Haakon Lein

Hazards and 'forced' migration in Bangladesh

This paper deals with two basic assumptions about migration patterns in Bangladesh. First, it is commonly assumed that poverty and landlessness in rural Bangladesh lead to migration to and settlement in disaster-prone areas along the main rivers or in low-lying areas in the Bay of Bengal. Second, it is also commonly assumed that when people living in these areas experience loss of land, property and income opportunities due to natural disasters, they are forced to seek their livelihood and housing in urban areas. These two assumptions are discussed on the basis of data from a char in Jamuna river and a slum settlement in Dhaka.

Integrated vulnerability mapping for wards in Mid-Norway

The future climate of Norway is expected to become “warmer, wetter, and wilder”, and it is anticipated that this will cause more extreme weather events. Local authorities therefore need to increase their ability to assess weather-related hazards such as flooding and landslide, as well as peoples’ capacities to cope with such events. Any evaluation of future vulnerability towards natural hazards should use todays situation as the baseline. In this article, we present this baseline: a vulnerability assessment for the present. Our vulnerability assessment incorporates both physical and social dimensions of vulnerability and screens Mid-Norway at the lowest administrative level. The results reveal a considerable geographic variation regarding vulnerability. The assessment identifies the most vulnerable localities within a municipality and could thus be relevant for the local authorities. By incorporating knowledge held by the local authorities, the vulnerability mapping could be made even more relevant.

Land and water resources management problems in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China

Since 1949 the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China has experienced massive in-migration from other parts of China. Under a strong ideology of ‘opening up wasteland’ (kaihuang), large areas of desert, pastureland and wetlands have been converted to cropland. This process has increased the competition over scarce water resources and created problems for many traditional oasis settlements that are increasingly facing problems of water shortages and water pollution. This article sets out to give a general overview of some of the changes in population, land use, and water use that have taken place in the region in the last 50 years. Some key environmental effects of this development will also be documented. The conclusion is that past and present policies and management practices related to land and water resources in Xinjiang are not sustainable in the long run and urgently need to be revised.

Quantifying vulnerability to flooding induced by climate change: The case of Verdal, Norway

Lujala, P., Lein, H. & Rosvoldaune, R. 2014. Quantifying vulnerability to flooding induced by climate change: The case of Verdal, Norway. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography Vol. 68, 34–49. ISSN 0029-1951. The article presents a methodology for the measurement of exposure and social vulnerability to hazards at local level. Using the small town of Verdal in central Norway as a case study, the authors examine its vulnerability to flooding induced by climate change both at present and its potential vulnerability in the future. Data on river and surge flooding and sea level rise scenarios, which are overlapped spatially with present-day maps for land use, transport networks, and buildings, are used to assess exposure to flooding. In addition, the authors assess the study areas level of social vulnerability. The two measures are then combined to assess the integrated vulnerability for Verdal. The results of the analysis show that there are considerable differences across the study area regarding which statistical units (subdivisions of the municipality) will experience the largest increases in vulnerability. The methodology used in the study is transferrable to other towns and municipalities, as well as to other types of hazards, both natural and man-made.

Floods and agricultural change. Some observations from Bangladesh 1986–1990

Over the last decade Bangladesh has witnessed several devastating floods. Despite this, cereal production has grown steadily, mainly as a result of the spread of irrigation and modern rice varieties. On the basis of data from, Madaripur Upazila, a small flood-prone community in southwest Bangladesh, the article discusses the relationship between floods and the spread of new agricultural technology. The floods in 1987 and 1988 led to excessive damage to traditional rain-fed rice crops and in order to avoid future damage of this kind the farmers shifted to a modern, irrigated rice crop. A basic argument of the article, therefore, is that natural disasters, here in the form of excessive flooding, can act as a triggering force behind a process of agricultural modernization. At the same time it is clear that the 1987 and 1988 floods alone cannot fully explain the changes observed in Madaripur. Public reforms concerning distribution of vital inputs such as irrigation equipment and fertilizers, as well as broade...

