Protecting aquatic ecosystems in heavily allocated river systems: the case of the Oldman River Basin,Alberta

Initiatives aimed at protecting aquatic ecosystems often prove difficult to implement—particularly in water‐stressed, semi‐arid regions where the demand for water for human consumption is high. This article reports on an investigation of the factors that shaped the development and implementation of policies for aquatic ecosystem protection in the Oldman River Basin (ORB), a crucial watershed in semi‐arid southern Alberta. The analysis reveals critical cultural and historical considerations that confront those attempting to protect and restore aquatic ecosystems in the ORB and highlights specific factors that influence implementation of measures to protect it. In addition to the most basic consideration—demand for water exceeds supplies—eight specific factors that influenced aquatic ecosystem protection in this region are identified and evaluated. These include (1) clarity of actors’ roles/ jurisdictional responsibilities; (2) communication; (3) definition of key terms; (4) funding and organizational capacity; (5) leadership; (6) legal standing; (7) data and monitoring; and (8) public education. We argue that while these factors are important, critical cultural and historical considerations that influence water policy in the province also must be addressed in any efforts to protect aquatic ecosystems in southern Alberta.     

In praise of the International Geographical Union

This viewpoint is a highly personal account of what the International Geographical Union (IGU) has meant for a 50‐year career in Canadian geography and is a consideration of the importance of the IGU to geographers world‐wide. The author's earliest experiences of the IGU, the IGU's Commissions, its disciplinary perspective, some political problems experienced by IGU scholars, and the IGU as a global geographical community are the main topics considered.     

Changing views in Canadian geomorphology: are we seeing the landscape for the processes?

Geomorphology in Canada, as elsewhere, has evolved into an essentially bipartite discipline focusing either on ‘process’ or broader ‘historical’ (Quaternary) landscape interpretation. A growing emphasis on process‐oriented research that relies increasingly on instrumentation and computational technologies has occurred. Critics of such research note limited applicability for landscape evolution, fashionability of methods and limited societal relevance. Indeed, some say we are not seeing the landscape for the processes. This article discusses the changing nature of geomorphology since the Quantitative Revolution of the 1950s including new advances, recent trends and challenges. Publication trends and recent advances suggest that the discipline is very healthy (following a slump in the early 1990s) and continues to evolve, which may reflect increasing research infrastructure and/or funding opportunities and new publications spotlighting Canadian research. Unfortunately, fundamental (less applied) research is threatened by funding program shifts, changing institutional pressures and a decline in research capacity from retirement attrition, and student recruitment challenges. Three research priorities are recommended: (1) continued fundamental research, (2) more integrated modelling to link micro scale processes to macro scale landform behaviour and (3) improvements in profiling our discipline amongst students and related professionals.     

Sharing the colonial burden: Treaty‐making and reconciliation in Hul’qumi’num territory

This article explores different understandings of reconciliation within the context of modern treaty making in British Columbia, focusing on the role of the BC treaty process in resolving the longstanding dispute between Aboriginal Peoples and the Crown over rights to land. Although the treaty process was created to reconcile competing interests in the land, Crown and Aboriginal negotiators often have contradictory understandings of how this reconciliation is to take place. Drawing on a case study of the Hul’qumi’num Peoples, a group of Coast Salish First Nations, I examine how different understandings and approaches to reconciliation impede progress at the treaty table. I conclude that progress towards treaty and reconciliation in this case will require coming to terms with the Hul’qumi’num territory's colonial history and geography, something that the current treaty process actively avoids, plus the crafting of a treaty agreement that allows for a more equal sharing of the burden that colonialism has created in this place. More particularly, meaningful reconciliation will require a fuller recognition of Aboriginal title and rights across the breadth of the territory and a commitment to meaningful compensation of Hul’qumi’num Peoples for the wrongful taking of their lands.     

The spatial economy of North American trade fairs

Through a study of trade fairs, this article illustrates that relational approaches to economic geography are not limited to the sphere of economic and social relationships. These relationships are influenced by and, in turn, shape material realities, such as specific infrastructure and the labour market, in a reflexive manner. Trade fairs are “relational events” that bring together regional, national, and often international producers, users, suppliers, and other agents of a value chain or technology field for the purpose of exchanging knowledge about technological and market developments, building partnerships, and maintaining existing networks through learning by interaction and observation. However, these events are also situated in space and time, grounded in the contexts of particular industries, trade patterns, public and private investments, as well as the economic geographies of places. Focusing on North America, this article presents and analyzes data on the economic geography of trade fairs and their regional economic impact (number of events, exhibitors, attendees, exhibition space). It explores regional trade fair patterns and dynamic changes in major trade fair cities by emphasizing the role of history and industry context.     

Political economy,demography and development in Australia's Northern Territory

The Canadian ‘staples thesis’ literature has documented both the risks (in the tradition of Harold Innis) and the opportunities (in the tradition of W. A. Macintosh) inherent in economies that are dependent on the export of minimally processed natural resources. The key risk is that of retarded long‐term growth as a result of a lack of diversification and over‐dependence on foreign capital and markets. This article argues that the demographic consequences of staples approaches to development also make it difficult to achieve diversification. It profiles Australia's Northern Territory as an example of a mining‐dependent (fiscal) economy that demonstrates a particular demographic profile consistent with what might be expected of a resource frontier. The article argues, however, that restrictive demographic characteristics persist (high sex ratios, high population mobility, disadvantaged position of indigenous people and remote dwellers) even though mining has become an insignificant direct employer (less than one percent of the workforce) and the services sector drives the labour market. This persistence can be linked to the Territory and federal government expectations of economic development patterns in the region and the frontier mythology created around the Northern Territory. Addressing the demographic imbalance is a critical step towards realizing ambitions for economic diversification.     

