Browsing by department "Department of Geosciences and Geography"

The conventional understanding and model of development is based on economic growth. This dominant way of creating development has consequences to natural, cultural and social environments, which cannot be overlooked. The transformations within these environments are increasingly connected to the prevailing socio-economic model of neoliberalism, but are often not considered in its contextualization at a local scale. The processes of production of space and nature under the neoliberal doctrine have led to economic restructuration and to conformation of geographies of neoliberal environment, which together transform localities. There is an increasing need to investigate how the local inhabitants understand and experience these processes and their outcomes. In this research, place is introduced as an insight to observe these problematics. Place in this research is understood as a changing and dynamic terrain, which articulates experiences of development. This research is qualitative case study which investigates the consequences of production of space and nature in Curepto, Chile. Curepto is one of the localities where the implementation of a normative framework for economic growth has resulted in extensive areas of foreign tree species monoculture and important physical and socio-spatial transformations related to them. The primary aim of this research is to investigate the local inhabitants' accounts of these transformations. The thesis investigates how the locality has changed, but focuses on what these changes have meant for the local community and their sense of place. Physical, sociocultural and emotive dimensions of place as well as their transformations were investigated using qualitative methods, mainly semi-structured interviews. Residents were interviewed both in urban and rural districts. The findings of this research indicate that the forest industry and tree plantations have been important drivers behind the physical and socio-spatial transformations. The extensive plantations of pine and eucalyptus have changed the physical environment and these transformations are reflected in the social and cultural geography. Environmental degradation, changed circumstances of land property, loss of native forests and drought constitute transformations that affect livelihoods negatively especially in the rural districts, and come in parallel with a loss of local tradition and culture. The meaningful space the inhabitants experience diminishes and is made more one-sided, as access to the natural environment becomes more difficult and the interaction with it is lost. Although transformations within place are considered negative, the meaningful relation inhabitants have with place remains positive. Participants redetermine their practices and livelihoods, and re-articulate the relation with their surroundings in order to stay in their place. The local community lives in a space that is both familiar and foreign to them, loved and hated at the same time.

The carnivoran fauna in East Africa has changed drastically over the last seven million years. Turnover in the fauna affected taxonomic composition during the Miocene-Pliocene boundary, as well as led to both reduced species richness and functional richness from 3 Ma ago onwards until the modern fauna was in place. The objective of this thesis was to examine how the niche space in the East African carnivore guild has changed over time by making inferences on the feeding ecology of individual taxa from two sites located in the Turkana Basin, a major depository of vertebrate fossils in northern Kenya. The first site, Lothagam, covers the time slice 7.4–5.3 Ma ago, whereas the second site, Koobi Fora, covers the time slice 3.4–1.38 Ma ago. An ecomorphological analysis was performed, which included dental ratios, body mass estimates and jaw measurements of carnivorans, as well as body mass estimates of some of their potential prey animals (bovids). The carnivorans were assigned to four different dietary specializations based on their dental ratios: hypercarnivore, bone-cracking hypercarnivore, mesocarnivore and hypocarnivore. Individual taxa were also identified as small-prey or large-prey specialists based on their body mass estimates and jaw depth. According to the results, the carnivore guild of Lothagam was mostly composed of hypercarnivores along with some mesocarnivores that were trending towards hypercarnivory. There is a notable absence of hypocarnivores and bone-cracking hypercarnivores in the Lothagam sample. The carnivorans of Koobi Fora displayed more variation in the dental ratios between individual taxa. Compared to the Lothagam guild, the Koobi Fora guild also included advanced bone-cracking hypercarnivores, as well as large hypocarnivores that are absent from East Africa today. The changes in the dietary specializations of individual Koobi Fora taxa were accompanied by an overall increase in body size, which coincided to some extent with an increase in prey size, at least with bovids. The results indicate that some of the extinct members of the carnivore guild became more ecologically specialized during the Plio-Pleistocene, which probably made them more vulnerable to extinction than the more generalized taxa during changing environmental conditions.

