Forest conservation and the clean development mechanism: Lessons from the Costa Rican protected areas project

Deforestation is currentlythe source of about 20% of anthropogenicCO₂ emissions. Avoided deforestationhas, nonetheless, been ruled out as a CleanDevelopment Mechanism (CDM) category in theKyoto Protocol's first commitment period,because several methodological issues wereconsidered too difficult to resolve. Thispaper explores whether CDM issues such as(1) carbon quantification, (2)additionality and baseline setting, (3)leakage risks, (4) non-permanence risks,and (5) sustainable development can beadequately dealt with in large, diversifiedforest conservation projects. To this aim,it studies the case of the Costa RicanProtected Areas Project (PAP), anActivities Implemented Jointly (AIJ)project which was meant to consolidate thenational park system to avoiddeforestation, promote the growth ofsecondary forests and regenerate pastureson an area that, in total, covers 10% ofthe national territory. The case studyexamines how the issues mentioned abovehave been addressed in the project designand in the certification process. It isfound that baseline uncertainties are themajor problem in this case. Nonetheless,the case suggests the possibility toaddress CDM issues by specific requirementsfor project design and very conservativeand temporary crediting. Provided thatother case studies support this conclusion,eligibility of well-designed forestconservation projects under the CDM in thesecond commitment period may be worthconsidering, given the secondary benefitsof avoided deforestation.     

气相色谱法观测本底大气中的甲烷和二氧化碳

根据世界气象组织全球大气监测（ＷＭＯ／ＧＡＷ）开展全球温室气体监测的要求，建立了气相色谱（ＧＣ）法甲烷和二氧化碳（ＣＨ４／ＣＯ２）连续观测系统，概述了该系统厍拿大大气环境局（ＡＥＳ）５个月的组装调试，以及在中国大气本底基准台（ＣＧＡＷＢＯ＿一年多时间里的业务运行和标定情况，且装调试和运动标定，与红餐吸收（ＮＤＩＲ）法，气瓶采样－实验室分析（ＦＬＡＳＫ）法数据，以及与上其它台站观测资料的对比结果表明     

龙凤山站大气CO2浓度2种筛分方法对比研究

针对黑龙江龙凤山区域本底站2009年1月~2011年12月大气CO2在线观测数据,研究基于地面风、日变化等大气本底/非本底数据筛分方法(SWDV)和稳健局部近似回归大气本底/非本底数据筛分方法(REBS)在龙凤山区域本底站的适用性.研究表明:2种筛分方法在春、秋和冬季都能很好反映龙凤山大气CO2浓度的趋势变化及局地源汇对观测CO2浓度的影响,对于高浓度的非本底数据都能够较好的识别,但在夏季使用REBS方法会影响筛分的准确性,不建议在龙凤山区域本底站使用REBS筛分方法.SWDV和REBS法筛分出的本底数据分别占总数据量的30.7%和 58.9%.2种方法均筛分为本底浓度和非本底浓度的数据分别占总数据量的21.5%和32.0%.二者筛分的本底季平均浓度在春季相差最小为(0.1±0.3)×10-6(摩尔比,下同),冬季和秋季次之,在夏季相差最大为(4.2±1.0)×10-6.典型个例分析表明,SWDV法会将白天一些受西南污染气流影响的CO2浓度误筛分为本底浓度,REBS法会将个别在静稳天气条件下受局地影响大的CO2观测值误筛分为本底浓度.夏季局地污染状况可能被植被强烈的光合作用抵消,CO2浓度变化不大,使得REBS误筛分为本底浓度,以及对于一些较低的CO2浓度值,REBS误筛分为非本底浓度,这些因素导致2种筛分方法在夏季本底浓度差别较大.     

Does the choice of climate baseline matter in ecological niche modelling?

Ecological niche models (ENMs) have multiple applications in ecology, evolution and conservation planning. They relate the known locations of a species to characteristics of its environment (usually climate) over its geographical range. Most ENMs are trained using standard 30-year (1961-1990) or 50-year (1951-2000) baselines to represent current climate conditions. Species occurrence records used as input to the models, however, are frequently collected from time periods that differ from those from which the climate is derived. Since climate variability can be significant within and outside baselines, and the distributions of some plants and animals (e.g., annual plants, insects) can adjust to environmental conditions on much shorter time scales, this mismatch between collection records and climatic baselines may affect the utility and accuracy of model outputs. We investigated how the choice of baseline periods influenced modelling efforts, anticipating that climate baselines derived from the same temporal period as the species records would yield improved ENMs. Ten simulated species’ distributions were modelled using an ENM (Maxent) for (a) occurrences and climates within the same temporal period, based on eighteen 10-year baselines within the 20th century and (b) all available samples and climate baselines from 1951-2000 and 1961-1990. Each model was projected onto all the available 10-year climate scenarios and compared to the models trained on the corresponding scenario. We show that temporal mismatches of species occurrences and climate baselines can result in significantly poorer distribution models. Such temporal mismatch may be unavoidable for many studies, but we emphasize here the need to match the time range of samples and climate data whenever possible.     