Detrended fluctuation analysis of daily atmospheric surface temperature records in Atlantic Canada

The presence and properties of long‐range correlations in temperature data reflect interactions among climate components; therefore, the quantitative characterization of scaling aspects of temperature patterns is important to climate research and can serve as an effective constituent of tests for climate models. The article presents the results of a study using multiscale characterization of daily atmospheric surface temperature patterns in Atlantic Canada. Important influences in this region are exerted from the west (the Pacific Ocean), the south (the Gulf of Mexico) and the north (the Arctic), while a significant easterly impact is due to the Atlantic Ocean; the corresponding processes involve a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. The objective of the present study of long‐term temperature recordings was to evaluate the scaling properties produced in this geographical context. The data consist of homogenized daily atmospheric temperature time series recorded in stations from Atlantic Canada over a time interval of more than 100 years. Detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) was applied both to maximum and minimum temperature records. The atmospheric temperature pattern produced by the interplay of factors of different strengths and dominating various time‐space scales was found to be characterized by consistent scaling properties, expressed over time intervals ranging from months to decades. Higher values of DFA scaling exponents were obtained for minimum temperature compared to maximum temperature records. Site‐specific properties include stronger pattern persistence—higher DFA exponents—for oceanic than for coastal locations; persistence tends to decrease with increasing distance from the coast for distances up to 10 kilometres. Scaling exponents tend to increase with decreasing difference between average minimum and maximum temperature, which may be relevant for the assessment of future changes in pattern variability if climate change involves modified contrasts between minimum and maximum temperature values.     

‘Born in an atomic test tube’: landscapes of cyclonic development at Uranium City,Saskatchewan

Drawing together insights from neo‐Innisian geography and environmental history, this paper explores the landscape and environmental changes engendered by ‘cyclonic’ patterns of development associated with uranium production at Uranium City, Saskatchewan. Strong postwar demand for uranium led to the establishment and rapid expansion of Uranium City on the north shore of Lake Athabasca as a ‘yellowcake town’, dedicated to producing uranium oxide concentrate to supply federal government contracts with the US military. In spite of optimistic assessments for the region's industrial future, the new settlement remained inherently unstable, tied to shifting institutional arrangements and external markets, and haunted by the spectre of resource depletion. The planning and development of the townsite at Uranium City reflected both neocolonial desires to open the north to Euro‐Canadian settlement and efforts by the state to buffer the stormy effects of resource dependency. Ultimately, however, quixotic government efforts to implant an outpost of industrial modernity in the Athabasca Region failed to forestall the inevitable winds of change, which left in their wake destructive legacies of social dislocation and environmental degradation, already evident with the near‐collapse of the uranium export market by the early 1960s.     

Spatial and temporal variation in vulnerability of crop production to drought in southern Alberta

Growing evidence of global climate change has led to global concerns over the vulnerability of agriculture to drought. Located in a semiarid environment, southern Alberta has suffered significant losses of agricultural productivity due to drought hazards in recent decades. Understanding the relationship between crop production and drought conditions is essential for coping with increasingly uncertain climate conditions. This study attempts to quantify the magnitude of crop production vulnerability to drought in southern Alberta. The standard precipitation index is used to measure drought stress in the region. The empirical results provide a detailed picture of the spatial variation in crop production vulnerability to varying drought conditions. Vulnerability maps from this study reveal that pockets in the study area may experience significant productivity loss given the existing level of adaptive capacity. While the irrigation districts have been associated with a lower level of vulnerability than dryland outside the irrigated region, uncertain water supply under varying climatic conditions coupled with increasing water allocation for non‐agricultural uses may increase the vulnerability in these districts.     

Travelling down the road to postdisciplinarity? Reflections of a tourism geographer

Like many other forms of scholarship in geography, tourism geography has evolved as a distinct subfield of inquiry within the discipline, although the contributions of tourism geographers are perhaps more readily acknowledged in the multidisciplinary realm of tourism studies. I trace the evolving relationship of tourism geography to both the discipline of geography and to the field of tourism studies. In doing so, I reflect on such influences as the role of institutions, paradigm shifts, technology, and other factors that affect the creation and management of geographic knowledge in the twenty‐first century. The intent of this article is two‐fold: first, to appeal to geographers for greater recognition of the importance of tourism as a quintessential component of geographic study that in today's world warrants integration into core aspects of geographic enquiry; second, to use current debates within both tourism studies and geography to reflect on issues of disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and even postdisciplinarity.     

Von der Naturgeschichte zur Naturwissenschaft Die Naturwissenschaften als eigenes Fachgebiet an der Universität Jena

Since 1790, the term Naturwissenschaften occurs in the lecture lists of the University of Jena published in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung of Jena. Naturwissenschaften is used as a title for lectures previously listed under the headings of Philosophie or Naturgeschichte. The introduction of the concept of Naturwissenschaften is interesting for several reasons: Firstly, at that time it is not the usual label in this context, and one therefore has to ask whether it already implies the connotations that are associated with the modern concept of Naturwissenschaften, i. e. science in the modern sense. Secondly, the lecture lists of the University of Jena give insight into the various changes in the established ordering scheme for academic lectures that lead to the introduction of the term Naturwissenschaften, thus contributing to a better understanding of both the history of this concept and of the development of the university faculties as we know them. A close look at the concept of Naturwissenschaften as it was used around 1800 may, thirdly, help to understand the use made of this concept in philosophy, especially in the philosophy of nature of this period.