Battle for the Floodplains: An Institutional Analysis of Water Management and Spatial Planning in England

Dramatic flood events witnessed from the turn of the century have renewed political attention and, it is believed, created new opportunities for the restoration of functional floodplains to alleviate the impact of flooding on urban development. For centuries, rural and urban landowning interests have dominated floodplains and water management in England, through a ‘hegemonic discourse alliance’ on land use development and flood defence. More recently, the use of structural flood defences has been attributed to the exacerbation of flood risk in towns and cities, and we are warned if water managers proceeded with ‘business as usual’ traditional scenarios, this century is predicted to see increased severe inconveniences at best and human catastrophes at worst. The novel, sustainable and integrated policy response is highly dependent upon the planning system, heavily implicated in the loss of floodplains in the past, in finding the land for restoring functioning floodplains. Planners are urged to take this as a golden opportunity to make homes and businesses safer from flood risk, but also to create an environment with green spaces and richer habitats for wildlife. Despite supportive changes in policy, there are few urban floodplain restoration schemes being implemented in practice in England, we remain entrenched in the engineered flood defence approach and the planner’s response is deemed inadequate. The key question is whether new discourses and policy instruments on sustainable, integrated water management can be put into practice, or whether they will remain ‘lip-service’ and cannot be implemented after all. Against the backdrop of a broader modernity debate, in this thesis the English floodplain emerges as a ‘battle site’ where the planner is caught in the cross fire of an ideological clash between economic (armed with technology) and environmentalist (allied with nature) arguments and preferred change in land use. Furthering interpretative research and discourse analysis to tap and explain belief and knowledge systems rather than rational ‘fluvial systems’ per se, the thesis delves deeper than previous research, into the mind sets and ‘irrationalities’ of actors’ practices on the floodplain. The policy response advocating ‘making space for water’ and floodplain restoration is based on an overstretched steering optimism, and will continue to prove too radical if the mediating and tempering political-institutional context is not seriously addressed. If there is true commitment from the UK government, closing the current implementation deficit on floodplain restoration will require the recognition and amelioration of persisting power structures within government agencies, founded on technological and economic rationalities, and permit the planner to share responsibility, unfettered by one sided growth objectives, to find new ways of working across sectors and disciplines towards sustainable, water sensitive towns and cities

Superconductivity and Ferromagnetism in Oxide Interface Structures: Possibility of Finite Momentum Pairing

We introduce a model to explain the observed ferromagnetism and superconductivity in LAO/STO oxide interface structures. Due to the polar catastrophe mechanism, 1/2 charge per unit cell is transferred to the interface layer. We argue that this charge localizes and orders ferromagnetically via exchange with the conduction electrons. Ordinarily this ferromagnetism would destroy superconductivity, but due to strong spin-orbit coupling near the interface, the magnetism and superconductivity can coexist by forming an FFLO-type condensate of Cooper pairs at finite momentum, which is surprisingly robust in the presence of strong disorder.Comment: 6 pages of Supplementary materials added containing details of calculation and further discussion of the FFLO state with disorder, references added, final version as publishe

Drug Cartels and the International Organization of Drug Trafficking in the 21st Century

This research is a brief overview of the new cartels emerging to dominate today\u27s international traffic in drugs. In terms of geographic reach, economic impact, and imperiousness to law enforcemnt, drug cartels became the dominant form of organized crime in the last two decades of the 20th century. In the 21st century drug cartels have taken advatage of the massive increases in international trade and commerce and have learned from the mistakes of the earlier cartels. The new cartels are more numerous, flexible, chameleonic in their nature, and durable than any we have seen before

Preparing Teachers Who Can Effectively Assess Students with Disabilities

This qualitative interview study examined the classroom assessment knowledge and beliefs of five recent graduates of the University of New Mexico Special Education Dual License Program (SEDLP). Research questions were designed to gain an understanding in three areas. First, in what ways did recent SEDLP graduates characterize their level of competence (theoretical understanding and practical application) in assessing the progress of students with disabilities in the classroom? Second, in what ways do SEDLP graduates report that they use classroom assessment to inform classroom instruction? Third, what features of the SEDLP teacher preparation program do graduates identify as having positively or negatively impacted their ability to effectively use classroom assessments? To answer these questions, each participant was interviewed twice using a semi-structured question format and constant-comparative methodology. The results showed participant knowledge and specific practices in addressing student affective needs, broadening the application of assessments by individualizing and differentiating, meeting district requirements for assessments, using measurable assessment criteria, and using frequent informal assessment. Classroom instruction was most impacted as participants determined next steps to address knowledge gaps or intervene behaviorally. The SEDLP was characterized as positively impacting classroom assessment in the areas of providing assessment models, multiple examples of types, multiple informal assessment practice opportunities, and organizational and resource availability. It was characterized as lacking instruction in the areas of writing formal assessments and providing opportunities to learn and practice assessments in math. These results lead to implications for future practice and research that are discussed

Delivering sustainable drainage systems through the English planning system: A proposed case of institutional void

