Adjacent Towns Research Articles

Reduction of Water Consumption for Heating Plant Cooling with an Indirect Cooling System

In order to combat drought, many industrial companies are taking austerity measures in their water management. They are driven not only by economic reasons but also by tightening legislation, directly prohibiting the extraction of water from the environment when a drought is declared. The article deals with the case of a company that operates a heating plant for an industrial zone and the adjacent town. The water source is a river 2.5 km away. In the event of a drought, the company is affected by a ban on river-water extraction, which has a direct impact on the operation of the heating plant and the entire industrial zone, with the current heating-plant cooling system consuming up to 60% of the industrial water. Previous studies have shown the impossibility of installing a dry or hybrid cooling system in the area. A possible economical option is closed-loop cooling. Most of the cooling water is lost by evaporation, the rest by surface blowdown, neither of which occurs in a closed circuit. This paper deals with an alternative closed cooling system using a river and its design parameter calculation, including a comparison of the different options for pipe location and routing.

Dam Construction, Company Towns and Planned Urban Development: The Example of Salto del Esla, Spain

ABSTRACT Company towns are integral to the urban and territorial changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, especially in remote, resource-rich areas. Among these, villages constructed alongside dams stand out due to their profound territorial impact. This study focuses on one such unique settlement near the Ricobayo dam in Zamora, Spain, exploring its construction and environmental integration. At its inception, Ricobayo was Europe’s largest dam, its creation marked by notable feats like relocating a church, and pioneering hydraulic engineering and bridge construction, including a record-breaking design by Torroja. The adjacent company town set a precedent for creating liveable spaces for workers in isolated locales, influencing later developments. Research included on-site investigations, archival work at Iberdrola’s Historical Archive, and review of historical texts, underscoring the cultural and landscape significance of 20th-century dam settlements and the distinctive features of Ricobayo’s surroundings.

Distributional effects of expressway access on rural entrepreneurial activities in China

Transportation infrastructure development, such as expressways, could impact economic development in local and neighboring regions differently. However, there is limited evidence of these impacts on rural and developing areas. Here, we use Heyuan, a rural region in China, as the case to examine the effects of expressway access on entrepreneurial activity. Using detailed township-level panel data from 2004 to 2016 and a multiple-period DID model with spatial effects, we find that opening entrances and exits significantly promotes entrepreneurial activities in local towns but suppress them in adjacent towns. Furthermore, we find that the development of expressways leads to a greater concentration of firms in the provincial centers of towns with better economic development. The development of expressways has had a significant boost on tertiary industries. This study shows that the construction of highways attracts entrepreneurial activities to regions with better conditions, and this maximizes economic efficiency but at the expense of creating regional economic imbalances. Therefore, this model may be the primary model of China's economic development in the future.

Remaking the Law to Protect Civilians: Overlapping Jurisdictions and Contested Spaces in UN Protection of Civilian Sites

ABSTRACT The UN Protection of Civilians sites in South Sudan were separated from adjacent towns by barbed wire fences, mounds, watchtowers and patrolling peacekeepers. Building on and contributing to recent legal geography scholarship on jurisdictions, we explore how legal norms, institutions and rivalrous claims of jurisdiction remake these places of protection and blur spatial boundaries by creating trails that entangle the worlds inside and outside of the sites. The article also provides an unusual example of a powerful public authority – the United Nations – resisting claims that they have jurisdiction. The article is based on qualitative research in Wau and Bentiu.

