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Root Water Uptake Patterns are Controlled by Tree Species Interactions and Soil Water Variability
Get PDFRoot water uptake depends on soil moisture which is primarily fed by throughfall in forests. Several biotic and abiotic elements shape the spatial distribution of throughfall. It is well documented that throughfall patterns result in reoccurring higher and lower water inputs at certain locations. However, how the spatial distribution of throughfall affects root water uptake patterns remains unresolved. Therefore, we investigate root water uptake patterns by considering spatial patterns of throughfall and soil water in addition to soil and neighboring tree characteristics. In a beech-dominated mixed deciduous forest in a temperate climate, we conducted intensive throughfall sampling at locations paired with soil moisture sensors during the 2019 growing season. We employed a linear mixed-effects model to understand controlling factors in root water uptake patterns. Our results show that soil water patterns and interactions among neighboring trees are the most significant factors regulating root water uptake patterns. Temporally stable throughfall patterns did not influence root water uptake patterns. Similarly, soil properties were unimportant for spatial patterns of root water uptake. We found that wetter locations (rarely associated with throughfall hotspots) promoted greater root water uptake. Root water uptake in monitored soil layers also increased with neighborhood species richness. Ultimately our findings suggest that complementarity mechanisms within the forest stand, in addition to soil water variability and availability, govern root water uptake patterns
The Destructive Work of Restoration: Fishing Communities Facing Territorialization in Turag River
Get PDFUrban river restoration efforts are growing worldwide. Along with restoring and conserving rivers, riverside land is slated for public recreation, property development, and infrastructure for adaptation to climate change. Riverine landscapes, embedded in larger watershed ecosystems and claimed by multiple communities, are sites of contested planning in contemporary cities. In this paper, we advance the scholarship on contestation over control and access of urban rivers and floodplains by analyzing the role of river restorative legislation and water-centered planning in managing Turag, an urban river in Bangladesh. While river degradation in urbanizing regions is often ascribed to lack of regulatory controls and enforcement, we argue that restorative legislation and interventions facilitate Turag River\u27s ecocide by processes of territorialization. Territorialization refers to the co-constitutive dynamics of river restorative legislations and interventions as well as planned infrastructure and land use changes, which erase and displace river-based communities with reciprocal relations to the river. Riverine livelihoods and lifemaking, among fishing and farming communities in the case of Turag, are erased from planning and restoration practices, and are consequently expelled from the expanding city. Drawing on qualitative and counter-cartographic investigation of one severely polluted urban river in Dhaka, Bangladesh, we show how territorialization materializes through five co-constitutive dynamics involving environmental legislation, encroachment reporting, river demarcation, encroachment evictions, and wetland to land conversions. We draw out critical implications of how river restoration can be just and advance a riverine urbanism
Diversity on the Altiplano: Geochemical Perspectives on 3,000 Years of Potting Practices in the Lake Titicaca Basin
Get PDFPotters in the Lake Titicaca basin produced a wide variety of ceramic styles over the last 3000 years. Archaeologists have drawn on this variety across space and time to track processes such as the development of multi-community polities during the Late Formative (200 BC-AD 600), the origins and expansion of Tiwanaku (AD 600–1000), the creation and maintenance of political boundaries during the Late Intermediate period (AD 1000–1400), and the strategies of Inca conquest and consolidation (AD 1400–1534). We report on LA-ICP-MS research into Titicaca ceramics and clays conducted at the Field Museum’s Elemental Analysis Facility (EAF), and present the first review of raw materials and pottery analyzed from across the region. Ceramic samples from the northern basin include samples from Taraco, Pukara, and neighboring sites, and speak to the diversity of intraregional potting practices during the Late Formative Period. Ceramic samples from the southern basin span the Middle Formative through the Inca periods, and index local and regional practices over two millennia. After presenting our specific case studies, we touch on how shifting scales of locality impact the chemical signatures explored here, the potential for comparative analyses across the region, and future directions for research collaborations
Mill River Community Flood Study Williamsburg, Massachusetts
No full textThe Mill River corridor in Williamsburg, Massachusetts has a profound historical relationship with flooding that shapes contemporary approaches to water management and community resilience. On May 16, 1874, the Williamsburg Reservoir dam catastrophically failed, releasing over 600 million gallons of water into the Mill River that devastated communities along an 8-mile path downstream1 The resulting flood claimed 139 lives and obliterated four Mill River villages, marking one of America\u27s first major dam disasters. The tragedy stemmed from a fatal combination of cost-cutting measures, inadequate oversight, and structural instability - the dam had exhibited concerning leaks since its completion in 1866. Despite an extensive inquest that identified multiple parties responsible for the disaster, no one was ever held accountable, setting a troubling precedent for infrastructure accountability in the region
Reason in an Uncertain World: Nyāya Philosophers on Argumentation and Living Well
No full textWhile many people today might turn to ancient Sanskrit philosophers for meditation or yoga, probably few would turn to them for help with difficult contemporary problems, such as what counts as fake news or navigating Internet debates. Philosopher Malcolm Keating argues that, in fact, a group of premodern Indian philosophers known as Nyāya have important things to say about how we can distinguish truth from falsity and reason well together, both of which are crucial to living a good life. In Reason in an Uncertain World, Keating teaches us what\u27s distinctive in Nyāya approaches to knowledge and discussion, explaining these ideas in relationship to ordinary examples readers can understand. What are the limits of our reasoning? What counts as good evidence for our beliefs? How do we know if someone is a trustworthy source of information? What do we do when we are gripped by doubt? When is a debate with someone worth our time, and how can we discuss contentious topics? The answers to these questions are as relevant today as they were in ancient India. There, they were the focus of Nyāya philosophy, one of the most influential traditions of Indian philosophy, which few outside of scholarly communities have heard of. Source: Publisherhttps://scholarworks.smith.edu/phi_books/1007/thumbnail.jp
Afterword: Elephants by Night: African Poems Paperback by Abraham Sutzkever
No full textAfterword by Justin Cammy
Bilingual Yiddish/English text, translated by Mel Konner
How was Abraham Sutzkever, the most famous Yiddish poet to survive the ghettos of Europe, inspired by an invitation to speak in South Africa? How did he transform his travels into a celebration of the creative impulse at a moment when Yiddish literature was saturated with memory and mourning? Elephants by Night offers a timeless meditation on the intersection of place, memory, and renewal.https://scholarworks.smith.edu/jud_books/1008/thumbnail.jp
Reading Japanese Linguistic Landscapes for Critical Multiliteracies Nurturing Agency and Criticality for Social Justice
No full textSocial Justice through Pedagogies of Multiliteracies explores the ways in which pedagogies of multiliteracies can be used to promote and achieve situated forms of social justice, especially for minoritized L2 learners.
