Coming to the table: collaborative governance and groundwater decision-making in coastal California

Collaborative governance is on the rise in the United States. This management approach brings together state and non-state actors for environmental decision-making, and it is frequently used in California for decisions regarding local groundwater management. This study examines groundwater decision-making groups and practices in a central California coastal community to understand whether groups meet specific collaborative governance criteria and whether and why certain subsets of the population are excluded from groundwater decision-making practices. It also identifies actions for better group inclusion. We find that small farmers, the Hispanic/Latino community, and the general public are often excluded from groundwater decision-making groups and practices due to unawareness, mistrust, and insufficient resources. Education and awareness as well as incentives could help increase inclusion. This study provides insights into more equitable groundwater decision-making groups and practices, and also calls for more critical examination of the current stakeholder approach to decision-making.     

Regime shifts and resilience in China’s coastal ecosystems

Regime shift often results in large, abrupt, and persistent changes in the provision of ecosystem services and can therefore have significant impacts on human wellbeing. Understanding regime shifts has profound implications for ecosystem recovery and management. China’s coastal ecosystems have experienced substantial deterioration within the past decades, at a scale and speed the world has never seen before. Yet, information about this coastal ecosystem change from a dynamics perspective is quite limited. In this review, I synthesize existing information on coastal ecosystem regime shifts in China and discuss their interactions and cascading effects. The accumulation of regime shifts in China’s coastal ecosystems suggests that the desired system resilience has been profoundly eroded, increasing the potential of abrupt shifts to undesirable states at a larger scale, especially given multiple escalating pressures. Policy and management strategies need to incorporate resilience approaches in order to cope with future challenges and avoid major losses in China’s coastal ecosystem services.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0692-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

土地利用生态服务价值指标体系评估结果比较研究

生态系统服务价值评估越来越受到学术界关注。针对当前生态服务价值评估方法、指标体系和评估效果较多的实践,通过文献归纳,对国内外土地利用生态服务价值评价方法、指标体系及其系数进行了梳理、分类和评价,将指标体系分为Costanza和谢高地两大类,并将谢高地指标体系分为价值当量、价值系数和区域修正。以辽宁省2005、2010年土地利用数据为案例,运用Costanza价值系数、谢高地两个版本价值当量、两个版本价值系数的区域修正,分别核算了案例区生态系统服务价值及变化,并比较评价结果。研究得出Costanza价值系数应用于中国实践时评估结果显得偏低,谢高地2002版的价值当量和2002版的价值系数区域修正结果最接近平均值,相对较为可取,2007版的价值系数区域修正评估结果也较为接近均值但略低,2007版的价值当量评估结果总体偏高。研究结果有利于指导土地利用生态服务价值评估指标体系选取。     

Global trends and development of energy services industry in China

Energy service is an effective way to promote energy conservation by market mechanisms, including energy saving services, energy procurement, supply of many varieties of energy, supply of renewable energy technologies, energy-related consulting services, risk management, etc. China is a major energy consumer but energy is in short supply, and the efficiency of energy use is low. China’s energy service industry has expanded rapidly, in terms of both the number of new Energy Service Companies entering the market and amount of capital invested in Energy Performance Contracting projects, but the energy service sector in China is still at an early stage of development. Developed countries began early in developing the energy service sector and their energy service market is mature, and the experience of developed countries shows that energy services play a significant role in advancing energy saving and emission reduction. Under the new situation, China needs combine energy services experience of developed countries, and take following measures to accelerate China’s energy services rapid and healthy development, including the long-term aspects of policy planning, energy-saving core technology, finance and capital investment, public sector reductions, personnel training, and so on.     

Willingness to pay and demand elasticities for two national parks: empirical evidence from two surveys in Pakistan

Using survey-based data approach for modeling the demand for environmental goods/resources, this study estimates income and price elasticities of demand for improved environmental quality of two National Parks in Northern Pakistan. The study uses data from two studies. The estimates indicate that improved environmental quality effects can be described as a luxury and an ordinary and price elastic service. Confidence intervals show however that the classification as a luxury is not statistically significant. Income elasticities of willingness to pay are estimated for a broad range of environmental services. The study finds that income and willingness to pay vary directly and significantly. The elasticity estimates, in general, are greater than zero, but less than unity. The study concludes that environmental improvements are more beneficial to low-income groups than for high-income groups.

