Social Sciences

Abstract: Population health research in Canada frequently assigns environmental and area-based exposures to individuals using residential postal codes. Of the several tools available for this process, the most common is the Postal Code Conversion File Plus (PCCF+), which uses population-weighted random allocation for postal codes with multiple potential geographic locations. However, the positional error of this method, and its consequences for assignment of environmental exposures or area-based deprivation, have not been comprehensively measured against a national address register. This study geocoded 12.4 million residential addresses from the National Address Register (NAR) with PCCF+ Version 8D and compared each assigned PCCF+ representative point with a reference location given by the NAR building point or, where that was absent, a matched Open Database of Addresses point or the NAR blockface point. Positional error, dissemination area (DA) agreement, growing-season greenness from the MODIS Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), and quintiles of the Material and Social Deprivation Index were compared across postal delivery modes and categories of rurality. The median error was 65 m for urban addresses served by letter carriers and 3.1 km for rural postal codes, and DA agreement was 92% and 30%, respectively. Greenness assigned from PCCF+ was nearly unbiased for urban houses (mean absolute difference 0.013) but was systematically higher than at the true location for rural postal codes (bias +0.036; r = 0.51). The material deprivation quintile was misclassified for 5.0% of urban addresses and 46.2% of rural postal-code addresses, with errors distributed symmetrically. Misclassification depended far more on delivery mode than on rurality: rural postal codes were misclassified at similar rates (about 44% to 49%) in metropolitan areas, census agglomerations and most metropolitan influenced zones, and less often in areas with no metropolitan influence. Error measures and two correction methods were developed from the register: a stratum correction based on the probability of each assigned deprivation quintile given the true quintile, by province, Statistical Area Classification (SAC) and delivery mode, and, for record-level data, a postal-code correction based on the distribution of true quintiles within each postal code. Delivery mode explained about twice as much of the error as province and SAC combined, and error measures stratified only by province and SAC misstated misclassification by 20 to 40 percentage points for populations with atypical delivery-mode mixes. In simulated cohorts with a true rate ratio of 2.0, naive estimates were attenuated by 5% nationally and by up to 31% in rural Saskatchewan, whereas the postal-code correction reduced bias to under 3% with 92–100% interval coverage across all cohort types. Exposure misclassification from postal code geocoding is concentrated among rural addresses and attenuated deprivation gradients in simulated cohorts, and it can be corrected using national address data.

Abstract: Photography occupies a prominent and contested place in contemporary participatory urban planning. This research develops a critical-interpretative framework that rejects celebratory narratives of visual participation, whilst recognising the genuine possibilities that participatory photography can offer under appropriate political and institutional conditions. Drawing on recent literature, we examine four interrelated issues: i. access to participation and the exclusions it reproduces; ii. control over the production, selection, interpretation and circulation of images; iii. divergent spatial experiences and conflicts of use; iv. and the gap between representation and material change. The evidence gathered and analysed reveals tensions that methodological refinement alone cannot resolve, namely: researchers limit participants’ autonomy even in ostensibly co-produced projects; visual literacy and technological access remain unevenly distributed; images are selectively appropriated to legitimise predetermined institutional agendas; and emerging AI technologies risk intensifying these dynamics through algorithmic bias and a growing loss of trust in evidence. Participatory photography is understood here as a contested terrain, whose emancipatory potential depends on power relations, institutional conditions and the community’s control over the production and use of the images themselves.

Abstract: Geopolitical tensions are exacerbating the challenges associated with the supply of critical and strategic metals, prompting European and French policymakers to promote the recycling of metals contained in printed circuit boards (PCBs) derived from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). Few studies have assessed the potential of PCBs in France; however, transforming this potential into a resource requires overcoming several obstacles relating to collection, management, dismantling and recycling. This article aims to estimate the potential stock of end-of-life motherboards from smartphones and laptops in France by 2027. It focuses in particular on five metals: gold, silver, nickel, copper and palladium. The estimate is based on data relating to market placement and product life cycles provided by ADEME (the French Agency for Ecological Transition), data from the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (Touzé et al., 2024) and data from the scientific literature. An estimate of the economic potential of this deposit was carried out, taking into account the efficiency of metal separation processes. The results indicate a deposit representing several thousand tonnes of PCBs and several million euros in terms of economic recovery potential.

