A Strategic Framework for Monitoring Coastal Change in Australia's Wet-dry Tropics – Concepts and Progress

A strategic framework for monitoring natural and human-induced change in the coastal plains of the Alligator Rivers Region in the wet-dry tropics of northern Australia is presented. The framework also supports refinement of methods used to monitor the vulnerability of coastal areas to change, including human-induced climate change and sea-level rise. The information derived through the framework can be used to assess scenarios, highlight the potential significance and implications of changes, and assist land managers formulate management responses. The framework incorporates several large-scale studies for monitoring atmospheric and hydrodynamic processes as well as mapping and monitoring projects specific to environmental change in the freshwater wetlands and the floodplains of the Region. Monitoring is proposed to address processes influencing the stability and rate of change of the floodplain environments. These include large-scale processes, such as inter-annual variability in weather conditions affecting the morphology of the coastal plains, shoreline and riverbank stabilisation, headward expansion of tidal creeks, and salinisation of freshwater basins. Information management is also addressed, and a Geographic Information System structure proposed for effective data collation, analysis and management. The information management system will facilitate data sharing and participation of multiple agencies and organisations interested in coastal change, especially where a landscape perspective or whole ecosystem approach is advocated.     

A spin of the wheel? Defence procurement and defence industries in the Brexit debates

Whether a ‘Brexit’ would threaten the United Kingdom's national security has become a central theme in the run‐up to the in/out referendum on EU membership. Although national security has been a central facet of both the ‘Remain’ and ‘Leave’ campaigns thus far, there has been little mention of the implications of a Brexit for UK defence industries or defence procurement, let alone formal debate or analysis. The article addresses this gap by analysing the potential implications of a Brexit for defence procurement and industries in the UK and the EU member states. The first section analyses the policy context for a Brexit by exploring existing levels of EU defence procurement integration in the UK's and Europe's defence industries. The second section draws on Jozef Bátora's ‘institutional logics’ framework to identify two pro‐Brexit and two pro‐Remain narratives, each employing differing assumptions on the relative benefits of national sovereignty and closer EU integration The final section analyses the way in which these ‘logics’ or narratives will be deployed by their advocates in the run‐up to the UK's EU referendum. The article concludes that the national security battleground in the 2016 referendum will be fought over competing narratives and arguments, partly because there is a dearth of data and evidence concerning UK and EU defence procurement and industries, which renders this crucial area of national security vulnerable to the politics of spin.     

‘All the king's men’? Refashioning global nuclear order

Is the moment auspicious, as William Walker has argued, for a rebirth of the world nuclear ordering project? An auspicious moment would be marked by three key factors. First, the United States would seek to assert significant leadership and moreover would be able to do so on a sustained, bipartisan basis. Second, other actors essential to the project would be ready to lend their thinking and power to this effort. Third, a few key ideas about the management of the emerging challenges of deterrence and abstinence would have emerged and garnered substantial international support. All three factors are lacking today. But the time will come. To accelerate the arrival of the necessary vision and will, the policy and analytical communities should set some priorities and focus on a few hard problems.     

OPTICAL DATING OF SINGLE AND MULTIPLE GRAINS OF QUARTZ FROM JINMIUM ROCK SHELTER,NORTHERN AUSTRALIA: PART II,RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS*

Quartz sediments from the floor deposit at Jinmium rock shelter have been investigated using the multiple-grain and single-grain optical dating methods described by Galbraith et al. (1999, this volume). Here we present the results of this dating programme and argue that the artefact-bearing sediments were deposited within the last 10000 years. This time interval is consistent with the radiocarbon chronology but is much younger than previous claims for initial human occupation during the Pleistocene. Analysis of individual grains revealed also that the characteristic saturation doses of some grains are unusually high, which may permit dating of deposits older than a few hundred thousand years. Such grain-to-grain differences raise doubts, however, about the validity of using multiple-grain samples to investigate the phenomenology of quartz luminescence.