From land cover change to land function dynamics: a major challenge to improve land characterization

Land cover change has always had a central role in land change science. This central role is largely the result of the possibilities to map and characterize land cover based on observations and remote sensing. This paper argues that more attention should be given to land use and land functions and linkages between these. Consideration of land functions that provide a wide range of goods and services makes more integrated assessments of land change possible. The increasing attention to multifunctional land use is another incentive to develop methods to assess changes in land functions. A number of methods to quantify and map the spatial extent of land use and land functions are discussed and the implications for modeling are identified based on recent model approaches in land change science. The mixed use of land cover, land use and land function in maps and models leads to inconsistencies in land change assessments. Explicit attention to the non-linear relations between land cover, land use and land function is essential to consistently address land change. New methods to map and quantify land function dynamics will enhance our ability to understand and model land system change and adequately inform policies and planning.     

Impact of training programs on decision-making and situation awareness of trainee watch officers

This paper examines the impact of training programs on the ability of trainee watch officers to make decisions in collision avoidance situations.It draws on previous studies which have shown that experts are able to manage complex situations in an acceptable way. However, observations of students on simulators have revealed that many of them are unable to manage such situations or even to recall their main features. It is therefore necessary to identify new training tools that will give trainees the capacity to assess a situation quickly and accurately, and to perform satisfactory actions. These would be in addition to formal regulations.Exercises were designed to evaluate the impact of such tools on the decision-making process of trainees. The impact of the type of navigation experienced by trainees during their on-the-job training was also evaluated.Results showed that decision-making exercises did tend to improve the trainees’ capacity to analyse a complex situation; however, they did not have a clear impact on the manoeuvre performed. On the contrary, there was an obvious difference between the trainees who experienced complex avoidance situations during their on-the-job training period and those who did not.At a time where ship-owners are looking to reduce the length of the “on-the-job” training period, these results point to its vital importance.     

桥梁安全综合评价体系构建及重心法评价研究

目前桥梁安全综合评价研究并不成熟,在分析了桥梁安全综合评价应该考虑的主要因素的基础上,提出并确立了桥梁安全综合评价体系.探讨了应用模糊重心决策法进行桥梁安全综合评价的实现过程,为桥梁安全管理人员和安监部门理性决策提供理论依据.     

基于信息熵评价决策模型的突发公共事件应急处置指挥方案优选

提出基于信息熵评价决策模型对突发公共事件应急处置指挥决策中的作战方案进行优选的方法。首先介绍应急处置指挥决策的概念和过程;其次,分析了信息熵以及基于信息熵评价模型的多属性决策方法;最后,给出基于信息熵的评价决策模型在突发公共事件应急处置指挥方案优选中的应用。实地演练表明,该决策模型在应急指挥决策方案排序与优选是客观合理、切实可行的,能够为应急处置指挥决策提供一定的参考。     

Finding threatened forest areas in the central volcanic mountain range conservation area in Costa Rica

The degree at which tropical forests are exposed to human pressure is spatially dependent. Population density, proximity to roads, terrain slope, logging activities and land distribution projects are well known factors inducing deforestation and forest degradation in Latin America. Using expert knowledge to weight these threat factors and a Geographical Information System for spatial modeling, a multi-criteria analysis procedure is presented, that allows stratifying a study region in categories of deforestation threat. The procedure was implemented in the Central Volcanic Mountain Range Conservation Area (CVMRCA) in Costa Rica with the purpose of finding areas with a combination of physical and socioeconomic characteristics that is particularly predisposing to a high probability of deforestation. To validate the map, the CVMRCA was stratified in categories of deforestation risk, and the result was superposed to historical deforestation data of the period 1986–1996. The good correlation between risk category and historical deforestation (r = 0.91, p < 0.001) indicates that the map can be used as a decision support tool for defining priority areas for conservation action.