Abstract: Ten US states and dozens of countries have adopted a goal to preserve 30 percent of their land and water resources by 2030. The US 30 × 30 effort seeks to protect wildlife habitats, provide recreation opportunities, mitigate climate change, and avoid the fragmentation of natural areas and working farms and forestlands. Yet, very little research exists on the practice of how to achieve 30x30. In 2023, the State of Vermont passed legislation setting 30x30 and 50x50 as goals. Because Vermont is heavily forested, the preservation of forestland is key to reaching its goals. Fragmentation and parcelization of forests both degrade the forest ecology and reduce the attractiveness for preservation. Land preservation and retention decisions about private property occur locally, but no studies have yet examined the locally available land use tools that influence achieving the 30% goal. This study fills that gap by analyzing the interaction among land preservation, local zoning, state sponsored pref-erential property taxation, and land parcelization activity in 13 forested Vermont towns. Findings show considerable benefit from preferential property taxation, limited benefit from natural resource zoning, and a wide variation in the amount of land preserved. We also found little change in the number of large parcels pre- and post-COVID but some continued land fragmentation among smaller parcels. Sustained funding for land preservation together with the management of forests will be essential steps toward effective preservation in any forested region over the long run.

Abstract: Introduction: Land policies are frequently presented as instruments for correcting colonial, racial, feudal and elite‐concentrated land inequality. Across the supplied literature, however, formal redistribution, restitution, recognition and titling do not consistently produce secure tenure or improved socioeconomic conditions for historically disadvantaged populations. This systematic review examined how land reform, redistribution, restitution, tenure regularization and titling relate to socioeconomic impacts and tenure security, while identifying enabling conditions, risks and implementation barriers. Methods: The researcher‐selected databases and information sources were Google Scholar, PubMed (MEDLINE) and ERIC. The eligibility protocol restricted publication years to 2025–2026. The exact calendar date of search execution was not recorded in the verified identification provenance; this is distinct from the publication‐year eligibility range. Google Scholar, PubMed (MEDLINE) and ERIC were searched using the supplied Boolean strategy for English peer‐ reviewed studies published between 2025 and 2026. Results: Land reform was consistently framed as a project of distributive and reparative justice, but redistribution was constrained by political instability, elite accommodation, weak administrative capacity, regulatory overlap and inadequate conflict resolution. Formal recognition frequently protected only partial or selected rights. Socioeconomic benefits depended on complementary water, infrastructure, inputs, services, livelihood support and recognition of local knowledge. Poorly planned reform, conservation restrictions and resettlement generated displacement, livelihood disruption, food insecurity and conflict. Participation, inclusion, accessible information, accountability and free, prior and informed consent were recurrent enabling conditions. Discussion/Conclusion: Land policies can advance justice and livelihood security, but their effects are conditional rather than automatic. Effective reform requires institutional capacity, substantive redistribution, inclusive tenure recognition and integrated socioeconomic support.

Abstract: Contemporary housing debates often present affordability pressures, densification and shared living as unprecedented. Long-range histories of housing tend to answer that framing by asserting continuity, but rarely state how continuity would be recognised or what would count against it. This article proposes and applies an auditable procedure for that task. Eighteen residential cases, from Çatalhöyük to contemporary financialised co-living, were coded for three candidate patterns drawn from architectural history, space syntax and housing-regime theory: a buffer space mediating between the public realm and the dwelling; the coexistence of a speculative rental sector with a secure or regulated one; and non-market allocation of dwelling space. Each case was also graded for the quality of the evidence on which its coding rests. The analysis distinguishes recurrence, the appearance of a feature in unconnected cases, from persistence in the Conzenian sense of inheritance within a place-specific morphological lineage; the evidence assembled here tests only the former. Of the eighteen residential cases, six display a clear buffer space, six do not, and four are ambiguous and two are indeterminate. No clear instance occurs after 1920, and none of the three speculative-rental cases displays an unambiguous one. Coexisting speculative and secure sectors are documented in two of five periods and, more weakly, in a third. Shared domestic facilities occur under both market and non-market allocation, so their presence does not in itself indicate a communal housing logic. These results do not support claims of a structural constant in residential form. They support three narrower propositions: that no speculative-rental case in this sample contains an unambiguous domestic buffer, while other tenures do not guarantee one; that tenure stratification is old but is not equivalent to Kemeny’s dualist rental regime; and that facility-sharing and non-market allocation are separate dimensions that claims of communal revival tend to conflate. The article closes by specifying the evidence that would test these propositions, including computed configurational measures and cases from regions absent from the present sample.

