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Empirical analysis of social mobility is typically framed by outcomes recorded for only a single, recent generation, ignoring intergenerational preconditions and historical conferment of opportunity. We use the detailed geography of relative deprivation (hardship) to demonstrate that different family groups today experience different intergenerational outcomes and that there is a distinct Great Britain-wide geography to these inequalities. We trace the evolution of these inequalities back in time by coupling family group level data for the entire Victorian population with a present day population-wide consumer register. Further geographical linkage to neighbourhood deprivation data allows us to chart the different social mobility outcomes experienced by every one of the 13,378 long-established family groups. We identify clear and enduring regional divides in England and Scotland. In substantive terms, use of family names and new historical digital census resources are central to recognising that geography is pivotal to understanding intergenerational inequalities. Intergenerational preconditions and historical conferment of opportunity play a role in social mobility. This study considers the geography of relative deprivation to show how different family groups across Great Britain experience different intergenerational outcomes.

We introduce a method to calculate and store approximately 1.2 million surname distributions calculated for surnames found in Great Britain for six years of historic population data and 20 years of contemporary population registers compiled from various consumer sources. We subsequently show how this database can be incorporated into an interactive web-environment specifically designed for the public dissemination of detailed surname statistics. Additionally, we argue that the database can be used in the quantitative analysis of surnames in Great Britain and potentially offer valuable insights into processes of contagious and hierarchical diffusion of populations as well as the regional distinctiveness of demographic change and stasis.

The present study sets out to provide an ex ante insight into the equity effects of a toll charge on the traffic diversions and geographical accessibility of work locations in the Cape Town metropolitan region, South Africa. Based on a static traffic assignment model and aggregate accessibility measures, computed in a GIS environment, the effects of a toll were estimated for different income categories for both a reference scenario and two toll scenarios. The findings indicate that particularly low-income commuters will divert to alternative routes. However, the results also indicate that the introduction of a toll will only have a limited impact on geographical accessibility. Nevertheless, because particularly low-income commuters are likely to divert to alternative routes, a toll should maybe not be levied on the road toward spatial justice without revenue redistribution or additional investment in the public transport system.

South Africa is still confronted with widespread poverty, unemployment and high levels of income inequality along racial lines. To counteract these issues, South Africa implemented an extensive social welfare system. However, both academics and policymakers have voiced concerns that the social grants may give perverse incentives. This article contributes to the discourse looking at how the largest social grant in South Africa, the Older Persons Grant could be seen as generating perverse incentives.

Information about the spatiotemporal variability of soil moisture is critical for many purposes, including monitoring of hydrologic extremes, irrigation scheduling, and prediction of agricultural yields. We evaluated the temporal dynamics of 18 state-of-the-art (quasi-)global near-surface soil moisture products, including six based on satellite retrievals, six based on models without satellite data assimilation (referred to hereafter as “open-loop” models), and six based on models that assimilate satellite soil moisture or brightness temperature data. Seven of the products are introduced for the first time in this study: one multi-sensor merged satellite product called MeMo (Merged soil Moisture) and six estimates from the HBV (Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning) model with three precipitation inputs (ERA5, IMERG, and MSWEP) with and without assimilation of SMAPL3E satellite retrievals, respectively. As reference, we used in situ soil moisture measurements between 2015 and 2019 at 5 cm depth from 826 sensors, located primarily in the USA and Europe. The 3-hourly Pearson correlation (R) was chosen as the primary performance metric. We found that application of the Soil Wetness Index (SWI) smoothing filter resulted in improved performance for all satellite products. The best-to-worst performance ranking of the four single-sensor satellite products was SMAPL3ESWI, SMOSSWI, AMSR2SWI, and ASCATSWI, with the L-band-based SMAPL3ESWI (median R of 0.72) outperforming the others at 50 % of the sites. Among the two multi-sensor satellite products (MeMo and ESA-CCISWI), MeMo performed better on average (median R of 0.72 versus 0.67), probably due to the inclusion of SMAPL3ESWI. The best-to-worst performance ranking of the six open-loop models was HBV-MSWEP, HBV-ERA5, ERA5-Land, HBV-IMERG, VIC-PGF, and GLDAS-Noah. This ranking largely reflects the quality of the precipitation forcing. HBV-MSWEP (median R of 0.78) performed best not just among the open-loop models but among all products. The calibration of HBV improved the median R by +0.12 on average compared to random parameters, highlighting the importance of model calibration. The best-to-worst performance ranking of the six models with satellite data assimilation was HBV-MSWEP+SMAPL3E, HBV-ERA5+SMAPL3E, GLEAM, SMAPL4, HBV-IMERG+SMAPL3E, and ERA5. The assimilation of SMAPL3E retrievals into HBV-IMERG improved the median R by +0.06, suggesting that data assimilation yields significant benefits at the global scale.