Water conflicts in Hetian District, Xinjiang, during the Republic of China period

We examine Xie and Yang’s edited volume (published in 2011) titled Hetian diqu minguo shiqi luzhou nongye yu shengtai huanjing dangan xuanji (selected archives compilation of oases agriculture and ecological environment in Hetian District in the Republic of China period), which is a compilation of government documents produced between 1937 and 1949 in the Hetian District, in Xinjiang, China. Drawing on information in the documents, we discuss the water regulations and various types of water conflicts occurring at local level, and highlight the main problems of water management in irrigation agriculture in the dryland areas of the district. Under the strict government policy of opening up wasteland to increase the amount of cultivatable land, regulations for water distribution at local level were either neglected, which was most often the case, or they were revised. In disregarding land-rich but water-scarce situations, the state politics on land management held definitive power over locally administered water-distribution regulations. Water conflicts occurred due to changes in both the amount of land available for irrigation agriculture and the changing water regulations. Thus, the policy of opening up wasteland was the main reason for the water conflicts that occurred in Hetian District, during the Republic of China period.

Wanted and Unwanted Nature: Invasive Plants and the Alien–Native Dichotomy

Qvenild, Marte. 2013. Wanted and Unwanted Nature: Invasive Plants and the Alien–Native Dichotomy. Thesis for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor, Trondheim, May 2013. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Social Sciences and Technology Management, Department of Geography. Doctoral theses at NTNU 2013:152. NTNU, Trondheim. 123+39+33+30 pp. ISBN 978-82-471-4410-7 (printed), ISBN 987-82-471-4411-4 (electronic), ISSN 1503-8181.

Protracted Displacement and Solutions to Displacement: Listening to Displaced Persons (Refugees and IDPS) in Ghana and Sri Lanka

(2010, 1328 1345). It focuses on the Gassmark’s national research programme, demonstrating the continued capacity of trade unions and regional interests to shape national strategic priorities. Article 3, ‘Scalar politics and strategic consolidation: The Norwegian Gas Forum’s quest for embedding Norwegian gas resources in domestic space’ (co-authored with Sjur Kasa and Marit Reitan), is published in Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift Norwegian Journal of Geography 65 (2011, 226 237). Lastly, the fourth article, ‘The pipeline never meant to be? The scalar selectivities and paradoxes of the Skanled gas infrastructure project’ investigates the development of the Skanled pipeline, with its eventual termination highlighting the tension between national state projects and global market logics. A particular strength of Underthun’s the analysis is the interweaving of discursive strategies as a specific series of representations, practices, and performances through which meaning is produced, connected into networks, and legitimized with political and corporate strategies and political alliance formation or conflict intermediation. While the national state remains central in much of the analysis, the research shows the growing relevance of regionalization policy and regionalizing consensus politics whereby regional agencies, actors, and intermediaries engage in explicitly scalar political strategies. The thesis shows how the attempts at regionally embedding Norwegian gas resources and the associated politics of scale are performative in the process of transforming the corporatist-welfare state to a Schumpetarian workfare state through tactics of regionalization. On a more critical note, the thesis would have benefitted from greater empirical nuance in places. In particular, the specific arguments and agendas that shaped the political initiatives in question might have received more sustained attention. In addition, more direct use could have been made of primary research materials, such as interview quotations for illustrative as well as analytical purposes. Some reflections on theoretical issues and directions in the light of the empirical analysis are provided in the summarizing part of the thesis, particularly in terms of developing the discursive dimension of scalar thinking and relational conceptions of power. However, this element could have been strengthened by relating these observations back to more fundamental debates on approaches to scale and the reorientation of national states in the context of globalization. In overall terms, the thesis provides an excellent and insightful contribution to our understanding of how material resources become mobilized by and articulated with state-selective processes of geopolitical and geo-economic rescaling. Theoretically, it demonstrates the continued purchase and relevance of scale as an analytical category, particularly in terms of how scales are politically mobilized and contested by various social actors and interest groups. More concretely, the thesis concludes that political campaigns for the domestic utilization of natural gas have had limited success, arguing that the scalar selectivities of the Norwegian state and key corporations such as Statoil and Norsk Hydro have tended to privilege European and global scales over national and regional scales in recent decades. This raises important wider questions about the tensions between inherited national institutions and processes of neoliberalization articulated in terms of competitiveness and flexibility. In summary, Anders Underthun has produced a highly original and thought-provoking thesis that will be of great interest to researchers in geography and related disciplines concerned with questions of globalization, scale, and state restructuring.

[Review of: T. Abebe (2008) Ethiopian childhoods: a case study of the lives of orphans and working children]

Orphans and Working Children. Thesis for the degree philosophiae doctor, Trondheim January 2008, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Social Sciences and Technology Management, Department of Geography/Norwegian Centre for Child Research. Doctoral theses at NTNU, 2008:42. NTNU, Trondheim. 133 pp. articles. ISBN 978-82-471-6731-1 (printed version), ISBN 978-82-471-6745-8 (electronic version), ISSN 15038181.