Planning for global environmental change in Bangkok's informal settlements

Government agencies in cities across Asia recognise that municipalities must take steps to adapt to projected climate changes if people and places are to be kept above water. This paper focuses on planning for climate change in Bangkok because it ranks among the top 10 port cities vulnerable to climate change related flooding. It is also understood that the most devastating impacts of climate change will be suffered by the city's most vulnerable residents: the poor. Not only do impoverished people occupy physically vulnerable space, such as riverbanks, but they are also the least equipped to recover from the disruption of their livelihoods.

Several scholars have identified “institutional traps” that prevent the Thai government from successfully aiding poor and marginalised flood victims in the past. These include poor coordination, lack of monitoring and evaluation, rigidity, crisis management and elite capture. Lebel, Manuta, and Garden (2011, 56) Lebel, L., J.B. Manuta, and P. Garden. 2011. “Institutional Traps and Vulnerability to Changes in Climate and Flood Regimes in Thailand.” Regional Environmental Change 11 (1): 45–58.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] pose the crucial question: “How have individuals – from local community leaders through to national level politicians and bureaucrats – successfully influenced policy and programmes to avoid institutional traps and improve adaptive capacities to climate change?”

In this paper, we begin to address this question through examining emergent methods of “community based adaptation” and reviewing case studies of adaptation action from other vulnerable communities in the Global South. These lessons – such as overcoming institutional rigidity and avoiding elite capture – are important for Bangkok and other cities in the Global South that face many different challenges by global environmental change.     

韩国济州岛火山及其与中国五大连池、雷琼火山的对比

论述了韩国济州岛各类型火山与熔岩隧道的地质特征,与中国五大连池、雷琼火山进行对比,指出其各自具有的特色。简述了济州岛世界自然遗产、世界生物圈保护区与世界地质公园概况,并对世界地质公园研究、博物馆建设与室内外石文化解说进行了讨论。     

金丁剖面MIS3阶段黄土地层记录的温湿气候特征初步研究

通过对黄土高原中北部金丁镇马兰黄土中磁化率、Rb/Sr、全铁含量(TFe)与化学蚀变指数(CIA)等气候指标测试分析,并结合光释光年代学数据,着重地探讨了金丁剖面黄土地层记录的MIS3阶段气候变化特征。研究表明,金丁剖面MIS3阶段总体气候特征温湿,冷暖气候频繁波动,可进一步划分为5个阶段:51.6~44.9ka B.P.,弱温湿;42.0~39.9ka B.P.,中等温湿;37.4~27.8ka B.P.,相对强温湿;以及44.9~42.0ka B.P.和39.9~37.4ka B.P.两个冷干期。金丁剖面MIS3温湿气候成因机制的初步探讨认为北半球太阳辐射量增加导致的增温作用更直接,而高纬驱动与低纬过程耦合作用机制尚待开展进一步研究工作。     

A Water Yield‐Oriented Practical Approach for Multifunctional Forest Management and its Application in Dryland Regions of China

Mountainous forest areas are vitally important for water supply in dryland regions which suffer from high erosion risk and severe water shortage. Massive afforestation, mainly for erosion control, may reduce the water yield and threaten local water supply security. Moreover, many over‐dense forests due to a strict logging ban policy have produced remarkably negative impacts for both forests (e.g., low timber quality, restricted natural regeneration, and high stand instability) and water yield. To satisfy the rapidly increasing demands on water supply and other services, a practical approach for managing forest stands in a multifunctional way, which particularly addresses water yielding, is urgently required. For this purpose, we integrated the existing knowledge and experience, designed an “ideal” stand structure to represent multifunctional forest (MFF) and determined its key parameters (a ground coverage of >0.7, a canopy density around 0.7, and an H/DBH ratio (tree height [m] to the diameter at breast height [cm]) of <0.7). Moreover, a decision process for MFF stand management was recommended as: (1) investigating the site quality; (2) identifying the site‐specific main forest functions; (3) quantifying the stand structure; (4) diagnosing the stand structure by comparing with the “ideal” one; and (5) arranging the functions/structure‐oriented management measures. In this way, the water‐yielding function can be improved and meanwhile other forest functions can be promoted.     

