Positive Legacy Research Articles

A Leg(acy) to stand on? A non-host resident perspective of the London 2012 Olympic legacies

This study extended the temporal and spatial evaluation of mega-event impacts, by investigating residents' perceptions of the Olympic legacies from a non-host community perspective. The study site was the Borough of Weymouth and Portland in South West England, which hosted the sailing competitions of the 2012 Olympic Games. Cross-sectional data were collected at two post-event intervals in 2013 and 2016. Across the two stages, the overall perceived legacies improved, with the most significant change related to perceived economic legacies and community legacies at the national level. Since residents’ attitudes toward the 2012 Olympic Games influenced their support for future event hosting, a strategic approach to event planning and leveraging is important to engender positive legacies that benefit broader communities than the host city. Future studies are recommended which replicate and extend this research to more fully understand resident support for mega-events.

Sustainability in Mega-Events: Beyond Qatar 2022

Hosting a mega-event such as the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup is a defining moment for Qatar, a country that is in transition, small in size and population, and rich in natural gas reserves. It is a unique opportunity to host a universal event and leave a sustainable positive legacy for the country. However, the preparation, execution, and after-effects of such events are challenging initiatives with significant long-term impacts on the economy, society, and environment in the hosting country and nearby region. This study addresses the intersection between mega sports events and sustainability, to systematically compare and learn from past mega-events and apply that to the case of the Qatar 2022 World Cup. The Qatari bid proposed a new FIFA Men’s World Cup (WC) spatial compact model around just one city area and the goal of achieving the first carbon-neutral WC. Herein, the challenges, opportunities, and progress in this scenario are evaluated accordingly, showing that local organizers are applying green technologies, urban development concepts, and strongly upholding the idea of legacies based on the Qatar National Vision 2030, which envisions sustainable development of the country. However, additional work is still needed to reduce environmental impacts and on several reported social issues.

Tangled Cultural History of the Axial Age

Jan Assmann’s Achsenzeit is the most thorough presentation of thinkers who reflected on the Axial Age available today. Although the label ‘Axial Age’ was coined by Karl Jaspers in 1946, other scholars had touched upon the issue as early as 1771. From the beginning, socio-historical analyses rested on a presentist framework according to which the Axial Age was interpreted as a positive historical legacy that could be exploited to make up for the deficiencies of the present. Achsenzeit excels in the discussions covering the time span from Anquetil-Duperron to Vögelin (1975), but it disappoints in relation to current debates. Unfortunately, Assmann’s book ignores contemporary gene-culture co-evolutionary perspectives, as well as current research which argues for the convergent evolution of axial-age societies based on increased affluence, enhanced urbanization processes, and higher population density. These criticisms aside, the book is indispensable for the necessary knowledge of the pre-2000s discussion on the topic, and it is a highly pleasurable read.

Regime legitimation, not nation-building: Media commemoration of the 1917 revolutions in Russia’s neo-authoritarian state

Scholars predicted that official Russian commemorations of the centenary of the 1917 revolutions would prioritise ‘reconciliation and accord’ between pro- and anti-communists. Such a frame might help construct a new post-Soviet Russian identity. Yet, in 2017, state-affiliated political and media actors gave accounts that contrasted with their previous narratives and with each other. Domestic state-aligned media were unprecedentedly negative about the revolutions’ events and enduring legacies, while Russia’s international broadcaster, Russia Today, emphasised the revolutions’ positive international legacies. We explain this paradox by arguing that regimes of commemoration are directly related to political systems: in neo-authoritarian regimes such as contemporary Russia, history is not used primarily for nation-building, but to build legitimacy for the ruling regime. Referencing similar practices in other neo-authoritarian regimes, we show how state-affiliated actors selectively co-opt interpretations of historical events that circulate in the global media ecology, to ‘arrest’ the ‘memory of the multitude’. Simultaneously, they reinforce core messages that legitimise the existing government.

