This thesis explores the role of expert-led policy processes in addressing water quality. It does so by drawing on the ‘peri-urban' as a setting which exemplifies contemporary social and environmental challenges associated with river and groundwater pollution, as well as the health and livelihood implications for the poorest citizens in peri-urban areas. The peri-urban area of Ghaziabad, on the outskirts of New Delhi, provides a good reference point for understanding those challenges, while India's environmental regulatory agency (the Central Pollution Control Board) demonstrates how policy experts influence such a setting by enacting their institutional role and mandate. The thesis examines the ways in which problems associated with deteriorating water quality in peri-urban areas are often neglected in expert-led policy processes, and the consequent implications for peri-urban poor communities. It argues that expert-driven policy approaches to addressing water quality are formulated almost exclusively on scientific grounds, while underlying ‘non-scientific' decisions and choices, emerging from actors operating at levels from policy framing to policy implementation, are not awarded the same importance, thus ignoring issues that pertain to the social, environmental and political implications of the problems. By drawing on qualitative research, the thesis focuses on two case studies. One examines the Central Pollution Control Board's framing of policy initiatives while the other follows the implementation of such policies in peri-urban Ghaziabad. The thesis demonstrates how the scale of monitoring water quality is heavily biased towards national rather than local level priorities. This leads to an understatement of important water quality problems that affect peri-urban areas in favour of large-scale analyses of pollution in river basins. This has the effect of understating important water quality problems that affect peri-urban areas in poorer localities such as villages within the Ghaziabad district. The centrality of technical discourses in the articulation of and response to water quality problems makes it difficult for non-technical perspectives (derived directly from those people who are exposed to pollution) to feed into formal decision-making. This research also identified the key influence of a number of actors (municipal engineers, public health officials and district magistrates) in shaping and implementing policy outcomes on the ground in local contexts (i.e. peri-urban areas), even though their roles are often not recognised formally. The thesis is original in its attempt to merge insights from policy studies and science technology studies (STS) and apply them to the domain of water quality, a field that has not traditionally been subjected to critical social science inquiry. It also unpacks ethnographically the Board's dual role as both a policy advisor and regulator, and further illustrates how the enactment of these roles can lead to contradictory outcomes on the ground, particularly for the poorest periurban citizens.

Leasing of state land under control of the Department of Land Affairs takes place, due to historical reasons, in a manner that is unconformable with the cadastre. The Department (and the State) is obliged to manage its assets efficiently and promote land reform. How can such leases be described spatially, and captured on a land information system? The author argues that it is indeed possible to develop a method, system or convention of spatial description for leased areas unconformable with the cadastre by relating it to the cadastre and capture and maintain data on such areas on a spatially and text-based database. In order to identify relevant best practices, available technology, a review was carried out on methodologies from other countries within the fields of land administration and land information systems, focussing on parcel-based cadastral systems. Fieldwork consisted firstly of interviews with officials and specialists in these fields for more information on the management of leases in the Department and available technology. A full set of active leases (52) from a District Office was acquired for analysis on current spatial descriptions. In a second visit some of these leased areas were surveyed by GPS to construct maps to aid with the development of a convention. Based on this work, the author developed a methodology/convention for indexing and spatial description of unconformable leases, with the current South African cadastre and embedded 21-character land parcel identifier as basis. It was demonstrated that basic technology could be used in the field, supported by an advanced land information system. The value of the convention lies in the fact that it relates the unconformable leases back to the formal cadastre within a land information system. Administration of leases will be more effective. Also that it could be applied to other spheres of land reform and non-parcel based geocoding of centroids indicating occupational or communal rights on land. / Thesis (M.Sc.)- University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

Leasing of state land under control of the Department of Land Affairs takes place, due to historical reasons, in a manner that is unconformable with the cadastre. The Department (and the State) is obliged to manage its assets efficiently and promote land reform. How can such leases be described spatially, and captured on a land information system? The author argues that it is indeed possible to develop a method, system or convention of spatial description for leased areas unconformable with the cadastre by relating it to the cadastre and capture and maintain data on such areas on a spatially and text-based database. In order to identify relevant best practices, available technology, a review was carried out on methodologies from other countries within the fields of land administration and land information systems, focussing on parcel-based cadastral systems. Fieldwork consisted firstly of interviews with officials and specialists in these fields for more information on the management of leases in the Department and available technology. A full set of active leases (52) from a District Office was acquired for analysis on current spatial descriptions. In a second visit some of these leased areas were surveyed by GPS to construct maps to aid with the development of a convention. Based on this work, the author developed a methodology/convention for indexing and spatial description of unconformable leases, with the current South African cadastre and embedded 21-character land parcel identifier as basis. It was demonstrated that basic technology could be used in the field, supported by an advanced land information system. The value of the convention lies in the fact that it relates the unconformable leases back to the formal cadastre within a land information system Administration of leases will be more effective. Also that it could be applied to other spheres of land reform and non-parcel based geocoding of centroids indicating occupational or communal rights on land. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

