“Dreams so Big Only the Sea Can Hold Them”: Man-Made Islands as Anxious Spaces, Cultural Icons, and Travelling Visions

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (9) ◽  
pp. 2086-2104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Jackson ◽  
Veronica della Dora

This paper explores a new phenomenon which is assuming global proportions: the planning and construction of artificial islands. Varying in size, shape, and purpose, man-made islands are looming on the horizons of an increasing number of aspiring global cities and regions at the margins of global capitalism. From the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea, from the Caribbean to the North Sea, artificial islands are increasingly embraced as spectacular, technical signifiers of global participation and urban economic progress: as the ‘new cultural icons’. Appropriated in different contexts, island projects, however, can be (and are) also resignified. They thus change in form, meaning, and use. While islands have been objects of renewed interest in cultural and historical geography, surprisingly, these new man-made landforms seem to have gone largely unnoticed. This paper suggests a research agenda to engage with artificial islands as a new ‘metageographical’ category of emergent, yet historically resonant, social space.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8159
Author(s):  
Joanna Przedrzymirska ◽  
Jacek Zaucha ◽  
Helena Calado ◽  
Ivana Lukic ◽  
Martina Bocci ◽  
...  

This paper examines the concept of maritime multi-use as a territorial/SPATIAL governance instrument for the enhancement of sustainable development in five EU sea basins. Multi-use (MU) is expected to enhance the productivity of blue economy sectors, as well as deliver additional socio-economic benefits related to the environmental and social dimensions of sustainable development. The paper provides a definition of maritime multi-use and identifies the multi-uses with the highest potential in EU sea basins. In each sea basin, multi-use plays a different role as concerns sustainable development. For the Eastern Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, the MU focus should remain on the environmental pillar of sustainable development. In the North Sea, North Atlantic and Western Baltic Sea, addressing social sustainability seems a key precondition for success of MU in enhancement of sustainable spatial development at sea. Moreover, it has been suggested to introduce MU key global strategies such as SDGs or Macroregional strategies and action plans and to supplement maritime spatial planning with sectoral incentives and educational efforts as key vehicles supporting MU. The paper concludes by identifying aspects which, in order to inform maritime spatial planning and maritime governance regarding a more conscious application of the aforementioned concept, require further investigation. Key tasks are related to: more profound evaluation of performance of policies supporting MUs, researching the impact of MU on societal goals and on the MU costs and benefits, including external ones, and finally identifying the impact of MU on the development of various sectors and regions on land.


2010 ◽  
pp. 99-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dejana Dzigurski ◽  
Slobodanka Stojanovic ◽  
Aleksa Knezevic ◽  
Ljiljana Nikolic ◽  
Branka Ljevnaic-Masic

The Jegricka, once a natural watercourse traversing the southwestern part of the Backa region, has been turned into a canal, which became part of the main canal network of the hydro-system Danube-Tisza-Danube (Hs DTD). In its turn, the Hs DTD is part of the European waterway linking the North Sea to the Black Sea, i.e., part of the navigable Rhine-Main-Danube Canal. The watercourse is 65.4 km long and it is divided into three levels. The presence of the regulated and the nonregulated sections of the canal, frequent and abrupt changes in water level in the individual sections, different depths and surface water widths of the various sections and the fishpond constructed in the lower section cause considerable vegetation diversity. The vegetation comprises aquatic associations of the classes Hydrochari-Lemnetea Oberd. 1967 and Potametea Tx. et Prsg. 1942. The class Hydrochari-Lemnetea Oberd. 1967 includes the following phytocoenoses: Salvinio-Spirodeletum polyrrhizae Slavnic 1956, Ceratophylletum demersi (So? 27) Hild. 1956, Lemno-Utricularietum vulgaris So? 1928 and Hydrocharidetum morsus-ranae Van Langendonck 1935. The class Potametea Tx. et Prsg. 1942 includes the associations Myriophyllo-Potametum So? 1934, Najadetum marine Fukarek 1961, Nymphaeetum albae Vollmar 1947, Nymphoidetum peltate (Allorge 1922) Oberd. et M?ller 1960 and Trapetum natantis M?ller et G?rs 1960.


