Ecological planning for land use and ruraldevelopment of Taojiang County

ＥｃｏｌｏｇｉｃａｌｐｌａｎｎｉｎｇｆｏｒｌａｎｄｕｓｅａｎｄｒｕｒａｌｄｅｖｅｌｏｐｍｅｎｔｏｆＴａｏｊｉａｎｇＣｏｕｎｔｙＯｕｙａｎｇＺｈｉｙｕｎ；ＷａｎｇＲｕｓｏｎｇ；ＪａｓｏｎＷｅｉｓｍａｎ（ＲｅｓｅａｒｃｈＣｅｎｔｅｒｆｏｒＥｃｏ－Ｅｎｖｉ...     

The use of yellow phosphorus to destroy toxic organic compounds

ＴｈｅｕｓｅｏｆｙｅｌｌｏｗｐｈｏｓｐｈｏｒｕｓｔｏｄｅｓｔｒｏｙｔｏｘｉｃｏｒｇａｎｉｃｃｏｍｐｏｕｎｄｓＳｈｉｈ－ＧｅｒＣｈａｎｇ（ＥｎｅｒｇｙａｎｄＥｎｖｉｒｏｎｍｅｎｔＤｉｖｉｓｉｏｎ，ＬａｗｒｅｎｃｅＢｅｒｋｅｌｅｙＬａｂｏｒａｔｏｒｙ．Ｕ...     

Integrating landscape ecological principles and land evaluation forsustainable land use

１ＩｎｔｒｏｄｕｃｔｉｏｎＲｉｓｉｎｇｐｏｐｕｌａｔｉｏｎｓｃｏｍｐｅｔｉｎｇｆｏｒｌｉｍｉｔｅｄｌａｎｄｒｅｓｏｕｒｃｅｓｈａｖｅｆｏｃｕｓｅｄａｔｅｎｔｉｏｎｏｎｔｈｅｎｅｅｄｆｏｒｉｎｃｒｅａｓｉｎｇｆｏｏｄｐｒｏｄｕｃｔｉｏｎ，ｗｈｉｌｅｐｒ...     

Does providing technical assistance for toxics use reduction really work? A program evaluation utilizing toxics use reduction act data to measure pollution prevention performance

The 1989 Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Act (TURA) instituted a preventive approach to chemical pollution and wastes: reducing toxic chemicals at the source through prevention planning, public reporting of chemical input, and fees for chemical use. The act also created the Massachusetts Office of Technical Assistance for Toxics Use Reduction (OTA), a voluntary program, to make onsite visits to companies that request assistance. OTA staff review the use of toxic chemicals at the facility, and make recommendations for either using substitutes, or using the chemicals more efficiently. Because TURA requires covered companies (large quantity toxics users) to report chemical input (what they use), output (resulting chemical waste), and a production index, it is possible to measure trends in toxics use relative to production, and waste byproduct per pound of chemical use input. These are uniquely precise measurements of a company's ability to accomplish the form of pollution prevention known as toxics use reduction.From 1993 to 2002, companies used approximately 500 million pounds (227 million kg) less toxic chemicals than they were expected to use, based on past performance. Those companies that received onsite technical assistance visits from OTA made substantially greater improvements in TUR performance than those not visited, and as compared to their own performance after being visited. They reduced an average of 9.4% more toxics use after being visited than before, and the difference was statistically significant. More companies in the visited group made progress than companies not visited, and had greater reductions than those not visited by nearly all measures.The results of two additional studies supported these findings of program effectiveness. One study examined companies that dropped out of the system, and found that those that were visited employed toxics use reduction to achieve below-threshold use amounts more frequently than those that were not visited. The other study, an independent research project using econometric methods to determine the causative relevance of provided assistance, found OTA's service to be an explanatory factor associated with significant toxics use and byproduct reductions.     

How do animals use substrate-borne vibrations as an information source?

Animal communication is a dynamic field that promotes cross-disciplinary study of the complex mechanisms of sending and receiving signals, the neurobiology of signal detection and processing, and the behaviors of animals creating and responding to encoded messages. Alongside visual signals, songs, or pheromones exists another major communication channel that has been rather neglected until recent decades: substrate-borne vibration. Vibrations carried in the substrate are considered to provide a very old and apparently ubiquitous communication channel that is used alone or in combination with other information channels in multimodal signaling. The substrate could be ‘the ground’, or a plant leaf or stem, or the surface of water, or a spider’s web, or a honeybee’s honeycomb. Animals moving on these substrates typically create incidental vibrations that can alert others to their presence. They also may use behaviors to create vibrational waves that are employed in the contexts of mate location and identification, courtship and mating, maternal care and sibling interactions, predation, predator avoidance, foraging, and general recruitment of family members to work. In fact, animals use substrate-borne vibrations to signal in the same contexts that they use vision, hearing, touch, taste, or smell. Study of vibrational communication across animal taxa provides more than just a more complete story. Communication through substrate-borne vibration has its own constraints and opportunities not found in other signaling modalities. Here, I review the state of our understanding of information acquisition via substrate-borne vibrations with special attention to the most recent literature.     

