A method for prediction of extent of microbial pollution of seawater and carrying capacity of beaches

The increase in the number of tourists visiting a coast is desired by most of the countries for economic reasons. However, this increase in tourism may cause pollution of the sea. This can be only avoided by proper planning and by predicting the carrying capacity of the coast in terms of sea pollution. This is especially important for developing countries where part of the wastewater is discharged without any treatment into the sea.In the present study the beaches were classified according to their use — and consequently the amount of waste discharged into the sea — into four groups: (1) coasts that are used only for swimming and recreational purposes; (2) coasts used simultaneously for dwelling, swimming, and recreational purposes; (3) coasts along which only dwellings exist; and (4) natural and man-made harbors, i.e., coasts used as shelters. During the survey,40,320 observations were made between December 1985 and February 1988 to determine the effect of the number of tourists on seawater quality. The results obtained were analyzed by a multilinear regression program to obtain an empirical equation giving the extent of the sea pollution in terms of coliform concentration as a function of population density and some other environmental factors.The equations derived in this study enable the determination of the carrying capacity of a beach in terms of pollution as well as the expected degree of pollution corresponding to a given population density. Furthermore, it allows the prediction of the extra carrying capacity that can be obtained by improving the waste-disposal conditions.     

Fuzzy adaptive management of social and ecological carrying capacities for protected areas

Commonly used methods of evaluating the degree of consistency of protected area ecosystems with social and ecological carrying capacities are likely to result in decision errors. This occurs because such methods do not account for imprecision and uncertainty in inferring the degree of ecosystem consistency from an observed ecosystem indicator. This paper proposes a fuzzy adaptive management approach to determine whether a protected area ecosystem is consistent with ecological and social carrying capacities and, if not, to identify management actions that are most likely to achieve consistency when there is uncertainty about the current degree of consistency and how alternative management actions are likely to influence that consistency. The proposed approach is illustrated using a hypothetical example that uses an ecosystem indicator that reflects combinations of different levels of user satisfaction and conservation of threatened and endangered species. Application of the proposed fuzzy adaptive management approach requires a protected area manager to: (1) identify alternative management actions for achieving ecosystem consistency with social and ecological carrying capacities in each of several management zones in a protected area; (2) randomly assign alternative management actions to management zones; (3) define fuzzy sets for the ecosystem indicator and degree of ecosystem consistency, and fuzzy relations between the ecosystem indicator and the degree of ecosystem consistency; (4) monitor the indicator in each management zone; (5) define fuzzy sets based on the observed indicator in each management zone; and (6) combine the fuzzy sets defined on the observed indicator and the fuzzy relations between the indicator and the degree of ecosystem consistency to reach conclusions about the most likely degree of consistency for alternative management actions in each management zone. The fuzzy adaptive management approach proposed here is advantageous when the benefits of avoiding the decision errors inherent with crisp and stochastic decision rules outweigh the added cost of implementing the approach.     

资源型重工业城市生态承载力评价

从城市生态承载力的三类变量之间的关系出发,构建城市生态承载力评价模型;并以资源型重工业城市抚顺市2000～2009年数据为基础,分析了该市的生态压力参数和生态弹性力参数的变化情况,评价了抚顺市的生态承载力水平。结果表明:抚顺市生态承载力变化分为3个阶段,平稳期(2000～2002年)、起伏期(2002～2007年)和递增期(2007～2009年);生态承载力水平由2000年的-0.311增长到2009年的-0.017,抚顺市一直处于重载状态,属于高耗损型,强不可持续发展模式,但有趋于可持续发展的趋势。     

浑河、太子河及大伙房水库上游流域自然植被生态承载力的探讨

以水热平衡模型对浑河、太子河源区及大伙房水库上游各流域自然植被净初级生产力(NPP)进行了计算,结果表明,浑河流域NPP均值为5.2t/hm2.a,生态承载能力较大,其次为苏子河和太子河流域,其NPP均值分别为5.0和4.9t/hm2.a。