资源型重工业城市生态承载力评价

从城市生态承载力的三类变量之间的关系出发,构建城市生态承载力评价模型;并以资源型重工业城市抚顺市2000～2009年数据为基础,分析了该市的生态压力参数和生态弹性力参数的变化情况,评价了抚顺市的生态承载力水平。结果表明:抚顺市生态承载力变化分为3个阶段,平稳期(2000～2002年)、起伏期(2002～2007年)和递增期(2007～2009年);生态承载力水平由2000年的-0.311增长到2009年的-0.017,抚顺市一直处于重载状态,属于高耗损型,强不可持续发展模式,但有趋于可持续发展的趋势。     

Sustainability as an educational agenda

The mounting evidence about human-induced environmental change, and about its expected detrimental effects on humans and their societies ( [IPCC, 2007], [Reid et?al., 2010] and [Rockstr?m et?al., 2009]), has turned out to be exceedingly difficult to turn into political action to mitigate the change and adapt to its consequences. Economic self-interest creates friction between nation-states, within regional alliances like the EU, and across the divide between the developing and developed world. A significant factor is a vocal and well-funded group of climate skeptics, who question the credibility of mainstream earth system science, overemphasize the disagreements within the scientific community, argue for more research before any action is warranted, and in general create doubt to justify inaction or delay (Oreskes and Conway, 2010). A further problem is that both the decision-makers and the public have a very superficial understanding of the issues, cannot intellectually handle complex problems and uncertainty, and do not always know what and whom to believe. This constitutes a challenge to the education establishment.     

A renewable waste material for the synthesis of a novel non-halogenated flame retardant polymer

The recognition of toxicity and environmental persistence of halogenated flame retardant (FR) materials has prompted the reduction in their usage across the globe. There is an immediate need for new types of non-toxic and effective FR produced preferably through sustainable routes. Here we report the synthesis and characterization of a new polyphenolic FR material based on a renewable and biodegradable starting material, cardanol (a byproduct of cashew nut processing). Cardanol was polymerized in aqueous media using various types of oxidants. The thermal properties of the resulting polymers were investigated. Polycardanol synthesized using a specific type of oxidant exhibited good thermal stability and low heat release capacity. Preliminary results obtained from this study are quite promising and indicate the possibility of synthesizing new types of FR materials from bio-based phenols.     

陆海统筹与海洋可持续发展——国合会2011年圆桌会议在青岛举行

2011年4月27-28日,中国环境与发展国际合作委员会(简称国合会)在青岛举办了2011年圆桌会议。环境保护部副部长、国合会秘书长李干杰出席圆桌会议并致辞,国合会副秘书长、环保部国际司司长徐庆华主持会议。会议围绕"陆海统筹与海洋可持续发展"主     

东北亚中亚区域可持续发展——首届“东北亚中亚区域可持续发展国际论坛”在北京举行

首届"东北亚中亚区域可持续发展国际论坛"在北京召开。与会专家围绕着"全球气候变化背景下东北亚和中亚区域可持续发展"主题展开充分讨论,并形成重要研究结论。来自中国、俄罗斯、蒙古国、乌兹别克斯坦和以色列等国20多个研究机构的7位科学院院士、9位研究所所长和200多位专家学者讨论认为,面对积极应对全球变化的国际态势,加强东北亚中亚可持续发展国际合作研究具有重大战略意义,并向东北亚和中亚地区各国政府和专家学者发出共同倡议。此次国际论坛对加强东北亚和中亚地区在全球变化背景下资源生态环境与可持续发展科学问题与规律的国际合作研究具有重要推动作用。     

Resource management as a key factor for sustainable urban planning

Due to fast urbanization and increasing living standards, the environmental sustainability of our global society becomes more and more questionable. In this historical review we investigate the role of resources management (RM) and urban planning (UP) and propose ways for integration in sustainable development (SD). RM follows the principle of circular causation, and we reflect on to what extent RM has been an element for urban planning. Since the existence of the first settlements, a close relationship between RM, urbanization and technological development has been present. RM followed the demand for urban resources like water, energy, and food. In history, RM has been fostered by innovation and technology developments and has driven population growth and urbanization. Recent massive resource demand, especially in relation to energy and material flows, has altered natural ecosystems and has resulted in environmental degradation. UP has developed separately in response to different questions. UP followed the demand for improved living conditions, often associated to safety, good manufacturing and trading conditions and appropriate sanitation and waste management. In history UP has been a developing research area, especially since the industrial era and the related strong urbanization at the end of the 18th century. UP responded to new emerging problems in urban areas and became increasingly complex. Nowadays, UP has to address many objectives that are often conflicting, including, the urban sustainability. Our current urban un-sustainability is rooted in massive resource consumption and waste production beyond natural limits, and the absence of flows from waste to resources. Therefore, sustainable urban development requires integration of RM into UP. We propose new ways to this integration.     

A comprehensive set of resource use indicators from the micro to the macro level

Many of today's most urgent environmental problems arise from increasing volumes of worldwide production and consumption and the associated use of natural resources, including renewable and non-renewable raw materials, energy, water and land. Solid indicators to measure different dimensions of anthropogenic resource use are essential for designing appropriate policy measures for a sustainable management of these resources. Based on a brief review of the current state of the art of resource use indicators, this paper suggests a new set of complementary resource use indicators, combining existing measures for resource use. The suggested indicator set covers the core resource input categories of materials, water and land area and includes the output category of greenhouse gas emissions. This set can be applied consistently from the micro level of products and companies up to the macro level of countries and world regions. All suggested indicators take a life-cycle wide perspective on production and consumption activities. This set of indicators deals with the issue of the overall scale of the human production and consumption system. It can be regarded as the general indicator framework, based on which more specific indicators, for example, on different environmental impacts related to natural resource use, can be calculated.     

Estimating animal densities and home range in regions with irregular boundaries and holes: A lattice-based alternative to the kernel density estimator

Density estimates based on point processes are often restrained to regions with irregular boundaries or holes. We propose a density estimator, the lattice-based density estimator, which produces reasonable density estimates under these circumstances. The estimation process starts with overlaying the region with nodes, linking these together in a lattice and then computing the density of random walks of length k on the lattice. We use an approximation to the unbiased crossvalidation criterion to find the optimal walk length k. The technique is illustrated using walleye (Sander vitreus) radiotelemetry relocations in Lake Monroe, Indiana. We also use simulation to compare the technique to the traditional kernel density estimate in the situation where there are no significant boundary effects.     

Correction to: Urban water and food security in this century and beyond: Resource-smart cities and residents

The urban world population will increase from 3 to 8.5 thousand million in the 21st century. Cities become hot spots of both demand for water and global food and for disposed used water and nutrients. Sustainability requires that resource flows through our cities are co-managed and connected to agriculture. Reduced use of harmful chemicals in consumer products facilitates treatment to a quality that allows reuse/recycling of water and nutrients. A solid and liquid waste hierarchy can assist in ordering measures. A novel flexible water balance can guide city infrastructure and keep toilet water separate. New water-saving equipment can substantially reduce water use without losing personal comfort. The combination of these new approaches ascertains access to safe urban water, and that recovered nutrients from cities can substitute half of chemical fertilisers needed in food production. Now, thousands of new cities and suburbs provide unique opportunities to develop resource-smart and sustainable flows.