发展生态旅游是西部旅游业开发的战略选择--以宁夏生态旅游科技园试验示范推广模式研究为例

文章以“宁夏生态旅游科技园”项目为例 ,论述了生态旅游产生的背景 ,阐述了生态旅游的基本概念和实现生态旅游的三种类型战略 ,即 :生态型战略、生态经济型战略、生态文化型战略。揭示了发展生态旅游业是西部旅游业开发的战略选择 ,并提出了发展生态旅游的基本条件     

江苏沿海生态旅游产品的开发

生态旅游产品是时尚的高品质旅游产品，江苏沿海地区旅游资源的独特性，为生态旅游产品开发提供了重要基础，文章从分析江苏沿海生态旅游发展现状出发，探讨了海滨生态旅游产品的开发原则和开发模式，提出了建立江苏沿海生态旅游开发产品体系的构想。     

大连生态旅游资源的现状分析与开发策略

生态旅游代表着当今世界旅游发展的新趋势,系统分析了大连生态旅游资源的现状,提出了开发大连生态旅游资源应当采取的主要对策,并对大连生态旅游产品的设计进行了探讨.     

生态旅游产品谱设计与开发策略

生态旅游开发应遵循保护性开发、政府主导与依法开发、注重特色与突出主题、市场导向和三大效益协调等原则.构思与设计了自然生态观光旅游产品、原生态文化旅游产品、产业生态旅游产品、生态休闲养生旅游产品、生态度假旅游产品、生态科普旅游产品、生态节庆旅游产品和特种生态旅游产品等,以供不同地区选择.提出并分析了生态旅游开发管理策略.     

池州生态经济示范区的生态旅游开发

池州市是中国第一个生态经济示范区,具有丰富的高品位的生态旅游资源,成为开展生态旅游的理想地区.首先对池州发展生态旅游进行了SWOT分析,然后对池州生态旅游开发项目与旅游线路进行了初步设计,最后提出了生态旅游开发措施.     

黄河故道生态旅游资源的开发利用--以商丘市为例

通过对黄河故道生态旅游开发项目规划设计的探讨,分析了生态旅游开发对当地农民和政府带来的经济效益、社会效益以及对改善生态环境、增加就业、改善城市功能、扩大与外界交流、发展第三产业等带来的巨大推进作用.生态旅游资源保护与开发是相辅相成的,两者协调发展,可促进区域社会、经济及环境的共同发展.     

生态旅游与生态环境保护的关系

本文介绍了生态旅游的特点,探讨了开发生态旅游与保护生态环境的关系,并提出了开发生态旅游应注意的问题。     

汉江襄阳段生态旅游开发研究

随着经济的发展和人类生态意识的增强,发展生态旅游已成为旅游业可持续发展的最佳方式.以汉江襄阳段生态旅游开发为例,运用SWOT分析,在对该区自然、人文生态旅游资源概述的基础上,系统分析了生态旅游发展中存在的优势、劣势、机遇、挑战,把开发格局确定为“一心、二带、西区、六点”.提出开发生态旅游的具体措施:在该流域的旅游开发过程中,必须保护生态环境、挖掘汉水文化、完善基础设施、突出旅游资源特色、整合旅游资源、创新旅游精品、区域联动、科学管理,才能将本流域的生态旅游资源优势转化为经济优势,促进襄阳地区社会经济的可持续发展.     

生态旅游:实现山区可持续发展的理想途径--以临安市为例

以临安市生态旅游发展实践为例,通过参与性农村快速评估方法(PRRA),实证分析了生态旅游对开发企业、当地农民和政府带来的经济效益,以及对改善生态环境、增加就业、提高农民素质等方面发挥的生态效益与社会效益,指出准确的市场定位、参与式市场运作、政府重视和支持是临安生态旅游发展的成功经验.说明生态旅游业作为最终需求产业,在具备一定资源优势和区位优势的山区,是实现山区经济、生态、社会协调发展的理想途径.     

湿地资源保护与生态旅游资源的开发利用

通过对一个生态旅游开发项目规划设计的初步探讨,简要地论述了湿地资源保护与生态旅游开发是相辅相成的,两者的协调发展可以促进区域社会、经济及环境的共同发展.     

Provincial development plans in Zimbabwe: an analysis of their content,structure and methodology

Zimbabwean provincial plans were instituted to help in the achievement of the national goal of the creation of an egalitarian, socialist and integrated society. The national goal itself was adopted as an antithesis to the dualist society characterised by spatial, economic, social, politican and technological inequalities that Zimbabwe inherited from colonialism. This meant that provincial plans had to play both a functional (or growth allocating/distribution) and a territorial (or redistribution) role.

This paper reviews their role in achieving the national goal by examining their functions, content, structure and methodology. The paper concludes that because of their nature, provincial plans are not suitable tools for the achievement of the national goal.     