African climate science is still underdeveloped; the related infrastructure is limited and climate observation network is sparse. The lack of observations is usually compensated with coarse macro-climate models (1 km2), of which only few concentrates on tropical Africa and on the spatial variability of rains. The need for fine-resolution data is growing, as more accurate information (5-100m) is utilized in different sciences. There has been a surge in micro-climate studies utilizing small dataloggers to observe climate variability, as loggers can be placed to different environments regardless of the complexity of a terrain. Accurate, fine-scale climate models are needed in ecological research, where species distributions are related to environmental gradients. Most of the studies describing species occurrences rely on macro-scale climate models that have been averaged over years, although the factors restricting species occurrences in an environment are developed even under one growth season, and are dependent on climate extremes. Accurate information of species and its occurrence environment is even more needed as climate is changing; species habitats are threatened through the warming of climate and its resulted effects. Fine-resolution data of micro-climate is needed especially in the studying of epiphytes living in tropical montane cloud forests, as epiphytes are dependent on the surrounding environments' specific atmospheric composition, namely relative humidity. The knowledge of epiphytic species distributions is poorly studied, although epiphytes are known to react fast to quick changes in environmental conditions. In this study small dataloggers were placed around the Taita Hills in a mountainous region of Kenya to record spatial and temporal micro-climate variability. Annual, monthly and extreme temperature and humidity parameters were studied through statistical spatial modelling, with generalized additive models (GAMs). The significance of each thriving factor of climate parameters were studied separately with bootstrapping. Of thousands of models created, temperature was best explained by elevation, and humidities by land cover (e.g. distance to forests), a proxy of canopy cover. Modelling extremes requires more research, as extreme models proved to be most difficult to model. More weight should be put on accurate environment gradients (e.g. canopy cover) when modelling spatial climate variability in a fine-scale. Created fine-resolution grids were tested in modelling the distributions of epiphytic species through Boosted Regression Trees (BRT). Models created gave an insight to the drivers of epiphytic species distributions and to the limitations of their occurrences in a limited environment. Different explanatory variable groups were tested (topographical, in situ, climate groups), of which climate explained most of the variations in epiphytic species occurrences when considered with AUC-values. Some epiphytes seemed to be specialized to certain habitat trees, highlighting the value of not only indigenous trees but exotic ones. Epiphytes were restricted to occur under certain temperatures and humidities ranges that is an indication of the vulnerability of epiphytes to changing climate.

The Jokisivu gold deposit is a structurally controlled orogenic gold deposit that was formed during the Svecofennian orogeny when the Pirkanmaa belt, a turbidite dominated subduction zone complex, was pushed below the Tampere schist belt in the north. The Jokisivu gold deposit formed in a brittle-ductile shear zone and gold mineralization is related to the youngest deformation stage. The main focus of this study was in fluid inclusions in quartz veins. Quartz grains host fluid inclusions that carry information of the prevailing P–T–X conditions during fluid events in the quartz veins. According to the properties of fluid inclusion assemblages (FIA), six fluid inclusion types were distinguished. Fluid inclusion types A1, A2 and A3 are aqueous and fluid inclusion types B1, B2 and B3 are aqueous–carbonic. Relative chronology of the fluid inclusion types was determined by cross cutting relationships of fluid inclusion assemblages. Relative chronology of fluid inclusion types from oldest to youngest is A1, A2 and A3, B3, B1 and B2 indicating that aqueous fluids came in first and aqueous–carbonic fluids followed them. Microthermometry was conducted for all the FIAs. The melting point of CO2 was generally below the CO2 triple point ranging from -59.15°C to -56.73°C indicating the presence of other gaseous phases that were later confirmed with Raman spectroscopy to be CH4, N2 and even H2S. Raman spectroscopy was conducted for qualitative analysis of the phases presentn the inclusions. Quartz crystallization temperatures were calculated using titanium in quartz geothermometer (TitaniQ). TitaniQ was well suited for Jokisivu samples because titanium concentrations in the hydrothermal quartz were quite constant. Combining TitaniQ P–T slopes and fluid inclusion assemblage isochores from microthermometry and Raman spectroscopy yielded a good estimate for P–T conditions of fluid entrapment of 390–470°C and 170–345 MPa. The estimated temperature range is higher than the previous studies have suggested. However, the P–T range estimated for Jokisivu is in accordance with the P–T conditions of other Svecofennian orogenic gold deposits. Judged by the mineralogy of the quartz vein - host rock contact, the most important factor triggering gold precipitation in Jokisivu has probably been fluid-rock interaction. Strong sulfidation of host rock reduced the sulfur fugacity and enabled gold precipitation.

