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Highlights:
• Evaluation of three cycle street designs by means of visualisation assessments.
• Shared space is evaluated as the safest and most attractive cycle street design.
• The conventional urban street design is perceived as the most clearly structured.
• Affinity towards walking and cycling favours a positive evaluation of shared space.
Abstract
Cycle streets have been implemented in many urban areas around the world in recent years to make cycling safer and more attractive. In these streets, cyclists have priority over motorised traffic. They are allowed to use the entire roadway and determine traffic speed. However, there have been no standardised design guidelines for cycle streets to date. Moreover, there is limited understanding of the individual perception of different cycle street designs. Yet, positive evaluations of safety and attractiveness are especially important for pleasant travel in public spaces. Therefore, this study examines the individual perceptions of three cycle street designs: conventional, flow and shared space. Visualisations of these designs were implemented in a written household survey conducted in the urban Rhine-Main metropolitan region in Germany (n = 701). Participants were asked to assess the different designs in terms of safety, clarity, attractiveness and fun. Furthermore, bivariate analyses and regression models were performed to investigate whether individual travel preferences and attitudes, regular mode use and socio-demographic characteristics affect assessments of the designs. The results show that the shared space design is rated as the safest, most attractive and most fun. The conventional cycle street is evaluated as the most clearly structured. Individual affinity towards cycling and walking favours a good evaluation of the shared space design, while a high car affinity and having a migrant background positively affect the assessment of the conventional design. In addition, younger participants and members of households without a car assess the flow design more favourably.
Highlights
• Applies a biographically inspired practice-theoretical approach to understand everyday mobility from car-reduced neighborhoods.
• Investigates various ‘contexts’ and ‘practice bundles’ that shape car-(in)dependent mobility practices.
• Material, personal-temporal, and socio-cultural contexts of residents’ travel behavior in car-reduced neighborhoods stabilize and support car-independent mobility.
• The meanings (including emotions and feelings) of mobility practices determine their performance type.
• Calls for more car-reduced planning for the transition to low-carbon mobility.
Abstract
Lately, transport researchers and practitioners are showing renewed interest in car-reduced neighborhoods and their residents’ mobility to investigate possible factors influencing sustainable transport. With a biographically inspired practice-theoretical approach, this study considers the ‘context of travel behavior’ and, thus, focuses on mobility as a ‘practice’ in order to improve the understanding of everyday mobility as well as the potential and limitations of implementing car-reduced housing. Based on qualitative interviews with residents of two German car-reduced neighborhoods, we first identify different compositions of materials, competences, and meanings (including the feelings and emotions) of car-(in)dependent mobility practices. Second, we discover the personal, social, temporal, and socio-structural circumstances of the residents’ travel behavior alongside ‘practice bundles’ that interact with car-(in)dependent mobility. Finally, our findings indicate, on the one hand, that the car-centric material context outside car-reduced neighborhoods, the incorporation of private car driving with the practice of everyday life, and the affective satisfaction with car use and ownership negatively influence car independence. On the other hand, our results highlight that residential location and its materiality in the case of car-reduced housing developments, as well as the personal-temporal and socio-cultural contexts of their residents’ mobility practices stabilize and support car independence and low-carbon mobility.
Highlights
• Compares narratives and mobility-related practices of car-reduced neighborhoods.
• Identifies commonalities and differences between the ideal vision and the lived practice of car independency.
• The article concludes that a 'post-car system' requires continuous material and immaterial change.
• This can be fostered by political and planning readiness, as well as local willingness and public acceptability.
• Overall, this study reveals the exemplary role of car-reduced neighborhoods for mobility transition.
