The Physical Geography of Western Europe

A distinguished team of Western European scholars has written an advanced, full-length physical geography designed to be a state-of-the-art evaluation of the physical environment of Western Europe, being both retrospective and prospective in its perception of environmental change. The unique natural and regional environments of Western Europe are discussed, as well as the physical geographic framework of the region. Particular emphasis is placed on the impact and responses of human society on the physical environment of the region which is characterized by a very high population density. As an enhanced reference work it will be of enduring value.

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mimi Stith ◽  
Alessandra Giannini ◽  
John del Corral ◽  
Susana Adamo ◽  
Alex de Sherbinin

Abstract A spatial analysis is presented that aims to synthesize the evidence for climate and social dimensions of the “regreening” of the Sahel. Using an independently constructed archival database of donor-funded interventions in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Senegal in response to the persistence of drought in the 1970s and 1980s, the spatial distribution of these interventions is examined in relation to population density and to trends in precipitation and in greenness. Three categories of environmental change are classified: 1) regions at the northern grassland/shrubland edge of the Sahel where NDVI varies interannually with precipitation, 2) densely populated cropland regions of the Sahel where significant trends in precipitation and NDVI decouple at interannual time scales, and 3) regions at the southern savanna edge of the Sahel where NDVI variation is independent of precipitation. Examination of the spatial distribution of environmental change, number of development projects, and population density brings to the fore the second category, covering the cropland areas where population density and regreening are higher than average. While few, regions in this category coincide with emerging hotspots of regreening in northern Burkina Faso and southern central Niger known from case study literature. In examining the impact of efforts to rejuvenate the Sahelian environment and livelihoods in the aftermath of the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s against the backdrop of a varying and uncertain climate, the transition from desertification to regreening discourses is framed in the context of adaptation to climate change.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 229-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Vannitsem ◽  
F. Chomé

Abstract The impact of domain size on regional climate simulations is explored in the context of a state-of-the-art regional model centered over western Europe. It is found that the quality of the climate simulations is highly dependent on the domain size. Moreover, the choice of an optimal version is more complex than usually thought, the less appropriate domain having an intermediate size (about 3000 km × 3000 km), and the best versions nearly cover a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere. The use of periodically reinitialized trajectories does improve the climate of suboptimal models but leads to unrealistic dynamical behaviors. The implications for regional climate simulations are briefly discussed.


Author(s):  
Emilia MISZEWSKA ◽  
Maciej NIEDOSTATKIEWICZ ◽  
Radosław WIŚNIEWSKI

The popularity of Floating Homes in Western Europe and North America is noticeable. The interest in these facilities in Poland is also constantly growing. The popularity of Floating Homes is due to climate change, rising land prices and population density in city centers. However, environmental factors play a significant role in their development. The publication presents the results of research on the impact of environmental factors on the development of Floating Homes in Poland. As part of the research, the most important environmental factors were identified and then, using the State of the Surroundings Scenarios (SSS) method, an initial scenario of their development was developed. The most probable scenario was developed, the purpose of which was to identify the most favorable factors - strengths and unfavorable factors - weaknesses responsible for the development opportunities of Floating Homes in Poland. Additionally, a surprise scenario was prepared, which indicated factors that may unexpectedly accelerate the development of Floating Homes in Poland or slow it down.


Author(s):  
Ashutosh Mahajan ◽  
Ravi Solanki ◽  
Namitha Sivadas

AbstractAfter originating from Wuhan, China, in late 2019, with a gradual spread in the last few months, COVID-19 has become a pandemic crossing 9 million confirmed positive cases and 450 thousand deaths. India is not only an overpopulated country but has a high population density as well, and at present, a high-risk nation where COVID-19 infection can go out of control. In this paper, we employ a compartmental epidemic model SIPHERD for COVID-19 and predict the total number of confirmed, active and death cases, and daily new cases. We analyze the impact of lockdown and the number of tests conducted per day on the prediction and bring out the scenarios in which the infection can be controlled faster. Our findings indicate that increasing the tests per day at a rapid pace (10k per day increase), stringent measures on social-distancing for the coming months and strict lockdown in the month of July all have a significant impact on the disease spread.


Author(s):  
Sudhanshu Kumar Biswas ◽  
Jayanta Kumar Ghosh ◽  
Susmita Sarkar ◽  
Uttam Ghosh

The present novel corona virus (2019-nCoV) infection has created a global emergency situation by spreading all over the world in a large scale within very short time period. The infection induced death rate is also very high. There is no vaccine or anti-viral medicine for such infection. So at this moment a major worldwide problem is that how we can control this pandemic. On the other hand, India is a high population density country, where the corona virus disease (COVID-19) has started to spread from $1^{st}$ week of March, 2020 in a significant number of COVID-19 positive cases. Due to this high population density human to human social contact rate is very high in India. So control of the pandemic COVID-19 in early stage is very urgent and challenging problem. Mathematical models are employed in this paper to study the COVID-19 dynamics, to identify the influential parameters and to find the proper prevention strategies to reduce the outbreak size. In this work, we have formulated a deterministic compartmental model to study the spreading of COVID-19 and estimated the model parameters by fitting the model with reported data of ongoing pandemic in India. Sensitivity analysis has been done to identify the key model parameters. The basic reproduction number has been estimated from actual data and the effective basic reproduction number has been studied on the basis of reported cases. Some effective preventive measures and their impacts on the disease dynamics have also been studied. Future trends of the disease transmission has been Predicted from our model with some control measures. Finally, the positive measures to control the disease have been summarized.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-245
Author(s):  
Mark Eramian ◽  
Christopher Power ◽  
Stephen Rau ◽  
Pulkit Khandelwal