Investigation of the impact of roof configurations on the wind and thermal environment in football stadiums in hot climates

The present study provides an analysis of existing literature encompassing the wind and thermal analysis of football stadia, and how both can be manipulated through the modification of roof geometry. It introduces the potential for cooling strategies to create an internal environment capable of hosting elite-level international football in a hot climate. The motivation for the study stems from an absence of existing literature focussing on thermal flow in hot conditions for stadia and the requirement to investigate the hosting capabilities of Qatar for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Stadium design plays a crucial role in determining the success of the tournament not only through the month-long event, but also with the legacy it leaves afterwards. To carry out the analysis, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted in an effort to produce internal conditions that satisfy official FIFA guidelines on optimal playing conditions in terms of wind and temperature distribution. These are ran on a model validated against existing literature to ensure accuracy, but considering the potential for error between model generations. The conclusions drawn suggest that a downward-pitched, large-radius retractable roof subsidised by the introduction of a mechanical system to create a cooling strategy reduces the external temperature down to 23 °C, with wind velocities not exceeding 4 m/s. Reinforced by results, these desired playing conditions can be achieved by closing the roof to precondition the stadium before an event, with the roof then retracted to ensure compliance with FIFA guidelines. The results from the present study can be a component in achieving a sustained positive legacy for the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

REHABILITATION OF HISTORICAL UNDERGROUND MINE WORKINGS—A PHASED APPROACH

INTRODUCTION Rehabilitation is essential in legacy mines as mine hazards do not improve with time; they will always get worse. Most hazard mitigation techniques address immediate risk but do nothing to actually fix the problem. The current impetus is to move away from simply identifying and managing risks and towards long-term solutions that eliminate the hazards in a planned way. This article will describe a proven approach to identify and eliminate hazards in such a way as to preserve the positive legacy of mining while eliminating issues that affect the environment and communities in proximity to legacy mine sites.

Applying the Aboveground-Belowground Interaction Concept in Agriculture: Spatio-Temporal Scales Matter

Interactions between aboveground and belowground organisms are important drivers of plant growth and performance in natural ecosystems. Making practical use of such above-belowground biotic interactions offers important opportunities for enhancing the sustainability of agriculture, as it could favor crop growth, nutrient supply, and defense against biotic and abiotic stresses. However, the operation of above-and belowground organisms at different spatial and temporal scales provides important challenges for application in agriculture. Aboveground organisms, such as herbivores and pollinators, operate at spatial scales that exceed individual fields and are highly variable in abundance within growing seasons. In contrast, pathogenic, symbiotic, and decomposer soil biota operate at more localized spatial scales from individual plants to patches of square meters, however, they generate legacy effects on plant performance that may last from single to multiple years. The challenge is to promote pollinators and suppress pests at the landscape and field scale, while creating positive legacy effects of local plant-soil interactions for next generations of plants. Here, we explore the possibilities to improve utilization of above-belowground interactions in agro-ecosystems by considering spatio-temporal scales at which aboveground and belowground organisms operate. We identified that successful integration of above-belowground biotic interactions initially requires developing crop rotations and intercropping systems that create positive local soil legacy effects for neighboring as well subsequent crops. These configurations may then be used as building blocks to design landscapes that accommodate beneficial aboveground communities with respect to their required resources. For successful adoption of above-belowground interactions in agriculture there is a need for context-specific solutions, as well as sound socio-economic embedding.

Narratives of Generativity and Resilience among LGBT Older Adults: Leaving Positive Legacies despite Social Stigma and Collective Trauma

ABSTRACT The aim of many adults in middle to old age is to be generative. Generativity is the concern older adults direct toward the wellbeing of future generations. Being generative results in positive well-being during later life and is especially important to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) older adults who have experienced lifelong discrimination. In this study, we identified stigmatizing social influences that both negatively and positively acted to inform understandings of generativity and the ability to leave a legacy for future generations. Using a narrative analysis methodology, we identified three overarching redemptive narratives from study participants: (1) experiences during the HIV/AIDS pandemic, (2) absence of positive role models, and (3) religious conviction. These life story narratives inform how generative contributions can contribute toward a legacy of resilience, despite social stigma and collective trauma.