Nuo 2010 m. liepos 1 d., kuomet įsigaliojo Žemės įstatymo ir Žemės reformos įstatymo pakeitimai, valstybės politiką žemės tvarkymo ir administravimo srityje įgyvendina ir dalyvauja ją formuojant pagrindinė institucija Nacionalinė žemės tarnyba. Lietuvos Respublikos žemės fondo administravimo nagrinėjimas turi tiek teorinę, tiek praktinę reikšmę. Svarbu pažymėti, kad valstybinės žemės tvarkymo ir administravimo reglamentavimas painus, sudėtingas, su egzistuojančiomis teisės aktų spragomis, todėl darbe išsamiai išnagrinėta žemės santykius reguliuojančių institucijų veikla, valstybinės žemės ūkio paskirties žemės pardavimo teisniais aspektai. Taip pat įvertinta ar apskričių panaikinimas užtikrino geresnį žemės fondo administravimą. / Since 1 July 2010 after the commencement of amendments of Land law and Land reform state policy in the area of Land resources management and administration has been implemented and led by the main authority National Land Service. The analysis of the Land fund administration of the Republic of Lithuania has both theoretical and practical significance. It is important to point out that state land management and administration regulation is rather intricate, complicated, with existing legal loopholes, therefore, the paper analyses in detail the work of institutions regulating land relations, and legal aspects of the sale of state agricultural land. The work also assesses whether the abolition of counties can ensure better Land fund administration.

No description available.

The objective of this dissertation is to understand the impacts of the Green Revolution on well-being, poverty and on the natural environment within a case study of Guaraciaba do Norte, a small município on a highland plateau surrounded by the semi-arid caatinga in Northeast Brazil. The Green Revolution technology was introduced in the early 1970's and has since transformed the município of Guaraciaba do Norte. Through the analysis of empirical data three different categories of stakeholders were identified and compared, the traditional rainfed producers located in the carrasco (semi-arid region) and zona húmida (humid zone of the plateau) and the Green Revolution producers called irrigators, located along the rivers. With respects to well-being, the research shows that the Green Revolution had a significant and positive affect on economic growth and development, reducing inequality and poverty levels in the município, as well as having significant multiplier effect on the non-agricultural sector, which is highly dependent on the vegetable production activates. Despite this, there are concerns of increased levels of vulnerability and its role in restricting access of new producers in adopting this technology. The abusive use of pesticides in the initial stages and improper disposal of packaging created environmental issues however, these have been resolved over time. Additionally, climate change effects have led to concerns related to the reduced water availability and consequently the future of agricultural activity in the region.

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

The Walk for a Day trail will pass over land, the Water Quality Protection Lands, established to protect the sensitive karst aquifer. The trail requires specific management due to the sensitive nature of the karst landscape. This paper explores access management techniques and case studies to develop recommendations for management of the Walk for a Day trail. This paper concludes that by utilizing techniques such as Limits of Acceptable Change and spatial management strategies, and encouraging strong stakeholder participation it is possible to develop a recreational trail on sensitive public land. / text

The presence of gas and oil in some sand formations decreases the seismic velocity and density to such an extent that anomalously large reflections coefficients are encountered at fluid contacts. Geerstma and Gassmann's theories are equivalent and provide a good way to study the physical properties that affect the elastic behavior of the porous rock. The fluid-contact reflectivity (gas-water, oil-water) can be well estimated based on the brine saturated velocity alone. A comparison between the estimated and observed fluid-contact reflectivities on seismic and well log data from an Offshore prospect showed a remarkable agreement. / text

Egypt witnesses an increasing population growth concomitant with limited water and agricultural land resources. The objectives of this study were to utilize remotely sensed data for the inventory of agricultural lands in the Nile Delta, monitoring spatial and temporal variations in agricultural lands and quantifying agricultural land losses due to urbanization. Inventory of agricultural lands was designed using two approaches: thresholding and linear mixture analysis. We utilized 12 images from the Landsat satellite: 4 from Multi-Spectral Scanner (1972), 4 from Thematic Mapper (1984) and 4 from Thematic Mapper (2003) covering the entire Nile Delta. In addition, a set of 480 NDVI images were obtained from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensor that cover the period 1984-2003. Landsat images were subjected to atmospheric, radiometric and geometric corrections as well as image mosaicking. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was applied and thresholding for agricultural land cover revealed that the areal extent of agricultural lands was 3.68, 4.32 and 4.95 million acres (one acre = 0.96 Egyptian Feddan) in 1972, 1984 and 2003, respectively. Linear mixture analysis of the AVHRR-NDVI with the TM-NDVI images showed that agricultural lands approached 4.11 and 5.24 million acres in 1984 and 2003, respectively. Using multitemporal Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for the TM and AVHRR images proved that reclamation activities were mostly along the western margins of the Nile Delta. Spatio-temporal analysis showed that middle delta has the highest agricultural vigor compared with the margins. Agricultural land loss was estimated in some cities within the delta as well as in Greater Cairo area. We studied the land cover classification and change in Greater Cairo area based on 5 Landsat images acquired in 1972, 1984, 1990, 1998 and 2003. Agricultural lands lost 28.43% (32,236 acres) between 1972 and 2003 with an annual loss of 1040 acres. Agricultural lands on the peripheries of Cairo and its satellite towns were the most vulnerable areas. Soil salinization was another limiting factor for land reclamation. The main conclusion confirms that remote sensing is an accurate, efficient and less expensive tool for the inventory and monitoring agricultural land change in Egypt.