环境损害鉴定评估领域难点探讨

近年来,随着原环境保护部《关于开展环境污染损害鉴定评估工作的若干意见》以及中共中央办公厅、国务院办公厅《生态环境损害赔偿制度改革方案》的陆续发布,环境损害鉴定评估已经成为环境科学、技术经济、环境法、环境经济等相关学科领域的研究热点。本文对环境损害鉴定评估的环境损害调查、环境损害基线确定、环境损害因果关系判定、环境价值评估等所面临的难点进行了探讨,提出了初步解决思路,以期为环境损害鉴定评估的政策制定者和鉴定评估人员提供参考。     

Application of the “Climafor” baseline to determine leakage: the case of Scolel Té

The acceptance of forestry-based project activities to mitigate greenhouse gases emissions has been subjected to a number of methodological questions to be answered, of which the most challenging are baseline establishment and identification of and measuring leakage. Here we pose hypotheses for and quantify leakage of the Scolel Té project in Chiapas, Mexico. In this project small-scale farmers are implementing forestry, agroforestry, and forest conservation activities, with carbon sequestration as one of the goals. The main leakage monitoring domain is defined as the area owned by the participating farmers or communities outside the area where the specific project activities take place. The null-hypothesis (no leakage) is that non-project land owned by the farmer or community will experience the same carbon stock changes as predicted by the regional baseline, specifically developed for the project. First we assessed the most likely causes and sources of leakage that may occur in the project. From this analysis, one type of leakage seems to be important, i.e., activity shifting. Second we estimated the leakage of a sample of participating farmers and communities. Actual land use was then compared with expected land use derived from the baseline. The Plan Vivo of each participant, complemented with readily available tools to identify the main sources and drivers of leakage are used to develop simple leakage assessment procedures, as demonstrated in this paper. Negative leakage was estimated to be negligible in this study. Incorporating these procedures already in the project planning stage will reduce the uncertainties related to the actual carbon mitigation potential of any forestry project.

渝西经济区土壤地球化学基准值与背景值及元素分布特征

基于渝西经济区多目标区域地球化学调查资料,采用正态和对数正态法,获得了土壤54种元素(指标)的地球化学基准值和背景值,并研究其分布特征;同时分析了岩石风化成土过程元素的富集贫化规律,以及表层土壤元素分布特征。结果表明,与全国土壤相比,该区重金属元素Cd、Cr、Hg、Ni基准值较高,As较低,Pb、Zn、Cu与全国值相当;多数重金属元素和植物营养元素背景值偏高,仅K、Mn、P、Cl元素背景值低于全国水平。对比土壤背景值与基准值,发现多数元素(指标)背景值与基准值相当,说明表生作用和人为活动对表层土壤影响较小;而Se、Hg、S、N等14种元素在表层土壤富集,人为输入作用显著。不同母岩区表层土壤元素(指标)分布表现为,碳酸盐岩区多数元素含量较高;就不同pH值范围而言,CaO、MgO、K2O、P以及除Hg以外的重金属元素均在碱性环境含量较高,SiO2在酸性环境含量高,较多元素(指标)在中性环境中趋于稳定。     

河流健康评价的时空特征与参照基线探讨

随着河流退化成为世界各国面临的主要水环境问题,旨在从水质、生物、生态等众多角度综合评估河流系统状况、改进河流管理的河流健康概念得以提出并受到关注。时空特征与参照基线的确定是河流健康评价的两个重要环节,前者将不同时空尺度相联系,为评价指标的选取提供参考,后者将河流理想目标与人类管理需求相结合,为评价标准的确定提供依据。结合河流等级理论、河流连续体概念和四维模型,分析河流系统的主要特点及时空特征,并从点（断面、点位）、线（河流、河段）、面（流域、水系）等级剖析河流健康评价的空间尺度,从短、中、长层次识别河流健康评价的时间尺度,从而剖析不同时空尺度河流健康评价的维度特征和评价重点;从河流健康评价的标准出发,定义了最小干扰状态（MDC）、历史参考状态（HC）、最低干扰状态（LDC）、最佳可达状态（BAC）等4种河流健康评价的参照基线,探讨了参照点位法、专家判断法、历史数据法、模型推算法等参照基线计算方法的确定程序和适用范围,最后从时空特征与参照基线等方面提出了我国河流健康评价的开展建议