Official reporting and newspaper coverage of road crashes: A case study

This paper describes a case study in Flanders–Belgium on the reporting rate of road crashes. Crash data from three sources were compared: official crash data, data retrieved from an insurance company and newspaper articles. A sample of 140 injury crashes with motorcyclists from an insurance company was used as the reference category. The purpose was to explore factors that contribute to the likelihood of crashes (not) to be reported in official statistics and newspapers. Logistic regression analyses and chi-square tests were used to reveal differences in reporting rate according to some variables. About 80% of the crashes with severe injuries were reported in the official statistics whereas the reporting rate for crashes with slightly injured was about 55%. Newspapers covered about 50% of crashes with severe injuries. The reporting rate in both official statistics and newspapers increased with the severity of the crash.     

Valuing Improvements in The Water Rights System in South Africa: A Contingent Ranking Approach1

Speelman, Stijn, Stefano Farolfi, Aymen Frija, and Guido Van Huylenbroeck, 2010. Valuing Improvements in the Water Rights System in South Africa: A Contingent Ranking Approach. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 46(6):1133–1144. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2010.00480.x Abstract: In the context of increasing water scarcity, understanding is growing that irrigation water rights are important and that a lack of an effective water rights system constitutes a major reason for inefficient water management. This study carried out a contingent ranking experiment to study how smallholder irrigators in South Africa would value potential changes in water rights. Three specific dimensions of water rights, relevant for the South African case, are considered: duration, quality of title, and transferability. Results indicate that smallholder irrigators are prepared to pay considerably higher water prices if improvements are made in the water rights system. This implies that the proposed interventions in the water rights system would improve the efficiency and productivity of the small-scale irrigation sector. The increased willingness to pay could furthermore also assist the South African government to reach the objective of increased cost recovery.     

On a Failed Defense of Factory Farming

Timothy Hsiao attempts to defend industrial animal farming by arguing that it is not inherently cruel. We raise three main objections to his defense. First, his argument rests on a misunderstanding of the nature of cruelty. Second, his conclusion, though technically true, is so weak as to be of virtually no moral significance or interest. Third, his contention that animals lack moral standing, and thus that mistreating them is wrong only insofar as it makes one more disposed to mistreat other humans, is untenable on both philosophical and biological grounds.     

Outbound offending: The journey to crime and crime sprees

Studies on crime and mobility primarily focus on local crime patterns. The city has long played an important role, whether analysing the offence or the offender. This paper goes beyond city boundaries and discusses ‘outbound offenders’, whose crime trips start in a city, but end outside. It is argued that a substantial proportion of crime trips follow this pattern, indicating that areas other than cities also provide interesting opportunities for property crime. We link outbound offending to a number of features that may explain crime travelling, including the target’s features and offender/offence features. We find that outbound offending mostly occurs towards affluent target regions and near motorways, as such confirming findings from previous research. We also find crime sprees to be indicative for mobile offending. Thus, mobile property offenders tend to compensate for travelled distances, not only by targeting affluent areas and using fast transportation means, but also by committing several successive offences, hereby reducing their relative transportation cost for each offence.     

Injury crashes with bicyclists at roundabouts: influence of some location characteristics and the design of cycle facilities

Problem

Previous research indicated that conversions of intersections into roundabouts appear to increase the number of injury crashes with bicyclists. However, it was assumed that the effectiveness of roundabouts could vary according to some differences in design types of cycle, facilities and other geometrical factors.

Method

Regression analyses on effectiveness-indices resulting from a before-and-after study of injury crashes with bicyclists at 90 roundabouts in Flanders, Belgium.

Results

Regarding all injury crashes with bicyclists, roundabouts with cycle lanes appear to perform significantly worse compared to three other design types (mixed traffic, separate cycle paths, and grade-separated cycle paths). Nevertheless, an increase of the severest crashes was noticed, regardless of the design type of the cycle facilities. Roundabouts that are replacing signal-controlled intersections seem to have had a worse evolution compared to roundabouts on other types of intersections.

Impact on industry

The results might affect design guidelines for roundabouts, particularly for the accommodation of bicyclists.     

