School of Geography - Theses

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    Breaking bread with bin chickens: more-than-human dumpster diving in Naarm/Melbourne
    Ross, Willow ( 2023)
    This project investigates embodied experiences and nonhuman encounters in dumpster diving in Naarm/Melbourne. Overall, my thesis argues that divers use their senses, collective labour, and networks of care to recover not just wasted food, but wasted places. Adopting a multi-sited, embodied, and creative approach, my research methods include participant observation, ‘dive-along’ interviews, and zine-making workshops. The approach to zine-making in the research design highlights the value of creative methods for not only data collection and communication but also for collaborative (preliminary) data analysis. Drawing on these methods, I develop insight into, first, how divers get to know certain types of dumpsters and participate in making dumpster places. Second, while building this familiarity, divers engage in collective labour with other divers (human and not) to salvage food (from being waste) and to overcome threats to their work. Third, through these practices of place- making and collaboration, divers demonstrate care through outrage about a problematic food system and care for themselves and wider communities. This analysis of how divers learn, labour, and care offered in this thesis supports an argument that dumpster diving not only recovers food, but begins to enact different worlds. Divers bring shadowy dumpster places out of carparks and loading bays and into the light—refusing to leave food waste in the dark.
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    The timing of glacial Termination IX in Italian lake sediments: a test of orbital theory
    Port, Corey ( 2022)
    Over the last million years, glacial terminations (transitions between glacial and interglacial periods every 100,000 years) have been driven by changes in the Earth’s orbital parameters. Historically, it was believed that changes in the Earth’s climatic precession paced terminations. A recent assessment of 11 radiometrically dated terminations by Bajo et al. (2020) has instead implicated obliquity as a persistent influence on their initiation and duration, contributing to the wider debate surrounding the relative importance of obliquity and precession in governing ice-age cycles. However, a lack of well-constrained age estimates for the two-remaining Early-Pleistocene terminations (T-VIII and T-IX) hinders the robustness of the obliquity theory. This thesis addresses the timing of T-IX by combining tephra-dated lacustrine calcium carbonate content (%CaCO3), and oxygen stable isotope (δ18O) records from the Sulmona Basin, Central Italy, with a North Atlantic ocean sediment record (from Site U1385, the Iberian Margin) to test this new orbital theory. Here I show that T-IX began at 793.2 ka ±2.5 kyr and ended at 785.5 ka ±3.5 kyr, lasting around 7.7 kyr (which is consistent with the duration of previous terminations). Following a thorough investigation of various orbital parameters and insolation metrics at the start of T-IX, it emerges that T-IX correlates more strongly to a high phase of obliquity than precession. It also began when NH summer insolation intensity was below average, while integrated summer energy was high. Furthermore, the midpoint of T-IX occurs at a peak in the insolation metric of Huybers (2011) (equal amounts of precession and obliquity), consistent with the 11 other terminations. T-IX also occurred two obliquity cycles after T-X, which is consistent with obliquity-paced terminations. As such, T-IX supports Bajo et al. (2020)’s obliquity theory of glacial terminations, challenging previous conceptions of precession-dominated glacial cycles.
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    Melbourne's inner industrial zone: a study of industrial location
    Wong, Kwan Yiu ( 1963)
    In most civilised communities, there are, within their history of development, certain stages in which primary production forms the major activity of the people. Gradually, changing social and economic conditions have created demand for the local manufacture of some goods. As the scope of the existing economy is broadened, secondary production becomes more prominent in the economic picture. Such development has been experienced by many countries of the world, and Australia, though still a comparatively young country, is no exception. Victoria has, for a long time, depended on her production and export of primary produce, especially wool, and wheat. The time has already come for the State to pay greater attention to its secondary industries, though not necessarily at the expense of primary production. It is perfectly clear that industrial development in Victoria is not recent at all, but equally true is the fact that secondary industry is still immature. The Melbourne metropolitan area, with its central position, its port and transport facilities and its concentration of population is undoubtedly the heart for manufacturing development. Industries in Melbourne, especially in the inner suburbs, are nearly as old as the State; but the amount of literature on the industrial development of Melbourne is limited Therefore, the purpose of this study is to present a general picture of the development of industries in this part of Australia, and the present industrial structure of what is termed the "Inner Industrial Zone" of Melbourne. The study is meant to explain and analyse the function and structure of industries, their growth and their spatial relations within the study area. The location and locational requirements of the dominant industrial groups will be discussed in greater detail and it is hoped that such a study wills lead to more interesting and important studies of the industrial development of the whole Metropolitan area or even of Victoria.