Extraction is not a metaphor: Decolonial and Black Geographies against the gendered and embodied violence of extractive logics

AbstractWe are witnessing a proliferation of new critical scholarship on the manifold forms of extractivism. Yet, there are risks associated with extraction being rendered a broad metaphor for innumerable forms of removal and value‐making through exploitation and misappropriation. Theorising within decolonial Black feminisms, we respond to the metaphorization of extraction by (re)asserting the need for persistent analysis on the material and embodied effects and consequences of extractivisms. That is, the specific processes, logics, ideologies, and relations of extractivism recast lands, labours, ecosystems, and bodies, and particularly the bodies of women of colour. This helps to ensure the concept does not become figuratively empty and abstracted in politically and analytically debilitating ways. Drawing on more than a decade of research with three communities entangled within and targeted through extractivism along the Chad–Cameroon Oil Pipeline and the extractive‐tourist coastline of Panama, we mobilise a conception of 'extractive logics' to refer to the unnamed, unquestioned, often contradictory, foundational epistemic frameworks that permit the seemingly‐permanent structures and relations of removal, destruction, and dehumanization. We analyse documents from the Chad–Cameroon oil consortium, which projected and then calculated the economic ‘costs’ of the pipeline's triggering of an increase in rates of HIV/AIDS in adjacent towns and cities, alongside the entanglement of capitalist extraction with the medical neglect of Black labourers in Panama. Doing so demystefies the ways that racial and gendered violence are sanctioned (and even premeditated) within extractive logics. We hope that this work challenges some of the methodological nationalism so common within extractive scholarship, and brings extractive processes across disparate South–South and black geographies into conversation, activating a cross‐fertilisation of research across otherwise distinct geographies and geographical refrains. We reflect on the imperatives for and (im)possibilities of decolonial research against extractivism.

Geophysical survey at the frontier of medieval Iberia: The castles of Molina de Aragón and Atienza (Guadalajara, Spain)

AbstractThis paper presents the results of geophysical surveys conducted within two castles in central Iberia: the fortifications of Molina de Aragón and Atienza, both located within the modern province of Guadalajara in Spain. They represent essential case studies for understanding the transformations of the frontier societies of medieval south‐western Europe, because both were founded during the Andalusi period, both played a fundamental role at the time of the military confrontations between opposing Islamic and Christian states, and both became capitals within the feudal dependencies of the Crown of Castile during the Late Middle Ages. At present, these castles are uninhabited and protected archaeological sites, with no modern developments within their wards; the adjacent towns have developed on the outskirts of their outer walls. Although both castles have been the focus of uneven amounts of archaeological research, geophysical surveys, the first conducted at these sites, have proved to be a fundamental tool not only for planning future archaeological investigations but also for the data that they have provided on the potential roles of these castle wards.

2221. Use of PCR and MLST analysis to establish Treponema pallidum as the cause of a painful oral lesion

Abstract Background A syphilitic chancre is described classically as a single, indurated, and painless ulcer at the site of Treponema pallidum inoculation. Methods We present a 39-year-old heterosexual, monogamous, HIV-negative woman with a painful tongue lesion of one month’s duration. To exclude a malignancy, a biopsy was performed. Results Histopathology showed intense inflammatory reaction, and T. pallidum immunocytochemistry demonstrated a high density of spirochetes in the subepithelial connective tissue. Subsequent testing revealed a reactive anti-T. pallidum IgG EIA and an RPR titer of 1:8. PCR amplification and multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) confirmed that the visualized spirochetes were T. pallidum. This particular MLST strain pattern has been identified twice before and named ST-109; however, no clinical information is available. Diagnosis and appropriate treatment were delayed since syphilis was not suspected initially. When the results became available, the patient was treated with 2.4 million units of benzathine penicillin given IM with complete resolution of the lesion. The male partner, who reported no symptoms, had a positive T. pallidum EIA with an RPR titer of 1:64 and was also treated with penicillin. Within four months, a woman from an adjacent town presented to urgent care with three perineal severely painful lesions, testing negative for HIV, Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) by PCR of an ulcer swab, and chlamydia and gonorrhea on a urine sample by a NAAT. The anti-T. pallidum EIA was reactive, and the RPR titer was 1:4. The lesions resolved with IM penicillin treatment. Conclusion The observations reported here indicate that a subset of early syphilis cases may present with painful lesions. Despite the commonly held belief that syphilitic chancres are painless, several case series have reported tender lesions, single or multiple, without evidence of concurrent HSV infection to explain the pain. This is the first PCR and MLST sequencing analysis of a T. pallidum strain within a painful chancre. Given the rise in the number of cases of syphilis in the USA, it is essential that clinicians be aware of this atypical presentation. It remains to be determined whether such painful lesions are only associated with certain T. pallidum genotypes. Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures.

