The city as a refuge for insect pollinators

Research on urban insect pollinators is changing views on the biological value and ecological importance of cities. The abundance and diversity of native bee species in urban landscapes that are absent in nearby rural lands evidence the biological value and ecological importance of cities and have implications for biodiversity conservation. Lagging behind this revised image of the city are urban conservation programs that historically have invested in education and outreach rather than programs designed to achieve high‐priority species conservation results. We synthesized research on urban bee species diversity and abundance to determine how urban conservation could be repositioned to better align with new views on the ecological importance of urban landscapes. Due to insect pollinators’ relatively small functional requirements—habitat range, life cycle, and nesting behavior—relative to larger mammals, we argue that pollinators put high‐priority and high‐impact urban conservation within reach. In a rapidly urbanizing world, transforming how environmental managers view the city can improve citizen engagement and contribute to the development of more sustainable urbanization.     

Considering the needs of indigenous and local populations in conservation programs

Local rural and indigenous communities have assumed increasing responsibility for conservation within and between areas buffering the impacts of agricultural or resource‐extraction zones and protected areas. Empowering local communities as central partners in conservation and climate‐change mitigation has allowed many people to gain access to land and citizenship rights but has provided limited improvements in access to social services and economic opportunities even as expectation about their role as environmental stewards grows. These expectations, however, are inconsistent with reality. We conducted multiple field studies in Brazil since the mid‐1980s to illustrate the discrepancies between conservation programs and local conditions and expectations. We suggest that public policies and conservation programs should not delegate responsibility for managing protected areas to local and indigenous communities without considering local needs and expectations and locals’ attitudes toward conservation. In other words, behavior that maintains or improves the environment should not be treated as traditional based on the expectations of outsiders. Framing local populations as traditional environmentalists creates contradictions and frustrations for local populations and for conservation professionals and policy makers.     

Effectiveness of conservation easements in agricultural regions

Conservation easements are a standard technique for preventing habitat loss, particularly in agricultural regions with extensive cropland cultivation, yet little is known about their effectiveness. I developed a spatial econometric approach to propensity‐score matching and used the approach to estimate the amount of habitat loss prevented by a grassland conservation easement program of the U.S. federal government. I used a spatial autoregressive probit model to predict tract enrollment in the easement program as of 2001 based on tract agricultural suitability, habitat quality, and spatial interactions among neighboring tracts. Using the predicted values from the model, I matched enrolled tracts with similar unenrolled tracts to form a treatment group and a control group. To measure the program's impact on subsequent grassland loss, I estimated cropland cultivation rates for both groups in 2014 with a second spatial probit model. Between 2001 and 2014, approximately 14.9% of control tracts were cultivated and 0.3% of treated tracts were cultivated. Therefore, approximately 14.6% of the protected land would have been cultivated in the absence of the program. My results demonstrate that conservation easements can significantly reduce habitat loss in agricultural regions; however, the enrollment of tracts with low cropland suitability may constrain the amount of habitat loss they prevent. My results also show that spatial econometric models can improve the validity of control groups and thereby strengthen causal inferences about program effectiveness in situations when spatial interactions influence conservation decisions.     

Threats to intact tropical peatlands and opportunities for their conservation

Large, intact areas of tropical peatland are highly threatened at a global scale by the expansion of commercial agriculture and other forms of economic development. Conserving peatlands on a landscape scale, with their hydrology intact, is of international conservation importance to preserve their distinctive biodiversity and ecosystem services and maintain their resilience to future environmental change. We explored threats to and opportunities for conserving remaining intact tropical peatlands; thus, we excluded peatlands of Indonesia and Malaysia, where extensive deforestation, drainage, and conversion to plantations means conservation in this region can protect only small fragments of the original ecosystem. We focused on a case study, the Pastaza‐Marañón Foreland Basin (PMFB) in Peru, which is among the largest known intact tropical peatland landscapes in the world and is representative of peatland vulnerability. Maintenance of the hydrological conditions critical for carbon storage and ecosystem function of peatlands is, in the PMFB, primarily threatened by expansion of commercial agriculture linked to new transport infrastructure that is facilitating access to remote areas. There remain opportunities in the PMFB and elsewhere to develop alternative, more sustainable land‐use practices. Although some of the peatlands in the PMFB fall within existing legally protected areas, this protection does not include the most carbon‐dense (domed pole forest) areas. New carbon‐based conservation instruments (e.g., REDD+, Green Climate Fund), developing markets for sustainable peatland products, transferring land title to local communities, and expanding protected areas offer pathways to increased protection for intact tropical peatlands in Amazonia and elsewhere, such as those in New Guinea and Central Africa which remain, for the moment, broadly beyond the frontier of commercial development.     

