Application of fuzzy models to assess susceptibility to droughts from a socio-economic perspective

By combining the concepts of environmental stress, state susceptibility and environmental crisis, “Security Diagram” (SD) provides a quantitative approach to assessing environmental change and human security. The SD is a tool that clearly presents in a diagram the security situation of a population or region affected by a particular environmental crisis. Its underlying concept emphasises that the higher the level of environmental stress and socio-economic susceptibility, the higher the probability of the occurrence of crisis. Focusing on drought, this study analyses the susceptibility of case study regions in India, Portugal, and Russia from a socio-economic perspective. A conceptual framework of socio-economic susceptibility is developed based on the economic development theories of modernisation and dependency. Fuzzy set theory is used to generate susceptibility indices from a range of national and sub-national indicators, including financial resources, agricultural dependency and infrastructure development (for economic susceptibility), and health condition, educational attainment and gender inequality (for social susceptibility). Results indicate that socio-economic susceptibility over the period 1980–1995 was highest in India, followed by Russia and (since 1989) lowest in Portugal. Globalisation is likely to contribute to changes in the level of socio-economic susceptibility over time. Moreover, specific social and economic structures unique in each country (e.g., the role of women in society in India, the socialist legacy in Russia) may explain differences in susceptibility between the case study regions.

The challenge of validating vulnerability estimates: the option of media content analysis for identifying drought-related crises

For an integrated assessment of the vulnerability of societies to drought it is necessary to set the benchmark at a level where the impacts of droughts lead to a state of affairs that departs from normal conditions, i.e. a crisis event. This article aims to improve the understanding of drought-related crisis events on the basis of a twofold media content analysis. This approach enables us to test when increased vulnerability in fact leads to a crisis situation and offers an improved understanding of the intensity and the extent of crisis events. To this end, we first outline our perspective on crisis and give an overview on existing approaches to identify crisis events. We then outline our two-step approach of media content analysis aimed at developing a crisis data set for the case study regions Andhra Pradesh (India), Southern Portugal and the Volga region (Russia). Using the Factiva news database and information by regional newspapers, a crisis data set is generated enabling us to define the occurrence and extent of drought-related crisis events in the case study regions. Moreover, based on attributes of drought impacts reported by news sources, we categorize the extensiveness of a specific drought. As a key result, our findings suggest that Southern Portugal, the case study region which is expected to be less susceptible to drought events than the other case study regions, faced the most extended crisis events.     

Who is susceptible and why? An agent-based approach to assessing vulnerability to drought

In this paper, we specify susceptibility to drought from a psychology-based bottom-up perspective. On the basis of the protection motivation theory (Rippetoe and Rogers in J Pers Soc Psychol 52(3):596–604, 1987), we developed the protection-capacity model (Krömker and Mosler in Global environmental change in Alpine regions: impact, recognition, adaptation, and mitigation. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp 93–112, 2002) to analyse the susceptibility with respect to the protection capacity of agents. The protection capacity is determined by the agents’ subjective assessment of the situation, which consists of the appraisal of threat, on the one hand, and the coping appraisal, on the other hand. Additionally, the protection-capacity model specifies several factors which influence the two central appraisal processes. Empirical data were collected in interviews with experts and with a total of 65 exemplarily selected households which are typical for the respective case study regions (Andhra Pradesh, India; Algarve and Alentejo, Portugal; Volgograd and Saratov, Russia). The data were analysed with the help of fuzzy set methodology. Results show that the households of the Indian region are the most susceptible when compared to those of the Russian region with ‘low’ and to households of the Portuguese region with a ‘very low’ degree of susceptibility. Moreover, we identified subgroups within the regions which are characterized by different degrees of susceptibility and a different profile of factors influencing susceptibility. Altogether, the agent-based perspective allows identifying relevant factors that need to be addressed to minimize susceptibility of the population and special subgroups. However, the results are not representative for the case study regions because of the small database. Additionally, more effort is needed to validate the findings.     