1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-84
Author(s):  
R. W. Cooper

One of the definitions of Navigation that gets little attention in this Institute is ‘communication by canals and rivers’ (Oxford English Dictionary), and which our French friends call La Navigation. I have always found this subject fascinating, and have previously navigated the Rivers Mekong, Irrawaddy, Hooghly, Indus, Shatt-al-Arab, Savannah and Rhône. During the middle of 1995 I travelled by barge from the North Sea to the Black Sea via the River Rhine, the Rhein—Main—Donau—Kanal (RMDK) and the River Danube, a distance of approximately 4000 km. This voyage has only recently become possible with the opening of the connecting RMDK at the end of 1992, but has been made little use of because of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia.


2004 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 305-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katja T.C.A. Peijnenburg ◽  
Annelies C. Pierrot-Bults

This paper reviews the quantitative morphological variation published for Sagitta setosa Müller, 1847 and two other species described within the S. serosa-complex, viz., S. euxina Moltschanoff, 1909 from the Black Sea, and S. batava Biersteker & Van der Spoel, 1966 from the Scheldt Estuary (Netherlands). Data on total (body) length, caudal length, numbers of teeth and hooks, ovary length, and dimensions of fins are compared between these three taxa. Additionally, samples from the North Sea, Mediterranean, and Black Sea are compared to look for geographic differences. Specimens from the Mediterranean were smallest with relatively long caudal segments, and few teeth and hooks, whereas specimens from the Black Sea were largest with relatively short caudal segments and many teeth and hooks. Specimens from the North Sea were intermediate with regards to these characters, but ranges overlapped and there were no obvious differences in allometry. These differences may be ecophenotypic, as the warm and salty Mediterranean Sea and cool and brackish Black Sea are at opposite ends of the environmental spectrum. The dimensions related to the fins showed clearer distinction between samples from different geographical areas, and slight differences in allometry. However, few data were available and little is known about the variance within each geographical area. We found more variation in quantitative characters within S. setosa from different parts of its range than between S. setosa and either S. batava, or S. euxina. Sagitta batava conformed to S. setosa in terms of all the morphological characters considered. The data for S. setosa derived from Biersteker & Van der Spoel (1966) were atypical and were found to be based on misidentifications of S. elegans. Therefore, we concluded that S. batava cannot be considered a separate taxon. For S. euxina, the data were inconclusive. Quantitative data completely overlapped between S. setosa from the Black Sea and S. euxina, but few data of S. setosa from the Black Sea were available. Because samples were either composed entirely of S. setosa or S. euxina (depending on sampling season and depth)and there was a large variation in body lengths and relative ovary lengths, we consider it possible that these samples represent seasonal variants of one and the same species.


2006 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 559-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D Cameron

AbstractThe current international law applicable to the cooperative development of petroleum resources imposes few procedural requirements on States. In the event of a failure to agree, they may choose to make further efforts at developing cooperative arrangements, or go ahead independently anddevelop the resource. Recent bilateral agreements in the North Sea and the Caribbean seek to move beyond the cooperation established under bilateral delimitation treaties. They indicate a willingness to design innovative legal frameworks in which different, sometimes diverging interests may be managed. Nonetheless, early experience suggests that, in the event of a breakdown, unilateral action may follow.


Zootaxa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4379 (3) ◽  
pp. 448
Author(s):  
SOPHIA M. SÁNCHEZ ◽  
LIAT Y. GOLDSTEIN ◽  
NORMAN O. DRONEN

