China’s carbon neutrality: an extensive and profound systemic reform

● China has pledged ambitious carbon peak and neutrality goals for mitigating global climate change. ● Major challenges to achieve carbon neutrality in China are summarized. ● The new opportunities along the pathway of China’s carbon neutrality are discussed from four aspects. ● Five policy suggestions for China are provided. China is the largest developing economy and carbon dioxide emitter in the world, the carbon neutrality goal of which will have a profound influence on the mitigation pathway of global climate change. The transition towards a carbon-neutral society is integrated into the construction of ecological civilization in China, and brings profound implications for China’s socioeconomic development. Here, we not only summarize the major challenges in achieving carbon neutrality in China, but also identify the four potential new opportunities: namely, the acceleration of technology innovations, narrowing regional disparity by reshaping the value of resources, transforming the industrial structure, and co-benefits of pollution and carbon mitigation. Finally, we provide five policy suggestions and highlight the importance of balancing economic growth and carbon mitigation, and the joint efforts among the government, the enterprises, and the residents.     

Personal exposure to PM2.5-bound heavy metals associated with cardiopulmonary function in general population

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - To better understand the cardiopulmonary alterations associated with personal exposed PM2.5-bound heavy meals, we conducted a cross-sectional study in...     

基于IFS-动态加权的地下综合体深基坑施工风险评价

为控制地下综合体深基坑施工风险,提出了一种基于直觉模糊集(IFS)-动态加权的风险评价方法.从地质条件、建筑环境、岩土设计、施工方案和偶然风险5个方面分析地下综合体深基坑施工风险因素,构建了综合风险评价指标体系.采取施工风险5级划分方法,利用IFS理论确定指标风险;以偏大型正态加权函数确定指标权重,得到系统综合风险.以西安市某地下综合体深基坑施工实际为背景,进行方法应用.结果表明,该西安市地下综合体深基坑施工系统风险等级为显著风险.其中,指标"邻近建筑""地下管网"的风险等级为高度风险,"道路交通""基坑边坡稳定性""降排水实施"为显著风险,对此提出了相应的安全措施.     

土地细碎化与农户环境友好型技术采纳决策——以测土配方施肥技术为例

利用湖北省1710份农户的微观数据,运用Double-hurdle模型,实证分析土地细碎化对农户环境友好型技术采纳决策的影响.研究表明:(1)总体来说,土地细碎化对农户是否采纳环境友好型技术,以及采纳密度(采纳环境友好型技术的面积/总农地经营面积)均产生负向影响;(2)对男性和低自我效能感知主体而言,土地细碎化对其是否采纳环境友好型技术决策和采纳密度决策均产生负向影响;而对女性和高自我效能感知主体,则未产生显著影响;(3)土地细碎化对强社会网络主体的是否采纳决策产生影响,对其采纳密度决策不产生影响,土地细碎化对弱社会网络主体的是否采纳和采纳密度决策均产生负向影响;(4)土地细碎化对低农业收入依赖主体的采纳密度决策以及高农业收入依赖主体的是否采纳决策产生负向影响,对低农业收入依赖主体的是否采纳决策以及高农业收入依赖主体的采纳密度决策不产生影响;(5)土地细碎化对平原地区农户的是否采纳决策不产生影响,对其采纳密度决策产生影响,土地细碎化对非平原地区农户的是否采纳和采纳密度决策均产生负向影响.据此,建议着力推进高水平良田建设,激励农户环境友好型技术采纳决策的政策制定需要充分考虑农户异质性影响,实施精准施肥政策,并充分考虑不同自然环境特征(如地形等)的影响,针对平原和非平原地区的农户,采取差异化的激励策略.     

From vineyards to feedlots: a fund-flow scanning of sociometabolic transition in the Vallès County (Catalonia) 1860–1956–1999

Regional Environmental Change - We analyse the changes to agricultural metabolism in four municipalities of Vallès County (Catalonia, Iberia) by accounting for their agroecosystem funds and...     

