Congratulations to Dr Malcolm Campbell, Dr Adam Dunajko, Dr Benjamin Hennig, Dr Jun-Hua Lin, Dr Hazel Sinclair, Dr Joby Wil-liams, and Dr John Whittingham, all of whom have been awarded their PhD in the past few months.

Congratulations to all our 10-11 graduating Masters students! We had 31 merits and 14 Distinctions.

Kingslake. The focus of the trip was to collect data and ice samples from an outlet glacier of the Jostedalsbreen ice cap for research into its dynamics and structure. Being the largest ice cap

In August I assisted with field work in Norway for Dr Darrel Swift, Dr Simon Cook of Aber-ystwth and Dr Jacob Yde of Sogndal University College along with fellow PhD student Jonny

1

JANUARY 2012 Edited by Laura Pitts NO. 6

Thanks to all our con-tributors: Alex Dor-gan, Adam Dunajko, Nnamdi Ezeanochie, Ian Humphrey, Tom Hurst, Robin Love-lace, John Pritchard, Vincent Song, Ben Hennig, and Marcia Vera Espinoza.

If you have any sug-gestions, comments, or if you would like contribute to the next edition, please contact: Laura Pitts(l.pitts@shef.ac.uk)

of mainland Europe, Jostedalsbreen has an area of 487 km2 and has approximately 50 outlet glaciers. Although much time was spent walking the 5 km between our camp and field site along

with data collection on the glacier, we still found time to visit some inter-esting glaciers in the surrounding area.

View of Langedalen Valley, close to our fieldwork camp site, with part of the Jostedalsbreen ice cap in the background.

The terminus of Austerdalsbreen in the foreground with the two icefalls Torsbreen and Odinsbreen roughly 2.5km away in the background. The icefalls drain ice from the Jostedalsbreen ice cap approx. 700m above Austerdalsbreen.

DEPARTMEN-TAL NEWS

GEOGRAPHY POSTGRADUATE

NEWSLETTER

NORWEGIAN FIELDWORK By Tom Hurst

Congratulations go to departmental re-searcher, Dr Ana Bor-toletto who has been awarded a prestig-ious Green Talent award by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Re-search (BMBF).

enhance understanding of the institutional con-text of such schemes, particularly in relation to the valuation of liveli-hoods, and carbon and ecosystem trade-offs and synergies. The first network meet-ing held in October served as an introduc-tion to the other PhD students and their pro-jects, and to the associ-ated supervisors and their areas of expertise. As well as being a good opportunity to meet some new people (always a very welcome thing for someone com-pletely new to The North...); it was interest-ing to see how our pro-jects might fit together.

PHD STUDENTS MAKE THE GEOGRAPHY POSTGRADUATE FORUM MORE VIBRANT THAN EVER

By Marcia Vera Espinoza

Research students from the Geography Depart-ment have been helping to develop an exciting Postgraduate Forum, with more than 12 pres-entations since the Aca-demic Year started last October. Organised by first year Human Geog-raphy PhD Student Han-nah Lambie, the Forum has seen a wide scope of presentations with topics ranging from the Food Industry to Gla-ciers‟ studies. The Post-graduate Forum has been running every Wednesday at 4:00pm, attracting students from both Human and Physical Geography.

The forum not only has been an opportunity to peer review PhD stu-dents‟ research in a

friendly and construc-tive environment, but also has exposed the fascinating diversity of topics being research at the Department.

The series began at the end of October and it closed the semester with a Christmas get-together.

The Postgraduate Fo-rum, as student led ini-tiative, started in 2008 and aims to establish itself as a permanent instance of knowledge sharing and peer re-viewing. The initiative provides PhD students with the opportunity to discuss their research and share practices. In addition, the second half of the year also looks to explore differ-

ent topics of research-ers‟ interest such as field work and viva voce experiences, among others.

To contribute to the forum, PhD students are encouraged to send in topics of interest or their current research.

