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.     

LAND RECLAMATION AFTER SURFACE MINING IN THE USSR: ECONOMIC,POLITICAL, AND LEGAL ISSUES

This paper surveys economic, political, and legal factors involved in decisions to reclaim surface-mined land in the USSR, with particular emphasis on coal and iron ore, two of the most economically significant minerals extracted by surface methods. An initial section presents estimates of areas disturbed by surface mining and subsequently reclaimed. An analysis of selected economic, political, and legal factors follows. These include changing ratios of surface to underground production; a price system which undervalues mineral raw materials relative to finished products; Gorbachev's economic reforms; fragmentation of jurisdiction over reclamation activities; and extant reclamation law and its interpretation.     

Contesting Foreign Policy: Disagreement between the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of War on the Shatt al-Arab Dispute with Iran, 1912–13

The Shatt al-Arab question has been the subject of several studies, most of which concentrate on the internationalization of the subject. However, few, if any, works have analyzed how this territorial dispute was perceived within Ottoman bureaucratic circles. When the Ottoman Empire reinstated a constitutional monarchy in 1908, the Ottoman–Iranian border dispute regarding the Shatt al-Arab had to be readdressed, with international players involved in the process. Considering the role of foreign factors, this study focuses on the contesting interests of the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of War on the Shatt al-Arab question (1912–13) and considers how these interests shaped foreign policy in the process of negotiating a resolution.     

Soziale Stadtentwicklung in Berlin

Abstrakt Sp?testens seit es in den Problemquartieren mehrerer franz?sischer St?dte zu andauernden Unruhen kam, rückte die soziale Entwicklung in den Stadtteilen auch in Deutschland vermehrt ins Bewu?tsein von Politik und Bev?lkerung. So hat sich die neue Bundesregierung zum Bund-L?nder-Programm „Soziale Stadt“ bekannt und führt es zun?chst weiter. Dipl.-Geogr. Ute C. Bauer sprach mit Dipl.-Ing. Kurt Nelius, Stadtplaner im Referat I A, Stadtentwicklungsplanung und Bodenwirtschaft in der Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, über die Schwierigkeiten in den Quartieren der Stadt und Ans?tze zu ihrer L?sung.     

人类在东北亚的最早出现

<正>在人类演化研究中,不同地区早期人类及石器技术的年代问题一直是争论的焦点。对华北泥河湾盆地的小长梁和洞沟这两个平行的湖相沉积剖面作了详细的磁性地层学研究,为20多年前在这里发现的旧石器进行了精确定年。古地磁结果表明,小长     

Book reviews

ESSAYS ON SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: By Karl Mannheim—Edited by Paul Kecskemeti, Routledge and Kegan Paid, 1953. 319 pages.

ISRAEL BETWEEN EAST AND WEST—A study in human relations: By Raphael Patai. The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 5713–1953. 24 pages, illustrated.

THE NEMESIS OF POWER—The German Army in Politics, 1918–1945, by John W. Wheeler‐Bennett. London, Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 829 pp.

CENTRAL EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY AND ITS BACKGROUND—Economic and political group organisation. By Rudolph Schlesinger. (Routledge and Kegan Paul) London, 1953. pp. 402. Price, 30s. (stg.)

MOTURIKI—A pilot project in community development, By Howard Hoyden. Published under the auspices of the South Pacific Commission. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1954. 42s.

THE HISTORIAN'S CRAFT: Marc Bloch. Manchester University Press, 1954. Pp. xxi Plus 197. 12/6.