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The river Ganges largest tributary is river Yamuna and it's the longest tributary in India serving millions of individuals. In this paper we investigated the ongoing trends in basic water quality guidelines of the River Yamuna which shows huge deviation in Delhi segment. When river Yamuna enters Delhi, it meets the water quality guidelines Class C with respect to Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) but during its exit the water quality deteriorated. After Wazirabad the DO decreases drastically and remains drastic downstream, it was observed most of the time well below the prescribed limit of 4 mg/L and ranges from 0.0 – 10.5 mg/L. The BOD values were also critical usually not meeting the prescribed limit of 3 mg/L and ranges from 1.3 – 61.8 mg/l. The TC values were significantly superior to the prescribed limit of 5000 MPN/100 ml and ranges from 10000 - 920000000 MPN/100 mL. Analysing the values of DO, BOD and TC according to river classification the river Yamuna comes under Class E for the Delhi segment. Due to the influence of industrialization, urbanization, and horticultural advances the Delhi segment gets severely contaminated. The dilution capacity of the river also gets reduced due to significant water abstraction. The chief contributor of contamination in Yamuna River is National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi followed by Agra. The DO, BOD in the Delhi segment in river Yamuna represent that regardless of the considerable number of endeavors the water quality isn't fit for assigned best utilizations. The outcomes require inventive points of view in the advancement of a refreshed comprehensive preservation technique for the river Yamuna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecosystem services (ESS) represent the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to the human well-being. Action 5 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 calls Member States to map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territory. The work being carried out is important for the advancement of biodiversity objectives, and to inform the development and implementation of related policies, on water, climate, agriculture, forest, and regional planning. Above mentioned expectations were amongst the others taken into the consideration by the ongoing SDI4Apps project, aiming to build a cloud-based framework of enablers with open application programming interfaces (APIs) for data integration along the lines of INSPIRE, Copernicus and GEOSS. ESS evaluation represents one of the six pilots built on top of the SDI4Apps framework, addressing identification of spatial representation of the outcomes of ESS evaluation with a focus on sustainable support of tourism. This paper will provide an overview about the first outcomes resulted in initial version of the SK Pilot web application allowing simple query and visualization of the ESS evaluation for region of Slovakia. Following activities will be focused on strengthening the use of web processing tools as well as utilization of the linked data available via semantic web. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relationship between associational development, public sphere development and hegemony? How does this relationship affect the management of territories and populations in divided societies along national lines? Theoretically, this paper builds on the concepts of hegemony, civil society, and public sphere to argue that hegemony requires both a thick civil society (in Gramsci's terms) and a de-politicized public sphere (in Schmitt's terms). Further, the de-politicization of the public sphere has to be established before the development of civil society. By contrast, when associational development takes place within a politicized public sphere, it leads to the bifurcation of civil society. Empirically, this paper investigates the Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process (Oslo, 1993-2000). On the one hand, Oslo set off a process of associational construction among "Palestinian Israelis," which, by occurring within the politicized Israeli public sphere, led to the political counter-mobilization among the Jewish Israeli public. On the other hand, it also set in motion a process of associational development in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. By taking place within a public sphere, which, like the Israeli one, is highly politicized, it increased the pressure on Oslo's political and territorial concessions. Through the Israeli-Palestinian case, this paper suggests that the timing of the de-politicization of the public sphere and of associational development is a key analytical axis for the study of democracy, nationalism, and conflict management in divided societies along national lines. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is known that land capacity is not a limiting factor for agricultural development in Serbia. However, irrational property is dominant in Serbia, both in terms of size and grouping of the area. The comparison of land capacity in Serbia and the EU member countries is possible due to the Census of Agriculture (Republic of Serbia, 2012), done by compatible methodology. The authors of this paper are trying to analyze the current condition of the capacity, the ownership structure and the ways of utilizing agricultural land in Serbia, and point to the differences with the EU member countries. The research has shown that the average size of a property in Serbia is 5.44 hectares per agricultural holding and that, on average; it consists of 6 separate parts. In order to make a property more productive and competitive in terms of its size and organization, upsizing is still the priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays threats are becoming more numerous, more substantial and more complex especially after the 11th September 2001. Holders of asymmetric threats know no territory, no space, no nation on the globe, especially in the South-East Europe (SEE), where it can be said that the situation is safe and peace is guaranteed and fully applicable. Within the mass application of the fourth generation of war, the Balkans is one of the desired spots of the holders of unconventional challenges that come from non-state actors which necessarily redefine security priorities. Macedonia follows the efforts of the international community for fight against the asymmetric challenges, management of crises and threats and generous participation in peacekeeping operations in the crisis areas of the world. For this