Land Regime Research Articles

Lands of identity and lands of conflict: riverine social movement and land tenure regularization in the islands and floodplains of Abaetetuba / PA

Taking as a reference a case study of two policies of land tenure regularization aimed at the riverine inhabitants of the municipality of Abaetetuba, this article deals with its general functional aspects and deadlocks toward its full implementation. Fieldwork for the collection of information through interviews with leaders, public managers and riverine peoples, was added to a bibliographical review on the group, land tenure policies and social movements in the Amazon. At the same time, the main legal mechanisms associated with the different land regimes and those that supported the implementation of land tenure policies were analyzed, arguing that the challenges of land tenure regularization and occupation of our case study site are closely linked with historical and politicalaspects related to the management of public lands.

The Legal Regime of Lands of Air Transport of the Russian Federation and Member States of the Eurasian Economic Union

The Legal Regime of Lands of Air Transport of the Russian Federation and Member States of the Eurasian Economic Union

Coalescence of Cluster Beam Generated Sub‐2 nm Bare Au Nanoparticles and Analysis of Au Film Growth Parameters

AbstractIn this work is presented the growth model for Au films grown on a carbon substrate at room temperature by using as building blocks Au nanoparticles (NPs) with 1.4 nm mean size generated via remote cluster beam synthesis and soft landing on the substrate. The key results highlighted in this work are that 1) the deposited nanoparticles coalesce at substrate level in such a way that the film growth is 3D, 2) newly formed nanoparticles at substrate level are predominantly magic number clusters and 3) coalescensce takes place as soon as two neighboring nanopartciles come closer than a critical distance. The film growth was investigated by TEM as a function of Au load, in the range 0–1.2 μg/cm2. Two distinct regimes are identified: the “landing regime” and the “coalescence regime”. During the latter the film growth is 3D with a dynamic scaling exponent z of 2.13. Particular attention was devoted to the study of the evolution of the NP population from the moment they are generated with the cluster beam generator to the moment they land on the substrate and coalesce with other NPs. Our results show that 1) the NPs generated by the cluster beam are heterogeneous in size and are made by more than 95% by Au Magic numbers, mainly Au20 and Au55 and 2) kinetic processes (coalescence) at substrate level is capable of producing NPs populations made of larger Au magic numbers containing up to several thousands of Au atoms. Experimental and simulation results provide insight into the coalescence mechanism and provide strong evidence that the NPs coalesce when the nearest neighbor distance is below a critical mark. The critical distance is at its minimum 0.4‐0.5 nm and it is still unclear whether it is constant or not although the best matching simulation results seem to point to a superlinear dependence from the NP size difference between two neighboring candidate coalescing NPs. The coalescence phenomenon investigated in this work pinpoints the unique self‐organization properties of these small Au NPs in creating films with a stable edge‐to‐edge mean nearest neighbor distance of the order of 1.4 nm.

Pastoralists' Vulnerability to Trypanosomiasis in Maasai Steppe.

Trypanosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease of both livestock and humans. Although pastoral communities of the Maasai Steppe have been able to adapt to trypanosomiasis in the past, their traditional strategies are now constrained by changes in climate and land regimes that affect their ability to move with their herds and continually shape the communities' vulnerability to trypanosomiasis. Despite these constraints, information on communities' vulnerability and adaptive capacity to trypanosomiasis is limited. A cross-sectional study was therefore conducted in Simanjiro and Monduli districts of the Maasai Steppe to establish pastoralists' vulnerability to animal trypanosomiasis and factors that determined their adaptation strategies. A weighted overlay approach in ArcGIS 10.4 was used to analyze vulnerability levels while binomial and multinomial logistic regressions in R 3.3.2 were used to analyze the determinants of adaptation. Simanjiro district was the most vulnerable to trypanosomiasis. The majority (87.5%, n=136) of the respondents were aware of trypanosomiasis in animals, but only 7.4% (n=136) knew about the human form of the disease. Reported impacts of animal trypanosomiasis were low milk production (95.6%, n=136), death of livestock (96.8%, n=136) and emaciation of animals (99.9%, n=136). Crop farming was the most frequently reported animal trypanosomiasis adaptation strategy (66%, n=136). At a 95% confidence interval, accessibility to livestock extension services (β=7.61, SE=3.28, df=135, P=0.02), years of livestock keeping experience (β=6.17, SE=1.95, df=135, P=0.001), number of cattle owned (β=5.85, SE=2.70, df=135, P=0.03) and membership in associations (β=-4.11, SE=1.79, df=135, P=0.02) had a significant impact on the probability of adapting to animal trypanosomiasis.

