Adaptive co-management and network learning in the Room for the River programme

Adaptive co-management and learning are paramount for integrated flood risk management. Relevant literature focuses on adaptation at the level of physical and societal systems. The level of projects and programmes is largely overlooked, but they comprise interventions that adapt our physical systems and they provide opportunities for learning to contribute to transitions of societal systems. This paper aims to increase understanding on how learning takes place and can be stimulated within a programme. The mixed-method case study of Room for the River, a €2.3 billion programme for flood risk management, shows that a programme can be organised using various governance arrangements to stimulate learning and be a means for adaptive co-management to deliver upon environmental objectives.     

Towards Rio + 10 – Trend of Environmentalism and Implications for Sustainable Livelihoods in the 21st Century, The Context of Southern African Region

Since the Rio conference, many countries and organisations, including the environmental movement, bilateral and multilateral institutions have endeavoured to carry out activities related to the implementation of Agenda 21. These have mostly been done with or without other outcomes of the conference. Several environmental management and sustainable development agenda have been pursued to halt the continually degrading environment. Other programmes have concentrated on outburst of economic development at the expense of the environment and the worsening poverty especially in the South. This paper therefore seeks to examine a paradigmatic shift in environmentalism, emphasising the link between agenda 21 and sustainable livelihoods. It seems though the history of the environmental movement has been forgotten after the Rio conference by the whole world. This might probably be due to complacency with the results of the UNCED conference. However, it is now obvious that clear objectives to implement the results of UNCED are almost lacking with little or no proper supervision, and further threatening the existence of mankind. The environmental movement and associated milestones have had significant impacts on the current status of the global commons. Regionally in most of southern Africa, livelihood issues are in the forefront of efforts to sustain environmental resources, and minimising proximate causes of global environmental change.     

基于ISO14067的长江上游某水电项目碳足迹分析

以长江上游某大型水电站为案例,根据国际标准化组织碳足迹量化标准(ISO14067)评价流程,对该水电站全生命周期(建设阶段,运行维护阶段,退役阶段)碳足迹进行估算,并着重考虑了蓄水前后水库温室气体通量差异。研究以碳足迹系数和能源回收率作为指标进行评价,结果表明生命周期碳足迹为5 417.0万t CO_(2eq),碳足迹系数为7.0~13.1 g CO_(2eq)/kW·h,中位值为9.4 g CO_(2eq)/kW·h,该水电站项目能源回收率达236.4。与各种能源电站以及国内外同类型水电站相比较,该水电站碳足迹明显较低,且能源回收率显著较高,说明以该水电站为代表的我国西南水电具有显著的优质性,大力开发水电能有效节能减排,明确了生命周期评价方法对于水电站碳足迹评估的适用性。     

江汉平原湿地功能下降与洪涝灾害关系分析

建国以来，江汉平原湿地面积及其生态功能发生了很大的变化，根据史志记载和气候资料，对江汉平原洪涝灾害的发生规律和变化趋势进行了分析，总结出江汉平原洪涝灾害频率趋高、江河湖高水位频率明显增加、外洪内涝日益严重的变化特点。据此，从时间上探讨了湿地变化与洪涝灾害之间的联系，发现历史和近代洪涝灾害的频发期与相应时期的围垦和江堤修筑有较好的对应。结合国土资源部土地变更调查数据分析了近10年来江汉平原湖泊湿地的主要转移途径，从空间上探讨了湿地动态变化与江汉平原洪涝灾害发生之间的内在联系，研究结果表明江汉平原洪涝灾害的发生和湿地面积的减少及其功能的退化之间存在着很好的相关性，从而进一步证实了湿地的围垦和退化是导致其调蓄能力降低，引发洪涝灾害加剧等负页环境效应的一个重要原因。     

Another avenue of action: an examination of climate change countermovement industries’ use of PAC donations and their relationship to Congressional voting over time

The political mobilization of American business elites in the 1970s and 1980s has been well studied by political scientists. Environmental sociologists have explored how industries in this elite countermovement have organized to prevent environmental legislation. The literature often focuses on the efforts of this movement to shape public opinion on climate change. However, political scientists argue business elites are running several parallel strategies simultaneously in order to protect their interests. FEC data are utilized in multilevel logit models to examine how donations from industrial Political Action Committees (PACs) relate to Congressional representative’s environmental voting behavior over a 20-year period. Industries associated with the environmental countermovement have increasingly used PAC donations over time, and every additional $10,000 a representative received from countermovement industries significantly decreased odds of their taking the pro-environmental stance even when controlling for representatives’ demographics, districts, Congressional polarization and time-period.     

