Jinan is one of the most polluted mega-cities in China, which is primarily due to the high levels of PM2.s. A quantitative understanding on the sources of PM2.s is a prerequisite to control the severe pollution. In this project, 103 PM2.s samples were collected and their chemical composition, including water-soluble ions, trace metals, organice carbon, elemental carbon and organice molecular markers, were measured. Mass closure anlysis reveals that OM (29%), sulphate (18%), nitrate (10%), ammonium (9%) and geological material (9%) are the major chemical components in PM2.s in Jinan. The data were fed to both PMF and CMB models for source apportionment and uncertainty analysis. PMF and CMB have identified secondary inorganic aerosol (41%; 31%), coal burning (10%; 16%), biomass burning (20%; 17%), vehicle emission (16%; 14%) and mineral dust (10%; 6%) as the major PM2.s sources in Jinan, respectively. CMB also identified the metallurgic plant (11 %) production as a potentially important source of Jinan's PM2.s. Furtherwork needs to be done including using other source identifications such as back trajectory, chemical transport model and remote sensing. Longer sampling periods is also recommended and establishing the local source profile is vital for the source apportionment in Jinan in the near future.

The study of human behaviour outdoors has been an area of interest examined from different perspectives. Even so, the study of human behaviour in outdoor public spaces still requires further input from the perspective of human factors. This thesis presents a literature review of behaviour in public spaces where the author evaluated the attendance to public squares, the activities performed by users, the time of permanence, the sitting preferences of users and people’s characteristics among other behaviours. Previous studies have reported a relationship between thermal comfort and human behaviour; however, there is a lack of studies approaching the study of human behaviour using observational methods which allows assessing human behaviours such as number of people, number of groups, time of permanence among others, taking into account environmental factors such as: air temperature, globe temperature, mean radiant temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, sun and shadow presence and illuminance. As part of this research, three studies were conducted in the city centre of Nottingham during summer and autumn of 2015 and winter of 2016 in order to collect data of human behaviour and find its relationship with the air and globe temperature, calculated mean radiant temperature, wind speed, relative humidity and illuminance. These studies were conducted using observational methods by creating a coding scheme after conducting video analysis of social and individual behaviours. A methodology was created to incorporate processes that allow gathering data for observational analysis, which was subsequently processed using multiple regression models and survival analyses. The overall analysis led to the identification of the main environmental factors influencing human behaviour across different environmental conditions. The studies and analyses conducted showed that various environmental factors work together to influence the decisions of the users of a public space. Accordingly, the models used to predict human behaviour should include the environmental variables that explain better its variability, based on the environmental data of the place. Moreover, this study showed that individual analysis should be performed on a seasonal basis using the environmental and human behaviour data of each season in addition to the analysis performed to the whole data set. The reason for this is that the seasonal data is better at explaining some human behaviours than the model built with the whole data set collected in various seasons. For instance, the relationship between wind speed and number of people is positive during summer and negative during autumn and winter; however, when the three seasons are analysed together, the relationship is negative, which does not explain accurately the phenomena in summer. Conversely, illuminance was found to be an important factor influencing behaviour across the seasons and also contributed to the prediction of behaviour in the all season’s analysis. Finally, this thesis presents an application of the results by presenting general recommendations of urban design based on the findings of analysing human behaviour in accordance with the thermal environment. The studies conducted during the three seasons presented a cross-internal validation of the multiple regression models. In addition, a final study which consisted of a mock scenario was conducted to perform an external validation of the previous results. A number of conclusions were drawn about the conditions required to perform further external validations, following the parameters identified that may affect the results of the validation.