The influence of community-based resource management institutions on adaptation capacity: A large-n study of farmer responses to climate and global market disturbances

Abstract An underlying understanding among adaptation and community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) scholars is the existence of important feedbacks between local resource management institutions and individual adaptive capacity. The relationship between CBNRM and individual adaptive capacity is of global concern given the ubiquity of CBNRM worldwide, the patent impacts of global changes at local levels, and the recent calls for the integration of climate and rural development policies. So far, however, there have not been formal, large-n studies of that relationship. This study aims to fill that gap by testing whether the performance of community-based water management institutions and communal land regimes have an impact on the effectiveness of farmers’ adaptation responses to climatic and global market disturbances. For this purpose, the study relies on a unique dataset of individual and collective features obtained from water user associations (WUAs) and ejidos in Mexico. According to the regression results, well-functioning community-based water management institutions have a positive and significant impact on individual farmers’ self-reported response effectiveness. The impact of communal land property is also significant but negative. These effects, which hold only in the context of climate disturbances but not market disturbances, can be explained by looking at the support given by the associations to farmers, and issues of communal land marginalization, respectively. Policies that strengthen the autonomy and capacity for cooperation of WUAs and ameliorate structural deficits in communal land regimes shall not only guarantee a long-advocated path for rural development but also help farmers deal with some of the climatic uncertainties that increasingly threaten agriculture.

A World-Systems Frontier Perspective to Land: Exploring the Uneven Trajectory of Land Rights Standardization in the Andes

This paper proposes a world-systems frontier perspective by approaching frontiers and frontier zones as analytical tools in indicating and understanding the uneven local-global interactions underlying world-systemic incorporation processes. It argues that the notion of frontier can highlight the role of ‘peripheral agency’ in local-global interactions, revealing incorporation as a negotiated process. Based on research on the implementation and contestation of land reforms in Andean peasant communities, this paper applies a world-systems frontier framework to the analysis of historical processes of land rights commodification. An assessment of the formation and reorganization of a centralized land regime in Bolivia over the last five centuries demonstrates how this trajectory was shaped by the interplay of the modernizing aspirations of public authorities and strong communal land claims. This complex (re)negotiation over rights and resources drives the creation and movement of (new) frontiers of land control, materializing in an uneven trajectory of land commodification. The presented frontier perspective is instructive to questions on the expansion, the limits and the contradictions of the capitalist world.

Land Regime Choice in Close-Knit Communities: The Case of the First Nations Land Management Act

Land interests on Canadian First Nations reserves have long been governed by the rigid and paternalistic provisions of the federal Indian Act, which require the permission of the federal Minister of Indigenous Affairs for even relatively minor land transactions. Yet an increasing number of First Nations have taken advantage of the 1999 First Nations Land Management Act (FNLMA), which allows First Nations to adopt a custom land code that replaces most of the reserve land provisions of the Indian Act in their community. This paper seeks to examine how First Nation communities have chosen to exercise their powers under this Act to define and regulate land interests on reserve. Working from a database of 33 FNLMA land codes, the authors focus on three discrete issues on which the codes differ: 1) whether to require a vote of the community as a whole for the grant of a lease in community-held lands to a non-member; 2) whether to require the approval of the band council for the transfer of a leasehold interest to a non-member; and 3) whether to require the approval of the band council for the inter vivos transfer of a member-held interest to another member. Each of these issues relates to the contentious question of how freely alienable land interests in indigenous communities should be, a matter that occupies a kind of ideological fault line involving considerations of economic efficiency and individual autonomy, on the one hand, and community cohesion and traditional culture, on the other. The authors make a number of observations relating to the links between the characteristics of communities and their choice of land regime. First Nations with substantial non-indigenous populations living on reserve were more likely to adopt rules allowing free alienation of leasehold interests, as well as free alienation of member interests among members. In addition, First Nations that adopted liberal rules for the transfer of interests among members experienced larger increases in the proportion of their members living off-reserve in the years following the adoption of their code. This may indicate that liberal transfer rules among members help to facilitate exit from the community.

