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Like so many around the world, the people of Greater Manchester and London have suffered terribly as a result of Covid-19. Thousands have died and years of hard-won economic progress has been undone in a matter of months - with businesses closed, jobs lost and unemployment predicted by some to hit 1980s levels. We must be honest that things are likely to get worse before they get better.

The nations and regions of the UK should have been the government's biggest ally in the battle to control the spread of this virus and to protect jobs and livelihoods.

Quick guide
What are the three tiers of England's Covid lockdown system?
Show Hide

Tier one - medium

The "rule of six" applies, meaning socialising in groups larger than six people is prohibited whether indoors or outdoors.

Tradespeople can continue to go into a household for work and are not counted as being part of the six-person limit.

Businesses and venues can continue to operate but pubs and restaurants must ensure customers only consume food and drink while seated, and close between 10pm and 5am.

Takeaway food can continue to be sold after 10pm if ordered by phone or online.

Schools and universities remain open.

Places of worship remain open but people must not mingle in a group of more than six.

Weddings and funerals can go ahead with restrictions on the number of people who can attend (15 and 30 respectively).

Exercise classes and organised sport can continue to take place outdoors, and - if the rule of six is followed - indoors.

Tier two - high

People are prohibited from socialising with anybody outside their household or support bubble in any indoor setting.

Tradespeople can continue to go into a household for work.

The rule of six continues to apply for socialising outdoors, for instance in a garden or public space like a park or beach.

Businesses and venues can continue to operate but pubs and restaurants must ensure customers only consume food and drink while seated, and close between 10pm and 5am.

Takeaway food can continue to be sold after 10pm if ordered online or by phone.

Schools and universities remain open.

Places of worship remain open but people must not mingle in a group of more than six.

Weddings and funerals can go ahead with restrictions on the number of people who can attend (15 and 30 respectively).

Exercise classes and organised sport can continue to take place outdoors but will only be permitted indoors if it is possible for people to avoid mixing with those they do not live with (or share a support bubble with), or for youth or disability sport.

Travel is permitted to amenities that are open, for work or to access education, but people are advised to reduce the number of journeys where possible.

Tier three - very high

People are prohibited from socialising with anybody they do not live with, or have not formed a support bubble with, in any indoor setting, private garden or at most outdoor hospitality venues and ticketed events.

Tradespeople can continue to go into a household for work.

The rule of six continues to apply to outdoor public spaces, such as parks, beaches, public gardens or sports venues.

Pubs and bars are only permitted to remain open to operate as restaurants, in which case alcohol can only be served as part of a substantial meal.

Schools and universities remain open.

Places of worship remain open but household mixing is not permitted.

Weddings and funerals can go ahead with restrictions on the number of people attending (15 and 30 respectively) but wedding receptions are not allowed.

The rules for exercise classes and organised sport are the same as in tier 2. They can continue to take place outdoors but will only be permitted indoors if it is possible for people to avoid mixing with people they do not live with (or share a support bubble with), or for youth or disability sport. However, in Merseyside, gyms were ordered to close when it entered tier 3.

Travelling outside a very high alert level area or entering a very high alert level area should be avoided other than for things such as work, education or youth services, to meet caring responsibilities or if travelling through as part of a longer journey.

Residents of a tier 3 area should avoid staying overnight in another part of the UK, while people who live in a tier 1 or tier 2 area should avoid staying overnight in a very high alert level area.

Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

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We are uniquely well placed to help. As mayors, our focus is exclusively on the city regions we run. But the Westminster Punch and Judy show struggles to relate to this more grown-up and pragmatic "place before party" approach.

Proof of this is the cross-party coalition that stood up for Greater Manchester over recent days; the joint decision by the mayor and council leaders from all parties in London to go into tier 2; and the genuine collaboration and support shown by metro mayors, whatever their political colour, throughout the crisis.

Mayors work hand in glove with local NHS leaders and regional public health experts. We have a deep understanding of the complexity and diversity of our communities. We have strong links with local business leaders and understand the strengths of our local economies. Crucially, we have shown ourselves capable of reacting to events more quickly and devising more innovative solutions than national government.

However, instead of treating us as part of the solution to the pandemic, the government has at times treated us as the enemy. Westminster has sadly shown it is not mature enough to deal with devolution. The government may have all the money and power, but ministers simply cannot cope with differences, disagreements or compromise. Rather than partnership we have both been subjected to party politics, personal attacks and deliberate disinformation.

The prime minister has taken decisions with huge consequences for our regions. Offers of help on everything from the still-failing test and trace system to supporting vulnerable residents have been ignored. Increasingly desperate appeals for the funding we need have been rebuffed - and not just from us, but from Conservative mayors too. Now in London, meanwhile, the government must urgently come up with a deal that keeps TfL services running and doesn't punish Londoners.

There is a class issue here too: the businesses being forced to close are concentrated in the poorest communities

While the government acted too late in March to save thousands of lives in London, it began lifting the national lockdown in the summer too early for the people of Greater Manchester - while the virus was still spreading too quickly. The region was then left languishing in restrictions similar to tier 2 from late July - with catastrophic consequences for local businesses, but no additional support for employers and workers facing those restrictions.

Having underfunded places to deal with tier 2, they are now doing the same with tier 3. Though Greater Manchester succeeded in getting backdated support from the government, it won't be enough to deal with the consequences of a crude tier 3 formula that penalises cities. The chancellor takes no account of the number of businesses in an area and the fact that busy city centres like ours have more hospitality enterprises. But there is a class issue here too: the businesses being forced to close are concentrated in the poorest communities. They will be hurt most by tier 3.

This isn't about wanting preferential treatment. It's about basic fairness. It's about treating cities fairly - wherever they are - given they are hit harder by lockdowns. The problem with money and power being concentrated in Westminster is that Whitehall doesn't see the direct impact of policies in Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield or even parts of London.

Ministers want us to bite our tongues. When we don't, they threaten to withhold support for the low-paid in Greater Manchester or remove free travel for kids in London.

It doesn't have to be like this. Other countries have shown that with strong co-operation between regional and national authorities, it's possible to get the virus under control and protect the economy.

As we approach a difficult winter, we invite the prime minister, as a former mayor himself, to sit down with us to chart a better way forward. Levelling up will fail if it's dictated top-down. So let's now draw a line over the arguments of recent days, work together to control the virus and lay plans for a recovery led by the regions.

Mayors are here to stay. It's time for Westminster to grow up and work with us, not against us.
Topics

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Mayors are a force for good | Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham

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ike so many around the world, the people of Greater Manchester and London have suffered terribly as a result of Covid-19. Thousands have died and years of hard-won economic progress has been undone in a matter of months - with businesses closed, jobs lost and unemployment predicted by some to hit 1980s levels.

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In total for all Pods 28 mins

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GCSE Pods (3 videos) on tropical cyclones

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GCSE Pods (3 videos) on tropical cyclones

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In total 13 min

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8 min video

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Leaving Cert * Higher Geography

Contents

Globalisation has made it easier for people to move around the world. In cities, this has led to the rise of multiculturalism, where lots of different cultural or ethnic groups live side by side.

In this video we team up with Dr Mary Kelly from Kingston University London, to explore multiculturalism in London: a city home to more that 50 different cultural communities who have arrived here over the last 500 years. The video asks why people of different ethnic backgrounds are clustered in different parts of the city and investigates the processes behind this, through story of one of London's major cultural groups: West Indian migrants (the Windrush Generation).

We would like to thank Tony Warner from Black History Walks and the Black Cultural Archives for helping make this video possible.

Acknowledgements

Written and developed by: Mary Kelly, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Tim Parker, Simon Ross

Videography by: Oliver Draper, Rob Parker

Thank you to Lambeth Council for giving permission for this video to be filmed in Brixton.

Attributions

British Nationality Act 1948 is licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0

Image of Jamaican women is licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0

Jamaican village scene image is licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0

Trafalgar Square London 1946 is licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0

HMT Empire Windrush image is in the Public Domain

West Indian RAF Volunteers image is in the Public Domain

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Video: Multiculturalism in UK Cities (London)

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Leaving Cert * Higher Geography Contents Globalisation has made it easier for people to move around the world. In cities, this has led to the rise of multiculturalism, where lots of different cultural or ethnic groups live side by side.

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2 min video

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So, Tim and I were just talking about how erosional processes create stacks, these iconic coastal landforms. Let me show you a really interesting little cove, where we see those processes at work to create a sequence of events that leads to the ......

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2.5 min video

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So we're down here at the waterline, and this is the area where the marine processes take place and form some of the features that you can see over my shoulder. And although the sea is very calm today, we've all seen images ......

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Knowledge booster video - 9 mins

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography

The Earth's climate crisis is one of the biggest challenges facing our world today. But how is the Earth's climate changing and how do we know this?

In this video, we team up with Dr Melissa Lazenby to investigate the evidence of past climate change found in sediment cores, ice cores, tree rings, and instrumental records.

Attributions and Acknowledgements

Written and developed by: Melissa Lazenby, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Tim Parker, Mick Frogley, Simon Ross

Videography by: Oliver Draper, Harriet Ridley, Rob Parker

Thank you to Alan Hemsley (Cardiff University) and Cardiff Forest Farm for their loan of samples used in this video.

"All palaeotemps" graphic by Glen Fergus is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified into animated graphic. Note: the modified graphic is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, although the larger work of the video is not.

"Greenland-ice_sheet_hg" photo by Hgrobe is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5"Fahrenheit_small" photo by Anonymous is licensed under Public domain

"Antarctic_mountains_(8145725224)" photo by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is licensed under Public domain

"A close look at the shelf (8093672443)" photo by NASA ICE is licensed under Public domain

"Vostok Petit data" graphic by NOAA is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified into animated graphic. Note: the modified graphic is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, although the larger work of the video is not.

"Russian station Vostok" photo by NSF/Josh Landis is licensed under Public domain

"Misc pollen colorized" photo by Dartmouth Electron Microscope Facility, Dartmouth College is licensed under Public domain

"System Change Not Climate Change - Student Climate Strike, London" video clip by Steve Eason is licensed under CC BY 3.0

"Pulse of Snow and Sea Ice" animation by NASA (Helen-Nicole Kostis) is licensed under Public domain.

"News_Theme" sound clip by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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nbsp Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography The Earth's climate crisis is one of the biggest challenges facing our world today. But how is the Earth's climate changing and how do we know this?

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Hillslope processes shape mountain landscapes, but how do these processes actually work?

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5 min video

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography

Special thanks to Andy Waddington for the kayaking footage, along with Sandra Hislop and Rory Woods for their skills on the river.

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Video: Formation of a waterfall and gorge

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nbsp Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography Special thanks to Andy Waddington for the kayaking footage, along with Sandra Hislop and Rory Woods for their skills on the river.

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Video

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In this video:

1. Characteristics of floodplains in the middle and lower course of rivers, and how this differs from the river's upper course.

2. How the processes of sediment transport and deposition (during flood events) lead to the formation of levees.

Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography
Credits
Videography by: Greennova Productions, Rob Parker, Vratislav Karas

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nbsp Characteristics of floodplains in the middle and lower course of rivers, and how this differs from the river's upper course. How the processes of sediment transport and deposition (during flood events) lead to the formation of levees.

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Layers of the forest and habtiats created - 3 min video

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography

Contents

In this third video with Dr Sarah Arnold, we examine the different habitat layers of temperate deciduous woodlands:

* Canopy layer

* Shrub layer

* Herb/field layer

* Ground layer

Acknowledgements

Written and developed by: Sarah Arnold, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Tim Parker, Simon Ross

Videography by: Madeleine Duggan, Rob Parker

Thank you to the Kent Wildlife Trust for enabling us to film this video at Cromer's Wood.

Attributions

At The Shore by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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Video: Temperate deciduous woodlands: Habitat layers

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nbsp Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography Contents In this third video with Dr Sarah Arnold, we examine the different habitat layers of temperate deciduous woodlands: * Canopy layer * Shrub layer * Herb/field layer * Ground layer Acknowledgements Written and developed by: Sarah Arnold, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Tim Parker, Simon Ross Videography by: Madeleine Duggan, Rob Parker Thank you to the Kent Wildlife Trust for enabling us to film this video at Cromer's Wood.

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Deciduous woodlands - biotic and abiotic features

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Deciduous woodlands - biotic and abiotic features

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2 min video

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography

Contents

In this second video with Dr Sarah Arnold, we explore biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) components of temperate deciduous woodlands.

Acknowledgements

Written and developed by: Sarah Arnold, Rob Parker, Harriet Ridley, Tim Parker, Simon Ross

Videography by: Madeleine Duggan, Rob Parker

Thank you to the Kent Wildlife Trust for enabling us to film this video at Cromer's Wood.

Attributions

347325__newagesoup__thick-stamp-nosub sound effect by newagesoup is licensed under CC BY 3.0

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Video: Temperate deciduous woodlands: Biotic and abiotic components

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Course links: GCSE * IGCSE * A-level * IA-level * IB * National 5 * Higher Geography Contents In this second video with Dr Sarah Arnold, we explore biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) components of temperate deciduous woodlands.

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Challenges and management in the Lake District - this reading is aimed at A level pupils but is great for those aiming for grades 8 - 9

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Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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Our lives literally revolve around cycles: series of events that are repeated regularly in the same order. There are hundreds of different types of cycles in our world and in the universe. Some are natural, such as the change of the seasons, annual animal migrations or the circadian rhythms that govern our sleep patterns. Others are human-produced, like growing and harvesting crops, musical rhythms or economic cycles.

Cycles also play key roles in Earth's short-term weather and long-term climate. A century ago, Serbian scientist Milutin Milankovitch hypothesized the long-term, collective effects of changes in Earth's position relative to the Sun are a strong driver of Earth's long-term climate, and are responsible for triggering the beginning and end of glaciation periods (Ice Ages).

Specifically, he examined how variations in three types of Earth orbital movements affect how much solar radiation (known as insolation) reaches the top of Earth's atmosphere as well as where the insolation reaches. These cyclical orbital movements, which became known as the Milankovitch cycles, cause variations of up to 25 percent in the amount of incoming insolation at Earth's mid-latitudes (the areas of our planet located between about 30 and 60 degrees north and south of the equator).

The Milankovitch cycles include:

1. The shape of Earth's orbit, known as eccentricity;

2. The angle Earth's axis is tilted with respect to Earth's orbital plane, known as obliquity; and

3. The direction Earth's axis of rotation is pointed, known as precession.

Let's take a look at each (further reading on why Milankovitch cycles can't explain Earth's current warming here).

Eccentricity - Earth's annual pilgrimage around the Sun isn't perfectly circular, but it's pretty close. Over time, the pull of gravity from our solar system's two largest gas giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, causes the shape of Earth's orbit to vary from nearly circular to slightly elliptical. Eccentricity measures how much the shape of Earth's orbit departs from a perfect circle. These variations affect the distance between Earth and the Sun.

Eccentricity is the reason why our seasons are slightly different lengths, with summers in the Northern Hemisphere currently about 4.5 days longer than winters, and springs about three days longer than autumns. As eccentricity decreases, the length of our seasons gradually evens out.

The difference in the distance between Earth's closest approach to the Sun (known as perihelion), which occurs on or about January 3 each year, and its farthest departure from the Sun (known as aphelion) on or about July 4, is currently about 5.1 million kilometers (about 3.2 million miles), a variation of 3.4 percent. That means each January, about 6.8 percent more incoming solar radiation reaches Earth than it does each July.

When Earth's orbit is at its most elliptic, about 23 percent more incoming solar radiation reaches Earth at our planet's closest approach to the Sun each year than does at its farthest departure from the Sun. Currently, Earth's eccentricity is near its least elliptic (most circular) and is very slowly decreasing, in a cycle that spans about 100,000 years.

The total change in global annual insolation due to the eccentricity cycle is very small. Because variations in Earth's eccentricity are fairly small, they're a relatively minor factor in annual seasonal climate variations.

Obliquity - The angle Earth's axis of rotation is tilted as it travels around the Sun is known as obliquity. Obliquity is why Earth has seasons. Over the last million years, it has varied between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees with respect to Earth's orbital plane. The greater Earth's axial tilt angle, the more extreme our seasons are, as each hemisphere receives more solar radiation during its summer, when the hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun, and less during winter, when it is tilted away. Larger tilt angles favor periods of deglaciation (the melting and retreat of glaciers and ice sheets). These effects aren't uniform globally -- higher latitudes receive a larger change in total solar radiation than areas closer to the equator.

Earth's axis is currently tilted 23.4 degrees, or about half way between its extremes, and this angle is very slowly decreasing in a cycle that spans about 41,000 years. It was last at its maximum tilt about 10,700 years ago and will reach its minimum tilt about 9,800 years from now. As obliquity decreases, it gradually helps make our seasons milder, resulting in increasingly warmer winters, and cooler summers that gradually, over time, allow snow and ice at high latitudes to build up into large ice sheets. As ice cover increases, it reflects more of the Sun's energy back into space, promoting even further cooling.

Precession - As Earth rotates, it wobbles slightly upon its axis, like a slightly off-center spinning toy top. This wobble is due to tidal forces caused by the gravitational influences of the Sun and Moon that cause Earth to bulge at the equator, affecting its rotation. The trend in the direction of this wobble relative to the fixed positions of stars is known as axial precession. The cycle of axial precession spans about 25,771.5 years.

Axial precession makes seasonal contrasts more extreme in one hemisphere and less extreme in the other. Currently perihelion occurs during winter in the Northern Hemisphere and in summer in the Southern Hemisphere. This makes Southern Hemisphere summers hotter and moderates Northern Hemisphere seasonal variations. But in about 13,000 years, axial precession will cause these conditions to flip, with the Northern Hemisphere seeing more extremes in solar radiation and the Southern Hemisphere experiencing more moderate seasonal variations.

Precession does affect seasonal timing relative to Earth's closest/farthest points around the Sun. However, the modern calendar system ties itself to the seasons, and so, for example, the Northern Hemisphere winter will never occur in July. Today Earth's North Stars are Polaris and Polaris Australis, but a couple of thousand years ago, they were Kochab and Pherkad.

There's also apsidal precession. Not only does Earth's axis wobble, but Earth's entire orbital ellipse also wobbles irregularly, primarily due to its interactions with Jupiter and Saturn. The cycle of apsidal precession spans about 112,000 years. Apsidal precession changes the orientation of Earth's orbit relative to the elliptical plane.

The combined effects of axial and apsidal precession result in an overall precession cycle spanning about 23,000 years on average.
A Climate Time Machine
The small changes set in motion by Milankovitch cycles operate separately and together to influence Earth's climate over very long timespans, leading to larger changes in our climate over tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. Milankovitch combined the cycles to create a comprehensive mathematical model for calculating differences in solar radiation at various Earth latitudes along with corresponding surface temperatures. The model is sort of like a climate time machine: it can be run backward and forward to examine past and future climate conditions.

Milankovitch assumed changes in radiation at some latitudes and in some seasons are more important than others to the growth and retreat of ice sheets. In addition, it was his belief that obliquity was the most important of the three cycles for climate, because it affects the amount of insolation in Earth's northern high-latitude regions during summer (the relative role of precession versus obliquity is still a matter of scientific study).

He calculated that Ice Ages occur approximately every 41,000 years. Subsequent research confirms that they did occur at 41,000-year intervals between one and three million years ago. But about 800,000 years ago, the cycle of Ice Ages lengthened to 100,000 years, matching Earth's eccentricity cycle. While various theories have been proposed to explain this transition, scientists do not yet have a clear answer.

Milankovitch's work was supported by other researchers of his time, and he authored numerous publications on his hypothesis. But it wasn't until about 10 years after his death in 1958 that the global science community began to take serious notice of his theory. In 1976, a study in the journal Science by Hays et al. using deep-sea sediment cores found that Milankovitch cycles correspond with periods of major climate change over the past 450,000 years, with Ice Ages occurring when Earth was undergoing different stages of orbital variation.

Several other projects and studies have also upheld the validity of Milankovitch's work, including research using data from ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica that has provided strong evidence of Milankovitch cycles going back many hundreds of thousands of years. In addition, his work has been embraced by the National Research Council of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Scientific research to better understand the mechanisms that cause changes in Earth's rotation and how specifically Milankovitch cycles combine to affect climate is ongoing. But the theory that they drive the timing of glacial-interglacial cycles is well accepted.

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national aeronautics and space administration

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By Alan Buis,
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles and Their Role in Earth's Climate - Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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Our lives literally revolve around cycles: series of events that are repeated regularly in the same order. There are hundreds of different types of cycles in our world and in the universe. Some are natural, such as the change of the seasons, annual animal migrations or the circadian rhythms that govern our sleep patterns.

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UK greenhouse gas emissions fall for seventh year in a row

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The UK's greenhouse gas emissions fell for a seventh consecutive year in 2019 after a record year for renewable energy, according to government figures.

The provisional data, published by the government on Thursday, revealed a 3.6% fall in greenhouse gas emissions compared with 2018 and almost 28% from 2010.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the energy minister, said the figures show "the extraordinary progress the UK has made in tackling climate change".

"With record-breaking levels of renewable electricity on the grid we are well placed to build on these efforts in the months and years ahead, while continuing to support the economy through the coronavirus outbreak," he said.

The outbreak of the Covid-19 virus, and the lockdown of the UK, has already dented energy demand by an estimated 7%, according to Eurelectric, a pan-European trade association. British homes are using more electricity as people stay in and work from home, but this increase has been more than offset by the steep drop in demand for electricity at factories, construction sites and offices.

Electricity demand is expected to fall further as major industries continue to close down to help stem the spread of the pandemic, which should help lead to lower overall emissions in 2020 alongside rising renewable energy generation.

More than a third (36.9%) of the UK's electricity was generated by renewable energy sources including wind farms, solar panels and biomass-fuelled power plants in 2019, a record for the sector. The average in the last three months of the year rose to 37.4%, the highest ever recorded for this time of year.

