西昆仑山黄土1 Ma 以来的粒度变化特征及其古气候意义

塔里木盆地南缘保存有中国西北地区厚度最大的黄土,是详细研究亚洲内陆极端干旱 区以及塔克拉玛干沙漠形成演化的理想材料。但是,目前对该地区黄土堆积粒度特征系统的研 究还相对较少,对粒度指标的古环境意义仍存有不同的认识。通过对207 m 黄土岩芯的粒度分 析发现,西昆仑山黄土的粒度组成比较均一,分选较好,主要以粗颗粒物质为主,细颗粒含量 极少,并具有典型的风成成因特征。此外,西昆仑山黄土粒度1 Ma 以来呈现出持续变粗的趋势。 通过与其他气候指标的对比,这种变粗的趋势可能主要反映了中更新世以来亚洲内陆逐步增强 的干旱化过程。     

杭州西湖水体生态环境参数的相互关系

采用 2 0 0 0年的西湖常规监测数据 ,分析了西湖水体中生态环境特征参数的季节变化和相互关系。分析表明 ,西湖水体各生态环境参数 ,除总氮外 ,均呈现出明显的季节性变化 ,总磷、溶性正磷酸盐、叶绿素 a和藻类季节变化一致 ,在夏季形成高峰 ,冬季最低 ;三无机氮高峰值出现在冬季 ,夏季含量为全年最低。 2 0 0 0年西湖水体总氮年均值为 2 .0 5 m g/L ,总磷年均值为 0 .12 6mg/L ,N/P大于 16,西湖属于磷控制型富营养湖泊。通过相关分析 ,从另一方面说明磷是西湖水体的限制因子 ;硝酸盐对西湖沉积物和湖水之间的磷酸盐平衡有一定的影响 ;硝酸盐对西湖水体中浮游植物生长繁殖可能有抑制作用     

The governance of ecosystem services in river basins: An approach for structured data representation and analysis

River basins provide a wide range of ecosystem services important for human well-being. Ecosystem functions and their value to humans have been thoroughly studied. However, the role of governance characteristics for the sustainable management of ecosystem services has been largely ignored up to now. To close this gap, this article introduces the latest modifications to a database building on the Management and Transition Framework (MTF) that serve to study the relationship between water governance and management systems and their performance with regard to impacts on ecosystem services. This comprehensive approach facilitates structured data collection and representation in order to analyze single case studies or compare case studies regarding the governance and management of water resources and associated ecosystem services. It allows the user to investigate whether certain water governance characteristics, such as stakeholder involvement or vertical integration of governance levels, are associated with a change in the management of ecosystem services or a measurable change in their state. A simplified case from South Africa shows how the database modifications allow addressing links between governance and management processes on the one side and ecosystem services and the way they are handled on the other side. Applying the MTF database leads to evidence-based insights into best practices as well as failed management approaches and interventions. This in turn provides knowledge that can be transferred from science to practice supporting sustainable governance of ecosystem services.     

Toward energy and livelihoods security in Africa: Smallholder production and processing of bioenergy as a strategy

The past few years have seen a phenomenal rise in the production and consumption of biofuels and biodiesel at the global level. This development is of special significance to Africa, where about 550 million people (75% of the total population in Sub‐Saharan Africa) depend on traditional biomass (wood, charcoal, cow dung, etc.) and lack access to electricity or any kind of modern energy service. Derived from plants and agricultural crops, biofuels and biodiesel represent modern forms of bioenergy and more efficient use of biomass energy. Beyond efficiency, modern bioenergy offers tremendous opportunities to meet growing household energy demands, increase income, reduce poverty, and mitigate environmental degradation. In the African setting, energy and livelihoods security are indeed inseparable. This paper argues economic, social, and environmental benefits of modern bioenergy can be realized through a strategy that centres on smallholder production and processing schemes and pursuit of a livelihood approach to energy development. Such a scheme opens up new domestic markets, generates new cash incomes, improves social wellbeing, enhances new technology adoption, and lays the ground for rural economic transformation and sustainable land use. The paper concludes by underlining the vital importance of considering sound property rights and strategic planning of sustainable development as tools for sustainable energy and livelihoods security.     

ACCELERATION OF DESSICATION AND POPULATION TRAUMA IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA1

ABSTRACT: Drought has been a hazard in parts of Africa throughout historic times, and in all likelihood prior to that time as well. In recent years the hazard of drought has been increasing in frequency and areal extent. A drought that occured from 1968 to 1974 in Sub-Saharan Africa directly affected millions of people, and directly or indirectly cost the lives of tens of thousands of people. The mechanism involved in the widespread problem is the manner of adjustment of the human population to climatic cycles of short duration, in the face of rapidly growing human and animal numbers. A rapid collapse of the grasslands and an expansion of the Sahara Desert southward into more humid areas has resulted from the increasing pressure on the land from largely subsistance farming and herding. Present social, economic, and political conditions indicate that the process is going to continue to accelerate, affecting ever-increasing numbers of people in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.     

