Variability and Trends in Runoff Efficiency in the Conterminous United States

Variability and trends in water‐year runoff efficiency (RE) — computed as the ratio of water‐year runoff (streamflow per unit area) to water‐year precipitation — in the conterminous United States (CONUS) are examined for the 1951 through 2012 period. Changes in RE are analyzed using runoff and precipitation data aggregated to United States Geological Survey 8‐digit hydrologic cataloging units (HUs). Results indicate increases in RE for some regions in the north‐central CONUS and large decreases in RE for the south‐central CONUS. The increases in RE in the north‐central CONUS are explained by trends in climate, whereas the large decreases in RE in the south‐central CONUS likely are related to groundwater withdrawals from the Ogallala aquifer to support irrigated agriculture.     

Aboriginal world views and colonisation: implications for coastal sustainability†

In this paper, we show how the Aboriginal people in the south-west of Australia (the Nyungar) developed systems of knowledge, of caring for country and of family relations that enabled them to survive for tens of thousands of years and continue to have importance today. The impacts of British colonisation on cultural continuity and knowledge in the south-west have been significant and include loss of land, break-up of families and massacre. These practices led to a loss of knowledge of language and culture in some cases. However, Nyungar culture is alive and dynamic, constantly being reclaimed, re-energised and rebuilt through the interaction of contemporary and traditional research praxis. Focusing on Derbal Nara (Cockburn Sound) on the coast in the southern metropolitan area of Perth, we provide case examples of the action-research-learning methodologies used by Whadjuk Nyungar Traditional Owners. We also provide examples of stories about Derbal Nara that are still alive and being recounted up to the present day, including those that account for the recent ice age and the end of the ice age 8000 years BC when sea levels rose, drowning land in the area of Derbal Nara. Finally, we argue that Whadjuk Nyungar experiences and world views based on relationality and reflexivity are central to sustainable coastal management and that in some respects there has already been a convergence of Indigenous and Western coastal management. We present a set of principles that support the development of this “third space” for coastal sustainability.     

Hannah Arendt’s turn to the self and environmental responses to climate change paralysis

Environmentalists have struggled with how to mobilize people to act in the face of widespread and now inevitable consequences of climate change. Significant responses to this challenge, such as incentivizing individual Green choices in the market and avoiding the rhetoric of catastrophe, continue the philosophical and political trends, identified by Hannah Arendt, that contribute to world alienation and the decline of politics. Environmental thinkers are invited to use Arendt’s theories of the turn to the self and political action to think critically about contemporary strategies to address climate change.     

Welfare states and environmental states: a comparative analysis

A framework is presented for thinking about state intervention in developed capitalist economies in two domains: social policy and environmental policy (and, within that, climate-change policy). Five drivers of welfare state development are identified, the ‘five Is’ of Industrialisation: Interests, Institutions, Ideas/Ideologies, and International Influences. Research applying this framework to the postwar development of welfare states in the OECD is summarised, distinguishing two periods: up to 1980, and from 1980 to 2008. How far this framework can contribute to understanding the rise and differential patterns of environmental governance and intervention across advanced capitalist states since 1970 is explored, before briefly comparing and contrasting the determinants of welfare states and environmental states, identifying common drivers in both domains and regime-specific drivers in each. The same framework is then applied to developments since 2008 and into the near future, sketching two potential configurations and speculating on the conditions for closer, more integrated ‘eco-welfare states’.     

Ecological citizenship and democracy: Communitarian versus agonistic perspectives

Grassroots environmental movements have recently started to question the focus on sustainable consumption as a main strategy to tackle climate change. They prefer to address individuals as citizens rather than as consumers, and focus on collective rather than individual change. Two prominent movements in this regard are Transition Towns and Climate Justice Action. While both movements criticise conventional approaches, they put forward entirely different strategies for what has to happen instead. Based on extensive qualitative research, this article analyses how these movements manifest themselves in Flanders (Belgium). The focus is on their different accounts of how and why collective practices have to be built, and the place they attribute to ‘the political’ in this. The analysis reveals the existence of two different forms of ecological citizenship: one communitarian, the other agonistic.     

Moving targets: Carbon pricing,energy markets,and social movements in Australia

Reporting on the origins and directions of social movement strategy on climate and energy issues in the last decade, the shifts in ‘climate movement’ practice are discussed using a neo-Polanyian account of the political economy of climate change combined with sociological analysis of the strategic decisions campaigners reported making. Since the mid-2000s, Australia’s climate movement has been engaged in three concurrent arenas of political contestation. The longest-standing arena of movement activity has been negotiations over climate policy. More recently, activists and communities are engaged in a struggle over the expansion of fossil fuels. A third contest has been waged over the present and future position of renewable energy technologies in Australia’s electricity market. In the wake of climate policy failure, energy campaigns have been deepened, and it seems that a broader energy justice agenda is being forged. New strategic dilemmas are visible in the field.     

湖北郧西县庹家湾剖面粒度组成特征及其环境意义

对湖北省郧西县庹家湾(TJW)剖面的地层序列、年代、磁化率及粒度组成进行研究。结果表明:TJW剖面具有表土(MS)→全新世黄土(L0)→古土壤(S0)→过渡层(Lt)→马兰黄土(L1)→黄土与砂互层(T1-al2)→砾石层(T1-al1)的地层序列;在马兰黄土层上部的黏粒含量、黏粒/粉砂值以及磁化率值明显高于典型马兰黄土,而接近古土壤(S0),其成壤作用明显,属于较典型的弱古土壤层(L1-S1和L1-S2),其年龄在27.3~21.6 ka B.P.之间。此现象反映了在汉江上游地区,晚更新世时期的冰期气候并不是持续稳定的,在27.3~21.6 ka B.P.期间存在相对短暂的温暖湿润阶段,这次气候事件可与黄土高原地区进行良好对比。     

土壤有机物污染控制标准制订的方法学研究

指出了中国现行土壤环境质量标准存在的问题.对日本和美国等发达国家的有机物污染土壤质量控制标准进行了分析.从土壤环境质量基准制订的方法学和污染控制标准的确定原则上,提出了制订中国土壤有机物污染控制标准的建议.     

水溶性巯基壳聚糖对污染土壤吸附态汞的解吸作用研究

用两种巯基化试剂半胱氨酸(Cys)和硫代乙醇酸(Thi)与壳聚糖(CTS)反应,制备了两种水溶性巯基壳聚糖,即Cys-CTS和Thi-CTS,对比研究了这两种巯基壳聚糖与CTS对被染毒土壤中吸附态汞的提取能力.结果表明,Thi-CTS在pH=3、质量浓度为0.5g/L、用量为20 mL的条件下.对汞的提取率为59.44%,相同条件下CTS和cys-CTS对汞的最高提取率只有31.81%和10.15%.     

地下土壤、水中DNAPLs污染的修复技术研究进展

综述了国内外地下土壤、含水层DNAPLs污染的迁移机理及其修复技术研究进展,对该领域的研究前景做了展望.