Applying network theory to prioritize multispecies habitat networks that are robust to climate and land‐use change

Designing connected landscapes is among the most widespread strategies for achieving biodiversity conservation targets. The challenge lies in simultaneously satisfying the connectivity needs of multiple species at multiple spatial scales under uncertain climate and land‐use change. To evaluate the contribution of remnant habitat fragments to the connectivity of regional habitat networks, we developed a method to integrate uncertainty in climate and land‐use change projections with the latest developments in network‐connectivity research and spatial, multipurpose conservation prioritization. We used land‐use change simulations to explore robustness of species’ habitat networks to alternative development scenarios. We applied our method to 14 vertebrate focal species of periurban Montreal, Canada. Accounting for connectivity in spatial prioritization strongly modified conservation priorities and the modified priorities were robust to uncertain climate change. Setting conservation priorities based on habitat quality and connectivity maintained a large proportion of the region's connectivity, despite anticipated habitat loss due to climate and land‐use change. The application of connectivity criteria alongside habitat‐quality criteria for protected‐area design was efficient with respect to the amount of area that needs protection and did not necessarily amplify trade‐offs among conservation criteria. Our approach and results are being applied in and around Montreal and are well suited to the design of ecological networks and green infrastructure for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services in other regions, in particular regions around large cities, where connectivity is critically low.     

论违反《中华人民共和国固体废物污染环境防治法》的刑事责任

系统分析《中华人民共和国固体废物污染环境防治法》所规定的三种犯罪类型,论述追究固体废物污染环境罪刑事责任的犯罪构成要件。     

苯并(a)芘在黄河水体不同粒径颗粒物上的表面吸附和分配作用特征

模拟实验研究了苯并(a)芘在黄河水体不同粒径颗粒物上的吸附作用,重点探讨了颗粒物粒径对苯并(a)芘的表面吸附和分配作用的影响.结果表明:(1)苯并(a)芘在黄河水体颗粒物上的吸附符合表面吸附-分配作用复合模式(2)苯并(a)芘在粒径d≥0.025 mm颗粒物上的吸附以表面吸附为主,表面吸附对吸附的贡献在68.7%至82.4%之间;当苯并(a)芘液相平衡浓度为0～8.87μg·L-1时,其在粒径0 007 mm≤d＜0.025 mm颗粒物上的吸附以表吸附作用为主,当液相平衡浓度大于8.87μg·L-1时,吸附以分配作用为主;苯并(a)芘在粒径d＜0.007 mm颗粒物上的吸附以分配作用为主;(3)苯并(a)芘在不同粒径颗粒物上的表面吸附对总吸附的贡献大小顺序为:(d≥0.025 mm)＞(0.007 mm≤d＜0 025 mm)＞(d＜0.007 mm);(4)苯并(a)芘在不同粒径颗粒物中的分配系数与有机质含量呈线性相关,其标化分配系数Koc约为1.26×105L·kg-1.     

再生塑料粉煤灰复合材料井盖

将废塑料、粉煤灰、农作物秸杆等固体废弃物通过自主创新技术成功地制备了市政工程制品：井盖、井箅等。具有抗压、抗冲击性能优良;成本低;环境友好;美观;安全等特性。     

应用AERMOD计算卫生防护距离方法探讨

针对目前环评工作中计算确定工业企业卫生防护距离几种常见方法的不足和局限性,本文提出应用美国环保局推出的第二代法规模式AERMOD模型计算卫生防护距离的方法,并比较三种计算方法的优劣,提出确定工业企业卫生防护距离的最终可行方案。     

土壤中苯并[a]芘测定的精密度控制指标研究

通过全国多家实验室的大量监测数据,研究分析了土壤中苯并[a]芘测定的精密度控制指标,并与EPA8270D进行了比较,旨在为环境监测工作提供质量控制依据和质量控制指标。研究表明,标准样品的室内相对标准偏差的质量控制范围≤28%,室内相对偏差的质量控制范围≤34%。