Search

This article maps a meshwork of formal and informal elements of places called Disadvantaged Unincorporated Communities (DUCs) to understand the role of informality in producing unjust access to safe drinking water in California's San Joaquin Valley. It examines the spatial, racial, and class-based dimensions of informality. The paper aims to both enrich the literature on informality studies and use the concept of informality to expand research on DUCs and water access. We use socio-spatial analyses of the relationships between informality and water justice to reach the following conclusions: DUCs face severe problems in access to safe drinking water; disparities in access have a spatial dimension; inequities in water access are racialised; the proximity of DUCs to safe drinking water offers good potential for improved water access; and the challenges of informality are targeted through water justice advocacy and public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on Human rights to water which include the making of decision related to the implementation of Human Right to water in central valley of California, the impact of climate change on water supplies and implementation of human right to water in Colorado River Basin.

The article focuses on the implementation of human right to high-quality water in the central valley of California. It mentions that the Community Water Center (CWC), a nonprofit organization, has identified four components to achieve universal access to safe and affordable drinking water in the area including physical infrastructure, source water protection and institutional capacity. Moreover, CWC works and supports local communities through community-based activities.

In this paper, we present a methodology to map classes of degraded forest in the Eastern Amazon. Forest degradation field data, available in the literature, and 1-m resolution IKONOS image were linked with fraction images (vegetation, nonphotosynthetic vegetation (NPV), soil and shade) derived from spectral mixture models applied to a Satellite Pour L''observation de la Terre (SPOT) 4 multispectral image. The forest degradation map was produced in two steps. First, we investigated the relationship between ground (i.e., field and IKONOS data) and satellite scales by analyzing statistics and performing visual analyses of the field classes in terms of fraction values. This procedure allowed us to define four classes of forest at the SPOT 4 image scale, which included: intact forest; logged forest (recent and older logged forests in the field); degraded forest (heavily burned, heavily logged and burned forests in the field); and regeneration (old heavily logged and old heavily burned forest in the field). Next, we used a decision tree classifier (DTC) to define a set of rules to separate the forest classes using the fraction images. We classified 35% of the forest area (2097.3 km2) as intact forest. Logged forest accounted for 56% of the forest area and 9% of the forest area was classified as degraded forest. The resultant forest degradation map showed good agreement (86% overall accuracy) with areas of degraded forest visually interpreted from two IKONOS images. In addition, high correlation (R2=0.97) was observed between the total live aboveground biomass of degraded forest classes (defined at the field scale) and the NPV fraction image. The NPV fraction also improved our ability to mapping of old selectively logged forests. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Analyzes the incidence of temporary moratoria and regulatory takings jurisprudence in the U.S. case Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. Significance of the case; Facts of the case; Principal issues in takings jurisprudence clarified in the case.