Inequality and megaprojects: the Panama Canal expansion

Cuando el control y gestión del Canal de Panamá pasó al estado panameño a finales de 1999, el gobierno comenzó a preparar un plan para su modernización. Este plan incluía la construcción de nuevas esclusas para que pudieran atravesarlo un mayor número de barcos y que admitiese los nuevos buques Post-Panamax de gran tamaño. El proyecto de Ampliación del Canal se ha seleccionado como ejemplo paradigmático de Grandes Obras Públicas (GOP) por su impacto ambiental, económico y social. Este caso de estudio nos servirá para reflexionar sobre las relaciones que existen entre desigualdad, desarrollo y medio ambiente. El artículo se estructura como sigue: 1) se hará una rápida presentación del Canal y de su funcionamiento; 2) se analizarán las diferentes propuestas y alternativas de modernización y ampliación que se han hecho desde el órgano gestor del Canal la Autoridad del Canal de Panamá (ACP); 3) se describirá la forma en que la ACP está gestionando socialmente el proyecto; 4) por último, se llevará a cabo una reflexión sobre las relaciones entre GOP, desigualdad, poder y riesgo.The Panama Canal is one of the fundamental global transoceanic routes. In 1999 and after the management of the Canal was returned to the state of Panama, the PCA, a public/private organism, was formalised. The PCA is in charge of the management of boat traffic as well as the maintenance of this infrastructure. In 1999 a Master Plan was developed with the aim of modernizing the Canal to adapt it to the necessities of global maritime traffic as the carrying capacity of very large boats increased. The final output of the project is the construction of two new and larger locks. This case study has been selected as a paradigmatic example of megaprojects due to its huge environmental, economic and social impacts. Its analysis will improve the knowledge about the relationship among inequality, development and environment.This article is divided into the following parts: 1) a brief presentation of the Canal and its technical management; 2) an analysis of the different alternatives offered for its enlargement proposed by PCA; 3) a description of the social management of the project and 4) an analysis of the relationship among megaprojects, inequalities, power and risk

Inequality and megaprojects: The Panama Canal expansion

Cuando el control y gestión del Canal de Panamá pasó al estado panameño a finales de 1999, el gobierno comenzó a preparar un plan para su modernización. Este plan incluía la construcción de nuevas esclusas para que pudieran atravesarlo un mayor número de barcos y que admitiese los nuevos buques Post-Panamax de gran tamaño. El proyecto de Ampliación del Canal se ha seleccionado como ejemplo paradigmático de grandes Obras Públicas (GOP) por su impacto ambiental, económico y social. Este caso de estudio nos servirá para reflexionar sobre las relaciones que existen entre desigualdad, desarrollo y medio ambiente. El artículo se estructura como sigue: 1) se hará una rápida presentación del Canal y de su funcionamiento; 2) se analizarán las diferentes propuestas y alternativas de modernización y ampliación que se han hecho desde el órgano gestor del Canal, la Autoridad del Canal de Panamá (ACP); 3) se describirá la forma en que la ACP está gestionando socialmente el proyecto; 4) por último, se llevará a cabo una reflexión sobre las relaciones entre GOP, desigualdad, poder y riesgo.The Panama Canal is one of the fundamental global transoceanic routes. In 1999 and after the management of the Canal was returned to the state of Panama, the PCA, a public/private organism, was formalised. The PCA is in charge of the management of boat traffic as well as the maintenance of this infrastructure. In 1999 a Master Plan was developed with the aim of modernizing the Canal to adapt it to the necessities of global maritime traffic as the carrying capacity of very large boats increased. The final output of the project is the construction of two new and larger locks. This case study has been selected as a paradigmatic example of megaprojects due to its huge environmental, economic and social impacts. Its analysis will improve the knowledge about the relationship among inequality, development and environment. This article is divided into the following parts: 1) a brief presentation of the Canal and its technical management; 2) an analysis of the different alternatives offered for its enlargement proposed by PCA; 3) a description of the social management of the project and 4) an analysis of the relationship among megaprojects, inequalities, power and ris

Turismo residencial y sostenibilidad: el caso de la costa sur-occidental española

La historia reciente de la provincia de Huelva aparece condicionada por la decisión tecnocrática de la instalación, en los años sesenta, de un polo industrial de desarrollo junto a la capital. Durante la década de los noventa, se producen, simultáneamente, una serie de crisis que golpean la economía provincial. Por una parte, el sector industrial se enfrenta a la necesidad de adaptarse a un contexto más competitivo, nuevas normativas europeas, cuestiones sociolaborales, requisitos ambientales… que ponen en peligro su supervivencia. Al mismo tiempo, la crisis de la pesca tradicional afectó profundamente a los municipios de costa. Ante las crisis de estos sectores tradicionales, en las últimas dos décadas surgen la agricultura industrial y el turismo como alternativas de desarrollo. En concreto, los municipios costeros, comienzan a plantearse nuevas fórmulas de desarrollo turístico. El “turismo de calidad y respetuoso con el medio ambiente” aparece como la referencia que orienta las iniciativas municipales, intentando dejar atrás el poco rentable turismo familiar de masas, estacional y residencial, que se había desarrollado hasta los noventa en localidades como Matalascañas o Punta Umbría. La calidad y la sostenibilidad se erigen como el discurso político-empresarial hegemónico para el nuevo desarrollo turístico de la zona

