A Hierarchy of Groundwater Management, Land-Use, and Social Needs Integrated for Sustainable Resource Development

The pyramid of human needs developed by Abraham Maslow is based upon the presumption that until a person's lower level needs are fulfilled, higher level needs remain irrelevant. Groundwater and land-use management can likewise utilize such a hierarchy in integrating plans and operations with the needs of the society. Only once a region's population has fulfilled more basic concerns can higher-level groundwater and land-use management needs be effectively achieved. Attaining the ultimate goal of resource sustainability would certainly require considerable public backing, both for financial support and minimizing ambient pollution. For efficient water management to supply a society's water needs for future generations, sustainable groundwater management will require the full support of an educated society. The objective of the authors is to point out how essential it is to integrate operational strategies into regional hierarchies of needs applicable to groundwater management, land-use, and social planning. The situation of groundwater resources in Israel's Sharon Coastal aquifer region is taken as a case in point. Remedial groundwater activities have been undertaken in the management program for this aquifer. But it appears that maximal management efficiency cannot be achieved until the public's basic concerns are satisfactorily addressed and water resources planners reach consensus and a working partnership with the society in question. Operational measures must be clearly shown to benefit the region's population as regards their social, economic, and environmental concerns. This can only be achieved through public education, promoting awareness of the issuesbreak involved.     

纵向岭谷区公路沿线土地利用变化与扩展效应

运用A RC I/NFO软件,对纵向岭谷区内典型公路沿线1km、2km、5km和20km缓冲带土地利用数据进行分析。通过土地利用转移矩阵、土地利用程度综合指数和扩展强度指数,研究了公路沿线土地变化及公路的扩展效应。研究表明:①各缓冲带内均存在林地向耕地和草地退化的现象;②研究区自然状况完好,林地与草地所占比例之和均超过土地总面积的80%,但存在一定的内部差异性;③景洪各缓冲带土地利用程度排序为La2k0m>La5km>La2km>La全区>La1km,保山土地开发利用程度高于景洪,排序情况La1km>La2km>La5km>La全区≈La2k0m;④公路的扩展效应与土地利用程度综合指数基本上是一致的,但扩展效应不显著。受地形地貌条件的限制,公路扩展效应的影响阈为公路周边1～5km。     

吉林省西部农牧交错区不同土地利用方式对土壤线虫群落特征的影响

对吉林省西部农牧交错区典型生境土壤线虫群落进行调查,共捕获线虫23属、1 264只,优势属为真滑刃属和短体属。研究结果显示,土地利用方式对土壤线虫群落特征有一定影响,不同生境间土壤线虫群落共有属不多,农业生产活动促使土壤线虫向土壤下层移动;不同农业生产活动对土壤线虫群落多样性影响不同, 4种生境中,居民点园地土壤线虫群落多样性最高,而玉米田最低;不同土地利用方式下土壤线虫功能类群差异显著,玉米田不利于捕食类群/杂食类群的存在。     

Long-term impacts of land-use change on dynamics of tropical soil carbon and nitrogen pools

Land-use changes, especially the conversion of native forest vegetation to cropland and plantations in tropical region, can alter soil C and N pools and N availability for plant uptake. Deforestation, followed by shifting cultivation and establishment of rubber tree plantation, is a common land-use change in Xishuangbanna, southwest China. However the influence of this kind of land-use change on soil C and N dynamics in this region remains poorly understood, This study was conducted to assess the effects of land-use change on soil C and N pools. Soil samples were collected on five adjacent plots, which belong to three land-use types including secondary forest-an acuminate banana( Musa itinerans) secondary forest and a male bamboo( Dendrocalamus membranaceae) secondary forest, shifting cultivation, and rubber tree ( Hevea brasiliensis (H. B. K. ) Muell. Arg. ) plantation(one plot is 3-year-old, and another is 7-year-old). We measured soil bulk density (BD), pH value, moisture content and concentrations of soil organic carbon(SOC), total soil nitrogen(TSN), and inorganic N(NO3^- -N and NH4^ -N) at 0--3, 3--20, 20--40 and 40--60cm depths, and calculated C and N pools in 0--20, 20--40, 40--60, and 0--60 cm soil layers. Compared with the adjacent secondary forests, shifting cultivation and establishment of rubber tree plantations resulted in significant decline in concentrations and stocks of SOC and TSN in 0--20 and 0--60cm soil layers, and increase in pH and bulk density at 0--3, 3--20, and 20--40cm depths. Soil moisture content decreased only in 0--20cm surface soils in shifting cultivation and plantations. The dynamics of mineral N was much more complex, which had different trends among depths and ecosystems. Compared with the secondary forests, SOC stocks in 0--20cm surface soils in shifting cultivation and rubber tree plantations(3-year-old plantation and 7-year-old plantation) decreased by 34.0%, 33%, and 23% ; and TSN stocks decreased by 32.2%, 20.4%, and 20.4%, respectively,whereas the decreases of SOC and TSN stocks in 0--60cm soil layers were much less. The results indicated that C and N losses were mainly occurred in 0--20cm surface soil, followed by 20--40cm layer.     