Abstract: This study examines the role of disaster collective memory in promoting preparedness behavior using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). By analyzing earthquake cases in Mashiki (Kumamoto, Japan) and Palu (Central Sulawesi, Indonesia), along with each national-scope samples, this research evaluates configurations of five core conditions: collective memory, threat appraisal, coping appraisal, social norms, and trust. The analysis compares two distinct groups of causal recipes—one omitting collective memory and the other including it—to determine their paths to successful preparedness. The findings reveal that incorporating collective memory generates a perfect causal recipe, with Japan acting as the typical case. Concurrently, the model captures an efficacy-preparedness paradox within the Palu context. Methodologically, these results demonstrate that examining non-linear interactions between determinants provides significantly deeper insights than treating them as isolated factors in linear frameworks. This study highlights the necessity of designing highly contextualized disaster risk reduction strategies, emphasizing that a disaster case must be analyzed as a whole entity shaped by individual and social factors inherent to the affected region.

Abstract: State policy shocks are routinely capitalised into housing markets, yet the spatial resolution at which that capitalisation can be observed is rarely tested. This study examines the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, after which thirteen United States states enacted total abortion bans. Replicating and extending county-level synthetic difference-in-differences estimates by one year, rents in ban states remain 2.9% below their synthetic counterfactual through June 2026 and home values 2.3% below, although rent significance depends on the state-level variance estimator. The study then asks whether the decline concentrates in the neighbourhoods where women of reproductive age cluster. A within-metropolitan two-way fixed-effects design across 337 ZIP codes in thirteen ban-state metropolitan areas returns a −0.86% differential that fails its parallel-trends test, depends on a single state and loses significance once spatial dependence is respected: spatially blocked randomisation inference yields p = 0.224, against p = 0.022 when ZIP codes are permuted individually. The exposure measure is spatially clustered (Moran’s I = 0.125) and 46.4% predicted by density, income, age and tenure, so it locates neighbourhoods on the urban gradient rather than isolating policy exposure. A sex-composition test nearly orthogonal to that gradient returns an informative null, excluding differentials beyond ±1%, and the same gradient moved rents in protecting-state metropolitan areas where no policy changed. Capitalisation detectable across states need not be recoverable within cities; compositional neighbourhood measures require explicit specificity and spatial-inference tests before they inform local planning or underwriting.

Abstract: Modelled small-area population estimates are increasingly needed where census data are outdated, spatially coarse, incomplete or unavailable. These estimates are often produced at 100-m grids and aggregated to operational units totals, by combining population observations from surveys, health campaigns and partial censuses with satellite-derived settlement data and geospatial covariates. However, the effects of mapped number of buildings, spatial dependence and changes in spatial support on predictive performance and uncertainty remain insufficiently understood. We developed a Bayesian geospatial modelling framework comparing a Gamma people-per-building (PPB) model with a negative binomial (NB) population-count formulation. Both formulations incorporated hierarchical effects, geospatial covariates and a Matérn spatial field implemented in INLA-SPDE. A factorial simulation study, which evaluated the effects of spatial range, spatial variance and missingness, showed that prediction error increased with spatial variance and short-range spatial dependence, with the Gamma formulation producing higher precision and accuracy than the NB model. However, when applied to household listing datasets from five data sources across 2,285 Enumeration Areas (EAs) in Cameroon, both models produced similar 100-km spatial cross-validation RMSEs (1,293.6 and 1,294.4, respectively). Errors increased when predicting regions or data sources excluded from the training sets. After 100-m grid predictions were reaggregated to EA support, predicted-to-observed population ratios were 1.248 for Gamma and 1.388 for NB, with national total posterior population estimates of 29.20 million people (95% CrI: 25.71 – 33.07) and 33.21 million people (28.96 – 38.60), respectively. Similar EA-level predictive performance can mask important differences in geographic transferability, fine-scale downscaling and aggregation; thus, explicit evaluation of spatial support and model form uncertainty is therefore important for high-resolution population estimation. The framework provides a scalable computationally feasible approach to integrating heterogeneous sparse observations with geospatial information while propagating spatial and hierarchical uncertainty.