Un modelo turístico alternativo para ciudades de tamaño pequeño. La industria turística en la Costa Blanca y su adaptación a la nueva sociedad post-industrial

Este artículo propone una alternativa a la modalidad de turismo de "charter-playa", y analiza las causas de la crisis de la industria en una zona del Mediterráneo; analiza las condiciones modernas de trabajo tecno-científico, y la situación de Altea como municipio tipo para atraer a un turismo selectivo.This paper presents an altemative to the kind of "charter-beach" tourism, and it analyzes the reasons for the crisis in the tourism industry in an especific Mediterranean área. The modern conditions of tecno-scientific work are discussed, refering to the geographic situation of Altea, as a model resort to attract a selective tourism

The DLMT hardware implementation. A comparative study with the DCT and the DWT

In the last recent years, with the popularity of image compression techniques, many architectures have been proposed. Those have been generally based on the Forward and Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform (FDCT, IDCT). Alternatively, compression schemes based on discrete "wavelets" transform (DWT), used, both, in JPEG2000 coding standard and in H264-SVC (Scalable Video Coding) standard, do not need to divide the image into non-overlapping blocks or macroblocks. This paper discusses the DLMT (Discrete Lopez-Moreno Transform) hardware implementation. It proposes a new scheme intermediate between the DCT and the DWT, comparing results of the most relevant proposed architectures for benchmarking. The DLMT can also be applied over a whole image, but this does not involve increasing computational complexity. FPGA implementation results show that the proposed DLMT has significant performance benefits and improvements comparing with the DCT and the DWT and consequently it is very suitable for implementation on WSN (Wireless Sensor Network) applications

The DLMT. An alternative to the DCT

In the last recent years, with the popularity of image compression techniques, many architectures have been proposed. Those have been generally based on the Forward and Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform (FDCT, IDCT). Alternatively, compression schemes based on discrete “wavelets” transform (DWT), used, both, in JPEG2000 coding standard and in the next H264-SVC (Scalable Video Coding), do not need to divide the image into non-overlapping blocks or macroblocks. This paper discusses the DLMT (Discrete Lopez-Moreno Transform). It proposes a new scheme intermediate between the DCT and the DWT (Discrete Wavelet Transform). The DLMT is computationally very similar to the DCT and uses quasi-sinusoidal functions, so the emergence of artifact blocks and their effects have a relative low importance. The use of quasi-sinusoidal functions has allowed achieving a multiresolution control quite close to that obtained by a DWT, but without increasing the computational complexity of the transformation. The DLMT can also be applied over a whole image, but this does not involve increasing computational complexity. Simulation results in MATLAB show that the proposed DLMT has significant performance benefits and improvements comparing with the DC

Using causal maps to support ex-post assessment of social impacts of dams

This paper presents the results of an ex-post assessment of two important dams in Brazil. The study follows the principles of Social Impact Management, which offer a suitable framework for analyzing the complex social transformations triggered by hydroelectric dams. In the implementation of this approach, participative causal maps were used to identify the ex-post social impacts of the Porto Primavera and Rosana dams on the community of Porto Rico, located along the High Paraná River. We found that in the operation of dams there are intermediate causes of a political nature, stemming from decisions based on values and interests not determined by neutral, exclusively technical reasons; and this insight opens up an area of action for managing the negative impacts of dams.Financial support of the Auracaria Foundation of Investment and Research in Paraná, Brazil through projects 9527/2006, 14354/2009, and 13015/2008

Similarities in stakeholder identification of restoration targets in a semiarid area

Ecological restoration is a suitable tool to revert the decline in the provision of ecosystem services in semiarid areas. Stakeholder opinion has been increasingly incorporated in ecological restoration strategies. However, the debate still exists whether the opinion of scientists and managers should be integrated together with that of local stakeholders in the decision making process. We assessed the restoration priorities in a semiarid area in North Morocco according to the opinion of 67 stakeholders, including scientists and managers, direct users and collaborators. The questions consisted in (i) ranking five categories of services in addition to economic benefits, and in (ii) comparing pairs of services within each category. We checked for both cardinal and ordinal inconsistency. The results showed an overall consensus about regulating and supporting services as the most valuable categories. More specifically, the most important services were erosion and flood control, soil fertility, water supply and species richness. The accuracy of the responses of the three groups was similar as the consistency for their judgments was not significantly different. Our results bring additional proof that the opinion of scientists, managers and local stakeholders should be considered of similar interest and accuracy when defining the most suitable restoration objectives.The research was carried out in the University of Abdelmalek Essaadi (Tétouan, Morocco) and the University of Alicante (Spain) and was funded by the projects SEMER (AECID: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo, Programa de Cooperación Interuniversitaria AECI-PCI AP/040315/11), RESEP2B (University of Alicante) and UNCROACH (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation; CGL2011-30581-C02-01), in collaboration with the Forest Administration of Al Hoceima in N Morocco