An interrupted time series approach to assess Marine Protected Area impacts on recreational fishing licence sales

Abstract Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are increasingly used as a management and conservation strategy. However, the effects of MPA implementation (i.e. restrictions on extractive use) on recreational fishers' spatial behaviour are often not considered. Spatial shifts in fishing pressure and which port fishers choose to fish from can have ecological and economic impacts. Therefore, it is critical that MPA impacts on recreational fishers are adequately investigated and weighed against potential conservation benefits from MPA designation. The State of Oregon, USA, has a system of five no‐take marine reserves (MRs) with adjacent limited‐take MPAs. This study used an interrupted time series approach to investigate how fishing licence sales were impacted by MR implementation. This study found that recreational fishers near only one MR were potentially adversely impacted by MR implementation. The proportion of coastal licence sales near Redfish Rocks MR displayed an immediate sustained 47.1% proportional decrease following reserve implementation. Conversely, there was a 0.5% proportional increase in monthly demand for licence sales near Otter Rock and Cascade Head MRs. This study suggests that most MRs in Oregon were designated in a manner that limited significant adverse impacts to some ocean users, a specified MR objective. The process of MR planning in Oregon, which involved considerable public input, could be used as an example for MR designation in other similar settings. However, when a potential MR site and adjacent town's conditions match those at Redfish Rocks MR, there may be adverse socio‐economic impacts that should be weighed against potential ecological benefits. This study also demonstrates the application of an interrupted time series approach. When sufficient data are available, this is a robust approach that addresses numerous shortfalls of traditional MPA impact evaluations.

Cemeteries in transformation – A Swiss community conflict study

For the first time, this study presents a natural experiment describing and explaining selected stakeholders’ attitudes toward the transformation of cemeteries into urban green spaces. In 2020, a real-life community conflict unfolded in Bern, the capital of Switzerland, over plans to close the smallest of its three municipal cemeteries by 2023. This study analyzes a representative sample (N = 519) of the city’s adult population and that of the adjacent town, Ostermundigen, capturing the views of residents of the conflict district and contrasting them with those of people living outside the district. It also compares attitudes of cemetery visitors and non-visitors. Survey interviews were conducted via telephone and through an online panel. The study focuses on conflicts triggered by alternative land-use plans, highlighting the need to include groups that are both familiar and unfamiliar with cemeteries. Interestingly, the latter group proved to be more open to change. The local meaning of cemeteries and municipal green urban-space policies are crucial context parameters, as demonstrated by the strong opposition to cemetery transformation in affected areas. The underlying beliefs of opponents and proponents are explored qualitatively and found to be complex and multidimensional. Individual attitude predictors include age and personal emotional attributes. Finally, factor analysis is used to develop a typology of users. The four emerging user types are linked to different perceptions of “the nature of cemeteries” and attitudes toward innovative plans (e.g., whether to create burial spaces for pets or a restaurant within the cemetery grounds, both of which received significant support). The findings inform policy decisions related to urban green-space management while balancing the interests of various groups. User perspectives should be reconciled by focusing on “dialogues of values” and participatory approaches, which complement information-centered municipal policies.

