Mountain inhabitants’ perspectives on climate change,and its impacts and adaptation based on temporal and spatial characteristics analysis: a case study of Mt. Yulong Snow,Southeastern Tibetan Plateau

Based on the results of questionnaires issued to 202 local residents in the Mount Yulong Snow region, southeastern Tibetan Plateau, this study analyzes mountain residents’ perspectives on climate change and its impacts, their strategies to adapt to climate change impacts, including their willingness or otherwise to become ecological migrants, and some of the factors that influence their perceptions. Overall, local perception of climate change and its impacts corresponds to the patterns of observed climate change revealed by climate records. The intensity of climate change perception shows a highly significant correlation with residents’ age and villages’ elevation gradient. Most respondents did not believe that climate change affected crop growing and their yields, but the number of crop insect pests was thought to be increasing slightly and the crop growth period to be extending. Nearly all respondents believed that climate change seriously affects the mountain tourism economy, and their way of life and spiritual world. Persistent drought in recent years has forced mountain dwellers to adjust industrial structure, save water in the agricultural economy, participate in mountain tourism and work outside the home in order to adapt to climate change impacts and supplement their meager farm incomes. Additionally, residents expect to receive government compensation and relief to mitigate natural disaster damage.     

Making sense of natural hazard mitigation: Personal,social and cultural influences

Worldwide, recognition of the growing risk faced by communities in many countries from natural hazard events has stimulated interest in promoting people's capacity to co-exist with often beneficial, but occasionally hazardous, natural processes by encouraging the adoption of preparedness measures. Starting from recognition that levels of hazard preparedness are generally low, this paper examines how people's decisions about hazard mitigation derive from how they interpret the hazards, their relationship with the hazards and the sources of information about hazards. It describes how interpretive processes at the person (outcome expectancy), community (community participation and collective efficacy) and societal (empowerment and trust) level interact to predict levels of hazard preparedness. The data support the argument that the effectiveness of public hazard education strategies community preparedness can be increased by integrating risk management activities with community development strategies. The cross-cultural validity of the model is discussed using data from communities in New Zealand, Indonesia and Japan. Testing the model across countries and hazards (e.g. earthquakes, volcanic hazards) supports its all-hazards and cross-cultural applicability. The theoretical (e.g. identifying the degree to which the processes that underpin how people respond to hazard threats are culturally equivalent) and practical (e.g. providing a common basis for collaborative learning and research between countries and providing risk management agencies in different cultures with access to a wider range of risk management options) implications of the cross-cultural equivalence of the model are discussed.     

紧急疏散路径选择行为的实验研究

通过可控的人群疏散实验来分析紧急情况下的人群疏散规律。实验选取了建筑物出口位置、出口宽度设置作为实验变量开展。主要关注的参数有疏散时间和疏散速度。疏散人群在实验中自行选择认为最合适的路线。实验结果指出,在紧急情况下出口的距离和宽度共同影响了疏散的整体效率和疏散过程中的拥挤程度。女性的疏散行为值得关注,并且行人在疏散过程中,是分阶段决策疏散路径的,在仿真模型中可通过局部路径规划算法实现。疏散场景的布局对疏散效率的提高有较大影响,单纯增加局部出口的宽度以及缩短疏散路径对于提高整体疏散效率帮助不大。本研究成果对疏散模型的改进以及建筑设计有一定的指导意义。     

不同结构主扇扩散器局部阻力研究

在大主扇通风系统中多采用低压大流量风机,在风机出风段多安装扩散器,主要作用是降低出口动压提高风机静压而达到回收出风口断面动能的效果。重点分析风流在流经不同结构扩散器时的流场以及出口的动能损失,叙述了紊流过程中产生阻力的原因,实验测定风流在扩散器后的静压和出口断面的速度。通过数值模拟和实验证明:流线型扩散器局部阻力较小,且具有较高的动能回收率和扩散器效率。结果表明此内容研究对研究扩散器的最优设计参数和通风节能具有一定的指导作用。     

What affects perceptions of local residents toward protected areas? A case study from Kure Mountains National Park,Turkey

Local residents’ active participation is essential in protected areas to ensure achievement of conservation goals. One of the important steps for ensuring the active participation of local residents is to determine the perceptions and the factors that influence the perceptions of the local residents toward the protected area. In this context, the researchers of this study try to come up with the perception formed among the local residents toward the protected areas and especially toward Kure Mountains National Park (KMNP), the factors that would influence their perceptions and the ways how their perceptions are influenced. Multivariate linear regression was used to examine the putative influence of variables on perceptions toward protected areas. According to study results, the survey respondents have displayed a positive perception toward the protected areas in the world and in KMNP. It was determined that the respondents formed a positive perception from their economic, environmental and recreational interaction with KMNP. Also, the outcomes of this study showed that the perception developed by local residents toward the protected areas in the world and KMNP are influenced by gender, the level of satisfaction derived from the national park, duration of their residence in the national park, and that the perception that KMNP conservation are beneficial for the source values of the area, the current protection works in the world, as well as its impacts on their living conditions.     

A decomposition analysis of CO2 emissions: evidence from Malaysia’s tourism industry

The most important question raised from issues of environmental degradation is how economic activities bring about changes that will result in pollution. In the pursuit of tourism economy, contrary to popular interest, the travel and tourism (T&T) industry may cause environmental damages through the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from energy consumption in areas such as transportation and delivery of amenities. Given this major concern, this paper attempts to investigate the linkage between tourism and CO₂ emissions in Malaysia between 1981 and 2011. In particular, this study fills the knowledge gap by taking a closer look at the impact of international tourist arrivals on CO₂ emissions by sector – electricity and heat generation and transport. Results from the bound test method suggest that there exists a long-run relationship among the variables under consideration when CO₂ emissions become the dependent variable. The original result is similarly robust to alternatives, which are CO₂ emissions from sectors of electricity and heat generation and transport. Furthermore, the vector error correction model causality analysis indicates a causal relationship between tourism and CO₂ emissions by transport and electricity and heat generation. Subsequently, several tourism-related policies are drawn from these findings.     