Palaeodemographic studies enable the lifespan and health of a population to be studied and subsequent influences deduced from the analysis of biological profiling data. The aim of this research was to produce the demographic profiles for the medieval sites of Poulton Chapel and St Owens, Gloucester. Comparisons with previously published sites would allow a comparison between the demographic profiles from rural and urban populations. Taphonomic and cultural factors have been listed amongst the causes for the lack of material available for osteological analysis, and the subsequent under-representation of certain age within a population. Although commented on in published literature, there has been no research into the degradation of the human skeleton, with many projects focussing only on the soft tissue decomposition rates and factors. Using a combination of techniques from forensic anthropology and geology, the collections were analysed using traditional palaeodemographic life tables and the sites subjected to geoarchaeological investigation. This enabled not only the preservation of the skeletal remains to be observed under differing burial conditions, but incorporated the use of archaeothanatology to understand the cultural practices undergone during the time of burial. This PhD thesis found that soil pH was not the biggest influencer on the potential preservation of a skeleton, but the cultural practices behind the burial itself. By combining techniques from forensic anthropology, geoarchaeology and geochemistry, greater insights into the effects of taphonomic and cultural influences on the preservation of human skeletal remains are found. This has enabled the questions into what influences the ability to produce a demographic profile to be answered, which will encourage the use of multidisciplinary studies when investigating cemetery samples.

Forest conservation based on payments anchored to opportunity costs (OCs) is receiving increasing attention, including for international financial transfers for reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+). REDD+ emerged as a payment for environmental service (PES) approach in which conditional payments are made for demonstrable greenhouse gas emission reductions against a business-as-usual baseline. Quantitative assessments of the OCs incurred by forest users of these reductions are lacking. Existing studies are coarse, obscure the heterogeneity of OCs and do not consider how OCs may change over time. An integrated assessment of OCs and carbon benefits under a proposed community forest management (CFM) intervention linked to REDD+ is undertaken in Ethiopia. The OCs of land for the intervention are estimated through household survey and market valuation. Scenarios explore how OCs are likely to change over the intervention given qualitative conservation goals and available land-use change information. The feasibility of OCs payment as a tool for REDD+ is assessed by combining cost with emission reductions estimates generated from direct tree measurements. Households’ environmental attitudes, perceptions and intention to cooperate with the intervention, estimated by a voluntary contribution to improve forest management, are then investigated. Mean OCs of forest conservation are US$334/ha, but highly heterogeneous. Plausible futures of agricultural improvement, forest product commercialisation, and degradation of land uses suggest total OCs could approach US$441 million over a 20-year project. Applying carbon stock estimates of 231tC/ha±52 in moist and 132tC/ha±73 in dry forest, REDD+ revenues may not meet annual cumulative OCs, although more nuanced conservation planning could reduce OCs. Despite OCs all households intend to cooperate in the intervention, with mean contribution of US$11±4/year/household. The expected incomes of households under the Bale REDD+ Project intervention however, were high and expectation management is necessary. Recommendations are made for REDD+ intervention design in Ethiopia.

Segregation is a constant in all US cities yet is peripheral to key work on spatial political economy, such as David Harvey (2007) and Neil Smith (1982, 1996). This thesis builds on their theorisations of the circuits of capital in relation to rent and uneven development by drawing on theorisations of white privilege (primarily Pulido, 2000) and the critical race theory of Stuart Hall (1980). Hall’s work on hegemony and articulation enables a better understanding of how the dialectics of land’s use value and rent connect to ideologies of race and neoliberalism, to city politics, and to the shifting geography of Los Angeles. The ongoing and primarily African-American struggle to occupy residential space reveals the ways in which racism and contestation have been central to the formation of Los Angeles, to the increasing privatisation of space, and to the changing flows of capital through its built environment. These issues are explored through the principal three chapters, each dedicated to an historical moment when a civil rights victory succeeded in achieving concrete shifts in the politics of race and space: the long term campaign that overturned racially restrictive covenants in 1948; the mass civil rights struggle to integrate the city’s suburbs in 1963-64; and the preservation of thousands of private residential hotel units in a gentrifying downtown in 2006. Despite their success in forcing new articulations of rationalising ideologies, politics, and capitalism’s search for a ‘spatial fix’, these struggles demonstrate that the unchanging elements in the emerging hegemony have been the prominence of force over the manufacture of consent, and the maintenance of a privileged white spatiality. I argue that a large part of neoliberalism’s power ultimately lies in its ability to rationalise and legitimate this spatiality with a colourblind discourse, masking racial inequalities and the continuing racism at the heart of US society.