For enquiries email Hannah Lambie at h.lambie@shef.ac.uk

The forum included the following presen-tations:

'Irrational winemakers and selling organic wine', Anna Krzywoszyn-ska.

„Modelling the coupling between subglacial hy-drology and ice dynam-ics during jokulhlaups‟, Jonathan Kingslake.

„Researching the rural drive: reflections from the fieldwork journey', Rosie Emeny.

„The Relation between the UNHCR and Main Donors: Challenges to Global Governance‟, Marcia Vera.

„Flowstripes and MSGL: Do they match?‟, Jer-emy Ely.

„Anarchism and post-development? Nicara-guan workers in Costa Rica‟, Nick Clare.

The White Rose Cli-mate Compatible De-velopment Partnership (CCDP) is a PhD net-work centred around 3 studentships, their aca-demic supervisors, and several associated PhDs from the Univer-sities of Sheffield, York, and Leeds. The broad aim of the partnership is to assess community-based natural re-source management (CBNRM) and payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes across a range of contexts in dryland Africa with a view to identifying best practice for policy and practice guidance. The interdisciplinary re-search is also hoped to

WHITE ROSE CLIMATE COMPATIBLE DEVELOPMENT PARTNER-SHIP PHD NETWORK: FIRST MEETING

By Alex Dorgan

As a group we have quite a diverse range of backgrounds and train-ing, which along with the nature of our indi-vidual projects should allow the underlying themes of our research to be analysed from a range of perspectives. When discussing our research it was imme-diately apparent that our work would be of great value to each other, and that there would be scope for collaborative ventures both in terms of devel-oping and conducting our research, and in the dissemination of our findings. The meeting concluded with a stimulating talk

by Dr Phil Woodhouse from the University of Manchester on „Water Dimensions of the „Land Grab‟ in Africa‟, before a welcome trip to the pub. The next White Rose CCDP meeting in De-cember aims to provide an overview of the the-ory and practice of par-ticipatory research, with a particular emphasis on participatory methods in environment and devel-opment research. With my own research meth-ods likely to involve par-ticipatory GIS and agent-based modelling, I antici-pate this meeting to be hugely useful to me and am already looking for-ward to it.

STUDENT ARTICLES

The Department‟s weather station at High Bradfield was featured on BBC‟s Look North after recording some of

EXCELLENCE IN GEOGRAPHY

TEACHING AND RESEARCH

The Department of Ge-ography has achieved high satisfaction ratings in the 2011 National Student Survey (NSS). Degrees in Physical Geography (98% satis-fied) and Human Geog-raphy (91% satisfied) at the University of Shef-field continue to offer an excellent student experience. The 2011 NSS results again place us at the top of the Russell Group; a body of 20 leading UK uni-versities which are committed to maintain-ing the very best re-search, an outstanding teaching and learning experience and unri-valled links with busi-ness and the public sector. At the same time we can see that Excellence in our Teaching is driven by Excellence in Research that we un-dertake across the Ge-ography discipline.

HIGH WINDS MAKE BRAD-FIELD TV STAR

the highest winds in Great Britain on 5 Jan 2012, with gusts reaching 93mph(149.6 km/h)

2

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? PROFILE: Dr Adam Dunajko

WHAT’S GOING ON

Almost four years to the day after starting my PhD, I was very pleased and relieved to step out of my Friday morning viva with only the most minor of grammatical corrections. I was also

glad that the examina-tion lasted a civilised two and a half hours, as at 2 pm that same after-noon I would have to hot-foot it over to Bar-tolome House to help lead a first year intro week tutorial on Gaia theory. This hectic bit of sched-uling arose as I started work as a Teaching As-sistant here in the Uni-versity of Sheffield Ge-ography Department two weeks prior to fin-ishing my PhD. Begin-ning a job proved to be ideal preparation for

