Municipalities’ ambitions and practices: At risk of hypocritical sustainability transitions?

In contemporary planning discourse and practice, different planning ideas co-exists. How this affects the transition towards a sustainable development is an important question for both research and practice. The aim of this study is to explore potential conflicts between planning goals caught between growth-led planning and sustainability commitments in a case study of Fredericia, Denmark. The paper discusses the underlying, framing and controlling conditions for transition dynamics. The analysis builds largely on the formulated policies, strategies or national goal achievements towards sustainable futures. These are put in the context of planning and political practices, which are interpreted from a sustainability rationale. Here this study introduces hypocrisy as a theoretical-analytical perspective to dispute actual sustainability practices to respond to continuous ambivalent planning measures. The author concludes that disregarding the inherently different internal logics of growths and sustainability leads to planning paradoxes and impedes sustainable transitions pursued.     

Correction to: Documenting lemming population change in the Arctic: Can we detect trends?

Ambio - In the original published article, some of the symbols in figure 1A were modified incorrectly during the typesetting and publication process. The correct version of the figure is provided...     

Metabolic enzymes activity and histomorphology in the liver of whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus L.) and pike (Esox lucius L.) inhabiting a mineral contaminated lake

The effects of wastewater from a mining and ore-dressing mill on fish in Lake Kostomukshskoe, which is used as a cesspool of circulating water and for storage of industrial wastes produced by the Kostomuksha mining and ore-dressing mill in northwest Russia, were studied. The lake is characterized by heavy mineralization, high pH, elevated levels of K⁺, Li⁺, SO₄ ^2?, NO^2?, Cl^?, Li, Mn, and Ni, and the presence of a fine-dispersed mechanical suspension. To assess the impact of contamination on fish and determine the mechanisms of their adaptation, we investigated the biochemical indices and histology of the liver of whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus L.) and pike (Esox lucius L.) inhabiting Lake Kostomukshskoe, downstream Lake Koyvas (64° 47′ 30° 59′), and Lake Kamennoe, which is located in a nature preserve and has not been affected by anthropogenic activity (64° 28′ 30° 13′). Changes were detected in the activity of metabolic enzymes (cytochrome c oxidase (COX), lactate dehydrogenase, and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase) in the liver. Specifically, the COX activity in the liver of both fish species from the contaminated lake decreased, indicating a low level of aerobic metabolism. Lipid infiltration was the most visible and widespread change observed in the liver of both fish species; therefore, it can be considered a marker of such long-term contamination. Lesions in pike liver demonstrated a wider range of severity than in those of whitefish. In summary, metabolic enzyme activity and histomorphology of the liver of whitefish and pike differed among lakes in a species-specific manner. The changes in enzyme activity and histomorphological alterations in fish that were observed can be applied for evaluation of freshwater systems that may be subjected to mineral pollution.     

Co-evolution of wetland landscapes,flooding, and human settlement in the Mississippi River Delta Plain