Wind power alone generated almost a fifth of the UK's electricity over the year as a whole, divided equally between onshore and offshore wind projects, in large part boosted by rising generation from the new Hornsea offshore wind project off the Yorkshire coast, which is the largest offshore wind farm in the world.

Melanie Onn, RenewableUK's deputy chief executive, said the records will continue as the UK moves away from fossil fuels to reach net zero emissions as fast as possible.

"As well as wind, we'll use innovative new technologies like renewable hydrogen and marine power, and we'll scale up battery storage," she said.

"Low-cost renewables are central to the government's energy strategy and our sector will grow rapidly in the years ahead, as our domestic supply chain expands and we continue to seize multibillion pound export opportunities around the world," Onn added.
Topics

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UK greenhouse gas emissions fall for seventh year in a row

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The UK's greenhouse gas emissions fell for a seventh consecutive year in 2019 after a record year for renewable energy, according to government figures. The provisional data, published by the government on Thursday, revealed a 3.6% fall in greenhouse gas emissions compared with 2018 and almost 28% from 2010.

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She first locates the deciduous forest around the world before explaining the different layers of this biome.

She explains how birds such as the finch and buzzard have evolved to survive before turning the focus to the red fox and how it has adapted to survive predators as well as how they have adapted to stalk prey in the forest.

Ferne also highlights a number of other animals living in the deciduous forest.

This clip is from the series Ecosystems and Biomes.

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Geography KS3 / GCSE: The different layers of a deciduous forest

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She first locates the deciduous forest around the world before explaining the different layers of this biome. She explains how birds such as the finch and buzzard have evolved to survive before turning the focus to the red fox and how it has adapted to survive predators as well as how they have adapted to stalk prey in the forest.

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LIZ BONNIN: Hi, I'm Liz Bonnin. Climate change is a topic that usually comes up when you're studying physical geography the British weather can be wild, wonderful and downright weird and in the last few years we've had droughts big freezes and the wettest winter on record.

LIZ BONNIN: When things are changing so fast the country's plants and wildlife can get in a muddle. Countryfile's Tom Heap investigates the evidence for a changing climate in the UK.

TOM HEAP: While for some these extremes show that our climate is changing, a warmer world, they say, is delivering wilder weather others, though, say our climate's always been unpredictable.

TOM HEAP: It's like a blizzard of petals, it's great. It's like those Chinese movies.

ALISTAIR GRIFFITHS: We've done some preliminary work, so we've got data back

ALISTAIR GRIFFITHS: to the 1950's. And we've also got a weather station here. And we're beginning to look at, sort of, preliminary findings that are showing that flowering is becoming slightly earlier and longer, in time frame.

TOM HEAP: If you're only going back a few decades, which is a blink of the eye in terms of climate, how robust can it be?

ALISTAIR GRIFFITHS: Well it's, it's-- We have to continue to collect that data so that we get a long data... longer data set to then... and make that more robust.

TOM HEAP: But you, as a gut feeling are pretty convinced that these trees are experiencing something different than they would have done you know, 50 years ago?

ALISTAIR GRIFFITHS: I think there's, there's some, there's some evidence that suggests that they're experiencing something to do with climate change, whether it's 50 years ago or not, I'm unsure but I think the more data we do, we can see that there is some element of change in climate.

ALISTAIR GRIFFITHS: It's told us that gardeners and professional gardeners see that climate change is happening, believe it's happening. There are extreme weather conditions which are more challenging for them. Different flowering times, so early, late, often, sometimes, double flowering time.

TOM HEAP: How strong are these results, it occurs to me that those that see something are the ones that report therefore it's a bit biased to that.

ALISTAIR GRIFFITHS: It is biased but what it does is it gives us a snap shot of people are thinking, gardeners are thinking and allows us to, to sort of do further research to provide them evidence to deal with things like flooding and droughting and, and that's what we want to do at the RHS is provide that advice so that they can garden and enjoy their gardens.

TOM HEAP: So does the intergovernmental panel on climate change it says that global average temperature is increased by just under one degree centigrade in the last 130 years. A small change, but enough to effect our sensitive ecosystems.

RICHARD BRADBURY: We might see a couple of Dartford Warblers just on top of the gorse here, there's a couple of territories.

RICHARD BRADBURY: Dartford Warbler is a species which is really quite sensitive to the cold in winter. They need places where the,

RICHARD BRADBURY: the mean temperature in the coldest month is above two degrees centigrade. So traditionally they've been associated with southern Britain.

RICHARD BRADBURY: As the climate has changed, the species has really increased in numbers, going up to about 3000 pairs. They've colonised south west England, they've gone up into south Wales, places as far north as Cannock Chase and East Angela and even a pair in the Peak District.

TOM HEAP: So as we have fewer cold winters they're doing better and they're able to move further north.

RICHARD BRADBURY: Absolutely.

TOM HEAP: The pattern hasn't been consistent, has it? I mean, within the last five years I can remember some very snowy, very cold winters. So how do they cope with, you know the, the variation we get anyway?

RICHARD BRADBURY: I think it's the fact that the frequency of these bad winters has been declining, especially through the 90's and the noughties, that's what's been responsible for this really quite dramatic push forward.

TOM HEAP: And how convinced are you that this is a symptom of climate change?

RICHARD BRADBURY: Well it's, it's hard to be absolutely certain but it's also hard to, to see that it could be anything else that's responsible for a northward push of a, a cold sensitive species like this.

RICHARD BRADBURY: Species ranges do change. They move north and they move south as the climate changes. What's different this time is the magnitude and the rate of climate change. And the real question mark is whether or not the species are able to move at the rate that the climate is changing.

TOM HEAP: So there's evidence that climate change is effecting us now, But are these isolated cases, or is the impact more wide spread?

RICHARD BETTS: So this is the operations centre. It's the nerve centre of the MAN: MET Office weather forecasting activity.

TOM HEAP: At the MET Office they don't just do weather forecasts, they look at climate change across the world. Richard Betts, a scientist here, helped write a major international report which says a wide range of plants and animals are being effected.

RICHARD BETTS: So we're seeing the natural world responding to a change in climate in the UK. We're also seeing that happen in other countries around the Northern Hemisphere and also you can see it from a satellite as well, you can see trees coming into leaf earlier in the spring. So these changes in the natural world are signs that the climate is changing

RICHARD BETTS: and in fact these are the clearest indicators of an impact of climate change.

TOM HEAP: A lot of your information though and understanding comes from models. Talk, talk me through what we've got here.

RICHARD BETTS: So we're seeing temperature changes relative to the pre-industrial state essentially. Blues are colder. Yellows and oranges and reds later on will be warmer

RICHARD BETTS: than the pre-industrial state. So you can see the different patterns of warming around the world, and as we get onto the end of the 21st century, we're getting these high levels of warming, four or five degrees or more.

TOM HEAP: We've been looking at the response of plants and animals you know, makes me wonder how they'll cope when the earth might look like this.

37 00:07:15:15 00:07:20:03 RICHARD BETTS: What we're seeing at the moment, or what we expect for the future, is change which is unusually fast.

TOM HEAP: And therefore difficult for nature to adapt fast enough to keep up with?

RICHARD BETTS: That's right. And in particular if species are responding differently at different rates, you'll get disruption of the ecosystems through these different rates of response.

RICHARD BETTS: If you've got certain natural events tied to spring if one species is moving forward by a week and another by two days they come out of synchrony, so if they're depending on each other that interdependency is potentially broken. So disrupting those ecosystems is what would be expected as a consequence of this.

TOM HEAP: So botanists and bird and bug specialists do seem pretty convinced. They're seeing some signs of nature responding to a changing climate.

TOM HEAP: And whilst wildlife has adapted to shifting weather patterns before, if today's change is too rapid, it's feared some species could get left behind.

LIZ BONNIN: So there you go. Climate change is so often just associated with dramatic images of melting glaciers at the North and South poles but we also mustn't forget the impact closer to home.

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Geography KS3 / GCSE: What evidence is there for a changing climate in the UK?

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LIZ BONNIN: Hi, I'm Liz Bonnin. Climate change is a topic that usually comes up when you're studying physical geography the British weather can be wild, wonderful and downright weird and in the last few years we've had droughts big freezes and the wettest winter on record.

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LIZ BONNIN: Hi, I'm Liz Bonnin. Now if I say the word spit and backwash to you, you might think I'm about to start talking about a trip to the dentist. Don't worry, I'm not.

LIZ BONNIN: This is physical geography, where a spit is a stretch of beach that juts out into the sea, and backwash is the force with which the waves return to the sea causing it to move and change.

LIZ BONNIN: To demonstrate this, let's check out a clip featuring Katie Knapman from the Countryfile team, who's in Spurn Head, off the coast of Yorkshire. A place where shifting sands are a serious business.

KATIE KNAPMAN: Although this spit has been here for hundreds of years, it's a very dynamic piece of land.

CAPTION Katie Knapman

KATIE KNAPMAN: It's always on the move. The sea may have shaped it and built it, but it also has the power to move it.

KATIE KNAPMAN: Despite this constant shift, people still live and work here. There's a permanently manned RNLI Lifeboat station at the point, and piloted boats are on hand to guide vessels through one of our busiest shipping channels.

KATIE KNAPMAN: Out there on the horizon, just over two miles away, you can just about make out a met mast, which is a piece of equipment used to measure weather conditions. It also marks the point where the coast line was in Roman times, and that shows you just how much this landscape has changed over time.

KATIE KNAPMAN: On average, the spurn moves west up to two metres, or nearly 7 feet, a year. It's all down to longshore drift, a natural process that never rests. I'm meeting geologist, Dr Yan Zalasiewicz, from Leicester University, to find out more.

KATIE KNAPMAN: Longshore drift, classic geography term.

DR YAN ZALASIEWICZ: It is, yes.

KATIE KNAPMAN: Can you explain that?

DR YAN ZALASIEWICZ: Well I suppose it's a classic spit, which is formed by material being washed by the sea out of these cliffs of boulder clay. The waves attack them.

DR YAN ZALASIEWICZ: They break them down actually at the rate of one or two metres a year. The mud and the sand and the pebbles are washed out. The waves will carry the pebbles up the beach like this. Normally coming at an angle.

DR YAN ZALASIEWICZ: And then the backwash comes, so it will simply drop back down the beach here. The next wave will come, pick it up, take it diagonally again and down it goes again.

DR YAN ZALASIEWICZ: So it will go on travelling, it will do a zig-zag along the beach, and simply, will carry on.

KATIE KNAPMAN: So more and more material will be taken from one side of the beach, right along, and that is how the spit will form.

DR YAN ZALASIEWICZ: It is how the spit forms. It's an ongoing conveyer belt. Material is always coming out of the cliffs, that's the supply, and it's carrying on down, and it's just travelling. You know, it'll travel miles and miles.

KATIE KNAPMAN: In the past, man has tried to check this movement and prevent erosion by protecting the land from the sea's natural passage. The Victorians set up a series of sea defences to hold back the waves. They were maintained by the MOD until the late 1950s.

KATIE KNAPMAN: Since then, the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust has been responsible for the management of the spurn. Now a designated National Nature Reserve.

KATIE KNAPMAN: Andrew Gibson is the full time warden in charge and he's going to show me around the reserve.

KATIE KNAPMAN: Now the sea is just over this bank here.

ANDREW GIBSON: It is, it's just over on our left.

KATIE KNAPMAN: When you've got your spring tides, is the sea actually washing over this bit of land?

ANDREW GIBSON: It will come over. Believe it or not, that's what we want. We want it to wash over and move westwards which is what it would do naturally.

KATIE KNAPMAN: You want nature to shape this land?

ANDREW GIBSON: We do but we need to manage it for our own benefit as well, and it's striking that compromise between the two things.

KATIE KNAPMAN: There we go. Oh my goodness, it's blowing a gale.

KATIE KNAPMAN: So what's the important thing about this bit of road and that bit of road?

ANDREW GIBSON: Well that's your traditional tarmac road which would say bad road. This is good road. This is a removable interlocking concrete block. But it allows us to do is you can see the sand migrate over this very easily, and if the dynamic coastline, as it moves, washes it away, we can pick this material up, put it back in the recycler and bring it back out.

ANDREW GIBSON: Whereas the tarmac road is fixed, it's hard, it needs a sub-base. It's a hard scar on the landscape should we say. Whereas what we need is dynamism.

LIZ BONNIN: I love that. The ground beneath you keeps moving, so of course, you need a road that you can recycle. Fantastic.

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Geography KS3 / GCSE: What is a 'spit' and how does it form through longshore drift?

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LIZ BONNIN: Hi, I'm Liz Bonnin. Now if I say the word spit and backwash to you, you might think I'm about to start talking about a trip to the dentist. Don't worry, I'm not.

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Changes downstream

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Liz Bonnin: Hi, I'm Liz Bonnin. It's impossible to talk about how television has helped our understanding of the Earth and nature without including the godfather of wildlife broadcasting, the great Sir David Attenborough.

Liz Bonnin: Here we have one of his famous reports from around the world, looking at rivers, how they can change as they move over land, and how they can be so powerful that they alter landscapes as they flow through them.

Liz Bonnin: There are a couple of rivers David mentions in this clip but the focus is on the biggest of them all, the Amazon. He starts in the shadow of the Andes mountain range and follows it over almost 4,000 miles from source to sea.

Sir David Attenborough: The many sources of the Amazon began as numberless rivulets on the eastern flanks of the Andes. Now, 5,000 feet lower down, each has grown beyond recognition and cut its own zig-zag valley. White water tumbling down the valley wall joins the brown water of a larger tributary, heavy with mud and sediment.

Sir David Attenborough: And as it gets bigger and bigger so it becomes more and more powerful. It's the dry season at the moment, and the river is comparatively low. But during the rains, when it's in spate, its water's rise up over here and the sheer volume and weight and force of them can shift boulders the size of these.

Sir David Attenborough: The volume and speed of its waters are not the river's only weapons. It also has teeth. And this empty, rainy season part of its bed, you can see them. Sand and gravel. Fragments of rock that have been eroded from higher up in its course and which the river hurls with enormous force at the rocks of its river bed.

Sir David Attenborough: With such tools, it can carve away the sides of mountains.

Sir David Attenborough: Young, vigorous rivers transform the land. Demolishing the mountains, breaking down the debris into smaller and smaller particles and carrying them away downstream.

Sir David Attenborough: This river in China is perpetually so turbid that it's called the Huang He, the Yellow River. It carries a bigger load of sediment than any other river in the world. During floods, each cubic yard of water contains over two thousand pounds of soil and pulverised rock.

Sir David Attenborough: Rivers in the full vigour of their youth are terrifyingly strong. They roll great boulders along their beds, they cut away at the banks, undermining trees which crash into the waters and are swept away.

Sir David Attenborough: When a river encounters a band of unusually hard rock, such as an ancient flow of basalt lava, its progress is temporarily slowed. It spreads out across the barrier and then tumbles over the front edge. So are formed some of the loveliest cascades.

Sir David Attenborough: These are the falls of Iguazu, on the border of Brazil and Paraguay. They can't compare in height with the Angel Falls, but in terms of the volume of water that passes over them they are incomparably bigger.

Sir David Attenborough: The falling waters pound away at the base of the falls undercutting the basalt until blocks split off the face. So the falls steadily work their way up river leaving downstream a deep gorge.

Sir David Attenborough: And now the river has left the mountains far behind, and has changed its character considerably. It's bigger. It's broader. And its waters carry not only sand and gravel but rich nutrients that have washed in from its vegetation-covered banks.

Sir David Attenborough: And after it's gone over its last rapids and tumbled over its last fall, it becomes a very different river indeed.

Sir David Attenborough: As the river gets older, it slows down. A minor obstacle in its path is now enough to deflect it. The water flowing round the outside of a bend has to travel farther and speeds up and cuts away at the bank.

Sir David Attenborough: On the inside of the bend, where the current is slow, the water can no longer support its load of sediment and drops it to form a shoal. So the bend becomes more and more exaggerated as the elderly river swings from side to side in a series of loops and meanders.

Sir David Attenborough: In places, one bend may approach another until the neck of land between the two is so narrow it collapses. Then the river takes the shorter course and the meander is left isolated as a curving lake. There the water at last is still.

Liz Bonnin: In the Amazon, those bodies of water are relatively small, but some rivers flow into basins created by geological faults and there the water collects to form huge lakes. When this happens, these rivers slow down and deposit their sediment.

Sir David Attenborough: The Amazon has no great lake on its course, so even in its middle stretches, it still carries mud from the Andes. The Rio Negro, which joins it here, is clear, for it has come from the north west where the rocks are hard and bare.

Sir David Attenborough: The two immense rivers flow for miles alongside one another in the same bed, scarcely mixing. As well as sediment they also carry abundant nutrients.

Sir David Attenborough: In the last phase of their lives, these great rivers often flow out of control. Their tributaries, far away in the mountains, fed by the heavy storms of the rainy season, pour so much water into them that they burst their banks.

Sir David Attenborough: The Amazon rises every year to flood tens of thousands of square miles of forest. In some parts, as much as 40 feet deep.

Sir David Attenborough: Some of these trees are flooded for eight to ten months every year. They need only a couple of months annually out of water for them to grow and for their seeds to germinate and sprout. We still don't know exactly how they manage it.

Sir David Attenborough: As the river becomes older and older, its riches increase still further. All over the world, as rivers approach their end they begin to deposit the sand and mud that they've gathered for so far and carried for so long.

Sir David Attenborough: In many parts of the world, reeds grow thickly on these shoals and banks, and their stems collect even more sediment as the river waters swirl through them.

Sir David Attenborough: Of all the deltas in the world, none is greater than that of the Amazon.

Sir David Attenborough: For hundreds of miles along its lower course the river has been so broad that it has been impossible to see from one side to another. Now, instead of receiving more tributaries, it splits into a tangle of separate channels.

Sir David Attenborough: And on the last firm land on its banks stands a great and thriving port. For the river is so wide and deep that cargo ships form overseas can use it as a highway that can take them for 1,000 miles into the heart of South America.

Sir David Attenborough: The Amazon's vital statistics are astounding. At any one time, two thirds of all the river water in the world is flowing between its banks.

Sir David Attenborough: Here at its mouth, Belem, it's two hundred miles across, a maze of channels and islands, one of which is alone bigger than the whole of Switzerland.

Sir David Attenborough: And the river maintains its identity until far out into the sea. It was because of this that it was discovered. In 1499, a Spanish sea captain sailing well beyond the sight of land suddenly became aware that the water he was crossing was fresh and not salty. And he turned west and discovered this immense river.

Sir David Attenborough: Indeed, it's not until 100 miles beyond the edge of the continent that particles of water which fell on the Andes complete their 4,000 mile-long journey and mingle with the salt water of the ocean.

Liz Bonnin: One of my favourite parts of that clip was where David spoke about those two rivers flowing side by side. It just looked amazing.

Liz Bonnin: Now that was filmed over 30 years ago, but Helen Skelton got to experience it too when she kayaked down the Amazon for Blue Peter, a little more recently, in 2010.

Helen Skelton: The Amazon has over 1,000 feeder rivers, or tributaries. The biggest is the Rio Negro. And the point where it joins the Amazon is an incredible sight.

Helen Skelton: One side of my kayak, the water is dark and one side is brown.

Helen Skelton: The Negro is darker in colour, its water thicker, warmer and slower than the Amazon itself. As a result the two rivers run side by side without mixing properly for nearly ten miles.

Helen Skelton: What? This is so weird, it's sort of all swirly and... Bubbly almost.

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Geography KS3 / GCSE: How does a river change as it travels downstream?

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Liz Bonnin: Hi, I'm Liz Bonnin. It's impossible to talk about how television has helped our understanding of the Earth and nature without including the godfather of wildlife broadcasting, the great Sir David Attenborough.

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Malham Cove - limestone pavement

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LIZ BONNIN: Hi, I'm Liz Bonnin. I'm looking into physical geography, but whereas a geologist might dig around some rock formations, I've been digging into the BBC's vast archives to uncover programmes packed with inspiring information.

LIZ BONNIN: And this one has got almost everything. Spectacular views of the British countryside, locations that featured in the Harry Potter series,

LIZ BONNIN: strange rock formations, rare plants, a place loads of you will recognise from school trips, fascinating facts and on top of that, they've thrown in comedian, Hugh Dennis, and wildlife presenter, Julia Bradbury, who get things started with a stroll atop a vast limestone patio in the Yorkshire Dales.

JULIA BRADBURY: Step foot on it, and it's one weird place. Almost otherworldly.

JULIA BRADBURY: Ooh, did you hear that? I feel as though I'm walking along the spine of a dinosaur.

JULIA BRADBURY: This spot is so weird, they filmed a scene from Harry Potter here.

JULIA BRADBURY: So how has such a mysterious place come to be?

JULIA BRADBURY: This concoction of weirdly-shaped slabs and cracks would once have been a flat expanse of rock. But over the years, surface water has nibbled away at the limestone, leaving this incredible pattern. The pieces of this limestone pavement, as it's called, have old Yorkshire names.

JULIA BRADBURY: The blocks are called clints.

JULIA BRADBURY: And the gaps are known as grikes.

JULIA BRADBURY: But the most curious thing is what's hidden down in the grikes.

JULIA BRADBURY: Meet Professor Cynthia Burek, a geoconservationist who's fascinated by this unusual rocky habitat.

JULIA BRADBURY: Limestone pavements are pretty mysterious places aren't they.

PROFESSOR CYNTHIA BUREK: Yes, they are full of surprises and mysteries.

JULIA BRADBURY: Remarkably these cracks are teeming with plant life that's extremely rare in Britain.

PROFESSOR CYNTHIA BUREK: Down in the grikes we have a very shady, a very humid sort of environment. Microclimate, if you will.

PROFESSOR CYNTHIA BUREK: And we have shade tolerant plants down there. Ferns...

JULIA BRADBURY: You're making it sound quite nice.