Bridging the gaps for global sustainable development: A quantitative analysis

Global human progress occurs in a complex web of interactions between society, technology and the environment as driven by governance and infrastructure management capacity among nations. In our globalizing world, this complex web of interactions over the last 200 years has resulted in the chronic widening of economic and political gaps between the haves and the have-nots with consequential global cultural and ecosystem challenges. At the bottom of these challenges is the issue of resource limitations on our finite planet with increasing population. The problem is further compounded by pleasure-driven and poverty-driven ecological depletion and pollution by the haves and the have-nots respectively. These challenges are explored in this paper as global sustainable development (SD) quantitatively; in order to assess the gaps that need to be bridged.Although there has been significant rhetoric on SD with very many qualitative definitions offered, very few quantitative definitions of SD exist. The few that do exist tend to measure SD in terms of social, energy, economic and environmental dimensions. In our research, we used several human survival, development, and progress variables to create an aggregate SD parameter that describes the capacity of nations in three dimensions: social sustainability, environmental sustainability and technological sustainability. Using our proposed quantitative definition of SD and data from relatively reputable secondary sources, 132 nations were ranked and compared.Our comparisons indicate a global hierarchy of needs among nations similar to Maslow's at the individual level. As in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, nations that are struggling to survive are less concerned with environmental sustainability than advanced and stable nations. Nations such as the United States, Canada, Finland, Norway and others have higher SD capacity, and thus, are higher on their hierarchy of needs than nations such as Nigeria, Vietnam, Mexico and other developing nations. To bridge such gaps, we suggest that global public policy for local to global governance and infrastructure management may be necessary. Such global public policy requires holistic development strategies in contrast to the very simplistic north–south, developed–developing nations dichotomies.     

Optimisation of reduction of global CO2 emission based on a simple model of the carbon cycle

A simple model has been designed to describe the interaction of climate and biosphere. Carbon dioxide, understood as a major emitted gas, leads to a change of global climate. Economic interpretation of the model is based on the maximisation of the global CO₂ cumulative emissions. The two most important profiles of emission have been obtained: optimal and multi-exponential suboptimal profiles, each displaying different characteristics. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Regional analysis of global change impacts: Concepts, tools and first results

The paper introduces an approach for the analysis of global change impacts on river basins or regions. This approach is quite general and can be transferred to any region or river basin of interest on earth. The first application of the approach was in the Elbe river basin, with primary focus on the hydrologic model part and on the integration of crop growth and nitrogen dynamics. Finally, concepts for the integration of socio-economic aspects in the analysis are introduced.     

Signal-transfer modeling for regional assessment of forest responses to environmental changes in the southeastern United States

Stochastic transfer of information in a hierarchy of simulators is offered as a conceptual approach for assessing forest responses to changing climate and air quality across 13 southeastern states of the USA. This assessment approach combines geographic information system and Monte Carlo capabilities with several scales of computer modeling for southern pine species and eastern deciduous forests. Outputs, such as forest production, evapotranspiration and carbon pools, may be compared statistically for alternative equilibrium or transient scenarios providing a statistical basis for decision making in regional assessments. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Climatic Implications of Revised IPCC Emissions Scenarios, the Kyoto Protocol and Quantification of Uncertainties

In December 1997, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) adopted the Kyoto Protocol. This paper describes a framework that models the climatic implications of this international agreement, using Monte Carlo simulations and the preliminary Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emissions scenarios (SRES). Emissions scenarios (including intervention scenarios), climate sensitivity, and terrestrial carbon sink are the key sampled model parameters. This framework gives prior probability distributions to these parameters and, using a simple climate model, posterior distributions of global temperature change are determined for the future. Our exercise showed that the Kyoto Protocol's effectiveness will be mostly dependent upon which SRES world evolves. In some worlds the Protocol decreases the warming considerably but in others it is almost irrelevant. We exemplified this approach with a current FCCC issue, namely “hot air”. This modelling framework provides a probabilistic assessment of climate policies, which can be useful for decision-makers involved in global climate change management. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

区域分异视角下进城居民再迁意愿分析

本文利用浙江、河南、四川三省960份已从农村迁移到城镇的居民的入户调查数据,建立二元Logistic回归模型进行验证,分析居民再迁移倾向。研究结果表明:(1)从描述性统计看,69.69%已进城居民不愿再迁,主要是生活原因,而30.31%的居民愿意再迁,主要是经济原因。(2)从三省总样本上看,一是女性较男性有更强的迁移意愿。二是年龄对再次迁移意愿有负向显著影响,年龄越大的进城居民更倾向"安土重迁"。三是家庭类型中三代同堂较单身家庭有更强的迁移意愿,因为养老难、子女教育难。四是手工业工人较村组干部更不愿意迁移,技能优势使其在城里更有保障。五是家庭年总收入对再迁意愿有正向显著影响。六是浙江、四川与河南三地的差异显著,因为三地分属于我国东中西部,社会经济、居民收入和文化观念存在显著差异。(3)从分省比较上看,一是性别、打工年限、家庭类型在浙江省和四川省模型中均有显著影响,但方向相反。二是工作类型在三省都有一定的影响,但存在差异。三是家庭年总收入在河南省不显著,而在四川省和浙江省均是正向显著。四是搬迁到城镇的年数在河南省是正向显著,而在浙江省和四川省是负向显著。五是浙江省和四川省模型都说明对政府越满意,居民越不愿意迁移。基于以上研究结论,本文认为在推进以人为核心的新型城镇化进程中,政府应发挥重要的引导作用,关注已进城居民对经济、生活、教育、社会保障等方面的合理需求,重视不同区域社会经济和文化观念的差异性,健全人口迁移的相关体制,落实各项相关保障政策。