Abstract
In the pursuit of sustainability, the concept of ‘car-reduced neighborhoods’ promises to decrease car ownership and increase car-independent mobility. However, mobility is not only designed from ‘above’ by planners and policymakers, but also shaped from ‘below’ by its practitioners and their contexts. Only a few studies currently bring together the perspective from ‘above’ and ‘below’ regarding car-reduced neighborhoods. This article therefore combines both perspectives by contrasting the narratives and the mobility-related practices of two German car-reduced urban residential areas. Firstly, we conduct interviews with various actors involved in the planning and implementation of both neighborhoods to identify the narratives. Secondly, we interview the residents to determine the mobility-related practices. Finally, we compare both empirical investigations to analyze the commonalities and differences of the ‘planning vision’ and the ‘lived practice’ of car-free living, car-independent mobility, and restrictive car parking. Although this study identifies differences between the two perspectives, the discrepancy is smaller than evaluated in earlier studies. After relocating to a car-reduced neighborhood, residents tend to maintain, strengthen, and adapt car-independent mobility practices rather than weakening car-independent mobility practices and maintaining car-dependent ones. Thus, residents seem to be encouraged to drive less and to leave their cars parked for most of the time. However, relocating to a car-reduced neighborhood does not automatically initiate full demotorization. Furthermore, residents' parking practices also sometimes deviate from the planning vision. Consequently, the article concludes that overcoming the ‘system’ of automobility for a ‘post-car system’ requires continuous (i) material and (ii) immaterial change fostered by political and planning readiness, as well as local willingness and public acceptability. In this regard, car-reduced neighborhoods can be seen as blueprints for a mobility transition.
Highlights
• Explanation of mobility design and its practical, aesthetic and emblematic effects on travel behaviour.
• Review of recent studies on mobility design elements and the promotion of non-motorised travel.
• Discussion of research gaps and methodological challenges of data collection and comparability.
Abstract
To promote non-motorised travel, many travel behaviour studies acknowledge the importance of the built environment to modal choice, for example with its density or mix of uses. From a mobility design theory perspective, however, objects and environments affect human perceptions, assessments and behaviour in at least three different ways: by their practical, aesthetic and emblematic functions. This review of existing evidence will argue that travel behaviour research has so far mainly focused on the practical function of the built environment. For that purpose, we systematically identified 56 relevant studies on the impacts of the built environment on non-motorised travel behaviour in the Web of Science database. The focus of research on the practical design function primary involves land use distribution, street network connectivity and the presence of walking and cycling facilities. Only a small number of papers address the aesthetic and emblematic functions. These show that the perceived attractiveness of an environment and evoked feelings of traffic safety increase the likelihood of walking and cycling. However, from a mobility design perspective, the results of the review indicate a gap regarding comprehensive research on the effects of the aesthetic and emblematic functions of the built environment. Further research involving these functions might contribute to a better understanding of how to promote non-motorised travel more effectively. Moreover, limitations related to survey techniques, regional distribution and the comparability of results were identified.
Highlights
• Typology of low-income families by their daily travel practices.
• The competence to finance, organise or borrow materials needed for travel enhance low-income families' mobility options.
• Low-income families' social networks can compensate transport disadvantages through direct and indirect financial support.
• Low-income families experience transport-related social exclusion.
Abstract
Being mobile is essential to participate in social life. However, as transport involves costs, this is a particular challenge for people on low incomes. Households with children are, especially, at an increased risk of poverty. To provide a deeper understanding of how financial poverty affects the daily travel practices of low-income families and how they cope with their limited financial resources, we conducted 16 qualitative problem-centred interviews with low-income families in Ronnenberg (Hanover Region, Germany). Although all the interviewees have to cope with limited financial resources, their daily travel practices differ. We identify four types of daily travel practices for these families: (1) car-centred, (2) car-reduced, (3) public transport oriented and (4) non-motorised. For a more detailed analysis on how poverty affects transport and participation, we use the practice theory perspective (Shove et al., 2012). Our analysis highlights that the car plays a significant role despite poverty for some families. However, other low-income families manage their daily life with public transport and non-motorised modes only. Our results show that low-income households with children have several strategies for organising and financing their daily travel practices. One strategy is direct and indirect support for travel from their social network. Furthermore, some families forgo leisure activities with entrance fees or higher travel costs.
Highlights
• Investigates the effect of a nearly fare-free public transport ticket.
• In-depth analysis of the 9-Euro-Ticket using qualitative empirical research.
• Low-income people's mobility and social participation benefits from affordable PT.
• This study reveals six main findings of interest for policy and practice.
