This thesis looks at the practice of climate modelling at the urban scale in relation to projections of future climate. It responds to the question of how climate models perform in a policy context, and how these models are translated in order to have agency at the urban scale. It considers the means and circumstances through which models are constructed to selectively represent urban realities and potential realities in order to explore and reshape the built environment in response to a changing climate. This thesis is concerned with an interdisciplinary area of research and practice, while at the same time it is based on methodologies originating in science and technology studies which were later applied to architecture and planning, geography, and urban studies. Fieldwork consisted of participant-observation and interviews with three groups of practitioners: firstly, climate impacts modellers forming part of the Adaptation and Resilience in a Changing Climate (ARCC) programme; secondly, planners and adaptation policymakers in the cities of Manchester and London; and thirdly, boundary organisations such as the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP). Project and climate policy material pertinent to these projects and the case study cities were also analysed in tandem. Of particular interest was the common space shared to researchers and stakeholders where modelling results were explained, contextualised, and interrogated for policy-relevant results. This took the form of stakeholder meetings in which the limits of the models in relation to policy demands could be articulated and mediated. In considering the agency of models in relation to uncertainties, it was found that although generated in a context of applied science, models had a limited effect on policy. As such, the salience of urban climatic risk-based assessment for urban planning is restrained, because it presupposes a quantitative understanding of climate impacts that is only slowly forming due to societal and governmental pressures. This can be related both to the nature of models as sites of exploration and experimentation, and to the distribution of expertise in the climate adaptation community. Although both the research and policy communities operate partly in a common space, models and their associated tools operate at a level of sophistication that policy-makers have difficulty comprehending and integrating into planning policy beyond the level of simple guidance and messages. Adaptation in practice is constrained by a limited understanding of climate uncertainties and urban climatology, evident through the present emphasis on catch-all solutions like green infrastructure and win-win solutions rather than the empowerment of actors and a corresponding distribution of adequate resources. An analysis is provided on the means by which models and maps can shape climate adaptation at scales relevant for cities, based on considerations of how models gain agency through forms of encoded expertise like maps and the types of interaction between science and policy that they imply.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-04T21:14:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 28 / Nenhuma / Os dados do relatório do diagnóstico socioambiental realizado pela Profill Engenharia e Ambiente e pela rede de monitoramento das condições das águas da Bacia Hidrográfica dos Rios Turvo, Santa Rosa e Santo Cristo pela FEPAM, associada às ações na gestão do Comitê de Bacias, indicam que os rios da referida bacia podem estar contaminados por dejetos de suinocultura, considerado pelos órgãos de fiscalização ambiental como um dos problemas mais sérios da agropecuária moderna. Diante dessa realidade optou-se por investigar os saberes e fazeres relacionados à dimensão ambiental que foram sendo construídos pelos atores sociais da Bacia Hidrográfica dos Rios Turvo, Santa Rosa, Santo Cristo, quando numa dimensão ambiental da Educação estes estão instados a aproveitar os dejetos de suas produções para minimizar os impactos dos mesmos no ambiente. Para a coleta de dados foram realizadas oficinas temáticas com estudantes do Ensino Médio; grupo de discussão com agricultores e agricultoras; entrevistas diretas com atores / The data from the report of the socioenvironmental diagnostic made by Profill Engenharia e Ambiente and by the following net of the conditions of the waters from Hydrographic Basin of Turvo, Santa Rosa and Santo Cristo Rivers by FEPAM, associated with the actions in the management from the Basin Committee, they indicate that the rivers from that basin can be contaminated by the dejections of pig farming, considered by the environmental inspection agency as one of the biggest problems from the modern farming. In face of this reality it was chosen to investigate the knowledge and the doings related to the environment dimension that were being built by the social actors from the Hydrographic Basin of Turvo, Santa Rosa and Santo Cristo Rivers, when in a environmental dimension of Education those are urged to take advantage of the dejections of their productions to minimize the impacts of them in the environment. For the data collecting were realized thematic workshops with students from High School; debating gro

The entry of China into the globalized world and onto the stage of the global automarket has presented auto manufacturers with the largest ever market opportunity. While global competitive forces drive firms to develop product innovation through their global supply chains, the approach of global auto manufacturers and their first tier suppliers has been to bring existing technology into China. Only recently has the supply chain in China become integrated into the global product innovation cycle. While innovations generated by supply channel relationships, as opposed to individual partners, are playing an increasingly important role in the success of all supply chain partners, there has been limited research in the literature on how supply chain relationships cultivate the process of such innovation generation, particularly in China. Correspondingly, this study explores how multinational suppliers can develop adaptive product innovation in order to create a sustainable competitive advantage in China and how the protection of their knowledge helps them sustain it. Drawing on the knowledge-based view and transaction cost economics, and integrating those with behavioural governance and the institution-based view this study identifies drivers of product innovation for MNC suppliers in their relationships with Chinese OEMs, investigates the influence of supplier involvement and knowledge protection on supplier product innovation and examines the outcomes in the specific context of the Chinese automotive industry from the first-tier supplier perspective. Survey results of 170 multinational automobile suppliers in China indicate support for most of the hypotheses. Specifically, knowledge protection is found to have an impact on product innovation in the context of the auto industry in China. Supplier involvement in co-design and co-development with an automotive OEM customer has an inverted U-shaped relationship with product innovation. Furthermore, trust and technological uncertainty are found to drive greater product innovation. In addition, the institutional environment moderates the effect of product innovation on performance. Overall, this study enhances the understanding of how MNC suppliers can acquire local knowledge, develop products adapted to the local market requirements and foster product innovation while retaining their knowledge and know-how and minimizing negative effects of spill-overs to the local competition in the automotive industry in China.