In the current human-modified world, or Anthropocene, the state of water stores and fluxes has become dependent on human as well as natural processes. Water deficits (or droughts) are the result of a complex interaction between meteorological anomalies, land surface processes, and human inflows, outflows, and storage changes. Our current inability to adequately analyse and manage drought in many places points to gaps in our understanding and to inadequate data and tools. The Anthropocene requires a new framework for drought definitions and research. Drought definitions need to be revisited to explicitly include human processes driving and modifying soil moisture drought and hydrological drought development. We give recommendations for robust drought definitions to clarify timescales of drought and prevent confusion with related terms such as water scarcity and overexploitation. Additionally, our understanding and analysis of drought need to move from single driver to multiple drivers and from uni-directional to multi-directional. We identify research gaps and propose analysis approaches on (1) drivers, (2) modifiers, (3) impacts, (4) feedbacks, and (5) changing the baseline of drought in the Anthropocene. The most pressing research questions are related to the attribution of drought to its causes, to linking drought impacts to drought characteristics, and to societal adaptation and responses to drought. Example questions include (i) What are the dominant drivers of drought in different parts of the world? (ii) How do human modifications of drought enhance or alleviate drought severity? (iii) How do impacts of drought depend on the physical characteristics of drought vs. the vulnerability of people or the environment? (iv) To what extent are physical and human drought processes coupled, and can feedback loops be identified and altered to lessen or mitigate drought? (v) How should we adapt our drought analysis to accommodate changes in the normal situation (i.e. what are considered normal or reference conditions) over time? Answering these questions requires exploration of qualitative and quantitative data as well as mixed modelling approaches. The challenges related to drought research and management in the Anthropocene are not unique to drought, but do require urgent attention. We give recommendations drawn from the fields of flood research, ecology, water management, and water resources studies. The framework presented here provides a holistic view on drought in the Anthropocene, which will help improve management strategies for mitigating the severity and reducing the impacts of droughts in future.

Drought management is inefficient because feedbacks between drought and people are not fully understood. In this human-influenced era, we need to rethink the concept of drought to include the human role in mitigating and enhancing drought.

Dunes form critical agents of bedload transport in all of the world’s big rivers, and constitute appreciable sources of bed roughness and flow resistance. Dunes also generate stratification that is the most common depositional feature of ancient riverine sediments. However, current models of dune dynamics and stratification are conditioned by bedform geometries observed in small rivers and laboratory experiments. For these dunes, the downstream lee-side is often assumed to be simple in shape and sloping at the angle of repose. Here we show, using a unique compilation of high-resolution bathymetry from a range of large rivers, that dunes are instead characterized predominantly by low-angle lee-side slopes (<10°), complex lee-side shapes with the steepest portion near the base of the lee-side slope and a height that is often only 10% of the local flow depth. This radically different shape of river dunes demands that such geometries are incorporated into predictions of flow resistance, water levels and flood risk and calls for rethinking of dune scaling relationships when reconstructing palaeoflow depths and a fundamental reappraisal of the character, and origin, of low-angle cross-stratification within interpretations of ancient alluvial sediments.Dunes in the world’s big rivers are dominated by lee-side slopes with angles of less than 10°, according to a bedform analysis of high-resolution bathymetric datasets.

Patients presenting within 36 hours after the onset of atrial fibrillation were randomly assigned to undergo early cardioversion or to receive rate-control medication followed by delayed cardioversion within 48 hours if there was no conversion to sinus rhythm. The wait-and-see approach was noninferior to early cardioversion for the primary outcome of sinus rhythm at 4 weeks.

Drought is a global problem that has far-reaching impacts, especially on vulnerable populations in developing regions. This paper highlights the need for a Global Drought Early Warning System (GDEWS), the elements that constitute its underlying framework (GDEWF), and the recent progress made toward its development. Many countries lack drought monitoring systems, as well as the capacity to respond via appropriate political, institutional, and technological frameworks, and these have inhibited the development of integrated drought management plans or early warning systems. The GDEWS will provide a source of drought tools and products via the GDEWF for countries and regions to develop tailored drought early warning systems for their own users. A key goal of a GDEWS is to maximize the lead time for early warning, allowing drought managers and disaster coordinators more time to put mitigation measures in place to reduce the vulnerability to drought. To address this, the GDEWF will take both a top-down approach to provide global realtime drought monitoring and seasonal forecasting, and a bottom-up approach that builds upon existing national and regional systems to provide continental-to-global coverage. A number of challenges must be overcome, however, before a GDEWS can become a reality, including the lack of in situ measurement networks and modest seasonal forecast skill in many regions, and the lack of infrastructure to translate data into useable information. A set of international partners, through a series of recent workshops and evolving collaborations, has made progress toward meeting these challenges and developing a global system.