From June to August 2022, the financial barrier to public transport use almost completely disappeared in Germany due to the 9-Euro-Ticket. It enabled anyone with access to public transport infrastructure across Germany to use public transport for 9 euros per person per month. As this completely changed the conditions for public transport use, especially for low-income households with children, the following research questions arise: (1) what effect does the 9-Euro-Ticket have on the travel practices and social participation of low-income households with children? (2) how and by what were the travel practices shaped by the 9-Euro-Ticket? and (3) what happened to the interviewees’ travel practices after the measure expired? To answer these questions, twelve qualitative interviews were conducted with low-income households with children in the Hanover region.
This study found that the 9-Euro-Ticket removed the financial constraint of public transport use, changed the travel practices of most interviewees and had a wide range of positive meanings. The respondents associate the 9-Euro-Ticket with freedom, joy at being able to offer their children something, along with financial and psychological relief. Additionally, the 9-Euro-Ticket enabled the interviewees to engage in leisure activities, to visit relatives, contributed to integration, had an empowering effect, especially for women and children, and thus represents a measure to increase social participation. After the three months of the 9-Euro-Ticket, financing public transport use challenges low-income households again and financial constraints prevent them from reaching certain places and engaging in out-of-home activities.
No more technology? A TPACK-survey for pre-service teachers with social media in the digital world
(2023)
In the digital age, social media are integrated into everyday life. To include corresponding topics of the digital world in the classroom, future teachers require specific knowledge and abilities. The extent to which these prerequisites are connected to technology, however, needs to be reevaluated in light of social media's ubiquitous nature. Through adopting the TPACK model for an exemplary topic of the digital world, constructions of space in Geography education, a self-evaluation survey instrument for pre-service teachers is compiled and validated (n = 364); social media are conceptualized as an aspect of technological knowledge. Confirmatory factor analysis confirms that the TPACK model is appropriate for the data, as fit-indices show favorable results. A transformative view of the model is supported. Correlations among all constructs exist, endorsing previous studies’ findings on the difficulties in distinguishing the TPACK knowledge constructs. Technological knowledge, noticeably, displays comparatively low correlations with the other knowledge constructs. This result is contrary to previous studies on TPACK and social media, as well as the relation of TPACK to technological knowledge. Albeit these results are not generalizable for all digital world content in pre-service teacher education, this study, by way of example, contributes to a debate on the conceptualization of technological knowledge when introducing phenomena of the digital world that are related to social media through the TPACK model. Additionally, this study advances research in the area of embedding pre-service teacher education with social media in domain-specific pedagogies.
Zielsetzung: Untersuchung der Auswirkungen der Covid-19-Pandemie auf Angebote der vor allem niedrigschwelligen Drogenhilfe und Reaktionen der Klientel auf geänderte Angebote. Methodik: Verwendet wurden in erster Linie Daten aus einer asynchronen qualitativen Onlinebefragung für Mitarbeiter_innen der ambulanten Drogenhilfe, ergänzt durch Zahlen aus einer quantitativen Onlinebefragung für dieselbe Zielgruppe. Ergebnisse: Während übliche Infektionsschutzmaßnahmen nahezu überall angewendet wurden, reichte die Spanne der tatsächlichen Auswirkungen von Komplettschließungen bis zu eher geringen Einschränkungen. Schwerpunkte wurden zumeist auf Überlebenshilfe und Straßensozialarbeit gelegt. Beratung wurde oft per Telefon durchgeführt, was für viele Anliegen als sinnvoll erachtet wurde, Beziehungsarbeit aber erschwerte. Vor allem stark verelendete Klient_innen nutzten weiterhin häufig Hilfsangebote. Schlussfolgerungen: Es zeigen sich unterschiedliche Umgangsweisen der Drogenhilfe mit den pandemiebedingten Maßnahmen. Oft entwickelte man kreative Lösungen zur Umsetzung, mit Schwerpunktsetzung auf Existenzsicherung. Sowohl Mitarbeiter_innen als auch Klientel waren durch die Pandemie zahlreichen Belastungen ausgesetzt.
