河北坝上与坝下不同土地利用类型土壤入渗特征及其影响因素

为查明河北省坝上与坝下不同土地利用类型土壤入渗能力,选择张北县(坝上风蚀区)和阳原县(坝下水蚀区)作为典型研究区,采用微型圆盘入渗仪测量土壤入渗特性,并分析其主要影响因素。研究结果表明:(1)阳原县不同土地利用类型土壤渗透性能表现为:高盖度草地>低盖度草地>耕地>林地,张北县表现为:草地>耕地>灌木林地>防护林地;(2)不同入渗模型拟合度之间存在显著差异,其中Philip模型拟合效果最佳;(3)土壤初始入渗速率、稳定入渗速率、稳定入渗时间与容重呈极显著负相关关系,而与总孔隙度均呈极显著正相关关系。结果表明,该区草地土壤入渗能力最强,后期开展生态工程建设时应更加重视草地涵养水源的作用。     

南京城郊不同土地利用类型农业土壤多环芳烃污染特征及风险评价

以南京市城郊不同土地利用类型的农业土壤(水田、菜地和林地)为研究对象,测定了16种PAHs的含量.结果表明,苊烯(Acy)在所有土壤样本中均未被检出,南京城郊农业土壤15种ω(PAHs)的范围在24.49～925.54μg·kg^-1之间,平均值为259.88μg·kg^-1.PAHs含量由高到低依次为：林地>水田>菜地,总体上以高环PAHs(HMW)含量为主.不同土壤理化性质对PAHs的影响表明：土壤有机碳(TOC)和黏粒(clay)含量与PAHs存在一定的相关性,pH和全氮(TN)与PAHs无明显相关性.毒性当量法和CSI指数法表明,南京城郊农业土壤中PAHs生态风险较小,但是林地中应当给予一定的重视.增量终身癌症风险(ILCR)进行健康风险评价表明,儿童健康的威胁风险略大于成人,林地的总的致癌风险(CR)明显高于菜地和水田,仍处于可接受的范围内.对成人进行了蒙特卡洛模拟表明,确定性健康风险的风险分析低估了PAHs的健康风险.敏感性分析结果表明,对CR总方差影响最大的输入参数是暴露频率EF(占50.7%).     

北京市垃圾问题的现状及对策

介绍了北京市近年垃圾的产量、成分、热值及其变化情况。并对北京市垃圾处理所遵循的方针以及为处理垃圾做的工作,垃圾处理项目建设的进展情况作了简要介绍。目前北京市垃圾处理率约40%,到2000年可达到60%以上,处理垃圾要逐步达到以焚烧和实现资源化为主,适当发展堆肥处理,尽量减少填埋处理的垃圾量。文中另就垃圾的资源化、产业化发表了意见。为了加快处理垃圾、减轻政府负担,应逐步建立处理垃圾的产业,并逐步实现社会化,为此建议政府应制定相应的优惠政策。      

开发区土地集约利用评价——以辽宁炮台经济开发区为例

综合调查分析大连市炮台开发区土地集约利用现状,建立土地集约利用评价指标体系,利用特尔斐法确定指标权重,进而计算土地集约利用度,并分别从扩展潜力、结构潜力、强度潜力、管理潜力四个方面计算土地集约利用强度。综合分析土地集约利用度与土地集约利用潜力强度计算结果表明,炮台开发区土地集约度分值达到86．16％,土地集约利用水平较高,土地利用强度潜力较小。未来土地利用潜力主要为扩展潜力,不存在管理潜力,从而对炮台开发区未来发展土地集约利用提出相应建议与措施。     

Testing The Pearl Hypothesis: Natural resources and trust

Do natural resources reduce social trust? This paper reviews the literature on natural resources and on trust. The existing theoretical and empirical literature suggests that natural resources can reduce trust through several indirect mechanisms. Notably, studies show that natural resources lead to institutional degradation, corruption, inequality, and civil war, all of which have been associated with reduced trust. In addition, game theoretical work on windfall gains suggests that there may be direct effect of natural resources on trust. This paper tests empirically whether there is a direct effect of natural resources on trust (The Pearl Hypothesis), using cross-country data. The results indicate that no such direct effect exists, but we find a significant effect on trust of intermediate variables affected by natural resources, such as institutions, corruption, inequality and/or civil war. Importantly, the relationship between corruption and trust turns out to be non-linear, indicating that the effect of natural resources on trust depends on the initial corruption level of a country. In highly corrupt societies, institutional improvements that reduce corruption may also undermine trust, which poses difficult challenges for anti-corruption policy.     

A theoretical overview of the relationship between the resource curse and genuine savings as an indicator for “weak” sustainability

This paper shows the strong relation between the factors that lead to the resource curse (RC) and factors that lead to a decline of genuine savings (GS). There is substantial empirical evidence that economies that rely predominantly on their natural resources are also characterized by slower economic growth. This so‐called RC is commonly traced back to the fact that natural resources' generate rents that are independent of a country's economic performance, which can lead to suboptimal reinvestments of this consumed natural capital. We argue that the factors responsible for the RC also have a negative effect on GS, a concept that measures “weak” sustainable development by considering reinvestment of natural capital rents in physical and human capital. We discuss whether the RC hampers possibilities for resource abundant countries to obtain sufficiently high rates of GS, and find indeed many reasons why resource‐dependent countries have problems achieving positive GS rates. We survey both areas of research, emphasizing the influence of the exogenous and endogenous determinants of economic growth, which are usually used to theoretically and empirically explain the RC on the three different forms of capital considered by GS. We specify why most countries suffering from the RC have negative GS rates and explain in detail where the linkages are. This overview could help with potential advancements in the explanation of GS through the inclusion of RC effects.     