sitting a viva, as I was far too busy planning lec-tures to worry about the details of my thesis. Since that first Gaia tu-torial my weeks have been a whirlwind of preparation, field trips, lectures, dissertation supervision and mark-ing. During the final year of my PhD I did a term of undergraduate lectur-ing at the University of Derby, and throughout my studies I made the most of all the available teaching opportunities here at Sheffield. So,

day we reconvened to a local hostelry for some conviviality and local fayre and by lunchtime on the following day we were bidding farewell and pledging to return next year. The Winter School is an excellent opportunity to meet with fellow post-graduates working in a related field of study and to present your work in a friendly and receptive atmosphere. I would heartily recom-mend attending these schools, whatever their seasonal variety (I at-tended a Summer School elsewhere ear-lier in the year), not least to break the rou-tine and isolation of protracted periods of working independently as a post-graduate. Best of all, the school is free to attend, although delegates are expected to arrange their accom-modation and pay for their own meals. Countryside and Com-munity Research Insti-tute: www.ccri.ac.uk

capacity of English farmers toward bovine tuberculosis. So it was certainly an education. Our academic hosts also facilitated two panel sessions where they addressed student concerns such as ca-reer prospects, reflexiv-ity and positionality in research, strategies for publication, and how to approach a viva voce. At the end of the first

graduate students, in-cluding attendees from overseas. Each student is given an opportunity to give a 20 minute presentation of their research, at whatever stage, and to receive feedback collectively from one another. Rosie attended last year too, and was effectively updating delegates on progress with her re-search into rural car journeys in the Peak District. However, for me it was an opportu-nity to try out my pre-senting skills for the very first time. Dr. Damian Maye had per-suaded me to „break my duck‟ in what he prom-ised would be a sympa-thetic and supportive atmosphere. My own research com-prises a comparative study of two Commu-nity Supported Agricul-ture (CSA) schemes in Sheffield and Wales

What kind of image does Cheltenham con-jure up? A trip to the races? The Ladies‟ Col-lege? Faded Regency grandeur? Colonel Blimp-type inhabitants? How about the CCRI Winter School? The what? Nestled in a leafy sub-urb on the outskirts of Cheltenham is „The Park‟, one the campuses of the University of Gloucester that hosts the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI), a part-nership of four institu-tions and the largest specialist rural research centre in the UK. Last November Rosie Emeny and I both at-tended the CCRI Winter School. The Winter School consists of a 2-day symposium hosted by academics from the institute and attended by approximately 20 rural-related post-

and, although a complete novice at Powerpoint, my presentation was well received and feedback from my fellow delegates and staff from the institute was en-couraging and helpful; Professor Brian Ilbery com-mented that my methodological ambitions were too overreaching and I have modi-fied them accordingly in anticipation of my Up-grade from MPhil to PhD. Other presentations covered topics as di-verse as the adaptive re-use of historic farm buildings; household engagement with finan-cial services in rural England; return migra-tion and belonging in rural Ireland; and the role of social capital in building the response

CCRI PhD student Dick Parodel gives a presentation at the Winter School (Rosie Emeny, far right)

MY INAUGURAL PRESENTATION By Ian Humphrey

the transition up to an office on E Floor with queues of students at my door hasn‟t proven as much of a shock as it might otherwise have been. But trust me, your supervisor isn‟t kidding when they reminiscence fondly about the free-dom of doing a PhD. I‟m nearing the end of my first semester, and only now have I finally got a little spare time to think about making those the-sis corrections...

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A COOK’S REFLECTION

By Vincent Song

Fieldwork is a difficult process. Amidst all the perpetual rejections from people you ap-proach, the sense that your data‟s not quite yet (good) enough, and the persistent doubts you have for your research topic; fieldwork isn‟t just a part of your post-grad, it is an intense period of self-reflection.

As a postgraduate stu-dent, you are entitled to use the cpanel service. This provides you with web space, and a suite of tools to help you build a website. If you are very keen and have

THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE

There are computer services and software pro-vided by the University that you may be un-aware of and may find useful during your PhD.