Global implications of biomass and biofuel use in Germany – Recent trends and future scenarios for domestic and foreign agricultural land use and resulting GHG emissions

The global land area required to meet the German consumption of agricultural products for food and non-food use was quantified, and the related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly those induced by land-use changes in tropical countries, were estimated. Two comprehensive business-as-usual scenarios describe the development corridor of biomass for non-food use in terms of energetic and non-energetic purposes. In terms of land use, Germany was already a net importer of agricultural land in 2004, and the net additional land required by 2030 is estimated to comprise 2.5–3.4 Mha. This is mainly due to biofuel demand driven by current policy targets. Meeting the required biodiesel import demand would result in an additional GWP of 23–37 Tg of CO₂ equivalents through direct and indirect land-use changes. Alternative scenario elements outline the potential options for reducing Germany's land requirement, which reflect future global per capita availability.     

Eco-tourism industry development──An alternative to sustainable use of landscape resources

Ｅｃｏ－ｔｏｕｒｉｓｍｉｎｄｕｓｔｒｙｄｅｖｅｌｏｐｍｅｎｔ──Ａｎａｌｔｅｒｎａｔｉｖｅｔｏｓｕｓｔａｉｎａｂｌｅｕｓｅｏｆｌａｎｄｓｃａｐｅｒｅｓｏｕｒｃｅｓ￥ＬｕＹｏｎｇｌｏｎｇ（ＲｅｓｅａｒｃｈＣｅｎｔｅｒｆｏｒＥｃｏ－Ｅｎｖｉｒｏｎｍｅｎｔ...     

Ecological niche suitability model with an application in Taojiang land use planning

ＥｃｏｌｏｇｉｃａｌｎｉｃｈｅｓｕｉｔａｂｉｌｉｔｙｍｏｄｅｌｗｉｔｈａｎａｐｐｌｉｃａｔｉｏｎｉｎＴａｏｊｉａｎｇｌａｎｄｕｓｅｐｌａｎｎｉｎｇＯｕｙａｎｇＺｈｉｙｕｎ；ＷｅｉｓｍａｎＪａｓｏｎ；ＷａｎｇＲｕｓｏｎｇ（ＲｅｓｅａｒｃｈＣｅｎｔｅｒｆ...     

Ecological planning of land use in the central area of Tianjin,China

ＥｃｏｌｏｇｉｃａｌｐｌａｎｎｉｎｇｏｆｌａｎｄｕｓｅｉｎｔｈｅｃｅｎｔｒａｌａｒｅａｏｆＴｉａｎｊｉｎ，Ｃｈｉｎａ￥ＬｕＹｏｎｇｌｏｎｇ（ＲｅｓｅａｒｃｈＣｅｎｔｅｒｆｏｒＥｃｏ－ＥｎｖｉｒｏｎｍｅｎｔａｌＳｃｉｅｎｃｅｓ，ＣｈｉｎｅｓｅＡｃａｄｅ...     

Crops,cows or timber? Including carbon values in land use choices

Farm forestry is a very minor land use in the inland agricultural landscapes of Australia. The Australian Government intends to introduce a program to encourage landholders to trade the carbon sequestration value of plantations and this may change the relative profitability of plantations against other agricultural land uses. This research compares the returns from a timber and ‘carbon’ plantation, with those from grazing and a common crop rotation in the Kingaroy area of Queensland.Typical production patterns for all systems were developed from producer and expert knowledge and soil and vegetation sampling were used to estimate sequestration rates. The costs and benefits of all land use systems were converted into monetary terms and discounted to produce net present values. With a standard discount rate and average commodity prices based on recent history, cultivation is the most profitable option, followed by pasture and plantations. After the inclusion of carbon, plantations are the most profitable option, followed by pasture and cultivation. A number of qualifications of these findings are also discussed.     

Do Scaphoideus titanus (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) nymphs use vibrational communication?

