Stakeholder participation in municipal energy and climate planning – experiences from Sweden

This article analyses the factors influencing stakeholder participation in municipal energy and climate planning, together with stakeholder experiences of participation in such processes. The article presents findings from a survey of 60 Swedish municipalities and detailed case studies of energy and climate planning in five Swedish municipalities to explore which stakeholders are involved, how and why they are involved, and the impacts of participation on both stakeholder experiences. The results of this study provide insight into the role of stakeholders in municipal energy and climate planning. The study proceeds as follows: the Introduction is followed by a discussion of theoretical perspectives on stakeholder participation and energy and climate planning. The Methods used to conduct the study are presented, followed by Results and Analysis. In the subsequent Discussion, the authors propose a conceptual approach that may assist municipalities in development of energy and climate strategies. The Analysis and Discussion inform Conclusions in which the authors advocate early and active stakeholder engagement in energy and climate strategy planning and emphasise the possible utility of their conceptual approach in supporting stakeholder participation.     

公众个体如何参与环境治理？——路径选择及优化策略

公众个体是环境治理的重要主体之一,但缺乏参与路径与信息、参与形式单一等是公众参与程度偏低的重要原因。因此,研究公众参与路径与模式选择对丰富治理理论及提升公众参与效果具有重要意义。本文基于治理理论的三种研究观点及社会治理主体视角,将公众参与路径划分为政府维度的行政力量主导型、社会维度的第三部门力量主导型、基层自治力量主导型、传播和宣传力量主导型,以及自身力量主导型等五种路径;并从环境治理体系和参与路径网络中各主体的角色定位出发,进一步优化路径选择,提出线上及线下结合的赋权型参与策略,以期提高公众个体参与的主动性和有效性,促进治理理论的本土化发展。     

Evaluation of sustainable development strategies and policies: The need for more timely indicators

Indicators are commonly used as tools to identify and highlight socio‐economic and ecological trends and to assess progress towards sustainability. Different quality criteria can be considered for indicators. This paper focuses on the timeliness of indicators used in the evaluation of sustainable development strategies. The analysis is based on indicators included in four assessment reports of the sustainable development strategy of the European Union and three assessment reports of the national strategy of Finland. Furthermore, a web‐based national level indicator portal is analysed. The results show that the timeliness of indicators has generally not improved during the past decade and that indicators used in strategy evaluations have a time lag of approximately two years. It is suggested that more attention should be given to efforts to improve the timeliness of indicators in order to increase the effectiveness of the evaluations. More generally, it is suggested that greater emphasis should be put on the empirical research on actual use of indicators.     

旅游农业产品介绍期的营销策略探讨--以南京市为例

探讨我国旅游农业产品营销策略,对于缩小我国旅游农业发展水平与世界水平的差距,提高旅游农业产值和推动旅游农业日益走向成熟具有十分重要的意义.依据我国旅游农业发展的现状,并参照旅游产品生命周期理论认为,我国旅游农业产品总体上仍处于介绍期.分析了介绍期旅游农业产品的营销特点,并依据这些特点,探讨了南京市旅游农业产品的营销策略,以期为其它相似地区发展旅游农业产品提供参考.     

Climate Changea Impacts and Adaptation Strategies in Kenya

To determine the climate changes that are due to natural variability and those due to human activities is quite challenging, just like delineating the impacts. Moreover, it is equally difficult to asce...     

Economics-Oriented Discourse Strategies in Environmental Advocacy

Scholars and practitioners are engaging in a fierce debate over the implications of using market-based discourse in communicating environmental problems and solutions. However, there has been less attention to exactly who is using such economic discourse and how it is combined with other discourses. Prior researchers have proposed tripartite frameworks for categorizing discursive strategies around pro-economic, anti-economic, and non-economic metaphors, which are here applied to eight U.S. environmental advocacy organizations’ press releases. An original text-analytic dictionary of pro-economic, anti-economic, and non-economic discourse is used to distinguish between the proposed discourse strategies. This analysis indicates that economics-oriented discourse strategies are more complex and varied than previously suggested. A more nuanced framework is proposed.     

