Special needs hurricane shelters and the ageing population: development of a methodology and a case study application

Recent experience of hurricanes, particularly in the southeast United States, has heightened awareness of the multifaceted nature of and the challenges to effective disaster relief planning. One key element of this planning is providing adequate shelter at secure locations for people who evacuate. Some of these individuals will have ‘special needs’, yet there is little research on the relationship with shelter space. This study designed a geographic information systems‐based network optimisation methodology for the siting of special needs hurricane relief shelters, with a focus on the transportation component. It sought to find new locations for shelters that maximise accessibility by vulnerable populations, given capacity constraints, concentrating on the ageing population. The framework was implemented in a medium‐sized metropolitan statistical area in the state of Florida where data suggest a possible deficit in special needs shelter space. The study analysed options for increasing special needs shelter capacity, while considering potential uncertainties in transportation network availability.     

无锡市生态足迹的系统动力学仿真研究

以生态足迹衡量居民对生态资源的需求,构建了包含社会经济、环境、人口、资源子系统的无锡市生态足迹系统动力学模型,分析了各因素对生态足迹系统的驱动作用和相互关系。基于模型预测了无锡市“十二五”期间的生态足迹数值,显示未来5年无锡市的生态足迹将继续呈现递增趋势,反映出居民对生态资源需求和对环境潜在压力不断增大。因此,市政府需重视居民的生态需要,不断改善生态环境,持续推进生态城市建设工作。     

Monitoring of Biodiversity Indicators in Boreal Forests: a Need for Improved Focus

The general principles of scale and coarse and fine filters have been widely accepted, but management agencies and industry are still grappling with the question of what to monitor to detect changes in forest biodiversity following forest management. Part of this problem can be attributed to the lack of focused questions for monitoring including absence of null models and predicted effects, a certain level of disconnect between research and management, and recognition that monitoring can be designed as a research question. Considerable research from the past decade has not been adequately synthesized to answer important questions, such as which species or forest attributes might be the best indicators of change. A disproportionate research emphasis has been placed on community ecology, and mostly on a few groups of organisms including arthropods, amphibians, migratory songbirds, and small mammals, while other species, including soil organisms, lichens, bats, raptors, some carnivores, and larger mammals remain less well-known. In most studies of community ecology, the question of what is the importance, if any, of the regularly observed subtle changes in community structures, and causes of observed changes is usually not answered. Hence, our ability to deal with questions of persistence is limited, and demographic research on regionally--defined key species (such as species linked to processes, species whose persistence may be affected, species with large home ranges, species already selected as indicators, and rare and threatened species) is urgently needed. Monitoring programs need to be designed to enable managers to respond to unexpected changes caused by forest management. To do this, management agencies need to articulate null models for monitoring that predict effects, focus fine--scale monitoring on key species (defined by local and regional research) in key habitats (rare, declining, important) across landscapes, and have a protocol in place to adapt management strategies to changes observed. Finally, agencies must have some way to determine and define when a significant change has occurred and to predict the persistence of species; this too should flow from a well--designed null model.     

Specifying information needs: improving the working methodology

Specification of information needs is an important step in the design of monitoring networks. Within the framework of Monitoring Strategy 2000+, a programme of the Dutch Directorate General of Public Works and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat) which seeks to provide innovation in the monitoring sector, a method has been developed to link water management policy to monitoring through specification of information needs. Over the past 2 years, this method has been applied in several projects within the Rijkswaterstaat organisation. Use of this method has led to improvements in the monitoring practice and was judged very positively by the people involved. Nevertheless, the main obstacle to employing the method was the actual translation of policy matters into information products. A special study is carried out, focusing on this aspect within the method, to provide the participants of a project with a mental framework that enables them to clearly specify their information needs. The major requirements for this mental framework are that all participants have a clear view of the process (system), and that they are able to relate their contribution to this process and to the contributions of others (transparency). The first step of the process is to focus the attention of stakeholders on the information they will actually need for decision-making. The next step is to confront the different expressed opinions through the method of the 'devil's advocate', which implies criticising the results of the first step by finding as many as possible arguments against these opinions. This should force the stakeholders to better specify their arguments. The method, its improvements and the results of one pilot project will be discussed in this paper. Electronic Publication     

Rebuilding and strengthening health systems and providing basic health services in fragile states

The international community has compelling humanitarian, political, security and economic reasons to engage in rebuilding and strengthening health systems in fragile states. Improvements in health services and systems help to strengthen civil society and to restore legitimacy to governments. Effective engagement with fragile states to inform the design of health programmes and selection of interventions depends on donor coordination and an understanding of health system challenges. Planning requires consideration of allocation (services to be delivered), production (organisation of services), distribution (beneficiaries of services) and financing. The criteria for selecting interventions are: their impact on major health problems; effectiveness; the possibility of scale-up; equity; and sustainability. There are various options for financing and models of engagement, but support should always combine short-term relief with longer-term development. Stakeholders should aim not only to save lives and protect health but also to bolster nations' ability to deliver good-quality services in the long run.     

