Mark Altaweel

Assessing the Impacts of Local Knowledge and Technology on Climate Change Vulnerability in Remote Communities

The introduction of new technologies into small remote communities can alter how individuals acquire knowledge about their surrounding environment. This is especially true when technologies that satisfy basic needs, such as freshwater use, create a distance (i.e., diminishing exposure) between individuals and their environment. However, such distancing can potentially be countered by the transfer of local knowledge between community members and from one generation to the next. The objective of this study is to simulate by way of agent-based modeling the tensions between technology-induced distancing and local knowledge that are exerted on community vulnerability to climate change. A model is developed that simulates how a collection of individual perceptions about changes to climatic-related variables manifest into community perceptions, how perceptions are influenced by the movement away from traditional resource use, and how the transmission of knowledge mitigates the potentially adverse effects of technology-induced distancing. The model is implemented utilizing climate and social data for two remote communities located on the Seward Peninsula in western Alaska. The agent-based model simulates a set of scenarios that depict different ways in which these communities may potentially engage with their natural resources, utilize knowledge transfer, and develop perceptions of how the local climate is different from previous years. A loosely-coupled pan-arctic climate model simulates changes monthly changes to climatic variables. The discrepancy between the perceptions derived from the agent-based model and the projections simulated by the climate model represent community vulnerability. The results demonstrate how demographics, the communication of knowledge and the types of ‘knowledge-providers’ influence community perception about changes to their local climate.

Toward a typology for social-ecological systems.

Abstract Characterizing and understanding social-ecological systems (SESs) is increasingly necessary to answer questions about the development of sustainable human settlements. To date, much of the literature on SES analysis has focused on “neat” systems involving a single type of resource, a group of users, and a governance system. While these studies provide valuable and specific insights, they are of limited use for application to “messy” SESs that encompass the totality of human settlements, including social organization and technologies that result in the movement of materials, energy, water, and people. These considerations, in turn, create distribution systems that lead to different types of SESs. In messy SESs the concept of resilience, or the ability of a system to withstand perturbation while maintaining function, is further evolved to posit that different settlements will require different approaches to foster resilience. This article introduces a typology for refining SESs to improve short- and long-term adaptive strategies in developing human settlements.

Simulation of Natural and Social Process Interactions

New multimodel simulations of Bronze Age Mesopotamian settlement system dynamics, using advanced object-based simulation frameworks, are addressing fine-scale interaction of natural processes (crop growth, hydrology, etc.) and social processes (kinship-driven behaviors, farming and herding practices, etc.) on a daily basis across multigenerational model runs. Key components of these simulations are representations of initial settlement populations that are demographically and socially plausible, and detailed models of social mechanisms that can produce and maintain realistic textures of social structure and dynamics over time. The simulation engine has broad applicability and is also being used to address modern problems such as agroeconomic sustainability in Southeast Asia. This article describes the simulation framework and presents results of initial studies, highlighting some social system representations.

New Investigations in the Environment, History, and Archaeology of the Iraqi Hilly Flanks: Shahrizor Survey Project 2009–2011

Recent palaeoenvironmental, historical, and archaeological investigations, primarily consisting of site reconnaissance, in the Shahrizor region within the province of Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan are bringing to light new information on the region’s social and socio-ecological development. This paper summarises two seasons of work by researchers from German, British, Dutch, and Iraqi-Kurdish institutions working in the survey region. Palaeoenvironmental data have determined that during the Pleistocene many terraces developed which came to be occupied by a number of the larger tell sites in the Holocene. In the sedimentary record, climatic and anthropogenic patterns are noticeable, and alluviation has affected the recovery of archaeological remains through site burial in places. Historical data show the Shahrizor shifting between periods of independence, either occupied by one regional state or several smaller entities, and periods that saw the plain’s incorporation within large empires, often in a border position. New archaeological investigations have provided insight into the importance of the region as a transit centre between Western Iran and northern and southern Mesopotamia, with clear material culture links recovered. Variations between periods’ settlement patterns and occupations are also beginning to emerge.

Applying content analysis for investigating the reporting of water issues

Abstract This article presents a content analysis approach for contextualizing the reporting of water and water-related issues. The intent of our approach is to enable an understanding of how important environmental topics such as water-related issues are presented to the public, and thus potentially influencing public perceptions on the issues. Multiple statistical and analytical methods are integrated in order to analyze online newspapers articles to evaluate the context, regionalism and relevance of the reporting of water issues. Using 10 online newspapers from Nebraska, USA, the content analysis approach revealed that water is most often reported in the state in the context of agriculture, while other topics such as water quality and habitat are less frequently discussed. Second, there is a lack of spatial dependency in the reporting of water across Nebraska as newspapers in close proximity to one another do not demonstrate similar reporting. Finally, the reporting of water in some newspapers is noticeably linked to local daily water quantity observations. These results suggest that, although the topic of water as an environmental issue may be vitally important across a region, the context of how water issues are reported is driven by local issues and, in some cases, relevant physical processes. Results show that there is a relative lack of coverage on major water and environmental issues except when issues are of immediate public concern. We discuss how these results could be used by resource managers to interpret media content and the public’s understanding of important environmental topics.