PROFESSOR CYNTHIA BUREK: It's a bit narrow to get down there. LAUGHS

PROFESSOR CYNTHIA BUREK: It's a real surprise for people when visitors come up here. They say, "Oh my goodness, look. Look at all these ferns. These hart's tongue fern and the maidenhair spleenwort."

JULIA BRADBURY: Just lovely, lovely names.

PROFESSOR CYNTHIA BUREK: Yes.

23 00:03:12:20 00:03:20:05 JULIA BRADBURY: But there's a puzzle. These are plants you'd expect to see in shady woodland. Not here.

JULIA BRADBURY: How did they get here then? Well they're a clue that not so long ago this all would have looked completely different. It was a thick forest.

PROFESSOR CYNTHIA BUREK: So this would originally have been ancient woodland. The whole thing, but the only place we find the woodland now is down the grikes.

PROFESSOR CYNTHIA BUREK: This relic woodland flora which used to be everywhere. That's what makes this landscape, this feature, so special.

JULIA BRADBURY: The woodland that once covered the uplands of Yorkshire were stripped back to bare limestone by our ancient ancestors and their grazing animals. It took thousands of years.

LIZ BONNIN: The limestone is the remains of tiny creatures and plants that died and sank to the bottom of a tropical sea, that covered the Yorkshire Dales, 330 million years ago. Now over millions of years, vast amounts of sea life got compressed into stone, creating a staggeringly thick bed of rock.

LIZ BONNIN: Later in the last ice age, glaciers swept right across Yorkshire, scouring the rock surface to leave those huge flat areas, and below that limestone pavement lies a place with its own dramatic story. A place that Hugh Dennis is particularly fond of, Mallam Cove.

HUGH DENNIS: It's a fantastic cliff. It's about 200 feet I should think, top to bottom. It's absolutely sheer. I think I must be feeling exactly what a spider feels like when it's trapped at the bottom of a bath.

HUGH DENNIS: They haven't looked after it very well though, it could do with some limescale removing. Look at the staining on that.

HUGH DENNIS: Essentially you're looking at one massive pile of dead coral and shellfish. And there's the same amount again below ground. But wait and see what else happened here.

HUGH DENNIS: The sea bed that would turn into limestone began experiencing earthquakes.

HUGH DENNIS: Over millions of years, a fault deep under the sea floor made part of it drop.

HUGH DENNIS: Eventually the sea dried up and there was desert. But the place was under constant change. In fact 300 million years of drama later, it was even covered in ice,

HUGH DENNIS: which melted sending trillions of tons of water cascading over the drop in the ground.

HUGH DENNIS: It would have been like Yorkshire's own Niagara Falls, sculpting and eroding Mallam Cove into the place I love today.

LIZ BONNIN: Now that's what I call an epic clip. Sometimes geography rocks.

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Geography KS3 / GCSE: How has ice and other processes impacted the landscape of Yorkshire?

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LIZ BONNIN: Hi, I'm Liz Bonnin. I'm looking into physical geography, but whereas a geologist might dig around some rock formations, I've been digging into the BBC's vast archives to uncover programmes packed with inspiring information. LIZ BONNIN: And this one has got almost everything.

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Royal Geographical Society - Geography resources for teachers

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The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) supports teaching in the classroom and field by providing award-winning geographical teaching and learning resources.

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Urban (Wembley) fieldwork

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2. Fieldwork

Quantitative methods

Sampling

Questions focussing on spatial changes in land use might consider changes with distance from the centre of the CBD. This approach lends itself to a transect (i.e. a line along which data is collected).

Six radial transects from the CBD of a small town. Using GIS to highlight major roads on an aerial photograph by ArcGIS / Esri, DigitalGlobe & Microsoft.

Temporal changes might involve students looking at land use within a defined area, looking at individual buildings to record their current land use, and compare with historic land uses in order to identify and quantify change.

Measuring land use function

Along each of the transects use a systematic sampling strategy to select locations to record land use function. You may wish to restrict your sample as follows:

recording land use every 10m

recording ground floor land use only

recording land use on a single side of the road

Land use is categorised for ease of analysis. A popular way of doing this is to use the RICEPOTS system.

RICEPOTS system for recording urban land use.

Construct a table to use in the field.

Alternatively you could record the land use for individual buildings - in this example the main shopping streets were identified from the town shopping website and these were used as the basis for the sampling strategy, recording land use of each building.

GIS used to overlay retail outlets on an aerial photograph by ArcGIS / Esri, DigitalGlobe & Microsoft.

Recording the quality of the environment

An environmental quality survey uses an observer's judgements to assess environmental quality against a range of indicators. Often they work on a sliding scale of quality (like 1 to 5) to represent less good to good. Alternatively you can use a Bi-polar scale (like -5 to +5) to indicate a negative assessment through to a positive assessment, with 0 representing neither good or bad.

As it is based on personal judgements the data collected using environmental quality surveys is subjective. Benchmarking the scoring between different observers will help reduce this subjectivity.

Example of an urban environmental quality index.

Example of an environmental quality index using a bipolar scale.

Sampling for environmental quality surveys within a study like this could occur in several different ways:

Transect - along the transects used for recording spatial changes in land use you could also complete an environmental quality survey every 200m, either a summary of the last 200m, or based on the immediate area.

An overall judgement of an area - the shopping area is divided into zones: walk around the whole of a zone and then complete the survey as a summary of the whole of that zone.

Locations chosen before fieldwork - before leaving for the fieldwork a number of survey points are chosen (selected using a random, systematic or stratified sample).

Locations chosen during fieldwork - select representative locations to carry out the survey - these could be the worst place in that area, the best place in that area and an average place in that area.

Recording site location

The easiest way to accurately record the locations of your sampling sites is to use a GPS - there are many different Smartphone apps that will allow you to do this. If you want to use GIS to locate your sites on a map or to display your data, you need to record your location as latitude and longitude.

Qualitative methods

In addition to Environmental Quality surveys as described above which quantify the quality of the urban environment we can use a range of methods to collect information about environmental quality in a qualitative way.

Questionnaires

Questionnaires or informal chats with the public might ask the following

"How long have you been shopping in the centre of <name of town>?"

"How has the centre of <name of town> changed over that time?"

"Which features of the shopping environment in <name of town> do you like/not like?"

"Do you think the appearance of the town centre has changed over the time you have been shopping here?"

Annotated photographs and field sketches

Use annotated photos or field sketches to make a judgement about the quality of the environment. You could photograph at whole street scenes, or focus on small details such as a pile of rubbish. Alternatively construct a checklist of things to look out for, such as buildings, road and paving, litter, dereliction, street furniture, graffiti and fly posting.

Re-photography

Re-photography means that you look for old photographs and try to take a photograph of how exactly the same place looks today. Compare and contrast the two scenes. You could us the same technique to compare how a place changes over different days of the week or at different times of day.

Epitome words

A simple way of gauging perceptions of a place is to use epitome words. Think of a single word that sums up that area. These can then be put into a word cloud (e.g. wordle) and used to compare different areas.

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Questions focussing on spatial changes in land use might consider changes with distance from the centre of the CBD. This approach lends itself to a transect (i.e. a line along which data is collected).

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Caused by freeze thaw weathering

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These chutes of loose stones, known as scree, formed as a result of freeze-thaw weathering.

Water seeps into cracks in the rock, expanding when it freezes and seeping in deeper when it melts, gradually splitting the rock apart. The loose fragments are removed by gravity and fall onto the scree slopes beneath. The scree fragments move downhill under gravity, with new pebbles and boulders being added each year. The scree slopes extend out beneath the lake (England's deepest), which was itself formed by glacial erosion during the Ice Ages that ended about 10,000 years ago.

The rocks here are volcanic - ancient lavas and ash-flows that erupted almost 500 million years ago.

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These chutes of loose stones, known as scree, formed as a result of freeze-thaw weathering. Water seeps into cracks in the rock, expanding when it freezes and seeping in deeper when it melts, gradually splitting the rock apart. The loose fragments are removed by gravity and fall onto the scree slopes beneath.

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A simple app for observing the ever-changing landscape of UK electricity generation/supply. In schools, pupils respond very well to the 'live' data and can see that recent changes, such as increased solar and offshore wind, frequently provide substantial chunks of our power needs. I look forward to seeing the App keep up with change, such as the new inter-connectors with Norway and France.

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‎Track the carbon intensity of the GB electricity grid on your iPhone or iPad Demand for electricity varies throughout the day, and thus, the mix of generators supplying this electricity continually changes. As a result, the carbon intensity of the electricity - the quantity of CO2 produced for 1 kW...

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Climate change: China coal surge threatens Paris targets

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While the rest of the world has cut coal-based electricity over the past 18 months, China has added enough to power 31 million homes.

That's according to a study that says China is now in the process of building or reviving coal equivalent to the EU's entire generating capacity.

China is also financing around a quarter of all proposed coal plants outside its borders.

Researchers say the surge is a major threat to the Paris climate targets.

China's reliance on coal as a key step in developing the economy led to the fabled "one coal plant a week" building programme between 2006 and 2015.

But the push had many negative consequences, choking the air with pollution in many Chinese cities and leading to huge overcapacity. Many of these plants were only able to run 50% of the time.

In 2015, in an attempt to curb the growth, the national government tried to clamp down on new-build coal. However, it continued to allow provincial governments the freedom to issue permits for new coal plants. That move misfired badly.

Local authorities subsequently permitted up to five times more plants than in any comparable period.

According to Ted Nace, from coal researchers Global Energy Monitor, it was like a "snake swallowing a goat".

"This goat that the snake swallowed is still moving through the snake, and it's coming out in the form of another 20% in the Chinese coal fleet on top of a fleet that was already over-built," Mr Nace added.

The researchers say that through 2018 and up to June 2019, countries outside of China cut their coal power capacity by 8.1 gigawatts (GW). In the same period, China added 43GW, enough to power around 31 million homes.

The authors say that right now the amount of coal power under construction or under suspension and likely to be revived is about 147.7GW, an amount that is almost the same as the entire coal generating capacity of the European Union (150GW).

Compared to the rest of the world, China is building about 50% more coal plants than are under construction in all other countries combined.

The country is on track to top 1,100GW of coal by 2020.

The Chinese government has signalled that it wants to rely less on coal for the country's energy production and is making some headway cutting coal's share of total energy from 68% in 2012 to 59% in 2018.

However, despite the share going down, absolute coal consumption has gone up in line with overall energy demand.

What concerns the researchers is that within China, coal and electricity industry groups are pushing for an even bigger increase in the country's overall coal power capacity.

"The thing we are super worried about is that industry has actually organised to keep the whole thing going," said Ted Nace.

"There are three different powerful trade groups, proposing to increase the coal fleet by 40%. This is sheer madness at this point."

China is also busy financing coal development outside the country, funding over a quarter of all the coal plants outside its borders in countries like South Africa, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Observers outside of China say they are concerned that by building or permitting these plants, the authorities are locking in a form of power generation that just doesn't make sense economically.

"The economics will not be borne out," said Mark Lewis, head of climate change investment research at BNP Paribas Asset Management.

"I would argue that almost all this new capacity that's being added will never make the economic return on which they have been premised. Those assets that are coming online now will have to be written down; they will be stranded assets essentially."

The bigger question is how this new coal will affect the ability of the world to meet the targets set out in the Paris climate agreement.

The researchers say that by 2030, China needs to reduce its coal power capacity by over 40% from current levels in order to meet the reductions required to hold global warming well below 2C.

"China's proposed coal expansion is so far out of alignment with the Paris Agreement that it would put the necessary reductions in coal power out of reach, even if every other country were to completely eliminate its coal fleet," said co-author Christine Shearer of Global Energy Monitor.

"Instead of expanding further, China needs to make significant reductions to its coal fleet over the coming decade."

Global Energy Monitor was originally known as Coal Swarm and has received funding from environmental groups, including the ClimateWorks Foundation, the Rockefeller Family fund, the US National Resources Defence Council, the European Climate Foundation, among others.

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc.

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China coal surge threatens Paris climate targets

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While the rest of the world has cut coal-based electricity over the past 18 months, China has added enough to power 31 million homes. That's according to a study that says China is now in the process of building or reviving coal equivalent to the EU's entire generating capacity.

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Fracking in the news 02/11/2019

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Rivers are popular locations for completing geographical investigations. This is because they are dynamic systems, which means they are constantly changing. Processes of erosion, transportation and deposition lead to changes along the long profile of a river as well as its cross profile.

When investigating rivers the Bradshaw Model can be used to create questions and hypothesis to investigate.

The Bradshaw Model suggests that certain changes occur along the long profile of a typical river. For example, discharge increases as you move downstream of a river or bedload (material on the river bed) particle size decreases along the river channel.

Questions that can be investigated during river fieldwork include:

How and why does discharge increase along the long profile of River X?

How and why does sediment size change along the long profile of River X?

How and why does sediment size change along the cross profile of River X?

How and why does channel depth change along the cross profile of River X?

How and why does the wetted perimeter change along the long profile of River X?

How do width and depth change along the long profile of River X?

How and why does the cross profile change along the long profile of River X?

How and why do bedload size and roundness change across the cross profile of River X?

Questions that focus on changes along the long profile or downstream changes support in developing a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a statement, usually an educated guess, that you will either prove or disprove through the data you collect as part of your investigation.

Primary Field Work Techniques

In order to prove or disprove your hypothesis, you will need to collect primary data as part of your investigation. Depending on what your hypothesis is you will need to decide what data you need to collect and how you will do this. This forms part of your investigation method.

Measuring the discharge of a river
What is the discharge of a river?
The discharge of a river is the volume of water flowing through a river channel. It is usually measured in cubic metres per second.
How do you measure it?
It is not possible to measure river discharge directly in the field. Instead, you need to take measurements that allow you to calculate discharge.

Discharge(m3/s) = Cross sectional area(m2) × Velocity (m/s)
Cross sectional area (m2) = Width(m) × Mean depth(m)

In order to calculate Discharge we must measure Width, Depth and Velocity.
Why measure it?
According to the Bradshaw model as you move downstream river discharge should increase. This is because tributaries will feed the river leading to an increase in discharge.

Measuring the velocity of a river
What is the velocity of a river?
The velocity of a river is the speed the water flows. The velocity will change along the course of a river.

If you have a flow meter it is very easy to measure the velocity of a river in the field. If you don't have a flow meter you can take measurements in the field using a float, stopwatch and tape measure. Once you have recorded the appropriate data you can use the formula below to calculate the velocity.

Velocity = Distance / Time

There is a range of things you can use for a float including an orange. We recommend dog biscuits because they break down in water if swept away!

To gather your data you need to measure a distance of 5 metres downstream. Place your float in the water upstream at 0m. Record the time it takes for the float to travel 5m. Repeat this three times and calculate the mean. Next, use the above formula to calculate the velocity.

According to the Bradshaw Model velocity increases from source to mouth.

Measuring river depth

River depth is how deep a river is. Depth changes across a river channel due to material on the river bed. Therefore, it is useful to calculate the mean depth.

Place a metre ruler into the river until it touches the river bed. Record the distance between the river bed and the surface of the water. You should do this at regular intervals between the banks of the river. Add the depths together and divide by the number of recordings you took to calculate the mean depth.

Tip: If the bed is rough and bumpy, you will need more measurements at closer intervals to get an accurate result.

To calculate the cross-sectional area you will need to know the mean depth. According to the Bradshaw Model depth increases from the source to the mouth of a river.

Measuring river width
What is the width of a river?
The width of a river is the distance between the points where water comes into contact with each river bank.
How do you measure it?
Extend a tape measure from the point where the dry bank meets the water on one side of the river to the same point on the other side (hold it taut about 20cm above water level). Record the length, viewing the reading from directly above the tape measure.

Measuring the width of the river channel enables you to calculate the cross-sectional area. Also, according to the Bradshaw Model, channel width increases downstream.

Measuring the wetter perimeter of a river
What is the wetted perimeter?
The wetted perimeter or occupied channel width is the entire length of the bed and river bank (sides) in contact with water.
How do you measure it?
Wetter perimeter = Width + Depth + Depth
Why measure it?
According to the Bradshaw Model, the wetted perimeter of a river should increase along its course.

Measuring the cross profile of a river
What is the cross profile?
River cross profiles show you a cross-section of a river's channel and valley at certain points in the river's course.
How do you measure it?
Multiply the average depth by the width of the river channel.
Why measure it?
The cross profile of a river changes as it moves from the upper to lower course as a result of changes in the river's energy and the processes that the river carries out.

Measuring sediment size and type
What is sediment size and type?
The aim of this is to measure the size and shape of a sample of stones from each site visited in the river.

At each site along the river move across the river and select 10 different stones found on the river bed. You should use a random method of collection - put the metre ruler into the water and pick up whatever stone it is touching. Use the ruler or callipers to measure the long axes of each stone (the longest two points on the stone) - this should be recorded in cm.
Use the Powers Index of Roundness to observe and compare the shape of the stone and record this.

Load particle size decreases along the long profile of a river. Bedload becomes less angular along the course of a river.

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River Fieldwork Techniques - Internet Geography

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Rivers are popular locations for completing geographical investigations. This is because they are dynamic systems, which means they are constantly changing. Processes of erosion, transportation and deposition lead to changes along the long profile of a river as well as its cross profile.

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BBC Bitesize

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Fieldwork in geography is all about following an enquiry .

Types of enquiry

An enquiry is a question that a geographer sets out to prove or disprove. A hypothesis is very similar, though it is a statement rather than a question. Both can be either physical or human in nature:

physical enquiries will look at natural landscapes, eg rivers or coasts

human enquiries will look at environments that are created by people, eg cities or tourist resorts

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Introduction to fieldwork skills - Edexcel - Revision 1 - GCSE Geography - BBC Bitesize

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1 2 3 4 5 6 Page 1of 6 Fieldwork in geography is all about following an enquiry . An enquiry is a question that a geographer sets out to prove or disprove. A hypothesis is very similar, though it is a statement rather than a question.

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Four months have passed since Narendra Modi and the BJP came back to power in India, and more seems to have happened there than in the last 40 years. The sense of severance that many experience today, of being divorced from the workings of the nation, exceeds even the helplessness felt during the suspension of civil liberties in the emergency of 1975 to 1977 and the political traumas that followed.

This is because - without the matter being explicitly articulated - citizen has been set against citizen: not just Muslim against Hindu or, say, Kashmiris against the rest of India, but those who subscribe to the BJP's new conception of the nation against those who do not, leaving one without trust in the other.

Indian parties are only democrats when in opposition. But no government has been as punitive towards dissent as this

How to judge these past four months? A series of disruptions has dwarfed the now distant seeming upset of Modi's economically disastrous demonetisation programme of 2016. In August there was the abrogation of article 370 of the Indian constitution, which granted "special status" to Kashmir in acknowledgment of its contested history. This was followed immediately by the "house arrest" of elected Kashmiri leaders and the imprisonment of thousands of others.

What we saw was the attempt to take a difficult and divisive issue and simply place it to one side by an act of will, so that it requires no further discussion. There is the impression that not just the Kashmiris' but all our fates are now being decided for us.

The home minister, Amit Shah, would have us believe that the "restrictions'" in Kashmir are all in the mind. I asked a Kashmiri how she interpreted this. She speculated that what was being implied was that the lack of protest in Kashmir was equal to normalcy. But a lack of protest in a democratic country is strange, and a sustained lack of protest alarming. Is this the normalcy that Indians wish to be bestowed on them by their government?

Then there is spectacle of a different sort: of the government borrowing an unprecedented sum of money from the Reserve Bank of India; of it failing to pay the Central Reserve Police Force; of the economy tanking, of Modi pronouncing that India is in the ascendant. We live simultaneously in disparate realities: a "normal" Kashmir, an abnormal country; a bankrupt economy; a rising India - competing scripts, none of which acknowledge the existence of the other, as distant as countryman has grown to countryman.

If asked what this government's one great recent achievement is, some people might draw attention to the number of toilets built in a country with poor sanitation. Others, whose experience of the new India is different, would say that its greatest success has been in creating a climate of fear. As a consequence, dissent has a purer form now. It's no longer, as it was once, preaching to the converted. It's not even the pointing out of unpleasant facts. It's simply a demonstration that dissent continues to be possible.

India has not, outside of Indira Gandhi's declaration of emergency, been in this place before, and certainly not with the degree of popular support we see now, which can only be characterised as a form of inebriation. The judiciary, the police and other law enforcement agencies are all seen, rightly or wrongly, to "belong" to the government, and many high-profile lawbreakers seem to be those who, coincidentally, disagree with the BJP. The number of cases of "sedition", a charge left over from colonial India, has risen dramatically.

Of course, the erosion of institutional independence didn't happen overnight. Over the last 30 years all governments in India, state and central, have had limited respect for civil liberties and democracy: Indian parties are only fervent democrats when they're in opposition. But no government has been as openly and robustly punitive towards dissent as this one.

Could this ferocious and successful discouragement of dissent herald the achhe din ("good times") Modi has advertised to Indian voters at his rallies? A dissent-free country is a "normal" country; a dissent-free political environment constitutes a "good time" for its rulers.

I myself have first-hand experience of this. I recently signed a letter of protest addressed to the prime minister, drawing attention to increased religious violence. My co-signatories were 48 of India's most eminent film-makers, academics, activists, artists and writers. In response to a petition in Muzzafurpur, Bihar, a court has now asked the police to open a case against us.

Then there's the National Register of Citizens (NRC), a central government-backed project in the state of Assam aimed at uncovering and expelling "foreigners" (that is, Muslim refugees from Bangladesh who don't have the relevant documents, though the reality has turned out to be far messier, and the majority of those now deemed "foreigners" have turned out to be Hindus). Many are threatened with being uprooted, and others in the region are being asked to help uproot their neighbours. These extraordinary developments got me thinking about ethnicity and citizenship. About the trajectory of Indians in the 20th century: of Gandhi's relocation to England and then to South Africa, where, made conscious of his race and colour, he first moved towards politics; of Sikhs settling en masse in Canada after murderous violence against them in 1984; of Bengalis departing a declining Kolkata in the 70s.