Grazing effects on sustainable semiarid rangeiands in Patagonia: The state and dynamics of the soil seed bank

The composition of the germinable seed bank was studied in four vegetation states of the Festuca pallescens grasslands in semiarid Patagonia during four years. The aim of this study was to test whether above-ground vegetation states resulting from grazing exclusion or different combinations of grazing and topography are reflected in different states of the germinable seed bank. The size of the total and dicot germinable seed bank was positively related to the total cover in each state. Dicots dominated all germinable seed bank states. Carex patagonica increased its cover as well as its germinable seed bank under grazing disturbance. Grazing did not reduce the germinable seed bank of perennial grasses in uplands where the grazing pressure is lower as compared with slopes. In slopes the germinable seed bank of perennial grasses was significantly reduced by grazing. A reduction of the length of the grazing period in late spring increases the germinable seed bank of perennial grasses both in upland and slope. These results are interpreted in the frame of a model of management techniques where grazing exclusion during late spring and late summer increases the seed bank of the perennial grasses and promotes their establishment in uplands. The artificial addition of seeds of perennial grasses and the manipulation of the soil surface in order to increase "safe sites" appear as management alternatives that deserve further evaluation to improve plant reestablishment in slopes.     

热带亚热带土壤氮素反硝化研究进展

热带亚热带独特的土壤性质可能使得反硝化机理有别于温带土壤.文章综述了热带亚热带地区土壤氮素生物反硝化的研究进展,试图更好地了解该地区土壤反硝化在全球氮（N）循环以及在全球环境变化和生态系统响应互作中的角色.热带亚热带土壤反硝化强度普遍较温带地区弱,且随着土地利用方式和耕作管理措施的不同而呈现较大的时空变异性.影响土壤水分状况和土壤碳（C）、N 转化特性和速率的因素即为区域和农田尺度上的反硝化影响因素.湿润型热带亚热带土壤由于含有丰富的氧化物而致使土壤氧化还原势较高,这也是导致该地区土壤反硝化势较温带地区较低的关键土壤因素之-.然而土壤pH 值不是该地区土壤反硝化势较低的主要限制因素.有机C 矿化过程较土壤全氮含量和土壤C/N 比在决定湿润型亚热带土壤反硝化势方面更为重要.愈来愈多的证据表明热带亚热带土壤反硝化的生态环境效应不同于温带地区,热带亚热带地区土壤反硝化对全球变暖的贡献应综合考虑其对其它温室气体（如CH4,CO2）排放和氮沉降的影响.热带亚热带土壤生态系统具有-些防止土壤氮素反硝化损失的机制和保氮策略.然而,热带亚热带生态系统对全球变化的响应机制及其生物地球化学调控机制仍然不清楚,这些研究对于反硝化和其它同时发生的氮转化过程模型的精确构建至关重要.     

中国环境监管的需求分析及对策建议

科学高效的环境监管体系的构建是防范突发环境风险的前提和关键,本文对突发性环境事件进行需求分析,提出构建完善的环境监管体系的可行性建议。从法律法规的支撑,各级协调与指挥机构的建立,应急救援资源的储备,监控预警网络的优化以及监管模式的完善的角度,建立完善的监管体系,把各个环节有机联系,实现事态有效控制,减少事故损失,确保人民生命、财产安全和灾后恢复。     

Large scale parameter study of an individual-based model of clonal plant with volunteer computing

Understanding clonal strategies (i.e. the ability of plants to reproduce vegetatively) is particularly important to explain species persistence. A clonal individual may be considered as a network of interconnected ramets that colonizes space. Resources in this network can be shared and/or stored. We developed an individual-based model (IBM) to simulate the growth of an individual clonal plant. Typically a realistic IBM requires a large set of parameters to adequately represent the complexity of the clonal plant growth. Simulations in the literature are often limited to small subsets of the parameter space and are guided by the a priori knowledge and with heuristic aims of the researcher. The aim of this paper was to demonstrate the benefit of volunteer computing in computational ecology to systematically browse the parameter space and analyze the simulation results in order to draw rigorous conclusions. To be specific, we simulated clonal plant growth using nine growth rules related to the metabolic process, plant architecture, resource sharing and storage and nineteen input parameters. We chose 2-4 values per input parameter which corresponded to 20 millions of combinations tested through volunteer computing. We used three criteria to evaluate plant performance: plant total resource, ramet production and maximum length of one branch. The 1% top-performing plants were sorted according to these criteria. Plant total resource and ramet production were correlated while considering the top-performing plants. The maximum length of one branch was independent from the other two performance traits. We detected two processes promoting at least one of the plant performance traits: (i) a relatively high metabolic gain (high photosynthetic activity and low production cost for new growth units), a low resource storage and long integration distance for resource sharing; (ii) short spacer lengths and the predominance of elongation of existing branches over branching. Interactive effects between parameter values were demonstrated for more than half of the input parameters. Best performance was reached for plants with slightly different combinations of values for these parameters (i.e. different strategies) rather than a single one (i.e. unique strategy). This modeling approach with volunteer computing enabled us to proceed to large-scale virtual experiments which provided a new quality of insight into ecological processes linked with clonal plant growth.