Incorporating basic needs to reconcile poverty and ecosystem services

Conservation managers frequently face the challenge of protecting and sustaining biodiversity without producing detrimental outcomes for (often poor) human populations that depend on ecosystem services for their well-being. However, mutually beneficial solutions are often elusive and can mask trade-offs and negative outcomes for people. To deal with such trade-offs, ecological and social thresholds need to be identified to determine the acceptable solution space for conservation. Although human well-being as a concept has recently gained prominence, conservationists still lack tools to evaluate how their actions affect it in a given context. We applied the theory of human needs to conservation by building on an extensive historical application of need approaches in international development. In an innovative participatory method that included focus groups and household surveys, we evaluated how human needs are met based on locally relevant thresholds. We then established connections between human needs and ecosystem services through key-informant focus groups. We applied our method in coastal East Africa to identify households that would not be able to meet their basic needs and to uncover the role of ecosystem services in meeting these. This enabled us to identify how benefits derived from the environment were contributing to meeting basic needs and to consider potential repercussions that could arise through changes to ecosystem service provision. We suggest our approach can help conservationists and planners balance poverty alleviation and biodiversity protection and ensure conservation measures do not, at the very least, cause serious harm to individuals. We further argue it can be used as a basis for monitoring the impacts of conservation on multidimensional poverty.     

环境管理与需求分析

本文着重对环境问题的人的需求进行分析,从满足需求的角度,总结环境管理的经验。     

A Measure of Uncertainty: The Nature of Vulnerability and Its Relationship to Malnutrition

Terms such as 'vulnerability' and 'insecurity' are used widely in the general nutrition literature as well as in work on humanitarian response. Yet these words are used rather loosely. This paper argues that more clarity in their usage would benefit those seeking a bridge between development and humanitarian problems. Since vulnerability is not fully coincident with malnutrition, poverty or other conventional indices of human deprivation, public action must be based on a better understanding of the nature of crises and human uncertainty beyond physiological and nutritional outcomes. More attention is needed to be paid to the context-specific nature of risks, the capacity of households to manage such risks and the potential for public action to bolster indigenous capacity through targeted development investments, not just relief.     

城市低碳发展路线图编制:技术要素与改进建议

着力推进低碳发展是中国特色新型城镇化建设基本要求之一。研究制定城市低碳发展路线图是系统推动控制本地区温室气体排放、建设低碳城市的必要条件。城市低碳发展路线图是根据城市市情,结合国家和地区发展战略,通过规划技术和解决方案,对城市发展转型所制定的低碳战略目标、发展规划、重点部门(行业)行动方案的全景式描述。低碳发展路线图的制定一般需要六个步骤,即了解温室气体排放现状,分析未来的排放情景,设定低碳发展目标,给出重点领域行动方案,评估技术/项目减排潜力,提出实施保障措施。本文根据城市低碳发展路线图编制实践,从部门管理的现实需求出发,建立了温室气体清单"七部门"的编制分析结构,使其与低碳发展重点领域,即IPCC七大重点减排领域对接,并将部门(行业)低碳适用技术需求评估纳入城市低碳发展路线图编制。为了促进温室气体排放清单和低碳适用技术需求评估更好地纳入城市低碳发展路线图编制,特提出三点改进建议:1发挥温室气体清单最核心的直接功能,需改进清单工具分析质量,科学、系统地分析城市温室气体排放的时间分布、部门分布,为城市低碳发展路线图制定和低碳发展决策服务。2发挥温室气体清单为规划、考核和决策服务的衍生功能,需要提升温室气体清单编制质量与时间序列上的连续性。3发挥温室气体清单的衍生功能,需要把改进的温室气体清单、低碳适用技术需求评估纳入低碳发展路线图编制之中。