Minding Our Methods: How Choice of Time Series, Reference Dates, and Statistical Approach Can Influence the Representation of Temperature Change

Warming trends in some parts of Alaska have previously been linked to the degradation of permafrost, water resources, and community infrastructure. As the topic of climate change continues to garner media attention and public interest, temperature trend estimations are likely to play a greater role in Alaska’s decision-making and development of policy. Climate reports, as well as summaries put forth to the public, should ensure appropriate choices of time scale, starting and ending reference dates, and statistical approach in the analysis of multidecade data sets. What may seem to be simple or arbitrary choices in these matters could potentially infuse significant bias into the interpretation of data, thereby distorting the representation of climate variability in Alaska and handicapping potential strategies for response. In this paper we demonstrate and emphasize how the use of different time scales, reference dates, and statistical approaches can generate highly disparate results, suggesting that careful use of these tools is critical for correctly interpreting and reporting climatic trends in Alaska and other polar regions.

Visualizing Situational Data: Applying Information Fusion for Detecting Social-Ecological Events

As anthropogenic and environmental behaviors rapidly evolve many ecosystems and communities, managers of natural resources, scientists, and other stakeholders increasingly need tools that can rapidly alert them to emerging events that can affect social well-being. Data detailing such behaviors may derive from textual sources with varying content, requiring an approach to merge multiple media sources and create linked relationships between relevant event terms. In addition, applied methods need to provide both quantitative capacity and qualitative functionality, which can rapidly display emerging trends and potentially significant individual events. This article presents an information fusion approach for conducting text searches on web-based sources to provide managers and scientists with rapid search capabilities identifying potentially significant social—ecological events. Along with general analytical utility, a network approach that links associated terms is used to show semantic relationships between social—ecological terms at different timescales.

Excavations in Iraq: The Ray Jazirah Project, first report

Cet article constitue la premiere publication de resultats des fouilles realisees en Irak dans le cadre du Ray Jazirah Project (RJP) entre 1987 et 1994. L’A presente un index des sites en fonctions des periodes, celles-ci s’etendent de la culture d’Hassuna jusqu’a l’epoque islamique. Un chapitre est ensuite dedie a chacun des sites, avec notamment une etude ceramologique permettant de preciser les periodes d’occupation. Cette etude a permis de mettre en exergue, d’une part la preponderance des vestiges d’epoque neo-assyrienne, d’autre part l’absence de vestiges pour la periode du IIIe millenaire avant notre ere.

Mobilizing for Change: Simulating Political Movements in Armed Conflicts

Theories on the establishment and propagation of political movements through mobilization have emerged and evolved over the last half century. Among the major theoretical frameworks that have been advanced are resource mobilization theory, political process theory, and culture theory. However, despite these developments, relatively few methodological approaches have applied bottom-up computational modeling and simulation in explaining movement development in conflicts. With developments made in computational methods, the integration of social theory with modeling and simulation is a natural progression in creating tools that allow analysts, policy makers, and researchers the means to assess the successes or failures of political movements during armed struggles. This article presents an agent-based model and simulation that applies several frequently used theoretical approaches to political mobilization and explores the extent to which group resources and identity shaped conflicts in Central Asia. Given their historical, cultural, political, economic, and geographical circumstances, the authors seek to determine why different movements experienced contrasting political mobilization outcomes. Results show that receiving outside resources could help a relatively weak group, with limited mobilization, overcome opposition that is initially better mobilized, while shared identity and sufficient risk taking are shown to be potentially strong factors in producing successful mobilization. More broadly, the approach advanced enables analysts and researchers to better anticipate future mobilization events and projected paths of conflict by developing and understanding cause and effect relationships within relevant theoretical frameworks.

Influence of statistical methods and reference dates on describing temperature change in Alaska

Quantifying temperature trends across multiple decades in Alaska is an essential component for informing policy on climate change in the region. However, Alaskas climate is governed by a complex set of drivers operating at various spatial and temporal scales, which we posit should result in a sensitivity of trend estimates to the selection of reference start and end dates as well as the choice of statistical methods employed for quantifying temperature change. As such, this study attempts to address three questions: (1) How sensitive are temperature trend estimates in Alaska to reference start dates? (2) To what degree do methods vary with respect to estimating temperature change in Alaska? and (3) How do different reference start dates and statistical methods respond to climatic events that impact Alaskas temperature? To answer these questions, we examine the use of five methods for quantifying temperature trends at 10 weather stations in Alaska and compare multiple reference start dates from 1958 to 1993 while using a single reference end date of 2003. The results from this analysis demonstrate that, with some methods, the discrepancy in temperature trend estimates between consecutive start dates can be larger than the overall temperature change reported for the second half of the 20th century. Second, different methods capture different climatic patterns, thus influencing temperature trend estimates. Third, temperature trend estimation varies more significantly when a reference start date is defined by an extreme temperature. These findings emphasize that sensitivity analyses should be an essential component in estimating multidecadal temperature trends and that comparing estimates derived from different methods should be performed with caution. Furthermore, the ability to describe temperature change using current methods may be compromised given the increase in temperature extremes in contemporary climate change.