Narendra Modi to face down critics by hailing Clean India scheme a success

Indians are a many-sided people: they are entrepreneurial, curious, cultured, open-minded, adventurous. They have great writers, scientists, businessmen; they have Gandhi. They're also great migrants: they've gone to and worked and settled in every part of the world. They know the pain of discrimination and upheaval intimately. In this context, the fraught rhetoric surrounding the NRC, where "illegal migrant" is time and again conflated with "Muslim", and "Muslim" with "foreigner", shows a disconnect between what Indians have historically known, felt and achieved as migrants, despite hostility and opposition, and how, at home, they perceive those they suddenly decide are the "other".

It's odd that our past hasn't given us a more immediate sense of the value and inevitability of plurality, of accommodating difference. Instead, many of us have refashioned ourselves as north Indian Brahmin manqués, wanting Hindi as the official national language, wanting to be what we're not, wanting our nation to be what it can't be. Only a determined abstention from self-inquiry could have got us here. Rather than accepting an India where lack of dissent is expected, it is time to look inward: to recollect the journeys we've made, and assess whether we've ended up where we wanted to be.

* Amit Chaudhuri is professor of contemporary literature at the University of East Anglia and an author
Topics

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A new India is emerging, and it is a country ruled by fear | Amit Chaudhuri

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Four months have passed since Narendra Modi and the BJP came back to power in India, and more seems to have happened there than in the last 40 years. The sense of severance that many experience today, of being divorced from the workings of the nation, exceeds even the helplessness felt during the suspension of civil liberties in the emergency of 1975 to 1977 and the political traumas that followed.

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When Typhoon Haiyan smashed into the city of Tacloban in the central Philippines almost three years ago, Arsenio was one of the lucky ones - he survived by swimming a kilometre to safety. "Every time there is a storm, I get scared, even after three years," he said. "I don't want to go through the same thing again."

And yet, there is a good chance he will. The archipelago nation is regularly rocked by storms that are predicted to get stronger and more frequent due to climate change. And the 67-year-old shopkeeper is still living in the same place: the Seawall barangay (neighbourhood), which is strung along the coast of Tacloban. "I am pissed off," said Arsenio, who declined to give his last name. "I have not been offered any sort of relocation by the government, even in a transitional centre."
Life after typhoon Haiyan: Cebu's struggle to rebuild lives and homes
After Haiyan - one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded, and one that destroyed more than a million homes and killed more than 6,000 people - the government promised to "build back better". The strategy included relocating people away from coastal areas that are almost sure to be hit again.

So far, the plan has been a failure, at least in terms of numbers. In the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit the Philippines, the government of then president Bignino Aquino III pledged to build 205,000 homes to accommodate about one million people living in coastal danger zones.

Last week, vice-president Leni Robredo, newly installed as head of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council - an umbrella organisation that oversees various government housing agencies - admitted that only about 1% of the target had been achieved.

"The report reaching us is that only 25,000 were completed," she said at a press conference. "From the 25,000 that were completed, 2,500 were occupied."

As the third anniversary of the Haiyan disaster approaches on 8 November, hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines, including tens of thousands in Tacloban, continue to live in areas which the government has designated as "no dwelling zones".

They include residents of Seawall who, like Arsenio, rebuilt their homes after the storm. Their homes are shacks made from what could be found in the wreckage or was donated by charities - plywood, sacking and corrugated iron. Some jut out into the sea, supported on stilts, and are connected to the land by single wooden boards.

Joyce Sierra, advocacy officer at Social Watch Philippines, said many survivors of Typhoon Haiyan - known locally as Yolanda - had to rebuild their lives with little or no assistance, which pushed them deeper into poverty. "They are even poorer and even more vulnerable now, even three years after Yolanda," she said.

Robredo blamed the lack of progress on "red tape", particularly the processing of documents and land titles for sites where homes were to be built. She has said she will coordinate with the Commission on Audit and the National Economic Development Agency (COA) to see if the bureaucracy can be reduced.

The slow grind is frustrating for people like Glenda Nibasa, a housewife living in Tacloban's flood-prone Picas community. As she waits for the government to provide her with a proper home, she's living in a temporary shelter provided by the NGO World Vision.

"If the government wants to help us, why are there so many processes? Why won't they just help us?" Nibasa asked.

But constructing new homes is not the end of the problem. Even survivors who are offered the chance to relocate sometimes decide against it, because the inland safe zones are far from their where they work - usually in the fishing industry. They also fear the new homes are a step down in terms of quality of life.

"We declined because the area is far from our livelihood and we heard the water was not good," said Marissa Trebajo, who sells fish at the Seawall market to support her four children.

Ildebrando Bernadas, head of the Tacloban city government's disaster risk reduction and management office, acknowledged the problem with the water supply and said it was because no national agency had been assigned to the problem. Plans are now being drawn up to provide a water supply to Tacloban's relocation "township" in the north of the city, he said.

Bernadas also said Haiyan survivors' concerns about their livelihoods were being addressed, and employment and training were being provided - although it could not be guaranteed that those being relocated, mostly fishermen, would be able to continue with the same job.

"Actually, those who are now resettled permanently, that [had previously been] their sentiment: 'We don't want to move because our lives here - we are fishermen.' But now they are there, they feel happy about it," he said.
Topics

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David Doyle for Irin, part of the Guardian development network

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Rebuilding after Typhoon Haiyan: 'Every time there is a storm I get scared'

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When Typhoon Haiyan smashed into the city of Tacloban in the central Philippines almost three years ago, Arsenio was one of the lucky ones - he survived by swimming a kilometre to safety. "Every time there is a storm, I get scared, even after three years," he said.

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Video refers to Milankovitch Cycles and glacial and interglacial periods

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When will the next ice age happen? - Lorraine Lisiecki

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Traditionally, economic activity has taken place in UK towns and cities. Rural landscapes are increasingly being used for, or being affected by, economic activity.

Elmbridge, Surrey

Elmbridge in Surrey is a rural borough with an expanding population.

Elmbridge is a semi-rural area containing the settlements of Weybridge, Cobham, Walton-on-Thames and Esher. It is a 25 minute commute from London and well connected with the M3 and M25, making it an ideal place for commuters to live away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

The influx of people into the area has led to many social and economic changes:

Many people in their 30s have moved into the area, many of whom have young children. This has reduced the average age of residents and led to a greater demand for school places.

Over 20% of people living in Elmbridge commute into London, leaving many towns and villages empty during the daytime.

Average incomes in Elmbridge far exceed national averages, with residents earning more than £1,000 per week. They have a high disposable income, which has brought money into the area.

House prices are more expensive than anywhere else in the county of Surrey. Average house prices have risen to over £591,000 (in 2015). Many poorer people cannot afford to pay these prices.

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Study of a major UK city - Edexcel - Revision 7 - GCSE Geography - BBC Bitesize

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Traditionally, economic activity has taken place in UK towns and cities. Rural landscapes are increasingly being used for, or being affected by, economic activity. Elmbridge in Surrey is a rural borough with an expanding population. Elmbridge is a semi-rural area containing the settlements of Weybridge, Cobham, Walton-on-Thames and Esher.

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Brent Works - training and skills

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Brent Works is a no cost service providing job and apprenticeship opportunities for local people, across a range of sectors, including construction.

Find a job or apprenticeship now

About the service

The service gives you:

One-to-one advice and guidance towards finding work

Connects residents to jobs and apprenticeships within Brent and across London

Opportunity to work with training providers to upskill and prepare you for employment

The Brent Works team are here to support you into meaningful employment, and take the steps needed to get there. See the current job and apprenticeship opportunities available now for application.

Apprenticeship mailing list

If you are aged 16 or over and looking for an apprenticeship, sign up to the Brent Works apprenticeship mailing list and be the first to hear of new vacancies.

Contact us

To arrange an initial meeting to discuss your vacancies, you can meet the team and have an initial one-to-one meeting with an advisor by contacting us at Brent Civic Centre.

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Brent Works is a no cost service providing job and apprenticeship opportunities for local people, across a range of sectors, including construction.

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Cities without Hunger - community gardens in favelas

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Cities without Hunger - Cidades sem Fome

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The work of CITIES WITHOUT HUNGER began in 2004 with the Community Gardens Project in the social focal points of the Cidade Tiradentes, São Mateus, Itaquera and São Miguel Paulista areas. The aim has been to encourage the social integration of marginal groups through gardening and to improve the nutrition of adults and children.

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From KS3 Geography but still relevant

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Settlements are places where people live. Many settlements have things in common and so they can be grouped to make it easier to study them.

- this is the place where the settlement is located, eg on a hill or in a sheltered valley.

- this describes where the settlement is in relation to other settlements and the features of the surrounding area, eg is the settlement surrounded by forest or is it next to a large city?

Early settlements

Early settlers often looked for certain features in an area to make life easier:

flat land, to make building easier and safer

local raw materials, eg wood and stone, to build homes

a local water supply for drinking, washing, cooking and transport

dry land, so that people could build on areas that don't flood

a defendable site, eg a hilltop or river bend, to protect from attackers

good farm land with fertile soils, so people could grow crops

shelter, eg to protect from bad weather

transport links, eg a ford or low crossing point of a river

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Site and situation - Settlement in urban areas - KS3 Geography Revision - BBC Bitesize

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Settlements are places where people live. Many settlements have things in common and so they can be grouped to make it easier to study them. - this is the place where the settlement is located, eg on a hill or in a sheltered valley.

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The UK has a population of over 65 million people. The major cities of the UK can be seen on the map. London is the UK's largest city and Birmingham is its second largest city.

The bar chart shows in the UK. Scotland has the lowest population density at 68 people per km whereas England has the highest population density at 413 people per .

has local, regional and even world importance:

Internal and international accessibility - London has great importance due to its high connectivity. It has an orbital motorway (M25) and a series of motorways linking it with the other major centres in the UK (M1 to Leeds, M4 to Bristol and the M2 to Dover). It is also the focus of the rail network with major rail termini such as Waterloo and Paddington. It has 5 international airports and the business airport of Heathrow has five terminals. It is also the terminus of the international Eurostar rail service.

World network of financial centres - London has become the international financial centre for Europe and is one of three world financial cities alongside New York and Tokyo. Many global banks have headquarters here.

Transnational corporations (TNCs) - London has become the place where TNCs prefer to locate. Of the 500 transnational companies in the UK, 271 have their headquarters in London and a further 28% are located along the M4 corridor. This provides opportunities for other business services to locate near their clients, therefore 90% of all business services in the UK are located in the South-East.

- London is the largest and most affluent market in the UK and therefore top international retailers have locations in London to take advantage of this market.

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Study of a major UK city - Edexcel - Revision 1 - GCSE Geography - BBC Bitesize

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The UK has a population of over 65 million people. The major cities of the UK can be seen on the map. London is the UK's largest city and Birmingham is its second largest city. The bar chart shows in the UK.

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Flood risk vegetation vs. deforested land

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Flood risk vegetation vs. deforested land

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Ultra Low Emission Zone - air pollution management

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Skip to main content

You are here: Home What we do Environment Pollution and air qualityThe Mayor's Ultra Low Emission Zone for London

On 25 October 2021, the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) expanded from central London up to (but not including) the North Circular and South Circular roads. The new zone is 18 times the size of the central London zone and now covers 3.8 million people. The ULEZ is central to the Mayor of London's plans to improve Londoners' health. It will clean up the city's toxic air, which leads to the early deaths of thousands of people every year.

Most vehicles driving in the ULEZ must meet tight emission standards or pay the daily charge.

The ULEZ is in effect 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year round (except Christmas Day).

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The Mayor's Ultra Low Emission Zone for London

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Skip to main content You are here: Home What we do Environment Pollution and air qualityThe Mayor's Ultra Low Emission Zone for London On 25 October 2021, the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) expanded from central London up to (but not including) the North Circular and South Circular roads.

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The developers behind the £3 billion regeneration of Wembley Park have launched the next stage of the creation of a new town around the national stadium.

Property giant Quintain unveiled plans at an event at Wembley last week for a further 250,000 sq ft of shops, restaurants and bars at the 85-acre site - doubling what has been built.

The main completed element so far is the London Designer Outlet shopping centre, while Boxpark Wembley - the capital's third street food and bar mall made from shipping containers - will open towards the end of this year.

The next phase will also see the construction of 7,000 homes, offices, a huge gym, a park with a swimming lake and possibly a new music venue.

Are developers building homes Londoners want to live in?

The company released an image showing how the area will look by 2027, a quarter of a century after the demolition of the original home of the Three Lions kickstarted the transformation of the area.

It was then a rundown district of light industrial estates surrounding the ageing arena that was first used in 1923.

The Wembley Park area around it was created for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 and 1925.

Quintain's retail director Matt Slade said: "It's about creating a place to live, a place to work, a place to shop regardless of what's happening at the stadium."

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Next stage launched in massive £3 billion Wembley Park regeneration

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The developers behind the £3 billion regeneration of Wembley Park have launched the next stage of the creation of a new town around the national stadium. Property giant Quintain unveiled plans at an event at Wembley last week for a further 250,000 sq ft of shops, restaurants and bars at the 85-acre site - doubling what has been built.

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Flood damage estimated at £1.1bn a year is being prevented by the UK's network of river barriers and defences, according to research.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) says it is the first time the financial contribution of river defences has been quantified.

The modelling, based on thousands of simulations of weather events with and without flood defences, emphasises the value to UK homes and businesses of flood defence spending and the importance of government investment, particularly for flood-prone locations such as Cumbria, Yorkshire, Somerset and the Welsh valleys.

The Environment Agency recently warned that whole communities may need to be moved away from coasts as a result of flooding caused by the climate crisis.

The research, published on Wednesday and commissioned by Flood Re and conducted by Risk Management Solutions, suggested inland flooding would, on average, cost almost three times more a year without the defences - a bill of £1.8bn rather than £700m across the whole of the UK.

In England, the government spends about £600m a year on building and maintaining flood defences. The Environment Agency has called for spending on flood defences to increase to £1bn as the nation prepares for warming of up to 4C above pre-industrial levels.

Closer examination of what happened in Cumbria in December 2015 shows the flooding caused by Storm Desmond would have done damage worth three-and-a-half times as much without river water defences - £2.8bn rather than £600m.

James Dalton, the ABI's director of general insurance policy, said: "The human cost of flooding is immeasurable, putting lives at risk, causing families great trauma and pushing some businesses to the brink. Flood defences are an essential part of the protection system which prevents and minimises the trauma caused by flooding as much as possible.

"Faced with the growing threat of climate change, there is a clear financial argument for investing in flood defences. The barriers, walls and natural defences that currently prevent greater damage being done by the UK's rivers during times of extreme weather make economic sense, but they must keep pace with the threat if they are to continue being effective."
Topics

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UK river defences 'prevent £1.1bn a year in flood damage'

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Flood damage estimated at £1.1bn a year is being prevented by the UK's network of river barriers and defences, according to research. The Association of British Insurers (ABI) says it is the first time the financial contribution of river defences has been quantified.

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One of the most famous photographs and interesting article

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How did you come to take this photo?I took the photo for the Folha de São Paulo newspaper, for a special report on the 450th anniversary of São Paulo in 2004. It was taken from a helicopter following a suggestion by my colleague Marlene Bergamo. But when I took it, I had no idea it would become so popular.

What does the photo show, in your opinion?
It is clearly an illustration of social inequality, maybe the biggest problem for Brazil and Latin America. The unjust and brutal difference between rich and poor, inherited from slavery, is in the origin of many other problems - violence, below-par schooling, prejudice and many other issues.

Inequality means that someone who is poorer is obliged to work more, so they have no time to study, which impacts on their education. As a result, they are not able to develop the critical and political awareness necessary to transform their own situation. Add to this the absence of any sense of the collective responsibility or solidarity among the privileged in Brazil, and you have a closed circle that is very difficult to break.

I am happy to have taken a photograph that expresses this problem and has acquired importance, especially in view of the immense quantity of photographs that we produce today. But deep down, I would rather it didn't exist.

On your Facebook you published a photo in which you're showing it to [former president] Lula at the Lula Institute in São Paulo. What was his reaction?
I said to him, "Lula, this photo is one of the most well-known from Brazil, as much here as abroad. It was taken in 2004 and circulated in various places around the world during the period when you were president. I believe it illustrates the biggest of all the problems in Brazil, and I want to believe that it symbolises your struggle." He looked at it in silence - and it is not easy to leave Lula in silence ...

Click or tap to see Tuca Vieira's photo of Paraisópolis (Paradise City) full size

Guardian Cities is in São Paulo for a special series of in-depth reporting and live events. Share your experiences of the city in the comments below, on and using #GuardianSaoPaulo, or by email to saopaulo.week@theguardian.com

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How did you come to take this photo?I took the photo for the Folha de São Paulo newspaper, for a special report on the 450th anniversary of São Paulo in 2004. It was taken from a helicopter following a suggestion by my colleague Marlene Bergamo.

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Hinckley Point C

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The Hinkley Point nuclear site, on the Somerset coast, should have begun powering around 6m homes well over a year ago.

Instead, the 160-hectare (400-acre) sprawl is still the UK's largest construction site more than a decade after the plan for Britain's nuclear renaissance first emerged.

It will be at least another six years before Hinkley Point C, the first nuclear plant to be built in the UK since 1995, begins generating 7% of the nation's electricity.

The price tag is expected to exceed £20bn, almost double that suggested in 2008 by EDF Energy, which is spearheading the project alongside a Chinese project partner.

At the time, EDF Energy's chief executive, Vincent de Rivaz, said the mega-project would power millions of homes by late 2017. He pegged the cost at £45 for every megawatt-hour.

De Rivaz retired a decade later, but the promised switch-on moment remains distant. Delays have been blamed on protracted Whitehall wrangling over the project's eye-watering costs: the price per megawatt-hour has since more than doubled.

Still, this summer workers carried out the UK's largest concrete pour to complete the base of the first reactor. Simone Rossi, EDF Energy's incumbent chief, said the milestone was "good news for anyone concerned about the climate change crisis".

"Its reliable, low-carbon power will be essential for a future with no unabated coal and gas and a large expansion of renewable power," he said.

The cost concerns have proved more difficult for executives and ministers to address.

The National Audit Office condemned the government's deal to support the Hinkley Point project through consumer energy bills in a damning report, which accused ministers of putting households on the hook for a "risky and expensive" project with "uncertain strategic and economic benefits".

Hinkley Point will add between £10 and £15 a year to the average energy bill for 35 years, making it one of the most expensive energy projects undertaken.

Under EDF Energy's contract with the government, the French state-backed energy giant will earn at least £92.50 for every megawatt-hour produced at Hinkley Point for 35 years by charging households an extra levy on top of the market price for power.

The average electricity price on the UK's wholesale electricity market was between £55 and £65 per megawatt-hour last year.

The dramatic collapse in the cost of wind, solar and battery technologies has made nuclear power even harder to swallow.

Despite its detractors, Hinkley Point has soldiered on because concerns over the project's costs, although considerable, are still smaller than the concerns over the UK's future energy supplies.

The project was first mooted under Tony Blair's Labour government as an answer to the UK's looming energy supply gap after years of underinvestment in the UK's fleet of power plants.

The nuclear mantle was taken up in the coalition years by the Liberal Democrat energy secretary Ed Davey, before it was given the green light by the Conservative government.

Andrew Stephenson, the minister in charge of nuclear, said Hinkley was "key to meeting our ambitious target of net zero emissions by 2050".

Nuclear power is controversial among environmentalists, many of whom do not consider the uranium-fuelled energy to be a sustainable option. But according to the government's official climate advisers new nuclear reactors are needed.

The Committee on Climate Change expects renewable energy to play a major role filling the gap in energy supplies. Offshore wind will increase tenfold to help meet its 2050 target to reduce emissions to net zero, and the climate watchdog has called for onshore wind and solar to play a far larger role too.

But the advisers predict that at least two new nuclear reactors, in addition to Hinkley Point, will be required to help the UK meet its climate goals.

The verdict means households are likely to be called on to stump up for EDF Energy's follow-on project at the Sizewell site in Suffolk. It also leaves the door open for a resurrection of plans to build reactors in north Wales, and possibly a Chinese-led nuclear project in Bradwell in Essex too.

Hinkley in numbers

* 9,000 cubic metres - the largest pour of concrete ever in the UK took place at the Hinkley Point site to complete the base of the first reactor. That's the volume of almost four Olympic swimming pools.

* 250 metres - maximum height of the world's biggest crane, assembled on site after being delivered by 280 trucks.

* 5,000 tonnes - weight of the Welsh steel used to reinforce the base of the first reactor.

* 430 acres - site area, equivalent to about 250 football pitches.

* 30% - the nuclear industry is aiming to reduce the cost of new projects by almost a third by 2030.
Topics

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Hinkley Point C: rising costs and long delays at vast new power station

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The Hinkley Point nuclear site, on the Somerset coast, should have begun powering around 6m homes well over a year ago. Instead, the 160-hectare (400-acre) sprawl is still the UK's largest construction site more than a decade after the plan for Britain's nuclear renaissance first emerged.

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A brand image generates a unique set of ideas, feelings and attitudes in people. To remain competitive, large companies sometimes alter or completely replace their images and relaunch themselves as fresh corporate brands. Similarly, competition between urban places to attract new investment, tourists and residents has led many areas to establish completely new brand identities.

International events are often used by urban areas to create a new place image and act as a catalyst or process for fresh development and change. Barcelona has a history of reinventing itself using events dating back to 1888. The Universal Exhibition was held in Ciutadella, today the largest park in Barcelona, an oasis of leisure and culture in the centre of a busy city. Its 1929 World Exhibition is todayâ€™s main exhibition centre in PlaÃ§a EspaÃ±a. The 1992 Olympic Games changed the whole concept of a city which previously lived with its back to the sea and its legacy has been a successful and enduring 'Barcelona Olympic City' brand.