Through an ethnographic approach, this thesis looks at a new housing form and what is claimed to be a new urban way of life in Mexico’s neoliberal era. The study looks in detail at residents of a single housing project in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and explores how this group has struggled to construct itself as a new cultural category or what I call the Casas GEO movement. The research is guided by a series of questions: why and how did the Casas GEO movement emerge; how do residents experience a new housing project in everyday life; and, what meanings do they communicate through these everyday practices? Specifically, the research engages with recent literatures on new middle classes and approaches that consider ‘class’ as a process that grows out of cultural and “classificatory practices” (Bourdieu, 1984). The research builds on these literatures in a number of ways. First, it conceptualises the housing project as a mutable place, produced through daily interaction and a varied coexistence. Second, it understands the residential space as the arena for the emergence of a new cultural category created in everyday life through specific claims, values and symbols expressed in the urban landscape. The thesis shows how the developer, the GEO company, attempted to construct a set of individual values and codes of behaviour for residents, as an imperative to make the site liveable. But, it considers also how residents use their houses differently from the developers’ intentions through strategies of re-appropriation and personalisation in order to communicate ideas of distinction and ‘good’ taste. Importantly, residents had to deal with a range of inconsistencies, flaws and drawbacks in the project’s realisation that challenged representations of the ‘good’ city, social progress and modernity. The research shows how these failings influence people’s lives, especially their aspirations and sense of identity. My claim is that in the making of the Casas GEO movement people negotiate a cultural formation and produce a new space that allows ways of imagining, aspiring to, and modes for taking part in a modern ‘urban’ life. Yet, the making of the movement also exposes the fragility of a housing project that claims to be the formula for upward mobility of lower-income groups in Mexico.

This thesis explores ‘back-to-the-land’ migration in Northern Italy with reference to the social, political and economic networks that sustain it. ‘Back-to-the-land’ generally refers to the adoption of agriculture as a full-time vocation by people who have come from non-agricultural lifestyles. For categorical clarity in this project, research participants were limited to those from predominantly urban backgrounds, most of whom worked in service sector jobs before moving to the countryside. Many geographical studies have examined urban to rural migration but these have focused almost primarily on migrants who are not engaged in agriculture. This research traces theorisations of urban to rural migration within the discipline, situating back-to-the-land as part of broader counterculture practices originating in the 1960s. Many current expressions of back-to-the-land, however, reveal an attempt to address contemporary social, environmental and economic concerns, representing both a trajectory and an evolution from 1960s origins. Empirical research was conducted in four northern regions of Italy, looking specifically at urban to rural migrants engaged in organic or other ‘alternative’ forms of agriculture. Three simple questions informed the methodology and theoretical perspectives employed: 1) Why do people go back-to-the-land?; 2) How do they obtain the requisite skills to become competent farmers?; 3) How do they make this lifestyle economically sustainable? Answering these questions demands attention to how new farmers are inspired, supported and sustained by alternative agro-food networks (AAFNs). The research therefore explores the reciprocal relationships between back-to-the-landers and AAFNs, examining how new farmers can stimulate and influence AAFNs in addition to receiving their support. These issues are explored through interviews with back-to-the- landers and institutional representatives of AAFNs, as well participant observation in alternative agriculture projects. Particular attention is given to the organisations Slow Food, Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) and Associazione per Esperienze (APE), primarily with regard to their respective roles in enabling back-to-the-land migration.

