, it therefore refigures, in vital and novel ways, how contemporary realisations of historic landscapes and craft traditions are known and understood.

This thesis concerns itself with the excavation of the historical and cultural geographies of the production, circulation, and reception of a grassroots-initiated geography education journal, and of the lives of the people and movement that contributed to its existence. Contemporary Issues in Geography and Education (CIGE) was the journal of the Association of Curriculum Development in Geography (ACDG): a pan-institutional collective of school geography teachers, authors, artists, activists and academics who desired a vision of school geography informed from the political Left, to enable the voices of those excluded from power to be explored and heard, and to offer up an alternative version of disciplinary geographical knowledge-making. Between the publication of its launch issue in 1983 and 1991 when it ceased publishing CIGE produced eight theme issues covering universally significant and highly contentious themes (racism, multinational trade, apartheid capitalism, war and peace, gender, ecological crisis and anarchism) from a humanist and critical perspective, offering critical analyses of the geographies therein and educational resources to utilise in educational training across schools, universities and staff education resource centres. CIGE questioned the spaces though which geographical education perpetuating social inequalities might be encountered (children’s TV through to national press criticism, publishers, subject associations, examination boards and academia). Well enough known during its publishing life and subscribed to nationally and internationally across a range of organisations, many of its contributors subsequently forged significant careers as human geographers within the Anglo-American academy, yet limited reference has been made to the journal post-1991. Recovering the stories of the journal and the people whose lives made the series, brings forth controversies and in turn awkward geographies in recovering how and why the journal series ceased publishing and why there appears to be such omission in historiographic accounts. Employing conceptual ideas pertaining to themes of archival activism, activist archives, navigating the recent past, disciplinary identity-making and geobiography, the thesis illustrates the strengths of ‘slow methodologies’ and the adoption of longitudinal research methods to enable the recovery and corroboration of primary sources, while signposting how mechanisms of contemporary academia (giving seminar workshop and conference papers on national and international scales, writing papers and co-authoring book chapters) through can reactivate engagement with the recovered archives and agitate for further materials to be revealed.

Recently, especially within the last two decades, the demand for DSMs (Digital Surface Models) and 3D city models has increased dramatically. This has arisen due to the emergence of new applications beyond construction or analysis and consequently to a focus on accuracy and the cost. This thesis addresses two linked subjects: first improving the quality of the DSM by merging different source DSMs using a Bayesian approach; and second, extracting building footprints using approaches, including Bayesian approaches, and producing 3D models. Regarding the first topic, a probabilistic model has been generated based on the Bayesian approach in order to merge different source DSMs from different sensors. The Bayesian approach is specified to be ideal in the case when the data is limited and this can consequently be compensated by introducing the a priori. The implemented prior is based on the hypothesis that the building roof outlines are specified to be smooth, for that reason local entropy has been implemented in order to infer the a priori data. In addition to the a priori estimation, the quality of the DSMs is obtained by using field checkpoints from differential GNSS. The validation results have shown that the model was successfully able to improve the quality of the DSMs and improving some characteristics such as the roof surfaces, which consequently led to better representations. In addition to that, the developed model has been compared with the Maximum Likelihood model which showed similar quantitative statistical results and better qualitative results. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that, although the DSMs used in the merging have been produced using satellite images, the model can be applied on any type of DSM. The second topic is building footprint extraction based on using satellite imagery. An efficient flow-line for automatic building footprint extraction and 3D model construction, from both stereo panchromatic and multispectral satellite imagery was developed. This flow-line has been applied in an area of different building types, with both hipped and sloped roofs. The flow line consisted of multi stages. First, data preparation, digital orthoimagery and DSMs are created from WorldView-1. Pleiades imagery is used to create a vegetation mask. The orthoimagery then undergoes binary classification into ‘foreground’ (including buildings, shadows, open-water, roads and trees) and ‘background’ (including grass, bare soil, and clay). From the foreground class, shadows and open water are removed after creating a shadow mask by thresholding the same orthoimagery. Likewise roads have been removed, for the time being, after interactively creating a mask using the orthoimagery. NDVI processing of the Pleiades imagery has been used to create a mask for removing the trees. An ‘edge map’ is produced using Canny edge detection to define the exact building boundary outlines, from enhanced orthoimagery. A normalised digital surface model (nDSM) is produced from the original DSM using smoothing and subtracting techniques. Second, start Building Detection and Extraction. Buildings can be detected, in part, in the nDSM as isolated relatively elevated ‘blobs’. These nDSM ‘blobs’ are uniquely labelled to identify rudimentary buildings. Each ‘blob’ is paired with its corresponding ‘foreground’ area from the orthoimagery. Each ‘foreground’ area is used as an initial building boundary, which is then vectorised and simplified. Some unnecessary details in the ‘edge map’, particularly on the roofs of the buildings can be removed using mathematical morphology. Some building edges are not detected in the ‘edge map’ due to low contrast in some parts of the orthoimagery. The ‘edge map’ is subsequently further improved also using mathematical morphology, leading to the ‘modified edge map’. Finally, A Bayesian approach is used to find the most probable coordinates of the building footprints, based on the ‘modified edge map’. The proposal that is made for the footprint a priori data is based on the creating a PDF which assumes that the probable footprint angle at the corner is 90o and along the edge is 180o, with a less probable value given to the other angles such as 45o and 135o. The 3D model is constructed by extracting the elevation of the buildings from the DSM and combining it with the regularized building boundary. Validation, both quantitatively and qualitatively has shown that the developed process and associated algorithms have successfully been able to extract building footprints and create 3D models.