Land Regime Choice in Close-Knit Communities: The Case of the First Nations Land Management Act

Land Regime Choice in Close-Knit Communities: The Case of the First Nations Land Management Act

Beyond the market? New agrarianism and cooperative farmland access in North America

As land and wealth are increasingly concentrated in North America, grassroots organizations are calling into question longstanding norms about the relationships between private property, sustainable agriculture, land governance institutions, and ongoing processes of agrarian transformation. In response to challenges faced by new entrants to agriculture in accessing farmland oriented towards localized and alternative food systems, advocates for farmland protection and cooperative land access point to the potential for community-based land reform to support sustainable land use while promoting social and political equity – areas where they argue an economic system based on individual ownership of farmland has failed. Based on the principles of “new agrarianism,” community-based farmland access initiatives are experimenting with new forms and practices of cooperative and shared land tenure, as an alternative to a state-led model of redistributive land reform based on individual property rights. We analyze here the results of a participatory research project conducted with a cooperative and community-based land trust and land access program in British Columbia, Canada. We assess the efficacy of the community farms program as a potential mechanism to spark a new phase of agrarian transition that can reverse farmland consolidation and support socially and ecologically embedded land relations, as a structural context for food sovereignty in North America. Specifically, we argue that the community foodlands trust movement can be viewed an insurgent – but fundamentally constrained – “people's enclosure” within a corporate land regime.

The reflection of the Israeli ‘incorporation regime’ in the land allocation institution in Israel's urban area, 1950–1960

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the Israeli land regime as reflected in the land allocation activities of the Development Authority (DA) in urban areas between 1950 and 1960, and particularly on how allocation of space influenced the development of a social stratum during this nation-building period. The analytical lens applies two concepts to the empirical data on DA activities during this period: ‘incorporation regime’ and ‘citizen discourse’. The outcome is an understanding of the ‘rules of the game’ supporting selective access to land allocations in given areas. Accessibility was aimed at distinct Jewish groups – wealthy, connected/networked, and veteran citizens, in line with the republican discourse in Israel at the time. The findings provide a deeper understanding of connections among institutional mechanisms, citizenship discourse and land allocation, and their expression both spatially and in terms of the fabric of life that developed within the social, political and land regime contexts.

СПЕЦИФІКА ПРАВОВОГО РЕЖИМУ ЗЕМЕЛЬ ПІД ОБ’ЄКТАМИ ГІДРОЕНЕРГЕТИКИ В УКРАЇНІ

In this article the author examines the peculiarities of the legal regime of lands under the hydro-energy objects. The author also analyzes the essence and the legal nature of hydroenergy objects and the legal regulation of hydroenergy land use, summarizes the problem of «secondary legal regime» of these lands. The author also reveals the specific nature of the legal regime of lands through the symbiosis of legislative provisions and thus consolidates the new specific legal regimes, which change the legal nature of the «subsidiary legal regime» to the «complex nature of the legal regime» or the Ukrainian hydro-energetic «quadrant» of the objects of legal regulation. The article presents the problem of legal ambiguity of the term of hydraulic engineering structures, which makes obstacles to the further determination of the content of the specificity of the legal regime of these engineering structures. The author focuses on the problems of legislative regulation, namely the Law of Ukraine «On Energy Land and Legal Regime of Special Zones of Energy Objects» and its strength to normative acts of the related legislation regulating the energy sphere of Ukraine. The author proposes to solve the above mentioned problems by means of inclusion to the legislative regulation of energy and water fund lands of a symbiosis clause between the energy and water objects in accordance with the environmental and protective requirements of environmental legislation and state control in this sphere. On the objects of alternative energy to create a separate section in the acts of the Ukrainian legislation, enshrining a special legal regime. Also to consolidate the conventional notion of hydraulic engineering structures and general and special regime of their regulation at the legislative level, using technical norms of engineering structures design and NBC as supplementary.