A new approach to quantifying and comparing vulnerability to drought

In this study we develop an “inference modeling” approach to compare and analyze how different disciplines (economics, political science, and behavioral science/environmental psychology) estimate vulnerability to drought. It is thought that a better understanding of these differences can lead to a synthesis of insights from the different disciplines and eventually to more comprehensive assessments of vulnerability. The new methodology consists of (1) developing inference models whose variables and assertions incorporate qualitative knowledge about vulnerability, (2) converting qualitative model variables into quantitative indicators by using fuzzy set theory, (3) collecting data on the values of the indicators from case study regions, (4) inputting the regional data to the models and computing quantitative values for susceptibility. The methodology was applied to three case study regions (in India, Portugal and Russia) having a range of socio-economic and water stress conditions. In some cases the estimates of susceptibility were surprisingly similar, in others not, depending on the factors included in the disciplinary models and their relative weights. A new approach was also taken to testing vulnerability parameters by comparing estimated water stress against a data set of drought occurrences based on media analysis. The new methodologies developed in this paper provide a consistent basis for comparing differences between disciplinary perspectives, and for identifying the importance of the differences.

云南省区域人才竞争力研究

随着知识经济社会的进入,人才成为了社会经济发展最为重要的推动因素,不同区域的发展状态越来越决定于其人才的总体实力,即人才竞争力。本文从区域比较的角度出发,构建人才竞争力评价体系和模型,运用主成分分析方法对云南人才竞争力的特征以及在全国的位次进行分析。研究表明,2007年云南省人才竞争力综合得分为-4.4558,在全国31个省区中排名第23位,导致竞争力较弱的主要原因是区域科技活动水平和经济发展水平低。     

生态市建设的若干理论探讨

生态市是指市域内自然生态系统的结构和功能及其服务体系与其社会经济系统的结构和功能处于较协调与统一状态的城市。生态市建设意味着城市发展进入一个新阶段．需要有新的城市发展理论与思维。要以区域发展统筹、经济与社会发展统筹、城乡发晨统筹、人与自然协调统筹、国内发展与对外开放统筹的“五大统筹”新思维来指导．实现物质文明、精神文明、政治文明和生态文明的统一。使国民经济体系由链条经济向循环经济、自然经济向生态经济转变。     

Study on Assessing Economic Vulnerability of Small Island Regions

The main purpose of this study is to assess economic vulnerability of small island development regions as part of their sustainability constraints. By combining economic and environmental time series data, we assessed a composite index of economic vulnerability which is constructed from three exogenous variables, namely economic exposure, economic remoteness, and economic impact of environmental and natural disasters. We used the Amami Islands, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan as the case studies for this paper.The results indicated that using a gross island products based valuation index, Kikaijima is the most vulnerable island in the Amami Islands with a composite economic vulnerability index (CEVI) value of 0.678, while by using a per capita based index, Okinoerabujima is considered the most vulnerable island with a CEVI value of 0.680. From the results we also revealed that smaller islands have relative higher vulnerability than the bigger one, which also confirms some previous country-level vulnerability studies.However, it is matter of fact that some islands that have relatively high vulnerability also have good economic performance as shown by their per capita income. In this regard, it can be argued that the success of these small islands could have been achieved in spite of and not because of their inherent vulnerability conditions as an indicator of sustainability constraint. Regarding these findings, we also examined a comparison between vulnerability results and the preliminary concept of an island's resilience in order to capture another perspective on sustainability assessment in a small island region.     