This thesis is the product of three years' research in the Department of Geography, University of Glasgow. I have spent part of the time in the field and have travelled the western and north-eastern coast of the Mainland, the islands of the Inner Hebrides and the Orkneys islands. The results of my research are here arranged in three parts, Part I comprises a discussion of the shoreline configuration of Western Scotland. A hypothesis of differential submergence is put forth in an attempt to explain the shoreline configuration. Evidence in support of this hypothesis is sought for from the construction and interpretation of a bathymetrical map of Western Scotland and from the study of soundings and of the longitudinal and cross profiles of rivers of the present drainage. I have drawn many profiles of both land and submarine features and calculated the gradients of the river thalwegs and valley sides, with the result that I have arrived at an estimation of the amount of differential submergence. Chapter I and II have been accepted by the Editor of the Geografiska Annaler of Sweden for publication within this year. Part II is wholly devoted for the study of raised shorelines. Of the many areas in which I have observed and examined, I have included only those regions to the raised shorelines of which I have been able to devote adequately detailed study. In describing the field observations, I have used a terminology and working principles which it seemed good to explain in chapter V. In chapters XIII and IX studies of glaci-fluvial deposits have been included, as they are in these two chapters, connected with the discussion of raised shorelines and the physiographical history of the regions. Part III is composed of papers on the present day shore deposits. Perhaps the interpretation of the Ayres of Orkneys and the classification of storm deposits are the more outstanding points in this part. Chapters XI and XII have been published in the Geological Magazine and the Scottish Geographical Magazine respectively and it is hoped shortly to publish chapter X. In the appendix, I have included three short papers.

Energy shortages and sporadic, controlled blackouts have been a defining feature of South Africa’s aging national energy grid for more than a decade. To investigate local energy sources from shale gas, two boreholes were drilled in the southern Main Karoo Basin into the Permian-aged Ecca Group by the Karoo Research Initiative. Borehole KZF-1 (Western Cape) intersected thick shale successions of the lower Ecca Group and revealed the stratigraphic duplication of the Whitehill (shale gas target) and Prince Albert Formations. This structural deformation was most likely as a result of the organic-rich formations, acting as a decollement for thrust faults related to the north-south directed compression of the Cape Orogeny. Reservoir compartmentalisation and gas escape along porous fault zones hinder hydrocarbon exploration in the area. Borehole KWV-1 (Eastern Cape) revealed thick successions of turbiditic sandstones and a moderately elevated geothermal gradient. The clastic rocks have low permeabilities and high thermal conductivities. Analysis of the petro- and thermophysical data from the Ripon Formation sandstones, from both the core and nearby Ecca Pass outcrop location, show the potential of the formation as an Enhanced Geothermal Reservoir, with temperatures exceeding 100°C being suitable for energy production from a binary geothermal power plant. The comparison of combined gamma-ray logs, geothermal potential of samples (specific heat capacity, thermal diffusivity, and thermal conductivity) and lithological logs show a correlation between lithological composition and geothermal reservoir potential that can be identified in gamma-ray log patterns. These correlations can be extrapolated for purposes of geothermal exploration in non-cored nearby boreholes. The numerous pre-existing faults, decreasing from the basin’s southern margin towards the basin interior, elevate the risk of inducing seismic events from the use of reservoir stimulation techniques associated with energy exploration, as well as wastewater management associated with future extraction activities.