Cobbold (1858) established Diphyllobothrium Cobbold, 1858 with the description of Diphyllobothrium stemmacephalum Cobbold, 1858 from the common harbor porpoise, Phocoena phocoena (Linnaeus) (Phocoenidae), from the North Sea off Scotland. Diphyllobothrium stemmacephalum typically has been reported from a number of Phocoenidae and Delphinidae hosts from a variety of localities: common harbor porpoise from the northern Atlantic Ocean, Baltic Sea and Black sea (e.g. Cobbold, 1858; Delyamure 1955; Delyamure 1968; Delyamure 1971; Delyamure et al. 1985; Anderson, 1987); bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus (Montagu), from the Gulf of Mexico (Ward & Collins 1959), the Black sea (Delyamure et al. 1985); common harbor porpoise off Newfoundland (Brattey & Stenson 1995), the Black Sea (Krivokhizin & Birkun 1994 [see Yera et al. 2008]), off Denmark (Herreras et al. 1997); long-finned pilot whale, Globicephala melas [Traill], North Atlantic off Faroe Island (Balbuena & Raga 1993); Atlantic white-sided dolphin, Lagenorhynchus acutus [Gray], off Massachusetts (Olson & Caira 1999). 


2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 28-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. A. Akimov ◽  
I. V. Nebogatkin

Expansion of Rhipicephalus rossicus (Jakimov et Kohl-Jakimova, 1911) to the North, due to all its developmental stages have wide range of feeders (from amphibians to mammals) in the new man-made environmental conditions in the steppe and wood-and-steppe of Ukraine and the warming of climate (especially warm winters), is observed. The northern boundary of R. rossicus distribution lies in Vinnytsya, Kyiv, Poltava and Sumy Regions. R. bursa (Canestrini et Fanzago, 1878) and R. sanguineus (Latreille, 1806) occur only on the shores of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov (including the Crimea). Outbreak localities of R. sanguineus are in Kerch Peninsula (Crimea) and in the Dnieper floodplain. Both R. bursa and R. sanguineus are invasive species.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1481-1518 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Coppini ◽  
V. Lyubarstev ◽  
N. Pinardi ◽  
S. Colella ◽  
R. Santoleri ◽  
...  

Abstract. Ocean-colour remote-sensing products have been used to estimate Chl a trends in European seas. This work aims to develop a new indicator based on ocean-colour data for the European Environment Agency (EEA). The new indicator, called CSI023(+), produced from satellite ocean-colour products from the MyOcean Marine Core Service (www.myocean.eu) has been defined and calculated. CSI023 (+) is intended to complement the EEA CSI023 (Core Set of Indicators n.23) indicator for eutrophication, which is based on chlorophyll a (Chl a) in-situ observations. Validation of ocean-colour products has been carried out through comparison with observations of the Eionet EEA database, and we believe that such validation should continue in the future, perhaps with a dedicated data-collection exercise. Ocean colour has a much higher spatial and temporal resolution than the in-situ observations. The ocean-colour observations, however, are based on indirect measurements of the optical properties of the ocean, which are transformed to Chl a using an appropriate algorithm. This algorithm can either be a global algorithm that reproduces the average global Chl a concentrations well or one that is adjusted to specific regional conditions. In our analysis we have used both global and regional (adjusted to specific regional Mediterranean conditions) ocean-colour products, but the results highlight the fact that regional products produced with regional algorithms are recommended for the future. This work proposes a methodology for analysing trends comparable to the method EEA uses for its CSI23 indicator. Analysis has revealed the potential of ocean colour as a CSI023(+) indicator: large-scale, and in some cases even local-scale, changes appear to be captured by the satellite images even though in general the ocean-colour products underestimate the Chl a values. CSI023(+) shows, in the period 1998–2009, decreasing Chl a concentrations throughout the Black Sea, in the Eastern Mediterranean, in the southern part of the Western Mediterranean, in the English Channel and in the north part of the North Sea, whereas large areas with increasing trends are observed in the Bay of Biscay, in the North-East Atlantic regions of Ireland and the UK, in the northern part of the North Sea, in the Kattegat and in the Baltic. Specific analysis has been performed in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea: we first defined Chl a areas and then calculated the CSI023(+) for each of the Chl a areas. This last analysis reveals that about 80 % of Chl a areas do not show significant trends; increasing significant Chl a trends were detected in 3 Chl a areas in the Black Sea and 32 Chl a areas in the Mediterranean. Decreasing significant trends were detected in 6 Chl a areas in the Mediterranean and 2 Chl a areas in the Black Sea.


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