Inspiring England's urban fringes: multi-functionality and planning

The urban fringe has been described as 'planning's last frontier'; a zone of transition and interface between town and country where a broad variety of land uses and activities come together, and where development pressure is often intense. In this paper, we argue that the urban fringe possesses special characteristics, making it more than simply a transitional landscape. These characteristics centre on patterns of land use, biodiversity and leisure/development opportunity which are unique to the urban edge and to land extending away from built-up areas. The uniqueness, diversity and particular dynamics of the urban fringe demands a special brand of planning and management response. Therefore we suggest that the principle of 'multi-functionality' provides a framework for action, showing how diversity can be managed and supported. Through brief case studies, we demonstrate how functional interactions at the urban fringe might be promoted in the future.     

Smart Growth in a Small Urban Setting: The challenges of building an acceptable solution

Smart growth policies direct development towards existing communities already served by roads, sewer systems and other infrastructure. The increased development in these communities in turn should enable them to benefit from a stronger tax-base, more efficient use of their schools and other public facilities, and the renewed economic vitality of their urban centres. These goals and objectives appear to complement and support the efforts of urban mayors to attract new property tax rateables and better-paying jobs, but they may conflict with the desires of residents to reduce densities and improve the quality of life. We use a visual GIS-based model to assist five small contiguous older suburbs individually and collectively to evaluate their current redevelopment plans and to understand the implications of their land-use decisions on the quality of life in their communities. By bringing them together as a group, and our raising broader redevelopment and impact issues, they have begun to rethink how these properties could be best used to meet the community's needs and to see them in the context of similar redevelopment plans within their mini-region. One of the changes emerging is a greater role for certain types of residential development and a concurrent reduction in the amount of commercial space being considered. The authors would like to thank the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation for funding this project, the Somerset County Planning Board and mayors of the five towns for actively supporting and participating in the study and the Regional Planning Partnership for its co-operation and assistance in refining its GOZ model to promote regional planning from the bottom up. The authors accept full responsibility for the ideas and recommendations in this report.     

Carcass disposal and siting controversy: Risk,dialogue and confrontation in the 2001 foot-and-mouth Outbreak

Abstract

This paper examines controversy during the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak after mass carcass burial sites were selected at two sites in northeast England, and focuses on shortcomings in public consultation surrounding the carcass disposal policy. The slaughter of six million animals necessitated a national disposal strategy on a hitherto unknown scale. The belated decision to concentrate carcass disposal in a small number of mass burial sites provoked more opposition in the two ex-mining localities selected in the northeast than anywhere else. In both cases local liaison committees were established to manage dialogue between residents and public authorities. We argue that, although seen by the authorities primarily as a vehicle for risk communication and public reassurance, for residents these functioned chiefly as a vehicle for holding public authorities to account. These divergent purposes were overshadowed by the chaotic circumstances in which the early stages of the mass burial policy were implemented, and the way in which the carcass disposal policy was dictated by the operation of the slaughter policy, whose draconian form precluded any but the most cursory public consultation.     

Bewertung der Auswirkungen von Pflanzenschutzmitteln auf Regenwürmer

The fundamental data requirements for the authorization of plant protection products and the inclusion of active ingredients in Annex I of Council Directive 91/414/EEC are described in Annexes II and III of the Directive. The uniform principles for the registration of plant protection products in the Member States described in Annex VI of the Directive were primarily developed to assess the effects on the soil functions with regard to agriculture. A tiered approach was developed to assess the effects of plant protection products on earthworms based on the data requirements of Annex II and III of Directive 91/414/EEC. The risk is assessed using the effect-concentration evaluated in ecotoxicological tests and the predicted or calculated environmental concentration. To protect the whole range of naturally occurring species in terrestrial biocenosis assessment factors need to be considered.     

Using ADMS models for Air Quality Assessment and Management in China

1 INTRODUCTION Many cities and regions are undertaking studies of air quality in cities to determine both the current state of the environment and the effect of future economic and environmental strategies in order to manage local air quality. Often these studies are driven by legislation such as the European Union requirement to model agglomerations or the Chinese requirements to study air quality capacity and to forecast air quality. ADMS-Urban is the most widely used advanced dispers…     

Risk of amniocentesis in women screened positive for Down syndrome with second trimester maternal serum markers

In routine obstetrical practice, prior to offering invasive prenatal diagnosis, it is crucial to weigh the risks attendant on amniocentesis against the individual's risk of aneuploidy. We took advantage of a policy of follow-up of patients undergoing Down syndrome maternal serum screening to compare the rates of fetal loss before 24 weeks and of early premature delivery at 24–28 weeks between women who underwent amniocentesis and women who did not. A total of 54 902 patients entered the study, of whom 4039 (7.35%) were lost to follow-up and 387 were excluded because of a severe fetal abnormality. Of the 50 476 remaining patients, 3472 had an amniocentesis whereas 47 004 had not and served as controls. In the amniocentesis group, the fetal loss rate before 24 weeks was 1.12% (95% CI=1.08–1.15) and the 24–28 weeks premature delivery rate was 0.40% (95% CI=0.39–0.41) which was significantly higher than in controls (0.42% with 95% CI 0.41–0.43 and 0.24% with 95% CI 0.23–0.25, respectively). The 0.86% difference in adverse outcome rates between the amniocentesis and control groups may be attributable to amniocentesis and compares favourably with the positive predictive value of maternal serum markers (1.70%) observed in the present study. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Investigating activated sludge flocs using microanalytical techniques: demonstration of environmental scanning electron microscopy and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry for wastewater applications.

Environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) with an energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS) and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) were demonstrated to be useful analytical tools for investigating surface and bulk components of individual floc particles from both full- and bench-scale activated sludge systems. Detailed surface imaging of various hydrated biological floc particles by ESEM revealed substantial differences in surface features between treatment systems, while EDS identified spatial differences in the iron and the aluminum distributions. The ToF-SIMS spectra had signature fragments of protein and polysaccharide material from the floc surface, suggesting that this technique is capable of surface profiling extracellular polymeric substances. Principal-component analysis of the positive ion ToF-SIMS spectra from the mixed-liquor-suspended solid (MLSS) samples and reference aquatic organic materials found slight differences between the full- and bench-scale MLSS surface properties but substantial differences among MLSS and treated effluent from the same facility.     

Who counts in evaluating the effects of air pollution policies on households? Non-market valuation in the presence of dependencies

Individuals who are likely to realize the largest benefits from improvements in air quality often depend on other members of their households to make time or monetary contributions to their care. The presence of these dependency relationships among household members poses challenges for benefit estimation since it is unlikely that the conditions necessary for recovering the underlying individual preferences from household choices are satisfied in this setting. We propose a conceptual framework that highlights the role of these dependencies in the choice models used to estimate the willingness to pay for environmental quality improvements. We design a complementary stated preference survey that describes hypothetical dependency relationships for household members of different ages to test the implications of our conceptual model. Respondents' stated choices take into account the proposed care-giving responsibilities for young children and teenagers but not for older adults.