Out of all igneous rocks, carbonatites are perhaps the ones most sensitive to changing chemical environments and P-T conditions. As a result, their primary chemical and textural characteristics are more often than not altered by secondary processes. Discerning between the two is essential in order to make correct petrogenetic inferences from textural and chemical data. In this study, the 1.3 Ga siderite carbonatite of the Grønnedal-IÌ ka alkaline complex of South Greenland is used as a natural laboratory to identify mineral chemical and textural fingerprints of hydrothermal alteration in iron-rich carbonatites, with a second aim of describing the paragenesis of a high-grade magnetite mineralization in the locality. Trace element chemistry of magnetite, calcite, siderite and ankerite-dolomite is analyzed in situ by electron-probe microanalysis (EPMA) and laser ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometry (LA- ICP-MS). Magnetite is shown to be a product of oxidation of siderite and is exclusively of hydrothermal origin, characterized by low Ti (1-12000 ppm) and V (1-200 ppm) concentrations. High Nb/Ta (up to 1000) and Zr/Hf (up to 300) ratios in magnetite suggest formation mediated by fluorine-rich fluids. Hydrothermally reworked siderite is enriched in Mn and light rare earth elements (LREEs) and has a depleted Y/Ho ratio. In contrast, hydrothermally reworked calcite is enriched in Y/Ho and depleted in LREEs. A secondary mineral assemblage of apatite, strontianite, barite, REE-fluorocarbonates and ankerite-dolomite is associated with the alteration, which increases toward the contact to a 55 m wide basaltic dike that cuts the carbonatite. Unusual mineral compositions are found close to the dike contact, including magnetite with up to 1 wt.% Nb and calcite with 1 wt.% REEs, both the highest reported values in the literature. Together, the data point to the dike intrusion as a heat source of a hydrothermal convection cell, driving hot F and CO2 rich fluids that mobilized P, Sr, Ba, Mn, LREE, Nb and Ta and reacted with and altered the composition of the carbonatites up to a distance of 40 m from the intrusion contact. The results underscore the necessity of a careful textural and mineral chemical assessment in studying the petrogenesis and subsolvus evolution of ferrocarbonatites.

Involuntary displacements are more common than ever, and the reasons vary from natural disasters, wars and conflicts to environmental degradation and development-induced displacement. Typically, the victims of these phenomena inhabit the Global South, and are further impoverished due to the lack of having a say where and how to live. The lack of social justice and recognition of social development is typical in large-scale involuntary displacements, and also affects to the abilities of people to reconstruct and recover after resettlement. The linkage between forced migration and risk to impoverishment has been widely acknowledged especially in cases that lack participatory measures and proper compensation for the victims. When the impacts are recognized, it is understood that forced resettlement has effects in the economic, social, and physical spheres of life, and can be a major burden for the urban poor. However, involuntary displacement also disrupts the attachments and constructions of sense of place, which have further impacts on social cohesion. The question of community reorganization is crucial in the context where resettlement is simultaneous and combines various heterogeneous groups. The aim of this research is to examine the extent and quality of rehabilitation after involuntary displacement in an urban environment in Sri Lanka. The focus in this research is given to women, as gender is a significant factor in resettlement outcomes, yet it is often ignored in planning and implementation. Gender roles and norms in Sri Lanka are still fixed and conventional, making it an interesting approach to study resettlement and rehabilitation and the daily interactions and perceptions on them. A case study for this research took place in four resettlement sites in the outskirts of Colombo Metro Region, Sri Lanka, which is in the midst of significant urban development plans that aim to relocate tens of thousands of slum dwellers in the need to release prime lands for investments, simultaneously beautifying the city and fighting frequent flooding. The methodological approach applied in this study addresses feminist geography while it looks at rehabilitation measures in the everyday life point of view. It utilized semi-structured interviews of resettled women as a key research method. The case study took place in upgraded underserved settlements that inhabit tsunami-displaced people and development-induced displaced people. Also local experts were interviewed in order to gain a broader understanding of the dynamics and urban policies in the Colombo Metro Region. The case evidences that rehabilitation is a slow process of adaptation, and that physical assets alone cannot improve the livelihoods of slum dwellers. More emphasis should be put into the social relations and community dynamics if participatory measures and development-from-within are to fully deliver. Also full tenure is needed in order to the people to adapt to the mainstream society. For women the question of belonging and reconstructing the sense of place is essential as they spend a lot of their time at home and the immediate environment, and are traditionally in charge of homemaking. Therefore the sense of place and community are essential in the creation of social cohesion and management of the new neighborhood, and along with gender sensitive approaches should not be overlooked if sustainable resettlement is to be pursued as a consequence of ever more crowded cities of the South.

