The Mpumalanga escarpment hosts a series of stonewalled settlements that occur along a narrow belt between Carolina and Ohrigstad. These sites are unique as they have networks of linking roads, vast areas of terracing as well as large cattle kraals which do not occur in combination or to such an extent anywhere else in southern Africa. Furthermore these settlements occur at an altitude unfavourable for living or agricultural purposes. With the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) layers of data relating to the Mpumalanga escarpment and the settlements within the area over the past five hundred years are viewed and compared in order to further understand the placement and structure of these settlements.

Tian Huan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-134). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Part I: --- Demography in Space --- p.13 / Chapter Chapter One: --- Understanding the Data --- p.13 / Chapter 1.1 --- Formation of the administrative structure in late Qing and its GIS representation --- p.13 / Chapter 1.2 --- Population data reconsidered --- p.19 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- Documenting the Demographic Patterns --- p.29 / Chapter 2.1 --- Economic Patterns --- p.29 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Population density --- p.29 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Area of cultivated land --- p.32 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Ratio of urban dwellers to rural dwellers --- p.36 / Chapter 2.1.4 --- " Ratio of commercial (industry, agricultural) population" --- p.40 / Chapter 2.2 --- Ethnic Patterns --- p.48 / Chapter 2.3 --- Distribution pattern of schools --- p.54 / Chapter 2.4 --- Distribution of political elite (guan and shi) --- p.55 / Chapter Part II: --- Markets in Space --- p.60 / Chapter Chapter Three: --- Trade Patterns in Geographic Context --- p.60 / Chapter 3.1 --- Trade of Grains --- p.60 / Chapter 3.2 --- Cotton and cotton cloth --- p.69 / Chapter 3.3 --- Trade of fur and livestock --- p.82 / Chapter 3.4 --- Trade of Herbal Medicines --- p.88 / Chapter 3.5 --- Trade of Oil and Wine --- p.90 / Chapter 3.6 --- Overview of the Xinjiang markets in space --- p.93 / Chapter Chapter Four: --- Trades within and without Xinjiang --- p.95 / Chapter 4.1. --- Foreign commercial relations --- p.95 / Chapter 4.2. --- Local marketing system: the relationship between the economies of South and North Xinj iang --- p.102 / Chapter 4.3 --- Trade with the China Proper --- p.107 / Conclusion --- p.113 / The economy and trade of Xinjiang: issues of integration and sinicization --- p.113 / Methodological implication: GIS for historical regional research --- p.119 / Appendixes --- p.121 / Glossary --- p.121 / Place Names --- p.121 / Personal Names and Terms --- p.122 / Place Name of Hanyu Pinyin and English --- p.123 / A map sample in Jiukan Xingjiang yutu --- p.124 / Bibliography --- p.125

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-03, Section: B, page: 1577. Adviser: Charles E. Begley. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 271-277).

Following the admonition to "think globally, act locally" has proven difficult. Discussions of sustainability often remain at a local level without addressing global sustainability and yet the need for local engagement is well demonstrated. Using the case of Montreal's West Island, two environmental information tools were created and then evaluated on their ease of development, ability to be publicly engaging and ability to link the local and global scales. The first tool was a GIS visualization of sub-municipal ecological footprints and the second was a more conventional GIS 'atlas'. Focus groups were used to test the two tools. The atlas tool was considerably easier to create, and both tools succeeded in engaging participants. Focus group analysis does suggest however, that while local land-use based maps remain advantageous for exploring specific local and structural issues, local ecological footprints are better able to facilitate local-global linkages.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of Geomatics, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 161-173).

No description available.