Selling displaced people? A multi‐method study of the public communication strategies of international refugee organisations

The world has seen a major increase in forced displacement since 2011. As a growing number of states implement restrictive refugee policies, public communication has become essential for refugee organisations. This study analysed, therefore, three international refugee organisations’ discursive strategies towards the recent Syrian crisis, as well as their production and the social context. A critical discourse analysis of international press releases (N=122) and six semi‐structured interviews with press and regional officers revealed that the observed actors largely dehumanise displaced people and subordinate them to the ‘Western self’ and state interests; displaced people hardly ever acquire their own voice. The study found that the medium characteristics of press releases and the importance of media attention result in a depersonalising humanitarian discourse. In addition, there were indications of a post‐humanitarian discourse that reproduced the humanitarian sector's ‘marketisation’. Finally, the examined organisations use the political realist cross‐issue persuasion strategy, displaying displaced people as resettlement objects.     

Mapping the spatio-temporal distribution of key vegetation cover properties in lowland river reaches,using digital photography

The presence of vegetation in stream ecosystems is highly dynamic in both space and time. A digital photography technique is developed to map aquatic vegetation cover at species level, which has a very high spatial and a flexible temporal resolution. A digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera mounted on a handheld telescopic pole is used. The low-altitude (5 m) orthogonal aerial images have a low spectral resolution (red-green-blue), high spatial resolution (～1.9 pixels cm^?2, ～1.3 cm length) and flexible temporal resolution (monthly). The method is successfully applied in two lowland rivers to quantify four key properties of vegetated rivers: vegetation cover, patch size distribution, biomass and hydraulic resistance. The main advantages are that the method is (i) suitable for continuous and discontinuous vegetation covers, (ii) of very high spatial and flexible temporal resolution, (iii) relatively fast compared to conventional ground survey methods, (iv) non-destructive and (v) relatively cheap and easy to use, and (vi) the software is widely available and similar open source alternatives exist. The study area should be less than 10 m wide, and the prevailing light conditions and water turbidity levels should be sufficient to look into the water. Further improvements of the image processing are expected in the automatic delineation and classification of the vegetation patches.     

A livelihood in a risky environment: Farmers’ preferences for irrigation with wastewater in Hyderabad,India

Most cities in developing countries fail to treat their wastewater comprehensively. Consequently, farmers downstream use poor-quality water for irrigation. This practice implies risks for farmers, consumers and the environment. Conversely, this water supply supports the livelihood of these farmers and other stakeholders along the value chains. Linking safer options for wastewater management with irrigation could therefore be a win–win solution: removing the risks for society and maintaining the benefits for farmers. However, in developing countries, the high investment costs for the required treatment are problematic and the willingness of farmers to pay for the water (cost recovery) is often questionable. Using a choice experiment, this paper gives insight into farmers’ preferences for wastewater use scenarios, quantifying their willingness to pay. The case study is Hyderabad, India. Farmers there prefer water treatment and are prepared to pay a surplus for this. Considering the cost-recovery challenge, this information could be valuable for planning small on site wastewater treatment systems.     

Are Investments in Groundwater Irrigation Profitable? A Case of Rice Farms from South India1

Varghese, Shalet Korattukudy, Jeroen Buysse, Aymen Frija, Stijn Speelman, and Guido Van Huylenbroeck, 2012. Are Investments in Groundwater Irrigation Profitable? A Case of Rice Farms from South India. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 1‐15. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2012.00690.x Abstract: This article examines the profitability of cultivating double rice under bore well irrigation, given the cumulative interference of and reduced life span of wells, and thus increases the cost of groundwater extraction and use. The overexploitation of groundwater is a common stock problem and the cultivation of water intensive crops, such as rice, further exacerbates the overdraft of groundwater. Under these circumstances, we quantify the marginal benefit of irrigation investments in rice farming by estimating the probability of having a double rice crop as a function of the investment made in wells. Using this information, we explore profit maximization behavior of farms with a mathematical programming model to derive individual economic optima of irrigation costs. The results demonstrate that the ongoing overexploitation of groundwater, and its use to cultivate an economically inefficient crop, such as rice, has resulted in low profitability at farm level. A sensitivity analysis found that even when the investment in irrigation wells is reduced by 70%, small farms are still not economically efficient, thereby confirming the Tragedy of the Commons. Raising awareness amongst farmers with regard to the economics of irrigation would facilitate the participatory implementation of control mechanisms to regulate groundwater extraction.