Search

In Australia most manufacturing firms are force to make at least two kinds of location decisions, one involving the merits of the six capital cities, and the other based on variables operating inside the metropolitan areas. This paper is concerned with the behavior of the individual manufacturing firm when making the letter decision; empirical data have been obtained from three case study areas in Sydney. There is purposeful economic behavior by firms in locating, the most important influences being closeness to product market and the cost of land. The spatial effect is an arrangement of manufacturers strongly oriented to the CBD and to centrally located transport terminals. In a theoretical context, the neglect of rent considerations is a serious weakness in traditional manufacturing locating theory. The growing ability of firms to substitute among production factors also has important locational effects.

Over wide areas of the earth the railroad has been a decisive instrument in the creation of many of the most important patterns of human geography. Railroads are clearly phenomena of prime geographical interest, yet if it is true that "each means of transport has its own technological characteristics and its spatial layout, or network," it is equally true that their understanding of the inherent geographical implications of these characteristics and networks is far from satisfactory. The following paper attempts to add a further dimension to this common quest by focusing upon the comparative genetic character of two railroad networks.

The article presents the authors's views on an article on laterite by T. Langford-Smith and G.H. Dury. They states that their interpretation of the article was based upon their discussion of the so-called Barrier and Cobar Peneplains. They apologizes if they gave the impression that Dury and Langford-Smith ascribe all pediplains to erosion under dry conditions, but they also states that if Dury and Langford-Smith did write that pedimentation is now active in a part of Australia which even the most starry-eyed politician would hesitate to call humid.

The article presents the author's views on the misrepresentation of an article on laterite by T.R. Patron and M.A.J. Williams. He states that it is not quite accurate to say that they regard the formation of silcrete as unrelated to that of laterite. He further states that they have been quoted as suggesting that Australian pediplains developed under semiarid conditions, whereas this is precisely opposite of their statement. The author also states that in view of the results he is now obtaining and publishing, he feels that he should be embarrassed to be credited with the proposition that pediments are exclusively dry-climate landforms.

Copyright of Annals of the Association of American Geographers is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of the Association of American Geographers is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of the Association of American Geographers is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

For southeastern Australia, arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 raises similar issues in environmental history as the 1492 landing of Columbus in the Americas. But Anglo-Australian settlement is younger and better documented, both in terms of scientific proxy data and historical sources, which include data on stocking rates that generally were light. Environmental concerns were voiced early, and a lively debate continues both among professionals and the lay public, with Australian geographers playing a major academic and applied role. This article addresses environmental degradation often attributed to early pastoralism (and implicit clearance) in the Tablelands of New South Wales. Methods include: (1) comparison of well-reported travel itineraries of 1817–1833 with modern land cover and stream channels; (2) critical reviews of high-resolution pollen profiles and the issues of Aboriginal vs. Anglo-Australian fire ecology; and (3) identification of soil erosion and gullying both before and after Anglo-Australian intrusion. The results indicate that (a) land cover of the Tablelands is little changed since prior to Contact, although some species are less common, while invasive genera of legumes have modified the ground cover; (b) the charcoal trace in pollen profiles prior to Contact supports an ecological impact of regular Aboriginal burning and rare, catastrophic fires; and (c) most stream channels were already entrenched (“gullied”) well before 1840, with repeated cut-and-fill cycles during the late Holocene, but before Contact. Land impairment has not been a major problem on the Tablelands, although the last two centuries have experienced cumulative and complex environmental change. This unexpected empirical picture suggests that, until high-technology intervention, increasing periodicity/magnitude of extreme drought/precipitation events had been the overriding trend in interior New South Wales, perhaps reinforced by burning. There is no support for an apocalyptic model of colonial environmental history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing recognition at the global scale of the need to reverse, or at least mitigate, the damaging impacts of river regulation and overextraction of water. In New South Wales, the introduction of environmental flows, consolidated in the Water Management Act 2000, is taking place in the context of changing institutional structures, in particular the growth of adaptive management, integrated ecosystem-based perspectives, and increased community participation in the decision-making process. These developments presuppose that the information needs of river managers are understood. This article provides a classification of information needs for decision-making on environmental-flow allocations in New South Wales and then applies this classification to a case study of information use by a river-management committee on the Lachlan River. The discussion argues for the development of “adaptive information” to meet the challenge of integrating differing forms of information in striving to address the new demands of adaptive management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Points out the need to rethink the dualism of minority or majority in popular, policy and academic discourse on multiculturalism in Australia. Significance of the location and culture of Australia; Concept of internationality in the project of nation building; Conflict over meanings of national identity.

