Does the choice of climate baseline matter in ecological niche modelling?

Ecological niche models (ENMs) have multiple applications in ecology, evolution and conservation planning. They relate the known locations of a species to characteristics of its environment (usually climate) over its geographical range. Most ENMs are trained using standard 30-year (1961-1990) or 50-year (1951-2000) baselines to represent current climate conditions. Species occurrence records used as input to the models, however, are frequently collected from time periods that differ from those from which the climate is derived. Since climate variability can be significant within and outside baselines, and the distributions of some plants and animals (e.g., annual plants, insects) can adjust to environmental conditions on much shorter time scales, this mismatch between collection records and climatic baselines may affect the utility and accuracy of model outputs. We investigated how the choice of baseline periods influenced modelling efforts, anticipating that climate baselines derived from the same temporal period as the species records would yield improved ENMs. Ten simulated species’ distributions were modelled using an ENM (Maxent) for (a) occurrences and climates within the same temporal period, based on eighteen 10-year baselines within the 20th century and (b) all available samples and climate baselines from 1951-2000 and 1961-1990. Each model was projected onto all the available 10-year climate scenarios and compared to the models trained on the corresponding scenario. We show that temporal mismatches of species occurrences and climate baselines can result in significantly poorer distribution models. Such temporal mismatch may be unavoidable for many studies, but we emphasize here the need to match the time range of samples and climate data whenever possible.     

环境损害鉴定评估领域难点探讨

近年来,随着原环境保护部《关于开展环境污染损害鉴定评估工作的若干意见》以及中共中央办公厅、国务院办公厅《生态环境损害赔偿制度改革方案》的陆续发布,环境损害鉴定评估已经成为环境科学、技术经济、环境法、环境经济等相关学科领域的研究热点。本文对环境损害鉴定评估的环境损害调查、环境损害基线确定、环境损害因果关系判定、环境价值评估等所面临的难点进行了探讨,提出了初步解决思路,以期为环境损害鉴定评估的政策制定者和鉴定评估人员提供参考。     

Application of the “Climafor” baseline to determine leakage: the case of Scolel Té

The acceptance of forestry-based project activities to mitigate greenhouse gases emissions has been subjected to a number of methodological questions to be answered, of which the most challenging are baseline establishment and identification of and measuring leakage. Here we pose hypotheses for and quantify leakage of the Scolel Té project in Chiapas, Mexico. In this project small-scale farmers are implementing forestry, agroforestry, and forest conservation activities, with carbon sequestration as one of the goals. The main leakage monitoring domain is defined as the area owned by the participating farmers or communities outside the area where the specific project activities take place. The null-hypothesis (no leakage) is that non-project land owned by the farmer or community will experience the same carbon stock changes as predicted by the regional baseline, specifically developed for the project. First we assessed the most likely causes and sources of leakage that may occur in the project. From this analysis, one type of leakage seems to be important, i.e., activity shifting. Second we estimated the leakage of a sample of participating farmers and communities. Actual land use was then compared with expected land use derived from the baseline. The Plan Vivo of each participant, complemented with readily available tools to identify the main sources and drivers of leakage are used to develop simple leakage assessment procedures, as demonstrated in this paper. Negative leakage was estimated to be negligible in this study. Incorporating these procedures already in the project planning stage will reduce the uncertainties related to the actual carbon mitigation potential of any forestry project.

渝西经济区土壤地球化学基准值与背景值及元素分布特征

基于渝西经济区多目标区域地球化学调查资料,采用正态和对数正态法,获得了土壤54种元素(指标)的地球化学基准值和背景值,并研究其分布特征;同时分析了岩石风化成土过程元素的富集贫化规律,以及表层土壤元素分布特征。结果表明,与全国土壤相比,该区重金属元素Cd、Cr、Hg、Ni基准值较高,As较低,Pb、Zn、Cu与全国值相当;多数重金属元素和植物营养元素背景值偏高,仅K、Mn、P、Cl元素背景值低于全国水平。对比土壤背景值与基准值,发现多数元素(指标)背景值与基准值相当,说明表生作用和人为活动对表层土壤影响较小;而Se、Hg、S、N等14种元素在表层土壤富集,人为输入作用显著。不同母岩区表层土壤元素(指标)分布表现为,碳酸盐岩区多数元素含量较高;就不同pH值范围而言,CaO、MgO、K2O、P以及除Hg以外的重金属元素均在碱性环境含量较高,SiO2在酸性环境含量高,较多元素(指标)在中性环境中趋于稳定。     

贵州龙里煤矿开采的独木河流域稻田重金属地球化学基线厘定

为了厘定贵州省煤矿开采流域稻田土壤地球化学基线.以龙里县独木河煤矿开采流域稻田为对象,采集稻田土壤和水稻各47个,测定了土壤中的As、Cd、Cr、Cu、Pb、Ni、V、Li和Ti共9种重金属含量,测定了稻米中的As、Cd、Cr、Cu、Pb和Ni共6种重金属含量.分别采用标准化方法和相对累积频率曲线法厘定As、Cd、Cr...     

基于遥感技术的近30 a海南岛海岸线时空变化

了解海岸线变化对海岸资源的开发与保护有着重要的意义。论文基于遥感技术与GIS技术,提取了海南岛1980、1990、2000、2010年4个时期的海岸线,并对其30 a来的时空变化特征进行了系统分析。结果表明:海南岛海岸线变化主要受人为因素的影响,近30 a来其长度增加了55.4 km;海岸线时空变化显著,变化比较剧烈的岸段多分布在地势较为平缓的南部地区,以养殖开发、工业用地、城镇与港口建设用地为主。研究认为,海南岛海岸线的变化,将有可能导致诸如岸线侵蚀等环境问题,应注意合理开发,利用海岸线资源。     

气相色谱法观测本底大气中的甲烷和二氧化碳

根据世界气象组织全球大气监测（ＷＭＯ／ＧＡＷ）开展全球温室气体监测的要求，建立了气相色谱（ＧＣ）法甲烷和二氧化碳（ＣＨ４／ＣＯ２）连续观测系统，概述了该系统厍拿大大气环境局（ＡＥＳ）５个月的组装调试，以及在中国大气本底基准台（ＣＧＡＷＢＯ＿一年多时间里的业务运行和标定情况，且装调试和运动标定，与红餐吸收（ＮＤＩＲ）法，气瓶采样－实验室分析（ＦＬＡＳＫ）法数据，以及与上其它台站观测资料的对比结果表明     

区域尺度土壤环境地球化学基线估算方法及其应用研究

区域土壤环境地球化学基线可为区域尺度地球表层系统中物质变化提供丰富的数据信息,并可据此评价自然和人为活动对土壤环境中化学物质浓度变化的影响.本研究以长江、珠江三角洲地区As、Cd、Hg、Pb、Se等10种微量元素的土壤环境地球化学基线为例,探讨了运用累积频率曲线法和土壤面积加权平均法分别估算了不同类别土壤和整个区域土壤的环境地球化学基线,取得了较为一致的结果.并通过基线比较反映地球化学富集作用和人为活动对土壤环境中微量元素积累与污染的影响.较为典型的是近20年来珠江三角洲地区农业土壤中Cd由过去0.035mg/kg增加到目前的0.13～0.22mg/kg,Hg也由过去的0.045mg/kg增加到目前的0.15mg/kg左右,区域化污染趋势已经显现.