Modelling Coastal Development and Environmental Impacts: A Case Study Across Two Regional Towns in Australia

Globally there has been an increasing trend in urban growth with cities expanding rapidly, indicating a requirement for more sustainable development of cities to minimize human impacts on the environment. In Australia, urban development continues to target areas adjacent to the coastal capital and regional cities such as the Greater Geelong region in Victoria, experiencing the fastest rates of growth in the country in the last decade. This project demonstrates the ability of modelling techniques to model current and future directions in urban development across two adjacent coastal towns, Anglesea and Torquay, in Victoria. The analysis utilized Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the CommunityViz decision support tool using a variety of assets, environmental and climatic data. The models indicated an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, energy usage and population growth, and the area was found to be highly vulnerable to the impacts of environmental changes including the potential loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, and sea level rise. The modelling approach described here can aid planners and decision makers in the future coastal urban development as well as to mitigate climate change impacts.

A comprehensive case review of microbial remediation of heavy metals and pesticides in Yamuna River

Water resources (mainly surface and groundwater) support two-thirds of the global population but have been of great concern in recent years. Most civilizations all around the world evolved on the river's banks. River Yamuna is the major tributary to River Ganga (India’s largest river) and one of the major rivers in India. The extreme cause of pollution in rivers is the excessive discharge of domestic waste water from adjacent towns and residents, contributing to about two-thirds of pollution. Agricultural and industrial effluents cause the rest one-third. Organic pollutants can be treated or removed through appropriate sewage water treatment before final discharge into the river. The status of river water is advantageous because it determines the life cycle of animals, plants, and human beings. The direct use of river water for drinking causes severe hazards due to anthropogenic activities causing environmental pollution in rivers. The noxious discharge of toxic industrial waste consisting of heavy metals and pesticides into the water bodies, especially rivers, prevails in water bodies and accumulates through the food chain. Biomagnification of toxic heavy metals and pesticides through the food chain causes severe health hazards to humans and other living creatures. However, extensive farming depends on pesticides, accelerating water and land contamination. Long-duration contact with pesticides can harm living organisms and disrupt the function of different body organs. Various chemical and biological methods are available for reducing the water pollution level. Still, the emergence of an astonishing technology of multi-cultures of aerobic and anaerobic effective and beneficial microorganisms is gaining popularity because of its eco-friendly nature.

Spatial spillovers of tourism activity on housing prices: The case of Croatia

The tourism effects on housing prices within cities and regions have been analyzed in the literature, but there is a lack of evidence on the spatial effects of these processes. In areas hit by overtourism, house price hikes have the potential of spillovers to adjacent cities and towns as well as across wider space. Our study widens existing knowledge on the tourism-housing relationship by exploring the existence and extent of spatial spillovers from tourism-intensive cities and towns on housing prices of neighboring areas. A Durbin spatial autoregression panel model is applied on a population of cities and towns from Croatia, one of the small tourism-driven European economies during the 2012–2019 period. Different spatial weight matrices are applied to the model to explore the spatial reach of effects. Our findings, robust to the use of different tourism activity proxies, provide support to the existence of spatial spillover effects. The strongest effects of tourism on housing prices within and between cities come through the conversion of housing stock in rental properties rather than through the increase of private accommodation share in total accommodation capacities. Particularly strong effects are found once full spatial correlation is taken into account.

Hellenistic and Roman Gerasa: The Archaeology and History of a Decapolis City. Edited by Achim Lichtenberger and Rubina Raja. Turnhout: Brepols 2020. Pp. xviii + 390. €110. ISBN 978-2-503-58504-8 (paper).

<i>Hellenistic and Roman Gerasa: The Archaeology and History of a Decapolis City</i>. Edited by Achim Lichtenberger and Rubina Raja. Turnhout: Brepols 2020. Pp. xviii + 390. €110. ISBN 978-2-503-58504-8 (paper).

A crypto-tourism case study of agnes water/seventeen seventy, Australia

This research note explores the under-investigated assumption that cryptocurrencies are a panacea to stimulate regional tourism demand. Through the application of Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation Theory, a case study was designed to examine the cryptocurrency effect on two adjacent towns of Agnes Water and 17 70 in Central Queensland, Australia. The findings revealed three major factors that led to merchant receptivity for adopting cryptocurrencies - First, a novelty effect perceived as a good strategy to induce consumer spend. Second, the low entry barriers for merchants adopting cryptocurrencies to conduct transactions. Third, cryptocurrencies incurred zero overhead costs. Nevertheless, the favorable attitudes of these merchants towards cryptocurrencies require a demand-side intention to use such tools during tourist visits to these regional destinations. Other regional tourism destinations will need to consider other ways of integrating such digital innovations to their landscapes.