Aim: Recent studies in southern Africa identified past biome stability as an important predictor of biodiversity. We aimed to assess the extent to which past biome stability predicts present global biodiversity patterns, and the extent to which projected climatic changes may lead to eventual biome changes in areas with constant past biome.
Location: Global.
Taxon: Spermatophyta; terrestrial vertebrates.
Methods: Biome constancy was assessed and mapped using results from 89 dynamic global vegetation model simulations, driven by outputs of palaeoclimate experiments spanning the past 140 ka. We tested the hypothesis that terrestrial vertebrate diversity is predicted by biome constancy. We also simulated potential future vegetation, and hence potential future biome patterns, and quantified and mapped the extent of projected eventual future biome change in areas of past constant biome.
Results: Approximately 11% of global ice-free land had a constant biome since 140 ka. Apart from areas of constant Desert, many areas with constant biome support high species diversity. All terrestrial vertebrate groups show a strong positive relationship between biome constancy and vertebrate diversity in areas of greater diversity, but no relationship in less diverse areas. Climatic change projected by 2100 commits 46%–66% of global ice-free land, and 34%–52% of areas of past constant biome (excluding areas of constant Desert) to eventual biome change.
Main conclusions: Past biome stability strongly predicts vertebrate diversity in areas of higher diversity. Future climatic changes will lead to biome changes in many areas of past constant biome, with profound implications for biodiversity conservation. Some projected biome changes will result in substantial reductions in biospheric carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services.
Global water models (GWMs) simulate the terrestrial water cycle on the global scale and are used to assess the impacts of climate change on freshwater systems. GWMs are developed within different modelling frameworks and consider different underlying hydrological processes, leading to varied model structures. Furthermore, the equations used to describe various processes take different forms and are generally accessible only from within the individual model codes. These factors have hindered a holistic and detailed understanding of how different models operate, yet such an understanding is crucial for explaining the results of model evaluation studies, understanding inter-model differences in their simulations, and identifying areas for future model development. This study provides a comprehensive overview of how 16 state-of-the-art GWMs are designed. We analyse water storage compartments, water flows, and human water use sectors included in models that provide simulations for the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project phase 2b (ISIMIP2b). We develop a standard writing style for the model equations to enhance model intercomparison, improvement, and communication. In this study, WaterGAP2 used the highest number of water storage compartments, 11, and CWatM used 10 compartments. Six models used six compartments, while four models (DBH, JULES-W1, Mac-PDM.20, and VIC) used the lowest number, three compartments. WaterGAP2 simulates five human water use sectors, while four models (CLM4.5, CLM5.0, LPJmL, and MPI-HM) simulate only water for the irrigation sector. We conclude that, even though hydrological processes are often based on similar equations for various processes, in the end these equations have been adjusted or models have used different values for specific parameters or specific variables. The similarities and differences found among the models analysed in this study are expected to enable us to reduce the uncertainty in multi-model ensembles, improve existing hydrological processes, and integrate new processes.
Financial poverty, mobility and social participation are interrelated. This nexus makes old-age poverty a highly relevant issue in terms of transport-related social exclusion in an ageing society. To understand how financial poverty affects older people’s travel practices and how they cope with their limited financial resources, we conducted qualitative interviews with low-income older people (aged 60 and above) in Ronnenberg (Hanover region, Germany). Although all the respondents have comparably limited financial resources, using a practice theory perspective along the elements of materials, competences and meanings (Shove et al., 2012), we identified three different types of low-income older people by their travel practices: (i) active older people with multifaceted social interactions, (ii) neighbourhood-oriented older people with local interactions and (iii) home-centred older people with few social interactions. From our analysis, we conclude that financial poverty shapes each element of low-income older people’s travel practices and thereby increases the risk of transport-related social exclusion: (i) certain materials have to be financed, which is challenging or even impossible due to financial poverty; (ii) meanings of travel practices are strongly linked to other practices, thus, if (also for financial reasons) no or a limited range of destinations are mentioned, travel practices are restricted in their frequency and distance; and (iii) necessary competences to be mobile and engage in social activities despite low financial means seem to be differentially available or - more cautiously formulated – less often utilised by low-income older people, which may lead to them abandoning travel practices and related social activities.
