Research on 10-year tendency of China coal mine accidents and the characteristics of human factors

The trend of China coal mine accidents in the latest 10 years was studied and the human factors in these accidents were analyzed by multi-dimensional statistic analysis. It shows that the number of major coal mine accidents and the death toll in the accidents were decreasing steadily, while sporadic death accidents still accounted for the largest percentage of deaths. Gas outburst accidents, gas explosion accidents and mine water accidents remained the major part of the whole story and subject to close attention. Among the causes of these accidents, human factors accounted for 94.09%, of which intentional violation, mismanagement and defective design accounted for 35.43%, 55.12%, 3.54% respectively. Improper operational and management practices in which the safety system, procedures and specifications were neglected or broken were still key roots of China coal mine accidents.     

2012年1—2月国内环境事件

简要统计了2012年1—2月国内发生的各种环境事件78起,包括沙尘天气3起,污染事件18起,地震34起,山体滑坡和泥石流7起,旱灾4起以及其他自然灾害12起。     

而今迈步从头越——《安全生产法》征求意见稿学习体会和修改建议

首先分析了我国《安全生产法》的发展沿革,且认真学习了目前发布的《安全生产法》征求意见稿,归纳了征求意见稿还应实现四个重点突破:必须体现以人为本的执政理念;职业危害防治应列为《安全生产法》的重要条款之一;安全生产执法监察应与公共安全及行政管理分离;应对工伤保险预防机制作出明确要求。此外,建议通过《安全生产法》的进一步修订实现我国安全生产的制度化建设:建议逐步建立安全生产分级监察管理体制;推进风险管理制度,对企业实行风险分级与分级监管;逐步提出建立安全生产监察员专业化制度;建立与国际接轨的生产安全事故统计报告系统;强化城市建设土地使用规划的风险管理和安全许可;生产安全事故应急管理应强化应急准备工作;建立独立生产安全事故调查机构和公开公正调查程序;应在《安全生产法》中明确"安全生产委员会"的组织形式和功能;生产安全事故责任追究应与激励政策相结合。     

Urban development and landscape change in the Yangtze River Delta region in China

The impact of large-scale urban development on land resources has long been debated by urban planners and designers. This study investigated the extent to which different urban characteristics are associated with land-cover change. The Yangtze River Delta region in China, forming one of the largest sprawling urban landscapes among the regions around the world, was chosen for the study area. Spatial analysis and multiple regression methods were applied to empirically investigate the pattern of resource sites lost to urban development in the area between the 1950s and 2017. The results showed that contrary to the widespread notion that large-sized cities are predominantly responsible for a region’s environmental degradation, city size was not a significant factor in determining the rate of resource loss. Large-sized cities gained their populations with far lesser impacts on land than small-sized cities and towns if normalized to the same number of populations. One explanation for the diminishing effect of city size on land-cover change relates to the degree of spatial dispersion of urban development and local differences in social valuation of diversified lands by cities.     

Boosting freshwater fish conservation with high-resolution distribution mapping across a large territory

The lack of high-resolution distribution maps for freshwater species across large extents fundamentally challenges biodiversity conservation worldwide. We devised a simple framework to delineate the distributions of freshwater fishes in a high-resolution drainage map based on stacked species distribution models and expert information. We applied this framework to the entire Chinese freshwater fish fauna (>1600 species) to examine high-resolution biodiversity patterns and reveal potential conflicts between freshwater biodiversity and anthropogenic disturbances. The correlations between spatial patterns of biodiversity facets (species richness, endemicity, and phylogenetic diversity) were all significant (r = 0.43–0.98, p < 0.001). Areas with high values of different biodiversity facets overlapped with anthropogenic disturbances. Existing protected areas (PAs), covering 22% of China's territory, protected 25–29% of fish habitats, 16–23% of species, and 30–31% of priority conservation areas. Moreover, 6–21% of the species were completely unprotected. These results suggest the need for extending the network of PAs to ensure the conservation of China's freshwater fishes and the goods and services they provide. Specifically, middle to low reaches of large rivers and their associated lakes from northeast to southwest China hosted the most diverse species assemblages and thus should be the target of future expansions of the network of PAs. More generally, our framework, which can be used to draw high-resolution freshwater biodiversity maps combining species occurrence data and expert knowledge on species distribution, provides an efficient way to design PAs regardless of the ecosystem, taxonomic group, or region considered.     

