Governmentality within China's South-North Water Transfer Project: tournaments,markets and water pollution

The control of water pollution in China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) is examined through the lens of promotion tournaments as Chinese governmentality to offer a special perspective on China's hydro-politics and Chinese manners of water pollution control. This paper characterizes the existing form of governmentality in the SNWTP, pointing to its problems and potential resolutions. The promotion tournament is a market system with authoritarian control, designed to reconcile the incentives of local officials and the central managers of the SNWTP. This governmentality embodies characteristics of China's authoritarian water management system: centralized personnel control combined with market-oriented promotion competitions. However, a clear conflict between the requirements of ecological modernization and the use of power in China's water management system leads to distorted behaviors among local officials, an important source of problems in China's water management system. Compared to promotion tournaments, payments for ecosystem services or eco-compensation are applications of neoliberal environmentalism that could overcome the shortcomings of tournaments, and become the most critical governmentality for water pollution control in the SNWTP.     

Behavior of flames propagating through lycopodium dust clouds in a vertical duct

The structure of flame propagating through lycopodium dust clouds has been investigated experimentally. Upward propagating laminar flames in a vertical duct of 1800 mm height and 150×150 mm square cross-section are observed, and the leading flame front is also visualized using by a high-speed video camera. Although the dust concentration decreases slightly along the height of duct, the leading flame edge propagates upwards at a constant velocity. The maximum upward propagating velocity is 0.50 m/s at a dust concentration of 170 g/m³. Behind the upward propagating flame, some downward propagating flames are also observed. Despite the employment of nearly equal sized particles and its good dispersability and flowability, the reaction zone in lycopodium particles cloud shows the double flame structure in which isolated individual burning particles (0.5–1.0 mm in diameter) and the ball-shaped flames (2–4 mm in diameter; the combustion time of 4–6 ms) surrounding several particles are included. The ball-shaped flame appears as a faint flame in which several luminous spots are distributed, and then it turns into a luminous flame before disappearance. In order to distinguish these ball-shaped flames from others with some exceptions for merged flames, they are defined as independent flames in this study. The flame thickness in a lycopodium dust flame is observed to be 20 mm, about several orders of magnitude higher than that of a premixed gaseous flame. From the microscopic visualization, it was found that the flame front propagating through lycopodium particles is discontinuous and not smooth.     

清洁生产审核中无/低费方案的产生及实施

清洁生产审核是实施清洁生产最有效的,也是最具可操作性的方法。在清洁生产审核预评估和评估阶段提出可行的无/低费方案,并按照"边审核边实施"的原则对所提的无/低费方案加以实施,能够使企业在短时间内达到"节能、降耗、减污、增效"的目的。以某化肥企业为例,找出企业存在的问题,评估企业的产排污情况,有针对性地提出了无/低费方案,并得以实施,为企业创造了一定的经济效益和环境效益。     

海洋世界遗产发展趋势及对我国参与全球海洋治理的影响

为了更有效地参与海洋世界遗产申报工作,加强海洋保护与治理,分析了海洋世界遗产的发展趋势及其在海洋生态环境保护、海洋资源开发利用、公海极地治理等方面的影响,提出了我国参与海洋世界遗产工作及全球海洋治理的建议,为我国海洋世界遗产申报奠定了基础.     

Sulphamethazine in poultry manure changes carbon and nitrogen mineralisation in soils

