'Remove a Fence,Invite Chaos': Children as active agents of change

There are now numerous sustainable development evaluation methods to evaluate sustainable development progress. Which one to use will depend on the resources, the goals and the stakeholders. Ideally the method selected and its indicators would themselves indicate how to achieve sustainable development. Such a choice can be difficult without a framework to help ensure the representation of the essential elements of sustainable development.

This paper presents such a framework by drawing on ecological terminology to define aspects of sustainable development as manifested in the natural world. Examples of how these can be measured are provided along with an explanation of how the components of the framework contribute to achieving sustainable development in social systems.     

基于场动力理论的建筑工人人格特质、情绪与不安全行为关系研究*

为深入探讨建筑工人人格特质、情绪与不安全行为之间的作用关系,提高建筑工人安全认知能力,以293名一线建筑工人为调查对象,基于场动力理论,构建人格特质和情绪对不安全行为影响机制的理论模型,实证检验人格特质和情绪对不安全行为的预测作用以及情绪调节效应。研究结果表明:外倾性、神经质、开放性3种人格正向预测不安全行为显著;正负性情绪对不安全行为水平具有显著影响,正性情绪在外倾性-不安全行为和神经质-不安全行为间具有显著调节效应,负性情绪在责任心-不安全行为和开放性-不安全行为间具有显著调节效应。研究结果可为建筑施工企业根据工人个性化心理特征,溯源工人自身安全问题,为后续开展分类干预管理和矫正不安全行为提供理论支持。     

Synthesizing habitat connectivity analyses of a globally important human-dominated tiger-conservation landscape

As ecological data and associated analyses become more widely available, synthesizing results for effective communication with stakeholders is essential. In the case of wildlife corridors, managers in human-dominated landscapes need to identify both the locations of corridors and multiple stakeholders for effective oversight. We synthesized five independent studies of tiger (Panthera tigris) connectivity in central India, a global priority landscape for tiger conservation, to quantify agreement on landscape permeability for tiger movement and potential movement pathways. We used the latter analysis to identify connectivity areas on which studies agreed and stakeholders associated with these areas to determine relevant participants in corridor management. Three or more of the five studies’ resistance layers agreed in 63% of the study area. Areas in which all studies agree on resistance were of primarily low (66%, e.g., forest) and high (24%, e.g., urban) resistance. Agreement was lower in intermediate resistance areas (e.g., agriculture). Despite these differences, the studies largely agreed on areas with high levels of potential movement: >40% of high average (top 20%) current-flow pixels were also in the top 20% of current-flow agreement pixels (measured by low variation), indicating consensus connectivity areas (CCAs) as conservation priorities. Roughly 70% of the CCAs fell within village administrative boundaries, and 100% overlapped forest department management boundaries, suggesting that people live and use forests within these priority areas. Over 16% of total CCAs’ area was within 1 km of linear infrastructure (437 road, 170 railway, 179 transmission line, and 339 canal crossings; 105 mines within 1 km of CCAs). In 2019, 78% of forest land diversions for infrastructure and mining in Madhya Pradesh (which comprises most of the study region) took place in districts with CCAs. Acute competition for land in this landscape with globally important wildlife corridors calls for an effective comanagement strategy involving local communities, forest departments, and infrastructure planners.     

Effects of social networks on interventions to change conservation behavior

Social networks are critical to the success of behavioral interventions in conservation because network processes such as information flows and social influence can enable behavior change to spread beyond a targeted group. We investigated these mechanisms in the context of a social marketing campaign to promote a wildlife poisoning hotline in Cambodia. With questionnaire surveys we measured a social network and knowledge and constructs from the theory of planned behavior at 3 points over 6 months. The intervention initially targeted ∼11% (of 365) of the village, but after 6 months ∼40% of the population was knowledgeable about the campaign. The likelihood of being knowledgeable nearly doubled with each additional knowledgeable household member. In the short term, there was also a modest, but widespread improvement in proconservation behavioral intentions, but this did not persist after 6 months. Estimates from stochastic actor-oriented models suggested that the influences of social peers, rather than knowledge, were driving changes in intention and contributed to the failure to change behavioral intention in the long term, despite lasting changes in attitudes and perceived norms. Our results point to the importance of accounting for the interaction between networks and behavior when designing conservation interventions.     

