黑河下游重要生态功能区植被防风固沙功能及其价值初步评估

在遥感和地理信息系统支持下,利用风蚀输沙率模型,对1986-2006年期间黑河下游重要生态功能区植被的防风固沙功能及其价值进行了估算。结果表明: 1986、1996和2006年研究区植被防风固沙量分别为9 056×10⁴ t、4 972×10⁴ t和6 296×10⁴ t;不同植被覆盖的土地类型中,有林地防风固沙能力最强,其次为灌木林,低覆盖度草地最小;1986-2006年,区域植被生态系统的防风固沙功能呈现出先减弱后增强的趋势;植被防风固沙功能的空间分布差异性明显,防风固沙能力较高的区域主要零散分布在河流、湖泊沿岸等植被覆盖状况较好的区域;研究区域植被生态系统的防风固沙功能价值较大,2006年达到53.1×10⁸元,明显高于当年研究区的GDP。     

Contamination and source assessment of metals,polychlorinated biphenyls,and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urban soils from Addis Ababa,Ethiopia

Urban areas in developing countries are facing vast environmental problems as a result of rapid urbanization and industrialization. Of major concern is the contamination of soils which are increasingly becoming sinks for environmental pollutants. However, to date only little is known about the pollution in the megalopolises of developing countries. The aim of this study was to assess the contamination and potential sources of metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the urban environment of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The investigation revealed the presence of most of the analyzed pollutants in soil and sediment samples with total concentrations (dry wt) of PAHs ranging from 186 to 3150?µg?kg^?1, PCBs from 0.4 to 19?µg?kg^?1, Cu from 14 to 173?mg?kg^?1, Zn from 36 to 440?mg?kg^?1, Pb from 9 to 700?mg?kg^?1, and Ni from 16 to 72?mg?kg^?1. In addition, polyaromatic sulfur heterocycles, typical for oil and petrol residues, were detected in several soil samples. Source identification approaches revealed that Pb, Zn, and Cu are most likely derived from pyrolytic sources, with elevated values in samples related to waste combustion and traffic emissions. Ni is most probably of geogenic origin. For PCBs it is indicated that they are derived from a single source. However, correlations with technical PCB mixtures were inconsistent. PAHs originate from the combustion of biomass, vehicular exhausts, and petrogenic sources.     

Indigenous peoples,biological diversity and protected area management — policy framework towards resolving conflicts

Legal notification of protected area status follows enforcement which, by and large, curtails resource use and means of livelihood, apart from affecting the sociocultural value system of the local communities, leading to park-reserve-people conflicts. These conflicts are major threats to biodiversity conservation in developing countries and call for changes in conventional strategies for conservation planning and management. The attempts to involve local communities in protected area management usually fail when initiated and directed by outsiders. This paper deals with the present concept of protected area management and focuses on some of the fundamental issues related to indigenous peoples. It offers principles and options which may be followed towards resolving the conflicts arising out of such issues.     

Working with indicators: description of states of territorial adjustment for protected natural areas

As is the case to date with respect to sustainability indicators, there is an enormous quantity of information available about their basic components (social, economic and environmental), but these are generally dealt with in a sectoral and fragmented manner, and the components have been analysed and approached in a more or less independent fashion. On the other hand, it is difficult to find indicators that encompass all the dimensions of sustainability. The topic chosen for this research is sustainability organised in a systematic fashion, which entails taking the combination of issues that affect each subsystem and investigating the states of territorial adjustment that exist between each of them. In short, it is the possibility of establishing a sustainable territorial development pattern, accepting that the economic and social activities that utilise the natural resources influence sustainability, and that they will do so to a greater or lesser extent depending on the effectiveness of the conservation of the stock of resources. The Territorial Adjustment Indicator System (TAIS) is a good tool that enables the management, assessment and monitoring of development processes in PNAs (protected natural areas), facilitating homogeneity and uniformity to aid comparison between protected areas in the centre-south of Spain, principally those areas designated as natural parks (NPs).     

Mainstreaming biodiversity conservation: a Peninsular Malaysian case

SUMMARY

The contention is examined that forests can contribute to biodiversity conservation either as protected areas or as production forests, especially where the latter are managed for timber extraction. This notion is explored for the Peninsular Malaysian forests, and it is shown that biodiversity conservation would be optimized if the system of protected areas is located within a broader matrix of carefully managed production forests. A model is developed to illustrate how the biodiversity value of protected areas would be enhanced through interaction with production forests. In no way is the suggestion being made here that production forests could serve as critical centres for the conservation of biotic diversity, but then neither should they be dismissed as areas completely devoid of any contribution to the biodiversity cause. These findings are especially significant in Peninsular Malaysia where two-thirds of the forests legally set aside as Permanent Forest Estate is to be managed as production forests. If the incremental biodiversity value of these forests can be captured through improved management practices, then the overall biodiversity status of the country, and the globe, could be greatly increased. The extent to which any country is willing to set aside forests as protected areas, strictly for biodiversity conservation, is limited, hence the integrated approach to the management of protected and production forests advocated here could prove an attractive and feasible strategy. Where funding is limited, as in the case of the Global Environment Facility, it may be worthwhile to provide incentives for improved management of production forests as a means of conserving biodiversity.     

