The Åland Islands Meet European Integration : The Politics of History and the EU Referendums

This thesis aims to provide an analysis of the decision of the Parliament of Åland to join the European Union in 1994. The chosen time frame is the period between the Korfu Summit on 24 June 1994 and the decision of the Parliament to join on 2 December 1994. While the EU process has its roots at the end of the Cold War and Finland’s membership to the Council of Europe in 1989, this timeline is chosen to emphasize the deliberative process in which Åland decided to join the European Union. The theoretical approach is discourse analysis as foreign policy analysis by Ole Waever. This rests on the post structuralist understandings of language which due to its constitutive power can be used to explain the foreign policy choices which lie upon historical and identarian legacies. This is done by analysing the relationship between the “core concepts” such as “state” and “nation” with “Europe” in which the national identity is constructed upon. This thesis aims to analyse the Ålandic decision to join the EU by using 7 parliamentary debates as primary data alongside newspaper articles to construct a chronology of the referendum process while at the same time adjusting Waever’s framework to suit the regional context of Åland. This study shows that the Ålandic EU debate took place in a context in which the Regional Parliament had to consider the choices of its immediate environment and the lack of enthusiasm of the Ålandic voter. On the pro EU camp, the prospect of EU membership was understood as new field for Åland’s external relations, an economic opportunity and further recognition of Åland’s status according to international law. The anti-EU camp drew arguments from a fear of centralisation, transferring legislative authority and concern regarding the competences of the EU in agriculture and fisheries. This study also shows that the choice of certain arguments was structured by the regional parties’ conceptualisation of Europe and the relationship between that and their conceptualisation of “autonomy” and the “people” which are in turn constructed by the two main cleavages on Åland: the autonomy policy cleavage and the urban-rural cleavage

Climate-informed stochastic hydrological modeling: Incorporating decadal-scale variability using paleo data

A hierarchical framework for incorporating modes of climate variability into stochastic simulations of hydrological data is developed, termed the climate-informed multi-time scale stochastic (CIMSS) framework. A case study on two catchments in eastern Australia illustrates this framework. To develop an identifiable model characterizing long-term variability for the first level of the hierarchy, paleoclimate proxies, and instrumental indices describing the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) are analyzed. A new paleo IPO-PDO time series dating back 440 yr is produced, combining seven IPO-PDO paleo sources using an objective smoothing procedure to fit low-pass filters to individual records. The paleo data analysis indicates that wet/dry IPO-PDO states have a broad range of run lengths, with 90% between 3 and 33 yr and a mean of 15 yr. The Markov chain model, previously used to simulate oscillating wet/dry climate states, is found to underestimate the probability of wet/dry periods >5 yr, and is rejected in favor of a gamma distribution for simulating the run lengths of the wet/dry IPO-PDO states. For the second level of the hierarchy, a seasonal rainfall model is conditioned on the simulated IPO-PDO state. The model is able to replicate observed statistics such as seasonal and multiyear accumulated rainfall distributions and interannual autocorrelations. Mean seasonal rainfall in the IPO-PDO dry states is found to be 15%-28% lower than the wet state at the case study sites. In comparison, an annual lag-one autoregressive model is unable to adequately capture the observed rainfall distribution within separate IPO-PDO states. Copyright © 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.Benjamin J. Henley, Mark A. Thyer, George Kuczera and Stewart W. Frank

Analysis of system drought for Manitoba Hydro using stochastic methods

Stochastic time series models are commonly used in the analysis of large-scale water resources systems. In the stochastic approach, synthetic flow scenarios are generated and used for the analysis of complex events such as multi-year droughts. Conclusions drawn from such analyses are only plausible to the extent that the underlying time series model realistically represents the natural variability of flows. Traditionally hydrologists have favoured autoregressive moving average (ARMA) models to describe annual flows. In this research project, a class of model called Markov-Switching (MS) model (also referred to as a Hidden Markov model) is presented as an alternative to conventional ARMA models. The basic assumption underlying this model is that a limited number of flow regimes exists and that each flow year can be classified as belonging to one of these regimes. The persistence of and switching between regimes is described by a Markov chain. Within each regime, it is assumed that annual flows follow a normal distribution with mean and variance that depend on the regime. The simplicity of this model makes it possible to derive a number of model characteristics analytically such as moments, autocorrelation, and crosscorrelation. Model estimation is possible with the maximum likelihood method implemented using the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. The uncertainty in the model parameters can be assessed through Bayesian inference using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. A Markov-Switching disaggregation (MSD) model is also proposed in this research project to disaggregate higher-level flows generated using the MS model into lower-level flows. The MSD model preserves the additivity property because for a given year both the higher-level and lower-level variables are generated from normal distributions. The 2-state MS and MSD models are applied to Manitoba Hydro's system along with more conventional first order autoregressive and disaggregation models and parameter and missing data uncertainty are identified in the analysis of system drought

Can a True Finn Speak Swedish? : The Swedish Language in the Finns Party Discourse

