能源强度收敛:对发达国家与发展中国家的检验

能源强度是指一个国家或地区生产单位产值所消耗的能源量,它反映了经济系统对能源的依赖程度和能源的使用效率。许多国家的能源强度曲线在直观上表现出收敛的显著特征。为了对这一现象进行严格的证明和检验,该文依据时间序列协整概念,首先提出了能源强度收敛的定义,然后从一个包含能源投入的内生增长模型出发,从理论上证实了能源强度收敛的存在性。为了对能源强度收敛进行实证检验,选取24个国家,并划分组合为5组样本,分别对能源强度收敛进行了σ收敛检验和协整检验,结果表明:高收入国家、高中收入国家、中低收入国家、发展中国家和样本中所有国家都存在能源强度收敛现象;σ收敛检验还揭示出各组样本中能源强度收敛的时间段以及收敛程度的大小排序。     

Is climate-smart conservation feasible in Europe? Spatial relations of protected areas,soil carbon,and land values

The expectations on protected areas to deliver not only biodiversity conservation but also to provide an array of different ecosystem services rise. Sequestration and storage of carbon are promising services that protected areas may provide. This study integrates spatially explicit data on terrestrial Natura 2000 sites, soil organic carbon, and agricultural land values to estimate the potential for climate-smart conservation planning in the European Union. The objectives of this study are to analyse spatial relations between protected areas soil carbon content, and land values on the European Union's land area as well as to locate and quantify the proportion of land with high carbon and low economic value within and outside protected areas. We apply a unique interdisciplinary framework with methods ranging from analyses based on geographical information systems, agricultural economics to statistics. Findings indicate that there is a significant overlap between Natura 2000 sites and regions with high carbon content across Europe. Statistical analyses show that carbon-rich regions have significantly lower land values than other areas. Our results suggest that biodiversity protection and mitigation of climate change through conservation of soil carbon could be simultaneously achieved in Europe's protected areas and beyond. We conclude that there is a notable potential for climate-smart conservation in Europe that needs further investigation.     

Climate change impacts on groundwater resources in Mekong Delta under representative concentration pathways (RCPs) scenarios

Groundwater is the essential resource for various uses and have a great economic importance especially in the areas like Mekong Delta, which is the home for some 18 million people and produces a half of Vietnam’s rice and contributes substantial part of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Sustainable use of the groundwater resource is threatened by its uncontrolled abstraction and climate change. This study assesses groundwater resources in Mekong Delta aquifer system in the context of climate change. A set of models are used for the purpose. Groundwater recharge and its spatial variation are estimated using WETSPASS model, groundwater level and storage are estimated using MODFLOW and future climatic conditions in the area are developed by downscaling the data of five General Circulation Models (GCMs) retrieved from CMIP5 data portal. Two representative concentration pathways (RCPs) scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) are considered for projecting future conditions of groundwater resources. Results reveal that the future average annual temperature is projected to increase by 1.5 °C and 4.9 °C by the end of the 21st century under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively. Future rainfall is projected to increase in wet season and decrease in dry season. Groundwater recharge is projected to decline in short-, medium-, and long-terms. As a result, groundwater levels and storage are also projected to decline in future. These findings may help decision-makers and stakeholders for devising sustainable groundwater management strategies in Mekong Delta.     

Climate change in the urban environment: Advancing,measuring and achieving resiliency

Climate change poses new and unique challenges that threaten lives and livelihoods. Given the increasing risks and looming uncertainty of climate change, increasing attention has been directed towards adaptation, or the strategies that enable humanity to persist and thrive through climate change the best it can. Though climate change is a global problem often discussed at the national scale, urban areas are increasingly seen as having a distinct role, and distinctive motivation and capacity, for adaptation. The 12 articles in this special issue explore ways of understanding and addressing climate change impacts on urban areas. Together they reveal young but rapidly growing scholarship on how to measure, and then overcome, challenges of climate change. Two key themes emerge in this issue: 1) that we must identify and then overcome current barriers to urban adaptation and 2) frameworks/metrics are necessary to identify and track adaptation progress in urban settings. Both of these themes point to the power of indicators and other quantitative information to inform priorities and illuminate the pathway forward for adaptation. As climate change is an entirely new challenge, careful measurement that enables investment by private and public parties is necessary to provide efficient outcomes that benefit the greatest number of people.     

Climate change adaptation in the Sahel

Climate change adaptation now occupies central stage on the agenda of most environmental initiatives in Africa. Our current understanding on the state of adaptation is limited, however, both globally and in Africa in particular. This study examines the status of adaptation in the Sahel by reviewing the primary peer review literature that reports concrete climate change adaptation actions. Based on an analysis of 70 peer review papers that document 414 discrete adaptations, we create a snap shot of adaptations developed between 1975 and 2015, and also calculate the percentages of adaptation. The results show that from a country to country perspective, Kenya has the highest number of reported adaptation actions (75 or 18.1%). The percentages indicate that the adaptive capacity of the entire study area is generally low for all the countries being that the highest country-level percentage is recorded in Kenya and it is 18%. Regionally, West Africa has more adaptation actions (261 or 63%) when compared to other regions of the Sahel. Regional level percentages suggest a higher level of adaptation at the regional level being that the percentage falls within the high scale range. The most commonly used adaptation actions reported are income diversification and water harnessing respectively. When categorized, technically related adaptation actions dominate the adaptation charts. The decade 2008–2016 recorded the highest number of adaptations (65.2%). Adaptation actions are also reported to be triggered by climatic and non-climatic drivers which both record high frequencies but the climatic drivers (98%) of adaptation are slightly dominant relative to the non-climatic drivers (95%). These results should be viewed as proxies of climate change adaptation as much information may be found in grey literature and non-peer review national communications which are left out here because of their relative low standardization and acceptability due to the absence of peer review.     