CLIMATOLOGICAL WATERSHED CALIBRATION1

ABSTRACT: This study tests the hypothesis that climatic data can be used to develop a watershed model so that stream flow changes following forest harvest can be determined. Measured independent variables were precipitation, daily maximum and minimum temperature, and concurrent relative humidity. Computed variables were humidity deficit, saturated vapor pressure, and ambient vapor pressure. These climatic variables were combined to compute a monthly evaporation index. Finally, the evaporation index and monthly precipitation were regressed with measured monthly stream flow and the monthly estimates of stream flow were combined for the hydrologic year. A regression of predicted versus measured annual stream flow had a standard error of 1.5 inches (within 6.1 percent of the measured value). When 10, 15, and 20 years of data were used to develop the regression equations, predicted minus measured stream flow for the last 7 years of record (1972–1978) were within 16.8, 11.5, and 9.7 percent of the measured mean, respectively. Although single watershed calibration can be used in special conditions, the paired watershed approach is expected to remain the preferred method for determining the effects of forest management on the water resource.     

Migrant land rights reception and 'clearing to claim' in sub-Saharan Africa: A deforestation example from southern Zambia

The relationship between migration and deforestation in the developing world continues to receive significant attention. However beyond direct population increase, the precise mechanisms that operate within the intersection of migrant/host land rights remain largely unexamined. Where migrants are provided with land and rights by the State and/or local communities, how such rights are perceived by the migrants is of primary importance in their interaction with land resources, and in aggregate it impacts the development opportunities and environmental repercussions of migration. The authors analyze the operative aspects of land rights reception (as opposed to provision) by migrant populations, and the relationship between this reception and deforestation. The article examines a case in Zambia to analyze how tenurial constructs, emerging from the way rights are perceived by migrants, lead to the continued clearing of areas much larger than needed for cultivation, even when the arrangement appears counter‐productive in terms of land rights provision and labour allocation. While valuable policy efforts have focused on providing resource rights to migrants, how such rights are received and the relationship of this reception to resource management needs greater policy attention.     

Innovative approaches to rural development: Moving from state-controlled towards market-based land reform

Among the world's poor, approximately 75% of those in extreme poverty live and work in rural areas and two‐thirds of them depend mainly on farming or farm labour for their livelihood. Policies to grant the rural poor secure access to land and water for irrigation — and to improve the economic efficiency of small‐scale agriculture — can thus play a critical role in the implementation of rural development strategies, including efforts to combat rural poverty. Since inadequate access to arable land is probably the most important cause of rural poverty, redistributive land reform is increasingly seen as crucial for socio‐economic development and poverty alleviation in many developing countries with substantial amounts of (unused) arable state land or (under‐utilized) large private landholdings. This article argues that market‐based land redistribution schemes, such as the one being implemented in South Africa, can be considered one of the most innovative approaches to land reform that have emerged over the last decade. These schemes thus provide a useful alternative to more conventional, state‐controlled land redistribution programmes. The article concludes, however, that when countries opt for market‐based approaches to land redistribution, the State still has an important role to play, without necessarily deciding which land parcels change hands.     

The value of indigenous knowledge in climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies in the African Sahel

Past global efforts at dealing with the problem of global warming concentrated on mitigation, with the aim of reducing and possibly stabilizing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere. With the slow progress in achieving this, adaptation was viewed as a viable option to reduce the vulnerability to the anticipated negative impacts of global warming. It is increasingly realized that mitigation and adaptation should not be pursued independent of each other but as complements. This has resulted in the recent calls for the integration of adaptation into mitigation strategies. However, integrating mitigation and adaptation into climate change concerns is not a completely new idea in the African Sahel. The region is characterized by severe and frequent droughts with records dating back into centuries. The local populations in this region, through their indigenous knowledge systems, have developed and implemented extensive mitigation and adaptation strategies that have enabled them reduce their vulnerability to past climate variability and change, which exceed those predicted by models of future climate change. However, this knowledge is rarely taken into consideration in the design and implementation of modern mitigation and adaptation strategies. This paper highlights some indigenous mitigation and adaptation strategies that have been practiced in the Sahel, and the benefits of integrating indigenous knowledge into formal climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. Incorporating indigenous knowledge can add value to the development of sustainable climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies that are rich in local content, and planned in conjunction with local people.     

西南地区生态文化旅游科技发展战略初探

西南地区旅游资源丰富多样,但经济发展水平相对落后.要实现西南地区经济社会的腾飞,必须实施生态文化旅游科技发展战略.在分析西南地区旅游资源特点的基础上,指出了旅游发展的战略目标及主要任务,并提出了相关建议.