Rebranding an area can help people become aware of the existence of new place products such the beaches constructed for Barcelona's Olympics. Urban localities may be regarded as 'products' in the sense that they provide labour, land, premises and industrial infrastructures to businesses, housing, shopping, leisure and other amenities to residents, while offering cultural and heritage products to tourists.

Rebranding can also address the issue of 'MacDonaldisation' common in tourist destinations, and help differentiate an area from other places. The promotion of an urban place as a product will be enhanced, giving it a substantial competitive edge.

Rebranding helps to discard negative imagery connected with an industrial heritage. Old industrial centres are frequently defined in the media by severe economic and social deprivation, homelessness, high levels of crime, vandalism, public disorder, pollution and a lack of civic amenities. As a consequence, they have increasingly needed to reposition themselves as centres of leisure and amenity rather than of production and heavy industry.

Rebranding, carefully planned, can help engender civic pride. Barcelona used its 1992 Olympic Games to generate city-wide development. The process was presented as a 'one city' exercise in that it offered something to everyone, and was an effective means of uniting a city around a public project. Decisions relating to Olympic development were taken at all levels, creating a sense of local ownership and helping to re-assert Catalan pride and identity.

Barcelona has also added a new verb to the Spanish language to highlight changes in the character of its once infamous inner city Raval district. The aim is to attract new visitors to the district, create pride of belonging amongst its residents and help develop a new brand image for the neighbourhood.

Rebranding: simply add a new verb to the language

The Barcelona City Council wants to improve the perception of one of its most marginal and insecure inner city districts: the Raval. The campaign seeks to project a more cohesive image of the neighbourhood but without losing its characteristic identity and personality.

El Raval: Ravalejar

Ravalejar

Urban Regeneration and Re-imaging District Rebranding
An increasingly common practice is for a cityâ€™s authorities to attach a fresh brand identity to a particular locality within the city, especially when the area has been redeveloped so extensively that its basic character has changed. Many inner city districts of 'industrial' cities went into decline in the 1960s and 70s, resulting in high levels of economic and social deprivation. Often the people who continued to reside in these districts were unskilled and unemployed. Government policy both in Western Europe and North America has been to enhance the attractiveness of depressed inner city areas by stimulating both business investment and the inflow of new residents.

There are many examples of district rebranding within urban conurbations. For instance, plans were proposed in 2002 to transform Londonâ€™s Bishopsgate Goodsyard area into the 'Covent Garden of the East End', with a raised 'park in the sky' alongside 'green paths and modern amenities'. Controversy surrounded the development, however, as the district was the centre of one of Britainâ€™s largest Bangladeshi communities and housed a local market and many small ethnic-minority owned businesses. Another example of district rebranding was the 1996 'Londonâ€™s Wild' campaign which attempted to rebrand some of Londonâ€™s central tourist areas as vibrant and exciting, with a 24-hours a day night-life and culture (rather than their being traditional historical places dominated by museums and art galleries).

The modern approach to district rebranding is to try to make a location a desirable place in which to live (as well as to invest and develop industrial activity) and one that outsiders will want to visit for social and recreational purposes and in order to shop and spend money. Hence an urban regeneration programme might devote as much attention to removing graffiti, laying flower beds and refurbishing facades as it does to the conversion of old warehouses into cheap business premises. The availability of parks, libraries, swimming pools, theatres and museums may be deemed as important as the creation as new manufacturing premises, car parks and convention centers.

Although the marketing of an area cannot of itself physically improve the district it is undoubtedly the case that, in the words of Hultink and Hart (1998), 'the world will not automatically beat a path to the door of a better mousetrap'. Rather, the advantages of new developments must be communicated forcefully and meaningfully to the public. Successful urban regeneration can only be achieved when people become aware of the existence of new place products and recognize that they possess real benefits. This implies a critical role for the marketing function during the process of rebranding.
The Problems Involved
Urban regeneration typically involves the rebranding of the area concerned and can fundamentally change the character of a district. This may be highly controversial because the changes involved might result in the importation of financially well off residents, business infrastructures, and cultural and leisure facilities more suited to better off people than to poorer pre-existing inhabitants (who might be driven out by rising property prices and rents).

A brand image suitable for one group of stakeholders (business investors for instance) may be inappropriate for others (e.g. pre-existing residents). Ideally, the brand assigned to a place will reflect its attributes, characteristics and core identity. In many cases, however, the area that is to be rebranded will have a history of social and economic problems and may be extremely diverse in terms of local residents' ethnicity, social class, culture, lifestyle, income levels and types of employment. There need be no unity of purpose among resident groups, each of which may perceive the 'city product' differently. Consequently it might be difficult to develop a brand that convinces everyone, from local citizens to potential foreign investors.

Pre-existing residents of a community may want its brand image to project the districtâ€™s local distinctiveness and the aspirations and cultures of current inhabitants. Urban development agencies, conversely, may seek to establish place brands grounded purely on commercial advantages, e.g. the availability of cheap labour, government incentives, low costs, ancillary business services, technology infrastructures, and an areaâ€™s international links and orientation. Such messages may have little meaning for local residents.

Urban development authorities may well be taking decisions about which groups they wish to attract from outside and which preexisting categories of resident they want to retain and nurture. Many urban places have multiple stakeholders (old and new residents, business investors, retailers, domestic and foreign visitors, owners of sporting and leisure venues, etc.) and conflicts among them may occur. The UK Department of the Environment (1998) reported 'continuous warfare' between local residents and business interests over proposals for the redevelopment (and by implication the rebranding) of certain districts in several English cities and noted how 'resident communities' did not always experience the benefits of regeneration programmes as much as newcomers, tourists, visitors, and others from outside.

The challenge for the marketing manager is therefore to merge multiple identities within a specific location into a concise and easily understood brand which appeals to business investors and tourists but without compromising urban local culture and the distinct pre-existing characteristics of the area.
The Process of rebranding
The main steps in rebranding comprise name creation and registration, the design of a logo and associated visual image, market research, and advertising. More fundamentally, rebranding might be seen either as a tactical issue whereby the new brand is operationally attached to the place product, or as an important strategic matter in which all the processes of the urban development authority revolve around the construction and development of the new brand.
The 'new look' Raval: an urban rebranding success?
Source: The Rebranding of City Places, Roger Bennett and Sharmila Savani 2003.

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Urban Rebranding: the reinvention of city places

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A brand image generates a unique set of ideas, feelings and attitudes in people. To remain competitive, large companies sometimes alter or completely replace their images and relaunch themselves as fresh corporate brands. Similarly, competition between urban places to attract new investment, tourists and residents has led many areas to establish completely new brand identities.

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Entire communities might need to be moved away from coasts and rivers as the UK takes urgent action to prepare for an average global temperature rise of 4C, the Environment Agency warned.

The agency said on Thursday that difficult decisions would have to be taken in the coming years to make sure the UK was resilient amid flooding that would not be held back by higher land defences.

Emma Howard Boyd, chair of the agency, set out the regulator's long-term strategy for tackling flooding and coastal change, which, she said, was a preparation for a 4C rise in global temperatures. The rise is far in excess of the target of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels set in the legally binding Paris Agreement of 2015.

"The coastline has never stayed in the same place and there have always been floods, but climate change is increasing and accelerating these threats," said Howard Boyd. "We can't win a war against water by building away climate change with infinitely high flood defences. We need to develop consistent standards for flood and coastal resilience in England that help communities better understand their risk and give them more control about how to adapt and respond."

The strategy text says the approach to flood protection and assessing risk had to change. "We need to act now without delay ... we need to apply a different philosophy."

Instead of acting once a flood had happened the country needed to build "climate resilient" communities, homes and businesses, and simply building bigger and bigger walls as defences was not the solution, the document says.

The policy calls for natural barriers and flood relief systems, but also for an increase in the resilience of homes and businesses against the inevitable flooding with such structures as flood doors and stone floors.

The strategy also makes clear that some areas of the UK and some homes and businesses cannot be protected. "Despite our collective best efforts, we will not always be able to prevent flooding and coastal change happening." The priority in these areas will be to keep people safe, minimise damage and aid quick recovery. Ultimately it may also mean supporting individuals and communities in a move from an affected area.

" Resilience includes accepting that in some places we can't eliminate all flooding and coastal change, and so we need to be better at adapting to living with the consequences - for example, by designing homes that can be restored quickly after they've been inundated with water, or potentially moving communities out of harm's way."

It is already thought unbeneficial to protect or adapt about 114 miles of coastline because of flooding, and more than 1,000 miles of coast are at risk of erosion.

A recent report from the government's advisory panel the Committee on Climate Change said that by the 2080s up to 1.5m properties in England could be in areas of significant levels of flood risk.

In the Humber estuary rising sea levels and river flooding are putting 55,000 homes at risk. In 2013 a tidal surge hit the east coast, forcing thousands of people to abandon homes as areas of the North Sea rose to higher levels than had happened in the floods of 1953. In Devon, in 2014, people were forced from their homes and a key stretch of the railway link to the rest of the UK was destroyed in storms and flooding.

More homes would be at risk in the future as the number of properties built on floodplains was likely to double over the next 50 years, the agency warns.

The agency set out a target, for up to 2050, for the UK to become resilient to flood and coastal risks, and for a policy of "resilience for places", referring to the ability of communities to cope with, and recover from, all sources of flooding or coastal change.

The agency says an average outlay of £1bn a year will be needed to build traditional flood and coastal defences and allow for natural flood management.

"Flooding of any kind is horrendous," the report says. "Erosion destroys. [Floods] are dirty, invasive, damaging, and can kill. They can force people to leave their homes and their businesses, cause prolonged mental ill health, and destroy livelihoods, natural habitats and other valued places. At best flooding and coastal change can be inconvenient and disruptive."

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Crumbling gardens at Happisburgh, north east Norfolk. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Climate Change, last week called for the British government to immediately set a legally binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. He said the UK urgently needed to stay ahead of worsening impacts by adapting. "The Environment Agency is doing just that by setting out their flood strategy, but we won't be able to keep up with the pace of change if we don't reduce emissions to zero," he said.

Mike Childs, head of science at Friends of the Earth, said smarter adaptation and building resilience to flooding was undeniably important but that the focus should be first and foremost on slashing emissions to avoid the worst consequences of climate chaos.

"With its relentless pursuit of fracking, airport expansion and road building, and barely tepid support for renewable energy, our government is failing with this regard," Childs said.

The environment minister, Thérèse Coffey, said the government was already providing £2.6bn over six years, delivering more than 1,500 projects to better protect 300,000 homes. "But the threat of climate change will mean an increasing risk, and preparing the country is a priority for the government, and the nation as a whole," she said, adding that the government would be launching a call for evidence to inform action on flood and coastal erosion risks.
Topics

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Climate crisis: flooding threat 'may force UK towns to be abandoned'

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Entire communities might need to be moved away from coasts and rivers as the UK takes urgent action to prepare for an average global temperature rise of 4C, the Environment Agency warned. The agency said on Thursday that difficult decisions would have to be taken in the coming years to make sure the UK was resilient amid flooding that would not be held back by higher land defences.

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New metro lines (2019 update)

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São Paulo pushes ahead with metro expansion - International Railway Journal

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São Paulo plans to extend metro Line 2-Green, build a monorail at Guarulhos International Airport and resume work on monorail Line 17-Gold.

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Congestion Charge

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The challenge

London has limited road capacity but a high demand for road travel. At the turn of the millennium, "London suffered the worst congestion in the United Kingdom, with average traffic speeds slower than 8 [miles per hour]. The city lost between an estimated £2 million and £4 million every week in terms of time lost due to congestion." [1] The congestion also affected the air quality, with high levels of pollution.

Studies assessing the viability of a congestion charge in London had been conducted since the mid-1960s, for example, the Smeed Report prepared by Reuben Smeed and his fellow committee members in 1964. This report advocated 'road pricing'. But the government had resisted such recommendations as being too unpopular. London, though, was a special case.

The initiative

The Greater London Authority Act 1999 defined the new Greater London Authority (GLA), and gave the mayor of London the power to provide guidance and directives to London's transport body, Transport for London (TfL). "Schedule 23 of the Act included provision for road user charging schemes, and Schedule 24 for workplace parking levies." [2]

In November 2000, the incoming mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, began preliminary consultation on his Draft Transport Strategy. This contained detailed information on how the proposed scheme might operate. "The Technical Assessment Report on the Road Charging Options for London (ROCOL) was published in 2000, forming the basis for the Congestion Charging scheme of today." [3]

After the decision was taken to go ahead with congestion charging, "an extensive public information campaign, to inform Londoners and visitors of the nature and details of the scheme, took place over the Autumn and Winter of 2002-2003".

The central London congestion charging scheme was successfully introduced on schedule on 17 February 2003. The charging area now extends from Kings Cross in the north to Elephant and Castle in the south, Hyde Park Corner in the west and Old Street roundabout to the east. The charging period runs from 7am to 6pm and the standard charge is currently £11.50 per day. Charging zone residents receive a 90 percent discount while certain vehicles are exempt, such as buses, taxes and electric vehicles and certain drivers, such as the disabled.

The primary aim of the programme was to reduce the number of private vehicles entering central London during the day and "to facilitate greater use of transportation alternatives, producing environmental and safety improvements and in turn, raising substantial net revenues". [4]

The public impact

The scheme had significant impact from the outset:

There was a 37 percent increase in the number of passengers entering the congestion charging zone by bus during charging hours in the first year.

"Greenhouse gas emission was reduced by 16 per cent from 2002 to 2003. NOX and PM10 within the congestion charging zone decreased by 18 per cent and 22 per cent, respectively, by 2004." [5]

The scheme generated £122 million net in 2005/2006.

By 2006, the congestion charging zone had reduced congestion in central London by 26 per cent from its 2002 levels.

There have been between 40 and 70 percent fewer accidents that resulted in personal injury within the zone.

Based on the original £8 charge, the scheme was estimated to save £2.5 million per year as a result of a reduction in vehicle mile travelled, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

The scheme achieved a cost efficiency of £78 million when all costs and benefits were considered.

The congestion charge boosted sales of hybrid cars."

What did and didn't work

All cases in our Public Impact Observatory have been evaluated for performance against the elements of our Public Impact Fundamentals.

Legitimacy

Public Confidence Weak

Public confidence was low initially. The scheme was criticised by politicians, motorists, and some trade unions. Newspapers in London were also critical of the idea.

Ken Livingstone was elected as mayor with sizeable majorities in 2000, when congestion charging was an important part of his manifesto, and again in 2004, after the charge had been well established.

The congestion charge has now become largely accepted by public opinion, partly because the environmental issues have become more prominent.

Stakeholder Engagement Strong

There was good involvement from stakeholders including the mayor of London, TfL, the London Assembly, the national government, and local authorities.

The initiative was planned by Ken Livingstone in collaboration with ROCOL, TfL and the London Assembly. TfL used its General Fund for the expenses to be incurred in the scheme.

The UK government provided some funding through the Ministry of Transport.

The local authorities in the congestion charging zone used a network of video cameras to record licence plate numbers.

The Department for Transport, local authority highway authorities and the Highways Agency worked closely with TfL in installing signage for the scheme indicating, for example, where the charging zone boundaries were located.

Political Commitment Good

The mayor's election manifesto had included plans for the implementation of the congestion charging scheme, which indicates the political commitment at the city level.

Ken Livingstone stood as an Independent. However, opposing politicians opposed the initiative with the Conservative mayoral candidate promising to end the congestion charge if elected.

Westminster City Council, one of the councils with land in the charging zone was also strongly opposed to the charge.

Policy

Clear Objectives Weak

The objectives stated at the outset were clear. The aim of the scheme was to reduce traffic congestion in central London and to facilitate greater use of transport alternatives, such as buses, producing environmental and safety improvements and in turn, raising substantial net revenues.

Evidence Strong

"In the case of London's congestion charge, extensive research and trials were conducted prior to the actual launch. Findings from the research and trials had a critical role in providing convincing evidence to win over public acceptance." [6]

London officials had analysed the existing congestion charging scheme in Singapore. There had been a number of studies in the forty years before charging began. As well as the Smeed Report, "in the early 1990s the Government carried out the London Congestion Charging Research Programme, which explored several potential charging schemes for central and inner London and looked at aspects of scheme operation". [7]

The most influential study was "the Technical Assessment Report on the Road Charging Options for London, [which] was published in 2000, forming the basis for the Congestion Charging scheme of today." [8]

Feasibility Good

There were widespread concerns that there would be substantial legal, technical and political risks surrounding the progress of any actual scheme in the medium term.

Westminster City Council and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea applied unsuccessfully for judicial review of the charge in the High Court in 2002. The Greater London Authority Act 1999 gave some legal force to the charge, as it was included in Schedule 23: "a charging scheme may only be made if it appears desirable or expedient for the purpose of directly or indirectly facilitating the achievement of any policies or proposals set out in the Mayor's transport strategy". [9] The transport strategy included references to the scheme.

The Greater London Council's 1990 report concluded that "congestion charging could be both feasible and worthwhile as a traffic management tool in London, but that there would be substantial technological, public acceptability and political risks". [10]

The ROCOL working group report concluded that "an area charging scheme in central London, with camera-based enforcement with a daily charge of £5 for cars and £15 for heavy commercial vehicles was potentially feasible, effective and publicly acceptable". [11]

It was, however, the largest such scheme ever undertaken by a capital city and required significant funding. The National Audit Office considered that "early preparation of a focused business case led to early commitment to funding and resource". [12]

Action

Management Strong

Overall responsibility for managing the scheme was allocated to one agency, TfL, which manages the whole of London's transport network. This move ensured "sensible design, implementation and ongoing management of the scheme and that it was integrated with the wider transport strategy for the city." [13]

The project management was considered to be particularly effective:

"In November 2004 the National Audit Office published its Initial Performance Assessment for [TfL], with a specific focus on the implementation of congestion charging. The Office particularly complimented TfL on the effectiveness of the project management arrangements that had underpinned the successful implementation of the scheme." [14]

"A clear project management structure was implemented, with regular meetings between senior TfL staff, the project managers, and the Mayor's office. Roles and responsibilities of key team members were clearly defined, with all key decisions being taken by a weekly Project Board." [15]

Measurement Strong

From the introduction of the plan in 2003 until 2008, TfL produced detailed annual Impacts Monitoring Reports, reflecting a commitment to monitor the scheme for five years following its introduction. This formed part of a programme carried out by TfL in conjunction with academic bodies to evaluate the transport, economic, social and environmental impacts of congestion charging.

Some of the examples of evaluations were: environmental impact; economic impact, e.g. the annual net revenues from charging; and transport impact, e.g. by 2006, the congestion charging zone had reduced congestion in central London by 26 percent.

Alignment Strong

There was a great deal of cooperation between the bodies responsible for initiating and managing the scheme, the mayor and the London Assembly and TfL, as well as support from the national government through the Ministry of Transport and the Highways Agency.

There was, however, a lack of alignment with the Conservative members of the assembly and with Conservative-controlled local authorities such as Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea.

Alignment with local needs was ensured through a thorough consultation process. "Consultation was a consistent element of the development process for the scheme, including the preliminary development of the Mayor's Transport Strategy. As well as informal and formal consultation exercises, TfL engaged with Londoners through numerous public and stakeholder meetings. Various significant changes to the proposals for the scheme were made in response to feedback received through these consultations, the results of which were published." [16]

Bibliography
View bibliography

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London's congestion charge - Centre for Public Impact (CPI)

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London has limited road capacity but a high demand for road travel. At the turn of the millennium, "London suffered the worst congestion in the United Kingdom, with average traffic speeds slower than 8 [miles per hour]. The city lost between an estimated £2 million and £4 million every week in terms of time lost due to congestion."

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Video - no readings again!

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Urbanisation in India  | Geography - Exploration India

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5 min video

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Rainforests | Geography - Ecosystems and Biomes

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HS2 is the defining infrastructure project of a generation. Not since the motorway-building boom of the 1960s and 1970s has the UK had such a chance as HS2 to revolutionise our country's transport system and invest in the whole economy.

This investment isn't only about future-proofing the UK's transport network, nor is it being advocated by business and civic leaders because it will help us all get around faster, in greater numbers and in more comfort.

Instead its legacy will be enhanced regional and national productivity, a rebalanced UK economy and prosperity spread to people of every background and region. HS2 will help us all reach our full potential.

It's about developing new skills, building a new UK industry, and becoming a world leader in...

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HS2 isn't about speed, it's about demolishing the north-south divide

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HS2 is the defining infrastructure project of a generation. Not since the motorway-building boom of the 1960s and 1970s has the UK had such a chance as HS2 to revolutionise our country's transport system and invest in the whole economy.This investment isn't only about future-proofing the UK's transp

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UK north south divide

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Big regional inequalities in disposable household income still exist, with Londoners more than £8,000 a year better off than the UK average, according to government data.

The top 10 local areas with the most leftover cash after tax and benefits in 2017 were all in London and the south-east, with the top six all in the capital.

Areas in the north of England and the Midlands made up the bottom 10, according to the figures released on Wednesday by the Office for National Statistics.

On average, each person in London had £27,825 available to spend or save, while those in the south-east and the east of England had £22,568 and £20,081 respectively. The UK average was £19,514. Regionally, Wales had the lowest disposable income, at £15,754.

Between 2016 and 2017, disposable household incomes grew in all regions except Yorkshire and the Humber, where it fell by 0.2%. The fastest growth was in London, at 2.2%.

The capital's share of all UK gross disposable household income was 19%, significantly higher than its 13% share of the population.

Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham comprised the area with the highest disposable income per head, at £60,343, more than three times the national average. Nottingham had the lowest, at £12,445.

England's disposable income per head was slightly above the UK average at £19,988.

The total UK gross disposable household income in 2017 was £1,289bn. Of that, 86.3% was in England, slightly above its population share of 84.2%.

Wanda Wyporska, the executive director of the Equality Trust, said: "The ONS figures paint a picture of a country broken by extreme inequality, where society is truly divided by the have yachts and the have nots."