purpose, the Army of the Republic of Macedonia (ARM) as a segment of the state security system, using the experience gained from a decade-long participation in the international operations against asymmetric threats, updates their capabilities in the desire for successful early warning, preventive action and application of measures and activities to counter the threats, risks, disasters, accidents and thus contribute to building peace and security in the region and on international level. The paper gives an overview of the important aspects of participation of ARM in dealing with crises, the current threats which the Republic of Macedonia is facing with, lessons learned from the past participation of the ARM in dealing with threats, and the estimated future security challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is massive migration from Mexico into certain areas of the United States diluting the distinctions between these two groups, or is it reproducing and magnifying cultural differences, national myths and traditions? What are the mechanisms reaffirming these exclusive national categorizations? How these categorizations get re-defined in the public discourse will have a big effect on the self-understandings of both Mexicans and Americans. Can we see a similar process among other groups e.g. between French and Algerians?This paper studies boundary formation at three levels 1) as it affects migrants and non-migrants on everyday interactions at the micro level, 2) at the level of theory and normative arguments, and, 3) at the legal and legislative levels including policy debates and discussion in the public sphere. Analyzing some of the boundary work deployed in the last years in order to keep Mexican immigrants outside of the boundary of "the American" by the deployment of the label of "illegal". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bottom-up solutions for managing the territory have been increase their importance in the last years. Local communities want to be involved in the management of the territory to avoid problems and to promote economic and social activities. Several different forms of participatory contracts have been developed during the last decades. However, a framework to enforce each single solution are required. The Territorial Management Contracts (TMCs) would like to give a contribute in such a direction. The contribute briefly illustrates the Territorial Management Contracts, to open a debate on them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the phenomenon of interactively conducted control over a territory. There are two methods for controlling the territory: fencing and patrolling. The first method is used for complete exclusion of strangers from the territory. The second method does not prevent all attempts of crossing the imaginary borders. The key practice of control over territory that develops the stable and purposeful functioning of the reserve's organization is mutual for Russian and German cases. The whole organization must continually struggle with illegal privatization and collusions between offenders and rangers.

The U.S. seems exceptional as a country because foreign powers have seldom threatened its territory. Unlike other modern states, the U.S. state was not built in response to invasion and war. Social scientists who study state growth have focused on the size and funding of federal government bureaucracies--rather than on control over territory--and so they identify the New Deal era as the critical period of growth. But domestic conflicts over land that dominated courts and legislatures during the nineteenth century were critical in determining the U.S. state?s relations to citizens and the federal government?s relations to state governments. The federal system and the election of legislators by district and state encouraged advocates of growth to organize by region to compete for favorable federal policies and for federal aid. The campaign for federal aid to improve flood control is analyzed as one of the land and resource programs that shaped the practice of federalism. Military bases, highways, and flood control levees have become material expressions of the relationship between the federal government and the states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The model of human activity in spheres of vital activity is presented. The social, industrial and ecological spheres of human activity in the Arctic micro-territory were chosen. The model in the formalized form is a system of six econometric equations. As the Arctic micro-territory, the Nenets region of the Russian Federation was chosen. Each sphere of human activity is estimated by indicators. The human development potential is assessed by the human development index. The notion of sustainable development in the Arctic micro-territory according to the spheres of human activity is given. With sustainable development, the change in the indices of various spheres of human activity leads to the expansion of the potential of human development. Each equation of the system of six equations is represented by an ADL- model. The ADL-model shows the dependence of the endogenous indicator of human activity on current and previous values of the influence of the structure of time series. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No abstract available at this time.

How do we comprehend things that are apparent per se? Are they really that evident? Is our understanding determined by our degree of knowledge about a certain subject? We will try here to comprehend the notion of boundaries and its variety in search for concepts or models. Quite often boundaries are perceived in a simplified manner and used as a conceptually finite product unaware of its essence. They are of particular importance when delineating target territories in policies related to spatial structuring. Territories with vague boundaries or noncorresponding to objectives are quite commonly found in spatial policies, thus creating new territorial fragmentations. During the last 20 years, there has been a development of geographical ontology studies aimed at conceptual systematization and modelling. What are boundaries, what are their common features, what is different and what do they have in common? Are given studies used in spatial structure analysis, if yes, to what extent and how? Presently, possible solutions will only be outlined here. Land use issues in Latvia as well as administrative territorial reform and territorial support instruments in Latvia will be analyzed as an example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]