Can multiple streams predict the territorial cohesion debate in the EU?

This article contributes to the debate over the fashionable but contested concept of ‘territorial cohesion’ in the European Union. Scholars have long recognised and traced discursive shifts in EU territorial development policies, but theoretical accounts of the drivers and parameters of such shifts are rare. This article applies the multiple streams model of agenda-setting to the territorial cohesion debate in order to explore how useful this model is in analysing and predicting the outcome of a debate. The article is structured according to the three ‘streams’ that are relevant to agenda-setting: problems, policies and politics. The analysis relies on the responses to the 2008 Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion in order to determine how politically feasible different policy solutions are. More recent developments such as the Territorial Agenda 2020 and the European Commission’s proposals for Cohesion Policy for 2014–2020 are then used to assess the predictive power of multiple streams. It is shown that the model successfully predicts the endurance of solidarity-based cohesion goals, the emergence of territorial capital as a key policy solution, and the rejection of geographical criteria for the allocation of EU Structural Funds. At the same time, the multiple streams model fails to predict the introduction of spatial planning tools into EU cohesion policy. This shows that explaining a substantial redefinition of existing policy terms requires some reference to key actors’ broader discursive strategies. The article concludes that the multiple streams model has some predictive and explanatory power; criticisms of the model as overly descriptive are exaggerated

Magnitude and frequency relations: are there geological constraints to the rockfall size?

There exists a transition between rockfalls, large rock mass failures, and rock avalanches. The magnitude and frequency relations (M/F) of the slope failure are increasingly used to assess the hazard level. The management of the rockfall risk requires the knowledge of the frequency of the events but also defining the worst case scenario, which is the one associated to the maximum expected (credible) rockfall event. The analysis of the volume distribution of the historical rockfall events in the slopes of the Solà d’Andorra during the last 50 years shows that they can be fitted to a power law. We argue that the extrapolation of the F-M relations far beyond the historical data is not appropriate in this case. Neither geomorphological evidences of past events nor the size of the potentially unstable rock masses identified in the slope support the occurrence of the large rockfall/rock avalanche volumes predicted by the power law. We have observed that the stability of the slope at the Solà is controlled by the presence of two sets of unfavorably dipping joints (F3, F5) that act as basal sliding planes of the detachable rock masses. The area of the basal sliding planes outcropping at the rockfall scars was measured with a terrestrial laser scanner. The distribution of the areas of the basal planes may be also fitted to a power law that shows a truncation for values bigger than 50 m2 and a maximum exposed surface of 200 m2. The analysis of the geological structure of the rock mass at the Solà d’Andorra makes us conclude that the size of the failures is controlled by the fracture pattern and that the maximum size of the failure is constrained. Two sets of steeply dipping faults (F1 and F7) interrupt the other joint sets and prevent the formation of continuous failure surfaces (F3 and F5). We conclude that due to the structural control, large slope failures in Andorra are not randomly distributed thus confirming the findings in other mountain range