Economic Impact of Mega Sporting Events on Host Country

Mega sporting events such as Summer Olympic Games and World Cup have mass popular appeal and international significance. However, there are academic controversies over whether these events could have a measurable and long-lasting contribution to the host country. This paper will empirically measure the direction and magnitude of the effect of hosting such events, by utilizing a panel data set consisting of 132 countries over 1960-2016. We also incorporated qualitative economic indexes indicating the macroeconomic, regulatory and legal environment of the host countries into the model to figure out certain features which can help generate a more favorable economic outcome. The results show that Summer Olympic Games is the only mega events that exert an overall positive influence on the economy, and those countries with weak economic fundamentals significantly benefit from hosting mega sporting, while high-quality regulatory and legal environment is essential to preserve the positive legacy effect of the events.

Avoiding the white elephants

The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games presented the host city with a number of opportunities to improve its infrastructure and sporting facilities in line with its long-term strategic vision to transition to being a more mature and sustainable Australian city. However, major events such as the Commonwealth Games have a chequered history of bestowing lasting benefits and a positive legacy on the host city. This article examines the ways in which infrastructure planning for the 2018 Games was used to underpin the success experienced by the Gold Coast in harnessing the event to achieve broader city building objectives. It also reflects critically on how major event-led development can be used to support existing strategic city plans.

Enhanced growth after extreme wetness compensates for post-drought carbon loss in dry forests

While many studies have reported that drought events have substantial negative legacy effects on forest growth, it remains unclear whether wetness events conversely have positive growth legacy effects. Here, we report pervasive and substantial growth enhancement after extreme wetness by examining tree radial growth at 1929 forest sites, satellite-derived vegetation greenness, and land surface model simulations. Enhanced growth after extreme wetness lasts for 1 to 5 years and compensates for 93 ± 8% of the growth deficit after extreme drought across global water-limited regions. Remarkable wetness-enhanced growths are observed in dry forests and gymnosperms, whereas the enhanced growths after extreme wetness are much smaller in wet forests and angiosperms. Limited or no enhanced growths are simulated by the land surface models after extreme wetness. These findings provide new evidence for improving climate-vegetation models to include the legacy effects of both drought and wet climate extremes.

Rinderpest eradication from India: Impact on agriculture sector

Rinderpest with its devastating history on the livestock (LS) sector has a positive legacy in the creation of first veterinary school in Lyon, Paris, in 1762 and Indian Civil Veterinary Services in 1891. Rinderpest was also instrumental for the establishment of the Office International des Epizooties (OIE): The World Organization for Animal Health in 1924 in Paris. The research on rinderpest in India started with the establishment of Imperial Bacteriological Laboratory (IBL) at Mukteswar in 1893, now known as Indian Veterinary Research Institute. The disease caused serious destruction of large ruminants (cattle and buffaloes), small ruminants (sheep and goats) and pigs, adversely affecting LS production and cattle/buffalo-driven agricultural operations in Indian villages affecting crop production besides causing colossal losses to milk and meat production. In India, rinderpest was endemic from 1900 to 1950, and in its classical form, the disease caused 80–90% mortality among cattle and buffaloes. The new era in the fight to control rinderpest in India started with the development of attenuated goat tissue rinderpest virus vaccine in 1920 by J.T. Edwards, which protected animals from rinderpest for whole of their life. This vaccine was used universally to combat rinderpest in Asian, African and European countries. Subsequently, lapinised, avianised, lapinised-avianised viruses and rinderpest tissue culture vaccines were developed for usage, but it was rinderpest tissue culture vaccine that successfully replaced goat tissue rinderpest vaccine.

Negotiating across Legal and Cultural Borders: Aífe, Daughter of Diarmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster, and Marriage, Motherhood and Widowhood in Twelfth-century Ireland and England

This article offers a sympathetic appraisal of the career of Donnchad mac Briain, an overlooked eleventh-century king of Munster. In addition, it is argued that his association with the Crown of Ireland and position as a genuine and supposed ancestor of various Gaelic and Anglo-Irish families (as portrayed in bardic poetry and genealogies) suggests that he possessed a positive legacy during the medieval and early modern periods.