Abstract Semi-automated segmentation algorithms hold promise for improving extraction and identification of objects in images such as tumors in medical images of human tissue, counting plants or flowers for crop yield prediction or other tasks where object numbers and appearance vary from image to image. By blending markup from human annotators to algorithmic classifiers, the accuracy and reproducability of image segmentation can be raised to very high levels. At least, that is the promise of this approach, but the reality is less than clear. In this paper, we review the state-of-the-art in semi-automated image segmentation performance assessment and demonstrate it to be lacking the level of experimental rigour needed to ensure that claims about algorithm accuracy and reproducability can be considered valid. We follow this review with two experiments that vary the type of markup that annotators make on images, either points or strokes, in tightly controlled experimental conditions in order to investigate the effect that this one particular source of variation has on the accuracy of these types of systems. In both experiments, we found that accuracy substantially increases when participants use a stroke-based interaction. In light of these results, the validity of claims about algorithm performance are brought into sharp focus, and we reflect on the need for a far more control on variables for benchmarking the impact of annotators and their context on these types of systems.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ni Made Rysnawati ◽  
I Ketut Sukarasa ◽  
Ida Bagus Alit Paramarta

East Nusa Tenggara is a region in Indonesia which included in the category of hazard prone to earthquakes, because it is flanked by two earthquakes zones, (subduction zone at the south and back arc trust in the north). It is also vulnerable to earthquake disasters because of high population density. These conditions would threaten the safety of lives and property of the population, so it needs to be research to analyze the level of earthquake hazard and vulnerability in East Nusa Tenggara. For identification of the level of hazard and the vulnerability of the earthquake in this study using two factors: the danger factor with indicator Peak Ground Acceleration, vulnerability factors with indicators of population density districts in East Nusa Tenggara. The calculation of the value of PGA use attenuation function of Fukushima and Tanaka. From the calculation of the data obtained that has a very high earthquake hazard is in Ende and Alor district, while the district has a very high risk of vulnerability is in Sikka, Sumba Barat Daya and Sabu Raijua.  


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 62-72
Author(s):  
A. L. Andreev

The article deals with the problem of formation of social and humanitarian competen[1]cies in Russian engineering education. The author shows how different views on the relationship between man and machine, as well as between society and the technosphere, were translated into various public initiatives and analyzes the impact of these initiatives on the evolution of approaches to engineering education. Special attention is paid to the promotion of the ideology of design think[1]ing and the movement for the humanitarization of engineering education. Both gained a consider[1]able popularity in the last quarter of the twentieth century. However, in modern conditions, the relationship between technological progress and the development of human society is taking on new forms that require new answers. There are also new risks – in particular, the risk of complete de[1]humanization of technological progress and the unclear prospect of the formation of a so-called post-human civilization. Social assessment of technology and the development of value-based tech[1]nologies are possible answers. They have received a very significant support in the United States and Western Europe. In particular, several European conferences on this topic have already been held within the EU (the latest one took place in Bratislava in 2019). However, due to some features of the Russian intellectual tradition, as well as the pronounced techno-optimism of mass consciousness, the Russian academic environment has not yet shown sufficient interest to implant these approaches in technical education. The possibility of managing the current technological progress on the basis of a dialogue with civil society, which is popular in the European Union, is also not considered in Russian intellectual environments. At the same time, the leading technical universities in Russia are gradually developing a network of enthusiasts who are studying the European practice of social assessment of technology and its adaptation to Russian conditions. Such adapted practices may become the con[1]ceptual guidelines for Russian engineering education.


1993 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
HP Possingham

Biodiversity is characteristically defined on three levels: genetic diversity, species diversity and ecosystem diversity. In this paper I consider the impact of elevated CO2 and associated climate change on the biodiversity of terrestrial systems at the species level. I attempt to understand the impact of a rapidly changing physical environment mechanistically. The direct impact of elevated CO2 is emphasised. A changing physical environment will cause behavioural and physiological responses in organisms that will affect population dynamics and interspecific relationships. In the short term, extinctions will occur via the direct interaction of species with their changing environment. Species exposed to new diseases, and species dependent on mutualists or keystone species that become extinct or change geographical range, may become extinct rapidly through interactions with other species. I hypothesise that the effect of environmental change on competitive interactions will play a minor role in causing declines in biodiversity. Existing literature on the impact of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems emphasises the way in which ecosystems and species should track suitable climates across the landscape. Here I argue that each species will be affected in one, or a combination, of the following ways: range change to track shifting climate zones, tolerating the environmental change, microevolutionary change, and extinction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 60-63
Author(s):  
Dadahon Norkuziev ◽  

This article describes the ecological situation in the Ferghana Valley over the years of independence, its impact on public health, the high population density in the region, the negative impact of industrial enterprises on the environment, environmental degradation, and the impact of various diseases on public health


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document