危险工业设施周边土地利用规划研究

由于工业设施的存在,其周边区域常常受到潜在工业事故的威胁,为了减小这种风险,必须对这些区域进行合理的土地利用规划。借鉴欧洲研究者的研究方法,利用基于后果的风险评价方法确定不同破坏分区的边界,并将不同土地利用类型的脆弱等级引入土地利用规划,结合二者的结果,依据决策矩阵得到规划决策意见。通过将上述方法应用在某拟建的LPG中转站周边区域,以丙烷泄漏引起的沸腾液体蒸气爆炸为例,将风险分析和决策结果显示在地理信息系统上。案例分析表明该设施对周边区域影响较大,需要对其进行重新选址。     

Integrating functional connectivity and fire management for better conservation outcomes

Globally, the mean abundance of terrestrial animals has fallen by 50% since 1970, and populations face ongoing threats associated with habitat loss, fragmentation, climate change, and disturbance. Climate change can influence the quality of remaining habitat directly and indirectly by precipitating increases in the extent, frequency, and severity of natural disturbances, such as fire. Species face the combined threats of habitat clearance, changing climates, and altered disturbance regimes, each of which may interact and have cascading impacts on animal populations. Typically, conservation agencies are limited in their capacity to mitigate rates of habitat clearance, habitat fragmentation, or climate change, yet fire management is increasingly used worldwide to reduce wildfire risk and achieve conservation outcomes. A popular approach to ecological fire management involves the creation of fire mosaics to promote animal diversity. However, this strategy has 2 fundamental limitations: the effect of fire on animal movement within or among habitat patches is not considered and the implications of the current fire regime for long-term population persistence are overlooked. Spatial and temporal patterns in fire history can influence animal movement, which is essential to the survival of individual animals, maintenance of genetic diversity, and persistence of populations, species, and ecosystems. We argue that there is rich potential for fire managers to manipulate animal movement patterns; enhance functional connectivity, gene flow, and genetic diversity; and increase the capacity of populations to persist under shifting environmental conditions. Recent methodological advances, such as spatiotemporal connectivity modeling, spatially explicit individual-based simulation, and fire-regime modeling can be integrated to achieve better outcomes for biodiversity in human-modified, fire-prone landscapes. Article impact statement: Land managers may conserve populations by using fire to sustain or enhance functional connectivity.     

Using spatially explicit,time-dependent analysis to understand how social factors influence conservation outcomes

Conservation across human-dominated landscapes requires an understanding of the social and ecological factors driving outcomes. Studies that link conservation outcomes to social and ecological factors have examined temporally static patterns. However, there may be different social and ecological processes driving increases and decreases in conservation outcomes that can only be revealed through temporal analyses. Through a case study of the invasion of Falcataria moluccana in Hawaii, we examined the association of social factors with increases and decreases in invader distributions over time and space. Over 7 years, rates of invader decrease varied substantially (66–100%) relative to social factors, such as building value, whether land was privately or publically owned, and primary residence by a homeowner, whereas rates of increase varied only slightly (<0.1–3.6%) relative to such factors. These findings suggest that links between social factors and invasion in the study system may be driven more by landowners controlling existing invasive species, rather than by landowners preventing the spread of invasive species. We suggest that spatially explicit, time-dependent analyses provide a more nuanced understanding of the way social factors influence conservation outcomes. Such an understanding can help managers develop outreach programs and policies targeted at different types of landowners in human-dominated landscapes.     

An assessment of public engagement for access management planning in southwestern Alberta,Canada

This paper describes efforts to bridge the gap between the existing research and proposed recreation access management for public lands in southwestern Alberta, Canada. Recreation access management has been identified as a complex problem and public consultation is one element in addressing the complexity. An Internet-based survey (n = 945) examined the acceptability and desirability of public consultation processes to assist with access management planning. Non-parametric tests indicate significant differences in desirability of public consultation types existed for all variables except gender. Respondents expressed the desire for a diversity of public consultation approaches with a strong preference for face-to-face field visits. Mechanisms for engagement in access management planning should be based on public consultation preferences to ensure broad, on going engagement and subsequent user acceptance and compliance.     

The relevance of physical forces on land-use change and planning process

This study analysed the importance of physical forces on land-use change, on the planning framework in a Portuguese periurban area. A temporal matrix showing the trajectories of land transformation was obtained. A multivariate redundancy analysis explored the importance of physical parameters on temporal and spatial land-use change. A content analysis on urban or municipal master plans was made framing the importance of physical parameters on the planning process. The results highlighted a consistent trajectory of profound land-use changes with distinctive trajectories, with increasingly complex patterns with a limited dependence on physical variables. The trajectories were more related to the planning framework, where political actors and planning managers seemed to be most important. A theoretical model balancing three main components – physical forces, actors, and land transformation (DFA-C model) is proposed, reflecting the informal relationships between physical parameters and actors during the planning process.     

How decisions about fitting species distribution models affect conservation outcomes

Species distribution models (SDMs) are increasingly used in conservation and land-use planning as inputs to describe biodiversity patterns. These models can be built in different ways, and decisions about data preparation, selection of predictor variables, model fitting, and evaluation all alter the resulting predictions. Commonly, the true distribution of species is unknown and independent data to verify which SDM variant to choose are lacking. Such model uncertainty is of concern to planners. We analyzed how 11 routine decisions about model complexity, predictors, bias treatment, and setting thresholds for predicted values altered conservation priority patterns across 25 species. Models were created with MaxEnt and run through Zonation to determine the priority rank of sites. Although all SDM variants performed well (area under the curve >0.7), they produced spatially different predictions for species and different conservation priority solutions. Priorities were most strongly altered by decisions to not address bias or to apply binary thresholds to predicted values; on average 40% and 35%, respectively, of all grid cells received an opposite priority ranking. Forcing high model complexity altered conservation solutions less than forcing simplicity (14% and 24% of cells with opposite rank values, respectively). Use of fewer species records to build models or choosing alternative bias treatments had intermediate effects (25% and 23%, respectively). Depending on modeling choices, priority areas overlapped as little as 10–20% with the baseline solution, affecting top and bottom priorities differently. Our results demonstrate the extent of model-based uncertainty and quantify the relative impacts of SDM building decisions. When it is uncertain what the best SDM approach and conservation plan is, solving uncertainty or considering alterative options is most important for those decisions that change plans the most.