USEFUL UNIVERSITY COMPUTER SERVICES AND SOFTWARE By John Pritchard

EndNote is the refer-ence management soft-ware that works with Microsoft Word to help you manage your refer-ences. If you use a ser-vice such as Web of Sci-ence, the online service 'Endnote Web' might also be useful; you can send references from Web of Science to your Endnote Web account, and from there organise

See http://www.shef.ac.uk/cics/researchcomputing for more informa-tion.

them and bring them into Endnote on your PC. Endnote is freely available to install on computers purchased by the University, but there is a charge if you wish to install a copy on a computer you have bought your-self. See Geography computer technicians for help with this.

time to experiment, you have the freedom to, for example, create a survey that stores responses to a database. See http://www.shef.ac.uk/cics/

Cpanel Web Hosting

Endnote and Endnote Web

High Performance Computing

cpanel for more information.

If your PhD involves some intensive data processing, the Univer-sity has resources that might help. The CiCS Sheffield high perform-ance computer is called Iceberg. You can register

to use Iceberg for re-search and projects re-quiring intensive com-puting power. You can also use it to access soft-ware that is provided for computer-intensive re-search work.

I entered into this phase of my PhD with specific in-tents per-taining to my research ob-jectives but left it with much more than I could chew… liter-ally. What was perhaps in-teresting and frustrating at the same

time in making food a central theme of my research (Apart from the constant eating!) was the fact that people whom I talked to imme-diately assume that I am a great cook. Having to fend for myself in Shef-field for 1 whole year, I had always thought of myself as a decent cook, if not a good one. But

through participating in so many cooking classes, I have learned to humble myself in the face of culinary great-ness. These veteran cooks teaching these classes are no provincial teachers. They know their stuff! “Death by spatula” would have been the title of this article if not for my good reflexes. Having embar-rassed myself so many a times – asking basic culinary questions in classes filled with seasoned cooks, I have come to learn a fair bit about my ignorance in the kitchen as well as in life. Pearls of

wisdom are dispensed in tandem with displays of culinary prowess. To me, these moments are more valuable than any data I could have gotten. Perhaps, this is the true value of fieldwork. The connections you make and the relations you establish are, for me,

Humble me making Kueh Dadar in a cooking class

the most rewarding part of any data collect-ing processes. So if anyone says to me: “Oh! You must be a great cook!”; I would unabashedly say that I merely cook to survive but maybe one day I might learn to experi-ence cooking as artistry.

Nine-layered rainbow coconut cake made by cooking instruc-

tress.

4

STUDENT ARTICLES

Worldwide, 1.7 million people die annually from Tuberculosis, and the largest number of deaths is in the Sub-Saharan region (WHO report 2010). South-Africa is at the top of the list with incidence rates of 610 per 100,000 people (ibid). Tubercu-losis management is not an issue for developing countries only, because with the emergence of extra drug resistant strains and increased global travel rate, every-one worldwide is at risk of being infected or af-fected by this disease (Fanning 1998).This problem is further exac-erbated by presence of poverty within poor na-tions, worsening global recession and a heavy burden of other co-infections, especially HIV. Essentially, it is safe to say that tuberculosis control is a worldwide agenda. Globally, less media at-tention has been paid to tuberculosis compared with other infectious diseases such as SARS or Swine flu. A signifi-cant number of the world‟s populace have a limited knowledge of the modes of transmis-sion, treatment and prevention of tubercu-losis. With the need for increased bio-security and protection, tuber-culosis poses a serious threat, as it continues to have an expanding global disease burden and emergence of new resistant strains. In the last five years sev-eral countries, including South-Africa, have be-gun to experience a halt in prevalence rates of tuberculosis and some