This edited collection focuses on pedagogies of multiliteracies that seek to develop and strengthen L2 learner identity and agency within and outside formal educational contexts in bilingual, multilingual, multimodal, community, language, and teacher education. The volume contextualizes agency and identity around questions, ideologies, and issues related to language, gender, sex, sexuality, body, race, and ethnicity. Contributions illustrate the design and implementation of pedagogies of multiliteracies through a diverse range of modalities and settings: linguistic landscapes, graphic novels, picturebooks, photovoice, text, and imagery through instructor- and student-developed materials. The volume acknowledges, enacts, and builds upon the responsibility of L2 educators to develop pedagogies of multiliteracies that reflect the life experiences, identities, and needs of minoritized L2 individuals in the curriculum in order to realize the social justice aim of L2 education.
Social Justice through Pedagogies of Multiliteracies will be of interest to L2 researchers, teachers, and teacher educators.
Source: Publisherhttps://scholarworks.smith.edu/eas_books/1010/thumbnail.jp
Do Plants Know Math? Unwinding the Story of Plant Spirals, from Leonardo da Vinci to Now
No full textCharles Darwin was driven to distraction by plant spirals, growing so exasperated that he once begged a friend to explain the mystery “if you wish to save me from a miserable death.” The legendary naturalist was hardly alone in feeling tormented by these patterns. Plant spirals captured the gaze of Leonardo da Vinci and became Alan Turing’s final obsession. This book tells the stories of the physicists, mathematicians, and biologists who found themselves magnetically drawn to Fibonacci spirals in plants, seeking an answer to why these beautiful and seductive patterns occur in botanical forms as diverse as pine cones, cabbages, and sunflowers.
Do Plants Know Math? takes you down through the centuries to explore how great minds have been captivated and mystified by Fibonacci patterns in nature. It presents a powerful new geometrical solution, little known outside of scientific circles, that sheds light on why regular and irregular spiral patterns occur. Along the way, the book discusses related plant geometries such as fractals and the fascinating way that leaves are folded inside of buds. Your neurons will crackle as you begin to see the connections. This book will inspire you to look at botanical patterns—and the natural world itself—with new eyes.
Featuring hundreds of gorgeous color images, Do Plants Know Math? includes a dozen creative hands-on activities and even spiral-plant recipes, encouraging readers to explore and celebrate these beguiling patterns for themselves.https://scholarworks.smith.edu/mth_books/1002/thumbnail.jp
You Said
No full textYou Said (paper, tape, text, 9.5 by 13.5, )
A collage and epistolary text published featured on the cover of Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media. This special issue celebrates the work of queer feminist experimental film icon MM Serra
Green Informalities as Socially Just Ecological Infrastucture: Enduring with Dignity at the Edges of Resilient Development in Dhaka
No full textEcological infrastructure and urban agriculture are enacting a green resurgence in cities. In the global South, however, ecological infrastructure is often premised on erasing already existing informal agricultural practices (green informalities) and leads to the displacement of marginalized urban dwellers. How, then, can ecological infrastructure be calibrated with the specific realities of the global South’s green informalities? What other socially just modalities of infrastructure can be learned from the vantage point of informal settlements? Past urban scholarship has documented the crucial role of urban agriculture in addressing food insecurity and poverty in the global South, yet the symbolic, collective and political dimensions of agricultural practices are absent from these accounts. Drawing from critical urban scholarship and feminist political ecology, and based on engaged research with a collective of urban farmers facing eviction, I argue that green informalities bring together dwellers and plants in an intimate entanglement in the everyday gendered politics of endurability and collective power-building at the settlement level. The article illustrates that the informal economic and political practices that constitute these green informalities are crucial for understanding grassroots practices vis-à-vis urban environments. Recognizing the political and affective dimensions of green informalities can move urban studies and governance towards a situated appreciation of informal urban agriculture as socially just ecological infrastructure that centers justice and dweller agency