In the UK a new theme has emerged in policy discourse and the investment of public resources around the concept of community renewable energy. A series of central government funded programs have been established with the aim of supporting and subsidizing community-based projects at a local level, an approach to renewable energy development previously the domain of alternative technology activists working outside of the mainstream. Drawing upon policy analysis and interviews undertaken with key actors, we argue that this new theme of government policy has emerged through a coalescence of largely instrumental policy drivers and does not represent a broader paradigmatic shift in the underlying norms and goals of policy. We consider the different ways the community label has been used and argue that while it has provided a �exible space that activities, interests and objectives of various forms can occupy, its functional malleability also means that the communitarian expectations of participatory involvement are not being widely pursued or realized. Implications are considered for how, in the context of the governance of climate change, the outcomes of public investment in community renewable energy should be evaluated. (c) 2007 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Glacier outburst floods or 'jökulhlaups' commonly involve the transport of ice blocks released from glacier margins. Very few published studies have focused on the effects of ice blocks on outwash plains during and following jökulhlaups. A volcanic eruption beneath the Vatnajökull ice-cap in southern Iceland generated a jökulhlaup on 5 November 1996 that transported numerous ice blocks as large as 45 m in diameter on to Skeibarársandur. The morphology and sedimentology of a series of large, coarse grained bedforms formed around large stranded ice blocks during the November 1996 jökulhlaup are examined in relation to flow conditions.Ice-block obstacle marks were formed both by scour during the flow and by in situ melting after the flood receded. Flow separation around ice blocks resulted in the lee of the blocks becoming a locus of rapid deposition and led to the formation of entirely aggradational obstacle shadows. Flow around ice blocks also resulted in the deposition of upstream-dipping strata in sets up to 4 m thick that are interpreted as antidune stoss sides. Evidence of deposition from traction carpets during both rising and waning stages of the flood was preserved around ice blocks. It is suggested that the 1996 jökulhlaup flow was predominantly subcritical, but that locally flow became supercritical around ice blocks.
Skeiðarársandur in southeastern Iceland, with an area of > 1000 km2, is the world’s largest active proglacial outwash plain. In July–August 2000, a total of over 10 km of ground penetrating radar (GPR) profile data (at 50 MHz and 100 MHz) was collected from a variety of proglacial outwash sediments across the Gígjukvísl channel region of the Skeiðarársandur plain. GPR-profile results and their corresponding facies interpretations are presented for the flood deposits of a single supraglacial outwash fan and its associated source-proximal ice-walled canyon created entirely by the November 1996 jökulhlaup event. By combining the GPR data with ground surveying, photogrammetry and detailed sedimentary outcrop evidence, this study adds a new perspective to the large-scale analysis of single, high-magnitude flood events and the sedimentary record of former, ice-proximal outwash plains. The GPR derived architectures point to a higher degree of sediment reworking than predicted by previous sedimentary models and may provide a useful analogue for the study of sedimentation within similar bedrock fluvial and alluvial fan feeder systems.
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