Emerging contaminant control: From science to action

Since the concept of emerging contaminants (ECs) was first proposed in 2001, the global scientific research of ECs has developed rapidly. In the past decades, great progress has been achieved in the scientific research of ECs in China, including the establishment of EC analysis method system, the evaluation of the pollution status, pollution characteristics and environmental risk of ECs in typical regions of China, and establishment of EC control technology system. Continuous progress in scientific research of ECs promoted China’s action on EC control. It is planned that the environmental risk of ECs will be generally controlled by 2035 in China. Priority ECs should be screened for environmental management. Although great efforts have been made, the EC control in China still faces tremendous challenges. It is necessary to bridge the gap between scientific research and decision-making management. Based on the science and technology study, various measures such as engineering, policy management and public participation should be combinedly adopted for EC control.     

Valuing biodiversity: reality or mirage?

The objective of this paper was to consider the social value ofbiological diversity and explore if this value could be expressedin terms of a unidimensional metric in money. Economics distinguishes between use-values and non-use-values, which are critically evaluated for valuing biodiversity. It is shown that these utility-based valuations have severe limitations as they treat species in isolation from their ecological contexts. In contrast, ecosystem ecology regards ecosystems as an integratednon-linear and nonconvex system in which ecosystem functions canbe understood as a four-component cycle; exploitation, accumulation of biomass, creative destruction and renewal. Withinsuch a cycle, ecosystems can be seen to have two properties: stability and resilience. A good proxy for resilience is the probability of extinction of species, and social value of biodiversity can be expressed as a partial ordering with thisprobability as an index. This approach is consistent with decision theory, of which social choice is an important component, pioneered by Arrow.     

商业建筑营业厅疏散楼梯总宽度设计与计算

依据经建生等人的观点,在商场营业厅人员换算系数及百人疏散指标这两个参数不变的情况下,商场营业厅疏散楼梯总宽度设计值取决于营业厅的面积折算值,并建议地上商业建筑的取值为0.5～0.7.研究表明,将营业厅面积折算值应用于商业建筑设计得出的楼梯间总宽度偏大.本文基于安全且经济地完成防火设计任务的理念,首先从调整商场营业厅面积折算值和将自动扶梯宽度计入疏散楼梯总宽度的角度进一步完善大型商场营业厅疏散楼梯总宽度设计,使其更趋于合理;然后应用火灾模拟软件及人员疏散时间公式进行验算,证明人员疏散是安全的,即本文提供的两种方法是可行的,从而为<建筑设计防火规范>的修编提供参考.     

基于博弈论的地铁车站恐怖袭击风险定量研究

近年来发生的几起地铁重大恐怖袭击事件引起了各国政府、媒体和公众的广泛关注.地铁车站恐怖袭击可以看作博弈双方即袭击者和防御者之间的零和博弈.本文以某地铁线路上的22个车站为例,应用目标损失概率模型定量分析了恐怖袭击风险,通过防御资源变化得到了不同的目标损失概率.研究结果可以为地铁车站防御资源优化配置、防恐反恐预案编制等提供量化依据.     

Defining Acceptable Levels for Ecological Indicators: An Approach for Considering Social Values

Ecological indicators can facilitate an adaptive management approach, but only if acceptable levels for those indicators have been defined so that the data collected can be interpreted. Because acceptable levels are an expression of the desired state of the ecosystem, the process of establishing acceptable levels should incorporate not just ecological understanding but also societal values. The goal of this research was to explore an approach for defining acceptable levels of ecological indicators that explicitly considers social perspectives and values. We used a set of eight indicators that were related to issues of concern in the Lake Champlain Basin. Our approach was based on normative theory. Using a stakeholder survey, we measured respondent normative evaluations of varying levels of our indicators. Aggregated social norm curves were used to determine the level at which indicator values shifted from acceptable to unacceptable conditions. For seven of the eight indicators, clear preferences were interpretable from these norm curves. For example, closures of public beaches because of bacterial contamination and days of intense algae bloom went from acceptable to unacceptable at 7–10 days in a summer season. Survey respondents also indicated that the number of fish caught from Lake Champlain that could be safely consumed each month was unacceptably low and the number of streams draining into the lake that were impaired by storm water was unacceptably high. If indicators that translate ecological conditions into social consequences are carefully selected, we believe the normative approach has considerable merit for defining acceptable levels of valued ecological system components.     

中国农村发展的可持续走向

从三种生产的视角看，农村发展的可持续方向是指农村发展趋向于三种生产的和谐运行与环境社会系统的稳定演进。获得“经济-社会-环境”整体高效益。资源环境问题是与一定的发展模式相伴而生的，针对中国农村地区的资源环境问题，通过深入剖析城乡整体、城乡之间以及农村内部三种生产的状况，提出改善中国农村发展状况的对策。