Estimation of Regional, Local and Site-specific Profitability of Soil Conservation for the Wheat-Sheep Zone of New South Wales, Australia

Information about the net benefits of land degradation treatment is required at the relevant management level, such as regional, local or site-specific, to assist decision makers in the allocation of funds to soil conservation. In this paper, estimates of regional opportunity costs of erosion and costs of treatment are used to derive benefit-cost ratios to assess the profitability of gully erosion treatment for localities in the wheat-sheep zone of New South Wales. These results are then used to develop site-specific models which predict benefit-cost ratios of treatment from land attributes including gully length, slope, soil type and land use. These predictive models form the basis of a rapid appraisal method to aid soil conservation decisions.     

新常态下广西“十三五”环境保护形势研究

基于广西在新常态下的社会经济发展现状和"十二五"环境质量现状,对广西未来5年环境保护形势进行分析,研究表明:"十三五"期间,广西工业化、城镇化发展将进入高峰期和机遇期,环境保护地位得到提升,但经济稳增长难度大,产业结构调整短期难以根本改变,工业化城镇化发展带来巨大压力,基本保持且持续改善环境质量的压力加大,环境风险防范任务依然艰巨,公众对环境的述求高涨。     

广东省“十三五”环境保护战略思考

"十二五"时期,在经济社会稳定发展的背景下,广东省环境保护取得了积极成效,但也存在结构性和格局性污染突出、污染呈现空间扩散态势等问题。在经济新常态背景下,为全面推进广东省"十三五"环境保护工作,在对当前环境问题分析及对未来环境形势研判的基础上,统筹谋划了广东省"十三五"环境保护目标指标及对策建议,以期对广东省率先基本实现现代化和全面建成小康社会起到推动作用。     

环境保护新形势下综合性开发区规划环评工作方法探讨——以江苏省太湖流域的开发区规划环评为例

以灰霾、水质污染等为主要特征的环境问题日益突出,人民群众对蓝天、清水、净土的期盼日益强烈.规划环评作为规划实施前期环境战略安排,能较好地解决长期性、区域性的环境问题.选取江苏省太湖流域一个综合性开发区,以区域环境质量改善作为规划方案合理与否的一个重要准则.通过规划环评引导开发区在维持快速发展的同时进一步减少污染物排放,集约利用资源能源,并基于生态敏感性、适宜性确定合理的开发格局,为开发强度高、现状环境问题较突出的同类开发区规划环评提供借鉴.     

新常态下的环境保护工作思考

新常态深刻揭示了我国经济发展阶段的新变化、新特点,认识新常态、适应新常态、引领新常态成为当前和今后一个时期我国经济发展的大逻辑,也给环境保护工作带来了新机遇和新挑战。做好新常态下的环境保护工作,需要新思维,从而加快实现改善环境质量为主,优先削减存量、有序引导增量协调,依靠环境流量、环境容量的动静协调、统筹综合支撑3大转变,同时,加强法律、制度、管理、政策、社会等政策措施对环保新思维的支撑和保障工作,推进生态环境治理体系和治理能力的现代化。     

新常态下我国环境政策的需求和建议

文章以新常态下经济社会新特点、新方向为出发点,分析了经济增速放缓、结构转型等对资源环境的新影响以及环境管理的新需求,并从释放政策潜力、激活市场活力、提高创新能力3方面,提出了我国环境政策发展的新思路与建议。     

Study abroad in support of education for sustainability: a New Zealand case study

This article presents a case study of an existing study abroad program to New Zealand interested in infusing sustainability themes into the curriculum. The review of the program is set in the context of United Nations Education for Sustainable Development goals and the role of sustainability in institutions of higher education. The author was an invited external observer and suggests that study abroad programs in support of sustainability education provide transformative learning experiences that invest in the well being of both people and places. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

The use (and abuse) of the new environmental paradigm scale over the last 30 years: A meta-analysis

This paper reports a meta-analysis of studies using the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale over the last 30 years. A review of 69 studies from 36 countries (including 58,279 participants from 139 samples) shows that there is considerable variation in the way the NEP Scale is used, particularly with regards to the number of items used and the number of points on the Likert scale employed. Results from weighted regression analyses reveals that variations in sample type and scale length have a significant effect on NEP scores. In particular, environmentalist and white-collar samples scored significantly higher on the NEP Scale than nationally or regionally representative samples, while blue-collar samples scored significantly lower; and participants scored higher on 6-item versions of the scale than on the revised 15-item version, and lower on versions of the scale containing 5, 7, 8 or 10 items. Implications of this research for the comparability of previous studies using the NEP Scale are discussed and guidelines for future research are presented.     

The World on a Collision Course and the Need for a New Economy

The first part of the paper is an attempt to demonstrate that what we are going through at the present time is not just an economic-financial crisis, but a crisis of humanity. It seems that for the first time in human history several crises converge to simultaneously reach their maximum level of tension. The dominant economic model is to a great degree responsible for the world’s collision course. Hence a number of myths that sustain the model are listed and analyzed. It is argued that a new economy, coherent with the problematiques of the twenty first century, needs urgently to be devised. The second part proposes the foundations for a new economy based on five fundamental postulates that allow the construction of transdisciplinary, holistic, and systemic visions to adequately understand the interdependence of all the elements that sustain life. It is stressed that it is no longer acceptable that Universities still teach economic theories of the nineteenth century in order to tackle twenty first century problems that have no precedence.     

基于模糊马尔可夫链状原理的灾害预测——以新亚欧大陆桥新疆段为例

根据新亚欧大陆桥新疆段近40年灾害统计资料,基于模糊马尔可夫链状预测的方法与原理,通过模糊状态的划分和模糊运算,根据隶属度最大原则,确定所属的状态,对新疆段受损区段数进行了预测,预测准确率为75％,取得了预期的效果。