River deltas all over the world are sinking beneath sea-level rise, causing significant threats to natural and social systems. This is due to the combined effects of anthropogenic changes to sediment supply and river flow, subsidence, and sea-level rise, posing an immediate threat to the 500–1,000 million residents, many in megacities that live on deltaic coasts. The Mississippi River Deltaic Plain (MRDP) provides examples for many of the functions and feedbacks, regarding how human river management has impacted source-sink processes in coastal deltaic basins, resulting in human settlements more at risk to coastal storms. The survival of human settlement on the MRDP is arguably coupled to a shifting mass balance between a deltaic landscape occupied by either land built by the Mississippi River or water occupied by the Gulf of Mexico. We developed an approach to compare 50 % L:W isopleths (L:W is ratio of land to water) across the Atchafalaya and Terrebonne Basins to test landscape behavior over the last six decades to measure delta instability in coastal deltaic basins as a function of reduced sediment supply from river flooding. The Atchafalaya Basin, with continued sediment delivery, compared to Terrebonne Basin, with reduced river inputs, allow us to test assumptions of how coastal deltaic basins respond to river management over the last 75 years by analyzing landward migration rate of 50 % L:W isopleths between 1932 and 2010. The average landward migration for Terrebonne Basin was nearly 17,000 m (17 km) compared to only 22 m in Atchafalaya Basin over the last 78 years (p < 0.001), resulting in migration rates of 218 m/year (0.22 km/year) and <0.5 m/year, respectively. In addition, freshwater vegetation expanded in Atchafalaya Basin since 1949 compared to migration of intermediate and brackish marshes landward in the Terrebonne Basin. Changes in salt marsh vegetation patterns were very distinct in these two basins with gain of 25 % in the Terrebonne Basin compared to 90 % decrease in the Atchafalaya Basin since 1949. These shifts in vegetation types as L:W ratio decreases with reduced sediment input and increase in salinity also coincide with an increase in wind fetch in Terrebonne Bay. In the upper Terrebonne Bay, where the largest landward migration of the 50 % L:W ratio isopleth occurred, we estimate that the wave power has increased by 50–100 % from 1932 to 2010, as the bathymetric and topographic conditions changed, and increase in maximum storm-surge height also increased owing to the landward migration of the L:W ratio isopleth. We argue that this balance of land relative to water in this delta provides a much clearer understanding of increased flood risk from tropical cyclones rather than just estimates of areal land loss. We describe how coastal deltaic basins of the MRDP can be used as experimental landscapes to provide insights into how varying degrees of sediment delivery to coastal deltaic floodplains change flooding risks of a sinking delta using landward migrations of 50 % L:W isopleths. The nonlinear response of migrating L:W isopleths as wind fetch increases is a critical feedback effect that should influence human river-management decisions in deltaic coast. Changes in land area alone do not capture how corresponding landscape degradation and increased water area can lead to exponential increase in flood risk to human populations in low-lying coastal regions. Reduced land formation in coastal deltaic basins (measured by changes in the land:water ratio) can contribute significantly to increasing flood risks by removing the negative feedback of wetlands on wave and storm-surge that occur during extreme weather events. Increased flood risks will promote population migration as human risks associated with living in a deltaic landscape increase, as land is submerged and coastal inundation threats rise. These system linkages in dynamic deltaic coasts define a balance of river management and human settlement dependent on a certain level of land area within coastal deltaic basins (L).     

高职商务英语专业内容依托型教学模式初探

内容依托教学(CBI)是融语言学习与内容学习为一体的教学方式。在高职商务英语专业采用CBI教学模式,以真实的商务活动为背景,使语言学习和专业技能的培养与商务实践相结合,有助于形成"懂商务、会英语"的复合型应用人才培养模式。但目前CBI的实施还面临着教师素质、教学效果以及评估体系等方面的问题,可通过培养专业师资、制定合理教学进度等方法逐步完善。     

The Challenge of Bridging Science and Policy in the Baltic Sea Eutrophication Governance in Finland: The perspective of Science

This article examines the views of scientists on intricacies of scientific knowledge that affect science–policy interface in the Baltic Sea eutrophication governance in Finland. The analysis demonstrates that these intricacies can be divided into five categories: (1) uncertainty of knowledge concerning ecological processes, (2) heterogeneity of knowledge, (3) societal and political call for (certain) knowledge, (4) contingency of the knowledge that ends up taken as a baseline for decision making and further research, and (5) linkages of knowledge production, processing, and communication to particular characteristics of individual researchers and research societies. By explicating these aspects, this article illustrates the ways in which scientific knowledge concerning eutrophication is human-bound and susceptible to interpretation, thus adding on to the uncertainty of the Baltic Sea environmental governance. The aim is, then, to open up perspectives on how ambiguities related to science–policy interface could be coped with.     

Land Degradation on Barren Hills: A Case Study in Northeast Vietnam

The term "barren hills" has been a keyword for land degradation in the uplands of Vietnam for over a decade. Nevertheless, the "barren" land is still not adequately ecologically characterized. In this work, we analyze land use-induced changes in vegetation and soil properties along a sequence of barren hills types formed on one physiotope. The study is undertaken in the Bac Kan province, one of the poorest upland regions where livestock plays an important role. A transition from an old-growth laurel forest to a sparse manmade grassland is characterized by a total of 177 species, rapid species turnover, and discrete dominants, and an overwhelming effect of disturbance history on both soil and vegetation patterning. Land degradation is most apparent in land use-induced maintenance of arrested successions, and the regeneration course is shifted towards drier formations. We hypothesize a conceptual model as an aid to understanding the process of early fallow differentiation in response to the patterned, fine-scale disturbances. The larger-scale implications of the observed trends in regeneration potentials deviation, and, in particular, the effect of water buffaloes in halting fallow successions, are discussed.     