Five boulder beaches located along the coast of New South Wales, Australia, were examined in order to determine if beaches composed of boulders differ in basic sedimentological structure and behavior from beaches composed of cobbles or pebbles. Each beach is aligned obliquely to the approaching waves and is composed of locally derived sediment. Investigation of beach-particle size, morphology, and roundness, along with foreshore slope, reveals consistent up-beach particle fining, positive size skewness, absence of shape zoning. absence of sphericity grading, and low foreshore slope. These characteristics of the five studied boulder beaches contrast markedly with the known characteristics of beaches composed of finer sediment, which suggests that boulders appear to form fundamentally distinct coastal sedimentary assemblages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among Australia's many spectacular and important mining camps Broken Hill stands foremost. Since its discovery a half century ago that center has produced minerals worth more than two-thirds of a billion dollars. As a source of lead and zinc it ranks among the world's outstanding producers. Although years of mining are still in prospect at Broken Hill the zenith of production took place as long ago as 1913, and the ultimate near-extinction of the community is inevitable, for non-mining activities of the district cannot justify the continuance of an urban center approaching present size.

An air mass frequency model is constructed to facilitate the formulation of a genetic classification of climate. The model uses Venn diagrams to distinguish three basic climatic regimes, each determined by the relative dominance of air masses: the dominant regimes, where a single air mass dominates all year; the seasonal regimes, determined by seasonally dominant air masses; and the compound regimes, with no dominant air mass. Different climates within each regime are distinguished by actual air mass types. Monthly air mass dominance is determined from actual station surface data for application of the model to world climates. This is completed by analysis of monthly data plotted on modified climographs and by the construction of a monthly air mass identification chart. The proposed system is illustrated by Australian data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trees of the genus Eucalyptus from Australia were spread widely and numerously through California after the 1850's. Several factors favored their spread, notably the production of limber and fuel, often with unrealistic hopes of financial gain. Planting for windbreaks and decorative purposes was also commonplace. An important and overlooked additional reason for the rapid dissembation of eucalypts in California. especially in the 1870's and 1880's, was the belief that trees of this genus, particularly Eucalyptus globulus or blue gum, could prevent or diminish the serious malaria problem that beset portions of the state. That certain forms of vegetation, especially trees, represented sanitary influences was an ancient notion and it survived even the germ theory of disease. The supposed method whereby eucalypts achieved their healthful influence was through the trees' imagined capacity to absorb or neutralize the noxious gases that were believed to cause malaria. This erroneous and antique miasmatic etiology of malaria, together with belief in eucalypt prophylaxis, was demolished in the late nineteenth century when it was revealed that the disease was caused by blood parasites transmitted by the bites of anopheline mosquitoes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One hundred fifty-four towns with at least one commercial service and twenty inhabitants each are dispersed irregularly through Gippsland, Australia. A general relationship of their services S to population P is log S = 0.699 log P—0.367. The spatial pattern of residuals from this relationship is apparently made up of purely local elements. The fitting of low-order, partial trend-surfaces to the residuals establishes the presence of a weak but significant regional trend in their distribution. There are only minor differences between the map of residuals from regression and that of the deviations from the regional trend of those residuals. The explanation of the spatial character of the residuals, therefore, can remain in this case primarily in terms of local factors. The regional trend nevertheless needs explanation in terms of regionally 0perative factors that have not yet been established but which would not be suggested by more conventional methods of mapping residuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]