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    City growth and the rural-urban fringe
    Pryor, Robin John ( 1967)
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    Environmental floods for Victorian regulated rivers
    Woods, Deborah Anne ( 2005)
    Dams, whilst critical to society for water supply, impact on the environment and alter flooding patterns downstream of a dam. Floods perform an important role in sustaining many abiotic and biotic components of an ecosystem, such as channel maintenance and triggers for fish spawning. Environmental floods are a promising management technique but their release has only been reported from 16 of more than 45,000 large dams worldwide. This thesis is the first review of issues surrounding the implementation of environmental floods from large Victorian dams. The study identifies the large dams in Victoria that (a) have the most altered flood hydrology downstream of the dam, and (b) have the least physical constraints on releasing floods. The extent of flood regime change from 21 dams is quantified using flood statistics. All of the 21 dams reduced the magnitude of natural 1 to 10-year recurrence interval floods and extended the recurrence interval of natural floods. A worldwide review of environmental floods reveals six major limitations to environmental floods and five factors common to all successful environmental flood releases. One of these limitations - capacity of the dam to release an environmental flood is examined in more detail. Twelve Victorian dams have the physical capacity to release a natural one-year recurrence interval flood. Foremost among these are Thomson, Rocklands, Eildon and Upper Yarra dams which have a high impact on floods and potential to release a flood without requiring infrastructure modifications. Implementing an environmental flood in Victoria is a long term process taking up to ten years. Environmental flood design requires that a link between flood change and ecological condition be established. This requires substantial data to be available. Coordination among stakeholders involved in environmental flood planning, particularly optimising the operation of a dam to maximise environmental benefits of a flood release while minimising impacts on other water users, is a key aspect of environmental flood implementation.
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    The historical geography of Australian coastal shipping
    Pemberton, Barry M. ( 1974)
    This thesis has been made possible by the help and encouragement of many, particularly during my later school years when shipping first became a serious interest, and I should like to thank generally both friends and waterfront personnel who took me on board various vessels or around the Sydney and Melbourne Waterfront complexes. Particular thanks for help during the preparation of this work go to Dr. T, M. Perry for his patient supervision and advice, and thanks to Staff of the Latrobe Library, Melbourne, of the public reference libraries at Adelaide, Launceston and Brisbane, and of university libraries at Melbourne, Monash and Queensland, for access to bound volumes of newspapers and periodicals, to several shipping companies for information about their services and history, and in particular to the Adelaide Steamship Company, the Australian National Line, and the State Shipping Service of Western Australia and their ships' crews for arranging visits to their ships. I should also like to acknowledge access to the Green and Dufty collection of ship photographs for reference.
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    Representation in the Australian House of Representatives 1890-1901
    Glanville, Timothy G. ( 1975)
    This is a study of certain territorial aspects of representation in the first Australian House of Representatives. It consists of two parts. The first part considers the way in which representation was to be divided amongst the States and Territories of the Commonwealth. The second part considers the way in which one State (Victoria) was first divided into constituencies. It is possible to examine the allocation of representation to areas and the selection of electoral boundaries at a variety of scales; from that of the members of an international organisation to that of the ridings of a shire. At the smaller scales, existing boundaries are, in most cases, adopted as electoral boundaries. At the larger scales new electoral boundaries are, in most cases, delimited. Nevertheless, the allocation of representation to areas and the selection of electoral boundaries are always interconnected. Each part of this study consists of two sections. The first section describes what took place, what alternatives were suggested and what arguments were used on both sides (Chapter Two and Chapter Four). The second section is, in each case, an attempt to evaluate what took place. The mechanism for allocating representation to the States and Territories is evaluated in two ways; first by investigating its internal consistency and implications and secondly by comparing the Australian provisions with those of other federations (Chapter Three). The first Victorian electoral distribution is evaluated by comparing it with two alternative distributions prepared at about the same time, both of which were eventually rejected (Chapter Five). The three distributions are compared by applying a range of techniques which together provide a method of evaluating any electoral distribution, or at least any where political parties may readily be identified. This study is limited to the period 1890 to 1901. Its implications are not. The mechanism for allocating representation to the States and Territories was to apply to future apportionments as well as to that of 1900. The questions that were raised by the first federal electoral distribution in Victoria have been echoed time and again in Australia; previously, subsequently and elsewhere.
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