Climate change is a global phenomenon that has led to policy-making in many spheres. Since the early 2000s, when the projected impacts of climate change had increasingly come to the fore, there has been added momentum in tourism studies to researching sustainable tourism and travel behaviour. Using the National Trust as a lens, this study explores the potential contribution climate change policy makes in achieving sustainable heritage tourism. The research shows how such a policy evolved at the National Trust alongside key events and developments the charity has undergone since 1995, its centenary year. Senior policy-makers, managers, volunteer staff and visitors to properties in the West Midlands region were interviewed to understand their views on climate change, wider environmental matters, transport issues, and the charity’s response to tackling climate change. The study found that through mitigation and adaptation strategies, climate change policy does support and inform a sustainable approach to heritage tourism but that dependency on car-borne transport to rural heritage sites remains the ‘Achilles heel’ of sustainable heritage tourism as well as illuminating some of the imbalances between conservation and access.

The Toploje Member chert is a Roadian to Wordian autochthonous– parautochthonous silicified peat preserved within the Lambert Graben, East Antarctica. It preserves a remarkable sample of terrestrial life from high-latitude central Gondwana prior to the Capitanian mass extinction event from both mega- and microfossil evidence that includes cryptic components rarely seen in other fossil assemblages. The peat layer is dominated by glossopterid and cordaitalean gymnosperms and contains sparse herbaceous lycophytes, together with a broad array of dispersed organs of ferns and other gymnosperms. The peat also hosts a wide range of fungal morphotypes, Peronosporomycetes, rare arthropod remains and a diverse coprolite assemblage. The fungal and invertebrate-plant interactions associated with various organs of the Glossopteris plant reveal the cryptic presence of a ‘component community’ of invertebrate herbivores and fungal saprotrophs centred around the Glossopteris organism, and demonstrate that a multitude of ecological interactions were well developed by the Middle Permian in high-latitude forest mires. Comparisons of coal maceral data from co-occurring coal seams with quantitative analyses of the silicified peat constituents reveals that while silicified peats provide an unparalleled sample of the organisms forming these coal deposits, they do not necessarily reflect the constituents that ultimately dominate the coal maceral volume.

River flow is a major driver of community dynamics in riverine-floodplain ecosystems. Flow-induced disturbance can have large impacts on taxonomic groups at higher trophic levels such as birds. However, our understanding of river flow-avian relationships is constrained by a failure to focus on multiple species’ responses to hydrological variables across large geographical areas. The aims of this thesis are to combine a national-scale dataset of river bird surveys with river flow archives to: (i) understand how hydrological disturbance affects the distribution of river birds, and (ii) evaluate the potential impacts of climate change-induced shifts in river flow on such species’ distributions. Species have complex, but biologically interpretable, associations with hydrological variables. Variation in river flow acts as an environmental filter that influences community assembly processes. Specialist river birds are most vulnerable to climate-induced shifts in river flow and their distributions may shift in response to future changes in river habitat suitability. The success of relating hydrological variables to the distributions of river birds demonstrates that variability in river flow has consequences for ecological structure at high trophic levels and that climate-induced shifts in river flow may represent a previously unidentified mechanism by which climate change mediates range shifts in birds.

This thesis explores the area of urban planning practices examining the rapid urban growth in Riyadh. The research was motivated by the fact that Riyadh continues to suffer from rapid uncontrolled urban growth, with resultant problems in its infrastructure. These problems are associated with the urban planning path failures, both in terms of the discourses and the practices. As result, the urban plan did not help to control the city growth. The research firstly analyses the driving forces that influence urban planning, focusing on three issues as the main reasons for ongoing expansion: planning law, planning structure, and how planning relates to energy discourses in Saudi Arabia. Secondly, it evaluates spatial planning practices revealing four themes for developers and planners to consider: settlement patterns, urban design, land use patterns and transport. Thirdly, by revealing the mechanisms underlying the planning environment it demonstrates how the structures in place affect urban planning practices. Finally, based on the literature review and the findings of the empirical chapters and interviews with those who work in urban planning the thesis offers an understanding of planners’ practices, how they contribute to continued unsustainable growth and, offers policy recommendations for a more sustainable planned future for Riyadh and other cities in Saudi Arabia.

Vegetation is a critical component of Mediterranean palaeolandscape studies, however variable data quality and quantity, a lack of understanding of Mediterranean vegetation processes, and complex environments may preclude important palaeolandscape debates from being answered adequately. Issues of representation and uncertainty, and difficulties comparing palaeoecological data against archaeological records often tend to confound clear conclusions from being drawn. Modelling and simulation studies can alleviate some of these difficulties, however, palaeovegetation models have not been utilized to a great extent in the Mediterranean. To help redress the balance, this thesis established a vegetation modelling framework set in Mediterranean southwest Turkey. The framework developed a bioclimatic model, and employed Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates to model pollen zone boundaries. A final stage converted vegetation modelling output to pollen simulations to compare model output with actual analytical pollen data. The model framework was then employed to investigate three disputed points in Mediterranean palaeoecological history. Firstly whether climate could account for concurrent evidence of high lake stands and steppic vegetation signatures during last glacial period. Different aspects of this scenario were explored, including potential refugia locations for cold and drought intolerant species, and the balance of humidity and aridity across the region that may have allowed glacial advance and high lake levels. The model was secondly employed to analyse the potential for a lag in tree expansion in southwest Turkey at the beginning of the Holocene, and was finally employed to examine the beginning, expansion and end of the enigmatic Beyşehir Occupation Phase.