The contaminated land regime and austerity

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the remediation of contaminated land has been damaged, perhaps immeasurably, in a period of devastating and crushing austerity. Design/methodology/approach A legal doctrinal and regulatory analysis of the contaminated land regime under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) 1990 was used to investigate the extent to which austerity changes have affected future contaminated land identification and remediation. Findings Austerity changes have impacted upon Part 2A of the EPA 1990, the planning system and development incentives. The recent changes are going to contribute to the problem of the under-resourcing of local authorities and are likely to reduce voluntary remediation by developers. As a result, future contaminated land clean-up is going to decrease. Originality/value Originality/value is assured because, as far as the author is aware, there is no other literature in this research area dealing specifically with the coalition’s adverse impact on Part 2A; this paper fills the knowledge gap that existed in the research field.

The China model withering? Institutional roots of China’s local developmentalism

China’s new development wave since the mid-1990s is distinguishable by its strong urbanism. Urban governments, particularly at municipal and county levels, rushed to build industrial parks. Urban landscape was also fundamentally transformed by their massive investments in infrastructures – both residential and commercial properties. How to explain local governments’ continuing drive for development? Why has this particular policy combination gained traction among local officials? We approach these questions by making a simple assumption about local governments as revenue maximisers. Their desires for more revenues are constrained by two institutional changes. Vertically, the central government recentralised the fiscal system, leaving local governments in fiscal shortages. Liberalisation and regional competition in the late 1990s further exacerbated their revenue imperative. The land regime provided the final institutional link that enabled local officials to leverage urban infrastructure and real estate for industrial expansion. This study can shed some light on the ongoing debate about China’s development model in the urban literature.

Gender and household decision-making in a Lao Village: implications for livelihoods in hydropower development

Hydropower development with concomitant changes in water and land regimes often results in livelihood transformation of affected people, entailing changes in intra-household decision-making upon which livelihood strategies are based. Economic factors underlying gender dimensions of household decision-making have been studied rigorously since the 1970s. However, empirical data on gender and decision-making within households, needed for evidence-based action, remain scarce. This is more so in hydropower contexts. This article explores gender and livelihood-related decision-making within rural households in the context of hydropower development in Lao PDR. Based on a social well-being conceptual approach with data from a household survey and qualitative interviews, it focuses on household decisions in an ethnic minority resettlement site soon after displacement, from an interpretive perspective. The article, first, aims to assess the extent to which household decision-making is gendered and secondly, to understand the complex reasoning behind household decisions, especially the relevance of material, relational, and subjective factors. It argues that while most household decisions are ostensibly considered as ‘joint’ in the study site, the nuanced nature of gendered values, norms, practices, relations, attitudes, and feelings underlying these decisions are important to assessing why households might or might not adopt livelihood interventions proposed by hydropower developers.

When administrative reforms produce territorial differentiation. How market-oriented policies transform military brownfield reconversion in France (1989–2012)

The article explores the territorial dimension of the reforms that remould state administrations, which is overlooked by both public sector and territorial politics literatures. It is based on a fine-grained case study of how the emergence of an administrative reform aimed at strengthening market coordination in the management and sale of public real estate in France has affected previously existing forms of military real estate management that relied on central and local political bargaining. While existing literature argues that market-oriented administrative reforms tend to side-line political regulation, this reform entails a differentiation rather than a replacement of the operating codes of the state in territories. Indeed, policy change through layering causes the consolidation of different land regimes, a planning-oriented one and a market-oriented one, that apply differentially in territories and leave the local governments with uneven rooms of manoeuvre for political negotiation.

