Using many-objective trade-off analysis to help dams promote economic development,protect the poor and enhance ecological health

Allocating water to different uses implies trading off the benefits perceived by different sectors. This paper demonstrates how visualising the trade-offs implied by the best performing water management options helps balance water use benefits and find sustainable solutions. The approach consists of linking a water resources model that can simulate many management policies and track diverse measures of system performance, to a many-objective evolutionary optimisation algorithm. This generates the set of Pareto-optimal management alternatives for several simultaneous objectives. The relative performance of these efficient management alternatives is then visualised as trade-off curves or surfaces using visual analytic plots. Visually assessing trade-offs between benefits helps select policies that achieve a decision-maker-selected balance between different metrics of system performance. We apply this approach to a multi-reservoir water resource system in Brazil's semi-arid Jaguaribe basin where current water allocation procedures favour sectors with greater political power and technical knowledge. The case study identifies promising reservoir operating policies by exploring trade-offs between economic, ecological and livelihood benefits as well as traditional hydropower generation, irrigation and water supply. Results show optimised policies can increase allocations to downstream uses while increasing median land availability for the poorest farmers by 25%.     

Introduction: Natural Capital, Poverty and Development

Can development occur without running down natural resources in an unsustainable way? The concept of natural capital offers a way for those with divergent views (ecologists and economists for example) to discuss this difficult question. Four aspects are examined in detail. First, the role of institutions in facilitating sustainable development is discussed, with examples from forestry. Then examples from (eco)tourism illustrate the potential – and limits – of applicability of the concept. Measurement issues for natural capital are then considered in detail. Finally, the concept is applied to agricultural strategy in fragile lands, where the tradeoff between the environment and development is likely to be most severe. Some implications for future research and policy are developed.     

Production, Consumption and the World Summit on Sustainable Development

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), world leaders agreed that eliminating unsustainable production and consumption is one of the three overriding objectives of sustainable development. Achieving that objective should have been a major priority for the WSSD Plan of Implementation. Increases in consumption and production over the past decade were largely responsible for the worsening environmental and social trends. Unfortunately, the negotiators of the Plan paid insufficient attention to the lessons from 10 years of discussions about the concepts, the available policies and tools and their effectiveness, the impacts of those policies on developing countries, and the political commitment of countries in an era of globalization. Despite a promising proposal for a new ten-year work programme aimed at bridging the gap implementing the Agenda 21 commitments from Rio, Summit negotiators produced barely more than a muted echo of recommendations from the past which have yet to be taken seriously enough by the world's leaders in a comprehensive intergovernmental strategy. In the ten-year review of progress to achieve sustainable production and consumption (SPAC), governments quickly skipped past the critical work of examining why things are getting worse, avoiding the task of identifying the obstacles (which in some cases were themselves) and in turn avoiding the commitment to time-bound measurable targets. If nothing else, the WSSD demonstrated that a global strategy to achieve SPAC will come not from a UN consensus of world leaders but from a strategic alliance of responsible governments, civil society and others with a vision beyond the next election cycle.     

区域持续发展与地理信息系统的协调作用

环境与发展是当今人类社会所面临的两大主题,已引起各国政府和国际社会的广泛关注。持续发展代表了一种新的发展战略和我们从事经济活动的新方法。地理信息系统技术具有综合各种社会、经济和环境因素的能力,为科学决策和实现区域持续发展提供了一种强有力的工具。同时,地理信息系统为在区域持续发展中利用生态学方法、时序分析和科学决策提供了强有力的技术支持。在我国,区域持续发展已引起了越来越多的研究机构与政府部门的重视。应该注意到,实现这一目标离不开地理信息系统技术的支持。本文主要讨论地理信息系统对区域持续发展的作用和探讨建立区域持续发展的地理信息系统的理论模式。     

SEVERAL SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS ON ECOLOGICAL SAFETY AND AGRICULTURAL SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN WEST CHINA

Ｓｉｎｃｅ 1997ｗｈｅｎＣｈｉｎｅｓｅＰｒｅｓｉｄｅｎｔＪｉａｎｇＺｅｍｉｎａｄｖｏｃａｔｅｄｔｈｅｒｅｃｏｎｓｔｒｕｃｔｉｏｎｏｆａｂｅａｕ ｔｉｆｕｌａｒｅａｏｆｔｈｅＮｏｒｔｈｗｅｓｔ,ａｈｅａｔｅｄｄｒｉｖｅｏｆｅｃｏ ｅｎｖｉｒｏｎｍｅｎｔａｌｃｏｎｓｔｒｕｃｔｉｏｎｗｉｔｈｔｈｅｔｈｅｍｅｓｏｆ“ｅｃｏｌｏｇｉｃａｌａｇｒｉｃｕｌｔｕｒｅ”ａｎｄ“ｅｃｏｌｏｇｉｃａｌｒｅｈａｂｉｌｉｔａｔｉｏｎ”ｈａｓｂｅｅｎｌａｕｎｃｈｅｄ .Ｈｏｗｉｓｔｈｅｗｅｓｔｅｒｎａｇｒｉｃｕｌｔｕｒｅｔｏｍｅ…     