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that riverbank erosion processes altered with increasing distance from a river source. The River Swale, northern England, was monitored at nine sites throughout its 109-km length, from December 1995 – March 1998. Erosion pins, bank-edge surveying, and Photo-Electronic Erosion Pins (PEEPs) were used to determine rates and timings of erosion. The rates were compared against a range of environmental variables based on temperature, river stage, and precipitation at 14-day intervals for erosion pins and 15-minute intervals for PEEPs. This allowed processes of erosion to be inferred. Catchment erosion rates were modelled using quadratic equations, simulating a mid-basin peak of 3.58 m a\(^{-1}\). Rates of erosion were low upstream, 0.07 m a\(^{-1}\), and also downstream, 0.12 m a\(^{-1}\). Subaerial processes, especially frost action, dominated upstream. Fluvial entrainment was most influential mid-catchment. Mass failures were most efficient downstream, but were more frequent mid-catchment. Piping, sapping and cantilever failures did not follow the same trends and were modelled separately. The length of the erosion season increased downstream as the number of active processes increased.

The effects of explosive volcanism on local ecosystems are investigated in Middle Ordovician siliciclastics from the Welsh Basin. Bulk sampling analysis has provided quantitative data, regarding population proportions and abundance, following ash deposition in nearshore, shallow dysaerobic basin, and deeper basinal facies. Consistent ecological effects include the destruction of small sessile benthos by rapid burial, followed by re-establishment of mobile and opportunistic taxa, and a bimodal, planktic-benthic bloom in dysaerobic facies. The results are explained through vertical circulation initiated by turbid surface waters following ash deposition. Upwelling of subsurface, nutrient-rich waters of stratified basins is accompanied by downwelling of oxygenated surface waters, entrained into broadly spaced columns. The duration and nature of the events are investigated by ecological, sedimentological, and mechanical approaches, and high sedimentation rate invoked, resulting from seismicity associated with local volcanism. Systematic studies are included on Porifera, Echinodermata and Palaeoscolecida, the unusual preservation of each resulting from volcanism-related processes. The poriferan fauna provides significant information on non-lithistid demosponges and hexactinellids, including the earliest representatives of several groups. Rapid silicification of the proteinaceous skeleton of two species indicates a new source of soft-tissue preservation. Echinoderms comprise the most diverse pre-Caradoc fauna known from Britain, including six crinoids, three asteroids, and a cystoid.

This thesis explores Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFI) as an alternative vehicle for the supply of debt finance to financially excluded enterprises. CDFIs are part of a broader approach to addressing financial exclusion that is experienced by commercial and social enterprises in the US and UK. The thesis explores US and UK CDFI lending processes to develop an understanding of how financial and social objectives are balanced in the lending process and the ways in which CDFIs become embedded in local financial and business support networks. The analysis is based upon detailed comparative research of CDFIs located in the US and the UK; interviews were undertaken with CDFIs, their clients and a quantitative analysis of a CDFIs loan portfolio was undertaken. The research concludes that CDFIs are complex dynamic organizations as they have to balance a double or triple bottom line which has the potential to undermine the firm’s long term survival or mission. The danger is that over time a CDFI will reduce its exposure to risk and become more like a mainstream bank. The tensions with the CDFI business model implies that they will only ever provide a partial solution to the enterprise finance gap.

The Newry Igneous Complex (NIC) in Northern Ireland comprises three largely granodioritic plutons, together with an intermediate-ultramafic body at its northeast end. Geochronology shows that the NIC becomes broadly younger to the southwest and towards the centres of individual plutons. Geophysical results from the recent Tellus Survey of Northern Ireland have been combined with petrology and geochemistry to establish 17 distinct zones within the NIC, which are interpreted to represent separately intruded magma pulses. A combination of Anisotropy of Magnetic Susceptibility (AMS), petrographical and field data shows that the NIC was emplaced as a series of laccoliths into a tension-releasing bend on a strike-slip fault. This regime is proposed to have been facilitated by two deep-seated crustal lineaments. Inflation is suggested to have occurred due to magma pressure during emplacement of each individual zone. At least five constituent parts of the NIC are interpreted to have been emplaced separately at successively higher crustal levels. Thus the intrusion is thought to represent a series of stacked laccoliths, produced by a southwestward migrating source.

This thesis presents new micro palaeontological and geochemical palaenvironmental proxy data through the late Eocene into the earliest Oligocene from a clay-rich succession from the US Gulf Coast. It is based on samples from the Yazoo Clay Formation, recovered in the Mossy Grove Core near Jackson, Mississippi. This represents an apparently continuous section of relatively uniform lithology, clay-rich deposits that host very well preserved assemblages of calcareous nannofossils, foraminifera and organic biomarkers. This thesis makes use of these to generate a detailed calcareous nannofossil taxonomy, high-resolution calcareous nannofossil assemblage data and coccolith-fraction bulk isotope data, as well as pilot planktonic foraminifera abundance and isotope records. It also develops pilot data for organic biomarkers that demonstrate the presence and utility of biomarker proxies for ancient sea surface temperatures within the Yazoo Clay. The results of this project characterize the late Eocene US Gulf Coast as a sub-tropical shelf sea environment that experiences several stages of sea surface cooling and increasing nutrient contents - potentially linked to sea level fall - in the late Eocene and earliest Oligocene. The most important finding of this project is evidence for cooling and major perturbations to the climate-carbon cycle significantly before the onset of the major phases of Antarctic glaciation.