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• Release of solid waste in coastal zones is a problem with a geological timescale. • Sea level rise will exacerbate risks of solid waste release from coastal landfills. • Three sites with contrasting range of coastal scenarios affecting landfills studied. • Erosion of solid wastes more of a problem than flooding and leachate release. • Lack of methods to assess risks of solid waste release limits remediation options. In England and Wales, there are at least 1700 coastal landfills in the coastal flood plain and at least 60 threatened by erosion, illustrating a global problem. These landfills are a major issue in shoreline management planning (SMP) which aims to manage the risks associated with flooding and coastal erosion. Where landfills exist, "hold the line" (requiring the building or upgrading of artificial defences to maintain the current shoreline) is often selected as the preferred SMP option, although government funding is not available at present. To investigate these issues in detail, three case-study landfills are used to examine the risks of future flooding and erosion together with potential mitigation options. These cases represent a contrasting range of coastal landfill settings. The study includes consideration of sea-level rise and climate change which exacerbates risks of erosion and flooding of landfills. It is fundamental to recognise that the release of solid waste in coastal zones is a problem with a geological timescale and these problems will not go away if ignored. Future erosion and release of solid waste is found to be more of a threat than flooding and leachate release from landfills. However, while leachate release can be assessed, there is presently a lack of methods to assess the risks from the release of solid waste. Hence, a lack of science constrains the design of remediation options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of social citizenship schemes between 1870-1914 have largely been explained through the urban elites' increasing anxiety over poverty in the late nineteenth-century city. However, it is argued here that historians should reconceptualize social citizenship within broader parameters than have hitherto been set. This article will argue that in boom towns such as Coventry, schemes of social citizenship were developed to civilize a 'net,' type of worker who exhibited rather different characteristics than the traditional urban poor, According to some observers, the 'new' industries nurtured a semi-skilled worker who had little pride in his work or in civic affairs, was relatively affluent and consumption driven. The urban elite and socialists fiend common ground in their criticism of this 'new' worker and offered distinct schemes of social citizenship as a solution to the 'problem'. The cultural construction of the 'deviant' worker also proved a useful deflection from the urban elites' and socialists' own deficiencies, particularly in their inability to engage in any meaningful way with the citizens they had endeavoured to 'improve'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A census of Grey HeronArdea cinereacolonies has been made annually by volunteer observers in England and Wales since a first national survey in 1928. This data set has recently been thoroughly upgraded and here we apply a new method of indexing Heron population changes to produce a new 73-year time-series, the longest time-series describing the abundance of any breeding bird in the world. The indexing methodology is based on the use of weighted ratio estimators, as developed by G.E. Thomas, but with modifications that use reasonable assumptions regarding the likely rates of colony extinction and formation. There is little reliable information about such rates of site turnover, but the results were not sensitive to the assumptions made. The new analytical method, based on counts since 1964, suggests a population estimate of just over 9000 breeding pairs (95% CI 8529–9776) in England and Wales in the year 2000, some 2000 more than suggested in earlier publications. Only minor differences in trend are apparent over the course of the time-series between the new results and those previously published. Regional analysis suggests that the population in southern England and South Wales has remained relatively constant since the 1970s, but those in the North have tended to increase in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]