A review of selection‐based tests of abiotic surrogates for species representation

Because conservation planners typically lack data on where species occur, environmental surrogates—including geophysical settings and climate types—have been used to prioritize sites within a planning area. We reviewed 622 evaluations of the effectiveness of abiotic surrogates in representing species in 19 study areas. Sites selected using abiotic surrogates represented more species than an equal number of randomly selected sites in 43% of tests (55% for plants) and on average improved on random selection of sites by about 8% (21% for plants). Environmental diversity (ED) (42% median improvement on random selection) and biotically informed clusters showed promising results and merit additional testing. We suggest 4 ways to improve performance of abiotic surrogates. First, analysts should consider a broad spectrum of candidate variables to define surrogates, including rarely used variables related to geographic separation, distance from coast, hydrology, and within‐site abiotic diversity. Second, abiotic surrogates should be defined at fine thematic resolution. Third, sites (the landscape units prioritized within a planning area) should be small enough to ensure that surrogates reflect species’ environments and to produce prioritizations that match the spatial resolution of conservation decisions. Fourth, if species inventories are available for some planning units, planners should define surrogates based on the abiotic variables that most influence species turnover in the planning area. Although species inventories increase the cost of using abiotic surrogates, a modest number of inventories could provide the data needed to select variables and evaluate surrogates. Additional tests of nonclimate abiotic surrogates are needed to evaluate the utility of conserving nature's stage as a strategy for conservation planning in the face of climate change.     

Using abiotic variables to predict importance of sites for species representation

In systematic conservation planning, species distribution data for all sites in a planning area are used to prioritize each site in terms of the site's importance toward meeting the goal of species representation. But comprehensive species data are not available in most planning areas and would be expensive to acquire. As a shortcut, ecologists use surrogates, such as occurrences of birds or another well‐surveyed taxon, or land types defined from remotely sensed data, in the hope that sites that represent the surrogates also represent biodiversity. Unfortunately, surrogates have not performed reliably. We propose a new type of surrogate, predicted importance, that can be developed from species data for a q% subset of sites. With species data from this subset of sites, importance can be modeled as a function of abiotic variables available at no charge for all terrestrial areas on Earth. Predicted importance can then be used as a surrogate to prioritize all sites. We tested this surrogate with 8 sets of species data. For each data set, we used a q% subset of sites to model importance as a function of abiotic variables, used the resulting function to predict importance for all sites, and evaluated the number of species in the sites with highest predicted importance. Sites with the highest predicted importance represented species efficiently for all data sets when q = 25% and for 7 of 8 data sets when q = 20%. Predicted importance requires less survey effort than direct selection for species representation and meets representation goals well compared with other surrogates currently in use. This less expensive surrogate may be useful in those areas of the world that need it most, namely tropical regions with the highest biodiversity, greatest biodiversity loss, most severe lack of inventory data, and poorly developed protected area networks.     

Priority areas for conservation of and research focused on terrestrial vertebrates

Effective conservation policies require comprehensive knowledge of biodiversity. However, knowledge shortfalls still remain, hindering possibilities to improve decision making and built such policies. During the last 2 decades, conservationists have made great efforts to allocate resources as efficiently as possible but have rarely considered the idea that if research investments are also strategically allocated, it would likely fill knowledge gaps while simultaneously improving conservation actions. Therefore, prioritizing areas where both conservation and research actions could be conducted becomes a critical endeavor that can further maximize return on investment. We used Zonation, a conservation planning tool and geographical distributions of amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles to suggest and compare priority areas for conservation and research of terrestrial vertebrates worldwide. We also evaluated the degree of human disturbance in both types of priority areas by describing the value of the human footprint index within such areas. The spatial concordance between priority conservation and research areas was low: 0.36% of the world's land area. In these areas, we found it would be possible to protect almost half of the currently threatened species and to gather information on nearly 42% of data-deficient (DD) species. We also found that 6199 protected areas worldwide are located in such places, although only 35% of them have strict conservation purposes. Areas of consensus between conservation and research areas represent an opportunity for simultaneously conserving and acquiring knowledge of threatened and DD species of vertebrates. Although the picture is not the most encouraging, joint conservation and research efforts are possible and should be fostered to save vertebrate species from our own ignorance and extinction.     

Quantifying progress toward a conservation assessment for all plants

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) set an ambitious target to achieve a conservation assessment for all known plant species by 2020. We consolidated digitally available plant conservation assessments and reconciled their scientific names and assessment status to predefined standards to provide a quantitative measure of progress toward this target. The 241,919 plant conservation assessments generated represent 111,824 accepted land plant species (vascular plants and bryophytes, not algae). At least 73,081 and up to 90,321 species have been assessed at the global scale, representing 21–26% of known plant species. Of these plant species, at least 27,148 and up to 32,542 are threatened. Eighty plant families, including some of the largest, such as Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, and Rubiaceae, are underassessed and should be the focus of assessment effort if the GSPC target is to be met by 2020. Our data set is accessible online (ThreatSearch) and is a baseline that can be used to directly support other GSPC targets and plant conservation action. Although around one‐quarter of a million plant assessments have been compiled, the majority of plants are still unassessed. The challenge now is to build on this progress and redouble efforts to document conservation status of unassessed plants to better inform conservation decisions and conserve the most threatened species.     

南岳衡山风景名胜区景观资源的调查与评价

景观资源是旅游资源的重要组成因素,本文以自然综合体的南岳衡山为考察对象,对其景观资源进行较详尽的调查,并进行定性和定量的评价,为确定南岳衡山风景名胜区性质、规划提供基础资料.     

济宁生态市规划与建设途径

生态市是实现城市社会—经济—自然可持续发展的一种模式和过程。以山东省济宁市为例,提出了济宁生态市建设的战略措施。从资源型城市的产业生态转型、水体和矿山的自然生态修复和孔孟文化的人文生态振兴3方面提出了建设目标;建设框架包括自生型生态环境、竞争型循环经济和共生型和谐社会。主导产业和循环经济建设要促进传统农业和矿山开采型产业向静脉产业、阳光产业、物流产业、文化产业和旅游产业的生态转型;从水资源、水环境、水生态、水景观、水安全和水文化建设几方面提出了水资源保护与水环境治理的综合措施;最后提出了济宁市煤矿塌陷区的生态修复对策和生态文化建设策略。     

论环境、资源与循环经济

根据质量守恒定律推导出环境与资源的数学关系,从而揭示了环境污染产生的根本原因,找到了解决环境和资源问题的根本途径,为发展循环经济,实现环境与资源可持续发展提供了科学的依据。     

GIS在城市给水排水中的应用

阐述了GIS在城市给水排水领域的应用和发展趋势，包括水资源管理与分析、给水排水管网设计与管理、城市污水处理厂设计与管理、管网应急预警系统分析、水质污染状况和趋势分析等，并以大庆市给水排水管网信息管理系统实例，证明GIS可以及时准确完整的提供所需信息，更好的为市政管理者辅助决策提供依据。     

城市公共安全规划理论与方法的探讨

分析了进行城市公共安全规划研究的意义和理论基础,并对了城市公共安全规划的方法进行了探讨。     

钢铁酸洗废液的资源化处理技术

钢铁酸洗废液中含有大量的酸和铁盐，已被各国作为危险废物进行管理，多年来，研究者已经研究出多种有效、可行的资源化处理方法和技术，从技术成熟性、工艺特性、工艺关键、过程控制、应用前景和发展方向等方面介绍了技术上比较成熟和具有良好前景的7种主要方法，以利于保护环境和酸洗废液资源化处理技术的进步。