The rapid urbanisation of the twentieth century, along with the spread of high-consumption urban lifestyles, has led to cities becoming the dominant drivers of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing these impacts is crucial, but production-based frameworks of carbon measurement and mitigation—which encompass only a limited part of cities’ carbon footprints—are much more developed and widely applied than consumption-based approaches that consider the embedded carbon effectively imported into a city. Frequently, therefore, cities are left blind to the importance of their wider consumption-related climate impacts, while at the same time left lacking effective tools to reduce them. To explore the relevance of these issues, we implement methodologies for assessing production- and consumption-based emissions at the city-level and estimate the associated emissions trajectories for Bristol, a major UK city, from 2000 to 2035. We develop mitigation scenarios targeted at reducing the former, considering potential energy, carbon and financial savings in each case. We then compare these mitigation potentials with local government ambitions and Bristol’s consumption-based emissions trajectory. Our results suggest that the city’s consumption-based emissions are three times the production-based emissions, largely due to the impacts of imported food and drink. We find that low-carbon investments of circa £3 billion could reduce production-based emissions by 25% in 2035. However, we also find that this represents <10% of Bristol’s forecast consumption-based emissions for 2035 and is approximately equal to the mitigation achievable by eliminating the city’s current levels of food waste. Such observations suggest that incorporating consumption-based emission statistics into cities’ accounting and decision-making processes could uncover largely unrecognised opportunities for mitigation that are likely to be essential for achieving deep decarbonisation.
Globally, rural regions are searching for innovative growth opportunities to reinvigorate their economies. This paper examines the redevelopment of rural communities through an ecological lens – based on the notion of continuous cycles of adaptive change within complex systems as first identified within Holling’s concept of panarchy. Panarchy suggests that complex systems have more than a single equilibrium point and, instead, have some inherent resiliency based on the notion of multiple stable regimes. As such, panarchy provides a conceptual model that describes the ways in which complex social and ecological systems are organized and structured both spatially and temporally. By drawing parallels between the characteristics of ecological communities and rural economic systems, a novel framework is developed to assist policy-makers reflect on a rural community’s position along its own adaptive change cycle and, then, implement appropriate inventions to improve system resiliency – which in this case is linked with economic resiliency through development and/or growth. Supported by empirical data emerging from both key informant interviews and content analysis of current rural development policy, this work also identifies leverage points where policy intervention may be most advantageous by specifying the timing of policy instruments on the cycle. Specifically, this framework describes four leverage points, three major and one minor, to help push or pull rural regions into an area of higher resilience. 相似文献
Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Air toxics are airborne pollutants known or suspected to cause cancer or other serious health effects, including certain volatile organic compounds... 相似文献
The article summarizes outcomes of a biomass study conducted in a young speckled alder plantation on a cold mountain site. At this location, the previously existing old forest was clear felled because of damage from air pollution, and present-day surface humus is in need of restoration. The intention of this study was to quantify the biomass and nutrients accumulated by alders and their components and assess whether the initial fertilization resulted in increased biomass production and nutrient accumulation in the biomass. Besides the control, two fertilized treatments were installed. In the surface treatment (SUT), the amendment was applied as a base dressing in small circles around trees. In the planting-hole treatment (PHT), the amendment was incorporated into soil inside the planting holes. Five growth seasons after planting and fertilization, six alders from each treatment were harvested including roots. Their biomass was quantified and analyzed for macroelements. The greatest pool of dry mass (DM) was branches in the control and stem wood in the fertilized treatments. The greatest pools of macroelements were leaves and branches. The most pronounced effects of fertilization were recorded in the DM and consequently in the absolute quantities of nutrients. The DM of an average tree in the control, SUT, and PHT was 85, 226, and 231 g, respectively. The absolute contents of nutrients per tree in the fertilized treatments showed the following increases, as compared with the control: (N) 2.5–2.6 times; (P) 1.6–2.4 times; (K) 1.8–2.1 times; and (Mg) 1.8–2.0 times, respectively. Speckled alder responded positively to fertilization. 相似文献
Ex situ conservation efforts such as those of zoos, botanical gardens, and seed banks will form a vital complement to in situ conservation actions over the coming decades. It is therefore necessary to pay the same attention to the biological diversity represented in ex situ conservation facilities as is often paid to protected‐area networks. Building the phylogenetic diversity of ex situ collections will strengthen our capacity to respond to biodiversity loss. Since 2000, the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership has banked seed from 14% of the world's plant species. We assessed the taxonomic, geographic, and phylogenetic diversity of the Millennium Seed Bank collection of legumes (Leguminosae). We compared the collection with all known legume genera, their known geographic range (at country and regional levels), and a genus‐level phylogeny of the legume family constructed for this study. Over half the phylogenetic diversity of legumes at the genus level was represented in the Millennium Seed Bank. However, pragmatic prioritization of species of economic importance and endangerment has led to the banking of a less‐than‐optimal phylogenetic diversity and prioritization of range‐restricted species risks an underdispersed collection. The current state of the phylogenetic diversity of legumes in the Millennium Seed Bank could be substantially improved through the strategic banking of relatively few additional taxa. Our method draws on tools that are widely applied to in situ conservation planning, and it can be used to evaluate and improve the phylogenetic diversity of ex situ collections. Maximizar la Riqueza Filogenética de los Bancos de Semillas 相似文献