The calcareous substrate of spring-fed fens makes them unique islands of biodiversity, hosting endangered, vulnerable, and protected vascular plants. Hence, spring-fed fens ecosystems require special conservation attention because many of them are destroyed (e.g. drained, forested) and it is extremely difficult or even impossible to restore the unique hydrogeological and geochemical conditions enabling their function. The long-term perspective of paleoecological studies allows indication of former wetland ecosystem states and provides understanding of their development over millennia. To examine the late Holocene dynamics of a calcareous spring-fed fen (Raganu Mire) ecosystem on the Baltic Sea coast (Latvia) in relation to environmental changes, substrate and human activity, we have undertaken high-resolution analyses of plant macrofossils, pollen, mollusc, stable carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotopes combined with radiocarbon dating (AMS) in three coring locations. Our study revealed that peat deposits began accumulating ca. 7000 cal. yr BP and calcareous deposits (tufa) from 1450 cal. yr BP, coinciding with regional hydrological changes. Several fire events occurred between 4000 and 1600 cal. yr BP, which appeared to have had a limited effect on local vegetation. The most significant changes in the forest and peatland ecosystems were at 3200 cal. yr BP associated with a dry climate stage and high fire activity, and then between 1400 and 500 cal. yr BP potentially associated with temperature changes during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) and Little Ice Age. Hydrological disturbances in the peatland catchment from 1400 cal. yr BP were most likely strengthened by human activity (deforestation) in this region. The relationship between the development of this peatland and changes in its catchment area, such as land cover changes or fluctuations in groundwater levels, suggest that protection and restoration of spring-fed fen ecosystems should also include the surrounding catchment. The presence of calcareous sediments, as well as appropriate temperature and local hydrological conditions appear to be the most crucial factors controlling Cladium marisus populations in our site - currently at the eastern limit of its distribution in Europe.
Non-forest ecosystems, dominated by shrubs, grasses and herbaceous plants, provide ecosystem services including carbon sequestration and forage for grazing, and are highly sensitive to climatic changes. Yet these ecosystems are poorly represented in remotely sensed biomass products and are undersampled by in situ monitoring. Current global change threats emphasize the need for new tools to capture biomass change in non-forest ecosystems at appropriate scales. Here we developed and deployed a new protocol for photogrammetric height using unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV) images to test its capability for delivering standardized measurements of biomass across a globally distributed field experiment. We assessed whether canopy height inferred from UAV photogrammetry allows the prediction of aboveground biomass (AGB) across low-stature plant species by conducting 38 photogrammetric surveys over 741 harvested plots to sample 50 species. We found mean canopy height was strongly predictive of AGB across species, with a median adjusted R2 of 0.87 (ranging from 0.46 to 0.99) and median prediction error from leave-one-out cross-validation of 3.9%. Biomass per-unit-of-height was similar within but different among, plant functional types. We found that photogrammetric reconstructions of canopy height were sensitive to wind speed but not sun elevation during surveys. We demonstrated that our photogrammetric approach produced generalizable measurements across growth forms and environmental settings and yielded accuracies as good as those obtained from in situ approaches. We demonstrate that using a standardized approach for UAV photogrammetry can deliver accurate AGB estimates across a wide range of dynamic and heterogeneous ecosystems. Many academic and land management institutions have the technical capacity to deploy these approaches over extents of 1–10 ha−1. Photogrammetric approaches could provide much-needed information required to calibrate and validate the vegetation models and satellite-derived biomass products that are essential to understand vulnerable and understudied non-forested ecosystems around the globe.
Refugee reception in Germany is a primarily municipal task that relies heavily on neighborhood-based volunteering. This paper asserts that there are fundamental spatial mismatches between municipal policies and neighborhood-based approaches that place additional burden on all of the stakeholders involved. Drawing from the case of Frankfurt-Rödelheim, which is a socially and ethnically mixed neighborhood in Frankfurt am Main, I show how the way the municipality accommodates refugees disregards the politically embraced work of neighborhood-based volunteers and how the ideal of neighborhood-based inclusion creates a spatial fetish that fails the living reality of the refugees. The findings are based on my ethnographic fieldwork as volunteer in a neighborhood-based welcome initiative.
