震害下电-气关联生命线网络韧性研究

随着各类生命线网络间关联日益紧密,对关联生命线网络进行韧性研究刻不容缓。以地震灾害为背景,构建了城市电-气关联生命线网络韧性评估框架,并基于电力潮流分析和天然气稳态仿真分析,建立了考虑电力网络和燃气网络功能特性的性能评价指标。同时,以关联的IEEE30节点网络和20节点燃气网络为案例,结合评估框架分析网络韧性在不同恢复预算和恢复资源下的变化规律,为资源优化配置提供依据,为建设“韧性城市”提供支撑。     

Evaluating long-term urban resilience through an examination of the history of green spaces in Tokyo

Long-term urban resilience requires urban systems with the capacity to respond to change and disturbance and to enhance the conditions for lasting wellbeing. Over the past century Tokyo has demonstrated impressive resilience, especially a capacity to reorganise and rebuild in response to successive major disturbances. Throughout these recoveries, the city-region maintained a focus on re-establishing, improving and maintaining international competitiveness through industrial development. Green spaces in Tokyo provided a flexible, but gradually disappearing resource. Today, to meet the needs of its ageing and minimally expanding population for enhanced wellbeing, Tokyo requires active transition planning covering many intertwined factors, but the adaptive capacity provided by the green space resource is no longer available. The Tokyo case underscores the risk inherent in the depletion of non-renewable resources (in this instance, green space) to secure immediate recovery and accommodate growth and short-term resilience at the expense of long-term resilience.     

Insights into community vulnerability and resilience following natural disasters: perspectives with food retailers in Northern NSW,Australia

The resilience of Australia's food-supply chain following natural disasters has been brought into question, following the significant flooding and cyclone events of 2010/2011. How this manifests at the community level, in both rural and urban locations, has been examined through the lens of large and small food retailers in northern NSW. These interviews reveal the fragility of both the long and short supply chain where transport systems are compromised. Self-imposed standards severely restricted the ability of supermarkets to acquire fresh food, in the face of transport disruptions. Similarly, the precarious position of rural food retailers, exposed to continual fuel and electricity price increases, is compounded by the impact of extreme weather events. The insights captured through this study suggest interception points, or policy entry points, to address the resilience of the food-supply chain.     

Winter survival of microbial contaminants in soil: An in situ verification

The aim of the research was to evaluate, at site scale, the influence of freezing and freeze/ thaw cycles on the survival of faecal coliforms and faecal enterococci in soil, in a climate change perspective. Before the winter period and during grazing, viable cells of faecal coliforms and faecal enterococci were detected only in the first 10 cm below ground, while, after the winter period and before the new seasonal grazing, a lower number of viable cells of both faecal indicators was detected only in some of the investigated soil profiles, and within the first 5 cm. Taking into consideration the results of specific investigations, we hypothesise that the non-uniform spatial distribution of grass roots within the studied soil can play an important role in influencing this phenomenon, while several abiotic factors do not play any significant role. Taking into account the local trend in the increase of air temperature, a different distribution of microbial pollution over time is expected in spring waters, in future climate scenarios. The progressive increase in air temperature will cause a progressive decrease in freeze/thaw cycles at higher altitudes, minimising cold shocks on microbial cells, and causing spring water pollution also during winter.     

Après Paris: Breakthrough innovation as the primary moral obligation of rich countries

While the notion of differentiated responsibility has always included an element of technological transfer, the growing disparity between the deployment of non-scalable renewable energy sources in the rich countries and the massive expansion of fossil infrastructure elsewhere has brought new urgency to issues of climate leadership. Breakthrough innovation into technologies capable of providing an abundance of clean energy now appears necessary not only to broaden energy access but also to ensure that fossil fuels are quickly displaced globally (including in those countries that have failed to take climate change seriously). Moreover, it is reasonable to expect that a climatechanged world in itself will demand abundant energy to facilitate everything from carbon dioxide removal to mass desalination for agriculture and other adaptation measures. Considering the moral and political impossibility of treating sustained poverty as the “solution” to the climate crisis, this paper suggests that rich countries have a moral obligation to invest in breakthrough innovation into technologies that are compatible with a future global economic convergence around OECD-levels.     