Abstract: In the context of China’s dual-carbon goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, urban low-carbon planning has become central to achieving sustainable urban transformation. However, its implementation remains hindered by fragmented legal frameworks, weak regulatory coordination, limited incentive mechanisms, and insufficient public participation. This study examines how institutional safeguard mechanisms can enhance the effectiveness and enforceability of urban low-carbon planning. Using a comparative case analysis of representative Chinese cities, it investigates the current institutional arrangements, identifies key governance deficiencies, and explores feasible pathways for systemic improvement. The findings reveal that legal institutionalization, integrated regulatory frameworks, diversified incentive policies, and participatory co-governance are critical to advancing low-carbon planning and ensuring policy coherence. These insights can improve administrative efficiency, enhance stakeholder engagement, and create a resilient governance structure that supports long-term carbon reduction. The study contributes to the theoretical understanding of urban low-carbon governance and provides actionable policy guidance for cities in developing countries pursuing sustainable and inclusive low-carbon transitions under the global climate governance framework.

Abstract: Local legislatures play a critical role in lawmaking, budgeting, oversight, and translating societal demands into public policy, yet formal decentralization may coexist with executive dominance, information asymmetry, strategic inertia, and bureaucratic passivity. This study examines how executive dominance contributes to strategic inertia in Indonesian local legislatures and explores how public leadership and multidimensional institutional capacities can facilitate transformation toward substantive public value. A qualitative comparative-exploratory multiple-case study was conducted involving 35 informants selected through purposive and supplementary snowball sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation, and documentary analysis and examined using comparative thematic analysis incorporating open, axial, selective, and cross-case coding. Five interconnected themes emerged: executive dominance and structural dependence; strategic inertia and bureaucratic passivity; public leadership as a mechanism for disrupting inertia; multidimensional institutional, individual, budgetary, and regulatory capacity; and the transition from procedural compliance to substantive public value. The findings indicate that leadership can disrupt entrenched legislative routines, but sustainable transformation depends on complementary institutional capacities that strengthen autonomy, inclusion, responsiveness, and accountability. The study contributes an integrated explanatory framework linking structural dependence, organizational inertia, public leadership, multidimensional capacity strengthening, and substantive public value in local legislative governance.

Abstract: Tropical dry forests are among the most threatened ecosystems worldwide. This study examines how hydro-climatic variability and demographic change interact to shape vegetation trajectories in the Montes de María region of Colombia, one of the largest remaining fragments of neotropical dry forest. Using the 2016 Peace Accord as a historical context, we integrate dasymetric population grids (2005-2018), CHIRPS-derived rainfall anomalies (2003-2007 vs. 2016-2020), and Landsat Enhanced Vegetation Index composites (2008-2010 vs. 2021-2022) within a Geographically Weighted Regression framework. Results reveal marked spatial non-stationarity and improve on a global model (adjusted R² rising from 0.049 to 0.426, with a concurrent AICc reduction of 193.5 points). Contrary to the assumption that demographic recovery drives forest degradation, population growth is associated exclusively with vegetation greening. Climatic effects are locally significant across a larger share of the region but vary in direction, indicating that rainfall anomalies do not produce uniform ecological outcomes. These findings suggest that post-conflict vegetation change in Montes de María cannot be reduced to a single dominant driver, and that displacement legacies, resettlement, and climatic variability interact differently across the landscape.

Abstract: In Togo, artisanal fishing serves as a source of employment and income while contributing to meeting the population's food needs. In recent decades, however, the sector has faced numerous vulnerabilities stemming from various risks that limit its significant contribution to food security. This article analyzes the impact of these vulnerabilities on artisanal marine fishing within coastal fishing communities in Togo. The methodological approach relies on both secondary and field data, collected via questionnaires and interview guides administered to stakeholders in the artisanal marine fishing value chain. Statistical tools, such as the Chi-square test and Cramer’s V, were used to establish interdependencies between the various analytical variables. The study reveals that artisanal marine fisheries face diverse vulnerabilities—specifically environmental, economic, socio-cultural, and legal-institutional. These factors undermine fishing activities and, by extension, the food security of fishing communities. Economic vulnerabilities are the most acutely felt, affecting 94% of surveyed stakeholders, followed by socio-cultural vulnerabilities (82%) and environmental vulnerabilities (78%). Sustainable fishery management and the promotion of aquaculture offer potential ways to mitigate the impact of these vulnerabilities on artisanal marine fishing activities and food security.

