Institutional design in transformation: A comparative study of local irrigation governance in Uzbekistan

The irrigation sector constitutes the backbone of Uzbekistan's economy, providing social and economic stability in the region. The sector collapsed with the fall of the Soviet Union, due to worsening of infrastructure conditions causing tensions among resource users. Subsequent irrigation management reforms were implemented in a top-down manner. More than a decade after the initial reforms – which established local Water Consumers Association (WCA) and transferred operation and maintenance responsibilities for on-farm irrigation canals – the poor performance of these associations is still apparent, illustrating the heritage of the strong role of state agencies in Uzbek water management that still affects collective irrigation management today. This paper identifies the necessary and sufficient conditions for successfully managing common pool resources (CPRs) and, more specifically, irrigation canal maintenance in the rural Bukhara region of Uzbekistan. Fifteen WCAs were examined regarding conditions that may facilitate successful irrigation canal maintenance. Methods involved focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with the associations concerned. Data gathered was analyzed using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. The results indicate that two paths of local factors can lead to well-maintained irrigation canals: (1) the combination of appropriate chairmanship skills with sustainable resource appropriation or (2) the combination of appropriate chairmanship skills with the presence of effective participatory governance. The results also illustrate the role of path-dependence and traditional co-production of irrigation management in Uzbekistan.     

灌区工程生态环境影响评价特点与展望

随着我国人口的增长及人民物质生活水平的不断提高,灌区工程作为粮食安全的重要保障,未来其建设步伐将不断向前迈进,而作为预防、治理生态破坏的基础,灌区工程开展生态环境影响评价的现实意义及作用将日益显著。本文介绍了大中型灌区工程主要生态环境影响,及灌区工程生态环境影响评价特点和重点,并对灌区工程生态环境影响评价进一步完善与发展进行了展望。     

Simultaneous personnel and vehicle shift scheduling in the waste management sector

Urban waste management is becoming an increasingly complex task, absorbing a huge amount of resources, and having a major environmental impact. The design of a waste management system consists in various activities, and one of these is related to the definition of shift schedules for both personnel and vehicles. This activity has a great incidence on the tactical and operational cost for companies. In this paper, we propose an integer programming model to find an optimal solution to the integrated problem. The aim is to determine optimal schedules at minimum cost. Moreover, we design a fast and effective heuristic to face large-size problems. Both approaches are tested on data from a real-world case in Southern Italy and compared to the current practice utilized by the company managing the service, showing that simultaneously solving these problems can lead to significant monetary savings.     

乌鲁木齐市安宁渠蔬菜基地土壤重金属污染现状及潜在生态风险评价

为了认识蔬菜产地土壤重金属富集现状，探索其解决途径，为污染防治措施提供科学依据，促进无公害蔬菜生产，确保蔬菜质量安全。在乌鲁木齐北郊蔬菜地采集26个土壤样品和7个水体样品，分别测定样品中Hg、As、Cr、Cd、Pb和Zn 6种重金属的含量。采用地积累指数（I_geo）、污染负荷指数（PLI）、潜在生态风险评价（RI）对蔬菜地土壤重金属污染及潜在生态风险进行分析。通过土壤与水样的结合，采用主成分分析法进行污染来源分析，结果表明：（1）乌鲁木齐安宁渠蔬菜基地土壤中Hg、Cr和Zn重金属含量的均值分别为新疆土壤背景值的5.74、1.74、1.52倍，其中Cd含量的均值是国家二级标准的2.69倍。地下水中Cr含量均值超过国家灌溉水限制标准，是其8.89倍。（2）6种重金属I_geo的平均值依次为Cd > Hg > Cr > Zn > As > Pb，其中Cd属于中-强度污染，Hg为中度污染，Cr为轻度污染，Zn、As和Pb均为清洁水平。研究区土壤区域污染负荷指数PLI_zone为1.91，属于中度污染，其中Cd的贡献率最大，为56%，其次是Hg，贡献率为22%。土壤RI均值为673.1，属于严重潜在生态风险态势。（3）研究区土壤Pb、Cr和Zn，主要来自交通和农业活动等人为污染，As、Cd主要受自然母质和大气沉降的影响。该蔬菜基地潜在生态风险主要来自Cd和Hg，建议在农业生产中防范Cd、Hg的污染。     

Arsenic Uptake and Accumulation in Curly Endives (Cichorium endivia L.) Irrigated with Contaminated Water

Arsenic accumulation in vegetables for direct human consumption represents a concern for food safety purposes. This potential problem can be of economic importance particularly in much appreciated, high-quality horticultural products. In this work, a greenhouse set of experiments were conducted to evaluate possible phytotoxic effects and arsenic accumulation in the production of curly endives with arsenic contaminated water.

Two concentration levels (0.5 mg/L and 1.0 mg/L) and two arsenic species (As⁺³ and As⁺⁵) were considered. Dry mass production tended to be reduced as As⁺³ concentration increased in irrigation water. However, As⁺⁵ treatments did not show significant dry mass production differences with a blank (control experiment). As accumulation in plant increased with As concentration in irrigation waters, following a linear trend. Nevertheless, the increase of accumulated As was not statistically significant for As⁺⁵ at 0.5 mg/L. Calculated biological absorption coefficients resulted in higher than previous values reported in the literature, which was attributed here to the source of arsenic (irrigation water). Considering field values for As⁺⁵/As⁺³ ratio and averaged concentrations in water, the obtained results support that there is not a short-or medium-term risk to food safety in the curly endive crop in the region of Castilla y León (Spain).     