Bumblebee Vulnerability: Common Correlates of Winners and Losers across Three Continents

Abstract:  It is widely agreed that in many parts of the world some bumblebee ( Bombus ) species have declined, and that this has often been driven by land-use changes that cause reductions in the abundance of food plants. There is much less agreement about how changes in food plants affect some bumblebee species more than others. We sought to identify which species' characteristics are generally associated with the relative winners and losers by comparing the 3 independent bumblebee faunas from parts of Britain, Canada, and China. Using available survey data, we assessed species characteristics, including competition with congeners, climatic specialization, proximity to climatic range edge, food specialization, phenology, body size, and range size. Results of our meta-analysis of correlations showed support for the hypotheses that decline susceptibility is generally greater for species that have greater climatic specialization, for species in areas where they occur closest to the edges of their climatic ranges, and for species that have queens that become active later in the year. The latter characteristic may render a species at a particular disadvantage when they have long colony cycles if there are losses of food plants in mid to late colony development.     

A Call for Urgent Monitoring of Food and Water Security Based on Relevant Indicators for the Arctic

This perspective paper argues for an urgent need to monitor a set of 12 concrete, measurable indicators of food and water security in the Arctic over time. Such a quantitative indicator approach may be viewed as representing a reductionist rather than a holistic perspective, but is nevertheless necessary for actually knowing what reality aspects to monitor in order to accurately understand, quantify, and be able to project critical changes to food and water security of both indigenous and non-indigenous people in the Arctic. More relevant indicators may be developed in the future, taking us further toward reconciliation between reductionist and holistic approaches to change assessment and understanding. However, the potential of such further development to improved holistic change assessment is not an argument not to urgently start to monitor and quantify the changes in food and water security indicators that are immediately available and adequate for the Arctic context.     

Comparison of a two-stage sampling design and its composite sample alternative: An application to soil studies

The objective of a long-term soil survey is to determine the mean concentrations of several chemical parameters for the pre-defined soil layers and to compare them with the corresponding values in the past. A two-stage random sampling procedure is used to achieve this goal. In the first step, n subplots are selected from N subplots by simple random sampling without replacement; in the second step, m sampling sites are chosen within each of the n selected subplots. Thus n · m soil samples are collected for each soil layer. The idea of the composite sample design comes from the challenge of reducing very expensive laboratory analyses: m laboratory samples from one subplot and one soil layer are physically mixed to form a composite sample. From each of the n selected subplots, one composite sample per soil layer is analyzed in the laboratory, thus n per soil layer in total. In this paper we show that the cost is reduced by the factor m — 1 when instead of the two-stage sampling its composite sample alternative is used; however, the variance of the composite sample mean is increased. In the case of positive intraclass correlation the increase is less than 12.5%; in the case of negative intraclass correlation the increase depends on the properties of the variable as well. For the univariate case we derive the optimal number of subplots and sampling sites. A case study is discussed at the end.     

Climate change and transdisciplinary science: Problematizing the integration imperative

In this article we critically examine the ‘integration imperative’ in transdisciplinary environmental science and build on social constructivist and political theories to suggest alternative approaches of knowledge co-production in transdisciplinary settings. Our argument builds upon a body of literature in social studies of science to cull insights about knowledge co-production, social learning, and the ecology of team science, particularly as it relates to climate change adaptation. Couched in this transdisciplinary literature, we demonstrate, is the assumption that integration necessarily can and should be a regulative ideal. We critique this assumption by examining the ‘messy’ politics of achieving consensus among radically different, and sometimes irreconcilable, ways of knowing. We argue that the integration imperative conceals the friction, antagonism, and power inherent in knowledge co-production, which in turn can exclude innovative and experimental ways of understanding and adapting to climate change. By way of conclusion, the final section explores three alternative models of knowledge co-production – triangulation, the multiple evidence-based approach, and scenario building – and illustrates their application in the context of transdisciplinary research in climate change adaptation in the arctic, focusing on alternative means of cross-boundary engagement with indigenous ways of knowing.     

Global Trend of Low-carbon Economy and China's Responses

Based on the analysis on the global economic crisis,climate change crisis and their mutual underlying reasons,the authors believe that low-carbon economy has become an inevitable choice to break through the dual crises,coordinate the economic development,and protect the global climate.The global trend of low-carbon economy finds expression in Green Recovery currently,while,in a long run,it will give rise to a new pattern of world competition in politics,economy,technology,trade and finance.The impact of the...