Supporting climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessments in the Asia-Pacific region: an example of sustainability science

Sustainability is achieved only when there is full reconciliation between: (1) economic development; (2) meeting, on an equitable basis, growing and changing human needs and aspirations; and (3) conserving the limited natural resources and the capacity of the environment to absorb the mulitple stresses that are a consequence of human activities. The linkages between climate and sustainability are examined in the context of both the wider Asia-Pacific region and local level climate risks and adaptation responses. These findings are used to underpin and illustrate several implications for sustainability science. Climate change is seen as both an impediment to increasing sustainability and as an opportunity, though in most cases the former far outweighs the latter. Assessments of climate change vulnerability and risk are shown to be of critical importance because they inform decisions as to where resources for adaptation are best invested. They also show whether global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions need to be strengthened because of limits to adaptation. In practice, adaptation takes place at many levels, essentially ranging between tangible interventions at community and enterprise level and national and international efforts to strengthen the enabling environment for adaptation. It is informative to undertake regional assessments of adaptation, even though most adaptation interventions need to reflect local conditions, including local adaptive capacities. The foregoing findings, based in part on a series of regional and local case studies, lead to several recommendations for further research that will help reduce barriers to implementing responses that reduce climate related risks, including adverse consequences for sustainability. The recommendations relate to such themes as making optimum use of predictive capabilities, characterising the linkages between climate change and sustainability, implications of the required rates and magnitudes of adaptation, institutional responses that enhance adaptive capacity, use of new and traditional technologies, the multiple dimensions of social responsibility, and enhancing the enabling environment for adaptation at the community and enterprise level. If these recommendations are acted upon they will, in turn, help address much needed improvements in quantifying the costs and benefits of adaptation, prioritising adaptation options, assessing sustainable development tradeoffs, and monitoring the success of adaptation initiatives. Such improvements will have even greater utility if they are incorporated into user-friendly decision support tools for adaptation.     

Regional priorities for wetlands conservation in West Asia and North Africa

Though characterized by a scarcity of water, West Asia and North Africa region has a large number of wetlands of various types supporting a rich biodiversity. However, the government efforts to reverse the trend of wetlands degradation fall short of the policy goals due to various reasons. The paper outlines the priorities for wetlands conservation in the region.     

碎斑熔岩相特征与相模式

本文在研究侵出相碎斑熔岩体产出的地质特征基础上,总结了其结构构造和组分特征的规律性变化,建立了四种形式的相模式。     

Scientific collectives in region-building processes

During the last 30 years, growing demand for science-based policy making has contributed to the mobilization of scientific cooperation alongside transnational political arrangements for addressing environmental issues. Following the contemporary trend toward regionalizing environmental policy and practice, many of these scientific joint efforts have focused on a regional scale. This article examines regional scientific cooperation in the context of the institutionalization of mountain regions in Europe. Such cooperation can be observed from the Pyrenees to Central Asia, albeit with a degree of variation that largely remains unexplored in scientific research. Sometimes scientific cooperation served to lay the groundwork of a mountain policy initiative, other times it appeared in its wake; some examples appear as loose networks of individual scientists, others are set up as formalized monitoring and observation centers; finally, some scientific joint efforts are formally linked to, or incorporated in a mountain policy initiative, while others are largely independent. The article proposes a new typology for understanding the interactions between regional scientific mobilization and regional policy making and provides up-to-date portraits of six main cases.     

