Soil carbon pool in China and its global significance

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Factor Biases and Promoting Sustainable Development: Adaptation to Drought in the Senegal River Basin

The ongoing drought in the Sahel region of West Africa highlights the vulnerability of food-producing systems to climate change and variability. Adaptation to climate should therefore increase the sustainability of agriculture under a long-term drought. Progress towards sustainability and adaptation in the the Senegal River Basin is hampered by an existing set of social and ecological relationships that define the control over the means of production and how people interact with their environment. These relationships are sensitive to the technological inputs and the administration of food production, or the factor bias in the different policy alternatives for rural development. One option is based on state-controlled, irrigated plantations to provide rice (Oryza) for the capital, Dakar. This policy emphasizes a top-down management approach, mechanized agriculture and a reliance on external inputs which strengthens the relationships introduced during the colonial period. A time series decomposition of the annual flow in the Senegal River at Bakel in Senegal suggests that water resources availability has been substantially curtailed since 1960, and a review of the water resources budget or availability in the basin suggests that this policy's food production system is not sustainable under the current climate of the basin. Under these conditions, this program is exacerbating existing problems of landscape degradation and desertification, which increases rural poverty. A natural resource management policy offers two adaptation strategies that favour decentralized management and a reduction of external inputs. The first alternative, “Les Perimetres Irrigués”, emphasizes village-scale irrigation, low water consumption cereal crops and traditional socio-political structures. The second alternative emphasizes farm-level irrigation and agro-forestry projects to redress the primary effects of desertification.     

四川人地关系日趋紧张的原因及对策

本文分四个阶段分析了四川人地关系的变化情况及人地关系的现状；以量化的方式重点分析了四川人地关系变化的原因；简要分析了人地关系的变化给农业生产所带来的影响；针对人地关系变化的主要原因,提出了缓解人地矛盾的对策。本文的重点是对四川人地关系变化原因,尤其是近期人地关系变化原因的分析,其目的是让人们认识近期四川人地关系变化的主要原因,以对症下药,采取有效的措施,缓解四川的人地矛盾。     

泸沽湖沉积物α纤维素的提取及其稳定碳同位素研究初探

湖泊沉积是环境气候变化的敏感指示器 ,在沉积过程中有机大分子α纤维素不易发生降解 ,其碳链上的C、H、O原子也不会与外界发生交换 ,故沉积物α纤维素的碳同位素能真实地反映原始环境信息。湖泊沉积物中的α纤维素含量少 ,笔者经过反复条件试验 ,得出了从湖泊沉积物提取α纤维素的简便可行的方法。泸沽湖是云贵高原上一半封闭湖泊 ,湖区人为活动干扰较微弱 ,该湖对环境变化敏感。笔者提取了泸沽湖沉积物柱的α纤维素 ,并研究了其碳同位素 ,结果表明 ,α纤维素碳同位素灵敏、精确地反映了该湖一百年来的环境信息 :泸沽湖沉积物有机质以内生为主 ;气候变化趋势为冷—暖—冷—暖。     

The Dynamics of Rural Vulnerability to Global Change: The Case of southern Africa

Research on the agricultural impacts of global change frequently emphasizesthe physical and socioeconomic impacts of climate change, yet globalchanges associated with the internationalization of economic activity mayalso have significant impacts on food systems. Together, climate change andglobalization are exposing farmers to new and unfamiliar conditions.Although some farmers may be in a position to take advantage of thesechanges, many more are facing increased vulnerability, particularly in thedeveloping world. This paper considers the dynamics of agriculturalvulnerability to global change through the example of southern Africa. Wedemonstrate that the combination of global and national economic changesis altering the context under which southern African farmers cope withclimate variability and adapt to long-term change. We find that farmers whoformerly had difficulty adapting to climatic variability may become lessvulnerable to drought-related food shortages as the result of tradeliberalization. At the same time, however, removal of national credit andsubsidies may constrain or limit adaptation strategies of other farmers,leaving them more vulnerable to climate variability and change.     