London’s local Olympic legacy

PurposeLondon’s Candidature bid projected an irresistible legacy of lasting benefits for host communities and small businesses. Yet, local post-Games perspectives paint a contrasted picture – one of becoming displaced. This paper aims to draw on event legacy, specifically in relation to rising rents, threats to small business sustainability and impact on place development by empirically examining London’s local embryonic legacies forming across one ex-hosting Olympic community: Central Greenwich.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 43 interviews with local businesses (specifically, small retailers and hospitality businesses), local authorities, London-centric and national project actors and policymakers underpin analysis, supported by official London 2012 archival, documentary and media reports, were conducted to add texture and triangulate primary and secondary data sources.FindingsJuxtaposing ex ante projections vs emerging ex post realities, this paper reveals a local legacy of small business failure fuelled by rising commercial rents and a wider indifference for protecting diverse urban high streets. Embroiled in a struggle to survive, and barely recognised as a key stakeholder and contributor to legacy, small businesses have and continue to become succeeded by a new business demographic in town: monochromatic global and national chains. Typifying the pervasive shift toward clone town spaces, this article argues that corporate colonisation displaces independent businesses, serves to homogenise town centres, dilute place-based cultural offer and simultaneously stunts access to a positive local development legacy. This paper argues that such processes lead to the production of urban blandscapes that may hamper destination competitiveness.Originality/valueExamining event legacy, specifically local legacies forming across ex-host Olympic communities, is a latent, under-researched but vital and critical aspect of scholarship. Most event legacy analysis focuses on longer-term issues for residents, yet little research focuses on both local placed-based development challenges and small business sustainability and survival post-Games. More specifically, little research examines the potential relationship between event-led gentrification, associated rising rents and aforementioned clone town problematic. Revealing and amplifying the idiosyncratic local challenges generated through an in-depth empirically driven triangulation of key local business, policy, governmental and non-governmental perspectives, is a central contribution of this article missing from extant literatures. This paper considers different ways those responsible for event legacy, place managers and developers can combat such aforementioned post-Games challenges.

Our Legacy Needs To Be Better

In this short essay, I analyze a poem and performance that I wrote as a part of the Opening Session for the 2017 National Communication Association annual convention. In the poem, which is a response to and inspired by Ed Mabrey's “The Libretto of the Opera: Death of a Black Boy,” I take us through a day on social media and the news cycle after a Black boy has been murdered by police officers. The poem illuminates dangerous social media responses centered in whiteness post-Black death in the United States. In the essay, I explicate my process for writing this performance—centering the need for reflexivity instead of white guilt so that white people can do clearly antiracist work. I end by focusing on academia's potential for leaving a stronger and more positive legacy.

Reflections on a project to prevent suicide and self-harm among prisoners identified as high risk in two prisons in Northern England

BackgroundThis article critically explores the implementation and evaluation of a project designed, delivered and evaluated by frontline staff to improve prison responses to prisoner suicide and self-harm. We begin by evidencing the need for the project and detail its content, delivery and attempts at evaluation. We draw on the reflections of the three practitioners most closely involved in its development, delivery and review in order to explore lessons learned for future staff-led projects including those aimed at tackling prison suicide and self-harm.ResultsFindings from staff reflections suggest that the development, implementation and evaluation of the project were influenced by a combination of issues around: project focus, communication and professional relationships, the institutional environment, funding and time, roll-out and evaluation, and the need for a ‘champion’ role.ConclusionsThere is limited evidence that the project left a modest positive legacy in terms of impact. A more substantial legacy of the project is provided in terms of actionable learning points for future projects of this nature.

Effect of interannual precipitation variability on dryland productivity: A global synthesis.

Climate-change assessments project increasing precipitation variability through increased frequency of extreme events. However, the effects of interannual precipitation variance per se on ecosystem functioning have been largely understudied. Here, we report on the effects of interannual precipitation variability on the primary production of global drylands, which include deserts, steppes, shrublands, grasslands, and prairies and cover about 40% of the terrestrial earth surface. We used a global database that has 43 datasets, which are uniformly distributed in parameter space and each has at least 10years of data. We found (a) that at the global scale, precipitation variability has a negative effect on aboveground net primary production. (b) Expected increases in interannual precipitation variability for the year 2,100 may result in a decrease of up to 12% of the global terrestrial carbon sink. (c) The effect of precipitation interannual variability on dryland productivity changes from positive to negative along a precipitation gradient. Arid sites with mean precipitation under 300mm/year responded positively to increases in precipitation variability, whereas sites with mean precipitation over 300mm/year responded negatively. We propose three complementary mechanisms to explain this result: (a) concave-up and concave-down precipitation-production relationships in arid vs. humid systems, (b) shift in the distribution of water in the soil profile, and (c) altered frequency of positive and negative legacies. Our results demonstrated that enhanced precipitation variability will have direct impacts on global drylands that can potentially affect the future terrestrial carbon sink.

