Rainfall Runoff Relationships for a Cloud Forest Watershed in Central America: Implications for Water Resource Engineering1

Caballero, Luis A., Alon Rimmer, Zachary M. Easton, and Tammo S. Steenhuis, 2012. Rainfall Runoff Relationships for a Cloud Forest Watershed in Central America: Implications for Water Resource Engineering. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 48(5): 1022‐1031. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2012.00668.x Abstract: Understanding the basic relationships between rainfall and runoff is vital for effective management and utilization of scarce water resources. Especially, this is important in Central America with widespread potable water shortage during the dry months of the monsoon. Potential good water sources are cloud forests, but little information concerning its potential is available to water supply engineers. Our objective is to define rainfall‐runoff‐base flow relationships for a cloud forest catchment. Flumes were installed for measuring river flow in four subwatersheds in La Tigra National Park, Honduras. One of the four watersheds was a 636‐ha subwatershed (WS1) with 60% cloud forest coverage. Precipitation averaged 1,130 mm/yr over the entire basin. About half of the total rainfall became runoff for the cloud forest watershed whereas, for the adjacent undisturbed forested watershed, the total discharge was <20% of the amount of precipitation. Infiltration rates were generally greater than rainfall rates. Therefore, most rainfall infiltrated into the soil, especially in the upper, steep, and well‐drained portions of the watershed. Direct runoff was generated from saturated areas near the river and exposed bedrock. This research provides compelling evidence that base flow is the primary contributor to streamflow during both wet and dry seasons in cloud forest catchments. Protecting these flow processes over time is critical for the sustained provision of potable water.     

基于产业化发展的农业人才“回流”问题研究

农业产业化发展需要人才支持,但长期城乡二元经济体制、偏向城市的工业优先发展战略等,造成农业农村人才大量流失,出现人才"空心化"、产业化人才匮乏等问题。随着农业生产链条的不断延伸及分工与合作的逐步深化,满足产业化需求的人才结构也逐步细化,许多关键领域的人才缺口较大,如:推动产业化扩张和规模化发展的规划管理人才,提升产业科技水平和产业链延伸交融程度的农业技术人才,促进产业链顺利延伸和产业集群发展的综合服务人才等。当农业农村现有人才存量无法满足产业化发展需求时,在地方政府指导下,合理引导掌握一技之长的农民工、农村籍大学生以及非农籍社会人才回流农业,是确保农业产业化持续、快速、健康发展的重要措施。相应的,实现人才顺利回流农业,需通过日益延伸的农业产业链内部市场的利益联结机制,鼓励并引导产业化紧缺人才组成专业型或互补型人力资本团队并积极参与产业化过程。     

如皋市工业源COD产排污强度及其产业构成分析

以第一次全国污染源普查数据为依据,分析了如皋市工业源COD产排污强度及其产业构成特征。不同行业群对GDP的贡献和对COD的贡献呈现明显倒挂,COD产排污大户主要集中在该市的一些传统产业,重点污染源企业治理水平明显高于一般污染源企业。在此基础上,就如皋工业源COD产排污水平、产业结构优化在降低COD产排污强度中的意义以及强化传统产业污染治理的主要途径等问题展开了讨论。     

政府支持垃圾焚烧发电的公共利益分析

阐述了垃圾焚烧发电的公共利益性质,政府支持垃圾焚烧发电是增进公共利益的必然要求,政府应构建支持垃圾焚烧发电常态机制,整合与垃圾焚烧发电相关各方力量,制定科学合理的正负激励政策,以期相关各方为垃圾焚烧发电的贡献最大化,有效增进公共利益。     

太阳能技术在新疆油田的应用研究

以新疆地区太阳能开发优越的自然条件分析为基础,介绍了太阳能发电抽油机技术、供热水的应用,以及太阳能发电供热水的技术原理、系统构成、重要技术参数等。通过实际应用,解析了太阳能利用中最关键的经济效益和节能减排效益两方面的问题,并通过与常规燃煤火力发电技术的对比分析,证明了太阳能发电供热的技术优越性。太阳能发电供热的大规模推广应用,对响应国家节能减排政策,提高油田的节能减排效益和经济效益,创建绿色油气田具有深远的意义。     

