How to improve landscape sustainability?

Almost every professional sector has embarked on the move toward sustainability. European landscapes are facing rapid changes in land use, where understanding and management of this process is essential. Sustainability has become a widely acknowledged dimension of human actions, but still little stress is put on education in sustainability. This paper identifies focus of education, gives suggestions for improvements and presents a new tool for education and training in sustainable land use – “Route Planner”. As results, it provides all users with new interesting facts on sustainability in the European Union and additional materials related to sustainable land use and Sustainability Impact Assessments (SIA). Users got the access to updated information regarding approximately 3000 courses on offer in this topic area throughout the European Union as well as case studies to compare sustainability practices in these countries in comparison to other parts of the world. Furthermore the end result of the information chain also leads the user to a collection of links such as interesting websites and further reading in the topic area

Cesium-134 and 137 activities in the central North Pacific Ocean after the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident

Surface seawater ¹³⁴Cs and ¹³⁷Cs samples were collected in the central and western North Pacific Ocean during the 2 yr after the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident to monitor dispersion patterns of these radioisotopes towards the Hawaiian Islands. In the absence of other recent sources and due to its short half-life, only those parts of the Pacific Ocean would have detectable ¹³⁴Cs values that were impacted by Fukushima releases. Between March and May 2011, ¹³⁴Cs was not detected around the Hawaiian Islands and Guam. Here, most ¹³⁷Cs activities (1.2–1.5 Bq m^–3) were in the range of expected preexisting levels. Some samples north of the Hawaiian Islands (1.6–1.8 Bq m^–3) were elevated above the 23-month baseline established in surface seawater in Hawaii indicating that those might carry atmospheric fallout. The 23-month time-series analysis of surface seawater from Hawaii did not reveal any seasonal variability or trends, with an average activity of 1.46 ± 0.06 Bq m^–3 (Station Aloha, 18 values). In contrast, samples collected between Japan and Hawaii contained ¹³⁴Cs activities in the range of 1–4 Bq m^–3, and ¹³⁷Cs levels were about 2–3 times above the preexisting activities. We found that the southern boundary of the Kuroshio and Kuroshio extension currents represented a boundary for radiation dispersion with higher activities detected within and north of the major currents. The radiation plume has not been detected over the past 2 yr at the main Hawaiian Islands due to the transport patterns across the Kuroshio and Kuroshio extension currents

Transportation where people leave: An introduction

Transportation means access: to jobs, information, communities, and services. When depopulation occurs a number of questions arise around the central query: what was and will be the role of transportation? This volume engages with several aspects of the depopulation-transportation topic and at multiple geographic scales—from the national and regional to the city- and neighborhood-level. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the challenges associated with population loss and how various aspects of transportation research intersect with these issues. We then summarize the chapters included in this volume, showing how they connect to larger emerging research themes, as well as to each other.</p