Modeling mercury emissions from forest fires in the Mediterranean region

Mercury emissions from forest fires in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea have been estimated on the basis of satellite observations for the year 2006. The assessment has been done by means of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products (MOD12Q1, MOD14A2, MOD15A2, MOD44B). Estimates show that wild fires have burnt 310,268 ha in the Region, affecting by 45% the Mixed Forest and by 37% the Evergreen Needleleaf Forest and the Evergreen Broadleaf Forest. The amount of biomass burned was about 66,000 Mg for the Evergreen Needleleaf Forest, 72,000 Mg for the Evergreen Broadleaf Forest and 196,000 Mg for the Mixed Forest. The total amount of mercury released to the atmosphere in the Mediterranean countries accounted for 4.3 Mg year⁻¹ with Italy, France, Austria, Bulgaria, Algeria, Spain and Croatia being the most contributing countries with annual emission ranging from 330 to 970 kg year⁻¹. The maximum release of Gaseous Elemental Mercury (GEM) and particulate mercury (Hg(p)) in the region occurred in July with 1,218 kg. The uncertainty of our estimates is comparable with that associated to current assessments of mercury emissions from major industrial sources.     

UNIQUE FEATURES OF THE SOUTHEASTERN CHINA CONTINENT

The Extensive Mesozoic volcanics of Southeast China ontinent, including Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces, possessing unique temporal and spatial features is called the volcanic zone of Southeast China Continent (coast),it belongs to a part of circum-Pacific Mesozoic and Cenozoic volcanic belt.It was believed that this volcanic zone could be compared with that of Andesian active continental margin. But based on recent study the author found many evident difference between the volcanic zone of southeast China and Andesian volcanic zone of American. The former has unique features.     

On Sand and Duststorms and Associated Significant Dustfall Observed in Chongju-Chongwon,Korea during 1997–2000

Monitoring of the occurrence of sandstorms and dustfallphenomena from 1997 to 2000 was carried out. We refer tosandstorms, duststorms and blowing sand as the phenomenaoccurring in the source region, while significant dustfall is thephenomenon that occur in the sink area. It was noted that while the sandstorms in deserts and loess in NW-N China and Mongolia occurred any time during the year while severe sandstorms occurred frequently from March to May after the springthaw. The wind erosion in the source region usually occurred withwind speeds greater than 8 ms^-1. However, severe sandstorm phenomenon occurred with wind greater than 15 ms^-1 for at least 3 hr or more. In the source regions, sandstorms occurred over60–120 days per year. In Mongolia, the observation of thenumber of sandstorm days decreased due to the increase in rainy days.When a dust cloud from a desert reached the sink region,significant dustfall in the Korean Peninsula occurred due tothe lack of strong winds. We defined the episode ofsignificant dustfall (SD) with the following values: TSP250, PM₁₀ 190 g m^-3 and visibility 6.5 km or less. In Korea, 8–12 episodes of SD occurred per yearwith 12 to 22 SD days. The maximum concentrations of TSP recorded were 989–1396 g m^-3 with PM₁₀ values of 861–996 g m^-3 and with the lowestvisibility of 1.4–1.6 km.     

广东省追赶“亚洲四小龙”：经济与环境协调发展战略

广东省正计划以20年时间赶上韩国、新加坡、台湾、香港“亚洲四小龙”的经济水平。本文分析了追赶“亚洲四小龙”的科学依据,提出了必须重视下列问题。1.经济高速发展,必须重视水源开发和保护;2.面向国际市场,建立外向型经济,必须得到法律的认可和保护,这样才能发挥海洋综合效益。3.经济高涨,城镇化进程必然加速,因此,城镇必须合理布局,城镇总体规划须有超前性、起点高、要求严。     

东北亚中亚区域可持续发展——首届“东北亚中亚区域可持续发展国际论坛”在北京举行

首届"东北亚中亚区域可持续发展国际论坛"在北京召开。与会专家围绕着"全球气候变化背景下东北亚和中亚区域可持续发展"主题展开充分讨论,并形成重要研究结论。来自中国、俄罗斯、蒙古国、乌兹别克斯坦和以色列等国20多个研究机构的7位科学院院士、9位研究所所长和200多位专家学者讨论认为,面对积极应对全球变化的国际态势,加强东北亚中亚可持续发展国际合作研究具有重大战略意义,并向东北亚和中亚地区各国政府和专家学者发出共同倡议。此次国际论坛对加强东北亚和中亚地区在全球变化背景下资源生态环境与可持续发展科学问题与规律的国际合作研究具有重要推动作用。