Nexus security: governance, innovation and the resilient city

Nexus security is a compound mix of ideas: reconciling human needs and wants with access to multiple resources; diversity of access to those resources and services; resilience in the face of weather- and climaterelated variability; resilience likewise in the face of infrastructure failure; and the personal, individual sense of belonging. At the level of Systems Thinking there is a very close relationship between resilience in the behavior of natural (ecological) systems and resilience in the social dynamics of governance within communities, where such resilience establishes the viability of these communities over centuries, which in turn entails successful stewardship of the man-environment relationship. We use insights from this cross-system mapping — across natural, built, and human systems — to assess, first, the role of city governance in achieving nexus security (or not) and, second, the role of technological innovations in serving the same purpose. More specifically, eight principles, covering resilience and diversity of access to resources and services, are used to gauge security-enhancing features of city buildings and infrastructure. Case studies include new designs of resilient office blocks, nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) recovery systems for sanitation and wastewater treatment, and the reconstruction of urban parks for the provision of ecosystem services. Throughout the paper, matters of risk in the face of meteorological variability are prominent. We do not conclude, however, that the presence of risk implies nexus insecurity.     

On water security, sustainability, and the water-food-energy-climate nexus

The role of water security in sustainable development and in the nexus of water, food, energy and climate interactions is examined from the starting point of the definition of water security offered by Grey and Sadoff. Much about the notion of security has to do with the presumption of scarcity in the resources required to meet human needs. The treatment of scarcity in mainstream economics is in turn examined, therefore, in relation to how each of us as individuals reconciles means with ends, a procedure at the core of the idea of sustainable development. According to the Grey-Sadoff definition, attaining water security amounts to achieving basic, single-sector water development as a precursor of more general, self-sustaining, multi-sectoral development. This is consistent with the way in which water is treated as “first among equals”, i.e. privileged, in thinking about what is key in achieving security around the nexus of water, food, energy and climate. Cities, of course, are locations where demands for these multiple resource-energy flows are increasingly being generated. The paper discusses two important facets of security, i.e., diversity of access to resources and services (such as sanitation) and resilience in the behavior of coupled human-built-natural systems. Eight quasi-operational principles, by which to gauge nexus security with respect to city buildings and infrastructure, are developed.     

电网基建施工企业事故统计分析及防范对策

某电力工程施工总承包一级资质、综合性大型国有电网基建施工企业,以施工导致人员重伤和死亡的事故资料和数据为基础,运用科学数理统计的原理和方法,着重对事故类型、事故原因以及伤亡人员用工形式等方面特征进行分析,找出事故发生的规律,揭示该企业的安全管理状况。并根据统计分析结果,提出在预防人身安全事故方面需要加强的管理对策和建议,为进一步加强安全管理,防止事故重复发生起到指导作用。     

四川遂宁现代生态田园城市建设的研究

生态田园城市是现代城市的发展目标,已成为我国城市建设的热点.现代生态田园城市建设的关键在于建立城市生态基础设施系统,为城市可持续发展和营造宜居环境提供生态系统服务.遂宁现代生态田园城市规划将生态基础设施规划、产业发展规划、社会公共服务设施规划"三规合一",营造一个生态安全健康、生产低碳高效、生活安康富裕,社会公平和谐的美丽新城市.     

环境基础设施运营现状及市场化对策

本文对建立环境基础设施社会化投入机制和运营机制提出五条对策建议：即加强规划管理、建立社会化投入机制、推行环保设施运营市场化,发展股份制污染防治企业,加强法制建设并制定配套政策。     

Frontiers of protected areas versus forest exploitation: Assessing habitat network functionality in 16 case study regions globally

Exploitation of natural forests forms expanding frontiers. Simultaneously, protected area frontiers aim at maintaining functional habitat networks. To assess net effects of these frontiers, we examined 16 case study areas on five continents. We (1) mapped protected area instruments, (2) assessed their effectiveness, (3) mapped policy implementation tools, and (4) effects on protected areas originating from their surroundings. Results are given as follows: (1) conservation instruments covered 3–77%, (2) effectiveness of habitat networks depended on representativeness, habitat quality, functional connectivity, resource extraction in protected areas, time for landscape restoration, “paper parks”, “fortress conservation”, and data access, (3) regulatory policy instruments dominated over economic and informational, (4) negative matrix effects dominated over positive ones (protective forests, buffer zones, inaccessibility), which were restricted to former USSR and Costa Rica. Despite evidence-based knowledge about conservation targets, the importance of spatial segregation of conservation and use, and traditional knowledge, the trajectories for biodiversity conservation were generally negative.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01628-5.     