UiO-66(Zr)@多孔陶瓷复合材料的制备及对络合态重金属EDTA-Cu(Ⅱ)的去除

本文采用多孔陶瓷作为基体制备了锆基金属有机骨架UiO-66@多孔陶瓷复合材料.通过扫描电子显微镜(SEM)、粉末X射线衍射(PXRD)、氮气吸附和傅里叶变换红外光谱(FTIR)等表征手段对比了氢氧化钠脱硅和乙二胺表面改性等基体活化方式对UiO-66(Zr)在多孔陶瓷表面负载情况的影响.结果表明,经过乙二胺表面改性的多孔陶瓷对UiO-66(Zr)的负载更均匀,负载效果更好.以EDTA-Cu(Ⅱ)为考察对象,研究了UiO-66(Zr)@乙二胺表面改性多孔陶瓷复合材料对络合态重金属的净化效能.结果表明,UiO-66(Zr)@多孔陶瓷复合材料在较宽的酸碱条件下(pH=3—9)对络合态重金属EDTA-Cu(Ⅱ)均表现出良好的吸附性能,饱和吸附量为1.17 mg·g~(-1),并可通过NaOH解吸再生,从而实现材料的重复利用.     

A climate-change vulnerability and adaptation assessment for Brazil's protected areas

Brazil hosts the largest expanse of tropical ecosystems within protected areas (PAs), which shelter biodiversity and support traditional human populations. We assessed the vulnerability to climate change of 993 terrestrial and coastal-marine Brazilian PAs by combining indicators of climatic-change hazard with indicators of PA resilience (size, native vegetation cover, and probability of climate-driven vegetation transition). This combination of indicators allows the identification of broad climate-change adaptation pathways. Seventeen PAs (20,611 km²) were highly vulnerable and located mainly in the Atlantic Forest (7 PAs), Cerrado (6), and the Amazon (4). Two hundred fifty-eight PAs (756,569 km²), located primarily in Amazonia, had a medium vulnerability. In the Amazon and western Cerrado, the projected severe climatic change and probability of climate-driven vegetation transition drove vulnerability up, despite the generally good conservation status of PAs. Over 80% of PAs of high or moderate vulnerability are managed by indigenous populations. Hence, besides the potential risks to biodiversity, the traditional knowledge and livelihoods of the people inhabiting these PAs may be threatened. In at least 870 PAs, primarily in the Atlantic Forest and Amazon, adaptation could happen with little or no intervention due to low climate-change hazard, high resilience status, or both. At least 20 PAs in the Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, and Amazonia should be targeted for stronger interventions (e.g., improvement of ecological connectivity), given their low resilience status. Despite being a first attempt to link vulnerability and adaptation in Brazilian PAs, we suggest that some of the PAs identified as highly or moderately vulnerable should be prioritized for testing potential adaptation strategies in the near future.     

The place of nature in conservation conflicts

Conservation conflicts are gaining importance in contemporary conservation scholarship such that conservation may have entered a conflict hype. We attempted to uncover and deconstruct the normative assumptions behind such studies by raising several questions: what are conservation conflicts, what justifies the attention they receive, do conservation-conflict studies limit wildlife conservation, is scientific knowledge stacked against wildlife in conservation conflicts, do conservation-conflict studies adopt a specific view of democracy, can laws be used to force conservation outcomes, why is flexibility needed in managing conservation conflicts, can conservation conflicts be managed by promoting tolerance, and who needs to compromise in conservation conflicts? We suggest that many of the intellectual premises in the field may defang conservation and prevent it from truly addressing the current conservation crisis as it accelerates. By framing conservation conflicts as conflicts between people about wildlife or nature, the field insidiously transfers guilt, whereby human activities are no longer blamed for causing species decline and extinctions but conservation is instead blamed for causing social conflicts. When the focus is on mitigating social conflicts without limiting in any powerful way human activities damaging to nature, conservation-conflict studies risk keeping conservation within the limits of human activities, instead of keeping human activities within the limits of nature. For conservation to successfully stop the biodiversity crisis, we suggest the alternative goal of recognizing nature's right to existence to maintenance of ecological functions and evolutionary processes. Nature being a rights bearer or legal person would imply its needs must be explicitly taken into account in conflict adjudication. If, even in conservation, nature's interests come second to human interests, it may be no surprise that conservation cannot succeed.     

Correction to: Keeping pace with forestry: Multi-scale conservation in a changing production forest matrix

Ambio - In the original published article, the sentence “Nevertheless, semi-natural forest remnants continue to be harvested and fragmented (Svensson et al. 2018; Jonsson et al. 2019), and...     

Effect of cooking on arsenic concentration in rice

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This study assessed the effect of rinsing and boiling on total content of As (tAs) and of its inorganic and organic forms in different types of rice...