近50年来广东冬季寒害的特征

利用广东省86个地面气象站近50年(1951-2000年)逐日平均气温和最低气温资料,采用针对冬季经济林果的寒害指标,统计分析了近50年冬季寒害的特征.分析得出:(1)广东冬季寒害频数北多南少,各地平均年均1次,其中严重寒害近4成,严重寒害中又以降温型亚类Ⅲ最为典型,占6成以上.(2)寒害过程降温幅度平均达13.6℃,且越往南越大;过程最低气温平均2.6℃,高于冻害临界值0℃;寒害过程降温平均历时4d.(3)寒害分布于10月末至3月底,其中12月到1月累计占85%,月际分布大致呈以1月为峰值的单峰型;亚类Ⅲ12月和2月多于1月,呈双峰分布.(4)1980年是广东冬季气温变化的分水岭,寒害年均综合频数前30年多(160站次),后20年少(96站次).(5)近50年广东冬季寒害年代际变化特征为:50,60,70年代逐渐增强,80年代迅速减弱,90年代有所回升(依然弱于50年代),年代际寒害由强到弱顺序为:70年代,60年代,50年代,90年代和80年代.     

广东省的地质灾害与防治对策

广东省地质灾害类型多,分布广,频率高,危害大.地震、滑坡、崩塌、地裂缝、地面塌陷、地面沉降和软土地基变形等地质灾害是影响当地经济发展和城乡建设的消极因素.地质灾害的时间分布具有波动性,过去35年来存在两个明显的高发期,分别是1985-1992年和1997年至今;其空间分布具有区域耦合性,地质构造复杂、自然环境恶劣的粤西、粤北低山丘陵区和人类活动剧烈、经济发达的沿海平原地区都是重灾区.地质灾害与自然条件、人类活动关系密切.它们的防治应以防为主,防治结合,将生态与工程措施相结合,并调整人类的经济行为,保持生态环境的平衡.     

我国海岸带环境灾害的基本特征与减灾对策

海岸带是自然灾害与社会经济发达区相互重叠的特殊环境地带.我国海岸带环境灾害的基本特征是种类繁多,频次高,破坏性强,与社会经济发展耦合,易形成复杂灾害链等.本文提出了基于可持续发展观点的、以工程建设与生态建设相结合、灾害区划与综合减灾相结合、基础研究与高科技应用相结合的减灾对策.     

旅游开发中的区域联动战略--以安徽省"两山一湖"地区为例

阐述了旅游区域联动发展战略的内涵、类型、原则及意义,分析了安徽省"两山一湖"地区实施旅游区域联动战略的必要性、可能性和发展现状,提出了若干对策.     

A reflection on four impactful Ambio papers: The biotic perspective: This article belongs to Ambio’s 50th Anniversary Collection. Theme: Climate change impacts

Climate change represents one of the most pressing societal and scientific challenges of our time. While much of the current research on climate change focuses on future prediction, some of the strongest signals of warming can already be seen in Arctic and alpine areas, where temperatures are rising faster than the global average, and in the oceans, where the combination of rising temperatures and acidification due to increased CO₂ concentrations has had catastrophic consequences for sensitive marine organisms inhabiting coral reefs. The scientific papers highlighted as part of this anniversary issue represent some of the most impactful advances in our understanding of the consequences of anthropogenic climate change. Here, we reflect on the legacy of these papers from the biotic perspective.     

Parks versus PES: Evaluating direct and incentive-based land conservation in Mexico

Protected areas (PAs) and payments for ecosystem services (PES) are the top two mechanisms available for countries to achieve international REDD agreements, yet there are few empirical comparisons of their effects. We estimate the impacts of PAs and PES on forest conservation, poverty reduction, and population change at the locality level in Mexico in the 2000s. Both policies conserved forest, generating an approximately 20–25% reduction in expected forest cover loss. PES created statistically significant but small poverty alleviation while PAs had overall neutral impacts on livelihoods. Estimates by individual policy type for the same level of deforestation risk indicate that biosphere reserves and PES balanced conservation and livelihood goals better than strict protected areas or mixed-use areas. This suggests that both direct and incentive-based instruments can be effective, and that policies combining sustainable financing, flexible zoning, and recognition of local economic goals are more likely to achieve conservation without harming livelihoods.     