This paper aims to analyse the rhetorical utilisation of Swedish language in the discourse of the Finns Party. This contribution will provide an overview of the history of Swedish language in Finland and will attempt to analyse the relationship between the two language groups. This contribution will analyse the rhetorical uses of Swedish language within the discourse of the Finns Party with the intention to highlight the consistently negative portrayals of Swedish language and its status. It will be argued that the historical experience of the inequality of status between the Swedish and Finnish languages have been politicised by the Finns Party as a part of its ethno-nationalist and populist conceptualisation of the Finnish identity

Optimal sizing of storage tanks in domestic rainwater harvesting systems: A linear programming approach

This paper proposes an optimization model to determine the optimal tank size of a single residential housing unit for rainwater harvesting and storage. Taking into account the site specific data such as the rainfall profile, the roof area of the building, the water consumption per capita and the number of residents, an integrated optimization model based on linear programming is proposed to decide on the size of rainwater storage tank to build such that the net present value of the total tank construction costs and freshwater purchase costs is minimized. The proposed model was tested on a case study from Northern Cyprus, the results of which emphasized the feasibility of rainwater harvesting as a sustainable supplement to the depleting aquifers in the region. The study also offers managerial insights on the impact of various parameters such as the number of residents, roof area, discount rate, water consumption per capita, unit cost of building the rainwater tank, and rainfall characteristics on the optimal tank size and on the net financial benefit gained from rainwater harvesting through detailed sensitivity analysis

A Case Study of Rainfall Water Harvesting Effects on Runoff for Guzelyurt, Northern Cyprus

Development of the cities and growing population significantly change the natural water cycle in urban districts and consequently increase the amount of runoff water which results in higher flood risks. For mitigating the negative impacts of urbanization on runoff, rainfall water harvesting (RWH) is proposed and applied in several regions for reducing the amount of runoff. In this study, the RWH by installing storage tanks and the methodology for studying its effects on runoff are introduced. The main objective for this study is to quantify the effect of applying RWH on reducing the pressure on the existing drainage system in order to avoid the necessity of renewing the existing drainage infrastructures. The methodology is applied on a small catchment in East Guzelyurt, Northern Cyprus as a case study, in order to investigate the effectiveness of RWH for this region. The results show that considering a 6 hour rainfall with a critical intensity of 30 mm/hr, for the selected catchment the runoff can be reduced up to ~15% in first 2 hours; however before the peak rainfall, the storage tanks get full and the runoff is not significantly reduced for the next 4 hours. The results show that RWH by installing storage tank in residential buildings for this catchment is not sufficient for reducing the amount of runoff and other harvesting methods should also be considered

Challenges in Managing Water Crisis and Regulatory Instruments: A Case Study of South Asian and Middle Eastern Countries

The water crisis is now a global issue and is growing parallelly with the increasing population, urbanization, and industrial progress. Those increases in the water-stressed regions are hampering the economic prospects of the nations. Along with the water scarcity, lack of hygiene, poor sanitation, and water pollution is already hindering the developments of the countries. The most afflicted ones are the developing countries which are at greater risk due to their sizeable population, inadequate infrastructure, and impoverished policies. Accompanying the developing countries many developed nations which are naturally water deficit are also struggling to manage the water crisis. The escalating effects of climate change may disturb the water demand and supply. By extensively reviewing various literature, this paper will assess the current situation of water scarcity and policies of both developed and developing countries from South Asian and Middle Eastern parts of the world, alongside reviewing their policies towards managing the water crisis. The outcome of the research paper is inclusion of lacking provisions which can further strengthen the existing regulatory framework in a way that doesn't affect economic growth meanwhile improving water sustainability

Developing flood mitigation measures for the northern part of Nicosia

This study aims to examine a set of alternatives as remedial measures for the flood management purposes in order to protect the northern part of Nicosia which has been affected by major flooding events in recent years. In this context, at first, in order to obtain the run-off hydrographs at the entrance of reservoirs, the hydrological modelling of the ungauged catchments of Kanlikoy and Gonyeli Reservoirs which are located at the upstream part of the city was performed. In the simulation of these rainfall–run-off processes for different extreme precipitation events, the HEC-HMS software was employed using Soil Conservation Service Unit Hydrograph approach. In hydraulic modelling, the branches of Pedieos (Kanlidere) River and its urbanized floodplain were modelled by coupling the models of one-dimensional (1D) MIKE 11 and two-dimensional (2D) MIKE 21 using MIKE FLOOD tool. The calibration of the coupled hydrodynamic model was carried out by locally modifying the Manning’s roughness coefficients of the floodplains to match with the observed flood inundation extent of 2010 Flood. Consequently, the calibrated model showed nearly 94% similarity in terms of simulating the flood extent areas. Amongst different alternatives, the final proposed solution consisting of implementation of a new nearby upstream reservoir in Kanlikoy, dredging Gonyeli Reservoir and raising the crest elevations of its embankment and spillway, and restoration of possible channels sufficiently contributed to the mitigation of inundation problem and protected the northern part of Nicosia against the flooding events up to 500-year return period