Planning for cooler cities: a plan quality evaluation for Urban Heat Island consideration

ABSTRACT

City strategic plans and enabling policies provide a framework for and inform future development across multiple scales. An exemplar city strategic plan will be one based on evidence, enabled by complementary policy outcomes, and built on the knowledge of the existing landscape. This study evaluated the plan quality of eighteen metropolitan strategic plans for city members in the 100 Resilient Cities initiative. A protocol was developed containing thirty-two indicators to assess plans capacity to act as a strategic planning tool to develop, analyse and implement strategies for the Urban Heat Island (UHI) and climate change mitigation and adaptation. The evaluation indicated that strategies addressing the UHI are rarely included in metropolitan plans. Strategic plans showed a lack of evidence-base to inform the potential actions. Urban warming is often linked to extreme weather events anticipated under climate change, not the UHI as a systemic and increasing phenomenon. We recommend that the pathway to addressing UHI mitigation and adaptation may lie in its nexus to aspects of climate change that concurrently can serve to support liveable and resilient cities.     

碳中和愿景下电力部门低碳转型路径研究

碳中和愿景一方面加速了全社会电气化发展,致使电力需求持续增加,另一方面对尽早实现零碳电力提出要求,电力部门低碳转型进程更加紧迫而复杂。本文首先定性分析碳中和背景下电力部门的总体转型思路和技术不确定性影响,其次采用电力部门与终端部门耦合的C~3IAM/NET模型对电力需求进行预测,同时根据关键低碳技术发展的保守预期和积极预期设计多种情景,以开展电力低碳转型路径优化和成本效益研究。结果显示,发电碳排放量峰值可能出现在40亿～42亿吨,在2049—2060年有望实现零碳电力,电力部门低碳转型速度和效果因技术不确定性而存在明显差异。2021—2060年电力低碳转型累计投入为171万亿～180万亿元,CCS技术累计减排贡献超过250亿吨,可再生能源电力占比需达到68%以上,风电和光电将成为主要电力。     

Sustainable Tourism and the Touristic Ecological Footprint

There is growing interest in ecological footprint analysis in aiding our understanding of societal demands upon the biosphere. Increasingly, attention is being focused on potential new applications of the technique. Tourism is one of the world's largest industries and can play a major part in encouraging more consumerist lifestyles. It is now widely accepted that tourism development may have profound impacts on local environments, and that, consequently, the sustainable development of tourism at destination areas is an important issue. However, sustainable tourism studies rarely look beyond the destination area, and there has been no substantive recognition of the wider ecological footprint of tourism activities. This paper attempts to connect, conceptually, the realms of sustainable tourism and ecological footprint thinking. In so doing, various conceptualisations of the 'touristic ecological footprint' (TEF) are suggested, along with some potential applications. It is argued that primary research should focus on calculating the touristic ecological footprint associated with individual tourism products, throughout the product's life-cycle. As well as bringing another dimension to our understanding of tourism's actual ecological demand, it is also argued that the concept of the touristic ecological footprint may be used to clarify theoretical aspects of the sustainable tourism debate, helping to rejuvenate this debate in the process.     

论工业企业生态规划与区域可持续发展

早在19世纪，生态学家就提出了生态规划的思想，20世纪60年代以后，随着环境问题的加剧和环境运动的发展，生态规划受到发达国家的高度重视。利用生态规划的理论对工业企业进行科学的规划不仅是环境保护的客观要求，也是企业自身生存发展的现实需要。要促进工业企业与所在区域环境的和谐、持续与发展，需要树立现代生态观念，综合考虑人与自然的关系，制定并实施生态规划。     

山东海岸沙生植被的特点和生态评价

山东海岸分布着特殊意义的海岸沙生植被,其特点为群落类型单纯,组成种类结构简单,具有显著的镶嵌性。植物有很强的抗旱、耐瘠、耐热、耐盐能力,群落自然演替缓慢。本文对该岸区沙生植被的恢复、发展和防止生态平衡失调等问题进行了生态评价,并从植物生态学角度提出海岸开发设想。     

