Emerging conservation challenges and prospects in an era of offshore hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation

Globally, extensive marine areas important for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem functioning are undergoing exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas resources. Such operations are expanding to previously inaccessible deep waters and other frontier regions, while conservation‐related legislation and planning is often lacking. Conservation challenges arising from offshore hydrocarbon development are wide‐ranging. These challenges include threats to ecosystems and marine species from oil spills, negative impacts on native biodiversity from invasive species colonizing drilling infrastructure, and increased political conflicts that can delay conservation actions. With mounting offshore operations, conservationists need to urgently consider some possible opportunities that could be leveraged for conservation. Leveraging options, as part of multi‐billion dollar marine hydrocarbon operations, include the use of facilities and costly equipment of the deep and ultra‐deep hydrocarbon industry for deep‐sea conservation research and monitoring and establishing new conservation research, practice, and monitoring funds and environmental offsetting schemes. The conservation community, including conservation scientists, should become more involved in the earliest planning and exploration phases and remain involved throughout the operations so as to influence decision making and promote continuous monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystems. A prompt response by conservation professionals to offshore oil and gas developments can mitigate impacts of future decisions and actions of the industry and governments. New environmental decision support tools can be used to explicitly incorporate the impacts of hydrocarbon operations on biodiversity into marine spatial and conservation plans and thus allow for optimum trade‐offs among multiple objectives, costs, and risks.     

Confidence-based quantitative risk analysis for offshore accidental hydrocarbon release events

Quantitative risk analysis (QRA) has been widely used to conduct the assessment of offshore accidental risks. However, the accuracy and validity of QRA is significantly affected by uncertainties when subjective judgments are involved. Therefore, it is unrealistic to determine the probability of a hazardous event by using one single explicit value when safety experts have a relatively low confidence level in their judgments. This paper proposes a new methodology for incorporating uncertainties into conventional QRA using the concept of confidence level. Offshore hydrocarbon release hazards are focused on and a barrier and operational risk analysis (BORA-Release) method is selected as the basic model to illustrate the proposed methodology. A left–right (L–R) bell-shaped fuzzy number is employed and its membership curve is able to control its shape to represent different confidence levels. As to the complex geometry of the bell-shaped fuzzy number, an α-cut operation is introduced to conduct the arithmetic operations of the fuzzy number, and a defuzzification method with total integral value is chosen to match the α-cut operations and acquire complete information for the fuzzy numbers. In the meantime, an optimism index is used to describe the attitude of the decision-maker. One case study is provided in this paper to demonstrate the implementation of this method.     

天空蓝色饱和程度与城市空气质量等级的相关性

以大气散射理论为基础,结合颜色学、大气环境监测及城市空气质量日报等相关原理,从理论分析与实证研究2个方面证实了天空蓝色饱和程度与城市空气质量等级之间存在着显著的负相关性,即:天空蓝色饱和程度越低,空气污染等级越高,空气质量状况越差;天空蓝色饱和程度越高,空气污染等级较低,空气质量状况越好;通过相关及回归分析与检验,制得“城市空气质量等级目测色卡”,适用于晴朗天气肉眼观察天空颜色,进而目测估计空气质量等级状况,以采取必要防护措施。     

Morphologic development, relative sea level rise and sustainable management of water and sediment in the Ebre Delta, Spain

The Ebre (Ebro) Delta is one of the most important wetland areas in the western Mediterranean. Ca. 40 % of the delta plain is less than 0.5 m above mean sea level and part of the southern margin of the delta is at mean sea level in an area protected by dikes. Both mean rates of secular subsidence in the Ebre Delta and eustatic sea level rise are ca. 1 – 2 mm/yr. Thus, the present annual relative sea level rise (RSLR) rate in the Ebre Delta may be at least 3 mm/yr. Measured accretion rates in the delta range from 4 mm/yr in the wetlands surrounding the river mouth to <0.1 mm/yr in impounded salt marshes and rice fields. The annual sediment deficit in the delta plain to offset RSLR is close to 1 million m³/yr. Accretion rates in the rice fields prior to the construction of large dams in the Ebre watershed were higher than RSLR rates, from 3 – 15 mm/yr. At present, >99 % of the riverine sediments are retained in the reservoirs and rice fields are losing ca. 0.2 mm/yr. Future management plans should take RSLR into account and include control of freshwater and sediment flows from the river in order to offset negative effects from waterlogging and salt intrusion, and maintain land elevation. This will include the partial removal of sediments trapped behind the Ribarroja and Mequinença dams. Stocks and inputs of sediments in the corresponding reservoirs are large enough for land elevation of ca. 50 cm in the whole delta plain. Advantages of this solution include (1) new sediments to the delta to offset subsidence (via rice fields) and coastal retreat, (2) enhanced functioning of the delta (productivity and nutrient processing), (3) avoidance of accumulation of sediments in the reservoirs. Hence, it is important to manage river discharges at the dams from an integrated viewpoint, whereas currently only hydropower and agricultural requirements are considered. It is also crucial to maintain periods of high discharge, to have enough river energy to transport as much sediments as possible.     