Small Auchenorrhyncha use substrate-borne vibrations to communicate. Although this behaviour is well known in adult leafhoppers, so far no studies have been published on nymphs. Here we checked the occurrence of vibrational communication in Scaphoideus titanus (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) nymphs as a possible explanation of their aggregative distributions on host plants. We studied possible vibratory emissions of isolated and grouped nymphs, as well as their behavioural responses to vibration stimuli that simulated presence of conspecifics, to disturbance noise, white noise and predator spiders. None of our synthetic stimuli or pre-recorded substrate vibrations from nymphs elicited specific vibration responses and only those due to grooming or mechanical contacts of the insect with the leaf were recorded. Thus, S. titanus nymphs showed to not use species-specific vibrations neither for intra- nor interspecific communication and also did not produce alarm vibrations when facing potential predators. We conclude that their aggregative behaviour is independent from a vibrational communication.     

Streamwater phosphorus and nitrogen across a gradient in rural–agricultural land use intensity

This paper provides an overview of the impacts of rural land use on lowland streamwater phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) concentrations and P loads and sources in lowland streams. Based on weekly water quality monitoring, the impacts of agriculture on streamwater P and N hydrochemistry were examined along a gradient of rural–agricultural land use, by monitoring three sets of ‘paired’ (near-adjacent) rural headwater streams, draining catchments which are representative of the major geology, soil types and rural/agricultural land use types of large areas of lowland Britain. The magnitude and timing of P and N inputs were assessed and the load apportionment model (LAM) was applied to quantify ‘continuous’ (point) source and ‘flow-dependent’ (diffuse) source contributions of P to these headwater streams. The results show that intensive arable farming had only a comparatively small impact on streamwater total phosphorus (TP loads), with highly consistent stream diffuse-source TP yields of ca. 0.5 kg-P ha^?1 year^?1 for the predominantly arable catchments with both clay and loam soils, compared with 0.4 kg-P ha^?1 year^?1 for low agricultural intensity grassland/woodland on similar soil types. In contrast, intensive livestock farming on heavy clay soils resulted in dramatically higher stream diffuse-source TP yields of 2 kg-P ha^?1 year^?1. The streamwater hydrochemistry of the livestock-dominated catchment was characterised by high concentrations of organic P, C and N fractions, associated with manure and slurry sources. Across the study sites, the impacts of human settlement were clearly identifiable with effluent inputs from septic tanks and sewage treatment works resulting in large-scale increases in soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) loads and concentrations. At sites heavily impacted by rural settlements, SRP concentrations under baseflow conditions reached several hundred μg-P L^?1. Load apportionment modelling demonstrated significant ‘point-source’ P inputs to the streams even where there were no sewage treatment works within the upstream catchment. This indicates that, even in sparsely populated rural headwater catchments, small settlements and even isolated groups of houses are sufficient to cause significant nutrient pollution and that septic tank systems serving these rural communities are actually operating as multiple point sources, rather than a diffuse input.     

Shifting regime shifted policy—interplay of interests in sustainability discourses of forest land use

This study investigates the influence of policy interests on resource sustainability. Information on ‘colonial interest’ of the British regime and the ‘commercial interest’ of the post-colonial regimes on forest land use of Bangladesh have been drawn on to show the interplay of interests on sustainability impacts. The findings show that both colonial and commercial interests have caused intensification of forest land use for production of economic crops like teak (Tectona grandis) and cash crops like tea (Camellia sinensis), cotton (Gossypium herbaceum and G. arboreum) and tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum). The ‘colonial interest’ has also initiated the dispute of ownership, rights and tenure of forest land and resources. The post-colonial regimes have utilized colonial legacy as the privilege for implementing ‘commercial interests’. In both the cases traditional interests of people were disregarded. As a result, peoples’ participation in forestry was discouraged and the sustainability of forest land use was impeded.     

Evidence of the phase-out of CFC use in Europe over the period 1987–1990

European regulations exist to phase-out production of the ozone-depleting man-made CFCs. High frequency measurements of the principal CFCs and other radiatively active gases have been collected at Mace Head, Ireland from 1987–1990 as part of the Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (GAGE). These measurements provide the first clear evidence that this phase-out is effective. Allocation of the time series beginning at the end of 1988, to a particular wind sector combined with simple modelling techniques indicates a significant reduction in European source strengths for CFC-11 and CFC-12 which is consistent with reliable emission estimates for CFC-11, but which seem to indicate a slightly smaller reduction for CFC-12, when likewise compared to emission figures. The study provides evidence that European CH₄, CCl₂F₂ and CCl₃F emission have already declined to about one-third of 1987 levels by the end of 1990. Over the same period, no evidence of any phase-out in the European usage of methyl chloroform and CFC-113 was detected.