Spatial diffusion of Omicron in Texas: Predictable or Random?

The impacts of Covid-19 on society and the environment have now, three years from its first appearance, ballooned across the scientific literature. But our knowledge of where it originated, and why it spread as it did, has advanced much more slowly. Models of spatial diffusion at national level have been applied to past pandemics with some success, but not yet to Covid-19. One exception is a study of the spread of the original strain of Covid-19 in Texas between March and September 2020. This spread adhered to spatial diffusion theory: first hierarchical, that is into metropolitan areas in proportion to their population sizes; later contagious, that is into adjacent towns based on their proximity to metropolitan areas to which they were tributary; and finally hierarchical once more, into the most isolated towns based on their urban/ rural status. This process took six months. By contrast, the Omicron variant, in less than two months (December 2021 and January 2022), reached case levels three times those of the original Covid surges. The current study focuses on how Omicron diffused across Texas over the period November to February 2021-22. Daily case numbers for Covid-19 were available for all 254 counties from the Texas Department of State Health Services over this period, and the Omicron variant was identifiable from these data. This analysis will reveal whether the Omicron spread across the counties of Texas was predictable, partially predictable, or unpredictable, based on county population, distance to their regional metro, or the gravity concept (the ratio between the two). These insights will be of value if other such variants appear on the horizon for the US and Texas, enabling local health officials to anticipate the onset in their communities.

Marine Mammals Occurring in the Negros Occidental Coastal Wetlands Conservation Area, Philippines

The Negros Occidental Coastal Wetlands Conservation Area (NOCWCA) is the Philippines’ 7th Ramsar Site of Wetlands of International Importance. It spans 89,607 ha comprising the municipal waters of 10 adjacent towns and municipalities. Its waters are part of the Guimaras Strait in the north and the Panay Gulf in the south. This research aimed to assess marine mammal diversity in these coastal wetlands. Marine mammal species here were documented through strandings, interview surveys, and boat surveys. Ten species of marine mammals, including the dugong (Dugong dugon), have stranded in the NOCWCA for the past ten years. Three species were encountered in the boat surveys: Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus), Long-snouted spinner dolphin (Stenella longirostris longirostris), and Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris). All species were encountered in close proximity to fishing boats, indicating possible interactions. The presence of these marine mammals here highlights the importance of these areas as essential habitats.

Form-Based Regulations to Prevent the Loss of Urbanity of Historic Small Towns: Replicability of the Monte Carasso Case

Small towns are a significant component of the landscape in Europe and a key element of its cultural heritage. Currently, they face socio-economic crisis and spatial disintegration. Against this background, the spatial transformation of the Swiss town of Monte Carasso is of particular interest. It was initiated in the 1970s as a design intervention made by the architect Luigi Snozzi and eventually constituted a local spatial policy with a scope to maintain or even restore town urbanity and identity. This paper describes the case through its decomposition into primal elements such as context, main procedure elements, supplementary action, and obtained results. The results were measured by calculating urban parameters and observations compared with the adjacent town of Sementina, whereby they proved that the policy is effective. In the next step, a synthetic diagram was proposed that describes the interrelation between specific elements of the procedure. It was then modified to serve as a model for other possible contexts. Finally, its main potentials and limitations were described. It was concluded that the construction of the Monte Carasso urban regulatory mechanism has the potential to be replicated elsewhere. However, some of its features need to be rethought—mainly the role of an individual architect, which was highly exposed in the original case.