A report last week by the Institute for Fiscal Studies said average weekly earnings among full-time employees in London were a third higher than the UK average and nearly two-thirds higher than in north-east England.

This month the Guardian launched London Versus, a project charting the deep divisions between London and the rest of the country, ranging from bus fares to life expectancies.
Topics

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Londoners have £8,000 more to spend or save than UK average

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Big regional inequalities in disposable household income still exist, with Londoners more than £8,000 a year better off than the UK average, according to government data. The top 10 local areas with the most leftover cash after tax and benefits in 2017 were all in London and the south-east, with the top six all in the capital.

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Podcast (no reading, just listening!)

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Azhar Farooq and Vidhi Doshi report on the crisis over Kashmir, triggered by the Indian government's decision to impose direct rule from Delhi. Plus Jason Burke on life in post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

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‎Today in Focus: The crisis in Kashmir on Apple Podcasts

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‎Azhar Farooq and Vidhi Doshi report on the crisis over Kashmir, triggered by the Indian government's decision to impose direct rule from Delhi. Plus Jason Burke on life in post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

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Localised flooding Heavier rainfall can cause rivers to burst their banks and soil to become oversaturated. Greatest increases are expected in Scotland, western Wales and the north-west of England, and the lowest increases in the Anglian and Thames river basin regions ¹. Localised flooding is particularly bad in heavily concreted urban areas where the water cannot sink directly into the soil. Learn about Met Office contributions to modelling rainfall for water industries, and modelling sea level rise around the Thames Barrier

Flooding of coastal regions Research suggests that the UK is one of the most vulnerable countries in Europe to coastal flooding, and low lying and coastal cities are at particular risk from flooding as sea level continues to rise. ¹ Adaptation will be needed, as even with rapid cuts to emissions, sea levels are projected to continue rising beyond 2100.

Increased energy demand Hotter summers in the UK will drive up the energy demand in summer, as air conditioning and fans are used more frequently. The same will be true of central heating in winter, as more extreme, cold winters occur. Learn more about Met Office contributions to the energy industry

Changes in seasonality In response to warmer spring temperatures, many flowers bloom earlier, birds have been found to migrate earlier, and hibernating mammals exit hibernation earlier. This has a huge range of consequences for other species, and can change entire ecosystems.

Heat stress High night-time temperatures and increased humidity can cause heat-related illness, as the body is unable to cool itself. As temperatures increase, severe heatwaves such as that in the summer of 2018 become more common, and expected deaths due to heat exposure are expected to rise. Learn about Met Office contributions to the Department of Work and Pensions for improving social welfare, including the provision of air conditioning to combat heat stress

Increased forest mortality risk of fires A combination of drier land and warmer temperatures means that wildfires are both more common, and spread more easily. Rising temperatures could also increase the severity of insect outbreaks, and the abundance of invasive plant species.

Damage to infrastructure Extreme weather events such as floods can cause damage to infrastructure. Learn more about Met Office contributions to the rail and road industries in mitigating aginst the impacts of climate change

Conflict and climate migrants Climate change is a stress multiplier, contributing to a scarcity of resources and decrease in standard of living that can drive people to migration or conflict. Displaced climate migrants from developing countries may turn to developed nations, such as the UK.
References

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/mohippo/pdf/s/l/cop18_factsheet_-_ uk_2.pdf

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Localised flooding Heavier rainfall can cause rivers to burst their banks and soil to become oversaturated. Greatest increases are expected in Scotland, western Wales and the north-west of England, and the lowest increases in the Anglian and Thames river basin regions 1.

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Width and depth are simple variables and generally increase downstream as more water is added from tributaries.Width can be derived either from the water surface width (occupied channel width) or from measuring from bank to bank, giving the bank full width.We can calculate the stream order from source to mouth too, and this gives us an indication of the size and shape of river channels.The stream order is calculated as follows;

Stream order 1 streams have NO tributaries feeding into them, they are the original streams that start at springs up in the source.

Stream order 2 streams occur where two stream order 1 rivers come together at a confluence

Stream order 3 streams occur where two stream order 2 rivers come together at a confluence (not a stream order 2 with a 1, it must be the SAME stream order meeting)

The stream order continues like this.
Cross sectional area is another useful measure, and it shows in metres squared the surface area of a river is you could take a slice through (and stop the water!) from bank to bank.This can be calculated in 2 ways, the average depth can be multiplied by the width to provide an approximate but not perfect measurement.If you have enough depth measurements, you could plot an accurate to scale cross section on graph paper and from that you will be able to calculate a more accurate cross sectional area. The CSA should increase downstream as water feeds into main streams from tributary rivers. Wetted Perimeter is the measure of how much water contact there is with the bed and the banks of a river.This should also increase downstream as water feeds into main streams from tributary rivers. Hydraulic radius is a measure of how efficient the channel is at transporting water and sediment.This measure should increase according to the Bradshaw model as the stream should increase in size and thus power, and the channel bed should get less rough/turbulent due to the effect of erosion.Hydraulic Radius is calculated by dividing the cross sectional area by the wetted perimeter.

Source
Channel bed roughness is a measure of how rough the bed of a river is.It can be calculated using Manning's Roughness coefficient. Gradient (the slope of the land) decreases as rivers flow because the river meanders across the land rather than erode into it and follow a straight path as it does in the source. This means it covers a decrease in height over a longer distance the further downstream you get.This changes because the river changes from eroding vertically at the source, to laterally further downstream (together with the effects of deposition further downstream too). LOAD - Stone size decreases downstream and the stones get rounder and smoother as rivers erode the rocks progressively as the stones are transported downstream. All of these variables and this model are important as it forms the basis of you unit 2 and 4 assessments for the AS course. The processes of river erosion operate here. Load quantity is also variable, capacity is a measure of the total amount of load that a river can carry, whilst the competence is the biggest size of load the river can transport.This is often depicted on the Hjulstrom curve.

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Width and depth are simple variables and generally increase downstream as more water is added from tributaries.Width can be derived either from the water surface width (occupied channel width) or from measuring from bank to bank, giving the bank full width.We can calculate the stream order from source to mouth too, and this gives us an indication of the size and shape of river channels.The stream order is calculated as follows; Stream order 1 streams have NO tributaries feeding into them, they are the original streams that start at springs up in the source.

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Having made in depth studies of the morphology of Chicago in the 1920's, Burgess concluded that city land-use could be identified as a series of concentric rings around the CBD.

The CBD will contain all the major shops and offices and be a centre of entertainment.

Surrounding this CBD will be the oldest housing, which is in a state of deterioration. Industry will also feature in this area. This is the area often referred to as the inner city or 'zone of transition'.

Then, we get three rings of housing. The first will be high density, poor quality that traditionally houses the workers for the factories.

Next, is slightly lower density, middle class housing. These will be semi-detached with gardens.

Finally, there is a ring of high class housing for those who can afford to commute.

If taken as a very broad pattern, then a large number of towns and cities follow the pattern identified by Burgess.

It does not take any physical features into account. Burgess' own case study - Chicago - does not follow the pattern because it is on the coast! The growth of any city will be influenced by the physical geography of the area.

It is good model because it is simple and easy to understand. Hopefully!

Transport is much more readily available allowing more people to commute. This has meant that commuter villages have developed some distance from the edge of the urban area. Burgess could not have foreseen this.

Burgess could not have foreseen the changes in transport routes or society yet his model is still relevant when identifying the reasons behind the urban morphology of a city.

Urban regeneration and gentrification has meant that some of the most expensive property can now be found in traditional 'low class' areas. Whilst council estates have built up on the edges of many large cities - these are now some of the most depressed areas in British cities.

It helps us to understand the process involved in the growth of a city.

The decentralisation of shops, manufacturing industry and entertainment does not follow his model.

Hoyt's model came nearly twenty years after Burgess'.

He suggested that the city grew in a series of sectors or 'wedges'. These would grow along traditional communication routes. The land-use within a sector would remain the same as like attracts like. For example, a 'high class' sector would remain high class as it would be the most desirable area to live, so only the wealthiest could afford it. An industrial sector would remain industrial as the zone would have a common advantage - perhaps a railway line or river.

Note how the low quality housing is next to the industrial zone, middle class next to low class and high class as far as possible from industry and low class.

Some cities seem to follow Hoyt's sectors. Bristol, for example, has a very clear industrial sector following a main rail line and the River Avon.

Like Burgess' there is little reference to the physical environment.

It provides us with an alternative set of explanations to Burgess.

The growth of sector can be stopped as land-use leapfrogs out of the old inner city. For example, out of town council estates have prevented large high-class sector developing in other areas of Bristol.

Communication routes (Rivers, roads, railways) do often provide a very definite boundary to a sector/land-use.

Again, like Burgess, there is no reference to out of town developments.

In addition, the division between land-uses in both models is far to clear-cut. Firstly, you would not suddenly walk from lower to middle to higher class housing. Also, all zones will have a mixture of land-uses. Residential zones will have shops and industry in amongst them.

They do, however, give us a bench mark for comparison and allow us to have a basic understanding of the complex set of processes that determine the distribution of land-use within a city.

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BurgessExplanation:Having made in depth studies of the morphology of Chicago in the 1920's, Burgess concluded that city land-use could be identified as a series of concentric rings around the CBD.The CBD will contain all the major shops and offices and be a centre of entertainment.Surrounding this CBD will be the oldest housing, which is in a state of deterioration.

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An ecosystem is a natural system that comprises a community of plants and animals that interact with each other and their physical environment. There are often complex relationships that exist in ecosystems, between the non-living elements (soils, rocks, water, sunlight etc.) and the living elements (plants, animals, bacteria etc.).

Consumer - Creature that eats herbivores and/or plant matter.

Decomposer - An organism such as a bacterium or fungus, that breaks down dead tissue, which is then recycled to the environment.

Food chain - The connections between different organisms (plants and animals) that rely upon one another as their source of food.

Food web - A complex hierarchy of plants and animals relying on each other for food.

Nutrient cycling - A set of processes whereby organisms extract minerals necessary for growth from soil or water, before passing them on through the food chain − and ultimately back to the soil and water.

Producer - An organism or plant that is able to absorb energy from the sun through photosynthesis.

We can look at ecosystems at different scales. A back garden could be classified as a local ecosystem, as could a pond. Larger ecosystems could be ranges of sand dunes, your local woodland or forest, or a lake. At a global scale we look at ecosystems as biomes, and these include tropical rainforests, deserts and tundra environments. Biomes have common characteristics, such as buttress roots in rainforests, but not necessarily exactly the same species of plants and animals within them.

Small scale ecosystems - Freshwater ponds
Consider a local ecosystem. In this case we will consider a FRESHWATER POND.

You may have a freshwater pond in your back garden or in your school or the local park. They contain a VARIETY of habitats for plants and animals;
* Animals and plants living in deeper water at the bottom of the pond will have less light and Oxygen to cope with and ADAPT to.
* Living things at the edges of a pond (the margins) have more light and Oxygen, but also have to cope with more wind etc.

We can CLASSIFY living organisms in an ecosystem as either PRODUCERS or CONSUMERS. PRODUCERS generally use energy from the environment, such as from the sun, and convert it into sugars (or glucose). Plants do this in abundance, using PHOTOSYNTHESIS to use sunlight to synthesize nutrients from carbon dioxide and water. CONSUMERS then get their energy by eating the producers for their sugars. In our pond example, reeds living at the edge of the pond and water lilies would be our producers, and pond snails are a consumer as they eat the pond plants.

Ecosystems therefore have LINKS within them as energy flows from one food source to another. There is a clear TROPHIC PYRAMID composed of many primary producers, a smaller number of primary consumers, and even smaller number of secondary consumers and a tiny number of tertiary consumers. From this view point the primary producers are very important as the support the whole pyramid.
We can look at the flows in a basic LINEAR way along food chains - food moves up the line from producer to tertiary consumer.

However, this is too simplistic. Animals might eat many other plants and animals, not have just one source of food. It is better to consider the flows as a FOOD WEB; that considers all of the connections between the plants and animals within an ecosystem like a pond.

All ecosystems are also highly reliant upon DECOMPOSERS and SCAVENGERS. These are organisms that break down dead material in an ecosystem and return the nutrients from them into the soil. These nutrients can then be used by other plants for further GROWTH. Decomposers are often bacteria and fungi, but could also be types of insect like dung beetles, worms that we find in compost bins, or the rat tailed maggot found in ponds.
Nutrients then, are the food that plants need for growth, and include Potash, Nitrogen and Potassium. Nutrients can be added from rainwater, weathered out of rocks or recycled by decomposers.
Ecosystems are incredibly VULNERABLE to change. Invasive species can out-compete natives, as we have seen with Grey squirrels competing with native British red squirrels. Diseases can be introduced and spread which can cause untold damage, as we are seeing with Ash die back in UK ash trees. Within our pond, an increase in the number of water lilies could starve the bottom of the pond of both light and oxygen; this would impact on bottom feeders which would impact upon fish. Similarly, if someone added predatory fish they would eat smaller fish such as Sticklebacks and even small frogs, which would increase the numbers of slugs and flies normally eaten by the frogs.

NEXT TOPIC - Ecosystem Distribution

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Background to ecosystems

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An ecosystem is a natural system that comprises a community of plants and animals that interact with each other and their physical environment. There are often complex relationships that exist in ecosystems, between the non-living elements (soils, rocks, water, sunlight etc.) and the living elements (plants, animals, bacteria etc.).

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Sediment, whether picked up by flowing water or by waves, is moved along in one of four ways:

1. Traction is the rolling or dragging of large grains along a river bed or shore, aided by the push of the smaller grains (below).

2. Saltation is the bouncing of sand grains as they are picked up, carried along, and dropped repeatedly by flowing water.

3. Fine particles (silt and clay) are carried in Suspension in the water - they will only settle out if the water is still.

4. Soluble salts are carried in Solution in the water - the sea is obviously salty, but rivers contain dissolved salts, too.

The bed load of a river (pebbles and sand grains) helps to erode the river bed and banks by abrasion, especially when the river is in flood. In a similar way, waves cause cliffs to erode especially during storms. As the pebbles and sand grind away the river bed or sea shore, they also become smaller and more rounded, a process called attrition.

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Sediment, whether picked up by flowing water or by waves, is moved along in one of four ways: Traction is the rolling or dragging of large grains along a river bed or shore, aided by the push of the smaller grains (below).

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Weathering

Weathering is the breakdown of rocks at the Earth's surface, by the action of rainwater, extremes of temperature, and biological activity. It does not involve the removal of rock material.

There are three types of weathering, physical, chemical and biological.

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Weathering Weathering is the breakdown of rocks at the Earth's surface, by the action of rainwater, extremes of temperature, and biological activity. It does not involve the removal of rock material. There are three types of weathering, physical, chemical and biological.

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The California drought has killed more than 102m trees in a die-off of forests that increases the risk of catastrophic wildfires and other threats to humans, officials said on Friday.

The latest aerial survey by the US Forest Service shows there are 36m more dead trees since May in the state and there has been a 100% increase since 2015.
An American tragedy: why are millions of trees dying across the country?
"These dead and dying trees continue to elevate the risk of wildfire, complicate our efforts to respond safely and effectively to fires when they do occur and pose a host of threats to life and property," the US agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, said in a statement.

California has endured five years of drought marked by a record low mountain snowpack and warm temperatures. The drought has left trees thirsty and prone to infestation by bark beetles.

Late last year, Governor Jerry Brown formed a taskforce charged with finding ways to remove the trees that threaten motorists and communities.

Vilsack called on Congress to act, saying more federal funding goes toward fighting fires than forestry management, such as removing dead trees to improve forests' health.

Officials are pushing to turn more trees into lumber, burn them in energy plants or dispose of them in incinerators to eliminate them as fuel for wildfires.

Some environmentalists argue, however, that a die-off is part of a healthy forest's life-cycle. They favor leaving the trees that need to be cut down on the forest floor to decompose and serve as wildlife habitat.

Most dead trees are in the central and southern Sierra Nevada, officials say. However, they are also beginning to find dead trees in northern California counties such as Siskiyou, Modoc, Plumas and Lassen.

More trees are expected to die into 2017, US Forest Service officials say.

People assume the tally amounts to too many dead trees, but fire suppression has created unnaturally green forests with far too little wildfire and dead trees, said Chad Hanson, a forest ecologist at Earth Island Institute's John Muir Project.

"We don't want too much and we don't want too little," he said. "This is not too much."
Topics

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California drought: 36m trees dead since May, raising toll to more than 102m

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The California drought has killed more than 102m trees in a die-off of forests that increases the risk of catastrophic wildfires and other threats to humans, officials said on Friday. The latest aerial survey by the US Forest Service shows there are 36m more dead trees since May in the state and there has been a 100% increase since 2015.

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Zero-carbon energy sources are poised to overtake fossil fuels as the UK's largest electricity source over a full calendar year.

This year will be the first that fossil fuels make up less than half of the electricity generated, according to National Grid, following a dramatic decline in coal-fired power and rising renewable and low-carbon energy.

Instead, UK homes and businesses will rely more on "cleaner" electricity generated by wind farms, solar panels, hydro power and nuclear power reactors.

A decade ago, coal plants generated almost a third of the UK's electricity, but in the first half of this year they have provided only 3%.

In the same period renewable energy has climbed from supplying just 2% of the UK's power to a fifth of all electricity produced.

The "landmark tipping point" is an "historic achievement" in the UK's journey towards becoming a net-zero carbon economy by 2050, said National Grid.

John Pettigrew, the UK power system operator's chief executive, said: "The incredible progress that Britain has made in the past 10 years means we can now say 2019 will be the year zero-carbon power beats fossil fuel-fired generation for the first time."

"We wouldn't have said it if we weren't confident that this will be the year."

National Grid is able to confidently predict the 2019 record only six months into the year following the UK's greenest ever winter, and the huge number of coal-free days recorded since then.

energy graphic

The UK reached a record stretch of consecutive 18 coal-free days earlier this year, which ended on 4 June.

The electricity system reached a second record this week after racking up 1,838 coal-free hours for this year, breaking a record set across the whole of 2018 in a little over six months.

The coal-free days have effectively prevented 5m tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, or the equivalent of over 12bn miles driven in a car.

Chris Skidmore MP, the interim energy minister, said coal is "fast becoming the fossil of our energy system and it will soon be consigned to the history books".

He added: "We've set in stone our commitment to end our contribution to climate change entirely by 2050 and this is yet another step on the path to becoming a net zero emissions economy."

By the end of the winter the UK will be left with only five remaining coal fired power plants, after SSE said last week it plans to shut its Fiddler's Ferry plant near Warrington, Cheshire, next March. SSE revealed the closure after EDF Energy said it would shut its Cottam coal plant in September.

The government plans to phase out all coal-fired power generation by 2025.

National Grid is spending around £1.3bn a year to adapt the grid to run on renewable energy, and believes that it will be ready to manage a completely zero-carbon electricity grid within six years.

"Do I expect that this will be a reality? No," Pettigrew said. "But we won't be a constraint in a low carbon world. We will be prepared to play our role."

Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK's chief scientist, said the "watershed moment" is a sign that the UK is "broadly heading in the right direction".

"The question is, are we moving fast enough?" he said.

Research undertaken by National Grid alongside its record forecast has found that "climate anxiety" is rising because people believe there is a lack of urgency in tackling the climate crisis.

Nearly seven out of 10 people surveyed by National Grid are concerned about climate change and believe it is not being addressed urgently enough.

More than a third of young people said their concerns about climate change would drive them to join a protest. Almost a fifth of 18- to 24-year-olds said they are prepared to skip school or work to do this, possibly inspired by student activist Greta Thurnberg who visited the UK earlier this summer.

"As the climate emergency hits home right across the globe from Greenland's melting ice to India's scorching heatwave, the clock is ticking on our chances to avoid climate breakdown and public anxiety rightly remains high about the speed of change," Parr said.

"This is no time for ministers to pat themselves on the back and uncork the bubbly," he said.

* This article was amended on 24 June 2019 to clarify in the text that nuclear is not a renewable energy source, and to change the description of the non-fossil fuels that are growing in use to "cleaner", as they are referred to by National Grid.
Topics

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Fossil fuels produce less than half of UK electricity for first time

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Zero-carbon energy sources are poised to overtake fossil fuels as the UK's largest electricity source over a full calendar year. This year will be the first that fossil fuels make up less than half of the electricity generated, according to National Grid, following a dramatic decline in coal-fired power and rising renewable and low-carbon energy.

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Recent events (Aug 2019)

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People across the Indian-administered side of Kashmir queued for hours outside petrol stations and cash machines on Sunday following a heightening of security measures that has prompted fears of unrest.Thousands of tourists and Hindu pilgrims have been evacuated since Friday, after the Indian government cancelled the annual Amarnath Yatra, a 45-day pilgrimage to a Himalayan cave shrine. Officials said they had received intelligence suggesting an attack on pilgrimage routes, which 300,000 people have set out on since July.Kashmir residents were told not to panic, though curfews and evacuations continued to be imposed on hospitals and educational institutions over the weekend. On Sunday evening mobile internet was cut across Kashmir valley.Kashmir is claimed by India and Pakistan in full and ruled in part by both. An insurgency on the Indian-administered side has been ongoing for three decades, and tens of thousands of people have been killed.

Quick guide
Why is there conflict in Kashmir?
Show Hide

The region in the foothills of the Himalayas has been under dispute since 1947, when Pakistan was created in the partition of India.

Who controls Kashmir?

Both claim it in full, but each controls a section of the territory, separated by one of the world's most heavily militarised borders: the 'line of control' based on a ceasefire border established after a 1947-48 war. China controls another part in the east.

India and Pakistan have gone to war three times over Kashmir, most recently in 1999. Artillery, mortar and small arms fire are still frequently exchanged.

How did the dispute start?

