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Abstract. One hundred and one landslides were documented across 370km2 following a rainstorm that swept the British Columbia coastline on 18 November 2001. Despite the regional nature of the storm, the landslides were spaced close together, even within the study area. Landslide clustering is attributed to high intensity storm cells too small to be recorded by the general hydrometric network. The evidence nicely corroborates previous historical studies that reached similar conclusions, but against which there was no modern analog analyzed for coastal British Columbia. Magnitude-cumulative frequency data plotted well on a power law curve for landslides greater than 10000m2, however, below that size several curves would fit. The rollover effect, a point where the data is no longer represented by the power law, therefore occurs at about 1.5 orders of magnitude higher than the smallest landslide. Additional work on Vancouver Island has provided evidence for rollovers at similar values. We propose that the rollover is a manifestation of the physical conditions of landslide occurrence and process uniformity. The data was fit to a double Pareto distribution and P-P plots were generated for several data sets to examine the fit of that model. The double Pareto model describes the bulk of the data well, however, less well at the tails. For small landslides (<650m2) this may still be a product of censoring. Landscape denudation from the storm was averaged over the study area and equal to 2mm of erosion. This is more than an order of magnitude larger than the annual rate of denudation reported by other authors for coastal British Columbia, but substantially less than New Zealand. The number is somewhat affected by the rather arbitrary choice of a study area boundary.

The improvement of the quality of life of people with a severe mental illness is a key policy objective and an important outcome for clinical services. Drawing on cases assessed using the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile and its German transiation (The Berliner Lebensqualitatprofil), this paper explores the relationship between personal characteristics, objective well being, subjective well being and overall well being. These variables are compared in two large data sets of people with severe mental illness, one from the UK (n = 1279) and the other from Germany (n = 386). The comparison shows that UK cases have significantly lower subjective well- being in almost all life domains (except safety, living situation and employment). UK cases reported slightly but not significantly higher levels of satisfaction with employment but German cases are more often employed than their UK counter parts. The German samples reported substantially better subjective well-being ratings for health, finances, family, leisure and social life. Exploration of the predictors of overall well-being shows that in both countries depression has the effect of reducing subjective well-being scores, except in relation to work (both samples), religion (UK), finance and safety (Germany). Regression analysis confirms that age, depression and objective circumstances make a small contri bution to overall well-being but that subjective ratings in individual life domains make the major contribution. The most important individual predictors of overall well-being for the two samples combined include being a victim of crime, depres sion and satisfaction with leisure, work, health and mental health, family, living situation, finance and social contacts. Factor analysis indicates that the variance in global well-being explained in both samples combined is 36% (31% in the German samples and 38% in the UK sample).

OBJECTIVE: To measure mortality among characters in British soap operas on television. DESIGN: Cohort analysis of deaths in EastEnders and Coronation Street, supplemented by an analysis of deaths in Brookside and Emmerdale. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Standardised mortality ratios and the proportional mortality ratio for deaths attributable to external causes (E code of ICD-9 (international classification of diseases, ninth revision). RESULTS: Staying alive in a television soap opera is not easy. Standardised mortality ratios for characters were among the highest for any occupation yet described (771 (95% confidence interval 415 to 1127) for characters in EastEnders), and this was not just because all causes of death were overrepresented. Deaths in soap operas were almost three times more likely to be from violent causes than would be expected from a character's age and sex. A character in EastEnders was twice as likely as a similar character in Coronation Street to die during an episode. CONCLUSIONS: The most dangerous job in the United Kingdom is not, as expected, bomb disposal expert, steeplejack, or Formula One racing driver but having a role in one of the United Kingdom's most well known soap operas. This is the first quantitative estimate of the size of the pinch of salt which should be taken when watching soap operas.

Purpose: To describe changes to mental health services using systems thinking. Method: Structured standardized quality of life assessment (Manchester Short Quality of Life Assessment: MANSA) was used to establish service user priorities for changes to service provision (part of a process known as check in systems thinking). Current service performance in these priority areas was identified, and changes to service arrangements were planned, implemented and monitored by task and finish (T&F) groups (making use of a process known as flow in systems thinking). Results: 81 MANSA assessments were completed at the check stage (by NM). Work finances and leisure activities emerged as service user priority areas for change, and T&F groups were established with representation of all sectors and service users. Ways to make improvements were observed, planned and implemented by T&F groups (the flow stage). Conclusion: The systems approach reveals how services and quality of life have been changed for patients in Wrexham. Further generalizable research is needed into the potential benefits of using systems thinking in mental health service evaluation.

ABSTRACTIn March 2000, a document entitled Draft Regional Planning Guidance for the South East was published with the primary aim of providing a regional framework for the preparation of development plans to the year 2016.This paper discusses the potential effects for the water industry of SERPLAN's predicted levels of housing growth on water resources, sewage treatment and the environment. The need for sustainable development with the competing pressures of water‐resource limitation, changing regulation, increasing demand and the environment, are discussed. Thames Water's scale of operations is described together with the range of measures aimed at managing the reasonable demands of customers, consistent with achieving sustainable growth. Basingstoke is described as a wastewater case study, highlighting the problem in fulfilling the sewerage undertaker's statutory duties in (a) meeting already stringent effluent‐treatment standards which are necessary to maintain and improve river quality, and (b) providing the necessary infrastructure for an area which is earmarked for continuing development.

Background Based on experiences and empirical evidence gained in studies using the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile (LQLP), the Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life (MANSA) has been developed as a condensed and slightly modified instrument for assessing quality of life. Its properties have been tested in a sample of community care patients. Method Fifty-five randomly selected patients on the Care Programme Approach were interviewed using the LQLP, the MANSA and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Results Correlations between subjective quality of life scores on MANSA and LQLP were all 0.83 or higher (0.94 for the satisfaction mean score). Cronbach's alpha for satisfaction ratings was 0.74, and association with psychopathology was in line with results for LQLP as reported in the literature. Conclusions The MANSA is a brief instrument for assessing quality of life focusing on satisfaction with life as a whole and with life domains. Its psychometric properties appear satisfactory.

Over the last thirty years, floodplain ecosystems in West Africa have been extensively damaged or destroyed by the construction of major agricultural and hydro‐electric infrastructure. In many cases this has induced a serious loss of biodiversity and reduced the potential to produce economic benefits for the local population from fishing, flood‐recession agriculture, dry‐season grazing and groundwater recharge. In 1993, in order to address the degradation of the Logone floodplain, the World Conservation Union initiated a floodplain‐restoration project.In order to study the feasibility and effectiveness of a larger‐scale restoration, a sophisticated one‐dimensional hydrodynamic model was developed. This paper describes the results of modelling various options for this restoration under three climatic scenarios (good, average, poor). Results indicate that, for 'good' years, up to 93% of the degraded floodplain can be re‐inundated through a major adjustment of the existing infrastructure, without compromising other floodplain uses such as the irrigated agriculture and reservoir fisheries. The extension of model use for restoration assessment in other floodplains is also examined.