Working towards an integrated land contamination management framework for Nigeria

Over the past five decades, Nigeria has developed a number of contaminated land legislations to address the damage caused primarily by oil and gas exploitation activities. Within these legislations exists elements of risk assessment and risk-based corrective action. Despite this progress, we argue that contaminated land management approaches in Nigeria need further development to be able to integrate new scientific information, and to address environmental, economic, and social values. By comparison, advanced contaminated land regimes in the United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States of America (USA) apply a number of integrative approaches (e.g. sustainability appraisal, liability regime, funding mechanisms, technology demonstration) that enable them to meet the environmental, economic, and social needs of their populations. In comparison, Nigerian governance lacks many of these mechanisms and management of contaminated land is ad hoc. In this paper we propose an integrated risk assessment framework for Nigeria that incorporates the principles of sustainability and stakeholder engagement into the decision-making processes for contaminated land risk assessment and risk management. The integrated approach relies on transparency to promote acceptance and build trust in institutions, and uses stakeholder engagement to address data deficiencies. We conclude this paper with a roadmap for how Nigeria might implement such an integrative approach into their existing contaminated land regulatory system, as well as identify a series of policy priorities that should be addressed.

The Development Authority and the formative years of the Israeli land regime

The history of Israel’s land allocation regime is traced from its inception in the formative years (1948–60), focusing on distribution of urban land to private and business entities. Rich archival materials provide documentation regarding the Development Authority (DA), established in 1950, and its practices. The prohibition on selling “national lands,” zealously observed in Israel’s rural regions, was never closely adhered to in urban areas. The DA’s double role, as a major actor in land allocation as well as the institution representing the “rules of the game,” serves as a platform for a preliminary examination into institutional path dependency theories.

Aerodynamic Flow Characteristics of Utilizing Delta Wing Configurations in Supersonic and Subsonic Flight Regimes

Computational fluid dynamic tests are performed on delta wing models at different heights and speeds in order to achieve lift and drag coefficient values. Primarily, testing was done at supersonic speeds to reveal the advantages of these wing configurations at supersonic flight regimes at a cruise speed and altitude. The low speed characteristics are also examined, important for take-off and landing regimes where the distinctive vortices become prominent. Throughout the two flight conditions tested, a simple delta wing model (with a straight swept wing) is compared to a delta wing model that exhibited a ‘LERX’ (leading edge root extension). Provided literature describes how the performance of delta wings can be improved through this inclusion. Results obtained from the tests show that the model with the LERX has a small, but significant, performance improvement over the simple delta model, in respect to the maximum achievable lift coefficient and maximum stall angle. Lift to drag ratio is not improved however, due to the large vortices creating pressure drag. Generally, the delta wing models produce relatively small amounts of drag, and slightly less lower lift, when at low angles of attack. This is primarily due to the geometry of the models that have thin leading edges and also low thickness to chord ratios.

Definition and composition of the water fund lands of Ukraine

Problem statement. Today, the legal doctrine ofUkraine lacks a proper general analysis of the legal regime of the water resource inventory lands. The subject is especially relevant for revealing the nature of that category of lands and their effective utilization. In this respect, a need arises to research the legislation of Ukraine and scientific concepts as to legal regulation of the water resource inventory lands, the features, specificity and content of which is to be explored.The topical value of the research. The objective and goals of the research are to analyze the specific features of legal regulation of the water resource inventory lands, develop a doctrinal conception of the said land category, their main designated purpose, structure, and formulate a series of conclusions, which should be of both theoretical and practical significance.Recent research and publications analysis. Certain aspects of the problem have been considered in the works by such land law scholars as V. Аndreitsev, H. Аnisimova, О. Donets, А. Hetman, V. Hordieiev, І. Каrakash, P. Кulynych, А. Міroshnychenko, V. Nosik, О. Pohorielova, О. Pohribnyi, А. Sokolova, А Тurubyner, Yu. Shemshuchenko, М. Shulha, Yu. Vovk and other scientists.The aim of the article. The paper presents a theoretical generalization and provides a new solution to the scientific task of determining the features, specificity and content of the legal regime of the water resource inventory lands. With regard to the theoretical provisions presented in the paper, as well as a study of the modern scientific achievements, analysis of the national legislation ofUkraine and international experience in the field, a number of conclusions of theoretical and practical significance have been formulated.Conclusions of the research. Based on the analysis of the national laws relating to lands of the researched category and the legislation genesis, the author concludes as follows: continuous changes of the character of relations pertaining to use and protection of the water resource inventory lands have stipulated the introduction and development of the normative regulation of that kind of social relations in specific regulatory acts; elaboration of legislation relating to lands of the water resource inventory was incoherent and non-simultaneous; despite a sufficient number of normative and regulatory acts, adopted after approval of the Land Code in 2001, many issues concerning the use and protection of the water resource inventory lands remain unresolved, the legal regulation of relations pertaining to their use being applied at the level of bylaws, which does not comply with the call of today. In this connection, the legal regime of the water inventory lands is incomplete as for legal regulation sphere and thus requires improvement.