安西极旱荒漠国家级自然保护区鸟类资源的消长变化

1988-1989年安西极旱荒漠自然保护区进行了首次全面的综合考察,为了解1988年以来保护区鸟类资源的变化及其原因,2002-2004年又4次调查了该地区鸟类的种类及数量。15年来安西自然保护区的鸟类资源变化明显。鸟类种类新增加31种(其中甘肃新记录3种),但同时减少了36种。国家重点保护鸟类由原来的18种下降到16种。与1988-1989年相比,2002-2004年春季和夏季鸟类数量下降,秋季数量增加;各个季节的优势种的种类和数量都发生明显变化。影响安西自然保护区鸟类资源变化的主要原因是鸟类迁徙和人类活动。     

Impact of Climate Change on Possible Scenarios for Egyptian Agriculture in the Future

If no timely measures are taken to adapt Egyptian agriculture to possible climate warming, the effects may be negative and serious. Egypt appears to be particularly vulnerable to climate change because of its dependence on the Nile River as the primary water source, its large traditional agricultural base, and its long coastline, already undergoing both intensifying development and erosion. A simulation study characterized potential yield and water use efficiency decreases on two reference crops in the main agricultural regions with possible future climatic variation, even when the beneficial effects of increased CO₂ were taken into account. On-farm adaptation techniques which imply no additional cost to the agricultural system, did not compensate for the yield losses with the warmer climate or improve the crop water-use efficiency. Economic adjustments such as the improvement of the overall water-use efficiency of the agricultural system, soil drainage and conservation, land management, and crop alternatives are essential. If appropriate measures are taken, negative effects of climate change in agricultural production and other major resource sectors (water and land) may be lessened. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Offspring sex ratio in relation to parental structural size and body condition in the long-lived wandering albatross (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Diomedea exulans</Emphasis>)

Sex ratio theory is one of the most controversial topics in evolutionary ecology. Many deviations from an equal production of males and females are reported in the literature, but few patterns appear to hold across species or populations. There is clearly a need to identify fitness effects of sex ratio variation. We studied this aspect in a population of a long-lived seabird, the wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans), using molecular sex-identification techniques. We report that parental traits affect both (1) fledgling traits in a sex-dependent way and (2) chick sex: Sons are overproduced when likely to be large at fledging and, to a lesser extent, daughters are overproduced when likely to be in good body condition at fledging. Because for the same population, a previous study reported that post-fledging survival was positively affected by size in males and by body condition in females, our results suggest that wandering albatrosses manipulate offspring sex to increase post-fledging survival.     

减少农业甲烷排放的技术选择

文章总结了温室气体甲烷的最新研究进展,包括:甲烷对全球变暖的贡献,甲烷的排放机理以及优先研究的领域;估算了我国农业甲烷排放的贡献:中国约占世界人工源甲烷排放量的10.48％,其中农业排放占一半以上;根据实验结果,提出了筛选低排放水稻品种、水分管理、施肥管理、改进饲料、使用添加剂和生长调节剂、改进遗传、促进繁育等减少稻田和反刍家畜甲烷排放的若干技术选择。     

Neural network modelling for the analysis of forcings/temperatures relationships at different scales in the climate system

A fully non-linear analysis of forcing influences on temperatures is performed in the climate system by means of neural network modelling. Two case studies are investigated, in order to establish the main factors that drove the temperature behaviour at both global and regional scales in the last 140 years. In particular, our neural network model shows the ability to catch non-linear relationships among these variables and to reconstruct temperature records with a high degree of accuracy. In this framework, we clearly show the need of including anthropogenic inputs for explaining the temperature behaviour at global scale and recognise the role of El Niño southern oscillation for catching the inter-annual variability of temperature data. Furthermore, we analyse the relative influence of global forcing and a regional circulation pattern in determining the winter temperatures in Central England, showing that the North Atlantic oscillation represents the driven element in this case study. Our modelling activity and results can be very useful for simple assessments of relationships in the complex climate system and for identifying the fundamental elements leading to a successful downscaling of atmosphere–ocean general circulation models.