海平面上升对生态环境及其服务功能的影响

近50年来，海平面持续上升对我国沿海地区的影响日渐明显。综合分析了我国海平面上升的现状及其发展变化趋势，对未来海平面上升对沿海地区生态环境及其服务功能可能造成的影响作了分析。最后提出了对策建议，为政府部门采取措施提供科学依据。     

Putting Longline Bycatch of Sea Turtles into Perspective

Abstract:  Although some sea turtle populations are showing encouraging signs of recovery, others continue to decline. Reversing population declines requires an understanding of the primary factor(s) that underlie this persistent demographic trend. The list of putative factors includes direct turtle and egg harvest, egg predation, loss or degradation of nesting beach habitat, fisheries bycatch, pollution, and large-scale changes in oceanographic conditions and nutrient availability. Recently, fisheries bycatch, in particular bycatch from longline fisheries, has received increased attention and has been proposed as a primary source of turtle mortality. We reviewed the existing data on the relative impact of longline bycatch on sea turtle populations. Although bycatch rates from individual longline vessels are extremely low, the amount of gear deployed by longline vessels suggests that cumulative bycatch of turtles from older age classes is substantial. Current estimates suggest that even if pelagic longlines are not the largest single source of fisheries-related mortality, longline bycatch is high enough to warrant management actions in all fleets that encounter sea turtles. Nevertheless, preliminary data also suggest that bycatch from gillnets and trawl fisheries is equally high or higher than longline bycatch with far higher mortality rates. Until gillnet and trawl fisheries are subject to the same level of scrutiny given to pelagic longlines, our understanding of the overall impact of fisheries bycatch on vulnerable sea turtle populations will be incomplete.     

某矿区老硐口毁闭爆破空气冲击波效应的评价

本文就某金矿区在对非法开采的平硐进行毁闭爆破时产生的空气冲击波的效应进行了分析评价,指出空气冲击波对附近村庄民房不构成破坏,只是由于强烈的爆破噪音给人以恐怖感,干扰了附近居民宁静正常的生活和生产。     

乌江流域县域社会经济发展的综合评价与分析

在简要阐述了县域社会经济发展综合评价原则的基础上,建立了悬域社会经济发展综合评价的指标体系,利用层次分析法确定了各评价因子的权重。接着以乌江流域为例,对流域内４０个县域的社会经济发展水平进行了定量评价,指出了流域内县域社会经济发展中存在的问题,并提出了相应的对策,旨在为促进乌江流域的县域社会经济协调发展提供某些科学依据。     

连云港海平面变化与地震相关性的探讨

为探索海平面变化与地震相关的前兆信息,利用了连云港验潮站长达４３年的验潮资料。结合华北地区４次７级以上强震和江苏及其以东黄海海域１８次中强以上地震的震例分析后认为：经基本消除主要干扰因素的连云港平均海平面变化,表征了与地震有关的地壳形变信息。它对监测华北地区强震和江苏及邻近地区的中强震,具有一定的参考价值。     

成都市大气降尘放射性水平分析

本文介绍了成都市大气降尘放射性水平的监测结果。发现降尘中除有少量天然核素外,还尚存有以往大气层核试验释放的裂变核素９０Ｓｒ和１３７Ｃｓ。平均年沉降量９０Ｓｒ为１０２Ｂｑ·ｍ－２·Ｙ－１,１３７Ｃｓ为１３１Ｂｑ·ｍ－２·Ｙ－１。由大气９０Ｓｒ和１３７Ｃｓ沉降所致公众辐射剂量为１６８μＳｒ·ａ－１,是限值的２‰。所以,降尘中放射性造成的辐射影响是很小的。