Pine Island Ice Shelf (PIIS) buttresses the Pine Island Glacier, the key contributor to sea-level rise. PIIS has thinned owing to ocean-driven melting, and its calving front has retreated, leading to buttressing loss. PIIS melting depends primarily on the thermocline variability in its front. Furthermore, local ocean circulation shifts adjust heat transport within Pine Island Bay (PIB), yet oceanic processes underlying the ice front retreat remain unclear. Here, we report a PIB double-gyre that moves with the PIIS calving front and hypothesise that it controls ocean heat input towards PIIS. Glacial melt generates cyclonic and anticyclonic gyres near and off PIIS, and meltwater outflows converge into the anticyclonic gyre with a deep-convex-downward thermocline. The double-gyre migrated eastward as the calving front retreated, placing the anticyclonic gyre over a shallow seafloor ridge, reducing the ocean heat input towards PIIS. Reconfigurations of meltwater-driven gyres associated with moving ice boundaries might be crucial in modulating ocean heat delivery to glacial ice.

Since the advent of reforms and opening-up of China, the focus has been on urban development. However, rural development has garnered attention in recent years. This research explores energy performance improvement methods for rural houses in Xi’an, China. It aims to discuss the feasibility of designing a nearly zero-energy building (nZEB), based on typical residential rural housing in Xi’an, through proposing new construction methods and examining the strategies for the refurbishment of an existing house. Initially, a typical rural house was modelled based on data collected from a field survey and historical documents. Subsequently, suitable passive design strategies were explored in the rural house design both in terms of proposing new construction methods and examining the refurbishment strategies of an existing house. After implementation of the passive design, the annual energy demand was reduced from 112 kWh/m2 to 68 kWh/m2 (new construction) and from 112 kWh/m2 to 85 kWh/m2 (refurbished). Even though the passive design significantly reduced the energy demand of the house, it could not achieve the Chinese nZEB standard. Therefore, a photovoltaic (PV) system and a storage battery were incorporated to meet the standard. Eighty per cent of the south roof area of the newly constructed and refurbished house was installed with a PV system and a storage battery with a capacity of 50 kWh and 52 kWh, respectively. After installation of the proposed renewable energy, the annual energy demand from the house was decreased to 35 kWh/m2 (new construction) and 51 kWh/m2 (refurbished), which both achieved the Chinese nZEB standard (equal to or below 55 kWh/m2). The study shows the effectiveness of the methods used to design the nZEB and can be used to instruct the residents to build the nZEB in rural villages like Xi’an in China.

The industrial development of South Korea is an exceptional success story. However, there were several side effects of the strong economic growth, such as rapidly increasing city populations and severe socio-economic inequality. The population in the area of the capital currently amounts to half of the national population of South Korea. The Korean government has implemented various regional development policies for a more balanced national development. This paper investigates the series of Five-Year Economic Development Plans from 1962-1997 and the Saemaul Undong movement, who contributed to the record of economic development of South Korea, and discusses the rural development policies recently promoted by the South Korean government to address problems such as the progressive decrease and stagnation of agricultural productivity, the depopulation and aging trends in rural areas, the deterioration of farm household income structure, and import expansion and unstable grain supply by free trade agreement.   Abstract. Perkembangan industri Korea Selatan adalah kisah sukses yang luar biasa. Namun, ada beberapa efek samping dari pertumbuhan ekonomi yang kuat, seperti populasi kota yang meningkat pesat dan ketimpangan sosial ekonomi yang parah. Penduduk di wilayah ibu kota saat ini berjumlah setengah dari penduduk nasional Korea Selatan. Pemerintah Korea telah menerapkan berbagai kebijakan pembangunan daerah untuk pembangunan nasional yang lebih seimbang. Makalah ini menyelidiki serangkaian Rencana Pembangunan Ekonomi Lima Tahun dari 1962-1997 dan gerakan Saemaul Undong, yang berkontribusi pada rekor pembangunan ekonomi Korea Selatan, dan membahas kebijakan pembangunan perdesaan yang baru-baru ini dipromosikan oleh pemerintah Korea Selatan untuk mengatasi masalah-masalah seperti sebagai penurunan progresif dan stagnasi produktivitas pertanian, depopulasi dan tren penuaan di daerah perdesaan, kerusakan struktur pendapatan rumah tangga pertanian, dan ekspansi impor dan pasokan biji-bijian yang tidak stabil oleh perjanjian perdagangan bebas.   Keywords. Saemaul Undong, perencanaan penggunaan lahan, pembangunan perdesaan, pembangunan ekonomi, perubahan populasi.

In recent years, urban regeneration strategic plans have been implemented across South Korea to curb the negative impacts of depopulation, physical deterioration and economic decline. By adopting a people-centered regeneration process, context-sensitive plans are formulated by integrating local people’s perceptions and expectations. This paper examines urban regeneration plans implemented in Ami-dong Tombstone Cultural Village, a declining hillside village in Busan, using “people–place–process framework of place attachment” to analyze the process of articulating “sense of place” through community-driven approaches. Based on archival research, site investigations, secondary data and semi-structured interviews, the paper explores the revival of social capital, integration of place-sensitivity and improvement of everyday landscapes through affective, behavioral and cognitive responses of urban professionals and community members involved in the project. Findings of the study show that place attachment, sense of community and community participation in regeneration can help in re-creating meaningful places. Lessons from Ami-dong offer insights on ways to strengthen people–people and people–place relationships through design and planning processes in a declining context with an aging population.

The high levels of energy consumption commonly seen today have severe consequences. For example, energy consumption in buildings traditionally takes the form of electricity generated from fossil fuels, which causes serious air pollution. Hence, the efficient application of clean energy systems in buildings is crucial. An increasing number of small-scale apartment buildings, such as single-room apartments and dormitories, have emerged as modern culture, and societal trends have led to a greater number of people living on their own. In this study, two strategies were proposed to improve the efficiency of solid oxide fuel cell co-generation systems (SOFC–CGSs) in small-scale apartments. A small-scale apartment building in Busan, Korea, was selected as the research object to verify the effect of the proposed strategies. One strategy was sharing a single SOFC–CGS among multiple households, and the other was integrating an SOFC–CGS with a photovoltaic (PV) system. The efficiency of the SOFC–CGS is expected to improve under these two operational strategies. In addition, the two proposed operational strategies were combined to improve the efficiency of the SOFC–CGS. To verify the proposed strategies, various simulations were conducted in this study. The simulation results indicate that each of the proposed strategies can improve the efficiency of the SOFC–CGS and save energy to varying degrees.