After the partition of colonial India 71 years ago, small, semi-autonomous 'princely states' across the subcontinent were being folded into India or Pakistan. The ruler of Kashmir dithered over which to join, until tribal fighters entered from Pakistan intent on taking the region for Islamabad.

Kashmir asked Delhi for assistance, signing a treaty of accession in exchange for the intervention of Indian troops, who fought the Pakistanis to the modern-day line of control.

In 1948, the UN security council called for a referendum in Kashmir to determine which country the region would join, or whether it would become an independent state. The referendum has never been held.

In its 1950 constitution, India granted Kashmir a large measure of independence. But since then it has eroded some of that autonomy and repeatedly intervened to rig elections, and dismiss and jail democratically elected leaders.

What do the militants want?

There has been an armed insurgency against Indian rule over its section of Kashmir for the past three decades. Indian soldiers and Pakistan-backed guerillas fought a war replete with accusations of torture, forced disappearances and extra-judicial killing.

Until 2004, the militancy was made up largely of Pakistani and Afghan fighters. Since then, especially after protests were quashed with extreme force in 2016, locals have made up a growing share of the anti-India fighters.

For Indians, control of Kashmir - part of the country's only Muslim-majority state - has been proof of its commitment to religious pluralism. For Pakistan, a state founded as a homeland for south Asian Muslims, it is the last occupied home of its co-religionists. Michael Safi

Photograph: Aqeel Ahmed/AP

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The deployment of 10,000 extra troops last week prompted speculation that Delhi is preparing to remove Kashmir's special status, which prevents people from outside of the state from buying land in the Muslim-majority territory. The ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) has repeatedly pledged to scrap such rules, but doing so would almost certainly trigger unrest and escalate tensions with Pakistan.

One of Kashmir's most prominent politicians, Omar Abdullah, the former chief minister, said he had been informed he would be placed under house arrest from midnight. Other "mainstream leaders" - meaning Kashmiri politicians who have formed alliances with parties such as the BJP - would be detained, he added.

"I believe I'm being placed under house arrest from midnight tonight & the process has already started for other mainstream leaders. No way of knowing if this is true but if it is then I'll see all of you on the other side of whatever is in store. Allah save us," he said on Twitter.

It was unclear why Abdullah and others would be targetted by Indian authorities for detention.

In Srinagar, the largest city in Indian-administered Kashmir, preparations for Eid, which is one week away, have been abandoned by many. "They want us to die of this anxiety," said one man waiting at a petrol station on Saturday night. On Sunday, queues still lasted for hours, with many pumps run dry.

Naseer Ahmed, a boatman at Srinagar's Dal lake who has been taking holidaymakers on rides for 40 years, said he had never witnessed such an alarming situation. "On one day we had so many tourists and on another everything has fallen silent," he said.

The few remaining tourists are waiting for their turns to leave. "No one knows what will happen tomorrow," said Ahmed.

Analysts say there is still no clear information about what has prompted the security buildup, which officials have blamed on security threats. "[Terror threats] have been there for 30 years. I don't understand what the scope and nature of this threat is that's so extraordinary," said Khalid Shah, an associate fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.

As Kashmir waits nervously, many fear that wedding season, as well as Eid celebrations, could be forgotten. Faizan Ahmad's family have been preparing for months for his marriage, due to take place on 24 August. "The entire family is in a dilemma," he said. "There is a mental trauma [about] what to do."

On Saturday, non-Kashmiri students at the National Institute of Technology in Srinagar were sent home, while on Sunday a curfew was issued for all staff at the city's Chest Diseases hospital. All district officers were ordered by the deputy commissioner of the Kargil district not to leave their duty stations.

Kashmir map

Authorities could impose an indefinite curfew on residents as early as Sunday night, a police official told Agence France-Presse.

Skirmishes continued on Sunday along the line of control that divides Kashmir. The Indian army said it had foiled an attempt by a Pakistani team of army regulars and militants to cross the line, killing "five to seven" attackers.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's prime minister, Imran Khan, accused India of attacking civilians across the line of control and of using cluster munitions, a violation of international law. In a statement reported by the Indian Express newspaper, the Indian army firmly denied the allegation.

Khan said the situation "has the potential to blow up into a regional crisis", and called again for US president Donald Trump to mediate. Delhi has always refused third-party mediation and recently rejected Trump's claim that he had been asked by prime minister Narendra Modi to broker a deal.

Pakistan's position on Kashmir has been strengthened by the US's eagerness to withdraw from Afghanistan, said Shah. "Pakistan will use Kashmir as a bargaining chip," he added, as the US pushes for cooperation on a peace deal.

Analysts believe this may prompt Delhi to push back and demonstrate its regional clout. "It [the BJP] is perfectly comfortable using an iron fist in Kashmir, and has demonstrated little interest in conciliation - other than repeatedly calling for more 'development' in Kashmir. This is a tone-deaf call, given that for most Kashmiris, it's not poverty, but the brutal acts of Indian security forces that trouble them the most," said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia programme and senior associate for South Asia at the Wilson Center.
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Heightened security and anxiety in Kashmir amid fears of unrest

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People across the Indian-administered side of Kashmir queued for hours outside petrol stations and cash machines on Sunday following a heightening of security measures that has prompted fears of unrest.Thousands of tourists and Hindu pilgrims have been evacuated since Friday, after the Indian government cancelled the annual Amarnath Yatra, a 45-day pilgrimage to a Himalayan cave shrine.

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Space programme ISRO

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India is making final preparations for the launch this Sunday of the Chandrayaan 2 moon mission. The spacecraft will take two months to cruise to the moon. Following its arrival, it will manoeuvre into a circular orbit just 62 miles (100km) above the lunar surface. It will then deploy the Vikram lander early in September.

This will be India's first attempt at a soft landing on the moon. If successful, it will make the country the fourth to achieve such a feat, after Russia, the US and China.

The chosen landing site is near the lunar south pole, where water ice has been detected in some permanently shadowed craters. Once safely down, the Vikram lander will release a small, six-wheeled rover named Pragyan.

The three components of the mission carry a full complement of scientific instruments. Among other things, they will study the moon's mineral and chemical composition and its topology and seismology.

India's first moon mission, Chandrayaan 1, launched in October 2008 and operated successfully for almost a year. As part of the mission, an impact probe struck the moon's south pole in a controlled manner.

Chandrayaan 2 will launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Cent re on India's south-east coast.
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Spacewatch: India prepares to launch Chandrayaan 2 moon mission

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India is making final preparations for the launch this Sunday of the Chandrayaan 2 moon mission. The spacecraft will take two months to cruise to the moon. Following its arrival, it will manoeuvre into a circular orbit just 62 miles (100km) above the lunar surface. It will then deploy the Vikram lander early in September.

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Reducing plastic waste

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London could soon be awash with drinking fountains, with 100 new installations in the pipeline across the capital.

This year plans for 20 fountains were unveiled in a joint venture between the mayor of London and partners, with recent figures suggesting those installed so far have already dispensed thousands of litres of water to thirsty members of the public.
'They're just not very British': will cities finally splash out on water fountains?
Now the mayor, Sadiq Khan, has announced a partnership with Thames Water to build on the success and install a further 100 fountains between spring 2019 and the end of 2020.

Khan said: "For many years, our public water fountains were discarded and neglected whilst single-use plastic waste soared. We're determined to reverse that trend and help deliver hundreds more free public fountains in the capital for everyone to enjoy.

"There is a real appetite for refilling and I want Londoners to lead the way in topping up on tap water when we're on the move. This great new fund will significantly boost the number of public fountains in some of the busiest places across London from next spring."

Shirley Rodrigues, deputy mayor for environment and energy, said: "We have seen how popular [the approach] is. We are getting kids writing in to Sadiq all the time saying: 'We want to see more drinking water fountains, what are you doing?'"

Thames Water and the mayor are each contributing £2.5m to fund the venture, with the mayor's share coming from cash earmarked in his budget for efforts to tackle the issue of single-use plastic.

"We want to see applications from boroughs, from businesses, from museums, theatres - anywhere that we know there are lots of people around who might be wanting to not buy a single-use plastic bottle but would rather have a drinking water fountain," said Rodrigues.

The aim, Rodrigues added, is that successful applicants would not have to stump up funds of their own, but would have the drinking fountain and installation costs covered.

"The maintenance of the asset, which is sometimes a block for people applying, Thames Water are going to cover that, so that means it will always be maintained," she said, adding that the fountains would therefore not suffer the fate of previous facilities which fell out of use as a result of local authority cuts.

The announcement builds on previous efforts to encourage Londoners to embrace a refill culture. "I think people will be surprised how making those really small changes really makes a massive difference," said Rodrigues.
Sadiq Khan plans network of London water fountains to reduce plastic waste
Will Routh, from the grassroots group Water for London, said the latest announcement was good news but that there is more to do.

"The key to this next stage will be increasing the pace of delivery to address these urgent issues - in the 10 months since the mayor made his initial commitment to deliver 20 pilot fountains, only a handful have actually been installed," he said.

"By the end of 2020, Water for London would like to see the size of this new network of public water refill fountains eclipse the 800 fountains that existed in London over 100 years ago."
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Sadiq Khan announces 100 new drinking fountains for London

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London could soon be awash with drinking fountains, with 100 new installations in the pipeline across the capital. This year plans for 20 fountains were unveiled in a joint venture between the mayor of London and partners, with recent figures suggesting those installed so far have already dispensed thousands of litres of water to thirsty members of the public.

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Less than 10 miles of concrete sprawl separates the São Paulo neighbourhoods of Jardim Paulista and Jardim Ângela, but that gap grows to almost 24 years in the life expectancy of people living there.

While residents of the central Paulista area can expect to live beyond their 79 th birthday on average, people from Jardim Ângela on the south-western periphery will likely be dead before they are 56.

The stark statistic is found in the Map of Inequality 2017 compiled by Rede Nossa São Paulo. The NGO says not much has changed fundamentally for the city's 12 million residents since it started collating data for its annual report five years ago. "There has been no significant reduction in inequality or improvement in the quality of life," said research coordinator Jorge Abrahão.

Residents of the outer districts die younger

Average age of death, by district (2016)

Formal jobs are scarce outside the centre

Number of formal jobs per resident, by district (2015)

Teenage pregnancies are more common in the periphery

Percentage of children born to teenage mothers, by district (2016)

Informal settlements concentrate at the margins

Percentage of households situated in favelas, by district (2016)
Map data were compiled by Rede Nossa São Paulo and sourced from a number of local, regional and national public bodies. Guardian Cities is in São Paulo for a special series of in-depth reporting and live events. Share your experiences of the city in the comments below, on and using #GuardianSaoPaulo, or by email to saopaulo.week@theguardian.com

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Living on the edge: São Paulo's inequality mapped

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Less than 10 miles of concrete sprawl separates the São Paulo neighbourhoods of Jardim Paulista and Jardim Ângela, but that gap grows to almost 24 years in the life expectancy of people living there.

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In a display of China's commitment to ramping up renewable energy resources, the country just finished a 250-acre solar farm in the shape of a panda. The effort is partially a PR campaign as China continues to lead the world in renewable energy investment.

The first phase of the solar power plant was recently completed, adding 50MW (of the total 100MW) to the electricity grid in Datong, China. The panda shaped plant was proposed in May of 2016 by Panda Green Energy's largest shareholder, China Merchants New Energy. It was quickly approved as a way to build support for sustainable energy development with Chinese youth.

To create the visual effect of darker and lighter solar panels, Panda Green Energy used both darker monocrystalline silicon and lighter thin film cells. This allowed the energy company to stagger the solar panels in an array that mimics the coloring and shape of a giant panda.

The new solar power plant in Datong will replace burning 1 million tons of coal in the next 25 years as China flexes its ability to make rapid improvements in its energy system.

There are three general types of solar panels used in the world today: Monocrystalline silicon, polycrystalline, and thin film. The first two are generally more common, with polycrystalline panels the most popular for residential solar panels in America. On the other hand, thin film performs better in low light situations but is less effective than the monocrystalline and polycrystalline options.

This is just the first of 100 panda-shaped solar plants planned across China and Asia in the coming years. This past May, Fiji announced a smaller panda shaped solar farm.

This is part of China's larger Belt and Road Initiative along the historic Silk Road. This initiative, a foundation of Xi Jingping's foreign policy, aims to place China as a leader in external policy in Asia. The initiative is underpinned by trillions of dollars of infrastructure investment China intends to build along the historic silk road that connects Asia to Europe. China is anticipated to spend $150 billion per year on the 68 countries that have agreed to the initiative.

This includes aggressive infrastructure investment in road, bridges, power plants, gas pipelines, railways and ports. In total, the investment is estimated at $5 trillion across the 68 states as China begins to take center stage in the globalization of Asia.

At a time when the United States has faltered in its commitment to future renewable energy growth, there are countries that are taking advantage of the leadership gap. Regardless of what the global energy system looks like in the coming decades, it is imperative for the United States to be front and center in those conversations.

With China adding almost half of the global solar capacity last year, they have made a clear stance in their intent to be a global leader in the energy transition. I doubt I need to expound on the consequences of the United States not stepping up to lead or even be part of the conversation. Regardless of your thoughts on the energy transition, the road will be paved, whether it's by the United States or foreign states.

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China Just Built A 250-Acre Solar Farm Shaped Like A Giant Panda

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In a display of China's commitment to ramping up renewable energy resources, the country just finished a 250-acre solar farm in the shape of a panda. The effort is partially a PR campaign as China continues to lead the world in renewable energy investment.

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This type of hydrograph is known as a storm or flood hydrograph and it is generally drawn with two vertical axes. One is used to plot a line graph showing the discharge of a river in cumecs (cubic metres per second) at a given point over a period of time.

The second is used to plot a bar graph of the rainfall event which precedes the changes in discharge.

The scale on the horizontal axis is usually in hours/days and this allows both the rain event to be recorded and the subsequent changes in river discharge to be plotted.

The shape of the hydrograph varies according to a number of controlling factors in the drainage basin but it will generally include the following features.

The baseflow of the river represents the normal day to day discharge of the river and is the consequence of groundwater seeping into the river channel. The rising limb of the hydrograph represents the rapid increase in resulting from rainfall causing surface runoff and then later throughflow. Peak discharge occurs when the river reaches its highest level. The time difference between the peak of the rain event and the peak discharge is known as the lag time or basin lag. The falling limb (or recession limb as it is sometimes known) is when discharge decreases and the river's level falls. It has a gentler gradient than the rising limb as most overland flow has now been discharged and it is mainly throughflow which is making up the river water.

A number of factors (known as drainage basin controls) influence the way in which a river responds to precipitation and have an effect on the shape of the hydrograph.

The size, shape and relief of the basin are important controls. Water takes longer to reach the trunk stream in a large, round basin than in does in a small, narrow one.

Where gradients are steep, water runs off faster, reaches the river more quickly and causes a steep rising limb. Prolonged heavy rain causes more overland flow than light drizzly rain.

Areas of permeable rocks and soil allow more infiltration and so less surface run off.

The way in which the land is used will also have an influence on the hydrograph - vegetation intercepts precipitation and allows evaporation to take place directly into the atmosphere so reducing the amount of water available for overland flow while the large number of impermeable surfaces in urban areas encourages run off into gutters and drains carrying water quickly to the nearest river.

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This type of hydrograph is known as a storm or flood hydrograph and it is generally drawn with two vertical axes. One is used to plot a line graph showing the discharge of a river in cumecs (cubic metres per second) at a given point over a period of time.

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Location of the Holderness Coast

The Holderness Coast is located on the east coast of England. It extends 61km from Flamborough in the north to Spurn Point in the south.

The Holderness Coastline is one of Europe's fastest eroding at an average annual rate of around 2 metres per year. This is around 2 million tonnes of material every year. Approximately 3 miles (5kms) of land has been lost since Roman times including 23 towns/villages. These are shown on the map below.

Geology

Underlying the Holderness Coast is bedrock made up of Cretaceous Chalk. However, in most places, this is covered by glacial till deposited over 18,000 years ago. It is this soft boulder clay that is being rapidly eroded.

There are two main reasons why this area of coast is eroding so rapidly. The first is the result of the strong prevailing winds creating longshore drift that moves material south along the coastline. The second is that the cliffs are made of soft boulder clay which erodes rapidly when saturated.

Holderness Coast Case study

The Holderness Coast is a great case study to use when examining coastal processes and the features associated with them. This is because the area contains 'textbook' examples of coastal erosion and deposition. The exposed chalk of Flamborough provides examples of erosion, features such as caves, arches and stacks. Coastal management at Hornsea and Withernsea are examples of hard engineering solutions to coastal erosion. Erosion at Skipsea illustrates the human impact of erosion in areas where coastlines are not being defended. Mappleton is an excellent case study of an attempt at coastal management which has a negative impact further along the coast.

Spurn Point provides evidence of longshore drift on the Holderness Coast. It is an excellent example of a spit. Around 3% of the material eroded from the Holderness Coast is deposited here each year.

Esri story map - Holderness Coast

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The Holderness Coast Case Study - Internet Geography

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The Holderness Coast is located on the east coast of England. It extends 61km from Flamborough in the north to Spurn Point in the south. The Holderness Coastline is one of Europe's fastest eroding at an average annual rate of around 2 metres per year. This is around 2 million tonnes of material every year.

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Epping forest is an ancient, deciduous woodland to the north-east of London. It is all that remains of a larger forest that colonised England at the end of the last ice age. The forest is approximately 19 kilometres (12 mi) long from north to south, but no more than 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from east to west at its widest point.

The forest, managed for over 1000 years, has been used for hunting and timber resources. Recreation is the leading role of the forest now.

The forest is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) which means it is a protected environment.

Epping Forest has a complex food web, composed of thousands of species, as the result of its careful management. The forest has:

a wide variety of native tree species that include beech, elm, oak and ash;

a shrub layer consisting of hazel and holly, along with grasses, brambles, fern, bracken and flowering plants;

177 species of lichen and moss

many primary consumers including insects and small mammals and deer, along with 38 species of birds

secondary consumers such as owls, adders and foxes;

700 species of fungi, important decomposers, which are common due to a large amount of dead wood;

over 100 lakes and ponds providing important habitats for numerous species of fauna (animals) and flora (plants).

Epping Forest food web

How is the Epping Forest ecosystem interdependent?

Sustainable Management of Epping Forest

Recreation is controlled within the forest including having designated car parking areas, a visitor centre, provision of rubbish bins and leaflets on how to use the forest in a way that protects the environment. Paths for walking and riding are open to public use. Additionally, there are currently nine Forest Keepers, three Senior Forest Keepers and one Head Keeper who are employed to protect the forest environment. These strategies are sustainable because they protect the forest for future generations.

Along the side of the roads, vegetation is cut back so that deer are aware of traffic and reduce the risk of collision with motor vehicles. Maintaining the vegetation protects the native deer population from road traffic accidents. This is a form of sustainable management as it helps protect current and future deer populations.

Cattle have been reintroduced in some areas as grazing supports the growth of some flora.

Epping forest conservation volunteers undertake tasks every Sunday to support the biodiversity of the forest. Duties include cutting back vegetation, rubbish and scrub clearance, removing silt and maintaining ponds and bogs.

Ecosystems on a larger, global scale are known as biomes. Find out more here.

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Epping Forest Case Study - Internet Geography

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Epping forest is an ancient, deciduous woodland to the north-east of London. It is all that remains of a larger forest that colonised England at the end of the last ice age. The forest is approximately 19 kilometres (12 mi) long from north to south, but no more than 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from east to west at its widest point.

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Written by Patricia Rain on . Posted in Awareness, Consciousness, Environmental Issues, Mindfulness, Protecting the Future, Socially Conscious Issues, The tropics-why they matter

Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve During the Dry Season

In my humble opinion, ecotourism is so much more fun and enlightening than staying at a resort full of amenities but short on soul. My visit to Costa Rica in March was full of soul, but even more, filled with many terrific experiences that I'll savor for years to come.

Costa Rica has positioned itself as a world leader in responsible ecotourism. This is a wise move for a developing country with so many natural resources, a diversified, literate population, a relatively low crime rate (and no army!) and a stable economy. The Ticos, as they refer to themselves, say they were lucky that their country didn't have resources like abundant gold, silver or oil, so their country was largely ignored instead of plundered like so many of the countries in the Americas.

Surfers discovered the Pacific Coast waves in Costa Rica in the 1980s. Word got out about Costa Rica's beauty and the many things to do and see there. By 1999 1.03 million people, mostly from the US, headed to Costa Rica. By 2012, that number had jumped to 2.3 million and annual revenue from tourism topped $4.2 billion and, since 2010, has accounted for 5.3% of the GDP. In fact, tourism brings in more revenue than their international sales of coffee, pineapples and bananas combined!

Traditional Ox Carts Used in Costa Rica

Fortunately, the Costa Rican government has realized the value of this resource. 25% of their land is under protective status and responsible tourism has lifted up tens of thousands of people in a country that was very poor in 1970. Even the country's small indigenous population has been able to purchase title to their land due to tourism!

Farm Growing Timber for Building Homes and Furniture

I came to Costa Rica to speak at a conference about vanilla, agroforestry, and wood and non-wood forest materials. It was here that I learned about Costa Rica's commitment to protecting their forests. Having lived in Central America and spent considerable time in an area of Mexico that was once nearly all tropical forest, I've seen firsthand the devastation of clear-cutting. I was impressed by how much forested area remains in Costa Rica and that they are trying to protect these valuable resources.

As my time as a tourist in Costa Rica was limited, I chose two days in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve, the best known of the cloud forests that follow the mountain ridges of the Cordillera Tileran. Just before the Korean War, a group of Quakers, mostly from Fairhope, Alabama, along with people who were not Quakers but were pacifists, chose Costa Rica as their new home as the country had no army. As the Monteverde forest region is cooler than the lower altitude areas of Costa Rica, it was an ideal location for dairy farming. The Quakers stewarded and farmed a large region, then later turned it into the reserve now enjoyed by thousands of visitors yearly.

