Exploring constraints and incentives for the adoption of agroforestry practices on degraded cropland in Uzbekistan

Agroforestry is often an economically viable land-use option for the environmental rehabilitation of salinized cropping areas in irrigated drylands, but afforestation initiative at the farm level is subject to various socio-political constraints. We analyzed the factors that affect farmer decisions with respect to the agroforestry adoption using an ex ante approach through Ethnographic Decision Tree Modeling (EDTM). Constraints on agroforestry adoption were identified via a review of legal documents, focus-group discussions, and a farm survey in northwest Uzbekistan. The findings highlighted the importance of farmer perceptions of risk with respect to decision making surrounding the adoption of alternative land uses. The EDTM analysis allowed determining those policy incentives for afforestation that could directly influence the decision-making process of potential participants. In particular, there is a need for increased land-use flexibility, improved land tenure and tree plantation proprietorship security, increased awareness raising and training in agroforestry practices, and greater institutional support.     

基于系统动力学(SD)的民航可持续安全发展决策研究

为了解决民航行业保障能力与发展需求之间的矛盾所带来的安全问题,在对民航行业进行系统分析的基础上,利用系统动力学方法建立了民航可持续安全发展决策流图。通过专家访谈和文献分析法构建了3种政策场景。利用Vensim软件对模型进行了仿真,结果表明:在保障能力不变的条件下,2015年将航班审批率降低0.3,可实现行业的安全目标,但航班量在2015—2025年发展十分缓慢;在发展水平不变的条件下,2015年将保障能力提高0.3,可在2021年实现行业的安全目标;在可持续发展的策略下,在2015—2018年将航班审批率降低0.3、2018年之后将航班审批率提高0.4,在2015年将保障能力提高0.2,可实现我国民航行业的可持续安全发展。     

Narratives Can Motivate Environmental Action: The Whiskey Creek Ocean Acidification Story

Even when environmental data quantify the risks and benefits of delayed responses to rapid anthropogenic change, institutions rarely respond promptly. We propose that narratives complementing environmental datasets can motivate responsive environmental policy. To explore this idea, we relate a case study in which a narrative of economic loss due to regionally rapid ocean acidification—an anthropogenic change—helped connect knowledge with action. We pose three hypotheses to explain why narratives might be particularly effective in linking science to environmental policy, drawing from the literature of economics, environmental policy, and cognitive psychology. It seems that yet-untold narratives may hold similar potential for strengthening the feedback between environmental data and policy and motivating regional responses to other environmental problems.     

Uncertainty,complexity and controversy in dolphin threat management: A role for post-normal science?

Managing fishing threats to populations of endemic, threatened Hector’s and Māui dolphins around New Zealand is a complex and controversial issue, underpinned by uncertain scientific knowledge. As such, it can be argued that it falls into the realm of post-normal science, which advocates transparency about uncertainties and stakeholder peer review of knowledge feeding into decision-making. This paper focuses on selected examples of modelling and risk assessment research relating to Hector’s and Māui dolphin threat management. It explores how knowledge is developed, shared and utilised by decision-makers, finding that uncertain scientific knowledge may be shared in ways that make it appear more certain, with some of the subjectivities involved in knowledge production hidden from view. Interviews with stakeholders illustrate how some stakeholders are aware of the subjectivities involved when uncertain knowledge underpins decision-making, so a lack of transparency may be leading to erosion of social trust in decisions made. This in turn can lead to a lack of support for dolphin conservation measures from key stakeholders such as the commercial fishing industry. The paper concludes that while moves towards increasing transparency and stakeholder involvement are apparent, a deeper embrace of post-normal science approaches to knowledge production and dissemination would contribute to effective dolphin threat management in New Zealand.     