The “Four Nations of Indians Upon the Susquehanna”: Mid-Atlantic Murder, Diplomacy, and Political Identity, 1717–1723

Abstract In the wake of the first murder of an Indian by two Pennsylvania colonists in 1722, the Delaware (Lenape), Shawnee, Conoy (Piscataway), and Conestoga (Susquehannock/Mingo) Indians engineered a confederated diplomatic and political identity to defend their homeland. They styled themselves the “Four Nations of Indians upon the Susquehanna” to counteract the “Covenant Chain” devised by the Iroquois and colonial governments. Anthropologists have identified “ethno-genesis” wherein peoples from multiple Indian cultures wracked by epidemics intertwined to form wholly new cultures and nations. This, however, is a story of “politico-genesis.” These four nations retained their individual languages and governing structures while living in multinational or adjacent towns and joined together to present a single diplomatic voice to the English government and the Iroquois League who sought to control them. This was an early and significant attempt at political and diplomatic confederation that Indian peoples would employ in centuries to follow.

Long-term impact of coal mine fire smoke on lung mechanics in exposed adults.

In 2014, a 6-week-long fire at the Hazelwood coal mine exposed residents in the adjacent town of Morwell to high concentrations of fine particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter < 2.5μm (PM2.5 ). The long-term health consequences are being evaluated as part of the Hazelwood Health Study. Approximately 3.5-4 years after the mine fire, adults from Morwell (n=346) and the comparison town Sale (n=173) participated in the longitudinal Respiratory Stream of the Study. Individual PM2.5 exposure was retrospectively modelled. Lung mechanics were assessed using the forced oscillation technique (FOT), utilizing pressure waves to measure respiratory system resistance (Rrs) and reactance (Xrs). Multivariate linear regression was used to evaluate associations between PM2.5 and transformed Rrs at 5Hz, area under the reactance curve (AX5) and Xrs at 5Hz controlling for key confounders. There were clear dose-response relationships between increasing mine fire PM2.5 and worsening lung mechanics, including a reduction in post-bronchodilator (BD) Xrs5 and an increase in AX5. A 10μg/m3 increase in mine fire-related PM2.5 was associated with a 0.015 (95% CI: 0.004, 0.027) reduction in exponential (Xrs5) post-BD, which was comparable to 4.7 years of ageing. Similarly, the effect of exposure was associated with a 0.072 (0.005, 0.138) increase in natural log (lnAX5) post-BD, equivalent to 3.9 years of ageing. This is the first study using FOT in adults evaluating long-term respiratory outcomes after medium-term ambient PM2.5 exposure to coal mine fire smoke. These results should inform public health policies and planning for future events.

Characterization of 56 airborne persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in gas-phase and particle-phase

A systematic investigation was conducted on 56 persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the atmosphere at seven functional regions of Jinan, China. The POPs included 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), 6 phthalic acid esters (PAEs), 17 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and 17 organochlorine pesticides (OCPs). The concentrations in gas-phase and particle-phase were monitored and analyzed to assess the contamination status and to identify the pollution sources according to the mass ratios between POP congeners and the distribution among the sampling regions and periods. The results show that the pollution level at a recreational area was lower than that in other regions of the city and it was higher in winter than in summer for all the 7 sampling sites. Sixteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were evenly distributed between gas-phase and particle-phase. The total concentration of phthalic acid esters (∑PAEs) in particle-phase was 96.4% larger than that in gas-phase, which was possibly derived from artificial plastics. PCB-126 was one of the major pollutants of the 17 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the atmosphere. High-Cl PCBs favored adhering to airborne particles, while low-Cl PCBs tended to stay in gas-phase. The total concentration of 17 organochlorine pesticides (∑OCPs) in gas-phase accounted for 68.0%, while methoxychlor, dieldrin, and endrin aldehyde preferred to particle-phase. Additionally, the preliminary investigation suggests that local pollution sources contributed to most PAHs in urban sites, while the sources could be complex for the suburban area and adjacent towns in winter. Residues of some OCPs could also come from long-distance transportation.