Cities vs. agriculture: A review of intersectoral water re-allocation

Water demand management, or making better use of the water we have — as opposed to augmenting supply — is increasingly proposed as a way of mitigating water-scarcity problems. Moving water away from agriculture to uses with higher economic value is one of the main measures widely seen as desirable. Sectoral "allocation stress" is seen as resulting from the disproportionate share, and inefficient use of water in the agricultural sector. This apparent misallocation is often attributed to the failure of government to allocate water rationally.
This paper revisits this commonly-accepted wisdom and examines the nature of urban water scarcity, showing the importance of economic and political factors, shaped by incentives to decision-makers, and sometimes compounded by climatic conditions. It shows that cities' growth is not generally constrained by competition with agriculture. In general, rather than using a narrow financial criterion, cities select options that go along the "path of least resistance," whereby economic, social and political costs are considered in conjunction. The question of allocation stress is thus reframed into an inquiry of how transfers effectively occur and can be made more effective.     

An application of Markov Decision Programming to ecologico-cybernetics—A decision method applied to the antifrost of winter wheat

Modern ecologico-cybernetic principle is of importance to decreasing damages in relation to agricultural productions. As an illustration of this, the authors studied some of the questions about the optimal policy of choosing actions for the antifrost measures of winter wheat by means of the finite-stage model of Markov Decision Programming (MDP). The related data came from the investigation results of the investigated region in the northeastern part of Henan, China. First, the authors give the states, ecologico-cybernetic action measures, transition probabilities and reward values in relation to these antifrost action measures of winter wheat crop. Second, the authors describe the principles and computational procedures of the ecologico-cybernetic decision-makings based on the finite-stage model of MDP. Third, a simple table applicable to the decision-making practice is given. Finally, we evaluate the results of this study, point out their shortcomings and suggest that this method is applicable to the other fields in relation to decreasing damage ecologico-cybernetics.     

情景-应对模式下考虑软时间窗的高铁应急资源调度优化

为提升高速铁路应急处置水平,考虑突发事件发生后应急资源需求的不确定性,通过对事故情景集的分析和计算,采用"情景-应对"模式,获取事故点的资源需求量;通过引入"软时间窗"概念,建立以超时惩罚成本、资源运输成本和救援点固定出动成本3者之和最小化为优化目标的应急资源调度模型,利用遗传算法进行求解,并基于实际事故案例验证方法和...     

考虑供应中断的灾后安全救援血液优化调度研究

血液应急保障是灾后安全救援的重要环节。为既有效满足需求,又避免盲目、过量的采血、调血增大血液过期报废压力甚至血荒的发生,保障灾后安全救援顺利进行,针对血液的易腐特性,提出血液应急调度的特点,并建立在物联网技术支持下的多时段、多类型血制品、多种运输方式的优化调度模型,通过合理调用库存血,组织自采血、外调血,并确定相应的数量以满足用血需求,实现血液应急保障系统响应时间和调度总成本最小化目标。采用ILOG CPLEX软件对模型进行求解,结合汶川特大地震的实际案例,进行数值仿真与结果分析,并给出在不同中断情景下的调度策略,表明通过建立双向互调的血液供应网络,并采用调度优化方法能够以更短的时间满足用血需求,同时减小调配成本和血液报废压力,能更好地应对灾后救援中出现的供应中断情况。     

Food Security in the Face of Climate Change,Population Growth,and Resource Constraints: Implications for Bangladesh

Ensuring food security has been one of the major national priorities of Bangladesh since its independence in 1971. Now, this national priority is facing new challenges from the possible impacts of climate change in addition to the already existing threats from rapid population growth, declining availability of cultivable land, and inadequate access to water in the dry season. In this backdrop, this paper has examined the nature and magnitude of these threats for the benchmark years of 2030 and 2050. It has been shown that the overall impact of climate change on the production of food grains in Bangladesh would probably be small in 2030. This is due to the strong positive impact of CO₂ fertilization that would compensate for the negative impacts of higher temperature and sea level rise. In 2050, the negative impacts of climate change might become noticeable: production of rice and wheat might drop by 8% and 32%, respectively. However, rice would be less affected by climate change compared to wheat, which is more sensitive to a change in temperature. Based on the population projections and analysis of future agronomic innovations, this study further shows that the availability of cultivable land alone would not be a constraint for achieving food self-sufficiency, provided that the productivity of rice and wheat grows at a rate of 10% or more per decade. However, the situation would be more critical in terms of water availability. If the dry season water availability does not decline from the 1990 level of about 100 Bm³, there would be just enough water in 2030 for meeting both the agricultural and nonagricultural needs. In 2050, the demand for irrigation water to maintain food self-sufficiency would be about 40% to 50% of the dry season water availability. Meeting such a high agricultural water demand might cause significant negative impacts on the domestic and commercial water supply, fisheries, ecosystems, navigation, and salinity management.