Sustainability assessment with time-series scores: a case study of Chinese provinces

Asian nations are currently facing a number of challenges, including environmental degradation and growing societal inequalities, in the course of their rapid economic growth and industrialization. Under such conditions, it is of critical importance to develop appropriate assessment tools with which to comprehensively measure the sustainability status of a region in order to guide its transformation into a sustainable society. This paper proposes a method of sustainability assessment consisting of the three components of environment, resource, and socio-economic with aggregated time-series scores. This method can demonstrate the relative sustainability scores of targeted regions for different time periods, thereby, enabling the comparison of relative sustainability status for different regions over these periods. We carried out a case study of Chinese provinces for the years 2000 and 2005 using the proposed method and confirmed its applicability as the indicative type of sustainability assessment at the regional level, while actually investigating the sustainability status and its chronological changes. The results indicated that aggregate sustainability index scores improved between 2000 and 2005 in most provinces, mainly due to significant improvement in the scores for the socio-economic component, whereas the scores for the environment component deteriorated in some provinces over the study period. Our method proves to be effective in analyzing the relative sustainability status among targeted regions for different time periods in the form of aggregate scores, paving the way for practical applications, such as policy analysis, in the pursuit of a sustainable society.     

Challenges for modelling and integrating environmental performances in concept design: the case of an automotive component lightweighting

The objective of this paper is to discuss the main barriers for modelling and integrating the environmental performances in the automotive concept design. Incorporating environmental assessment in the early design phase of a vehicle component is known as an important challenge that car makers need to face in order to develop more sustainable design solutions; in this regard, the Life Cycle Assessment is the most widespread methodology for the environmental assessment and comparison of alternatives. The present work illustrates the combination of such methodology with the traditional design procedure at two different levels of the component design phase, material choice and concept design. In particular, the potential benefits originated by a lightweight solution for the automotive component Throttle Body are evaluated by considering environmental and technical implications at the same level. The case study shows that a multi-disciplinary approach for design effectively allows the integration of the environmental issue in the company’s established procedures. However, interpretation of results is still a challenging aspect due to the inevitable contradicting elements which should not discourage to develop comprehensive sustainability assessment within the early design stage.     

Community vulnerability and resilience in disaster risk reduction: an example from Phojal Nalla,Himachal Pradesh,India

International Disaster Risk Reduction Frameworks and Indian Plans advocate shared responsibility for reducing disaster risk, in which community vulnerability and resilience conditions are central. This paper presents a case study from the Indian Himalaya (Kullu District) of community vulnerability and resilience conditions following damaging floods, primarily the 1994 Phojal Nalla flood, through the concepts of community heritage and capital. Data were collected in the period 2013–2016, using semi-structured interviews (n?=?129), village reconnaissance and archival/contemporary data searches. The connections between heritage, capital, vulnerability and resilience are complex, but results demonstrate ‘knowledge’ is the principal driver of resilience conditions, via facets of heritage (e.g. religious infrastructure and activities, traditional architectural vernacular, and multi-generational attachments to place) and capital (e.g. income diversification, access to communication technologies, societal welfare measures and positive interactions with water). Persisting vulnerabilities stem from differential access to and implementation of best practice knowledge, governed by social, economic and political conditions. Further improvements in risk reduction require greater consideration of the following: (1) the integration of community local knowledge into the overall disaster management process; (2) the opportunities offered by mobile phone and other technologies for generating and sharing knowledge across society; and (3) the value of under-utilised knowledge of past disaster events, assembled from a systematic evaluation of oral, documentary and landscape evidence, to risk reduction.     

中国城乡一体化水平的省区分异

推进形成城乡经济社会发展一体化新格局,是全面建设小康社会、实现城乡社会经济发展方式转型的重要举措。本文采用城乡发展差异系数、城乡一体化水平指数等指标,分析了中国城乡一体化水平的省区差异,揭示了这种地域分异所产生的影响因素,进一步探讨推进全国城乡一体化新格局形成的科学机制。研究表明,中国城乡发展无论是东部相对发达省区,还是西部欠发展省区,差异显著,呈现不均衡特点;城乡一体化水平受自然环境、经济社会发展综合实力和公共政策等因素影响明显;加快建构城乡一体化发展新格局,需要进一步纠正"城市偏向"的发展观,加大城乡统筹力度,推进城乡基本公共服务均等化进程,并根据变化趋势,调整公共政策的着力点,提升城乡一体化发展的区域协调性。     