BIOLOGICAL INDICATORS AND BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ESTUARINE/COASTAL POLLUTION1

ABSTRACT: Sustained interest in and concern about the health status of the aquatic environment has resulted in extensive research focused on (1) effects of pollution on survival, growth, and reproduction of resource species at all life stages; (2) diseases of fish and shellfish, as they may be related to pollution and as they may serve as indicators of environmental stress; and (3) contaminant body burdens in fish and shellfish - their effects on the aquatic animals and their potential effects on humans. Effects, lethal and sublethal, of pollutants on life history stages of fish and shellfish have been documented, as have impacts on local stocks in badly degraded habitats, but as yet there has been no adequate quantitative demonstration of effects on entire aquatic species - probably because of the difficulty in sorting out relative effects of the many environmental factors that influence abundance. Sublethal effects, especially those that result in disease, have been examined intensively, and some diseases and disease syndromes have been associated statistically with pollution. Other pollution indicators (biochemical, physiological, genetic, behavioral, and ecological) have also received some attention, as have body burdens of contaminants in aquatic species. Research, especially that conducted during the past decade, has done much to clarify the many pathways and toxic effects of contaminants on aquatic animals, and has also helped to identify mechanisms for survival of fish and shellfish in the presence of environmental changes caused by human activities.     

Definition Procedures Have Little Effect on Performance of Environmental Classifications of Streams and Rivers

Mapped environmental classifications are defined using various procedures, but there has been little evaluation of the differences in their ability to discriminate variation in independent ecological characteristics. We tested the performance of environmental classifications of the streams and rivers of France that had been defined from the same environmental data using geographic regionalization and numerical classification of individual river valley segments. Test data comprised invertebrate assemblages, water chemistry, and hydrological indexes obtained from sites throughout France. Classification performance was measured by analysis of similarity (ANOSIM). Geometric regions defined by a regular grid and without regard to environmental variables and a posteriori classifications based on clustering the test datasets defined lower and upper bounds of performance for a given number of classes. Differences in classification performances were generally small. The ANOSIM statistics for the a posteriori classifications were around twice that of all environmental classifications, including geometrically defined regions. The hydro-ecoregions performed slightly better for the invertebrate data and the network classification performed slightly better for the chemistry and hydrological data. Our results indicate that environmental classifications that are defined using different procedures can be comparable in terms of their ability to discriminate variation of ecological characteristics and that alleged differences in performance arising from different classification procedures can be small relative to unexplained variation. We conclude that definition procedures might have little effect on the performance of large-scale environmental classifications and decisions over which procedures to use should be based primarily on pragmatic considerations.     

Journalists' views of advertiser pressures on agricultural news

All major journalism ethical codes explicitly state that journalists should protect editorial copy from undue influence by outside sources. However, much of the previous research on agricultural information has concentrated on what information various media communicate (gatekeeping studies) or communication's role in increasing innovation adoption (diffusion studies). Few studies have concentrated specifically on organizational and structural constraints that might adversely affect agricultural journalists' ethical standards; those that have, focus largely on farm magazines. A study of newspaper reporters who cover agricultural news found that the most pressing ethical concern is the effect of advertiser (agri-business) pressure on editorial copy, and that their concerns in general parallel those of farm magazine writers and editors. The majority reported being in situations in which they might be exposed to advertiser pressure, including pressures to change or withhold editorial copy. Large minorities suggested that advertising pressures affect the overall environment in which agricultural journalists work, and more than one in ten said they allow advertiser pressures to influence editorial decisions. The newspaper reporters who cover agricultural beats showed slightly more resistance to advertiser pressure than did farm magazine editors in a parallel study.     

National minerals policies and stakeholder participation for broad-based development in the southern African development community (SADC)

This paper explains how the well-accepted concept of improved stakeholder participation during mineral policy development leads to a national mineral policy that accommodates the diverging views and interests that allows wide acceptance of decisions, enhancing the success of implementation and, ultimately, national benefits. This process is based on lessons learnt during the South African experience and has been successfully applied in the development of the Namibian and Malawian national minerals policies. An effective policy in the SADC will engineer the delicate balance between poverty reduction and an internationally competitive minerals sector. This balance enhances the possibility of long-term economic growth and development in the SADC region. The overriding advantage of this strategy is that it generates ‘home-grown’ policy instruments and implementation of mineral law with which stakeholders can identify. This process presents a new challenge to traditional policy formulation strategies in emerging economies and the bottom-up approach, linked to wide political support, allows the potential realisation of national objectives.     

Effect of Light on Biodegradation of Estrone, 17β‐Estradiol,and 17α‐Ethinylestradiol in Stream Sediment

Biodegradation of [A‐ring ¹⁴C] Estrone (E1), 17β‐estradiol (E2), and 17α‐ethinylestradiol (EE2) to ¹⁴CO₂ was investigated under light and dark conditions in microcosms containing epilithon or sediment collected from Boulder Creek, Colorado. Mineralization of the estrogen A‐ring was observed in all sediment treatments, but not epilithon treatments. No difference in net mineralization between light and dark treatments was observed for ¹⁴C‐E2. Net mineralization of ¹⁴C‐E1 and ¹⁴C‐EE2 was enhanced in light treatments. Extents of ¹⁴CO₂ accumulation and rates of mineralization were significantly greater for E2 than E1 under dark conditions, but were comparable under light conditions. These results indicate substantial differences in the uptake and metabolism of E1 and E2 in the environment and suggest biorecalcitrance of E1 relative to E2 in light‐limited environments. The extent of ¹⁴CO₂ accumulation and rate of mineralization for EE2 in dark treatments were less than half of that observed for E2 and generally lower than for E1, consistent with previous reports of EE2 biorecalcitrance. However, ¹⁴CO₂ accumulation and rates of mineralization were comparable for EE2, E2, and E1 under light conditions. These results indicate photoactivation and/or phototransformation/photodegradation processes can substantially enhance heterotrophic biodegradation of estrogens in sunlit environments and may play an important role in estrogen transport and attenuation.     