subtle reversal (UN re-port 2009). These posi-tive trends have been attributed to increased commitments by Donor nations and Agencies (Global Fund Report 2008). These donors have provided funding which has driven in-creased drug supply and operational re-search. Such re-searches have been fo-cused on reducing the emergence of multiple drug resistant strains in heavy burden tubercu-losis communities espe-cially among children and the elderly, and also strengthening activities within tuberculosis treatment facilities (USAID 2010). However, with the re-cent global recession, Euro crisis and financial meltdown, most donors are gradually reducing funding of tuberculosis control especially in South-Africa. With the persistence of the global money crisis, the situation is not ex-pected to improve and so there is a clear sense of panic within receiving nations about what might happen if the funding completely stops. These effects may be discussed in two dimensions: At the level of the receiving country and at the global level. Firstly, there will be a rapid explosion of the incidence rate of the disease. Such rates will usually be faster than when the disease ini-tially occurred, because of the evolution of new drug resistant strains. With more people fal-ling sick, there will be an increase loss of time from work, more time

and money spent at the hospital, increase num-ber of deaths from tu-berculosis and ulti-mately a reduction in the workforce of the country. This is particu-larly important in South-Africa where the cur-rent Disability Adjusted Life Years is already very high (Dowdy et al 2008). A combination of the above effect will weaken an already poor society and increase poverty. This will lead to an increase spread of the infection that will cause even more pov-erty and eventually this vicious cycle traps the country. It may become common to see health care providers adminis-ter medications to only some infected members in a particular family in order to ensure that other families might benefit from the scarce drugs, or newly infected people might be kept on the waiting lists for months and eventually die of the disease be-fore being offered any treatment. The above scenarios could lead to divisions about ethical considerations and pro-voke intra-community conflicts. Secondly, on a global scale, the poverty that results in the receiving countries will generally widen international de-velopmental gaps and the resultant inequality will compound develop-ment challenges aimed at providing a safe and productive world for everyone. In the face of the Global money prob-lems and in view of the mass effect that fund withdrawal might have on tuberculosis control,

it is necessary that cheaper alternative strategies are devel-oped to mitigate around these issues.

Most of the funding on Tuberculosis research has been focused on drug provision and re-search, but it has failed to lay adequate empha-sis on the underlying problem which is pov-erty. A study from Baum (2008) showed that hygiene and sanitation alone was responsible for reducing the tuber-culosis mortality rate of the United Kingdom, from 4000 to 250 per annum before the inter-vention of the BCG vac-cine. Therefore it can be argued that a holistic approach to tuberculo-sis control with empha-sis on improving living standards should be implemented. Policies to scale up sanitation practices should be drawn up and com-menced side by side with ongoing medical interventions as a means of accelerating the reduction of the disease burden. The rationale behind this is that by the time interna-tional funding ends, the disease burden will be low enough to be con-trolled by the nation‟s government, in this case the South-African Gov-ernment. Adequate ef-forts should be made towards better town and house planning and effective management of sewage disposal should be given great attention. There should be an enforcement of occupational safety measures such as limi-tation of exposure on

NO MONEY, NO DRUGS: ALTERNATIVES FOR TUBERCULOSIS MANAGEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA

By Exeanochie Nnamdi Peter

workers, such as miners who are at greater risk of contracting the dis-ease. Overall the stan-dard of living, especially of people living in slumps, needs to im-prove in other to re-duce the reservoir for tuberculosis infection and spread.

In conclusion, it is inevi-table that cheaper alter-native plans for tuber-culosis management and indeed other infec-tions disease will be-come necessary and life saving in the near fu-ture. In the process of planning out policies, several points should be noted: that tuberculosis is the leading cause of death in people with AIDS, a holistic manage-ment is needed, to re-duce poverty is to re-duce tuberculosis and finally that drugs and vaccines may play a last role in the near future.