This thesis seeks to examine the historical socio-technical transitions in the music industry through the 1990s and 2000s which fundamentally altered the way in which music is consumed along with the environmental resource impact of such transitions. Specifically, the investigation seeks to establish a historical narrative of events that are significant to the story of this transition through the use of the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions as a framework. This thesis adopts a multi-level perspective for socio-technical transitions approach to analyse this historical narrative seeking to identify key events and actors that influenced the transition as well as enhance the methodological implementation of the multi-level perspective. Additionally, this thesis utilised the Material Intensity Per Service unit methodology to derive several illustrative scenarios of music consumption and their associated resource usage to establish whether the socio-technical transitions experienced by the music industry can be said to be dematerialising socio-technical transitions. This thesis provides a number of original empirical and theoretical contributions to knowledge. This is achieved by presenting a multi-level perspective analysis of a historical narrative established using over 1000 primary sources. The research identifies, examines and discusses key events, actors and transition pathways denote the complex nature of dematerialising socio-technical systems as well as highlights specifically the influence different actors and actor groups can have on the pathways that transitions take. The thesis also provides a broader contribution to the understanding of dematerialisation and technology convergence.

The aim of this research is to combine theories of public participation and rights-based approaches to governance with discourses on social exclusion and transport disadvantage explored through a case study of a planned mass public transport system in a city adopting a rights-based approach to participatory governance. It does so by using a mixed-method case study approach, utilising qualitative research methods. Quito in Ecuador provided the natural choice for the case study given its rights-based approach to participatory governance determined through the Constitution of 2008 and the Law of Citizen Participation (2010), and shortly after receiving the devolved responsibility for urban planning and transport, the city government took the decision to install a metro line in the city centre. The research addressed three research questions. First, it examined the extent to which transport related social exclusion is intensified by existing practices of transport planning and operation. Second, it looked at the potential benefit of a rights-based approach to participatory governance. Third, it examined how a conceptualised understanding of transport-related social exclusion was able to describe the phenomenon as it exists in Quito, and through a framework devised from the literature to evaluate participatory activities, it considered both the activities of the city government in engaging the public, alongside the response received from citizens and civil society organisations. The research concluded that a rights-based approaches to participation in decision-making can address transport-related social exclusion and mobility challenges. Although Quito’s metro project fell into the ‘prepare-reveal-defend’ model of decision making, there were genuine attempts by the city government to initiate participation. Some initiatives took place after the decision was made, and others were overly complex i.e. the formulaic process of the ‘Offering of Accounts’. The research also determined that cultural change is required for residents to embrace a new open government, and that civil society organisations have a key role to play on fostering better participatory processes, and ultimately decision-making.

