Older rural women living with drought

ABSTRACT

Women’s experiences of drought are often made invisible particularly in terms of their long-term effects. Drought differs from other “natural disasters” in that droughts are, by definition, experienced over an extended time. This means those experiencing drought do so as they age, with elderly cohorts particularly vulnerable. As such, there is a need to better understand the longitudinal needs and experiences of women living with drought. This study investigates the experiences of drought for 15 Australian women aged over 70, over a period of 12 years. Longitudinal qualitative free-text comments written by the oldest cohort of women in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health were subject to a thematic analysis. Findings indicate that experiences of drought have a relationship to women’s ability to age in ways they may have hoped. Themes of Work and Physical activity, Connection to place, and, Service access were prominent in women’s comments. These results demonstrate that place is an important aspect in the experience of ageing, that work and physical activity often intensify during drought for elderly people who might otherwise be expecting to retire, and that drought presents particular challenges for older women in terms of access to services. This study highlights the complex interactions of living and ageing in drought for Australian women.     

基于客源市场实证分析的乡村旅游发展模式研究——以成都市三圣乡为例

本文选择成都富有特色的乡村旅游个案调查,对客源市场采用Likert Scale方法和SPSS软件分析,对如何凸显地方特色,构建“乡村—生态—民俗文化”的乡村旅游发展模式,推动乡村旅游可持续发展,提出了现实指导建议.     

The Green Village project: a rural community's journey towards sustainability

In the South West of the UK, a growing number of rural and urban communities are exploring various pathways to a more sustainable living. The village of Belstone is among these pioneers of change through its Green Village project. It is a relatively affluent community and it has been a major challenge to engage people that are reticent to change their lifestyle and suspicious of the motives of the initiators. Based on a process of action research, this paper explores the attitudes and perceptions towards sustainability and how they influenced the people's engagement. We demonstrate that the partnership was effective in enabling the villagers engaged in the project to take control over the process. Behaviour changes were reported by the villagers actively engaged with the initiative. The Green Village did not “snowball” to the entire community; however, many of those who chose not to engage associated the word “Green” with traits that they did not identify with.     

Contemporary and traditional localism: a conceptualisation of rural local food

The increasingly popular local food movement in the US has experienced wide-scale buy-in on behalf of the general public as well as in academic arenas. However, there have been recent efforts to critique this movement, typically for being inequitable and unfairly geared towards those with above-average financial means. In this article, I examine local food efforts and present a new conceptualisation of food localism. While geographically localised food consumption activities are taking place, some have ideological labels attached to them, whereas others do not. What I have termed contemporary and traditional localisms exist in the same physical but different social space. The contemporary local is represented by current local food initiatives and corresponding aspirations to support local farmers and to promote sustainability through local purchasing behaviour. The traditional local, on the other hand, is similar in that it represents food growing activities that are in close geographical proximity to consumption, but lacks the motivation associated with the contemporary local's programmatic literature; instead, it is guided by a motivation to obtain fresh and affordable food. I substantiate the contemporary/traditional localism framework with qualitative fieldwork findings from Grafton County, New Hampshire, USA, and describe the practical as well as conceptual implications of this framework.     

佳木斯市农村环境问题研究

畜禽养殖业污染、生活垃圾随意堆放、农用化学物质、农用塑料制品污染、工业经济发展和城市化扩张对农村环境产生破坏是佳木斯市环境污染的主要表现。资金匮乏、法律制度不健全、农民环保意识不强、农业技术发展与环境保护不同步、各部门沟通较少是造成农村环境污染的主要原因。通过加强法制建设、改变农业生产模式、走生态农业发展之路、加大资金投入和宣传教育力度、部门间协调,可有效解决农村环境污染问题。     

滇西北农村生活能源使用现状及生物质能源开发利用研究——以兰坪县和香格里拉县为例

少数民族地区农村能源建设是中国能源可持续发展的一个特殊领域,是资源节约型社会和社会主义新农村建设的重要内容。论文以滇西北的兰坪县和香格里拉县的能源使用情况作为研究对象,通过实地调查,分析了在经济仍处于贫困状态的少数民族聚居的西南山区生活能源利用的特点:兰坪县和香格里拉薪柴的使用分别达85%和98%,而以太阳能、沼气、水能为代表的可再生能源的使用仅有7.0%和1.8%,由此产生了一系列的环境问题。论文对促进现代生物质能源的开发利用提出建议:制定农村能源资源开发利用规划,健全能源政策体系,争取国际经济和技术支持等。     

福建农村生态环境现状与评价指标体系构建

在人口不断增加和经济大规模发展的双重压力下,农村生态环境的形势日益严峻。本文分析了福建农村与农业发展过程中突出的生态环境问题,归结了造成农村生态环境破坏的原因;依据农村生态环境的内涵和特征、农村环境保护理论、农业生态环境保护理论构建了福建农村生态环境指标体系,并利用层次分析法确定了指标权重。该指标体系的建立能够为福建农村生态环境进行定量测度和评价以及为农村生态环境预警系统奠定基础;进一步深刻了解当前福建农村生态环境的现状,为福建农业和农村社会的发展增加深度认识和思考。     

上海新农村建设中生活污水污染现状及处理对策

概述了上海农村生活污水排放现状及对附近河道水环境造成的影响,通过分析当前农村生活污水集中处理和分散处理的利弊和条件、常用的农村生活污水就地处理技术以及归纳总结上海已投入使用就地处理技术,进一步阐述上海农村生活污水就地处理应当因地制宜、综合考虑。最后从农村环境管理和环保法律的层面,以及处理技术角度,提出了应根据建设社会主义新农村的要求和上海郊区农村当地的实际情况,进行上海郊区农村生活污水治理的总体思路。     

Role of rural solid waste management in non-point source pollution control of Dianchi Lake catchments, China

In recent years, with control of the main municipal and industrial point pollution sources and implementation of cleaning for some inner pollution sources in the water body, the discharge of point source pollution decreased gradually, while non-point source pollution has become increasingly distressing in Dianchi Lake catchments. As one of the major targets in non-point source pollution control, an integrated solid waste controlling strategy combined with a technological solution and management system was proposed and implemented based on the waste disposal situation and characteristics of rural solid waste in the demonstration area. As the key technology in rural solid waste treatment, both centralized plant-scale composting and a dispersed farmer-operated waste treating system showed promise in rendering timely benefits in efficiency, large handling capacity, high quality of the end product, as well as good economic return. Problems encountered during multi-substrates co-composting such as pathogens, high moisture content, asynchronism in the decomposition of different substrates, and low quality of the end product can all be tackled. 92.5% of solid waste was collected in the demonstration area, while the treating and recycling ratio reached 87.9%, which prevented 32.2 t nitrogen and 3.9 t phosphorus per year from entering the water body of Dianchi Lake after implementation of the project.     

Opportunities and challenges for development of urbanization in Western China

Urban and rural dual structure in Western China is obvious.The economic development of the central cities is relatively quick while that of the rural areas is lagging behind.The speeding up of urbanization contributes to the intensively uncoordinated development of urban and rural areas.Besides,the eco-fragile environment,shortage of available water resources,adverse geographic location,and relatively backward social economy restrict the development of urbanization in Western China.However,Western China also has the advantages of backwardness.This paper analyzes the present situation and development trend of urbanization in Western China.The results show that Western China has basically formed a development pattern with"industry promotes agriculture and urban leads to village".Therefore,combined with the present situation of Western China,this paper describes and analyzes the opportunities and challenges that may appear in the process of urbanization in Western China,puts forward the development pattern in which urban and rural areas can gain mutual support and co-development,and provides related recommendations.