References Baum.2008.The new Public Health 3rd ed. Australia: Ox-ford press. Dowdy et al.2008. Cost effec-tiveness of novel diagnostic tools for the diagnosis of tu-berculosis 12(9).page 1021-1029. Fanning.1998. Globalization of tuberculosis. CMJ 158(5). Page 599-605. Global Health Fund. 2011. Results and Performance (Online). Available at: www.theglobalfund.org/en/about/resultsandperformance/. [Accessed: 10th November 2011]. UN news centre. 2010. UN backed initiative to eliminate tuberculosis (online). Avail-able at: www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp=tuberculosis. [Accessed 12th November 2011]. USAID.2010. Country based operational Research Activi-ties. USAID Report. WHO. 2010. Tuberculosis

prevalence report. WHO

Report. 5

STUDENT ARTICLES

This article is a personal take on my research area: energy use in transport systems. In-stead of talking about transport to work (my PhD topic), I‟ll discuss something more likely to be of use to others: how energy can be used in Geography. Why all this passion for energy? Previous stud-ies of social and envi-ronmental issues, and climate change in par-ticular, have revealed energy use as a root cause, again and again. The motto “treat the disease, not the symp-toms” led me to apply for the E-Futures doc-toral training centre which seeks to bring together diverse disci-plines for the study of energy problems, and from there I moved to the Department of Ge-ography, where I have pursued research into energy systems, with a focus on the transport sector. For the benefit of the impatient reader, my views on the topic can be summarised as fol-lows. As a „discipline without discipline‟- adept at synthesizing information from di-verse sources yet strug-gling to find unifying principles– Geography has a huge amount to gain from the concept and measurement of energy. With its basis in physical reality yet po-tential for practical ap-plication across the so-cial and physical sci-ences, energy provides bountiful opportunities, practical and theoreti-cal. Interdisciplinary researchers, and geog-raphers in particular, can make far better use

of knowledge about en-ergy.

Energy can be seen as the 'master resource' Its abundance allows all the ingredients of com-plex civilisation to be harvested, processed and whisked together, from ploughing to com-munications. The last 200 years have been largely defined by an exponential fossil fuel binge resulting in un-precedented human population densities, wealth accumulations, life expectancies and disparities in per capita energy use: “the differ-ence in modern energy consumption between a subsistence pastoralist in the Sahel and an av-erage Canadian may easily be larger than 1,000-fold” (Smil, 2008). Due to energy intensive transport, the world has shrunk from an expanse so vast that many didn't know if it was spheri-cal or flat to a floating ball in space that one can traverse in 24 hours if one has the resources and desire to do so. A return flight to New York, for example, burns 450 kg of kero-sene, or 21 GJ (see chooseclimate.org/flying/). This was the average per capita pri-mary energy use in Bo-livia during 2006! (according to the World Resources Institute). Energy is the „capacity to do work‟ and, true to nature, it makes things happen, from mining (e.g. for more energy), to international re-search trips, to war. The capacity of energy re-sources to transform ecologist Howard Odum

put it in his “Ten com-mandments of the en-ergy ethic for the sur-vival of man [sic] in na-ture” (Odum, 1971, p.244). Energy can be used as an alternative to money for measuring 'value' In these times of finan-cial turmoil and 'free' markets turned feral, energy has an excellent claim to measuring value better than digi-tally derived markers of abstract wealth. Money has its advantages, for sure, but for the pur-poses of geography it falls down in several important ways:

So energy is a great way of fixing a value on things that is quantifi-able , but less distorted a measure than money. Geographers (but not neoclassical econo-mists, alas) have gener-ally been careful to avoid these money traps and energy met-rics provide practical

alternatives. But how to include it in geographi-cal research? How to include en-ergy? Its use and mis-use For starters, I'd advo-cate looking to the physical sciences, where the modern con-cept of energy was forged. An example from Physical Geogra-phy illustrates both the utility of the concept, as well as its common mis-use. Using a cotton mesh to estimate addi-tional erosion caused by rainfall, ex-Sheffield geographer John Wain-wright and others em-ployed the concept's physical meaning: “Water falling from the underside of ... the cot-ton cloth has insuffi-cient energy to cause significant removal of the sediment” (Parsons et al. 1994). This quote shows how energy expresses the 'capacity to do work' concisely. Although it is employed here to refer to the potential effects of a rain on topsoil, the same understanding of energy can be used to discuss humans' ability to transform the world around them and, invok-ing the term 'power' (energy/time), their influence over one another (Odum, 1971). The above quote also highlights how the con-cept of energy can be misused: no units were allocated to the kinetic energy content of a fal-ling raindrop (~ 10-4 J) and worse, it was probably the power (or power per unit area) that was damaging the soil. Trying to quantify