Following a series of flood events, the major flooding of 2007 finally triggered legislative change through the Flood and Water Management Act of 2010 and proposed the introduction of Schedule 3 (S3), to provide a stronger regulatory system for the implementation of sustainable drainage systems (SuDS). However, S3 has been abandoned in England in favour of implementing SuDS through a “strengthened” planning system. By taking a broader governance perspective, this article explores the limited uptake of SuDS through the strengthened planning system. We argue that the so‐called strengthening of the planning system creates an institutional void: a lack of policy clarity that occurs when the role of the state is scaled back and other actors take up governance roles. While institutional voids can create successful outcomes, in the case of SuDS implementation they have been sub‐optimal. We trace the cause of these outcomes to the unwillingness of the Government to engage in designing policy. This creates a lack of consistency and uniformity, as the implementation of SuDS becomes a matter of ad hoc negotiations and power relations between local authorities and developers. We conclude that the current policy has reduced potential to deliver better outcomes and highlight the options for increased SuDS uptake going forward

Aperture efficiency of chemically etched horns at 93 GHz

The aperture efficiency of monolithic two-dimensional horn imaging arrays has been optimized at 93 GHz. The imaging arrays consist of several silicon wafers into which arrays of pyramidal horns are etched chemically. Dipole antennas and detectors are suspended on thin silicon oxynitride membranes on one of the central silicon wafers about halfway down the horns. The devices are 7×7 arrays with a 1 λ opening and a 71° flare angle. Antenna impedances have been measured on a low-frequency model. A variety of millimeter-wave dipole antennas and bolometers have been designed and tested. A large-area bismuth thin-film power meter is used to obtain accurate absolute power. The measured aperture efficiency improved from 44% to 72%. The highest system coupling efficiency with a lens was 36% including lens absorption and reflection losses

A tale of two states? A comparative study of cross-sector collaboration in children’s services and flood risk management

Collaboration between the UK’s voluntary organisations and public agencies is often viewed through the lens of the changing welfare state. In this paper we contrast cross-sector collaboration in children’s services – as an example of the ‘welfare state’ – with collaboration in flood risk management – as an example of the ‘environmental state’. We argue that different state histories have implications for understanding how cross-sector collaboration develops, and how power dynamics play out between public and voluntary sector actors in a particular policy domain

Collaborative public leadership: does problem context matter?

The potential solutions to many of society’s most complex or ‘wicked’ problems lie beyond the boundaries of any single organization, profession or sector, the resultant interorganizational domains posing particular challenges for public leadership. The body of scholarship to explore and address the challenges of working with difference that are at the heart of a collaborative approach evolved earlier and, we argue, remains largely grounded in the social sector. Responding to a call for ‘less silo-bound and more integrated research’ into modern policymaking, our exploratory, comparative study of child protection and flood protection first highlights the strong parallels in the two domains and directs environmental managers and policymakers to the lessons they can gain from the accumulated scholarship on collaborative leadership. Secondly, due to the lack of comparative work to clarify ways in which the challenges might vary or contrast in the context of different inter-organizational domains, the comparative study also teases out differences, demonstrating that problem context does matter for collaborative leadership, that there are distinctive challenges for collaborative leadership in the flood protection domain with implications for both practice recommendations and theory building. For example, the technocratic tendencies of scientists and the dynamics of power and ideology, the historical alignment of the problem domain with neoliberalism, the potential protective international drivers and global imperatives of climate change and a consequent reversal in our direction of potential lessons to be transferred - to sustain policy innovation in the social domain. We uncover indications that collaborative leadership, which challenges organisational and professional cultures and the shift in values required to tackle wicked problems, surfaces most strongly from the voluntary sector – we finally uncover contractual differences and caution environmental voluntary sector leaders not to constrain innovation in the continued exploration of policy alternatives

Designing low carbon higher education systems: Environmental impacts of campus and distance learning systems

Purpose – This paper aims to summarise the methods and main findings of a study of the environmental impacts of providing higher education (HE) courses by campus-based and distance/open-learning methods. Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of an environmental audit, with data from surveys of 20 UK courses – 13 campus-based, seven print-based and online distance learning courses – covering travel, paper and print consumption, computing, accommodation, and campus site impacts. Results were converted into energy and CO2 emissions per student per 100 hours of degree study. Findings – Distance learning HE courses involve 87 per cent less energy and 85 per cent lower CO2 emissions than the full-time campus-based courses. Part-time campus HE courses reduce energy and CO2 emissions by 65 and 61 per cent, respectively, compared with full-time campus courses. The lower impacts of part-time and distance compared with full-time campus courses is mainly due to a reduction in student travel and elimination of much energy consumption of students’ housing, plus economies in campus site utilisation. E-learning appears to offer only relatively small energy and emissions reductions (20 and 12 per cent, respectively) compared with mainly print-based distance learning courses, mainly because online learning requires more energy for computing and paper for printing. Research limitations/implications – Assumptions were made in order to calculate the energy and emissions arising from the different HE systems. For example, it was decided to include all the energy consumed in term-time accommodation for full-time campus students while part-time campus and distance learning students live at home, only requiring additional heating and lighting for study. Future studies could include more distance and blended learning courses offered by institutions other than the UK Open University and impacts other than CO2 emissions. Practical implications – Existing HE sustainability programmes should be broadened beyond considering campus site impacts and “greening the curriculum”. Indeed, were HE expansion to take environmental impacts seriously, then part-time and distance education should be prioritised over increasing full-time provision. This appears compatible with the Leitch Review of Skills on continuing education and training for the UK workforce. Originality/value – The paper is the only existing quantitative study of this issue