The analysis of charcoal fragments in peat and lake sediments is the most widely used approach to reconstruct past biomass burning. With a few exceptions, this method typically relies on the quantification of the total charcoal content of the sediment. To enhance charcoal analyses for the reconstruction of past fire regimes and make the method more relevant to studies of both plant evolution and fire management, the extraction of more information from charcoal particles is critical. Here, I used a muffle oven to burn seven fuel types comprising 17 species from boreal Siberia (near Teguldet village), which are also commonly found in the Northern Hemisphere, and built on published schemes to develop morphometric and finer diagnostic classifications of the experimentally charred particles. I then combined these results with those from fossil charcoal from a peat core taken from the same location (Ulukh-Chayakh mire) in order to demonstrate the relevance of these experiments to the fossil charcoal records. Results show that graminoids, Sphagnum, and wood (trunk) lose the most mass at low burn temperatures (<300 ∘C), whereas heathland shrub leaves, brown moss, and ferns lose the most mass at high burn temperatures. This suggests that species with low mass retention in high-temperature fires are likely to be under-represented in the fossil charcoal record. The charcoal particle aspect ratio appeared to be the strongest indicator of the fuel type burnt. Graminoid charcoal particles are the most elongate (6.7–11.5), with a threshold above 6 that may be indicative of wetland graminoids; leaves are the shortest and bulkiest (2.1–3.5); and twigs and wood are intermediate (2.0–5.2). Further, the use of fine diagnostic features was more successful in separating wood, graminoids, and leaves, but it was difficult to further differentiate these fuel types due to overlapping features. High-aspect-ratio particles, dominated by graminoid and Sphagnum morphologies, may be robust indicators of low-temperature surface fires, whereas abundant wood and leaf morphologies as well as low-aspect-ratio particles are indicative of higher-temperature fires. However, the overlapping morphologies of leaves and wood from trees and shrubs make it hard to distinguish between high-intensity surface fires, combusting living shrubs and dead wood and leaves, and high-intensity crown fires that have burnt living trees. Distinct particle shape may also influence charcoal transportation, with elongated particles (graminoids) potentially having a more heterogeneous distribution and being deposited farther away from the origin of fire than the rounder, polygonal leaf particles. Despite these limitations, the combined use of charred-particle aspect ratios and fuel morphotypes can aid in the more robust interpretation of fuel source and fire-type changes. Lastly, I highlight the further investigations needed to refine the histories of past wildfires.
Drought is understood as both a lack of water (i.e., a deficit as compared to some requirement) and an anomaly in the condition of one or more components of the hydrological cycle. Most drought indices, however, only consider the anomaly aspect, i.e., how unusual the condition is. In this paper, we present two drought hazard indices that reflect both the deficit and anomaly aspects. The soil moisture deficit anomaly index, SMDAI, is based on the drought severity index, DSI, but is computed in a more straightforward way that does not require the definition of a mapping function. We propose a new indicator of drought hazard for water supply from rivers, the streamflow deficit anomaly index, QDAI, which takes into account the surface water demand of humans and freshwater biota. Both indices are computed and analyzed at the global scale, with a spatial resolution of roughly 50 km, for the period 1981-2010, using monthly time series of variables computed by the global water resources and the model WaterGAP2.2d. We found that the SMDAI and QDAI values are broadly similar to values of purely anomaly-based indices. However, the deficit anomaly indices provide more differentiated, spatial and temporal patterns that help to distinguish the degree of the actual drought hazard to vegetation health or the water supply. QDAI can be made relevant for stakeholders with different perceptions about the importance of ecosystem protection, by adapting the approach for computing the amount of water that is required to remain in the river for the well being of the river ecosystem. Both deficit anomaly indices are well suited for inclusion in local or global drought risk studies.
