Multi-decadal shoreline changes in Eastern Ghana—natural dynamics versus human interventions

Human infrastructures, such as dams, seawalls, and ports, can affect both the sedimentary budget and nearshore hydrodynamics, enhancing and accelerating the loss or gain of coastal sediments. Understanding the processes and factors controlling beach morphodynamics is essential for implementing adequate adaptation strategies in coastal areas, particularly in those regions where coastal protection measures are scarce. This study analyzes shoreline changes in the Keta Municipal District, located in southeastern Ghana (West Africa). This area is characterized by the sedimentary input of the Volta River, forming a river delta situated to the west, i.e., updrift, of our study site. Following the construction of two dams (Akosombo and Kpong) on the Volta River in 1965 and 1982, groins and revetments have been built along the coast between 2005 and 2015 to reduce the high rates of coastal erosion in this area. Here, we explore the influence of these dams and the hard protection constructions on beach morphodynamics using historical maps and satellite images complemented by a shoreline survey undertaken with a differential GNSS in 2015. The multi-decadal evolution between 1913 and 2015 reconstructed for 90 km of shoreline suggests that local erosion rates in the region predate the construction of the two dams on the Volta River, indicating that these structures might not be the primary driver of coastal erosion in this area, as previously suggested. We emphasize that delta dynamics under conditions of high-energy longshore drift, modified by anthropogenic drivers such as sand mining, play a key role in the long-term evolution of this coast. Our results also show that the infrastructures built to halt coastal erosion result in localized erosion and accretion down-current along the coastline towards the border with Togo, highlighting the need for a transnational perspective in addressing the problems caused by coastal erosion

Environmental movements in space-time: the Czech and Slovak republics from Stalinism to post-socialism

To demonstrate the role of space and time in social movements, the paper analyses the evolution and context of the environmental movement in the Czech and Slovak republics from 1948 to 1998. It shows that the movement's identity was formed under socialism and that political opportunity and resource availability changed markedly over time, as did its organisational and spatial structure. The movement played a significant part in the collapse of the socialist regime, but in the 1990s was marginalised in the interests of building a market economy and an independent Slovakia. Nevertheless a diverse and flexible range of groups existed by the late 1990s. The successive space-times allow analysis of the multiple and changing variables that influence the geography of social movements

Keeping secrets from parents: Advantages and disadvantages of secrecy in adolescence.

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Biotechnology and the Politics of Truth : From the Green Revolution to an Evergreen Revolution

This paper investigates why and how issues around the diffusion of GM technologies and products to developing countries have become so central to a debate which has shifted away from technical issues of cost-benefit optimisation in a context of uniform mass production and consumption in the North, to the moral case for GM crops to feed the hungry and aid ‘development’ in the South. Using comparison between agricultural biotechnology and the ‘Green Revolution’ as a cross cutting theme, the contributions of this paper are threefold. Firstly, by analysing biotechnology as a set of overlapping frames within a discursive formation, four frames are identified which summarise key challenges presented by biotechnology era. Secondly, the use of Foucault's concept of bio-power to synthesise key themes from the frame analysis illuminates the ‘revolutionary’ nature of the biotech revolution. Thirdly, the potential of actor-network theory to provide a tools for the empirical study of processes of (re)negotiation of nature/society relations in the context of agricultural biotechnology controversies is explored