Abstract: Pacific Island countries are frequently positioned as recipients of development assistance or locations of strategic competition. Such representations obscure how regional institutions articulate the purposes that external cooperation should serve. This article examines how Pacific diplomatic texts define legitimate partnership and how those definitions appear in selected Chinese and United States cooperation documents. A qualitative documentary analysis compares seven official texts published between 2017 and 2025, distinguishing regional agenda articulation, textual accommodation by partners, and implementation outcomes. The analysis identifies three connected practices: prioritizing climate security, constructing an oceanic regional subject, and specifying obligations through regional strategies and maritime claims. References to Pacific priorities in joint declarations indicate selective textual accommodation, while the continued presence of external strategic objectives demonstrates its limits. Neither rhetorical convergence nor endorsement establishes that Pacific actors controlled negotiations or secured implementation. The article contributes an evidence-sensitive account of discursive agency in sustainability diplomacy: authority can be exercised through the criteria used to evaluate partnerships, even where material inequalities persist. It also identifies the conditions under which recognition could become accountable cooperation, including traceable links between declared priorities, decision procedures, and implementation evidence.

Abstract: Measuring multidimensional Quality of Life (QoL) increasingly relies on composite indicators to guide sustainable development policy. However, standard linear aggregation frameworks generally assume full compensability, allowing strong performance in one domain to mathematically mask severe deficits in another. For policymakers, this compensatory masking may conceal structural imbalances across sectors, obscuring localized vulnerabilities critical for targeted interventions. To address this diagnostic gap, we introduce the Sustainable Composite Indicator for Policy Evidence (SCIPE), a granular QoL assessment framework that explicitly penalizes horizontal imbalances across SDG-aligned dimensions. Using Bangladesh’s 64 administrative districts as a representative case study, we construct a multi-domain baseline that integrates traditional socio-economic metrics with satellite-derived night-time light data. SCIPE employs Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for data-driven indicator weighting and the Mazziotta-Pareto Index (MPI) to enforce an explicit variance penalty. Sensitivity analysis against the Human Development Index (HDI) confirms convergent validity while demonstrating SCIPE’s sensitivity to inter-sectoral volatility. Empirical findings reveal that penalizing horizontal variance significantly reconfigures district rankings: rewarding balanced developmental trajectories while exposing hidden trade-offs, such as ecological and public health deficits within affluent industrial corridors. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that aggregation choices fundamentally dictate policy interpretation, underscoring the necessity of evaluating balanced progress rather than relying solely on macro-level averages.

Abstract: Contemporary systemic-risk governance is organized around a family of concepts, risk, Knightian uncertainty, deep uncertainty, complexity, systemic risk, and polycrisis, each built to isolate one dimension of a disorderly world. We argue that the family has a gap at its center: none of its members names the standing condition in which multiple uncertainties interact and evolve continuously, including in the quiet periods before any recognizable crisis. We call that condition Polyuncertainty and define it through five necessary attributes, multiplicity, interdependence, dynamic evolution, cascading effects, and limited governability, and five generative mechanisms. The contribution is deliberately conceptual. We propose no new estimator and claim no priority over the mature apparatus for systemic risk in finance or compound risk in climate science; the claim is that a bounded organizing concept, positioned against its neighbors and equipped with boundary conditions and testable propositions, can improve problem definition and set a cumulative research agenda across governance capability, measurement, and domain application. Five recent episodes in which losses spread through structure rather than the initiating hazard motivate the concept, and a transparent agent-based simulation, offered as a proof of concept, shows that the five mechanisms generate a disproportionate-cascade signature single-hazard assessment misses, and that slack, coordination, and the timing of coordination move it as the framework predicts.

Abstract: Urban inundation forecasting in high-density cities is complicated by sparse incident labels, nonstationary rainfall, and changing sensing systems. Using Taipei as a case study, we develop a building-scale GeoAI decision-support prototype that integrates 30,421 LOD1 building-centroid nodes, 41,636 graph edges, built-environment attributes, and eight extreme-rainfall events from 2015 to 2026. We evaluate a static inundation-susceptibility baseline, 60- and 120-min event-level forecasts, tree-ensemble models, a Temporal GNN, and ConvLSTM, and separately test temporal and spatial transfer under compound distribution shift. The analysis adopts a positive-unlabeled (PU) learning perspective and distinguishes event-level, pooled, temporal-transfer, spatial-transfer, and scale-sensitivity evaluation regimes. Across seven events with verifiable outputs, macro-averaged AUCs were 0.694 at 60 min and 0.677 at 120 min. XGBoost achieved the highest AUC (0.682) in a benchmark with non-equivalent spatial support, whereas forward temporal validation fell to 0.490. Physics-based synthetic augmentation increased the mean AUC for four historical gauge-era events from 0.4965 to 0.6768, although one event deteriorated. These results define the conditions under which building-scale GeoAI remains informative and where it fails, providing a more defensible basis for urban-resilience decision support, climate adaptation, and infrastructure continuity.