土地利用系统健康评价的框架与指标选择

随着社会经济的发展，人类行为对生态系统产生越来越大的影响，生态系统的健康状况也引起了国内外学者的普遍关注，作为一个以土地利用为基础的自然、经济、社会复合的土地利用系统。它既具有生态系统的一般特征。又具有其本身的特殊性，集中体现了人口增长、经济发展与资源短缺的矛盾。因此，为了人类可持续发展。必须关注土地利用系统的健康状态。本文在对土地利用系统的分析基础上，提出土地利用系统健康的概念，土地利用系统健康评价的本质、目的，并初步建立了土地利用系统健康评价框架体系。     

Analysis on the Evolution of Regional Economic Disparity in the West Coast of the Strait

With the implementation of reform and opening-up, the overall economy of China has made brilliant achievements; meanwhile, however, the economic disparity has been enlarging among some regions, and between the city and the countryside. The existence and evolution of this kind of economic disparity is concerned with social stability, sustainable development and the construction of harmonious society, which has gradually become the hotspot in social economic development. The West Coast of the Strait （WCS） located in southeast littoral areas is adjacent to the Pearl and Yangtze River Delta in the south and north and faces Taiwan Province in the east. The stability and development of this region has vital political and economic meaning in the social economic development of our country. It has important theoretical meaning and practical value to research the form, characteristics and evolution of regional economic disparity in the WCS. Based on insightful analysis on existing study results on the WCS, the paper defines the connotation and extension. By a series of absolute and comparative relative evaluation indexes and taking the WCS since 1992 as the study object, the paper makes analysis on different scales including three regions, four regions, 20 cities and 152 counties, quantitatively evaluates the level, characteristics and evolution of the regional economic disparity and compares the regional economic disparity on different scales. The main conclusions are as follows： the variation trend of the absolute disparity of the whole region is obvious and stable, which has presented an inflating trend; the comparative variation trend on a large scale has waved, The comparative disparity of the three regions increased annually from 1992 to around 2000, which had a decreasing trend from around 2000 to 2005; the comparative variation trend on a small scale was not stable, which showed an annual increase of four regions, 20 cities and 152 counties from 1992 to around 2003 and a decrease from around 2003 to 2005; the     

Regional integration and local change: road paving, community connectivity, and social–ecological resilience in a tri-national frontier, southwestern Amazonia

Initiatives for global economic integration increasingly prioritize new infrastructure in relatively remote regions. Such regions have relatively intact ecosystems and provide valuable ecosystem services, which has stimulated debates over the wisdom of new infrastructure. Most prior research on infrastructure impacts highlights economic benefits, ecological damage, or social conflicts. We suggest a more integrative approach to regional integration by appropriating the concepts of connectivity from transport geography and social?Cecological resilience from systems ecology. Connectivity offers a means of observing the degree of integration between locations, and social?Cecological resilience provides a framework to simultaneously consider multiple consequences of regional integration. Together, they offer a spatial analysis of resilience that considers multiple dimensions of infrastructure impacts. Our study case is the southwestern Amazon, a highly biodiverse region which is experiencing integration via paving of the Inter-Oceanic Highway. Specifically, we focus on the ??MAP?? region, a tri-national frontier where Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru meet and which differs in the extent of highway paving. We draw on a tri-national survey of more than 100 resource-dependent rural communities across the MAP frontier and employ indicators for multiple dimensions of connectivity and social?Cecological resilience. We pursue a comparative analysis among regions and subregions with differing degrees of community connectivity to markets in order to evaluate their social?Cecological resilience. The findings indicate that connectivity and resilience have a multifaceted relationship, such that greater community connectivity corresponds to greater resilience in some respects but not others. We conclude by noting how our findings integrate those from heretofore largely disparate literatures on infrastructure. The integration of transport geography with resilience thought thus stands to advance the study of infrastructure impacts.     