Theorising pathways to sustainability

Using a Pathways approach, controversies over environmental and natural resource management are viewed as expressions of alternative, or competing, pathways to sustainability. This supports deeper understanding of the underlying causes of natural resource management controversies. The framework is composed of two elements: the STEPS (Social, Technological, and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Pathways approach and frame analysis. Many sustainable development dilemmas are played out in specific places and consequently, the Pathways approach is integrated with a place-based frame analysis. The resulting framework guides empirical investigation in place-based contexts. This theorising about sustainability science can be used to cast light on contested natural resource management issues, in this case mining in northern Sweden. By exposing the range of alternative Pathways to critical norms of sustainable development, we ascertain whether action alternatives are compatible with sustainable futures. The framework provides a way in which sustainability science can better understand the origins of natural resource management conflicts, characterise the positions of the actors involved, identify the potential for cooperation between stakeholders leading to policy resolution and judge what Pathways help or hinder the pursuit of sustainable development. In addition, it can enhance sustainability science by guiding integrative sustainability research at the project scale.     

Ecology-based tourism potential of Altindere Valley (Trabzon-Turkey) in regards to the natural,historical and cultural factors

The study was carried out in the Altindere Valley, which is an area appropriate for tourism activities with natural, historical and cultural values through all four seasons, with Yazlik Village in the centre and including the surrounding sites Cosandere village, Altindere village, hamlets (The Hamlets) and plateau areas. In this study, the goal is to set forth the ecological-based tourism potential in line with the concepts of intactness; conservation-use balance; and sustainability at natural, historical and cultural sites through a determined planning approach. In this respect, assessments have been made on the study area on the basis of the ‘Ecological Evaluation Method’, which has been developed for urban areas. Through the determination of quotients, classification and quantitative assessment of unweighted values were found for natural and cultural elements that show percentage (%) dispersion at the area (slope, exposition, soil, forest, vegetation, existing areas use, historical and cultural structure). ‘Weighted values’ were calculated by multiplying the determined factor weights and the unweighted inside grid values of the factors. With the results of grid values obtained, 10.58% Very Good, 48.82% Good, 19.7% Average, 8.82% Weak, and 12.05% Very Weak, ‘Ecological Based Tourism Potential Areas According to Natural, Historical and Cultural Factors’ have been identified.     

Land system architecture for urban sustainability: new directions for land system science illustrated by application to the urban heat island problem

ABSTRACT

Land system science (LSS) has expanded its research focus from the drivers of land-use and -cover change primarily in rural wildlands to include the social-environmental consequences of this change, urban areas, and sustainability practice. Land system architecture, interacting with the landscape mosaic approach in ecology, offers a special niche for the entry of rural areas and wildlands into urban sustainability research through examinations of the composition and configuration of ‘cityscapes’. Given the fine-grain data requirements of heterogeneous cityscapes, emergent land architecture-mosaic approaches have largely explored the urban heat island (UHI) problem, a topic that links LSS with the interests of urban climatology, engineering, and planning in city morphology or geometry. The subtle distinctions in the treatment of land configuration between land architecture-mosaic approaches and urban morphology-geometry approaches are identified. Several examples of the land architecture-mosaic approach illustrate the understanding gained about the UHI problem as well as its complementarity with morphology-geometry approaches. This understanding provides insights about the design of urban areas at the parcel to neighborhood scales to ameliorate extreme temperatures, an issue of increasing concern for urban areas worldwide and consistent with the sustainability problems identified by such international programs as Future Earth.     

Agricultural production and bird conservation in complex landscapes of the dry Chaco

The South American dry Chaco is a mosaic of woody vegetation and grasslands with high deforestation rates in recent decades. Considering forests and grasslands as the main natural habitats, we assessed the trade-offs between bird populations and agricultural production to compare the potential consequences of different land use strategies (‘sharing’, ‘sparing’, and intermediate) for populations of bird species sensitive to agriculture, while attaining a regional production target. We evaluated how populations responded to scenarios with different proportions of forest and grasslands, considering three reference states (100% forest, 80:20% and 50:50% forest and grasslands, respectively); and scenarios capable of meeting three after-farming scenarios, with land destined to reach a regional production target with three variations of forest:grasslands within spared land. We fitted curves to relate bird abundance to agricultural yield along a gradient of meat production intensity; and we classified bird species as ‘losers’ (if their populations were lower than the baseline population in the reference state, at any level of production) and ‘winners’ (if their current populations were higher than the baseline population). At the ‘current’ (c. 2010) level of regional agricultural production, we found a similar number of loser species maximized by land-sparing and land-sharing strategies; while intermediate strategies were the least favourable to balance production and bird populations. Under the most probable scenarios of increases in regional meat production, most loser bird species populations were maximized by a land-sparing strategy, suggesting that if meat production targets are going to increase in the region, this can be more efficiently achieved by combining well-protected forests and grasslands, and high-yielding mechanized agriculture (e.g. soybean). Our results highlight the importance of assessing all the important natural habitats (e.g. forests and grasslands) of a region to explore conservation strategies at a regional scale.