The development of the Huambo Province in Angola - The application of a spatial interaction model to simulate the movement from autarky to external integration

Huambo province in Angola has been detached from the outside world since the begining of the nineties. First due to the civil war in Angola and from then on due to the degradation of the roads and destruction of the railways. Furthermore there is the lack of integration of the province itself due to transport difficulties and human desertification. The objective of this paper is to understand the role of the roads network and the distribution of public funding in the revival of the economy in the Province of Huambo. First we present a review of the literature that stresses that one of the major causes of poverty due to war is related to the lack of accessibility. Then we formulated, calibrate a spatial interaction model for the Huambo City and Province where the degree of openness of the economy can be explicitated. Finaly we simulate the model for different scenarios of road network and distrubution of public funds.

What Europe? Fortress, different speeds, coloniser or archipelago

The paper starts with the introduction of a simple analytical tool that classifies regions according to their scale and accessibility. Those indicators are closely related to the strategies of European expansion and European integration and at the same time translate paradigmatic outcomes of those combined strategies; they are usually labelled as fortress Europe, different speeds Europe, coloniser Europe and, adding one more, an archipelago of European Regions. The paper then uses European regional statistics in order to access the structure and evolution of the Europe that has being built.

The Valuation of Different Island Destinations Using Gravity Models

Islands are one of the most important destinations for tourism and leisure. However, islands exhibit different levels of attractiveness in the course of time and comparing with other islands. The objective of this paper is to analyze this subject for the Archipelago of the Azores, using gravity models and the travel cost method. The study aims to understand different performances along time and between islands caused by changes in the supply side (e.g. number of hotel beds, animation activities, events, etc.). The regression analysis includes two moments: it starts with the calibration of attractiveness; in a second moment it is focused in answering the question “what affects attractiveness?â€. Beyond its introduction and conclusions, the study is divided into three main parts: model explanation; application of the analytical concepts for the Azores islands; and finally, the analysis of the most relevant results.

Participative Planning in Africa. Firts steps in the Director Plano of Huambo

Huambo has central capacities able to compete and complement other major towns in Africa such as Johannesburg and Nairobi. Nevertheless, Huambo, the second city of Angola, was at war from 1975 till 2002 and continued to be relatively isolated from 2002 till 2006, because it took some time to rebuilt former roads. Furthermore the destruction of the export based activities during the war reduced the capacity of the city to regain the development path experienced in the sixties and early seventies. Under these circumstances the design of a Director Plan is necessarily a strategic plan of a city that has lost its export base and has obvious difficulties in getting its role in Africa. The Provincial Government asked for a Plan which design should be participated. The first question is to know who the stakeholders are and what are their expectations? The second issue is to design a participative and consistent strategy. In this paper we report the first phase of the Plan which includes not only the characterization and diagnosis of the region but also the design of a participatory strategy. We used Q Methods to interact with the stakeholders and a Spatial Interaction Model with Land Use to create consistent scenarios that arise from the political and entrepreneurial options related to the location of a new modern airport, the new export base of the town, the solution in terms of urban densities, the structure of the transport network and the design of land use planning measures.

Boundaries as tools for sustainable water management

Accross river basins water can have different types of values according not only to its production costs but also due to changes in the willingness to pay across the territory. The generalized view that integrated water management must be made through a centralised mechanism does not consider those facts and often assumes that command and control policies are the only tool available and effective. Therefore the functioning of river basins tend to be symplified with dams and the reserach agenda has been directed to design major models with powerful decision support systems for one coordinator body to decide. Nevertheless the effects of these centralised and controled systems has not been able to address the impredictability of human and ecosystem behaviour. The hypothesis we would like to test is that boundaries and negotiation between boundaries can be good tools for sustainable water management. First we review the literature on cases of basins' manegement trying to discuss the relation between boundaries. Then we develop a formal model with upstream and downstream regions and try to understand in what conditions boundaries can be good for sustainable water management. Finaly we try to introduce the concept of boundaries in an applied model for a particular river basin and simulate the solutions for a centralised planning body and for a descentralised negotiation system.

