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Comparing hybrid urbanisms in the global south : water delivery configurations in Peru and Ghana
(2023)
Urban development processes in the Global South (and North) are often described as characterized by formal and informal practices of different actors and their respective material realities. In critical urban studies, the disposition for this binary conception of formal and informal urbanisms has been discussed for many years. To a certain extent, these sometimes align rather problematically with contrasting notions of the “structural” versus the “everyday.” In this article, we explore an understanding of formal and informal urban practices (and respectively “structure” and “everyday”) as always interrelated, and we develop a methodology for a comparative examination of such hybrid urbanisms. In doing so, we address a missing link in the surging theoretical debate on comparative/southern urbanisms, which has rarely been substantiated by methodological explorations. The adapted concept of “delivery configurations” combines analyses of actor networks, material realities, rules and regulations, discourses, and heterogenous arrays of urban practices of negotiating these. However, bringing together local particularities and structural commonalities and exploring their interrelation only provides a basis for understanding case‐specific complexities. We argue that embedding the analysis in a multi‐scalar comparative framework can further its analytical rather than descriptive attributes and provide deeper insights into issues such as social inequality. To illustrate our methodological contribution, we provide first insights from a comparative research
project of water delivery in different neighbourhoods in the secondary cities of Sunyani (Ghana) and Arequipa (Peru). We highlight the practical challenges of comparing diverse urban contexts and examining the rather complex relationships between infrastructure delivery, urban development, and social inequality.
Multidimensional visualization of preferential flow pathways using neutron and x-ray radiation
(2016)
The occurrence of preferential flow of water in soils is rather the rule than the exception particularly in heterogeneous structured soils. The quantitative prediction is difficult because of the spatial as well as temporal variability. One aim of the dissertation was to visualize the soil structure and flow patterns in mine soils using a combination of neutron radiography, neutron tomography and x-ray computed tomography experiments. Both radiation techniques were used to describe preferential pathways as a soil structure with CT and the process of preferential flow of water with NT. For the first time neutron radiation was applied on undisturbed soil cores to visualize water distributions in natural soils on three examples for heterogeneities of different origin.
In a first investigation we used neutron radiography to analyze the moisture distribution in undisturbed slab-type and cylindrical samples of mine soils containing lignitic fragments and inclined soil layers. 2D radiography sequences indicated that flow pathways are highly dependent on the shape, distribution, and internal structure of the lignitic fragments. For 3D experiments, the quantitative analysis of water contents failed due to a pronounced beam hardening effect. The tensiometer data indicated the existence of local non-equilibrium in pressure heads between fragments and matric pore regions.
The objective of the second study was to analyze and visualize the effects of initial soil structure formation at the surface of bare soils in an artificial hydrological catchment that has been left to undirected ecological succession for three years. The three-dimensional (3D) micro-morphology was described using the X-ray computed tomography (CT); two-dimensional (2D) infiltration patterns were obtained from drip infiltration experiments using time-resolved neutron radiography (NT). The analyses of CT data indicate the existence of (i) structural crusts on soil consisting of sandy to loamy sediments and (ii) depositional crusts on sandy sediments. The results of combined observations using CT and NT suggest that the initial soil surface structure alterations of young sandy sediment modify moisture patterns of infiltrating water only slightly.
The aim of the 3rd experiment was to study effect of two ‘ecological engineers’, moss vegetation and beetle larvae on pore structure and infiltration. The soil pore structure was characterized by micro-computed tomography analyses of bare soil, sparse and dense moss-vegetated samples containing a single burrow. Flow patterns of infiltration experiments were visualized using the neutron radiography technique. The results of this study suggest that moss vegetation and burrowing activity of ground beetles strongly control the initial soil development by modification of pore structure and surface water infiltration.