Abstract: This study examines how rain-gardens are conceptualized, implemented, governed, maintained, and situated within contemporary green infrastructure (GI) systems in New Jersey, USA. A qualitative case-study design integrated semi-structured interviews with ten municipal, NGO, design, and watershed stakeholders; qualitative analysis of New Jersey-specific professional, technical, and regulatory documents; and structured field documentation of 18 implemented rain-garden sites. The book Rain Gardens (Dunnett & Clayden, 2007) was analyzed separately as a comparative contextual source. Findings indicate that rain-gardens are primarily operationalized as decentralized stormwater-management infrastructure, with infiltration, runoff management, water-quality improvement, and regulatory compliance as dominant implementation rationales. Although institutional discourse also associates rain-gardens with biodiversity, environmental education, public engagement, and climate resilience, these functions generally remain complementary to stormwater objectives. Field observations revealed substantial variation in vegetation, maintenance, and visible site condition, consistent with interview evidence that long-term functioning depends on continuing stewardship, institutional capacity, funding, and maintenance. Stewardship, therefore, emerges as an often-overlooked form of “invisible infrastructure” that supports rain-gardens after implementation. The findings further identify a scalar tension between predominantly site- and parcel-scale implementation and the watershed- and landscape-scale objectives associated with climate resilience. Rain-gardens can provide important localized benefits, but broader resilience contributions depend on their strategic coordination with complementary GI and watershed-management measures.

Abstract: The expansion of remote work has raised new questions about how residents evaluate housing locations, particularly as daily workplace proximity may become less central for some workers and space, amenities, and lifestyle considerations may become more salient. This study examines residential location priorities and scenario-based area-type preferences across preferred future work arrangements in the Roanoke Metropolitan Statistical Area, Virginia, a mid-sized U.S. metropolitan region. Data were drawn from a 2023 cross-sectional online survey of verified adult residents, producing an eligible analytical base of 636 respondents. Thirteen residential-priority items were analyzed using complete cases (n = 620). Exploratory factor analysis, supported by parallel analysis and interpreted using polychoric correlations with oblique rotation, identified two related exploratory priority orientations: a broad space/stability/community-related orientation and an accessibility/amenity-related orientation. Kruskal–Wallis tests with Benjamini–Hochberg correction showed statistically significant but generally modest differences across preferred work-arrangement groups, with the largest differences observed for proximity to the central business district and rural/suburban lifestyle preference. Scenario-based area rankings were analyzed among respondents with valid paired rankings under both in-person and remote-work conditions (n = 579). Under the remote-work scenario, suburban areas were ranked significantly more favorably, while city center/CBD locations were ranked significantly less favorably; changes in urban and rural rankings were not statistically significant after correction. These findings indicate that preferred future work arrangements and hypothetical remote-work scenarios are associated with differentiated stated residential preferences in this mid-sized metropolitan sample. The results should be interpreted as stated preference paĴerns and scenario-based ranking differences, not as evidence of actual relocation behavior, realized housing-market demand, verified access to remote-capable employment, or causal effects of remote work on urban spatial change.

Abstract: The Alqueva Multifunctional Project was conceived as a development infrastructure for southern Portugal, promising agricultural modernisation, demographic stabilisation, job creation and territorial cohesion. This article examines the gap between these promises and the project’s outcomes through an analysis of documents, census data, sectoral indicators and a territorial case-study approach. The results reveal a clear paradox, as significant achievements were observed in the water, agriculture, energy and tourism sectors, including the expansion of irrigation, growth in exports, greater water security and innovation in the field of renewable energy. However, these sectoral gains have coexisted with ongoing depopulation, an ageing population, the precarious nature of the migrant workforce, land concentration, poor local value retention and growing environmental pressures. The article argues that this contradiction reflects a development model shaped by neo-extractivism, accumulation through dispossession and the limited capture of territorial rent. Alqueva thus demonstrates how technically successful infrastructure projects can fail to generate inclusive territorial development when redistribution, institutional coordination and local integration remain inadequate and when effective mechanisms for spatial justice are lacking.