Game theory and environmental disputes

The courts have provided the traditional battleground for conflicts between environmental interest groups and those whose actions in some way have an adverse impact on the environment The judicial process is a time-consuming one in which all sides usually must concede to some points. Environmental disputes involve complex scientific issues which the court system is not set up to comprehend, so that the process gives the parties to a dispute the sense of having lost control of their own destinies. An increasing number of parties to environmental disputes are turning to negotiation, or mediation, as an alternative in which they can be active parties in the settlement-making process rather than the victims of a court-imposed solution When do the parties to a dispute choose a negotiated settlement over a court battle? To what extent does each party make the concessions necessary to reach an agreement? These questions can be answered by the game theory that provides a model for analyzing the negotiation process. This paper will apply game theory to two environmental conflict cases A series of questions pertinent to the analysis of all environmental disputes will be raised     

COMPLEMENTING OBJECTIVE PROCEDURES WITH SUBJECTIVE PRIORS IN WATER RESOURCE PLANNING1

A procedure is outlined which allows consideration of both objective and subjective indicators to establish priorities in plan implementation of water resource development. The objective procedure utilizes stepwise multiple discriminant analysis to predict community performance regarding planned project implementation, based on previous project implementation in the Northeast. The subjective procedure incorporates prior probabilities developed by the planner, based on observation and experience gained through the planning process. The proposed analysis could eliminate waste through better allocation of planning funds to implementation studies exhibiting higher probability of early implementation.     

Effective application of monitoring information: the case of San Francisco Bay

The San Francisco Estuary Regional Monitoring Program (RMP) for Trace Substances is an innovative partnership among a regulatory agency, more than 70 regulated entities, and an independent scientific organization. The institutional arrangement behind the RMP has made the regulatory system increasingly responsive to emerging management needs, particularly with regard to the development of total maximum daily loads and ecosystem impairment assessment. Through multi-agency partnerships within and outside the RMP institutional structure, major information gaps for several pollutants of concern have been narrowed, resulting in a successful consensus-based regulatory approach to managing copper and nickel mass inputs into the Estuary. Short-term research efforts, based upon monitoring results, helped identify the most cost-effective control and remediation options for various bioaccumulative substances. Additionally, adaptive changes to the monitoring program documented the existence of widespread aquatic toxicity in the Estuary that is apparently due to pesticide runoff from agricultural and urban areas. One of the most important contributions of this collaborative monitoring program is the deliberate and systematic adjustment of management and research questions that serve to influence and add relevance to the overall research agenda related to San Francisco Estuary ecosystem assessment.     

业务性防雹作业实时决策指挥系统的设计

本文论述了西北地区人工防雹业务性决策指挥的现状和面对的重要问题;探讨了目前无法识别的20%左右雹云在业务性防雹中的处理思路;以三级判别思路提出了业务性决策指挥系统的设计.     

Watershed Management and Organizational Dynamics: Nationwide Findings and Regional Variation

Recent attention has focused on resource management initiatives at the watershed scale with emphasis on collaborative, locally driven, and decentralized institutional arrangements. Existing literature on limited selections of well-established watershed-based organizations has provided valuable insights. The current research extends this focus by including a broad survey of watershed organizations from across the United States as a means to estimate a national portrait. Organizational characteristics include year of formation, membership size and composition, budget, guiding principles, and mechanisms of decision-making. These characteristics and the issue concerns of organizations are expected to vary with respect to location. Because this research focuses on organizations that are place based and stakeholder driven, the forces driving them are expected to differ across regions of the country. On this basis of location, we suggest basic elements for a regional assessment of watershed organizations to channel future research and to better approximate the organizational dynamics, issue concerns, and information needs unique to organizations across the country. At the broadest level, the identification of regional patterns or organizational similarities may facilitate the linkage among organizations to coordinate their actions at the much broader river basin or ecosystem scale.     

江苏省地震应急指挥决策演示系统介绍

江苏省地震应急指挥决策演示系统是江苏省地震局 “九五” 重点课题──江苏省地震应急指挥系统的一个组成部分。 它主要集成了测震数据库及测震学预报软件(CAPSEIS)、 前兆数据库及前兆学预报软件(JSOMEN)、 强震中短期预报动态图像系统、 台站基础信息数据库、 地震烈度分布计算等软件系统，一旦出现震情时可以为地震研究人员提供常用的基础资料，震情分析判断工具和震害快速预测等。 本文重点介绍笔者对基础图件和基础资料信息等系统数据库整理所做的工作，同时介绍该系统的功能及其使用。