Monitoring of the droughts consequence by high resolution satellite images

The State of California is one of the least abundant with fresh water in the United States, while having high water consumption – the drought in the state has reached catastrophic proportions. January 2015 was the driest month in California for the whole period of observations since 1895. Two thirds of the state's population depend on the centralized water supply – about 25 million people and more than 400 thousand hectares of agricultural land. The level of ground waters and the snow cover have become record low – this can be explained by pumping groundwater out for irrigation of agricultural land. The water level in the reservoirs of California is close to the critical notch. State authorities are forced to tighten measures to save water, the supply of which is sometimes insufficient to satisfy the priority needs of citizens. The solution of the problem of rational use and protection of water resources can only be based on an integrated systemic approach to the study of spatial and temporal patterns of natural and anthropogenic factors on the quality and quantity of surface water with the use of satellite and ground data. In the study of the water regime of land one of the most important input parameters of hydrological models is the surface area of the reservoirs. Regular receiving of information about this parameter with the use of ground data is challenging and labor intensive. Using satellite data can greatly simplify this task and accomplish it with shorter latent periods, more frequently and at lower costs. The results of satellite monitoring of certain areas of California shown to assess the impact of the drought in 2011–2015 on the large freshwater bodies, based on high resolution satellite images. To quantify the effects of drought in 2011–2015 on selected large freshwater bodies (Lake Folsom and Lake Oroville) processing of multispectral images was performed. Changes of Lake Oroville in 2011–2015 according to high resolution satellite images was detected. The shift of the coastline near Foreman Creek amounted to 2.5 km. The shift of the coastline near Lampkin Road amounted to over 1.2 km. Changes of Lake Folsom in 2011–2015 according to the high resolution satellite images was detected. The shift of the coastline near the Beal's Point made 1.2 km. The shift of the coastline near Peninsula Campground made over 3.4 km. Large-scale consequences of drought shown for lakes Oroville and Folsom are also typical for other fresh water bodies of California, the majority of which have the status of water reservoirs, and also for water bodies of other US states. For instance, Lake Mead covering 90 % of water requirements of Las Vegas has the water level by 145 feet below normal. It is expected that this level will go down by another 20 feet by June, 2015. This is not only about water, but also about electricity supply – dams of hydropower plants are almost dry. Therefore, in the recent years an acute necessity has appeared for creation of a web-service for regular space monitoring of fresh water bodies – now this has become possible owing to availability of satellite images and modern technologies of their processing. The users of such a service may be: – state regulating structures (water supplying enterprises, forest, environment, agricultural services and so on); – state and private companies of water transport (unbiased evaluation of the consequences of the drought for fresh water navigation); – tourist companies (monitoring of recreational territories); – municipal services, private companies, farmers (carrying out measures for minimizing water consumption); – TV and radio companies and other mass media (propaganda of rational water use); – population living near territories affected by the drought (obtaining of unbiased and reliable information as for the scale and severity of the consequences of the drought).