Ethnic Capital and Sub-national Development: Armenian and Greek Legacy in Post-expulsion Turkey

Does historical exposure to highly-skilled populations lead to path-dependence in regional development? To answer this question, we study the long-term economic legacy of Armenians and Greeks of the Ottoman Empire using their mass expulsions from Anatolia as a unique natural experiment of history. Since these consecutive events led to a complete and permanent removal of both communities from Turkey within a short time period, our analysis can rule out any contemporaneous minority influence on development. Results on the sample of Turkish districts suggest that historical Armenian and Greek presence left a positive long-term legacy on contemporary population density, urbanization, and economic activity. We also exploit within-district variation across 49,000 villages and neighborhoods to document a highly localized minority influence. Those localities in close proximity to Armenian and Greek community buildings are more prosperous today than their otherwise similar counterparts. An important mechanism of persistence is the minority legacy on local human capital accumulation among Muslims. In the past, Muslims in historically high-minority areas had greater levels of human capital than Muslims in low-minority areas; and this difference persists to date.

The influence of climatic legacies on the distribution of dryland biocrust communities.

Predicting the distribution of biocrust species, mosses, lichens and liverworts associated with surface soils is difficult, but climatic legacies (changes in climate over the last 20k years) can improve our prediction of the distribution of biocrust species. To provide empirical support for this hypothesis, we used a combination of network analyses and structural equation modelling to identify the role of climatic legacies in predicting the distribution of ecological clusters formed by species of mosses, lichens and liverworts using data from 282 large sites distributed across 0.6 million km2 of eastern Australia. Two ecological clusters contained 87% of the 120 moss, lichen and liverwort species. Both clusters contained lichen, moss and liverwort species, but were dominated by different families. Sites where the air temperature increased the most over 20kyears (positive temperature legacies) were associated with reductions in the relative abundance of species from the lichen (Peltulaceae and Teloschistaceae) and moss (Bryaceae) families (Cluster A species), greater groundstorey plant cover and lower soil pH. Sites where precipitation has increased over the past 20kyears (positive precipitation legacy) were associated with increases in the relative abundance of lichen (Cladoniaceae, Lecideaceae and Thelotremataceae) and moss (Pottiaceae) families (Cluster B species) and lower levels of soil pH. Sites where temperatures have increased the most in the past 20kyears suppressed the negative effects of plant cover on Cluster B by reducing plant cover. Increased intensity of grazing suppressed the negative effect of soil pH and the positive effect of soil carbon, on the relative abundance of Cluster B taxa. Finally, increasing temperature and precipitation legacies reduced the negative effect of soil pH on Cluster B. Understanding of the importance of climatic legacies improves our ability to predict how biocrust assemblies might respond to ongoing global environmental change associated with increasing land use intensification, increasing temperature and reduced rainfall.

The role of corporates in creating sustainable Olympic legacies

The Olympic Games is a major stimulus for increased tourism. In recent years, there have been greater calls for this and other mega-events to leave sustainable positive legacies for the host city, partly to offset the massive cost of hosting. To date, little consideration has been afforded to the role corporates might play in contributing to event legacies. This gap is compounded by the lack of research examining stakeholder engagement in legacy planning more generally. This paper adopts Holmes, Hughes, Mair and Carlsen’s (2015) sustainable event legacy timeline to conceptualise how corporates through the corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives of sponsorship and employee volunteering can engage across the Olympic event planning cycle to generate volunteering legacies. Drawing upon a comparative study of the Sydney 2000 and London 2012 Olympic Games, tentative evidence of corporate engagement was noted but for the most part it was fragmented and CSR initiatives primarily focused on the immediate planning and delivery stages of the event cycle. The paper advances new knowledge of how volunteering legacies can be generated through the best practice engagement of corporates as key stakeholders involved in legacy planning and governance across the Olympic planning cycle.