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The chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the baptismal spaces at Henchir el Koucha (Tunisia), Myrtilis Iulia (now Mértola), and Milreu/Estói (Portugal), examining how each site incorporates pre-Christian elements into Christian contexts. At Henchir el Koucha, iconography associated with the Roman circus is ingeniously blended into a Christian framework. In the case of Myrtilis Iulia, the chapter explores a building with both palatial and baptismal features and makes suggestions about what might have motivated the representation of the mythological hero Bellerophon in baptistery. Milreu stands out for inserting a baptismal space within a pre-existing Roman monument, allowing the site’s mosaic frieze showing a marine thiasus scene to symbolize the salvific water of baptism. In each case, the incorporation of Roman elements wasn’t merely pragmatic but represented a conscious choice to articulate a multifaceted Christian identity that acknowledged and even celebrated its Roman cultural heritage. The chapter argues that these nuanced choices offer a flexible and inclusive model of Christian identity.
This chapter examines the opportunities and challenges for the management of biodiversity in desert and water-scarce regions, in particular sub-regions of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It explores the need for the integrated management of water and biodiversity in the region, how the current legal framework of biodiversity protection can advance an integrated governance approach, the gaps in integrative governance in the region, and how these gaps can be addressed. Although MENA is one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change, it is not homogenous. Its geography deserves a nuanced investigation of the threats of climate change and biodiversity loss to each of its sub-regions. The integrated management of water and biodiversity resources is essential to address the impacts of climate change and other ecological pressures coherently. To advance such integrated governance of water and biodiversity, a wide array of cross-sub regional and cross-national initiatives have been developed. However, problems of diverse political landscape, economic priorities, varied institutional capacities, and transboundary challenges hinder their effective and coherent implementation. This chapter examines the legal framework on the integrated management of water and biodiversity in the MENA region, offering recommendations for improving the current regime of water conservation.
This chapter explores Hopkins’s responses to the environmental degradation he witnessed in the 1870s and 1880s – from the time of his earliest professional assignments in the industrial north to his final years in Dublin – when the destructive effects of manufacturing industry, mechanization, and urban expansion were becoming increasingly apparent. Drawing on select poems, journals, and letters especially those to his family and friends when he relocates and describes his new surroundings, the chapter compares his views to those of his contemporaries such as John Ruskin and the industrial ‘Lanarkshire poets’ near Glasgow, Scotland. It focuses particularly on the pollution of air and water by mines and mills, and the emphasis Hopkins places on the purity of these elements for the well-being of both human and non-human life. It also notes Hopkins’s awareness of the damage done to whole ecosystems in the name of social and economic ‘progress’.
Stunting, a manifestation of chronic malnutrition, is widespread in India. This, coupled with biased preferences of parents towards their eldest sons, has led to stunting and underweight among girls that grows sharply with increasing birth order. We study the impact of an environmental water pollutant on child growth outcomes in arsenic contaminated regions of India. Using a large, nationally representative household survey and exploiting variation in soil textures across districts as an instrument for arsenic, we find that arsenic exposure beyond the safe threshold level is negatively associated with height-for-age and weight-for-age. Negative effects are larger for girls who are born at higher birth orders relative to the eldest. This, we argue, suggests that the lack of adequate nutrition and health care during early childhood can make girls more vulnerable to external environmental hazards due to their lower immunity and underdeveloped bodies.
This chapter presents Republican-era efforts to turn the Yangtze River into an engine of developmental nation-building by erecting a Three Gorges Dam. Starting with Sun Yat-sen’s initial proposal in 1919 and closing with the Sino-American attempt in the 1940s, this chapter examines how Chinese and foreign actors pursued this developmental dream.Undeterred by the financial challenges of the project, the dam’s backers argued China could overcome a domestic dearth of capital by working with foreign collaborators. This joint venture would benefit both China and foreigners by not only easing trade with the Chinese interior and creating a marvel of modern engineering, but also because the dam would furnish a gargantuan electrical stimulus to the transformation of China into an industrial powerhouse with a growing demand for foreign products. Although the dam was not constructed in the Republican period, Chinese and foreign actors would continue to pursue the infrastructural fantasy of installing mammoth dams on China’s rivers to fuel national industrialization on both sides of the Taiwan Straits during the Cold War.