Lake Pyhäjärvi, the largest lake in southwestern Finland, has been under considerable external nutrient loading for the past decades. Rivers Pyhäjoki and Yläneenjoki are the only major input rivers of the lake and are the source of most of the external nutrient loading to the lake. The hydrogeochemistry of the Lake Pyhäjärvi catchment, as well as the catchments of the two input rivers, and groundwater-surface water interaction were evaluated using a wide array of geochemical tracers (major ions, dissolved silica, stable isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen, electrical conductivity and radon-222). Additionally, the feasibility of using mass balance based methods to separate river waters of the two input rivers to their respective source components was evaluated independently with each tracer analysed. In the context of this study, stable isotopes alone were deemed plausible and were only usable in the River Pyhäjoki catchment as there was not enough difference between river water and precipitation (new water) stable isotope proportions in River Yläneenjoki. Employing the stable isotopes of oxygen, mass balance based modelling was attempted to separate the hydrograph of River Pyhäjoki to its end-members (new water and old water). Based on the obtained data, the hydrogeochemical content of the surface waters of each subcatchment (Pyhäjärvi, Pyhäjoki and Yläneenjoki) differed significantly. Additionally, the groundwaters were clearly distinguished from surface waters. Differences were most apparent in stable isotope proportions as well as dissolved silica, and in the case of groundwaters in radon-222 concentrations. This categorization was further supported by a hierarchical cluster analysis. Surface waters showed varying signs of evaporation, whereas groundwaters retained the stable isotope characteristics of mean annual precipitation. Dissolved silica concentrations appeared to be mostly affected by the amount of easily soluble silica in the sediment, water residence time, as well as biological uptake in the surface waters. Lithology seemed to be the controlling factor in radon concentrations, with areas of granitic bedrock having the highest concentrations. The hydrograph separation of River Pyhäjoki gave results between 66–88% of old water in the river at the time of sampling, consisting likely mostly of groundwater. Though this result corresponds well with recent similar studies in the area, there were considerable sources of uncertainty, therefore making the result best thought of as indicative. However, there was clear evidence of groundwater-surface water interaction in all of the subcatchments of Lake Pyhäjärvi, with clear evidence of groundwater discharging into the lake, lake water infiltrating into an aquifer near the shore of the lake, as well as signs of groundwater discharging into the two input rivers.