Modeled Summer Background Concentration of Nutrients and Suspended Sediment in the Mid‐Continent (USA) Great Rivers1

Angradi, Ted R., David W. Bolgrien, Matt A. Starry, and Brian H. Hill, 2012. Modeled Summer Background Concentration of Nutrients and Suspended Sediment in the Mid‐Continent (USA) Great Rivers. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 48(5): 1054‐1070. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2012.00669.x Abstract: We used regression models to predict summer background concentration of total nitrogen (N), total phosphorus (P), and total suspended solids (TSS), in the mid‐continent great rivers: the Upper Mississippi, the Lower Missouri, and the Ohio. From multiple linear regressions of water quality indicators with land use and other stressor variables, we determined the concentration of the indicators when the predictor variables were all set to zero — the y‐intercept. Except for total P on the Upper Mississippi River, we could predict background concentration using regression models. Predicted background concentration of total N was about the same on the Upper Mississippi and Lower Missouri Rivers (430 μg l^?1), which was lower than percentile‐based values, but was similar to concentrations derived from the response of sestonic chlorophyll a to great river total N concentration. Background concentration of total P on the Lower Missouri (65 μg l^?1) was also lower than published and percentile‐based concentrations. Background TSS concentration was higher on the Lower Missouri (40 mg l^?1) than the other rivers. Background TSS concentration on the Upper Mississippi (16 mg l^?1) was below a threshold (30 mg l^?1) designed to protect aquatic vegetation. Our model‐predicted concentrations for the great rivers are an attempt to estimate background concentrations for water quality indicators independent from thresholds based on percentiles or derived from stressor‐response relationships.     

Urban land use,mobility and theory of science: exploring the potential for critical realism in empirical research

Academic discussion where the adequacy of positions within theory of science is illustrated by means of examples from empirical research studies seems to be an area of neglect. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to such a debate, using examples from investigations into the relationship between urban structure and travel behaviour. The main research question of these investigations was whether, and to what extent, urban structural conditions are influencing residents' transportation activity. In other words, is there a causal relationship between urban structure and travel behaviour? Furthermore, we asked whether results from studies of the relationship between land use and transport can provide a basis for predictions about the likely consequences of alternative land-use strategies. The methodology and empirical findings of the studies are discussed in the light of the theory of science position labelled ‘critical realism’, in an attempt to relate theory of science to empirical research, but also in order to contribute to the discussion of the usefulness of this specific approach. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparison of Stream Invertebrate Response Models for Bioassessment Metrics1

Waite, Ian R., Jonathan G. Kennen, Jason T. May, Larry R. Brown, Thomas F. Cuffney, Kimberly A. Jones, and James L. Orlando, 2012. Comparison of Stream Invertebrate Response Models for Bioassessment Metrics. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 48(3): 570-583. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2011.00632.x Abstract: We aggregated invertebrate data from various sources to assemble data for modeling in two ecoregions in Oregon and one in California. Our goal was to compare the performance of models developed using multiple linear regression (MLR) techniques with models developed using three relatively new techniques: classification and regression trees (CART), random forest (RF), and boosted regression trees (BRT). We used tolerance of taxa based on richness (RICHTOL) and ratio of observed to expected taxa (O/E) as response variables and land use/land cover as explanatory variables. Responses were generally linear; therefore, there was little improvement to the MLR models when compared to models using CART and RF. In general, the four modeling techniques (MLR, CART, RF, and BRT) consistently selected the same primary explanatory variables for each region. However, results from the BRT models showed significant improvement over the MLR models for each region; increases in R² from 0.09 to 0.20. The O/E metric that was derived from models specifically calibrated for Oregon consistently had lower R² values than RICHTOL for the two regions tested. Modeled O/E R² values were between 0.06 and 0.10 lower for each of the four modeling methods applied in the Willamette Valley and were between 0.19 and 0.36 points lower for the Blue Mountains. As a result, BRT models may indeed represent a good alternative to MLR for modeling species distribution relative to environmental variables.     

An evaluation scheme for assessing the effectiveness of intersection movement assist (IMA) on improving traffic safety

Objective: Intersection movement assist (IMA) has been recognized as one of the prominent countermeasures to reduce angle crashes at intersections, which constitute 22% of total crashes in the United States. Utilizing vehicle-based sensors, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications, IMA offers extended vision to provide early warning for an imminent crash. However, most of IMA-related research implements their methods and strategies only in simulations, test tracks, or driving simulator studies that have quite a few assumptions and limitations and hence the effectiveness evaluations reported may not be transferable or comparable.

Methods: This study seeks to develop a generalized evaluation scheme that can be used not only to assess the effectiveness of IMA on improving traffic safety at intersections but to facilitate comparisons across similar studies. The proposed evaluation scheme utilizes the concepts of traffic conflict in terms of time-to-collision (TTC) as a crash surrogate. This approach avoids the issue of having insufficient crash frequency data for system evaluation. To measure the effectiveness of IMA on reducing traffic conflicts, a relative risk is calculated for comparing the risk of with/without using the IMA. As a proof-of-concept study, this study applied the proposed evaluation scheme and reported the effectiveness of IMA on improving traffic safety in a field operation test (FOT). Seven test scenarios were conducted at 4 intersections, and a total of 40 participants were recruited to use the IMA for 6 months.

Results: It was estimated that IMA users have 26% fewer conflicts with TTC less than 5 s and have 15% fewer conflicts with TTC less than 4 s. However, the results vary across different sites and different definitions of conflicts in terms of TTC.

Conclusions: Overall, IMA is promising to effectively reduce angle crashes related to sight obstruction and has potential to reduce not only crash frequency but crash severity.