Analysis and Predictive Models of Single‐Family Customer Response to Water Curtailments During Drought1

Polebitski, Austin S. and Richard N. Palmer, 2012. Analysis and Predictive Models of Single‐Family Customer Response to Water Curtailments During Drought. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 1‐12. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2012.00691.x Abstract: This research investigates customer response to demand management strategies during two drought periods in the City of Seattle. An analysis of customer response to voluntary water curtailments is conducted using k‐means clustering to identify like groups of customers and behavior patterns. The clustering method identified important variables (household income, lot size, living space, and family size) useful in determining customer response to water curtailments. Ordinary least squares and spatial lag regression models are estimated using the first and second principal components of variables identified in the clustering analysis. Larger values of income, lot size, and living space enhanced water reductions whereas larger family size tended to reduce the effectiveness of curtailments. Projections of changes in Seattle’s built environment and demographics between 2000 and 2030 were obtained from an urban simulation model (UrbanSim) and were processed through the regression models to investigate changes in future curtailment effectiveness. This research found that increasing household size hardened demands (decreased curtailment effectiveness) whereas decreasing household size increased per‐capita curtailment effectiveness. These results suggest that changes in the number of residents within a home is likely to be the most important factor in determining future curtailment effectiveness.     

电子电器生产企业物料流动分析方法研究

有效地控制电子企业环境污染,提高资源的利用率,回收有价值的资源,是电子企业的必然选择。建立了以物质守恒定律为依据的物料流动平衡分析式和平衡图,提出了物料平衡对象的选择,研究了物料流动分析方法,确定数据获取的方法与边界,阐述了提高生产效率、降低物耗和能耗、回收资源的解决方案。     

Local Dirt,Global Dreams: Mining investment and land use change in Arizona

A central problematic for researchers working at the interface of economic and environmental change is the development of research designs and methodologies that can satisfactorily link economic processes of global reach (such as direct investment) to environmental change at local and regional scales. This article reviews recent efforts to couple economic and environmental change and finds that relatively little effort has been made to use the direct investment process as a means of linking industrial restructuring to land use change. The article argues that direct investment, when conceptualised as a political-economic process involving the assemblage of a package of rights (to land, water, pollution permits etc), can be an effective vehicle for tracing through the impacts of industrial restructuring on local environments. To develop this analytical approach, an empirical case of mineral investment in the Gila Valley of eastern Arizona is presented. The case study identifies the acquisition of land and water rights as central strategic issues for mineral firms seeking to make investment, and traces through the impact of these acquisition strategies on existing patterns of land ownership and land use.     

Narrating place,negotiating history: the politics of place in Land Between the Rivers

Conservation discourses in the last decade have witnessed a radical shift in the conceptualisation of nature. The imagery of a pristine nature has been replaced by a growing recognition of culture and place-based attachments as emerging frontiers of conservation. Yet, the complexities of place and culture call for a greater reflection on cultural approaches to natural resource management. In this paper, I argue that the cultural discourses in conservation policies are largely global in nature and conflict with a community's understanding of a local cultural tradition. The notion of the global closely relates to a global framing of an environmental problem that glosses over cultural specificities. On the other hand, local is defined here in materially specific terms that highlight the role of history in shaping environmental traditions. I examine these contradictory framings through a narrative of conservation, displacement, and cultural loss in a US rural community known as Land Between the Rivers.     

The Contribution of Long-Term Research at Gombe National Park to Chimpanzee Conservation

Abstract:  Long-term research projects can provide important conservation benefits, not only through research specifically focused on conservation problems, but also from various incidental benefits, such as increased intensity of monitoring and building support for the protection of an area. At Gombe National Park, Tanzania, long-term research has provided at least four distinct benefits to wildlife conservation. (1) Jane Goodall's groundbreaking discoveries of chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) tool use, hunting, and complex social relationships in what was then a game reserve drew attention to the area and created support for upgrading Gombe to national park status in 1968. (2) The highly publicized findings have earned Gombe and Tanzania the attention of a worldwide public that includes tourists and donors that provide financial support for Gombe, other parks in Tanzania, and chimpanzee conservation in general. (3) Crucial information on social structure and habitat use has been gathered that is essential for effective conservation of chimpanzees at Gombe and elsewhere. (4) A clear picture of Gombe's chimpanzee population over the past 40 years has been determined, and this has helped identify the greatest threats to the viability of this population, namely disease and habitat loss outside the park. These threats are severe and because of the small size of the population it is extremely vulnerable. Research at Gombe has led to the establishment of conservation education and development projects around Gombe, which are needed to build local support for the park and its chimpanzees, but saving these famous chimpanzees will take a larger integrated effort on the part of park managers, researchers, and the local community with financial help from international donors.     

Effects of veterinary fences on Wildlife conservation in Zimbabwe

In Zimbabwe, veterinary fences are used to control trypanosomiasis and foot- and-mouth disease, two important diseases that threaten cattle production and beef exports. Wildlife is implicated in both instances and the effects of fences on wildlife conservation and land use are discussed in relation to these two diseases. Advantages and disadvantages related to direct and indirect fence effects are outlined. Although the maintenance of fences for trypanosomiasis control is likely to become obsolete, control of foot- and-mouth disease will rely on fences for the foreseeable future. Most of Zimbabwe's protected wildlife areas are located in marginal agricultural land around the periphery of the country where cattle productivity is low. This land should be excluded from any involvement in the beef export industry rather than attempting its inclusion through cordoning and isolating individual protected areas. Within such land, the need for rigid veterinary restrictions should then disappear and allow more flexible strategies for disease control, including adaptive and imaginative approaches to land-use planning.     

Transgenics and Vertebrate Cloning as Tools for Species Conservation

Abstract:  It has been suggested that transgenics and vertebrate cloning have a role to play in conservation. Now is the time to evaluate their risks and benefits, before these technologies are widely implemented in our field. Direct risks of transgenics include escape and introgression of transgenes into wild populations; weedy invasion by transgenic organisms; toxicity or pathogenicity of engineered organisms and their products; and human error in the field testing and tracking of transgenic organisms. Indirect risks include environmental effects of increased herbicide use; the danger that engineered organisms may aid the development of bioweapons; the likelihood that gene patenting will lead to the privatization of natural resources; and the diversion of support from less glamorous forms of conservation. Formal risk assessments are commonly used to evaluate transgenic procedures, but our incomplete understanding of both ecosystem processes and the action of transgenes renders most of these assessments scientifically and socially unjustified. Nevertheless, a few, low-risk applications of transgenics may be possible: for example, "super-sterile" ornamental cultivars. Vertebrate cloning poses little risk to the environment, but it can consume scarce conservation resources, and its chances of success in preserving species seem poor. To date, the conservation benefits of transgenics and vertebrate cloning remain entirely theoretical, but many of the risks are known and documented. Conservation biologists should devote their research and energies to the established methods of conservation, none of which require transgenics or vertebrate cloning.