Evaluation of ecotourism development in rural regions of China

The current status of ecotourism in rural China was analyzed in this paper.Empirical surveys covering the whole country indicate that ecotourism in rural China has attracted a large number of tourists who,however,didn’t generate revenues that can match the number.Although the environmental quality of those rural ecotourism destinations is high with little negative impacts,several problems have already appeared,suggesting a need to monitor those areas.The current practice of interpretation in most rural ecotourism destinations did not provide environmental education opportunities to the tourists.And local communities need more effective ways to decide on the prospects of local ecotourism development by themselves.Finally,a few recommendations for improving the sustainability of ecotourism destinations were provided.     

Viable contribution of Tibetan sacred mountains in southwestern China to forest conservation

The Tibetan sacred mountains (TSMs) cover a large area and may represent a landscape‐scale conservation opportunity. We compared the conservation value of forests in these mountains with the conservation value of government‐established nature reserves and unmanaged open‐access areas in Danba County, southwestern China. We used Landsat satellite images to map forest cover and to estimate forest loss in 1974–1989, 1989–1999, and 1999–2013. The TSMs (n = 41) and nature reserves (n = 4) accounted for 21.6% and 29.7% of the county's land area, respectively. Remaining land was open‐access areas (i.e., areas without any restrictions on resource use) (56.2%) and farmlands (2.2%). Within the elevation range suitable for forests, forest cover did not differ significantly between nature reserves (58.8%) and open‐access areas (58.4%), but was significantly higher in TSMs (65.5%) after controlling for environmental factors such as aspect, slope, and elevation. The TSMs of great cultural importance had higher forest cover, but patrols by monastery staff were not necessarily associated with increased forest cover. The annual deforestation rate in nonsacred areas almost tripled in 1989–1999 (111.4 ha/year) relative to 1974–1989 (40.4 ha/year), whereas the rate in TSMs decreased in the later period (19.7 ha/year vs. 17.2 ha/year). The reduced forest loss in TSMs in 1989–1999 was possibly due to the renaissance of TSM worship and strengthened management by the local Buddhist community since late 1980s. The annual deforestation rate in Danba decreased dramatically to 4.4 ha/year in 1999–2013, which coincided with the implementation of a national ban on logging in 1998. As the only form of protected area across the Tibetan region during much of its history, TSMs have positively contributed to conserving forest at a landscape scale. Conservation of TSM forests largely relied on the strength of local religious institutions. Integrating community‐based conservation of TSMs within the government conservation network would benefit the conservation of the Tibetan region.     

2018年11-12月国内环境事件

LI Sheng-cai;AN Ying(State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology,Beijing Institute of Technology,Beijing 100081,China)     

中国生物多样性保护立法现状与需求

生物多样性保护依赖于健全的国际立法和国家立法。中国已颁布一系列有关生物多样性保护的法律和条例。这些法规的实施，使生物多样性保护工作取得重大进展，但还存在许多不足和空白。本文概述了中国在生物多样性保护方面的立法现状，在此基础上，针对存在问题，并根据《生物多样性公约》要求，从生态系统、物种和遗传多样性保护３个层次上阐明需要完善和加强法规建设的若干方面和需求。     

中国土地盐碱化及其防治对策研究

中国盐碱地面积为３６３０万ｈｍ２，土地盐碱化是农业生态环境退化的重大问题之一。土地盐碱化治理和预防对中国干旱、半干旱和半湿润地区农业生态系统退化防治、农业生态环境保护和未来食物安全性具有非常重要的实践意义。本文简要评述了我国土地盐碱化的历史及发展趋势以及土地盐碱化可能造成的土地面积、生产力和经济损失；在对土地盐碱化发生和发展的技术和社会经济原因，以及现有技术、管理、政策和法律法规进行系统评述的基础上，提出了我国土地盐碱化防治的区域战略、技术政策、管理政策、法律法规及经济激励手段。