Tourists flock to this region to see the exotic Quetzal birds, Toucans, Scarlet Macaws, parrots and many other tropical birds as well as monkeys, sloths, coati mundis (an amusing diurnal animal related to the raccoon) and other animals. My dream was to see the elusive Quetzal; the rest was frosting on the cake.

The most eco-friendly way to visit the region is via a shuttle or bus. Shuttles pick up riders at their hotels in San Jose. It costs $53 and takes approximately four hours. Costa Rican buses have Mercedes engines and are reasonably comfortable. They cost $6 and take a little more than four hours. Both stop for a twenty minute break along the way. In addition to having clean bathrooms, the rest stops offer cold drinks, meals and snacks. There are two shuttles and two buses a day. The last 45 minutes of the trip is over unpaved roads. The Monteverde community decided on this as a way to discourage private cars and an overabundance of tourists.

Prices for lodging vary dramatically from $20 to more than $300 per night. At Booking.com you can choose what suits your needs and pocketbook. Don't rule out the less expensive places as you'll be outside the majority of the time. I recommend Casa Alquimia Artes, a small airbnb about a mile from the reserve. My room was simple but very clean, with a comfortable bed and a private bath. As I was on the second floor, it felt like I was tucked into a tree house. Breakfast included fresh fruit, local eggs, toast and homemade jams as well as local coffee or a choice of teas. I was there during the slow season so my room and breakfast cost $25 a night. High season runs $50 a nite or more, depending on the room.

The owners, Tarsicio and Marianela are very gracious hosts. Originally from Ecuador, they live on the property with their family and are artists. I took the 6:30 am bus to Monteverde, and a taxi from the bus station to Casa Alquimia Artes ($3.00 flat fee.) Tarsicio invited me into the dining area for fresh fruit and a cup of tea while Marianela prepared my room. The advantage of taking the early bus (6:30 am) is a full afternoon to explore the region. Tarsicio suggested that I walk five minutes into town where there are a variety of dining options, then a visit to the Sanctuario Ecologico. I ate at the charming little restaurant run by Casem, an artisan coop. For less than $6.00 I enjoyed a delicious traditional Costa Rican meal and fresh passion fruit punch. I then caught a taxi to the ecological sanctuary.

The sanctuary is beautiful, never as crowded as the reserve, and a delightful way to begin my stay in Monteverde. The young man at the reception area was part of the family who own the sanctuary and I assume live there as well. The reception area was the original family cabin. The entry pass costs $10. You can hire a guide but it really isn't necessary for day hikes though highly recommended for the night tour. Trails are well-marked and meticulously maintained. Birds called from the treetops and the coati mundis rustled through the bushes and trees hunting for grubs and worms. The air was filled with large electric blue and yellow butterflies. Along the way there were incredible views of the mountains and gorges. The only strenuous part of the walk wasn't on the main trail. A separate path descended deeply into a gorge to see what sounded like an enormous waterfall. I saw more animals than people during the two plus hours I was there. The pass is good for all day, and there are tables and benches at several spots for picnics.

Capuchin Monkeys and Strangler Fig

When I returned to the reception area to thank the young man, I told him how much I enjoyed the sanctuary but was disappointed that I hadn't seen the Capuchin monkeys. He said, "Actually, one is hanging on the sign by the door." Indeed, a band of Capuchin monkeys arrived from the other direction and were very interested to see if I had something for them to eat. A single coati came down the path toward me and then changed its mind and turned back into the forest.

Tarsicio arranged for another guest and me to go the next day on an early morning bird tour in the Monteverde reserve. The guide picked us up at 7:00 am and spoke excellent English. He grew up in Monteverde and was a wealth of information. He had a telescope for seeing birds in the canopy and took pictures for us on our cell phones using his telescope as the birds are usually tucked high into the forest canopy. We followed a path that ultimately led to a gorgeous water fall. In addition to the birds, we learned about the unique ecodiversity of the forest, non-native plants brought in by birds, and even the impact of the visitors on the forest. The tour lasted about three hours. We then went as a group to a coffee shop for excellent local coffee and desserts. Bird feeders lined the deck and were filled with several varieties of hummingbirds. We were then driven back to our lodge. The cost? $40 per person, which included our entry fee to the reserve. There are also canopy walks and zipline tours of the reserve as well as night tours, when many of the birds and animals are active. Again, prices vary, but guided tours are highly recommended as you will learn a lot and see many things you would miss on your own.

I passed up the zipline and the canopy walk, choosing instead to meet Nery, the manager of Casem, an artisan cooperative that is celebrating 34 years this summer. The coop's story is so remarkable that it deserves a separate blog. While there were so many exciting options I passed up, my afternoon at the coop was not only inspirational, but provided an excellent model for me to share in my work with women in the developing world.

In addition to the Monteverde biological reserve and sanctuary, you can tour coffee, chocolate and sugarcane farms, cheese and chocolate factories, a butterfly garden, bat jungle, a serpent and frog museum, take a historical and heritage tour and go horseback riding. Also, be sure to visit Casem, the artisan cooperative with over 85 local participants, beautiful handcrafts, and a lovely cafe.

Roughly 1-1/2 hours away (a few ridges over) is the town of Fortuna, famous for its thermal springs. There are a number of spas, all beautiful, with pools of different temperatures, lush gardens and restaurants. One late afternoon after our conference ended for the day, we traveled to Fortuna on a university bus and enjoyed soaking in the warm mineral waters. Fortuna is at the base of Arenal, a volcano that has been active for the last 30 years. When the clouds aren't shrouding the volcano, visitors are treated to watching the hot lava course down the sides of the volcano. After a few very active days, this is a great place to spend some time and soak tired muscles and joints!

Despite all the pluses of ecotourism, there is a downside as well. Many of the preserves and national parks are seeing an over-capacity of visitors, which stresses resources as well as the plants and animals. While tourism has benefited many of the Ticos who work in the service industries, a large number of rural communities have been left out and have experienced a loss of income. There continues to be high unemployment in the big cities and many rural areas. The government has placed crippling taxes on local businesses while allowing tax breaks and special accommodations for multi-national corporations and the very wealthy nationals. And despite strict rules about deforestation (you can be sent to prison for 7 - 11 years for cutting down old growth hardwood trees on your own property), it continues at a troubling rate.

While clearly we can't solve all these problems, by traveling lightly on the land, being mindful of our choices of activities, learning and respecting the local culture and, if the opportunity arises, spending a day, or even a half day doing volunteer work, we can be an asset rather than hindrance toward protecting the environment. To quote the mantra of wise ecotourism, "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints and waste nothing but time."

Tags: Cloud Forests, Costa Rican Cloud Forests, Monteverde Reserve, Travel to Monteverde Reserve

Patricia Rain

Patricia Rain is an author, educator, culinary historian, and owner of The Vanilla Company (www.vanillaqueen.com), a socially conscious, product-driven information and education site dedicated to the promotion of pure, natural vanilla, and the support of vanilla farmers worldwide. She also does culinary presentations for food professionals, cooking schools, trade shows, food fairs, and private groups, and is a regular radio and TV guest.

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Ecotourism in Costa Rica's Monteverde Reserve

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Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve During the Dry Season In my humble opinion, ecotourism is so much more fun and enlightening than staying at a resort full of amenities but short on soul. My visit to Costa Rica in March was full of soul, but even more, filled with many terrific experiences that I'll savor [...]

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There are six main types of air masses that affect the British Isles. We classify these air masses primarily by the area in which they originate.

They are classified as continental or maritime - dependent on whether they originate over land or sea - and arctic or antarctic, equatorial, tropical, or polar, depending on the particular region in which they form.

There are a total of six air masses that affect the British Isles, they are classified as follows:

Tropical continental

This air mass originates over North Africa and the Sahara (a warm source region). It is most common during the summer months June, July and August, although it can occur at other times of the year.

Our highest temperatures usually occur under the influence of tropical continental air (over 30 °C by day and around 15 to 20 °C at night).

Visibility is usually moderate or poor due to the air picking up pollutants during its passage over Europe and from sand particles blown into the air from Saharan dust storms. Occasionally, the Saharan dust is washed out in showers producing coloured rain and leaving cars covered in a thin layer of orange dust.

Tropical maritime

The source region for this air mass is warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean between the Azores and Bermuda. The predominant wind direction across the British Isles, in a tropical maritime air mass, is south-westerly.

Tropical maritime air is warm and moist in its lowest layers and, although unstable over its source region, during its passage over cooler waters becomes stable and the air becomes saturated. Consequently when a tropical maritime air mass reaches the British Isles it brings with it low cloud and drizzle, perhaps also fog around windward coasts and across hills. To the lee of high ground though, the cloud my break up and here the weather, particularly in the summer months, can be fine and sunny.

This is a mild air stream and during the winter month in particular, can raise the air temperature several degrees above the average.

Polar continental

This air mass has its origins over the snow fields of Eastern Europe and Russia and is only considered a winter (November to April) phenomena.

During the summer with the land mass considerably warmer, this air mass would be classed as a tropical continental.

The weather characteristics of this air mass depend on the length of the sea track during its passage from Europe to the British Isles: this air is inherently very cold and dry and if it reaches southern Britain with a short sea track over the English Channel, the weather is characterised by clear skies and severe frosts. With a longer sea track over the North Sea, the air becomes unstable and moisture is added giving rise to showers of rain or snow, especially near the east coast of Britain.

The lowest temperatures across the British Isles usually occur in this air mass, lower than -10 °C at night, and sometimes remaining below freezing all day.

Polar maritime

This air mass has its origins over northern Canada and Greenland and reaches the British Isles on a north-westerly air stream.

Polar maritime is the most common air mass to affect the British Isles. This air mass starts very cold and dry but during its long passage over the relatively warm waters of the North Atlantic its temperature rises rapidly and it becomes unstable to a great depth.

This air mass is characterised by frequent showers at any time of the year. In the winter months when instability (convection) is most vigorous over the sea, hail and thunder are common across much of the western and northern side of the British Isles. However, eastern Britain may see fewer showers as here the surface heating is reduced. During the summer, the reverse is true, land temperatures are higher than sea temperatures and the heaviest showers occur over eastern England.

Arctic maritime

An arctic maritime air mass has similar characteristics to a polar maritime air mass, but because of the shorter sea track the air is colder and less moist.

Arctic air is uncommon during the summer, but when it does occur it may bring heavy showers or thunderstorms and unseasonably low temperatures.

Between October and May, the air is cold enough to produce hail showers or snow, and these are most frequent over Scotland and along the coasts exposed to northerly winds.

An arctic maritime air mass has its origins over the North Pole and the Arctic Ocean.

Polar low-pressure systems forming in this air mass can sometimes lead to widespread and heavy snowfall, but otherwise inland areas remain free of cloud in the winter months. In northern Scotland, arctic maritime is usually the coldest air mass, but over the rest of Britain, this air mass is not as cold as polar continental.

Returning polar maritime

Returning polar maritime is another version of polar maritime, but this time with a longer sea track which takes the air first southwards over the North-Atlantic, the north-eastwards across the British isles.

During its passage south, the air becomes unstable and moist but on moving north-east it passes over cooler water making it stable in its lowest layers.

Although the weather across the British Isles in this air mass is largely dry, there can be extensive cloud cover.

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There are six main types of air masses that affect the British Isles. We classify these air masses primarily by the area in which they originate. They are classified as continental or maritime - dependent on whether they originate over land or sea - and arctic or antarctic, equatorial, tropical, or polar, depending on the particular region in which they form.

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BBC Bitesize

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India is now the second most populous nation on the planet, with an estimated 1.38 billion inhabitants in 2020. In 2013 India was the seventh richest country in the world. Estimates suggest that it had grown to become the fifth largest economy in 2020 and is projected to be the third largest world economy after China and the USA by 2025. India is an example of a country that has become richer. Since the economic reforms of 1991, it has experienced rapid economic development that has allowed it to be grouped with other rapidly- known as the (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). India has the third largest army in the world and is known as the largest democracy in the world, consisting of 28 states and 8 union territories (as of 2020).

India has many different ethnic and religious groups - Hinduism is the dominant religion, yet the country has substantial minority populations of Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs. It has a varied climate ranging from tropical in the south to a temperate and then alpine climate in the north.

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A brief introduction to India - Case study - development in an emerging country - India - Edexcel - GCSE Geography Revision - Edexcel - BBC Bitesize

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India is now the second most populous nation on the planet, with an estimated 1.38 billion inhabitants in 2020. In 2013 India was the seventh richest country in the world. Estimates suggest that it had grown to become the fifth largest economy in 2020 and is projected to be the third largest world economy after China and the USA by 2025.

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Good explanation of the 3 types of Milankovitch cycles

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Milankovitch cycles are three ways the Earth's orbit around the Sun changes over the course of tens of thousands of years. Each of the three, eccentricity, axial tilt and precession all influence how much solar energy hits the Earth. This change has been a major factor controlling periods of glaciation and seasons. These cycles were discovered and mathematically developed by after astrophysicist Milutin Milankovitch. The three components once calculated together, predict and show the amount of solar radiation the Earth receives thus predicting and portraying the advances and retreats of Earth's glaciers through time.

The Three Variations

Eccentricity

Eccentricity is the path of Earth's orbit around the sun. Over a period of 100,000 years, this varies from low eccentricity to higher eccentricity (it never gets too eccentric). A low eccentric shape means the Earth will travel around the Sun in a more circular fashion with either none or a very low percent difference between it's farthest distance (aphelion) from the Sun to its closest distance (perihelion). Earth is currently in the low eccentric shape of about 3 percent distance between the aphelion and perihelion, this converts to about an average of 7 percent more solar radiation in the Southern hemisphere over the Northern hemisphere. A high eccentric shape means the Earth will travel around the Sun in a more oval shape with one side of the oval being closer to the Sun and a difference of 10 percent between the aphelion and perihelion. This would affect the hemispheres greatly by creating a 25 percent difference in solar radiation between the Southern and Northern hemispheres.

Axial tilt or obliquity is the angle of Earth's axis from the orbital plane. The tilt changes from a range of 22.1 to 24.5 degrees over a period of a 41,000-year cycle. This small change in degree affects our seasons greatly. Earth is currently sitting at 23.5 degrees, which results in our warm summers and cool winters. At 24.5 degrees our seasons would be much more extreme, winters being much colder and summers much warmer. At 22.1 degrees, our seasons would be less severe, winters would be a bit warmer resulting in an increase of humidity and our summers would then be cooler causing the ice sheets to melt at a much slower pace. The minimal melting in the summer and the accumulation of humidity in the winter would then encourage a growth in ice sheets.

Precession

Precession is the gradual shift of Earth's rotational axis, which controls the timing of our seasons. This can also be described as a dreidel wobbling moments before it falls. This affects the dates at which perihelion and aphelion occur. This wobble is a 26,000-year cycle in which the celestial pole will face a different north star. Our current North Star is Polaris but when the pole shifts, the North Star has and will be Vega. This slight shift in direction causes the winter and summer solstices to reverse. As our precession changes, our winters begin later and our summers last longer.

References

1. S. G. Philander, "Milankovitch Cycles," in Encyclopedia of Global Warming and Climate Change, vol. 2, Thousand Oaks, California, 2008, pp. 650-651.

2. NASA Observatory, "Paleoclimatology: Explaining the Evidence" [Online]. Available: https://Earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Paleoclimatology_Evidence/

3. Milankovitch Cycles. [Online]. Available: https://i2.wp.com/timescavengers.blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/milankovitch-cycles.jpg?ssl=1

4. Alan Buis, "Why Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles Can't Explain Earth's Current Warming " [Online]. Available: https://kitzu.org/milankovitch-cycles-and-glaciation/

5. NASA Observatory, "Miultin Milankovitch (1879-1958) Orbital Variations" [Online]. Available: https://Earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Milankovitch/milankovitch_2.php

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Milankovitch cycles are three ways the Earth's orbit around the Sun changes over the course of tens of thousands of years. Each of the three, eccentricity, axial tilt and precession all influence how much solar energy hits the Earth. This change has been a major factor controlling periods of glaciation and seasons.

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Positive and negative impacts of tourism in NP

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The positive and negative impacts of tourism Making tourism sustainable
The positive and negative impacts of tourism

National parks have to conserve the landscape and wildlife, let people visit and enjoy the area and help support local people.
See national park aims
These different aims can sometimes conflict, and tourism is one of the biggest challenges in national parks, as tourists have both positive and negative impacts on the landscape and local communities:

Positive impacts of tourism:

Jobs for local people

Income for the local economy

Helps preserve rural services like buses, village shops and post offices

Increased demand for local food and crafts

Tourists mainly come to see the scenery and wildlife, so there is pressure to conserve habitats and wildlife

Negative impacts of tourism:

Damage to the landscape: litter, erosion, fires, disturbance to livestock, vandalism

Traffic congestion and pollution

Local goods can become expensive because tourists will pay more

Shops stock products for tourists and not everyday goods needed by locals

Demand for holiday homes makes housing too expensive for local people

Demand for development of more shops and hotels

Jobs are mainly seasonal, low paid with long hours

Case Study: Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park

Ranger Alison Wilkie talks about tourism in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park and what the national park authority has done to help reduce the problems.

What are the main conflicts in Loch Lomond?
Link to audio
What solutions have you come up with?
How successful are these campaigns?
Link to audio
Making tourism sustainable

National park authorities work with local communities and other organisations to try and make tourism more sustainable. Here are just some of the things we do:

Show visitors how they can be responsible tourists with events, leaflets, information centres, guided walks and events, signs and websites.

Encourage visitors to leave their cars behind and use greener travel, like bikes, buses, boats and trains.

Support outdoor activities that don't damage the countryside or harm wildlife.

Encourage visitors to buy local products and food.

Run green business schemes to encourage businesses to recycle, reduce energy, conserve water and be sustainable.

Ask local communities for their views and ideas by setting up forums, groups and consultations.

Reduce erosion caused by visitors, by creating and repairing footpaths.

Use planning policies to control the spread of buildings in built-up areas development.

Encourage green energy-efficient buildings with planning policies and grant funding.

Encourage small-scale renewable energy schemes, like woodchip boilers and solar panels, with planning policies and grant funding.

More case studies and factsheets

Tourism and visitor management in National Parks

Erosion in National Parks:

Sustainable tourism and transport in National Parks:

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The positive and negative impacts of tourism Making tourism sustainable National parks have to conserve the landscape and wildlife, let people visit and enjoy the area and help support local people.

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Plan for Wembley Park regeneration

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Wembley Park has already been transformed over the last decade. Quintain's regeneration of the 85-acre site to date has delivered a 350,000sq ft London Designer Outlet, a four-star Hilton hotel, Brent Civic Centre, student accommodation with 600 apartments, 525 new homes, including 285 affordable apartments, as well as a £26million refurbishment of the listed 1934 Wembley Arena (now called The SSE Arena) with a £10million new public square creating a focal point for the area.

Quintain's original 2004 planning permission was for the land immediately around the Stadium. However, the team was able to buy more land north east of Engineers Way and adapt the scheme to provide more green space in Wembley Park and create a better layout of buildings, enhancing connectivity across the area.

Commercial uses will be focused to the west of the Stadium around the pedestrianised Wembley Park Boulevard and a quieter residential district is planned around a large new green open park.

Whats to come...

To compliment the existing entertainment, retail and leisure offerings, we are adding a new seven acre park, a new London square, a make-over to Olympic Way, plus new homes, shops, restaurants and workspaces.

Community facilities: GP surgery, community spaces, sports facilities and a new public play park.

Open spaces: A new seven-acre public park and a new London square.

Well connected: Just 9 minutes to Marylebone and 12 minutes to Baker Street.

Superfast broadband: To every apartment, plus free Wi-Fi in outdoor spaces.

Parking solutions: New permanent facilities for event days and every day.

Olympic Way: Transformed by major refurbishment.

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Wembley Park has already been transformed over the last decade. Quintain's regeneration of the 85-acre site to date has delivered a 350,000sq ft London Designer Outlet, a four-star Hilton hotel, Brent Civic Centre, student accommodation with 600 apartments, 525 new homes, including 285 affordable apartments, as well as a £26million refurbishment of the listed 1934 Wembley Arena (now called The SSE Arena) with a £10million new public square creating a focal point for the area.

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Brent Council

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Wembley is one of the largest regeneration projects in the country. According to the Mayor of London it can accommodate approximately 11,500 new homes and 10,000 new jobs through the development of sites along Wembley High Road and the land around Wembley Stadium.

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Wembley is one of the largest regeneration projects in the country. According to the Mayor of London it can accommodate approximately 11,500 new homes and 10,000 new jobs through the development of sites along Wembley High Road and the land around Wembley Stadium.

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Field Studies Council

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1. Before you start

Formulating enquiry questions

Rivers are dynamic systems, they are constantly changing - modifying their own channels and the wider landscape. Changes take place both spatially and temporally - spatial changes may occur laterally or longitudinally in the river channel, across the cross profile or along the long profile.

How and why does velocity change across the cross profile of River X?

How and why does bedload size and roundness change across the cross profile of River X?

How and why does discharge change along the long profile of River X?

How and why does the cross profile of River X change along its long profile?

Questions that look at temporal change can be very interesting, but are often less practical for the GSCE geographer, involving repeated visits to a site for data collection, for larger rivers secondary data from the National River Flow Archive or Environment Agency gauging stations can add a temporal aspect to your investigation.

Rivers investigations can focus on changes in any of the channel characteristics, to ensure some stretch and challenge for more able students it is wise to choose some of the more complex characteristics - for example an investigation that looks at changes in cross profile may be more challenging and interesting than an investigation into width or depth alone.

Questions focussing on changes along the long profile, or downstream changes lend themselves well to a hypotheses testing approach, students formulating a number of hypotheses which they will test en route to answering their question.

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Rivers are dynamic systems, they are constantly changing - modifying their own channels and the wider landscape. Changes take place both spatially and temporally - spatial changes may occur laterally or longitudinally in the river channel, across the cross profile or along the long profile.