构建人类命运共同体、应对气候变化与生态文明建设

全球气候变化给人类社会文明带来严峻挑战,需要人类社会采取共同措施和行动积极应对。应对全球气候变化是当今世界最能体现人类共同命运的领域,深度参与并积极推动全球气候治理体系改革和建设是中国推动构建人类命运共同体的重要实践,也是生态文明理论和实践的重要方面。应对气候变化是我国生态文明建设的重要内容和内在要求;以共同价值理念构建人类命运共同体,凝聚各国力量携手合作应对全球气候变化,是全球生态文明建设和构建人类命运共同体的具体实践,也为应对全球气候变化提供了良好载体和国际平台。文章通过分析可知,应对气候变化、生态文明建设与构建人类命运共同体三者之间,呈现出相互促进、和谐共生的"三位一体"特征;人与自然共生的生命共同体是前提条件,人类的任何实践活动都要以自然生态系统为基础和前提;人类命运共同体在整合各国力量方面,为生态文明建设提供了社会基础;生态文明包容各国文明,凝聚价值共识,成为生命共同体和人类命运共同体的价值导向。中国倡导人类命运共同体理念,是全球生态文明和人类命运共同体的积极倡导者、推动者和践行者,既为应对全球气候变化提供了价值基础,也提供了强有力的实践支撑;应对气候变化是全球生态文明建设和人类命运共同体构建的生动实践。因此,加强生态文明建设和构建人类命运共同体,为全球应对气候变化提供了理论基础和国际平台,也将为全球可持续发展贡献中国智慧和中国案例。     

Climate change adaptation approaches with nomadic culture characteristics in Inner Mongolia grassland in China

Climate change adaptation is an important part of addressing climate warming. Inner Mongolia grassland is a sensitive and vulnerable area of climate and an important region for adaptation to climate change. New climate change adaptation approaches with nomadic culture characteristics should be exploded in the context of climate warming. In this paper, the different utilization pattern of grassland in different regions, the different modes of production and management and historical culture were analyzed first in Nenjiang–West Liaohe plain and Ke’erqin region, Inner Mongolia Plateau and Ordos Plateau. Then, nomadic culture on the grassland was discussed from the productivity to biodiversity, from local livestock variety to resource-used system. Finally, new approaches of climate change adaptation with inheriting the essence of nomadic culture were proposed, including protecting biodiversity and using resources reasonably, performing a practice of grazing suspension–rotational grazing system, fencing degenerated grassland to facilitate its growth, founding new farming and husbandry system on the grassland, and establishing an incentive mechanism favorable to grassland and ethical cultural protection.     

The development of first-possession rules in US mining, 1872–1920: theory, evidence, and policy implications

This paper applies a property rights framework to federal mineral lands in the western United States from the enactment of the Mining Law in 1872 until the enactment of the Mineral Leasing Act for fossil fuels in 1920. There are two principal findings. First, the Mining Law appears to have been an effective means for assigning rights to mineral stocks on public lands (at least through 1920). This conclusion is supported by evidence from claim disputes in the West. Second, the impetus for the Mineral Leasing Act did not derive from the different physical characteristics of hardrock minerals and petroleum. The relevance of these conclusions to contemporary mineral policy is also discussed.     

RESPONSE OF NORTH AMERICAN FRESHWATER LAKES TO SIMULATED FUTURE CLIMATES1

ABSTRACT: We apply a physically based lake model to assess the response of North American lakes to future climate conditions as portrayed by the transient trace-gas simulations conducted with the Max Planck Institute (ECHAM4) and the Canadian Climate Center (CGCM1) atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (A/OGCMs). To quantify spatial patterns of lake responses (temperature, mixing, ice cover, evaporation) we ran the lake model for theoretical lakes of specified area, depth, and transparency over a uniformly spaced (50 km) grid. The simulations were conducted for two 10-year periods that represent present climatic conditions and those around the time of CO₂ doubling. Although the climate model output produces simulated lake responses that differ in specific regional details, there is broad agreement with regard to the direction and area of change. In particular, lake temperatures are generally warmer in the future as a result of warmer climatic conditions and a substantial loss (> 100 days/yr) of winter ice cover. Simulated summer lake temperatures are higher than 30°C over the Midwest and south, suggesting the potential for future disturbance of existing aquatic ecosystems. Overall increases in lake evaporation combine with disparate changes in A/OGCM precipitation to produce future changes in net moisture (precipitation minus evaporation) that are of less fidelity than those of lake temperature.     

DRYING UP OF THE YELLOW RIVER:A RESPONSE TO GLOBAL CLIMATIC CHANGE

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