Landscape trajectory of natural boreal forest loss as an impediment to green infrastructure

Loss of natural forests by forest clearcutting has been identified as a critical conservation challenge worldwide. This study addressed forest fragmentation and loss in the context of the establishment of a functional green infrastructure as a spatiotemporally connected landscape-scale network of habitats enhancing biodiversity, favorable conservation status, and ecosystem services. Through retrospective analysis of satellite images, we assessed a 50- to 60-year spatiotemporal clearcutting impact trajectory on natural and near-natural boreal forests across a sizable and representative region from the Gulf of Bothnia to the Scandinavian Mountain Range in northern Fennoscandia. This period broadly covers the whole forest clearcutting period; thus, our approach and results can be applied to comprehensive impact assessment of industrial forest management. The entire study region covers close to 46,000 km² of forest-dominated landscape in a late phase of transition from a natural or near-natural to a land-use modified state. We found a substantial loss of intact forest, in particular of large, contiguous areas, a spatial polarization of remaining forest on regional scale where the inland has been more severely affected than the mountain and coastal zones, and a pronounced impact on interior forest core areas. Salient results were a decrease in area of the largest intact forest patch from 225,853 to 68,714 ha in the mountain zone and from 257,715 to 38,668 ha in the foothills zone, a decrease from 75% to 38% intact forest in the inland zones, a decrease in largest patch core area (assessed by considering 100-m patch edge disturbance) from 6114 to 351 ha in the coastal zone, and a geographic imbalance in protected forest with an evident predominance in the mountain zone. These results demonstrate profound disturbance of configuration of the natural forest landscape and disrupted connectivity, which challenges the establishment of functional green infrastructure. Our approach supports the identification of forests for expanded protection and conservation-oriented forest landscape restoration.     

Village-scale reserves in the forest frontier regions of Chenes and Calakmul,Mexico

ABSTRACT

Sketch-map-facilitated interviews were conducted in 23 villages in two adjacent regions in the southern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico – the Maya (and increasingly Mennonite) forest-agriculture mosaic of the Chenes, and the late-20^th-century-settlement forest frontier of Calakmul – to determine the frequency and typology of local-scale reserves, including the external (e.g. Payments for Environmental Services programs) and internal sources of their generation. 9% of the study communities are found to satisfy the author’s criteria for deliberate, autochthonous reserves. The static polygon reserve and static map are found to have limited value for understanding the evolving cultural ecologies of these regions. Alternative approaches are discussed, particularly those employed by geographers.     

Effectiveness of conservation easements in agricultural regions

Conservation easements are a standard technique for preventing habitat loss, particularly in agricultural regions with extensive cropland cultivation, yet little is known about their effectiveness. I developed a spatial econometric approach to propensity‐score matching and used the approach to estimate the amount of habitat loss prevented by a grassland conservation easement program of the U.S. federal government. I used a spatial autoregressive probit model to predict tract enrollment in the easement program as of 2001 based on tract agricultural suitability, habitat quality, and spatial interactions among neighboring tracts. Using the predicted values from the model, I matched enrolled tracts with similar unenrolled tracts to form a treatment group and a control group. To measure the program's impact on subsequent grassland loss, I estimated cropland cultivation rates for both groups in 2014 with a second spatial probit model. Between 2001 and 2014, approximately 14.9% of control tracts were cultivated and 0.3% of treated tracts were cultivated. Therefore, approximately 14.6% of the protected land would have been cultivated in the absence of the program. My results demonstrate that conservation easements can significantly reduce habitat loss in agricultural regions; however, the enrollment of tracts with low cropland suitability may constrain the amount of habitat loss they prevent. My results also show that spatial econometric models can improve the validity of control groups and thereby strengthen causal inferences about program effectiveness in situations when spatial interactions influence conservation decisions.     

Implications of Macroalgal Isolation by Distance for Networks of Marine Protected Areas

The global extent of macroalgal forests is declining, greatly affecting marine biodiversity at broad scales through the effects macroalgae have on ecosystem processes, habitat provision, and food web support. Networks of marine protected areas comprise one potential tool that may safeguard gene flow among macroalgal populations in the face of increasing population fragmentation caused by pollution, habitat modification, climate change, algal harvesting, trophic cascades, and other anthropogenic stressors. Optimal design of protected area networks requires knowledge of effective dispersal distances for a range of macroalgae. We conducted a global meta‐analysis based on data in the published literature to determine the generality of relation between genetic differentiation and geographic distance among macroalgal populations. We also examined whether spatial genetic variation differed significantly with respect to higher taxon, life history, and habitat characteristics. We found clear evidence of population isolation by distance across a multitude of macroalgal species. Genetic and geographic distance were positively correlated across 49 studies; a modal distance of 50–100 km maintained F_ST < 0.2. This relation was consistent for all algal divisions, life cycles, habitats, and molecular marker classes investigated. Incorporating knowledge of the spatial scales of gene flow into the design of marine protected area networks will help moderate anthropogenic increases in population isolation and inbreeding and contribute to the resilience of macroalgal forests. Implicaciones del Aislamiento por Distancia de Macroalgas para Redes de Áreas Marinas Protegidas