上海人口自然变动负增长与社会经济发展

1993年上海人口自然变动在全国率先进入负增长,自然增长率为-0.78‰,并将持续一个较长的时期。这是长期以来本市经济和社会发展以及计划生育工作共同作用的必然结果,其中计划生育政策的成功推行起着重要的作用。上海除了继续控制人口增长的数量外,还要调节人口规模和人口结构,大力提高人口素质,不断使人口与社会经济发展、生态平衡、资源利用等方面达到协调发展。由负增长引发的劳动力短缺和老龄化程度加剧要采取相应的对策。     

Conservation Opportunities for Securing In-Stream Flows in the Platte River Basin: A Case Study Drawing on Casper,Wyoming’s MunicipalWater Strategy

The Platte River Basin consists of tributaries largely in Wyoming, Colorado and Western Nebraska, with the main stem in Central Nebraska. Critical wildlife habitat on the main stem requires additional in-stream flows. The watershed is one hosting multiple resources, a variety of users, and managed by an array of state and federal agencies. This study proposes a basis for securing in-stream flows for the Platte River. Candidate water supply mechanisms are suggested based on the way in which Casper, Wyoming secured water for its municipal needs. Canal lining is compared to a dam project, increasing reservoir storage, and purchasing water rights, with consideration also made for water pricing to reduce municipal use. Comparisons are based on economic efficiency, potential water conservation, and property rights criteria. Canal lining, coupled with demand management, is shown to conserve water best, given the set of efficiency and cost criteria for in-stream flow enhancement. The approach offers an opportunity to organize the water supply choice context in a transboundary watershed when quantitative information is limited.     

胡杨内源保护酶系可以指征宏观生态行为效果吗--塔里木河下游生态输水效应案例研究

在宏观生态系统的恢复中,通常关注的层面至多达到个体水平,即只计测个体的存在和测定所关注的可视特征,而忽略了个体的生理反应,特别是在实施恢复生态工程时,大规模地重新构造生物生活资源结构,常常难以估测这种变化对生物的有效性,加之可视生态效果表达的滞后性和可测试的复杂性,常常造成效果遗漏.因此,增加微观(细胞)层面的反应指示指标,可捕捉细微的个体反应,更准确的指征生态效果在个体上实现反应的可能性,这对于丰富恢复生态学理论是具有重大意义的.本文以塔里木河下游生态恢复工程为载体,探索了以内源保护酶系活力变化为指征的个体对生态输水的响应,结果表明超氧歧化酶(SOD)、过氧化物酶(POD)和膜脂过氧化产物丙二醛(MDA)不仅对累积输水效果具有指示性,而且对短期水干扰具有敏感的指示性,相关关系也因受水而强化.     

提升生态环境质量促进经济跨越发展

近两年福山区在全力发展社会经济的同时,始终坚持保护与改善生态环境质量,实现经济发展与生态环境保护"双赢".     

Desertification Control and Management of Land Degradation in the Thar Desert of India

India has 2.34 million km² of hot desert called Thar located in the north-western part of Rajasthan between latitudes 23°3 and 30°12 North and longitudes 63°30 and 70°18 East. The Indian desert is spreading annually over 12000 ha of productive land degrading it and slowly advancing towards the national capital New Delhi at the rate of 0.5 km per year. The Indian desert is characterised by huge shifting sand dunes; high wind speed; scarce rainfall; and intense solar radiation. Tremendous efforts have been made since the 1960s to arrest desertification and for ecological restoration of the Thar desert. An Ambitious afforestation programme including stabilisation of shifting sand dunes and creation of micro-climates through tree-screens and shelter-belt plantation was launched by the forest department of Rajasthan. A huge canal, 649 km long was also introduced to the Thar desert for ecological restoration.