ABSTRACTSmall-scale ecological farming and their associated alternative food networks, are increasingly important in China, as a response to poor farm incomes and as a contribution to widespread concerns about environmental degradation and food safety. However, despite the enormous market potential and the notable success of some ventures, this type of farming remains at the margins, with many businesses struggling to develop beyond their start-up phase and consumers struggling to build confidence in the new produce and routes to market. Many of these farms display the classic elements of pioneer businesses, including high reliance on charismatic individuals, insecure land rights, high transaction and monitoring costs and fragile routes to market. Empirically, many of these businesses fail because they cannot grow out of the pioneer phase before the pioneer grows tired of the business. While this is a problem for all small businesses, it is particularly acute in business sectors like ecological farming in China, where there is little evidence of suitable and sustainable developmental models. Using Bernardus Lievegoed's work on organisational development applied to two case study farms, we suggest that there are Western developmental models that are applicable to small-scale ecological farming and that have the potential to offer insights into how this might be achieved with Chinese characteristics. We conclude by arguing that, Chinese ecological farms have to plan explicitly for a form of development that allows them to remain committed to their ideals while moving them away from dependence on charismatic people, family labour and volatile customer bases. 相似文献
•Considering evenness provides a more accurate assessment of sustainable development.•Water resource conservation drives industrial transformation.•Synergy between economic development and environmental protection is achieved.•Regional collaboration over water could promote sustainable development in drylands. Water resource availability is the major limiting factor for sustainable development in drylands. Climate change intensifies the conflicting water demands between people and the environment and highlights the importance of effective water resource management for achieving a balance between economic development and environmental protection. In 2008, Inner Mongolia, typical dryland in northern China, proposed strict regulations on water exploitation and utilization aimed at achieving sustainable development. Our study is the first to investigate the effectiveness and performance of these long-standing water conservation regulations. Our analyses found that the regulations drove industrial transformation, evidenced by the decreasing proportion of environmentally harmful industries such as coal and steel, and the increasing proportion of tertiary industries (especially tourism). Following industrial transformation, economic development decoupled from industrial water consumption and subsequently led to reduced negative environmental impacts. Based on these results, adaptive strategies were developed for 12 cities by revealing and integrating their development pathways and relative status in achieving sustainable development. Integration and cooperation between cities were proposed, e.g., a water trade agreement between eastern Inner Mongolia (an economically underdeveloped region with relatively abundant water resources) and central Inner Mongolia (an economically developed region with high water stress). Such an agreement may enable the holistic achievement of sustainable development across regions. By integrating the findings of our research, our study presents a reproducible framework for water-management-based sustainable development strategies in drylands. 相似文献
Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Samples of orange patinas found on a limestone window tracery and an ornament of the Batalha Monastery have been investigated by X-ray... 相似文献
An updated systematic review was conducted to assessing on the association between indoor air pollution caused by household energy consumption and childhood pneumonia in low- and middle-income countries. We performed a meta-analysis from the electronic databases of PubMed, Cochrane library, Web of Science, EMBASE. Studies were selected when they reported childhood pneumonia or ALRI in relation to indoor air pollution resulted from solid fuel. Studies must provide results on exposure prevalence of children aged below 5 years from Asia or Africa. We devoted ourselves to identifying randomized controlled experiments and observational epidemiological researches, which revealed the relation between household usage of solid fuel and childhood pneumonia. Among 1954 articles, 276 were reviewed thoroughly and 16 conduced to such a meta-analysis. It was found that there is a significant relationship between the solid fuel combustion and increasing risk of childhood pneumonia (OR?=?1.66, 95%CI 1.36–2.02). The summary odds ratios from biomass use and mixed fuel use were, respectively, 1.86 (95%CI 1.15–3.02) and 1.58 (95%CI 1.38–1.81), with substantial between study heterogeneity (I2?=?87.2% and 29.2%, respectively). According to the subgroup analysis along with the meta-regression analysis, the risk of using solid fuel in Asian regions is higher than that in African regions. Studies based on non-hospital participates (I2?=?49.5%) may also a source of heterogeneity. We found that indoor air pollution generated by the usage of solid fuel might be a significant risk factor for pneumonia in children and suggested improving the indoor air quality by promoting cleaner fuel will be important in undeveloped countries.
Environmental Science and Pollution Research - An increasing number of studies investigated the association between air pollution during pregnancy and the risk of eczema in offspring. However, no... 相似文献
Identifying prehistoric irrigated rice fields and characterizing the beginning of paddy soil development are important for a better understanding of human development and agricultural history. In 2003, paddy soils and irrigated rice fields buried at a depth of 100–130 cm were excavated at Chuo-dun-shan in the Yangtze River Delta, close to Suzhou, China. The fields of sizes between 1.4 and 16 m2 were surrounded with ridges that were connected to ditches/ponds via outlets to control the water level within the fields. Many carbonized and partly carbonized rice grains with an age of 3,903 B.C.(measured 14C age 5,129±45 a BP) were recovered. The surface layers of these buried paddy fields showed a high content of soil organic matter and a considerable high density of rice opals. The latter were identified to derive from Oryza spp. Solid-state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy revealed aromatic carbon (C) as the predominant organic C form in the fossil surface layer. This is expected, if the major source represents burnt rice and straw. In summary, our data are in agreement with new evidences indicating that in China, paddy soils and irrigated rice cultivation were initiated and developed more than 6,000 years ago. 相似文献
The occurrence and distribution of alkylphenols (APs, i.e., 4-tert-octylphenol (4-t-OP) and 4-nonlyphenol isomers (4-NP)) in oysters (Crassostrea gigas), snails (Thais clavigera), coastal water and coastal sediments of the western coast of southern Taiwan are investigated. Alkylphenols were present in all matrices of interest: in water, ranging from 61 to 370 ng/l, in sediments, ranging from 27 to 190 ng/g, and in biota samples (i.e., oyster and snail), ranging from 20 to 5190 ng/g. Statistical analysis indicated that the probability distribution of most determined concentrations in oyster and snail samples was log-normal distribution. The bioaccumulation of APs resulted in a seasonal variation with respect to their compositions and concentrations in oyster and snail samples. For oysters, concentrations of APs in winter exceeded those in summer. In contrast, those in snails in summer exceeded those in winter. Estimated biomagnification factors of APs from snails to oysters ranged from 1.4 to 4.3 in summer, and 0.5 to 0.8 in winter on the dry weight basis. The results suggested that seasonally mediated physiological changes, such as dilution caused by growth, biotransformation and metabolism, may affect the bioaccumulation of APs in according to season and organism. 相似文献