Adaptive management: Promises and pitfalls

Proponents of the scientific adaptive management approach argue that it increases knowledge acquisition rates, enhances information flow among policy actors, and provides opportunities for creating shared understandings. However, evidence from efforts to implement the approach in New Brunswick, British Columbia, Canada, and the Columbia River Basin indicates that these promises have not been met. The data show that scientific adaptive management relies excessively on the use of linear systems models, discounts nonscientific forms of knowledge, and pays inadequate attention to policy processes that promote the development of shared understandings among diverse stakeholders. To be effective, new adaptive management efforts will need to incorporate knowledge from multiple sources, make use of multiple systems models, and support new forms of cooperation among stakeholders.     

SOUND POLICY OR SMOKE AND MIRRORS: DOES ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT MAKE SENSE?1

ABSTRACT: Protection of ecosystems as entities on the landscape has attracted a wide range of support. Ecosystem-based public policies are claimed to be more effective, efficient, and scientifically sound than other approaches to environmental and natural resource policy. The ecosystem concept was never intended to serve as a public policy guide or to determine landscape units for land management purposes. This paper critically examines the use of the ecosystem concept in public policy and land use management and analyzes the proposed rule to manage the National Forest System according to ecosystem management principles. The concept is found to be unsuitable as a basis for guiding environmental and natural resource public policies in general while the proposed rule to manage the national forests according to ecosystem management principles is shown to be incoherent.     

重庆地区吴茱萸属药用植物资源的调查研究

经调查鉴定，重庆地区吴茱萸属药用植物有9种（含种下等级），首次发现吴茱萸红花品系。重点介绍了它们的生境分布、药材商品与生产经营现状等，并编制了分种检索表，为科研、教学、生产经营及开发利用提供了科学依据。     

黄河故道资源的开发利用

叙述了黄河故道地区的基本情况及实施农业资源综合开发的必要性。从总体技术方向、技术应用原则、技术进步目标、适用模式诸方面提出了黄河故道地区资源开发利用的7种技术模式。     

安徽省土地资源人口承载力的动态研究

基于《安徽省统计年鉴》，对全省近10年的土地资源、粮食生产及人口增长状况进行了分析。在此基础上，运用相关数学模型对2005-2020年全省人口数量、耕地面积和粮食单产分别进行了预测。为了提高预测精确度，取各种预测方法的平均值。根据安徽省情将其划分为温饱型、小康型和富裕型三档生活标准，分别探讨了预测期内安徽省土地承载力状况，提出了相应的发展对策和建议，为全省发展粮食生产提供科学依据。     

入世带来的环境压力及其对策探讨

入世给我国带来了一定的环境压力,主要表现在资源消耗、污染进口和产业冲击三方面.外商投资增长及外国人入境消费可能引起资源过度消耗,环境风险较大的项目和危险废弃物也可能乘机而入.受国外环保产业和环保服务业的冲击,我国相关产业面临严峻挑战.现阶段,我国的法规标准和公众意识是影响入世所带来的环境压力的两个重要因素.缓解环境压力的举措需要遵循两个原则:制度改革和管理改革结合的原则;短期措施和长期战略结合的原则.     

中质旅游景区开发初探

中质景区是指旅游综合质量中等的景区.开发中质景区可以增加目的地供给、优化旅游目的地结构、分流优质景区客流.以四川雅安碧峰峡景区为例,在分析该类型景区优劣势的基础上,对其在旅游项目设计、资金筹措、客源市场、产品设计、市场营销等方面提出了对策.同时指出,我国中质旅游景区开发中存在着资源价值评价不准确、资源破坏严重等误区,以期在旅游实践中提高中质旅游景区的开发质量.     

Enhanced water resource base for sustainable integrated water resource management

The article states the case for greatly enhanced reliance on desalination in the provision of freshwater. It argues that the concept of integrated water resource management (IWRM), should be expanded to routinely include desalination, and that sea water and brackish water should be listed among available sources of freshwater. In recent years, the price per m3 of freshwater obtained from desalination has steadily declined, and is now within competitive range of conventional sources, especially as extracting water from surface sources (rivers, lakes) is becoming increasingly expensive as well as ecologically harmful, and groundwater in many locations is saline or depleted. With the expectation that by 2020, five billion people will reside in megacities, today's conventional water resources are likely to become insufficient. As many of these megacities are located near ocean coasts, sea water seems a logical solution.     

NUTRIENT CONCENTRATION CRITERIA AND CHARACTERIZATION OF PATTERNS IN TROPHIC STATE FOR RIVERS IN HETEROGENEOUS LANDSCAPES1

ABSTRACT: A method is demonstrated for the development of nutrient concentration criteria and large scale assessment of trophic state in environmentally heterogeneous landscapes. The method uses the River Environment Classification (REC) as a spatial framework to partition rivers according to differences in processes that control the accrual and loss of algae biomass. The method is then applied to gravel bed rivers with natural flow regimes that drain hilly watersheds in New Zealand's South Island. An existing model is used to characterize trophic state (in terms of chlorophyll a as a measure of maximum biomass) using nutrient concentration, which controls the rate of biomass accrual, and flood frequency, which controls biomass loss. Variation in flood frequency was partitioned into three classes, and flow data measured at 68 sites was used to show that the classes differ with respect to flood frequency. Variation in nutrient concentration was partitioned at smaller spatial scales by subdivision of higher level classes into seven classes. The median of flood frequency in each of the three higher level classes was used as a control variable in the model to provide spatially explicit nutrient concentration criteria by setting maximum chlorophyll a to reflect a desired trophic state. The median of mean monthly soluble reactive phosphorus and soluble inorganic nitrogen measured at 68 water quality monitoring sites were then used to characterize the trophic state of each of the seven lower level classes. The method models biomass and therefore allows variation in this response variable to provide options for trophic state and the associated nutrient concentrations to achieve these. Thus it is less deterministic than using reference site water quality. The choice from among these options is a sociopolitical decision, which reflects the management objectives rather than purely technical considerations.