Production of atmospheric sulfate from SO2 emitted into the troposphere is the key question we have to answer for assessing main problems like acid rain, forest decline and negative climate forcing which is believed to counteract the green house effect. About one decade ago many researchers agreed that sulfate formation occurs dominantly (80-90 %) via the aqueous phase chemical transformation, where the SO2 dissociation is the first step. However, there is still a high uncertainty on the amount of sulfite (dissolved SO2) being oxidized and on that removed by wet deposition in the reduced form S(IV) (sulfite). This important question, whose answer gives climate modellers an essential input on the percentage of emitted SO2 converted into sulfate, was the aim of this work. This work presents experimental and theoretical results from studies of the ratio sulfite/sulfate in rainwater and cloudwater to assess the contribution of S(IV) to the total sulfur amount in the aqueous phase. The wet deposition of S(IV) in rainwater was studied by collecting rainwater samples from two different levels using a 324 m high tower. The increase of S(IV) wet deposition flux from the 324 m level to the ground level via sub-cloud scavenging of SO2 is significant. 13-51 % (36 % in average) of sulfur in rainwater on the ground level was found to be in the form of S(IV). The result that S(IV) is an important form of sulfur in rainwater was further confirmed by our theoretical study using a one-dimensional time-dependant physical-chemical cloud model. Model calculations show that most of sub-cloud scavenged SO2 will remain as free S(IV) in rainwater. In highly polluted areas the ratio can be as high as 0.9. This ratio in cloudwater is much less than that in rainwater according to our field experiment carried out at Mt. Brocken. Neverthless, under some special conditions, this ratio can be as high as 0.2, which means that the role of S(IV) in cloudwater is not ignorable. Thus, this study has confirmed the very few S(IV) measurements found in literature, suggesting the importance of S(IV) wet deposition. Our findings suggest that considerable part of emitted SO2 will not be transformed to sulfate especially in the sub-cloud layer. Therefore, the production of climate affecting sulfate aerosol via aqueous phase transformation of dissolved SO2 is more limited than believed by climate modellers.
Gekoppelte fluidmechanische Modelle für Desinfektionsvorgänge und deren Effizienz in UV-Reaktoren
(2005)
Ziel der Dissertation ist es, mikrobiologische, biophysikalische, optische und fluidmechanische Ansätze von einem theoretischen Standpunkt derart zu vereinen, dass für den betreffenden Anwendungsfall mit einem durchgängigen Rechengang der optimale UV-Reaktor dimensioniert werden kann. Ein solches die Einzeldisziplinen verbindendes Modell erhält die Bezeichnung Gekoppeltes Fluidmechanisches Modell (GFM) bzw. wenn weitere Gesichtspunkte eine Rolle spielen Gekoppelte Fluidmechanische Modelle. Dieses Ziel wurde durch die Formulierung und die Aufstellung der entsprechenden Gleichungssysteme erreicht. Für diesen Zweck wurden aufbauend auf dem Erkenntnisstand der Einzeldisziplinen die adäquaten Ergebnisse und Modellansätze ausgewählt und mathematisch erprobt. Eine repräsentative Auswahl der derzeit in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland seitens der Industrie verwendeten UV-Reaktorkonstruktionen wurden untersucht und bewertet. Die im Rahmen der Arbeit entwickelten Gekoppelten Fluidmechanische Modelle (GFM) wurden unter dem Aspekt eines theoretischen Modellreaktors und einer konkreten technischen Anwendung (Praxisreaktor) sowie deren Erweiterung durch die Variation eines Konstruktionsparameters, in numerische Berechnungen getestet. Vorliegende meßtechnische in der Praxis des Betriebs von Schwimmbädern gewonnene Ergebnisse dienten als experimenteller Hintergrund. Der Inhalt der Arbeit ist derart aufbereitet, dass die Ansätze und Verfahrensvorschläge für die Einbindung in ein existierendes CFD-software-Paket geeignet sind oder in einer kombinierten Form genutzt und angewendet werden können (spread-sheet-Lösung). Während der Analyse wurde eine Klassifizierungsmethode entwickelt, die sich auf den technischen Details der Reaktorkonstruktionen und auf den in diesen verwendeten Plasma - Strahlungsquellen gründet.