Habitat-tree protection concepts over 200 years

The protection and sustainable management of habitat trees is an integral part of modern forest nature conservation concepts such as retention forestry. Bats, cavity-nesting birds, arboreal marsupials, and many different saproxylic species depend on habitat trees and their great variety of microhabitats and old-growth characteristics. With a focus on insights from temperate forests, we traced the development of habitat-tree protection over 200 years. The idea was first conceptualized by foresters and natural scientists in the early 19th century. At that time, utilitarian conservation aimed to protect cavity trees that provided roosts and nesting holes for insectivorous bats and birds. By the second half of the 19th century, habitat-tree protection was well known to foresters and was occasionally implemented. Knowledge of the protection of large old trees, a special kind of habitat tree, for sociocultural and aesthetic reasons developed similarly. But, many foresters of that time and in the following decades fundamentally rejected protection of habitat trees for economic reasons. Beginning in the 1970s, forest conservation and integrative forest management became increasingly important issues worldwide. Since then, the protection of habitat trees has been implemented on a large scale. Long-term views on the development of conservation concepts are important to inform the implementation of conservation today. In particular, historical analyses of conservation concepts allow the testing of long-term conservation outcomes and make it possible to study the resilience of conservation approaches to changing social or ecological conditions. We encourage all conservation ecologists to assess the practical and conceptual impact of the initial ideas that led to modern conservation concepts in terms of long-term biodiversity conservation.     

城市化与环境污染：中国省际面板数据的实证研究

对环境库兹涅茨曲线（EKC）假说进行了扩展，选取1998～2005年中国30个省（市、自治区）的面板数据，构建了6类环境污染指标同城市化水平及控制变量间的计量模型，并运用Eviews软件进行了实证检验。研究结果表明：4类污染物同城市化水平之间存在倒U形曲线关系，另外2类污染物同城市化水平之间存在正U形曲线关系，目前中国大体上已经进入U形曲线的右半段，但由于地区发展差距的存在，各地进入曲线右半段的时间不同；控制变量的加入不仅改变了转折点出现的时间，而且改变了某些污染指标同城市化水平之间的U形曲线关系；贸易开放并不一定造成环境的恶化，“污染天堂”假说在中国不成立；产业结构变动是造成环境污染的重要因素；技术进步引致的单位GDP能耗下降能减轻环境污染压力；快速的经济增长将导致更加严重的环境污染。     

Generality of Models that Predict the Distribution of Species: Conservation Activity and Reduction of Model Transferability for a Threatened Bustard

Abstract:  Predictive models can help clarify the distribution of poorly known species but should display strong transferability when applied to independent data. Nevertheless, model transferability for threatened tropical species is poorly studied. We built models predicting the incidence of the critically endangered Bengal Florican ( Houbaropsis bengalensis ) within the Tonle Sap (TLS) floodplain, Cambodia. Separate models were constructed with soil, land-use, and landscape data and species incidence sampled over the entire floodplain (12,000 km²) and from the Kompong Thom (KT) province (4000 km²). In each case, the probability of Bengal Florican presence within randomly selected 1 × 1 km squares was modeled by binary logistic regression with multimodel inference. We assessed the transferability of the KT model by comparing predictions with observed incidence elsewhere in the floodplain. In terms of standard model-validation statistics, the KT model showed good spatial transferability. Nevertheless, it overpredicted florican presence outside the KT calibration region, classifying 491 km² as suitable habitat compared with 237 km² predicted as suitable by the TLS model. This resulted from higher species incidence within the calibration region, probably owing to a program of conservation education and enforcement that has reduced persecution there. Because both research and conservation activity frequently focus on areas with higher density, such effects could be widespread, reducing transferability of predictive distribution models.     

Tourists and disasters: lessons from the 26 December 2004 tsunamis

The 26 December 2004 tsunamis around the Indian Ocean exposed the vulnerability of many coastal communities, including those serving tourists. To draw conclusions regarding disaster risk reduction for tourism in coastal areas, this study surveyed international tourists who survived the tsunami regarding their perceptions and experiences of the disaster. Semi-structured interviews were completed between January and June 2005 of 55 primary interviewees who were international tourists in locations affected by the tsunami. The qualitative data from the interviews yielded commonalities across four main themes with relevance to disaster risk reduction: information and awareness, warning systems, personal preparation, and livelihoods. Three areas are suggested as topics to highlight for further investigation: the connections between sustainable tourism and disaster vulnerability, the role of tourists in disasters, and disaster risk reduction education.     