沪宁杭地区城市群发展规划探索

在全球经济一体化的背景下,世界经济中心是在一批具有重大影响的城市群区域。我国许多省市正在编制城市群规划,出现了城市群潮涌神州的新局面。然而城市群区的空间发展规划需要探索的问题不少。以沪宁杭地区为典型例证,就城市群规划的指导思想与总体思路、区域空间尺度的研究、各种要素的组合及其城市群规划深层发展等问题,进行初步的探索。在城市群区总体发展的关键要素整合方面提出了三个新观点：①城市发展与自然要素的整合;②重视区域交通要素的组织;③城市群区内经济要素流的合理化。以期引起对此问题的深入研究与实践总结。     

Understanding Human Development Potentials and Demands for Greenhouse Gas Emissions:with Empirical Analysis using time series and cross-sectional data

Based on an investigation of the meaning of development, the neo-classical economic approach to development, and the post-welfarist theory of development, this paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding human development potentials, while undertaking empirical analysis using cross-sectional and time series data on human development. Human development is associated with basic necessities for subsistence, the quality of life, and political and civil rights, in addition to income indicators. Our analysis suggests that the concept of human development potentials has two dimensions: the rights of development and limits to human development. Both are largely ignored in the neoclassical theory of development. However, human development is not unbounded, which approaches to a relatively fixed constant at given economic, technological and institutional conditions. This conceptual understanding is supported by results from the empirical examination of the relationships between demands for carbon emis     

基于协调发展视角的区域发展差异研究

20世纪90年代以来，区域差异研究成为学术界和政府管理者关注的热点领域。长期以来学者们主要以单一经济指标或复合经济指标作为衡量因子，分析区域经济差异时空演变及差异背后的自然、社会、经济驱动机理。从可持续发展的角度看，区域发展不单是区域经济的发展，而应是社会、经济与资源环境三方面的协调。基于这一理解，从可持续协调发展入手，建立了区域发展综合评价指标体系，选取了表征社会进步、经济发展和资源环境支持3个方面的27个因素作为评价指标，分析了区域综合发展的测算方法，提出了综合发展指数和发展协调指数。在案例分析中运用所设计的测度方法对江苏省内县级行政单位的综合发展进行了评价和分析。     

土地利用变化对生态系统服务的影响研究综述

土地利用/覆被变化是全球环境变化的重要组成部分和主要原因之一,不仅带来了地表结构的巨大变化,而且对生态系统服务也造成重要影响。土地利用变化和生态系统服务研究已成为国际上生态学和地理学等跨学科研究的热点之一。从土地利用变化和生态系统服务的概念及其影响因素分析入手,综述了土地利用面积变化、土地利用方式变化和土地利用空间格局变化等对生态系统服务的影响,归纳了土地利用变化对生态系统服务的影响研究的主要方法和模型,分析了相关研究的不足,并提出了加强生态系统服务动态评估方法和时空动态评估模型的研究、强化土地利用变化对生态系统服务影响的生态学机制研究和注重土地利用变化下生态系统服务评估结果的集成应用研究等建议,以期对我国的土地利用变化与生态系统服务评估研究提供科学参考。     

Humble Opinions on the Relationship between the Percentage of Urban Residents in an Urban Region and the Economic Status in This Region in China

It is a fact that in U.S. the immigration between rural areas and city areas is free, but in China this type of immigration is restricted by HUKOU system （Hukou, namely the household registration system, was designed to control rural-urban in China）. All of those national policies in city areas are much better than those in rural areas, so those corresponding differences bring about great discrepancy of the economic status （mainly including GDP per person and income per resident） between rural and city areas in the same urban region, especially in different urban re- gions because the percentage of urban residents in those urban regions is in-equable. The present paper mainly researches the topic of relationship between the percentage of urban residents and the economic status in an urban region in China, including the relationship between the economic and the political functions of a settlement in China during the process of urbanization.