In this chapter, I first document the great agrarian famine of 1879–80, followed by a detailed analysis of peasants’ livelihood circumstances in the countryside of Diyarbekir, Erzurum and Van, and the politics of food and water scarcity as it impacted agricultural production and the agrarian economy. Next, I turn to the appearance of new environmental disasters in the 1880s and 1890s. These crises exacerbated conflict between local powerbrokers and peasants, and radically transformed settlement patterns within Ottoman Kurdistan. The second major section of the chapter depicts how climatic factors and the periodicity of environmental change impacted pastoralists and it includes a discussion of how climatic fluctuations affect the physiology of herd animals. I conclude this section by examining pastoralist survival strategies, and how these contributed to the growth of intercommunal tension in Kurdistan in the last decades of the nineteenth century.
Edited by
Ottavio Quirico, University of New England, University for Foreigners of Perugia and Australian National University, Canberra,Walter Baber, California State University, Long Beach
Climate change will intensify water scarcity, especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The European Union’s Green Deal ‘new growth strategy’ promotes a policy agenda that underscores the need to support regions at risk while moving forward with adaptation and mitigation measures. In MENA, transboundary water use and dispute is intrinsic to the region, exacerbating environmental risks of desertification, rising temperatures and increased rainfall variability. Water management is central to effective climate and adaptation policy, as water access is a key determinant of socioeconomic stability and development. This stability is central to intergovernmental cooperation on climate initiatives and has undermined progress on this front in the region since the 1950s. The water sector is a core aspect of climate adaptation and mitigation, particularly as the hydrological cycle will be severely impacted by climate change. Therefore, effective water policy and resource management is the critical node of effective climate mitigation and adaptation in MENA.
Life-as-we-know-it harnesses carbon for the scaffolding in biomolecules and liquid water as the solvent. This chapter delineates the beneficial properties of carbon and water, and then investigates whether viable alternatives to this duo exist (i.e., ‘exotic’ life). With regard to the latter, the likes of ammonia, sulfuric acid, and liquid hydrocarbons are expected to have some physical and/or chemical advantages relative to water, while also exhibiting certain downsides. In contrast, it is suggested that few options appear feasible aside from carbon, with silicon representing a partial exception. The chapter subsequently delves into the habitability of the clouds of Venus and the lakes of Titan, because the alternative solvents sulfuric acid and liquid hydrocarbons (methane and ethane) are, respectively, documented therein. Both these environments might be conducive to hosting exotic life, but it is cautioned that they are likely subjected to severe challenges.
Liturgical prayer plays a significant role in Anglo-Saxon healing remedies. It is not, contrary to recent studies on prayer, “relatively rare in medical remedies” (Thomas 2020: 224). Chapter 1, “Invoking Baptism,” argues that charms borrow crucial verbal and physical components of the baptismal liturgy in order to invoke the sacrament and its celebration. The most vital of the texts gathered as incantations is the Creed, which lies at the foundation of Baptism. Alongside the Creed appears the Pater Noster, anti-demonic utterances and exorcistic gestures, water and its use for washing, and the Sign of the Cross or Triune blessing. The allusive force of these liturgical artifacts is clear and strong enough, especially when they act as a collective, to evoke the liturgy. The act of recalling the liturgy within the performance arena results in the summoning of the liturgy’s power as a force for healing. Through the manipulation of baptismal forms, charms translate Baptism’s ability to heal the soul into the ability to heal the body. While charms do not exorcize the devil or baptize people in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as is done at Baptism, the sacrament is so essential to the people’s spiritual welfare that healers harness its associations and apply them medicinally in traditional remedies.
Cystic and alveolar echinococcosis are considered the second and third most significant foodborne parasitic diseases worldwide. The microscopic eggs excreted in the feces of the definitive host are the only source of contamination for intermediate and dead-end hosts, including humans. However, estimating the respective contribution of the environment, fomites, animals or food in the transmission of Echinococcus eggs is still challenging. Echinococcus granulosus and E. multilocularis seem to have a similar survival capacity regarding temperature under laboratory conditions. In addition, field experiments have reported that the eggs can survive several weeks to years outdoors, with confirmation of the relative susceptibility of Echinococcus eggs to desiccation. Bad weather (such as rain and wind), invertebrates and birds help scatter Echinococcus eggs in the environment and may thus impact human exposure. Contamination of food and the environment by taeniid eggs has been the subject of renewed interest in the past decade. Various matrices from endemic regions have been found to be contaminated by Echinococcus eggs. These include water, soil, vegetables and berries, with heterogeneous rates highlighting the need to acquire more robust data so as to obtain an accurate assessment of the risk of human infection. In this context, it is essential to use efficient methods of detection and to develop methods for evaluating the viability of eggs in the environment and food.