Antibiotics are newly emerging organic pollutants in manure, soil, vegetables and water. Animal manure application might be leading to the accumulation of antibiotics in the farmland. However, the effect of sulphamethazine (SMZ) on the soil microbial community was scarcely investigated. This study was aimed to evaluate the impact of SMZ on poultry manure, on the structure and function of microbial community, carbon mineralisation, and changes in nitrogen forms in soil via an incubation experiment lasting 56?d. The treatments consisted of poultry manure at 1% wt (PM), PM containing 20?mg?kg^?1 SMZ (PM?+?20SMZ) and PM containing 100?mg?kg^?1 SMZ (PM?+?100SMZ), along with the untreated soil (control). Solid phase extraction was performed to measure the SMZ concentration in soils using high-pressure liquid chromatography. The cumulative CO₂-C was increased in all treated soils over the incubation period compared to the control. The PM?+?100SMZ had the highest increase in cumulative CO₂-C from the soil at 56?d of incubation. The treatment of PM?+?20SMZ showed a short-term decrease in nitrification rate in the soils at 1?d by altering the microbial community composition with 17% dissimilarity and decreasing the abundance of bacteria compared to PM-treated soil. The PM?+?100SMZ increased C mineralisation in the soil.     

化学污染物对鱼鳔的毒理学研究进展

鱼鳔(swimbladder)是帮助有鳔鱼类完成呼吸、保持流体静力、感觉声音等生理活动的重要功能器官之一。化学污染物暴露能够影响鱼鳔的正常发育或充气,对有鳔鱼类的生存具有潜在威胁。本文首先对鱼鳔功能、形态发育及分子机制进行了介绍。其次对化学污染物导致的鱼鳔发育异常或不充气等毒性效应进行了总结,对特定污染物的潜在作用机制进行了综述。最后对鱼鳔的环境/生态毒理学研究提出展望。     

Assessment of pollution of potentially harmful elements in soils surrounding a municipal solid waste incinerator,China

We assessed the contamination levels of Mn, Zn, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, As and Hg and the risks posed by these potentially harmful elements in top-soils around a municipal solid waste incinerator (MSWI).We collected 20 soil samples, with an average pH of 8.1, and another fly ash sample emitted from the MSWI to investigate the concentrations of these elements in soils. We determined the concentrations of these elements by inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES), except for Hg, which we measured by AF-610B atomic fluorescence spectrometer (AFS). We assessed the risks of these elements through the use of geoaccumulation index (I _geo), potential ecological risk index (RI), hazard quotient (HQ _i ) and cancer risk (Risk _i ). The results showed that concentrations of potentially harmful elements in soil were influenced by the wind direction, and the concentrations of most elements were higher in the area northwest of the MSWI, compared with the area southeast of the incinerator, with the exception of As; these results were in accordance with those results acquired from our contour maps. According to the I _geo values, some soil samples were clearly polluted by Hg emissions. However, the health risk assessment indicated that the concentrations of Hg and other elements in soil did not pose non-carcinogenic risks to the local populations. This was also the case for the carcinogenic risks posed by As, Cr, and Ni. The carcinogenic risk posed by As was higher, in the range 6.49 × 10^–6–9.58 × 10^–6, but this was still considered to be an acceptable level of risk.

Open image in new window

     

Socioecological correlates of inter-individual variation in orangutan diets at Ketambe, Sumatra

The diet of great apes consists of several hundred plant species. The factors determining diet differences have been examined between populations but not within a population, probably due to the confounding effect of seasonal fluctuations on fruit availability. In Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii), fruit availability appears to be sufficiently high year round to have little influence on diet composition, which in turn allows for addressing this question. We examined the diet of eight adult female orangutans at Ketambe, Sumatra, and investigated whether fig and non-fig fruit availability, association time, and/or home range measures influenced dietary overlap between female dyads. Between most pairs, females’ diets were different: 16 out of 23 pairs had a significantly low diet species overlap. Only fig diet overlap was influenced (negatively) by the availability of non-fig fruit. Association time only influenced (positively) fig diet overlap. Hence, orangutans gathered in fig trees when non-fig fruit availability was low. Home range measures did not influence overall diet overlap. To our knowledge, this is the first study showing that, while controlling for confounding factors, individuals with similar energetic requirements, from the same population and sharing the same area, make different dietary choices relatively to their preferred (non-fig) fruit constituting the majority of their diet. Social transmission, with putative matrilineal diet traditions, suitably explains these results. We discuss the implications of the findings for orangutan conservation, namely on reintroduction and the felling of fig trees.