Bioremediation of Soils by Plant–Microbe Systems

Abstract

Sustainable ecosystems can be designed to eliminate environmental toxins and reduce pathogen loads through the direct and indirect consequences of plant and microbial activities. We present an approach to the bioremediation of disturbed environments, focusing on petroleum hydrocarbon (PHC) contaminants. Treatment consists of incorporating a plant-based amendment to enhance ecosystem productivity and physiochemical degradation followed by the establishment of plants to serve as oxidizers and foundations for microbial communities. Promising amendments for widespread use are entire plants of the water fern Azolla and seed meal of Brassica napus (rapeseed). An inexpensive byproduct from the manufacture of biodiesel and lubricants, rapeseed meal is high in nitrogen (6% wt/wt), stimulates >100-fold increases in populations of resident Streptomyces species, and suppresses fungal infection of roots subsequently cultivated in the amended soil. Synergistic enzymatic and chemical activities of plant and microbial metabolism in root zones transform and degrade soil contaminants. Emphasis is given to mechanisms that enable PHC functionalization via reactive molecular species.     

A DISTRIBUTED DYNAMIC WATERSHED MODEL1

ABSTRACT: A distributed watershed model was developed to mathematically simulate overland and channel flow for a single-event storm. The modeled watersheds in the study were subdivided into rectangular grid elements. All hydrologically significant parameters, such as land slope, rainfall and precipitation excess, were assumed to be uniform within each element. The Green-Ampt method was adopted to generate precipitation excess for each element during the simulation period. A two-dimensional diffusion wave model was used for overland flow routing and an iterative Alternative Direction Implicit scheme was used to solve the simultaneous overland flow equations. Once the overland flow became inflow to the channel, a one-dimensional dynamic wave flood routing technique, based on a four-point, implicit, non-linear finite difference solution of the St. Venant equation of unsteady flow, was applied. A limited number of comparisons were made between simulated and observed hydrographs for areas of about one square mile. Given the appropriate parameters, the model was able to accurately simulate runoff for single-event storms. This paper describes a distributed watershed model developed to simulate overland and channel flow. Comparisons were made between simulated and observed hydrographs for three watersheds. The model was able to accurately simulate the runoff for single-event storms using 61-m by 61-m (200 ft by 200 ft) watershed grid elements.     

Energetics and environmental costs of agriculture in a dry tropical region of India

The present article, based on a study of five village ecosystems, assesses the energy efficiency of rain-fed agriculture in a dry tropical environment and the impact of agricultural activity on the surrounding natural ecosystems. Agronomic yield is insufficient to meet the food requirement of the human population, hence 11.5%–49.7% of the required amount of food grains are imported from the market. Energy requirements of five studied agroecosystems are subsidized considerably by the surrounding forest in the form of fodder and firewood. Natural ecosystems supply about 80%–95% of fodder needs and 81%–100% of fuelwood needs. The output-input ratio of agriculture indicated that, on average, 4.1 units of energy are expended to obtain one unit of agronomic energy. Of this, 3.9 units are supplied by the natural ecosystem. In addition, 38% of the extracted firewood is marketed. The illegal felling and lopping of trees result in ever-increasing concentric circles of forest destruction around the villages and together with excessive grazing results in savannization. The forests can be conserved by encouraging fuelwood plantations (0.7 ha/ha cultivated land) and developing village pastures (1.6 ha/ha cultivated land) and reducing the livestock numbers. Agricultural production in the region can be stabilized by introducing improved dry farming techniques such as intercropping, planned rainwater management, and adequate use of fertilizers.     

INTEGRATED WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT WHO SHOULD LEAD,WHO SHOULD PAY?1

ABSTRACT: Improving water management to meet future global needs will certainly require technical advances, but the main challenge is to integrate the viewpoints of diverse societal interests into decisions about allocation of water resources. The integration cannot be done solely by the market because it requires a balancing among interests which do not respond well to market forces, nor by the state alone because of institutional problems. The concept of “integrated water resources management” has been developed to provide the framework for the required balancing of interests, and, like similar concepts in industries other than water, it has a dual purpose - to link stakeholders and apply best practices to management actions. To clarify the process of integrated water management, the paper focuses on two questions: who should lead integrated water resources management and who should pay for it? Several examples are given to illustrate a range of situations. The paper concludes with a call to improve paradigms of integrated water management, a proposition that water organizations should accept and budget for their external responsibilities as well as their direct missions, affirmation of the need for state and federal agencies to be involved with local interests, a call for better scientific and public information, and identification of the need for continued work to improve the process of integrated water management.