Opus signinum is a lime mortar mix that includes crushed pottery as an aggregate. Because it is water-resistant, it was used to line hydraulic structures like pools and aqueducts. While there have been numerous recreations of Roman ‘concretes’ in the past, hydrophobic linings have received little attention, and all preliminary studies in these recreations have paid more attention to the dry components and the lime than to the hydric needs of the mortar. The experiment presented here was to gain a better understanding, with the help of traditional builders, of the process of mixing and applying hydrophobic linings and calculate the water consumption of individual samples. The data obtained contribute to assessing the water consumption needs on Roman construction sites, what associated logistics these volumes required, and what the technicalities of applying this specific type of lining were.
The identification and quantification of the water associated with powdered clinoptilolite and clinoptilolite-bearing tuffs were made using thermogravimetric, vacuum gravimetric, and differential scanning calorimetric techniques. Inflection points on thermogravimetric curves at approximately 80° and 170°C correspond to changes in the proportions of externally adsorbed water to loosely bound zeolitic water and loosely bound zeolitic water to tightly bound zeolitic water, respectively. These three types of water can be differentiated by temperatures and heats of dehydration obtained from differential scanning calorimetry. These temperatures and heats of hydration are 75 ± 10°C and 59.2 ± 5.9 kJ/mole H2O, 171 ± 2°C and 58.7 ± 6.1 kJ/mole H2O, and 271 ± 4°C and 78.7 ± 7.0 kJ/mole H2O for external water, loosely bound water, and tightly bound water, respectively. The ratio of loosely bound zeolitic water to tightly bound zeolitic water determined in this study is similar to that reported in the literature from structural determinations, indicating that the desorption properties of clinoptilolite are determined by the specific positions of the water molecules in the structure.
The integral thermodynamic quantities of adsorbed water on Na- and Ca-montmorillonite have been calculated from water adsorption isotherms on Na- and Ca-montmorillonite at 298° and 313°K and from one adsorption isotherm and calorimetric measurements at 298°K. The integral entropy values decrease and then increase as the amount of adsorbed water approaches zero. In both systems, the curves approach the entropy value of free liquid water at the high content water. The thermodynamics of adsorbate on a non-inert adsorbent is discussed in some detail. The two-isotherm method gives the energy change of the water phase only, whereas the colorimetric method gives the energy change of the whole system (clay, exchangeable cations, and the adsorbed water). Only when the energy changes in the solid phase are negligible (=inert surface) should the two methods give similar results. An hypothesis was developed to explain the entropy-change data of water adsorbed on clay surfaces, in which the clay surface behaves as a non-inert adsorbent.
The diffusion of water in Li-montmorillonite was studied by incoherent quasielastic neutron scattering. Experiments were carried out on sedimented samples equilibrated at relative humidities of 32%, 58%, and 98%, corresponding approximately to 1, 2, and 3 molecular layers of water in the clay. At all three humidities, although the mobility of the water molecules is less than in bulk water, all water molecules in the system undergo translational diffusion, at least over short distances (>5 Å), with correlation times shorter than 5 × 10−11 sec.
Various models of molecular motion have been used to account for the exact shape of the scattering. The only completely successful model is one where a water molecule undergoes jump-translational diffusion and rotational diffusion. The mean square jump length is 10–15 Å2 with a residence time between jumps of 4–2 × 10−11 sec. The translational diffusion coefficient increases with humidity, having values of 4, 7, and 10 × 10−10 m2/sec for the three humidities. These values can be combined with values previously obtained by tracer measurements to give an estimate of 0.75–0.8 for the tortuosity factor. Although the samples are anisotropic, there is no clear evidence that the diffusion of water over distances 5–20 Å is anisotropic. An upper limit of 3 can be deduced for the rate of diffusion parallel to the direction perpendicular to the platelets.
Well-crystallized laumontite has been found for the first time precipitating naturally at the earth's surface at temperatures of 89° to 43°C as a component of gray to white coatings and efflorescences on exterior surface and as precipitates on interior fractures of stones and blocks lining Hot Springs Creek immediately downstream from Sespe Hot Springs, Ventura County, California. X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscope (SEM), and electron microprobe analyses show thenardite to be the dominant phase in the exterior coatings, in association with minor microcrystalline (<50 μm) laumontite and gypsum. Macrocrystalline (>1 mm) laumontite is the dominant phase in interior fracture coatings and is associated with quartz, potassium feldspar, and gypsum. Trace amounts of smectite(?), halite, a mercury sulfide, an iron sulfide, an iron-bearing mineral (possibly an oxide or carbonate), and a copper mineral are also present. Zeolites other than laumontite have not been seen, and carbonate minerals are either entirely or nearly absent. SEM textures indicate nonreactive intergrowths of laumontite, quartz, potassium feldspar, and gypsum. Unbroken laumontite crystals are generally euhedral or have skeletal growth characteristics and exhibit sharp, fresh, non-corroded faces, edges, and corners.