Projected impacts to the production of outdoor recreation opportunities across US state park systems due to the adoption of a domestic climate change mitigation policy

Numerous empirical and simulation-based studies have documented or estimated variable impacts to the economic growth of nation states due to the adoption of domestic climate change mitigation policies. However, few studies have been able to empirically link projected changes in economic growth to the provision of public goods and services. In this research, we couple projected changes in economic growth to US states brought about by the adoption of a domestic climate change mitigation policy with a longitudinal panel dataset detailing the production of outdoor recreation opportunities on lands managed in the public interest. Joining empirical data and simulation-based estimates allow us to better understand how the adoption of a domestic climate change mitigation policy would affect the provision of public goods in the future. We first employ a technical efficiency model and metrics to provide decision makers with evidence of specific areas where operational efficiencies within the nation's state park systems can be improved. We then augment the empirical analysis with simulation-based changes in gross state product (GSP) to estimate changes to the states’ ability to provide outdoor recreation opportunities from 2014 to 2020; the results reveal substantial variability across states. Finally, we explore two potential solutions (increasing GSP or increasing technical efficiency) for addressing the negative impacts on the states’ park systems operating budgets brought about by the adoption of a domestic climate change mitigation policy; the analyses suggest increasing technical efficiency would be the most viable solution if/when the US adopts a greenhouse gas reduction policy.     

The social and spatial distribution of temperature-related health impacts from urban heat island reduction policies

Cities are developing innovative strategies to combat climate change but there remains little knowledge of the winners and losers from climate-adaptive land use planning and design. We examine the distribution of health benefits associated with land use policies designed to increase vegetation and surface reflectivity in three US metropolitan areas: Atlanta, GA, Philadelphia, PA, and Phoenix, AZ. Projections of population and land cover at the census tract scale were combined with climate models for the year 2050 at 4 km × 4 km resolution to produce future summer temperatures which were input into a comparative risk assessment framework for the temperature-mortality relationship. The findings suggest disparities in the effectiveness of urban heat management strategies by age, income, and race. We conclude that, to be most protective of human health, urban heat management must prioritize areas of greatest population vulnerability.     

The division of Europe into regions with similar potential effectiveness and environmental consequences of pesticide application based on expert inclusive research

A division of Europe into regions with similar climate and soil conditions, assuming similar pesticide effectiveness and environmental effects of their application, was developed by a combination of statistical cluster analysis and expert involvement for identifying clustering variables and weighing their importance. The experts identified 15 variables representing climatic, soil and crop structure data and weighted them. In order to maximally simplify the administrative work with pesticide registration resulting from the division of Europe into zones, the additional criteria in the procedure were: the zoning follows existing administrative borders, country divisions by zone boundaries are limited, and situations where a zone consists of parts separated by another zone are avoided. The results of the analyses were compared with the applicable EPPO classification and visualized on maps. The highest similarity was observed in the southern Mediterranean zone, the layout of which differed by only a few regions. The Alpine part, having specific conditions, was not distinguished among the EPPO zones. Our study very clearly delineated the Central European part, having a climate with continental influence, which is distributed among other zones in the EPPO classification.     

Evidence of response of vegetation to environmental change on high-elevation sites in the Swiss Alps

Climate change has in the past led to shifts in vegetation patterns; in a future, warmer climate due to enhanced greenhouse-gas concentrations, vegetation is also likely to be highly responsive to such warming. Mountain regions are considered to be particularly sensitive to such changes. In this paper we present an approach to assess the impact of climate change on long-term vegetation plots at the high-elevation site of the Schynige Platte, 2000 m above sea level, in the Bernese Alps (Switzerland). Records of vegetation spanning the period from 1928 to today at two different sites, each with several plots, were considered. The observed change in the species composition was then related to changes in land use and climate. We used daily values of temperature, snow and precipitation from several high-elevation weather stations to conduct these analyses. The correlation between climate and vegetation patterns revealed that species that prefer low thermal conditions move out of the plots, i.e., their frequency of occurrence is negatively correlated with the average number of degree-days over the last six decades. On the other hand, species with higher thermal demands are seen to be invading the plots, i.e., their frequency of occurrence is positively correlated to the average number of degree-days. Nutrient changes – though independent from climate – also play an important role in the observed shifts in species. Received: 20 June 1999 · Accepted: 14 January 2000     

Climate change adaptation planning in large cities: A systematic global assessment

Cities globally face significant risks from climate change, and are taking an increasingly active role in formulating and implementing climate change adaptation policy. However, there are few, if any, global assessments of adaptation taking place across cities. This study develops and applies a framework to track urban climate change adaptation policy using municipal adaptation reporting. From 401 local governments globally in urban areas with >1 m people, we find that only 61 cities (15%) report any adaptation initiatives, and 73 cities (18%) report on planning towards adaptation policy. We classified cities based on their adaptation reporting as extensive adaptors, moderate adaptors, early stage adaptors, and non-reporting. With few exceptions, extensive adaptors are large cities located in high-income countries in North America, Europe, and Oceania, and are adapting to a variety of expected impacts. Moderate adaptors usually address general disaster risk reduction rather than specific impacts, and are located in a mix of developed and developing countries. Early stage adaptors exhibit evidence of planning for adaptation, but do not report any initiatives. Our findings suggest that urban adaptation is in the early stages, but there are still substantive examples of governments taking leadership regardless of wealth levels and institutional barriers.