Optimisation patterns for the process of a planned evacuation in the event of a flood

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of the article is to develop an optimisation pattern for the process of a preventive evacuation of people from flood-risk areas (at the first sign of a flood), aimed at mitigating the negative effects of the flood performed through the application of modern computer tools. It has been assumed that the use of both GIS tools and apps for vehicle traffic modelling (the research includes the use of a method developed by the authors) in emergency procedures implemented in response to a flood may increase the efficiency of the anti-flood campaign (here: the evacuation of residents from flooded areas), and thus, it may also minimise the negative effects of the flooding itself. The article distinguishes 14 stages of research, which were chiefly completed by means of the following methods: distance-based accessibility, cumulative accessibility, the Enhanced Two-Step Floating Catchment Area Method (E2SFCA) and the Two-Step Floating Catchment Area Method (2SFCA), the vehicle routing method, algorithms by Dinitz, Edmonds-Karp, and Ford-Fulkerson, and a comparative method applied to draw a comparison between the actual state of affairs and the optimum condition determined by the aforementioned methods.     

Incorporating species relocation in reserve design models: An example from Ft. Benning GA

Given the increasing expansion of human dominated landscapes it often becomes necessary to relocate endangered and at-risk species from existing habitat areas. Further, there is growing research stating that climatic and atmospheric changes attributed to climate change are already affecting species distributions and geographic ranges, requiring endangered species to be relocated. Existing reserve design models mostly focus on choosing the optimal land area given existing species distributions and have not incorporated species relocation as a criterion. This paper introduces linear integer programming formulations for the relocation of multiple populations of a species at risk to clustered conservation areas. We present a basic clustered relocation model and extend the model to minimize the distances of relocation. We apply the models to a dataset related to Gopher Tortoise (GT), a keystone species currently considered ‘at risk’, at Ft. Benning Georgia where expanding military training needs require the relocation of GTs. We present the results and discuss the trade-off between compactness and relocation considerations using an efficiency frontier.     

Feedbacks between conservation and social-ecological systems

Robust ways to meet objectives of environmental conservation and social and economic development remain elusive. This struggle may in part be related to insufficient understanding of the feedbacks between conservation initiatives and social-ecological systems, specifically, the ways in which conservation initiatives result in social changes that have secondary effects on the environments targeted by conservation. To explore this idea, we sampled peer-reviewed articles addressing the social and environmental dimensions of conservation and coded each paper according to its research focus and characterization of these feedbacks. The majority of articles in our sample focused either on the effect of conservation initiatives on people (e.g., relocation, employment) or the effect of people on the environment (e.g., fragmentation, conservation efficacy of traditional management systems). Few studies in our sample empirically addressed both the social dynamics resulting from conservation initiatives and subsequent environmental effects. In many cases, one was measured and the other was discussed anecdotally. Among the studies that describe feedbacks between social and environmental variables, there was more evidence of positive (amplifying) feedbacks between social and environmental outcomes (i.e., undesirable social outcomes yielded undesirable environmental effects and desirable social outcomes yielded desirable environmental effects). The major themes within the sampled literature include conflict between humans and wild animals, social movements, adaptive comanagement, loss of traditional management systems, traditional ecological knowledge, human displacement and risks to livelihoods, and conservation and development. The narratives associated with each theme can serve as hypotheses for facilitating further discussion about conservation issues and for catalyzing future studies of the feedbacks between conservation and social-ecological systems.     

Further study of the intrinsic safety of internally shorted lithium and lithium-ion cells within methane-air

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) researchers continue to study the potential for lithium and lithium-ion battery thermal runaway from an internal short circuit in equipment for use in underground coal mines. Researchers conducted cell crush tests using a plastic wedge within a 20-L explosion-containment chamber filled with 6.5% CH₄-air to simulate the mining hazard. The present work extends earlier findings to include a study of LiFePO₄ cells crushed while under charge, prismatic form factor LiCoO₂ cells, primary spiral-wound constructed LiMnO₂ cells, and crush speed influence on thermal runaway susceptibility. The plastic wedge crush was a more severe test than the flat plate crush with a prismatic format cell. Test results indicate that prismatic Saft MP 174565 LiCoO₂ and primary spiral-wound Saft FRIWO M52EX LiMnO₂ cells pose a CH₄-air ignition hazard from internal short circuit. Under specified test conditions, A123 systems ANR26650M1A LiFePO₄ cylindrical cells produced no chamber ignitions while under a charge of up to 5 A. Common spiral-wound cell separators are too thin to meet intrinsic safety standards provisions for distance through solid insulation, suggesting that a hard internal short circuit within these cells should be considered for intrinsic safety evaluation purposes, even as a non-countable fault. Observed flames from a LiMnO₂ spiral-wound cell after a chamber ignition within an inert atmosphere indicate a sustained exothermic reaction within the cell. The influence of crush speed on ignitions under specified test conditions was not statistically significant.     

两淮采煤沉陷积水区水体初级生产特征

在淮南潘谢矿区设置3个研究站点(PXPJ、PXGQ和PXXQ),在淮北朱-杨庄矿区内设置2个研究站点(HBZH和HBNH),于2012年和2013年分4个季度对两淮采煤沉陷积水区水体的初级生产力及碳(C)的形态特征进行了研究,其中C形态分溶解无机碳(DIC)、溶解有机碳(DOC)和颗粒有机碳(POC),并以此为基础分析了初级生产力与C形态及其它环境因子的相关关系.研究结果表明:受区域地理气候、水化学特征和矿区生态环境等方面影响,5个研究站点水体营养状态、初级生产力及C形态等存在着较大的跨度范围. 5个站点4个季度研究期间叶绿素a(Chla)浓度均值范围为3.7~71.5mg/m3,POC浓度均值范围为0.9~4.0mgC/L,总初级生产力(GPP)均值范围82.4~2305.4mgC/(m2?d), 淮南沉陷积水区水体营养状态和初级生产力明显高于淮北沉陷积水区.5个研究站点水体初级生产力和氮磷含量、Chla、DOC和POC具有显著的正相关性.最后根据研究结果针对性地提出了两淮矿区水生态区生态系统重建、恢复与保护的差别化原则.