ENERGY: A CONCEPT AND PRACTICAL TOOL FOR GEOGRAPHERS By Robin Lovelace

'how much' energy we are talking about, and being precise about whether energy, power, or densities are most important are worth-while steps towards the use of energy in geo-graphical research. Energy in geography Geography is a broad and diverse discipline and within it, my type of geography – that which looks at two way hu-man/environment inter-action – plays a rela-tively small part. Within this 'environmental ge-ography', energy is im-portant in two ways. First, our impact on na-ture: energy use is closely related to local and global atmospheric contaminants and (due largely to spills and fuel extraction) disruptions of natural processes. Second: is nature's im-pact on us: we are de-pendent on stored sunlight for the provi-sion of chemical energy supplies that we burn for transport, heating, and manufactured items; when the supply starts to fall (global oil production is likely to enter terminal decline during the next decade (Aleklett et al. 2010)) we must adapt. Energy is relevant to other geog-raphies also, from the geopolitics of securing fossil fuel supplies (Kristoffersen & Young, 2010) to the impacts of its future scarcity on arguments and actions about localisation (North, 2010). My PhD, however, limits itself to analysing how and why energy use in one sec-tor – passenger land transport – varies over

- Money is not fixed to physical reality (since the collapse of the gold standard in 1971). - Money is variable: a £1 today will not be £1 in 2050; 1 litre of petrol will always contain –32 MJ of primary energy, re-gardless of its price. - Debt: you can „borrow‟ money at interest, leading to the economy‟s ob-session with growth. Not with energy.

6

time and space. Energy in my research My research stems from a paper that estimates the energy implications of replacing car trips with bicycle trips in Sheffield (Lovelace et al. 2011). Whilst we could have estimated health, environmental, or CO2 impacts, energy seemed appropriate for some of the reasons outlined above: it is not fickle over time like money, it is tangible, and it is rooted in physical real-ity. We estimated that, if cycling continues to grow at its current rate, bike trips could replace almost 1 million car trips per year by 2020, with fuel savings of 12 TJ across the city (this is enough energy to pro-vide electricity to more than 1,000 houses for a

STUDENT ARTICLES

References Aleklett, K. et al., 2010. The Peak of the Oil Age – Analy-zing the world oil production Reference Scenario in World Energy Outlook 2008. Energy Policy, 38(3), pp.1398-1414. Kristoffersen, B. & Young, S., 2010. Geographies of security and statehood in Norway‟s “Battle of the North.” Geofo-rum, 41(4), pp.577-584. Lovelace, R. et al., 2011. As-sessing the energy implica-tions of replacing car trips with bicycle trips in Sheffield, UK. Energy Policy, 39(4), pp.2075-2087. MacKay, D.J.C., 2009. Sus-tainable energy: without the hot air. Cambridge: UIT. North, P., 2010. Eco-localisation as progressive response to peak oil and climate change– A sympa-thetic critique. Geoforum, 41(4), pp.585-594. Odum, H.T., 1971. Environ-ment, power, and society, Wiley-Interscience. Parsons, A., Abrahams, A. & Wainwright, J. 1994. Rainsplash and erosion rates in an interrill area on semi-arid grassland, Southern Arizaon. Catena, 22(3), pp.215-226. Smil, V., 2008. Energy in na-ture and society, {MIT} Press.