Formation and Evolution of Ancient Lakes on South Coast Plain of Laizhou Bay

1INTRODUCTIONAncient lakes are lakes that once existed in history,butnow have died out.As a kind of land water and geomorphicconfiguration,the formation and evolution of ancientlakes were closely linked with the variance of geographicenvironment.The south coast plain of Laizhou Bay is aplain extending from the estuary of the Xiaoqing Riverin the west to the estuary of the Jiaolai River in the east.There were once some lakes on the plain in history,suchas Judian Lake,Qingshuibo Lake,an…     

ITS数据质量控制技术及应用研究

通过总结智能交通系统 (ITS)数据质量控制中所涉及的数据属性 ,提出了ITS数据质量控制算法 :根据阈值理论和交通流理论 ,针对错误数据、丢失数据和不精确数据设计相应的判别规则 ,利用数值计算方法对其进行修正 ,并提出了针对数据中的不规则时间点的修正算法。在对北京市和美国圣安东尼奥市的两组不同时间序列的ITS数据进行实践应用后 ,比较质量控制前后的数据特征 ,证明所提出的算法能够有效地解决数据质量问题 ,提高数据的精确度。最后 ,对国内外ITS数据进行质量控制后的结论和经验作了总结。     

Industrialization, Environment and Health： the Impacts of Industrial SO2 Emission on Public Health in China

In this paper, we construct a model in which the impact of pollution on health is exerted through both direct and indirect channels. The indirect channel is captured by a production function in which the principal health-improving factor, income growth, can be realized only in the cost of pollution increase. This model is then tested by the aggregated chronicle disease data in over 78 Chinese counties. Our results show, after attaining the threshold of 8 μ g/m^2, continuous increase in industrial SO2 emission density will lead the ratio of population suffering chronicle diseases, among which respiratory diseases occupy a significant proportion, to rise. However, owing to technological progress in pollution control activities, the needed SO2 emission to produce one unit of GDP diminishes with time. Therefore, the negative effect from pollution augmentation on public health seems to be recompensed more and more by the positive effect of economic growth.     

Urbanization,unemployment rate and China’ rising divorce rate

This paper analyzes the impacts of urbanization and unemployment rate on China’s divorce rate with the panel data of 31 Chinese provinces from 2000 to 2011. The study manifests as follows. First, the significant influence of urbanization cannot be observed on the rising breakdown since the latter is not the inevitable result of the former. In the second place, unemployment rate has a significant negative influence on divorce rate, namely, with the former increasing, the latter will decrease, which echoes the perspective of divorce cost. And finally, this paper also finds positive effects of per capita fixed investment, old-age dependency rate, average household size, the proportion of floating population and population density, and negative correlation of average education attainment on divorce rate.     

Industrialization,Environment and Health: the Impacts of Industrial SO2 Emission on Public Health in China

Abstract

In this paper, we construct a model in which the impact of pollution on health is exerted through both direct and indirect channels. The indirect channel is captured by a production function in which the principal health-improving factor, income growth, can be realized only in the cost of pollution increase. This model is then tested by the aggregated chronicle disease data in over 78 Chinese counties. Our results show, after attaining the threshold of 8 μg/m², continuous increase in industrial SO₂ emission density will lead the ratio of population suffering chronicle diseases, among which respiratory diseases occupy a significant proportion, to rise. However, owing to technological progress in pollution control activities, the needed SO₂ emission to produce one unit of GDP diminishes with time. Therefore, the negative effect from pollution augmentation on public health seems to be recompensed more and more by the positive effect of economic growth.     

Computer-Intensive Methods in Traffic Safety Research

The analysis of traffic safety data archives has improved markedly with the development of procedures that are heavily dependent upon computers. Three such procedures are described here. The first procedure involves using computers to assist in the identification and correction of invalid data. The second procedure makes greater computational demands, and involves using computerized algorithms to fill in the “gaps” that typically occur in archival data when information regarding key variables is not available. The third and most computer-intensive procedure involves using data mining techniques to search archives for interesting and important relationships between variables. These procedures are illustrated using examples from data archives that describe the characteristics of traffic accidents in the USA and Australia.