Urban concentration and spatial allocation of rents from natural resources: a Zipf's curve approach

This paper aims at demonstrating how countries' dependency on natural resources plays a crucial role in urban concentration. The Zipf's Curve Elasticity is estimated for a group of countries and related to a set of indicators of unilateral transferences. Results show that in comparison to others, countries with higher urban concentration explained by higher Zipf's Curve Elasticity have a higher percentage of income coming from natural resources and education expenditures whereas public spending in health and outflow of Foreign Direct Investment seem to have spatial redistribution effects. Summing up, there are signs that the spatial allocation of property rights over natural resources and related rents influences urban concentration

Exchange rate between scientific currencies - An application to the landuse plan of natura 2000

Science is driven by research funds, research funds are associated with decision making, and decision making is attached to valuation. Therefore every scientific paradigm tend to devise its own valuation system. Ecconomists prefer cost benefit analysis where everything can be translated into money. Planners assume values to infinity which lines in a map difining restrictions and enforceable land uses. Ecologists design maps with values for biodiversity. Historians value things according to their age. And engineers enjoy the mathematical control over multicriteria analysis. Anyway, concerning spatial planinng, most of the time there is a line on a map, assumed by polititions and experts and more or less respected by stakeholders. Along this line the total value of alternative uses must be the same. And the total value assumes all the infomation values provided by economists, ecologists, planners, engineers and historians. Because a line has many points it is possible to estimate the exchange rate function between all these different scientific currencies and derive the total economic value of different land uses.

Land Use Change and Socio-Economic Evaluation in São Jorge Island (Between 15th and 20th Century)

The agenda explain the historical evolution of land uses in São Jorge Island (Azores- Portugal) between 15th-20th century.The economic exploitation of the island space prosecuted itself in simultaneous with his colony, one form to guarantee the auto supplying of the populations. First we assess the capacity of the island territory for different uses based on agronomic analysis and transform these capacities in attractiveness coefficients.Then we design a spatial interaction model with five different sectors which employment can be closely related with surface area, first to five zones in the island and within those zones to small plots of 1 hectare each.Finally we use historical data on population and main export crops in order to calibrate the model for each century. Therefore, based on data on the export crop and on the population it is possible to estimate the different land use of the island for all the sectors and to assess the carrying capacity of the island.

A Q Methodology approach to define urban sustainability challenges in a small insular city

The objective of this paper is to define what problems the city of Angra do Heroísmo (Terceira Island, Azores) faces in what regards urban sustainability, so as to improve the quality of life of the residents and to ensure the adequate growth and progress of the city in all areas, as possible. The main themes approached in this work were urbanism, the city’s current development level, public security, environment, culture and education, economy, funding, governance, migration, public participation and poverty. Selected stakeholders ranked statements pertaining each of these themes, from which we extracted three distinct social perspectives, one concerned with employment and the recovery of the city, another that praises the quality of human resources and a third that trusts the quality of the social infrastructure. All perspectives seem to agree that there are no public security problems in Angra, and that rebuilding is a more sustainable option. They also believe that there is adequate support for migrants, good dialogue between public bodies and social organizations, and that the population is willing to play a greater role in the city’s governance. Key-words: urban sustainability, q methodology, stakeholder perspectives

A multi-criteria decision aid methodology to design electric vehicles public charging networks

This article presents a new multi-criteria decision aid methodology, dynamic-PROMETHEE, here used to design electric vehicle charging networks. In applying this methodology to a Portuguese city, results suggest that it is effective in designing electric vehicle charging networks, generating time and policy based scenarios, considering offer and demand and the city’s urban structure. Dynamic-PROMETHE adds to the already known PROMETHEE’s characteristics other useful features, such as decision memory over time, versatility and adaptability. The case study, used here to present the dynamic-PROMETHEE, served as inspiration and base to create this new methodology. It can be used to model different problems and scenarios that may present similar requirement characteristics