高校学生干部队伍团队精神培养初探

阐述了团队精神及其对于高校学生干部队伍的重要意义,结合所在高校学生干部队伍的现状进行了分析,发现目前高校学生干部队伍在团队精神培养工作方面存在部分学生干部自身素质欠缺、学生工作机制有待完善、培养方法与学生需求存在一定距离、学生干部间缺乏沟通等问题,并对其成因进行了剖析,尝试通过规范工作机制、创造交流机会、开展各种形式的团队实践活动等方法予以解决,以期为新时期高校学生干部队伍建设提供新思路。     

'It'll never happen to me': understanding public awareness of local flood risk

Following the severe flood events of 1998 and 2000, the United Kingdom's Environment Agency prioritised the need to increase public flood risk awareness. Drawing on data collected during research undertaken for the Environment Agency, this paper contributes to understanding of one aspect of flood awareness: people's recognition that their property is in an area that is potentially at risk of flooding. Quantitative analyses indicate that class is the most influential factor in predicting flood risk awareness, followed by flood experience and length of time in residence. There are also significant area differences. Our qualitative work explores how those defined as 'at risk' account for their lack of awareness or concern about their risk status. We conclude that the problem is often not simply a lack of awareness, but rather, assessments of local risk based on experience that underestimate the impact of rare or extreme events. We underline the importance of engaging with local perspectives on risk and making local people part of 'awareness-raising' processes.     

'All hazards approach' to disaster management: the role of information and knowledge management, Boyd's OODA Loop, and network-centricity

The ever-increasing complexity of disasters demands utilisation of knowledge that exists outside domains traditionally drawn upon in disaster management. To be operationally useful, such knowledge must he extracted, combined with information generated by the disaster itself, and transformed into actionable knowledge. The process, though, is hampered by existing, business-oriented approaches to knowledge management, by technical issues related to access to relevant, multi-domain information/knowledge, and by executive decision-making processes based predominantly on historical knowledge. Consequently, as shown by many recent incidents, the management of large-scale (mega) disasters is often inefficient and exceedingly costly. This paper demonstrates that the integration of modified information and knowledge management into the concepts of network-centric operations and network-enabled capabilities, and the employment of Boyd's OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act) Loop-based decision-making in unpredictable and dynamically changing environments, may address some of these problems.     

A plea to implement robustness into a breeding goal: poultry as an example

The combination of breeding for increased production and the intensification of housing conditions have resulted in increased occurrence of behavioral, physiological, and immunological disorders. These disorders affect health and welfare of production animals negatively. For future livestock systems, it is important to consider how to manage and breed production animals. In this paper, we will focus on selective breeding of laying hens. Selective breeding should not only be defined in terms of production, but should also include traits related to animal health and welfare. For this we like to introduce the concept of robustness. The concept of robustness includes individual traits of an animal that are relevant for health and welfare. Improving robustness by selective breeding will increase (or restore) the ability of animals to interact successfully with the environment and thereby to make them more able to adapt to an appropriate husbandry system. Application of robustness into a breeding goal will result in animals with improved health and welfare without affecting their integrity. Therefore, in order to be ethically acceptable, selective breeding in animal production should accept robustness as a breeding goal. L. Star, E. D. Ellen contributed equally to this work. Star belongs to the Adaptation Physiology Group, Wageningen University, and the rest of the authors belong to the Animal Breeding and Genomics Centre, Wageningen University.     

The Introduction of the Precautionary Principle in Danish Environmental Policy: The Case of Plant Growth Retardants

In this paper, we investigate the Precautionary Principle (PP) in action. Precaution is a fairly new concept in environmental policy. It emerged back in the 1960s but did not consolidate until the 1980s, as it formed part of the major changes taking place in environmental policies at that time. The PP is examined in three contexts. Firstly, we look at the meaning of the concept and how it is disseminated through the media and public discourses to the political arenas of Denmark. Then we examine how the idea is adopted to the political level. Thirdly, we look briefly at the first Danish translation of the principle into a practical context, which includes translations into concrete scientific practices. It is concluded that if the PP shall be more than a simple “idea” or a frequently used “term,” emphasis must be put on the transformation of the concept into concrete practices, like e.g., the alternative testing regimes that we show in the case of plant growth-retarding pesticides presented in this paper.