Climate change and the threat of an ecological collapse in the near future calls for rapid invention of new methods and tools at the service of informed decision making. Backed by academics Esri, Environmental Systems Research Institute – a multinational company and market leader in GIS (geographic information systems) have spread the word of geodesign as meeting sustainability demands in a variety of forms, allowing design processes based on science as well as values. Esri have been clear on creating a community, collaboratively developing the concept further, to meet global spatially related design challenges. The technological maturity have reach a critical level allowing new forms of fusions between geographic information systems (GIS) and design, but complete technological solutions are not yet available. In the study three research questions are answered. Two are, shortly, what is geodesign and what might it mean for professionals in geoinformatics. The study penetrates the concept of geodesign, using a qualitative and holistic approach. The components central to geodesign are highlighted, keeping the focus on the geospatial dimension of geodesign and the relevance for village planning. Village planning is a design process with deep local roots. The collective vision and will for the future is documented. The study introduces and discusses village planning according to changes in society and the demands it brings upon the villages; decentralized responsibilities and fulfillment of local democracy. The implications of geodesign on the spatial dimension of village planning is answered in the third research question. Finland-Swedish village plans are analyzed in theory-driven illustrative case study. Steinitz framework for geodesign is used as an analytic framework in a theory-driven illustrative case study. Supporting questions included in Steinitz framework, a procedure originally developed for landscape planning but now considered useful for geodesign in general, is used as analytic framework. The framework's analytical contribution is supplemented with interpretation based on knowledge of GIS, geodesign and village planning. The premise in the study is that geodesign have the potential to master a variety design processes while providing a timely concept for village planning. In relation to geodesign, village planning is analyzed as a local endogenous design process, showing high degree of participation. Steinitz framework consists of six models with pairwise relations. On the axis process models-change models a lacking correspondence in the village plans is identified, also a general lack in the holistic approach is identified, especially in systems and process thinking. The village plans also shows distinct strengths. The most prominent is the degree of participation. This means that village planning have potential to be supported by geodesign but also provide a model for citizen-led geodesign. Geodesign can be seen as theoretical and benefits obscure. In this study analytical results and interpretation illustrates what the theoretical approach of geodesign means in practice. Quotes from village plans supplemented with graphics, supporting the comparison of the similarities and differences between Steinitz framework and village planning, highlights the concept geodesign and brings it closer a real application in village planning.

A vast amount of spatio-temporal data has become available with the fast development of information technology and different monitoring systems over the last two decades. Position-aware devices are one of the most dominant sources for collecting movement data. Spatio-temporal information that is derived from the tracking devices enable to build movement patterns from the targets, and to calculate measurable motion parameters such as speed, change of speed or the direction of movement. This study utilized a specific pilot GPS-based monitoring system called Amazonian Riverboat Observation System (AROS) that was built to collect movement data of the local riverboats on the departments of Loreto and Ucayali in Peruvian Amazonia. AROS provides real-time GPS-data with coordinates and timestamp that indicate where and when the collaborating vessels are navigating. As an outcome of this thesis a specific analytical tool called Trajectory Reconstruction and Analysis Tool (TRAT) was developed. TRAT utilizes variety of geographic knowledge discovery methods to extract knowledge from movement data provided by AROS. Also spatio-temporal transportation characteristics in the study area were analyzed based on AROS data from the year 2012 and utilizing TRAT. This thesis focused on studying if there is seasonal and directional variation in transportation characteristics along the Amazonian rivers, and if river morphology affects the navigation. Also connection between water height of the rivers and travel speed of individual journeys was studied. Results of the thesis suggest that navigation along the rivers has seasonal and directional variation, and also the river morphology seems to affect the movement patterns of the vessels. On navigation route that was mostly meandering by river morphology, the downstream navigation was over 40% faster than upstream navigation during high water and intermediate, but during low water there was no difference between navigation directions. Seasonal variation was over 30% faster during high water compared to low water (on downstream direction). On upstream direction the navigation was fastest during low water but seasonal differences were considerably lower compared to downstream navigation. On navigation route that was mostly anastomosing by river morphology, the downstream navigation was approximately 20 % faster during the entire year. Results suggest that there is no seasonal difference in navigation characteristics along the larger and wider rivers, since the travel speeds were quite similar throughout the year. Fitting simple regression model between average travel speed of the journeys and water levels of the river revealed that there seems to be strong connection between travel speed and river height on the route along Ucayali river when travelled downstream (R2=0.73). On other cases that were studied, the results suggest that there is not connection between travel speed characteristics and river height. Comparing the results with earlier studies implied that the results of this thesis seemed to be fairly accurate. However, it is necessary to validate the results by doing cross-validations between data from different years observed with AROS. Transportation is in a key role when trying to find the factors affecting on development of a certain location. Thus transportation as means of accessibility has significant role in variety of contexts such as conversation, land use changes and deforestation. Results of this study could provide more accurate data for studies focusing on previously mentioned topics in the study area. Also utilization of TRAT in other contexts, such as studying global transportation patterns of professional vessels, could be possible by making few modifications to the tool.