Persistent organic pollutants in soils and sediments from James Ross Island, Antarctica

Soil and sediment samples from James Ross Island were analyzed for their PCB, OCP and PAH contents. Soil concentrations ranged between 0.51 and 1.82 ng g(-1) for seven indicator PCB congeners, between 0.49 and 1.34 ng g(-1) for HCH congeners, between 0.51 and 3.68 ng g(-1) for the sum of p,p'-DDT, DDE, and DDD, and between 34.9 and 171 ng g(-1) for the sum of 16 EPA PAHs. Sediment levels from 0.32 to 0.83 ng g(-1) were found for PCBs, from 0.14 to 0.76 ng g(-1) for HCHs, from 0.19 to 1.15 ng g(-1) for DDTs, and from 1.4 to 205 ng g(-1) for PAHs. A prevalence of low-mass PAHs, less chlorinated PCBs, and more volatile chemicals indicates that the long-range atmospheric transport from populated areas of Africa, South America, and Australia is the most probable contamination source for the solid matrices in James Ross Island.     

A case study of bats and white‐nose syndrome demonstrating how to model population viability with evolutionary effects

Ecological factors generally affect population viability on rapid time scales. Traditional population viability analyses (PVA) therefore focus on alleviating ecological pressures, discounting potential evolutionary impacts on individual phenotypes. Recent studies of evolutionary rescue (ER) focus on cases in which severe, environmentally induced population bottlenecks trigger a rapid evolutionary response that can potentially reverse demographic threats. ER models have focused on shifting genetics and resulting population recovery, but no one has explored how to incorporate those findings into PVA. We integrated ER into PVA to identify the critical decision interval for evolutionary rescue (DIER) under which targeted conservation action should be applied to buffer populations undergoing ER against extinction from stochastic events and to determine the most appropriate vital rate to target to promote population recovery. We applied this model to little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) affected by white‐nose syndrome (WNS), a fungal disease causing massive declines in several North American bat populations. Under the ER scenario, the model predicted that the DIER period for little brown bats was within 11 years of initial WNS emergence, after which they stabilized at a positive growth rate (λ = 1.05). By comparing our model results with population trajectories of multiple infected hibernacula across the WNS range, we concluded that ER is a potential explanation of observed little brown bat population trajectories across multiple hibernacula within the affected range. Our approach provides a tool that can be used by all managers to provide testable hypotheses regarding the occurrence of ER in declining populations, suggest empirical studies to better parameterize the population genetics and conservation‐relevant vital rates, and identify the DIER period during which management strategies will be most effective for species conservation.     

Does juvenile experience affect migration and spawning of adult Atlantic salmon?

Summary This paper documents differences in seasonal time of river ascent and descent, and instream behavior of adult wild and sea-ranched Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) of the Norwegian River Imsa stock during the period 1981–1989. Wild fish use River Imsa as a nursery, and at an age of 2 years most of them migrate to the sea as smolts. The sea ranched fish are hatchery reared offspring of the River Imsa stock and are released as smolts at the mouth of the river. They are thus deprived of juvenile river life and a downstream smolt migration. Wild and sea ranched salmon feed for 1 or more years in the Norwegian Sea before homing as spawners. Both groups returned simultaneously to coastal Norway, but sea ranched fish ascended the river later and descended sooner after spawning than wild fish. All wild females and almost all wild males (96.2%) spawned in the river, whereas 13.5% and 36.7%, respectively, of the mature sea-ranched females and males left the river unspawned. The annual number, but not the proportion, of unspawned fish increased with increasing density of adult salmon in the river. Unspawned females were medium sized and small (45–70 cm); unspawned males were medium sized and large (50–90 cm). Independent of the density of spawners in the river, sea ranched fish moved up- and downstream the river more often than wild fish. More than 20% of the sea-ranched salmon and less than 1% of the wild salmon passed a trap 100 m above the river outlet more than once in each direction during the same spawning reason. Moreover, sea-ranched salmon were about twice as often seriously injured during spawning as wild fish. Lack of juvenile experience from the river may be the main reason for the behavioral differences between sea-ranched and wild fish. Offprint requests to: B. Jonsson