This doctoral thesis introduces compulsivity as an empirical, conceptual and theoretical phenomenon to human geography. Compulsivity as mobilised here is associated with the Tourette syndrome diagnosis, and can be understood as the performance of unwanted and unprecedented interactions that are experienced to be purposeless and meaningless in their response to unqualified urges. Drawing on and contributing to medical and clinical sciences of Tourette syndrome, geographies of medicalised performances and perception, as well poststructural and postphenomenological theories in cultural geography, it focuses on the performativity of compulsive interactions between affected bodies and their material environments. As urge-driven compulsions have received little to no scholarly attention, the study seeks to identify if and how a spatial approach could help understand these engagements. In turn, it explores how compulsivity as a principle could develop geography’s conceptualisations of person-place relations. The study then examines the ways in which bodily environments affect compulsive interactions, and how they are negotiated. It does so through in-depth semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and mobile eye-tracking in close collaboration with 15 participants. The study took place in the homes of the participants, shops, cars, public transport, natural areas, and schools in the Netherlands over an 8-month period. The outcomes reimagine compulsivity as choreographies between human bodies, objects and spaces that configure towards each other and form systems through dimensions they then come to share. Compulsive interactions constitute, affirm, and (re)stabilise these systems by elongating their durations in order for those affected to thrive. In their anticipation and performance of compulsions, they apply a plethora of spatial negotiation techniques. In addition to carving out a space for a compulsive approach to body-world formation beyond the Tourette syndrome diagnosis, this study develops a vitalist ethics for human geography to study medicalised performances. Furthermore, it proposes new ways for capacity building for, and integration in, academic research of those affected.

Detailed land cover information is crucial for mapping and managing complex urban environments across local and regional scales (Zhou and Qiu, 2015). This thesis is based on the proposition that spatial resolution is the most influential factor when mapping complex urban environments, compared to imagery’s spectral properties and type of classifier. As such, the modern “very high resolution” sensors (i.e., WorldView-2) offer a significant advantage for mapping, however using such imagery is a costly and resource-hungry approach. The coarser resolution of Landsat data (30m) is the key limitation for using these data, yet they are free and now have a temporal legacy. This doctoral research assesses the potential of using an approach that enhances the spatial resolution of Landsat data for urban land cover mapping, namely sparse representation. Focusing on the land cover mapping of the urban area of Nottingham, UK, and after establishing the superior role of spatial resolution on the accuracy of that mapping, this research demonstrates the potential of this approach. Moreover, some parameters around its use are established, in particular, the transferability of this method over space and time. It should be noted the potential of sparse representation can be even more significant by using finer spatial resolution products (i.e., Sentinel-2 and SPOT with 10m). This reaffirmed the importance of the spatial resolution for urban land cover mapping. Then it presents the sparse representation as a successful method to enhance the spatial resolution of Landsat data for urban land cover mapping.

Crete has experienced rapid tourism development since late 1960s when the growth in international tourism and broader socio economic changes disturbed past equilibrium patterns. Tourism has become a leading economic sector but also caused negative economic, environmental and sociocultural impacts, prompting tourism authorities to develop plans aimed at the achievement of sustainable development while continuing to promote tourism in the island. A critical review of the literature shows that the concept of ecotourism is closely associated with other concepts, such as nature, ecology, protection, culture, small scale, alternative, and others. Whilst a variety of ecotourism typologies and development patterns have been produced by academics derived from the residents' perspectives, our knowledge is still limited because of the absence of the industry's perspectives; thus the meanings of ecotourism from those responsible for its development remains incomplete. This study explores the industry's perspective of ecotourism and its development in Crete and discusses its impacts. To this end, qualitative interviews (20) were undertaken with local and regional authorities, hoteliers, tour operators, and managers of tourism related enterprises. Data was analysed using the 'comparative analysis' approach, where responses of interviews were checked to identify similarities and differences to allow main themes and categories to emerge. The study's findings questioned the established argument of ecotourism as small scale, environmentally friendly, nature driven tourism activity. It produced some novel findings. The analysis suggests that eco-tourism in Crete is product driven, where the local industry perceives it as market extension, profit motivated economic activity that has little to do with nature. Hence, from the industry's perspective, ecotourism is spontaneous and adhoc development concerned more with satisfying increasing consumers' needs for seemingly authentic ecotourism products than with environmental issues. The analysis revealed that genuine nature driven ecotourism has yet to be demonstrated and practiced in Crete and that ecotourism is an entrepreneurial ploy, rebranding mass tourism to increase economic growth in a region ravaged by unemployment and stagnation.