This thesis seeks to contribute to a cultural and historical geography of the mystical through a detailed case study of Cornwall since the mid-nineteenth century. In doing so, it also aims to contribute to a contemporary Cornish Studies literature that has begun to reclaim alternative and forgotten cultural and historical narratives of Cornwall. After a short introduction, chapter two positions this thesis in relation to debates around the region as a unit of geographical inquiry and the mystical as a cultural and historical category. It also positions this thesis in relation to the contemporary Cornish Studies literature; while chapter three engages with debates around the use of archives, interviews and oral histories as research methodologies. Chapter four argues that the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Celtic-Cornish Revival was connected to a new and somewhat exploratory version of the mystical that drew upon Anglo-Catholic history and theology in the new Diocese of Truro and in the Cornish landscape, but that was also characterised by a certain degree of slippage beyond the discursive boundaries of Celtic Christianity. The mid-twentieth century, chapter five argues, was characterised by a series of strategies to normalise this earlier version of the mystical by engaging with, and actively incorporating, other and potentially contradictory versions of the mystical, and by grounding this more inclusive version of the mystical in a new, decentralised and more populist institutional context. In turn, chapter six argues that the later twentieth century was characterised by the emergence of another new and more exploratory cultural formation of the mystical through a particular culture of landscape that was underpinned by the supposed rediscovery of the principles of megalithic science and an associated revival of Paganism among other new social and religious movements. Chapter seven, in conclusion, reflects upon the often understated connections between the mystical and a sense of socio-spatial order, the problematic nature of knowledge, and the consequences of bringing together the mystical, the geographical and the Cornish in the context of this thesis and of existing and future work on the geographies of religion and spirituality.

Japan has experienced population decline since 2010 and the situation is expected to become more severe after 2030 with forecasts indicating an expected 30% decline from 2005 to 2055. Many other developed countries such as Germany and Korea are also experiencing depopulation. These demographic changes are expected to affect society at many levels such as labour markets decline, increased tax burden to sustain pension systems, and economic stagnation. Little is known however about the impacts of population decline on man-made physical infrastructure, such as possible deterioration of current infrastructure or increased financial burden of sustaining it. Infrastructure can be classified into 3 categories: point-type (e.g. buildings), point-network type (e.g. water supply) and network type (e.g. road). The impact of depopulation may vary according to the type of infrastructure. Previous research in this area has been limited in scope (e.g. case studies conducted in a single city focusing on a single type of infrastructure) and method (e.g. most research in the topic has been qualitative). This thesis presents a new comprehensive study on the impacts of population decline on infrastructure in Japan, taking into account all types of infrastructure and using a quantitative approach. Data collection methods include interviews and two large scale questionnaire surveys, the first conducted with municipalities and the second, a stated preference survey, conducted with members of the public. The goal of sustainable development is relevant even in a depopulated society, and hence a sustainable development framework is applied to the analysis where social, economic, environmental and engineering impacts are investigated. The main findings indicate that some infrastructure impacts observed and reported in depopulated areas do not seem to be related to any population decline; moreover, the preferences of citizens for infrastructure development is very similar between depopulated areas and non-depopulated areas. The results also suggest that the premises of Barro’s overlapping generations model, very relevant to a discussion of intergenerational decision making and related sustainability, appear to be rejected in this context.

Existing studies of urban riots, violent protest and other instances of contentious politics in urban settings have largely tended to be either event- or time-specific in their scope. The present thesis offers a spatial reading of such politics of contention in the city of Athens, Greece. Tracing the pattern of the occurrence of these instances through time, the research scope of the thesis spans across Greece’s post-dictatorial era (i.e. post-1974, the Greek Metapolitefsi), concluding shortly after the first loan agreement between the country’s national government and the so-called ‘troika’ of lenders (IMF/ECB/EU). The thesis includes a critical overview of literature on riots in a historical and geographical context; questions on methodology and ethics in researching urban riots; a discourse analysis of violence concentration in Exarcheia; ethnographic accounts on everyday life in the neighbourhood and a ‘rhythmanalysis’ of the Exarcheia contention concentration during the period of research. Seeking to explain this concentration the thesis introduces the notion of the 'spatial contract': rather than signalling a type of discord, the concentration of mass violence in Exarcheia through time is hereby conceived as the spatial articulation of a certain form of consensus between Greek authorities and their subjects. In this way, the thesis places the concentration of urban violence in Exarcheia solidly within the social and political context of the country’s postdictatorial era. The thesis suggests that it would be beneficial for future human geographical research to trace such concentration patterns of urban riots. By exercising a crossscale reading, it would then possible to place these and other forms of contentious politics within a social equilibrium that is far more complex and often much more consensual than it might appear to be.