Maantieteen ylioppilaskirjoitukset sähköistyivät ensimmäisten joukossa syksyllä 2016. Sähköistymisen myötä maantie- teen ylioppilaskoe tarjoaa uusia monipuolisempia tehtävätyyppejä ja geomedia-aineistoja. Painopisteenä ovat aineisto- jen soveltaminen ja tulkitseminen. Geomedialla tarkoitetaan maantieteellisiä lähteitä, kuten karttoja, tilastoja ja kuvia. Pro gradu -tutkielmani tavoitteena on selvittää kuinka kokelaat osaavat ratkaista uudentyyppisiä soveltavia luonnon- maantieteen tehtäviä ja hallitsevat geomedian käytön osana vastausta. Lisäksi tutkin millaisiin kognitiivisen ajattelun taitoihin tehtävänannot ohjaavat. Tutkimukseni avulla saadaan viitteitä lukionsa päättävien oppilaiden geomediatai- doista, vastausten laadusta sekä pystytään kehittämään ylioppilaskirjoituksia entistä parempaan suuntaan. Työssäni tutkitaan kahta luonnonmaantieteen tehtävää syksyltä 2016 ja keväältä 2017 (N=400). Geomedian käyttöä tutkitaan koko aineistosta ja kokelaiden kirjallisista vastauksista käytetään osaa aineistosta (N=140). Tehtävänannot luokitellaan uudistetun Bloomin taksonomian avulla ajattelun eri tasoille. SOLO-taksonomian avulla luokitellaan sekä kirjalliset että kuvalliset vastaukset. Lopuksi tuloksia verrataan keskenään. Tutkimuksessa kiinnitettiin huomiota eten- kin kuvien ja diagrammien tuottamiseen, aineiston hyödyntämiseen ja viittaamiseen sekä kokelaiden valmiuksiin pär- jätä sähköisissä ylioppilaskirjoituksissa. Tutkimuksessa käytetyt luonnonmaantieteen tehtävät ovat rakennettu niin, että ne sisältävät monipuolisesti erilaisia ajattelun taitoja mittaavia tehtäviä. Siirryttäessä tehtävissä eteenpäin vaaditaan kokelailta korkeamman ajattelutaitojen käyttöä. Tehtävissä tulee soveltaa geomedia-aineistoa, kirjoittaa esseitä ja tulkita aineistoa. Saatujen tuloksien perus- teella kokelaiden geomedian käyttötaidot vaativat vielä harjoittelua ja kuvien tuottaminen osana sähköistä koetta koe- taan vielä haastavana. Omaa ajattelua olisi kaivattu enemmän ja moni vastaus vaikutti ulkomuistista tuotetulta. Haas- tavaksi koettiin rakentaa johdonmukainen, selkeä ja jäsennelty vastaus. Vastaukset sijoittuivat suurimmaksi osaksi yh- den rakenteen vastaustasolle. Vastaustaso nousi korkeammalle SOLO-tasolle tehtävänannon vaatiessa korkeamman ajattelun taitotasoa. Geomedia oli selvästi kokelaille vielä uusi asia. Parhaimmillaan itse tuotetut kuvat olivat informa- tiivisia ja tukivat kirjallista vastausta. Kuvat olivat joko itse piirrettyjä, kuvankaappauksia tai muokattuja kuvankaap- pauksia. Itse tuotetut diagrammit olivat selkeitä ja helppolukuisia sekä esittivät tehtävänannossa kysytyn asian hyvin, mutta niidentulkinta koettiin haastavaksi. Aineistoon ja itse tuotettuihin kuviin oli viitattu harvakseltaan.