我国东部沿海地区差距状况以及经济低谷地区的崛起

我国是区域发展差异巨大的大国之一，存在着多种尺度的区域发展差异。从中小尺工区域差异的角度，分析了我国东部沿海地区内部发展差距扩大趋势有其影响，可以看出，东部沿海地区在经济快速发展的同时，也存在着经济相对落后的低谷地区。沿海经济低谷地区分布相对集中于香港－－珠江三角洲、上海－长江三角洲、京津唐－环渤海三个经济隆起带之间，处于省际交界处。按照类型可以分为黄泛平原区、丘陵山区和沿海库区。东部经济低谷地区区位条件相对比较落后，交通可达性较差，产业结构单一，城市化水平发展严重滞后，社会经济发展比较缓慢，这些不利因素制约着该地区经济和社会的发展。根据崛起机制和途径，低谷地区发展呵以分为资源转换型、非国有经济推动型和外资推动型。建议国家修筑贯穿沿海经济低谷地区的东部沿海铁路大通道，降低沿海经济低谷地区设定标准，加快农业产业化发展，对特殊贫困地区实行特殊优惠政策，从而促进东部沿海地区经济协调发展。     

中国农业发展过程中的生物多样性影响及一体化途径

改革开放以来，我国农业得到了迅速的发展，但是以稳步提高农产品供给的农业发展模式在迅速促进农业发展的同时却忽视了对农业生态环境的保护，带来了严重的生态环境问题，给生物多样性造成了巨大的负面影响；生物多样性的减少和生态环境的恶化又危及可持续农业发展，因此，农业需要寻求新的发展模式。本文对农业发展对生物多样性的影响进行了理论与实证分析，论证了生物多样性对实现可持续农业发展的支持作用，提出了用生态农业改造传统农业，从而实现农业发展与保护生物多样性的双赢。     

Assessing Tourists' Preferences for Recreational and Environmental Management Programs Central to the Sustainable Development of a Tourism Area in the Dominican Republic

The main goals of this paper are to (1) highlight the need for sustainable development as a means to conserve natural resources and the environment, which often represent the basis for tourism development, (2) illustrate the importance of assessing tourists' preferences when designing programs and policies central to the sustainable development of a tourism area, and (3) study tourists' interests in sustainable development. With these goals in mind, 180 tourists from Europe, Latin America, and North America were interviewed as they were leaving the resort region of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. The main factors that they considered when deciding where to go on a beach vacation were evaluated, as well as their preferences regarding four programs designed to improve recreational and environmental management of the area. Preferences by tourists were elicited both in monetary and non-monetary terms. This paper reports the non-monetary analysis of the data. The results indicate that clean ocean water and beaches, quality of services, and price are the most important factors considered by the respondents before deciding to come to Punta Cana. It was not possible to obtain reliable responses on how tourists perceived the four programs contributing to the sustainable development of Punta Cana. Nevertheless, they expressed high interest and willingness to pay for two of these programs: the outdoor aquarium and the Water Management Program. The results reported in this paper show how important it is to elicit tourists' preferences of programs central to the sustainable development of tourism areas since these preferences can drive managers' development decisions in more sustainable directions.     

淮南市持续发展的生态安全评价

淮南市是一所典型的煤炭资源型城市。是建立在资源、环境、经济和社会等子系统上的复杂系统。是城市发展与资源和环境保护之间矛盾较为突出的区域。主要表现在：城市布局不合理。城市整体结构不完善；人类进行煤炭资源开发利用过程中对生态和景观产生了干扰和破坏。从而造成其生态结构、功能的破坏以及量观的破碎化。本研究从压力-状态-响应三方面构建了淮南市生态安全评价指标体系。指标体系包括目标层、系统层、要素层和指标层。并给出了计算各评价指标值之闻均衡度的模型。量后结合RS、GIS技术实施该评价模型。对淮南市为实例进行了分析和评价。评价结果与实际情况基本符合。     

用蒸压法制备新型粉煤灰水泥的研究

以粉煤灰、石灰为主要原料，经混合料制备、成型、蒸压、低温焙烧、粉磨工艺制备的新型水泥既具有普通水泥的胶凝特性，又同时具有水化热低、后期强度高的特点，对过程工艺参数、物料配比对新型水泥的质量影响进行了研究，该工艺有望为粉煤灰在水泥行业的规模化利用提供技术支持。