The alignment of agricultural and nature conservation policies in the European Union

Europe is a region of relatively high population density and productive agriculture subject to substantial government intervention under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Many habitats and species of high conservation interest have been created by the maintenance of agricultural practices over long periods. These practices are often no longer profitable, and nature conservation initiatives require government support to cover the cost for them to be continued. The CAP has been reformed both to reduce production of agricultural commodities at costs in excess of world prices and to establish incentives for landholders to adopt voluntary conservation measures. A separate nature conservation policy has established an extensive series of protected sites (Natura 2000) that has, as yet, failed to halt the loss of biodiversity. Additional broader scale approaches have been advocated for conservation in the wider landscape matrix, including the alignment of agricultural and nature conservation policies, which remains a challenge. Possibilities for alignment include further shifting of funds from general support for farmers toward targeted payments for biodiversity goals at larger scales and adoption of an ecosystem approach. The European response to the competing demands for land resources may offer lessons globally as demands on rural land increase.     

电力发展对中国经济增长的影响及其区域差异

1990年以来,随着中国电力体制改革的深入,电力基础设施与经济同步发展。由于电力生产与电力消费存在着显著的空间差异,电力发展对经济增长的影响可能存在空间差异。本文利用1990—2011年省级面板数据,基于增长回归模型,采用动态面板分析方法,以电力投资率和发电装机容量作为衡量电力发展的指标,检验电力发展对经济增长的影响以及这种影响的区域间差异。实证研究的主要发现如下:首先,电力发展对经济增长有显著的正面影响,而且其长期影响明显高于短期影响。其中,电力投资率每增加1个百分点,短期经济增长率提高0.076个百分点,长期经济增长率提高0.493个百分点;发电装机容量每增加1个百分点,短期经济增长率提高0.381个百分点,长期经济增长率提高1.905个百分点。其次,电力发展对经济增长的影响具有显著的地区差异,对东部地区的经济增长影响显著高于西部地区。其中,电力投资率增加1个百分点对东部地区的经济增长率影响高于西部地区达0.913个百分点;电力装机容量增加1个百分点对东部地区的经济增长率影响高于西部地区达0.959个百分点。实证结果表明,电力发展对各地区经济增长影响是不平衡的,这种影响对区域经济协调发展起到了负面作用。基于实证研究,给出如下政策建议:首先,考虑到中国经济在未来20年中仍将保持较高增速,中国应继续促进电力发展投资,以促进经济增长。其次,从政策导向来看,电力发展政策应当充分加强电力发展对区域协调发展的作用,使得西部地区能从电力输出中获得更高收益,提高电力发展对区域经济增长影响的公平性。     

Understanding and enhancing future infrastructure resiliency: a socio‐ecological approach

The resilience of any system, human or natural, centres on its capacity to adapt its structure, but not necessarily its function, to a new configuration in response to long‐term socio‐ecological change. In the long term, therefore, enhancing resilience involves more than simply improving a system's ability to resist an immediate threat or to recover to a stable past state. However, despite the prevalence of adaptive notions of resilience in academic discourse, it is apparent that infrastructure planners and policies largely continue to struggle to comprehend longer‐term system adaptation in their understanding of resilience. Instead, a short‐term, stable system (STSS) perspective on resilience is prevalent. This paper seeks to identify and problematise this perspective, presenting research based on the development of a heuristic ‘scenario–episode’ tool to address, and challenge, it in the context of United Kingdom infrastructure resilience. The aim is to help resilience practitioners to understand better the capacities of future infrastructure systems to respond to natural, malicious threats.     

环境基础设施市场化运作下的政府管理

论述了环境基础设施投资运行机制的市场化改革，是解决目前环境基础设施供需矛盾尖锐、投入不足、效率低下的一条重要途径。认为环境基础设施的特殊性决定了其在市场化运作中，政府加强管理具有重要意义。结合城市给排水和垃圾处理设施的特点，提出并讨论了在市场化运作的背景下，政府管理城市环境基础设施的主要目标、内容及政策体系。