Am Beispiel des politisch-planerischen Diskurses zu ehemaligen Planungen für ein großflächiges Einkaufszentrum in der Mainzer Innenstadt wird der potenzielle Mehrwert diskurs- und gouvernementalitätstheoretischer Zugänge zu raumbezogenen Fragestellungen erörtert. Insbesondere werden die diskursiven Mechanismen der Einschreibung einer unternehmerischen und depolitisierten Konzeption urbaner Räume in scheinbar neutrale und objektive Techniken raumbezogener Wirkungsanalysen herausgearbeitet. Die damit verbundene Sichtweise auf städtische Räume als Wettbewerbseinheiten, die durch raumwirtschaftliche Gesetzmäßigkeiten determiniert sind, wird jedoch gleichzeitig durch Gegendiskurse aufgebrochen, die das Bewahren ortsspezifisch gewachsener baulicher Strukturen zum Maßstab von Stadtentwicklungspolitik machen. Die Fallstudie verdeutlicht damit, wie mithilfe diskursanalytischer Zugänge die raumbezogenen Wissensordnungen freigelegt werden können, die die politischplanerische Steuerung gegenwärtiger Stadtentwicklungsprozesse anleiten.
This article is written from the perspective of phenomenology. Its potential gain for a critical human geography is discussed in contrast to the paradigmatic frame of basic assumptions in constructivism. The example of atmospheres will illustrate another theoretical conception of space. In phenomenological view there happens not only a reality of things but also a circum-actuality is not spatially extended like a house or another material objective. Atmospheres are vital qualities (Dürckheim) we feel like a cloud in our sense perception in situations of awareness. This implies the necessity to make a difference between a material body (Körper) and a felt body (Leib). This epistemic knowledge will improve our critique of neoliberal societies, tuned by aestheticisation especially in glamour CBDs of postmodern cities. Finally there is a close link to the work of Michel Foucault, topped off in his The Hermeneutics of the Subject. References to the Critical Theory (Frankfurter Schule) are connected.
The accurate knowledge of the groundwater storage variation (ΔGWS) is essential for reliable water resource assessment, particularly in arid and semi-arid environments (e.g., Australia, the North China Plain (NCP)) where water storage is significantly affected by human activities and spatiotemporal climate variations. The large-scale ΔGWS can be simulated from a land surface model (LSM), but the high model uncertainty is a major drawback that reduces the reliability of the estimates. The evaluation of the model estimate is then very important to assess its accuracy. To improve the model performance, the terrestrial water storage variation derived from the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission is commonly assimilated into LSMs to enhance the accuracy of the ΔGWS estimate. This study assimilates GRACE data into the PCRaster Global Water Balance (PCR-GLOBWB) model. The GRACE data assimilation (DA) is developed based on the three-dimensional ensemble Kalman smoother (EnKS 3D), which considers the statistical correlation of all extents (spatial, temporal, vertical) in the DA process. The ΔGWS estimates from GRACE DA and four LSM simulations (PCR-GLOBWB, the Community Atmosphere Biosphere Land Exchange (CABLE), the Water Global Assessment and Prognosis Global Hydrology Model (WGHM), and World-Wide Water (W3)) are validated against the in situ groundwater data. The evaluation is conducted in terms of temporal correlation, seasonality, long-term trend, and detection of groundwater depletion. The GRACE DA estimate shows a significant improvement in all measures, notably the correlation coefficients (respect to the in situ data) are always higher than the values obtained from model simulations alone (e.g., ~0.15 greater in Australia, and ~0.1 greater in the NCP). GRACE DA also improves the estimation of groundwater depletion that the models cannot accurately capture due to the incorrect information of the groundwater demand (in, e.g., PCR-GLOBWB, WGHM) or the unavailability of a groundwater consumption routine (in, e.g., CABLE, W3). In addition, this study conducts the inter-comparison between four model simulations and reveals that PCR-GLOBWB and CABLE provide a more accurate ΔGWS estimate in Australia (subject to the calibrated parameter) while PCR-GLOBWB and WGHM are more accurate in the NCP (subject to the inclusion of anthropogenic factors). The analysis can be used to declare the status of the ΔGWS estimate, as well as itemize the possible improvements of the future model development.