year; a drop in the ocean!). This work opened my eyes to the potential for harnessing energy analysis as a pol-icy evaluation tool. The concept of 'energy sys-tems' and the 'energy hierarchy' held great potential for further work, but it is the meth-odological side of this research that my PhD builds on. Many energy analyses are currently non-geographical. Sure, a typical UK citizen may consume 125 kWh of primary energy per day (164 GJ/yr or 5,000 litre of petrol per year), but to date studies into why this is and how we can supply our needs in the absence of fossil fuels usually simply take na-tional averages (see MacKay, 2009, freely available online). In-stead of taking the en-

Fig.1: Preliminary costs of the energy costs of transport to work in Sheffield

tire energy supply sys-tem in one go, it makes sense to break the problem up into chunks. The chunk that I am fo-cussed on, transport to work, is important be-cause it is highly de-pendent on oil (our most rapidly depleting fossil fuel), has few eas-ily implemented “technical fixes” avail-able, and is vital for quality of life. The first stage is descriptive: how many people by which modes where, how dynamic is this, and how much energy does this involve (Fig. 1)? Upon these foundations (that I'm currently working on), will be built analyses into why some areas use more energy than we would expect, while others use less. Finally, and cru-cially, is the question of equality: what kinds of

people are vulnerable to future 'oil shocks'? How can we design policies to target certain types of commuter to reduce energy costs of getting to work? To answer these questions, we must zoom in and use people, not predefined geographic areas, as the unit of analysis. Spatial microsimulation is a tried and tested tool for this job and is currently a supreme sink for my intellectual energy!

By way of conclusion, my message to people reading this article is simple: think about en-ergy. Try to find out how much energy is involved in the things you‟re researching and your everyday life. It‟s an accessible way of tying value down to a (more or less) objective external reality!

ENERGY: A CONCEPT AND PRACTICAL TOOL FOR GEOGRAPHERS (Continued) By Robin Lovelace

7

knows what the ongoing economic crisis will mean for a city that is so heavily dependent on the vitality of global fi-nancial markets. The world of mapping is taking that change of an increased attention with the celebration of the London Mapping Festival (LMF) 2011-12, which the Sasi Research Group of our Department has de-cided to support. The festival is not a single event, but an 18 month programme of activities designed to promote the unique range of map-

STUDENT ARTICLES

2012 will be the year that London is in the spotlight of many events. Not only will the Olympics draw the world‟s attention to the capital city, but also will Londoners elect a new (or re-elect an old) mayor in spring, and with a Diamond Jubilee year coming up as well the global yellow press will yet again look to-wards London. And who

ping, innovative tech-nologies and applica-tions that exist for the Capital. It will showcase all mapping-related dis-ciplines including car-tography, surveying, GIS, GPS and remote sensing. The main platform of the event(s) is the LMF website (http://www.londonmappingfestival.org/) where con-stant updates to the ongoing activities are made. It is well worth visiting for all map-enthusiasts and those who are interested in

London in Maps: a changing perspective, (ISBN: 978-0-9545270-2-0, pp 200, RRP £29.99 + p&p), is available online at http://

www.londonmappingfestival.org/london-in-maps, or by calling +44 (0)1223 880077. Contributions on all sales will go to the the LMF

charity, Map Action, in support of the excellent work they carry out in mapping disaster zones or in support of humanitarian programmes.

London. The most recent out-come of the LMF is the new book „London in Maps: a changing per-spective‟, which was released after the hugely successful Map-ping Showcase that was held in early December in the Emirates Sta-dium. The book is a col-lection of 68 maps illus-trating the diverse ways in which the Capital has been mapped and por-trayed both today and in the past. The 200 pages of highly detailed maps, charts and carto-

grams, artist impres-sions as well as aerial and satellite images ranging from the mod-ern day back to the 17th century – and the word cartogram already indi-cates that there is also a contribution of our De-partment in the book: As part of a new re-search project funded by the Trust for London we created a gridded population cartogram of London that we will use as a basemap for a look-ing into social and spa-tial inequalities in the capital.

LONDON IN MAPS By Ben Hennig

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