The South African coastline has a high potential for mariculture development, particularly in land-based systems, due to excellent water quality, good infrastructure, and relatively cheap land in certain areas. Development of mariculture however, has been slow primarily due to the absence of a national sector development plan to coordinate contribution to development by government, industry and academia. Recent mariculture development plans however, supported by government commitment to stimulate coastal development, offers new opportunity for the sector's growth. These new sector development plans require a multi-disciplinary intensive information base with a strong regional and national spatial component. Geographic Information System (GIS) is a spatial analytical tool, which is capable of handling such large coastal databases and analysing them. Nevertheless, many mariculture GIS planning applications, often developed in isolation and with limited practical use for decision makers, highlighted the need to develop GIS in relation to the mariculture sector development plan. Hence, the aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a GIS for the national and regional mariculture sector planning process in South Africa, in order to identify potentially suitable areas along the South African coastline for mariculture operations. The GIS development in this study was based on the mariculture planning approach developed by PAP/RAe (1996), which recognizes the variations of scales in mariculture planning. Three case studies, representing the diversity of the South African sector plan, were selected to develop the GIS. They included: a national suitability analysis for all land-based culture systems, a specific national analysis on abalone ranching, and a detailed regional analysis of land-based culture and abalone ranching along the Namaqualand coastline. The GIS was developed separately for each case study based on a strategy consisting of six main phases, including: identification of project requirements, developing analytical framework, selection and location of data sources, organization and manipulation of data, analysing data and verifying and evaluation of the outputs. Biophysical, coastal use, and infrastructure criteria were collected, sorted and analysed to identify development constraints. Based on a set of conditions, and Boolean logic and arithmetic operations, unsuitable areas were identified and eliminated. Main constraints for national land-based development included competition over space along KwaZuluNatal Province coastline and restricted access to the coast along the south region of the Northern Cape Province, Wild Coast along the Eastern Cape Province, and Maputaland along KwaZulu-Natal Province. Ten areas along the country coastline were therefore identified as potentially suitable for land-based mariculture. Furthermore, South African abalone ranching potential was found to be limited mostly along the Western and Northern Cape Province's coastline due to the high risk of Paralytic Shellfish Poison (PSP) occurrences, alternative resource use and activities such as commercial fishery, poaching, and conservation. Hence, a total of nine areas along the Northern Cape, Western Cape, and Eastern Cape coastlines were identified as premier areas for abalone ranching. The regional study along the Namaqualand coastline revealed potential conflict between mining activity and mariculture development due to security issues and restricted access to the coast. Land-based mariculture development was confined to the four main coastal urban areas. The highest potential for land-based mariculture was along Port Nolloth and Kleinsee coastlines, whereas marine-based (i.e. abalone ranching) potential was poor along the north part of the coast due to intense marine mining activities, restricted access to the coast, and low kelp bed density. High potential abalone ranching areas were identified south to Kleinsee, and around Port Nolloth. Potential conflict with marine mining activity was minimal since it was localised and not related to kelp bed locations. It was concluded that GIS is a relevant and compatible tool for South African mariculture sector planning. However, future development of GIS as integrated planning tool in mariculture and coastal planning, requires updated spatial data (e.g. recreational activity), and continued interaction among project planners, mariculture specialists and GIS analysts.

This study employed geographic information systems (GIS) technology to evaluate the vulnerability of groundwater to pesticide pollution. The study area included three provinces (namely, Kanchana Buri, Ratcha Buri, and Suphan Buri) located in the western part of central Thailand. Factors used for this purpose were soil texture, percent slope, primary land use, well depth, and monthly variance of rainfall. These factors were reclassified to a common scale showing potential to cause groundwater contamination by pesticides. This scale ranged from 5 to 1 which means high to low pollution potential. Also, each factor was assigned a weight indicating its influence on the movement of pesticides to groundwater. Well depth, the most important factor in this study, had the highest weight of 0.60 while each of the remaining factors had an equal weight of 0.10. These factors were superimposed by a method called “arithmetic overlay” to yield a composite vulnerability map of the study area. Maps showing relative vulnerability of groundwater to contamination by pesticides were produced. Each of them represented the degree of susceptibility of groundwater to be polluted by the following pesticides: 2,4-D, atrazine, carbofuran, dicofol, endosulfan, dieldrin & aldrin, endrin, heptachlor & heptachlor epoxide, total BHC, and total DDT. These maps were compared to groundwater quality data derived from actual observations. However, only the vulnerability maps of atrazine, endosulfan, total BHC, and heptachlor & heptachlor epoxide showed the best approximation to actual data. It was found that about 7 to 8%, 83 to 88% and 4.9 to 8.7% of the study area were highly, moderately, and lowly susceptible to pesticide pollution in groundwater, respectively. In this study a vulnerability model was developed, which is expressed as follow: V = 0.60CW + 0.10CS + 0.10CR + 0.10CL + 0.10CSL. Its function is to calculate a vulnerability score for a certain area. The factor “V” in the model represents the vulnerability score of a certain area, whereas CW, CS, CR, CL, and CSL represent the values or classes assigned to well depth, soil texture, monthly variance of rainfall, primary land use, and percent slope in that area.

No description available.