The water issuing from the hottest and largest spring is 89°C, has a pH of 7.74, 1200 mg/liter total dissolved solids, and contains Na+, Cl−, SO42-, and H4SiO4 as the dominant dissolved species. Computations indicate that the water is supersaturated with respect to laumontite, quartz, chlorite, and prehnite and is slightly undersaturated with respect to calcite and noncrystalline silica. Water-dominated water-rock interaction is indicated by isotopic analyses. The δO18 composition expectable on the basis of the −81‰ δD composition is −11.38‰ instead of the −9.5‰ actually found (all referred to SMOW). The water chemistry suggests that the subsurface water source may have a temperature of 125°–135°C. This temperature range, together with the regionally low geothermal gradient, implies that the source is probably 3550 to 3900 m beneath the springs in fractured and permeable Mesozoic and older plutonites and gneisses.
The discovery of laumontite crystallizing at atmospheric pressure and 43°C (or lower) provides important insight into the processes responsible for burial diagenetic laumontite and a valuable perspective on the zeolite metamorphic facies.
The influence of the activity of water on the phase composition of aluminum hydroxides obtained by reaction of amalgamated aluminum with water has been studied. The reaction was carried out in solutions of water and dioxane, and in sodium chloride solutions of different concentrations; amorphous aluminum hydroxide was precipitated initially. The aging of this primary product to bayerite, pseudoboehmite, or an amorphous gel was controlled by the water content of the system. The pseudoboehmite has shown a significant reactivity when used as a source of alumina in the hydrothermal syntheses of kaolinite at relatively low temperature and pressure.
The basal spacings of montmorillonites with Li, Na, K, Cs, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, and Pb interlayer cations were measured after immersion in dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) and in water-DMSO mixtures. In DMSO alone, the spacings were in the range 18.3–19.3 Å and fell on or near a single curve when plotted against ionic field strength, q/r2, where q = valence and r = ionic radius. These spacings correspond to double layers of DMSO molecules between the silicate layers. Water had practically no effect on the spacings when the mole fraction of DMSO exceeded about 35–45%. Osmotic swelling of Li-, Na-, and K-mont-morillonite occurred up to mole percentages of DMSO 45%, 30%, and 10%, respectively. K- and Cs-mont-morillonite formed single-layer complexes in appropriate water-DMSO mixtures with spacings of 14.3 Å prior to development of double-layer complexes when the mole fraction of DMSO exceeded 35% and 15%, respectively.
The frequency, v, for O-D stretching in D2O films between the superimposed layers of different micas and montmorillonites was measured at several film thicknesses and temperatures of 2° and 25°C by infrared spectroscopy. The molar absorptivity, ε, for O-D stretching in HDO films between the montmorillonite layers was also measured at different film thicknesses and 25°C. It was found that v is related to mw/mm, the mass ratio of D2O to mica or montmorillonite, by the equation v = v0 exp β/(mwmm where v0 is the O-D stretching frequency in pure D2O and ß is a constant. Since mw/mm is proportional to a, the area under the absorption peak, mw/mm can be replaced by a in this equation. It was also found that ε decreased dramatically as the thickness of the water film between the montmorillonite layers decreased. These results were interpreted to mean that the structure of the interlayer water is perturbed by the interlayer cations and/or silicate surfaces.
As the UK, and the world, enters another decade of climate-anguished debate, the record of the Conservatives’ policy and actions between 2010 and 2024 is under scrutiny. Dieter Helm analyses the extent to which the natural environment improved, how housebuilding interacted with pressures to protect the environment, the legacy of privatised industries, comparisons to what a Labour government’s actions in office may have been and to what extent a sustainable path to net zero was achieved by the Conservative Party.
In Chapter 13, we provide a preliminary analysis of the policy orientation of the EU’s post-Covid-19 new economic governance (NEG) regime to give policymakers, unionists, and social-movement activists an idea about possible future trajectories of EU governance of employment relations and public services. We do that on the basis of not only the recently adopted EU laws in these two policy areas, such as the decommodifying Minimum Wage Directive, but also EU executives’ post-Covid-19 NEG prescriptions in two areas (employment relations, public services), three public sectors (transport services, water services, healthcare services), and four countries (Germany, Italy, Ireland, Romania). Vertical NEG interventions in national wage policies paradoxically cleared the way for the decommodifying EU Minimum Wage Directive by effectively making wage policy an EU policymaking issue, but, in the area of public services, we see an accentuation of the trend of NEG prescriptions in recent years: more public investments but also much more private sector involvement in the delivery of public services.