A climate-change vulnerability and adaptation assessment for Brazil's protected areas

Brazil hosts the largest expanse of tropical ecosystems within protected areas (PAs), which shelter biodiversity and support traditional human populations. We assessed the vulnerability to climate change of 993 terrestrial and coastal-marine Brazilian PAs by combining indicators of climatic-change hazard with indicators of PA resilience (size, native vegetation cover, and probability of climate-driven vegetation transition). This combination of indicators allows the identification of broad climate-change adaptation pathways. Seventeen PAs (20,611 km²) were highly vulnerable and located mainly in the Atlantic Forest (7 PAs), Cerrado (6), and the Amazon (4). Two hundred fifty-eight PAs (756,569 km²), located primarily in Amazonia, had a medium vulnerability. In the Amazon and western Cerrado, the projected severe climatic change and probability of climate-driven vegetation transition drove vulnerability up, despite the generally good conservation status of PAs. Over 80% of PAs of high or moderate vulnerability are managed by indigenous populations. Hence, besides the potential risks to biodiversity, the traditional knowledge and livelihoods of the people inhabiting these PAs may be threatened. In at least 870 PAs, primarily in the Atlantic Forest and Amazon, adaptation could happen with little or no intervention due to low climate-change hazard, high resilience status, or both. At least 20 PAs in the Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, and Amazonia should be targeted for stronger interventions (e.g., improvement of ecological connectivity), given their low resilience status. Despite being a first attempt to link vulnerability and adaptation in Brazilian PAs, we suggest that some of the PAs identified as highly or moderately vulnerable should be prioritized for testing potential adaptation strategies in the near future.     

Sustainability: a Dissent

Abstract:  Broadly conceived and considered in its many usages, sustainability has grave defects as a planning goal, particularly when used by conservationists: it confuses means and ends; it is vague about what is being sustained and who or what is doing the sustaining; it is uninspiring; it is little more than Pinchot-era conservation (and thus ignores the many lessons learned since then); it need not be linked to land, to the land's functioning, or to any ecological science; it need not include a moral component; it is consistent with the view of humans as all-powerful manipulators of the planet; and, in general, it is such a malleable term that its popularity provides only a facade of consensus. When sustainability is defined broadly to include the full range of economic and social aspirations, it poses the particular risk that ecological and biodiversity concerns will be cast aside in favor of more pressing human wants. Given these many defects, the conservation movement should discard the term in favor of a more alluring goal, attentive to nature and its ecological functioning. A sound goal would incorporate and distill the considerable ecological and moral wisdom accumulated since Pinchot's day while giving conservationists the rhetorical tools needed to defend the land against competing pressures. In our view, conservation would be well served by an updated variant of "land health," Aldo Leopold's ecologically grounded goal from the 1940s. Land health as an independent understanding should set the essential terms of how we live and enjoy the earth, providing the framework within which we pursue our many social and economic aims.     

Linking Land Cover and Water Quality in New York City’S Water Supply Watersheds

The Catskill/Delaware reservoirs supply 90% of New York City’s drinking water. The City has implemented a series of watershed protection measures, including land acquisition, aimed at preserving water quality in the Catskill/Delaware watersheds. The objective of this study was to examine how relationships between landscape and surface water measurements change between years. Thirty-two drainage areas delineated from surface water sample points (total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and fecal coliform bacteria concentrations) were used in step-wise regression analyses to test landscape and surface-water quality relationships. Two measurements of land use, percent agriculture and percent urban development, were positively related to water quality and consistently present in all regression models. Together these two land uses explained 25 to 75% of the regression model variation. However, the contribution of agriculture to water quality condition showed a decreasing trend with time as overall agricultural land cover decreased. Results from this study demonstrate that relationships between land cover and surface water concentrations of total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and fecal coliform bacteria counts over a large area can be evaluated using a relatively simple geographic information system method. Land managers may find this method useful for targeting resources in relation to a particular water quality concern, focusing best management efforts, and maximizing benefits to water quality with minimal costs.The United States Environmental Protection Agency through its Office of Research and Development funded and managed the research described here. It has been subjected to Agency’s administrative review and approved for publication as an EPA document.     

An approach to the fluctuation mechanism of ecotone

In this paper,the relationship among land productivity,population pressure and the fluctuation mechanism of ecotone is analyzed,taking coumties and banners of southeast Inner Mongolia plateau as an example,which is the most fragile part in the farming and husbandry interleaving belt of north China due to its severe desertification degree and low level of economic development.The Cv for the total output value of agriculture decreases from southeast to northwest,with the same rule as which the overloading population cumulated distributes,and both indicators have close relation with the high linear coefficient of 0.83.These reveal the fluctuation mechanism for ecotone:fluctuation of the level of economic development is a scientific and practical measure both to weakness degree and to instability of ecotone,because it is a synthesized response to the variation of climate as well as irrational land uses,which reinforce and magnify the fluctuation.In detail,the heavier the population overloading,the severer the grassland reclamation,the stronger the dependence of regional productivity on rainfall,the lower the level of economic development,the rougher the fluctuation of ecotone,but the weaker the PRED system.     

Eco-environmental information system of Tianjin City─Design, implementation and applications

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安太堡露天矿南排土场滑体植被治理技术

论述了安太堡矿南排土场滑体整治模式,通过植被减少滑体侵蚀及水土流失,改善了滑体的生态景观,对滑体安全起到了良好作用。     

区域土地资源承载能力研究模式雏议——以甘肃省定西县为例

本文从土地现实生产力分析和作物潜在生产力估算入手,借助IBM-PC计算机,通过土地资源生产力评价的 MFICA 模式和土地资源优化利用模型的建立,初步框算了定西县1990年、2000年,2025年以及2050年之后的区域农业生产力及其土地资源承载力,进尔阐释了该县土地资源承载力的演变及其土地-粮食-人口关系的可能发展趋势。为区域土地资源承载力研究提供了一条切实可行的途径。     

人工神经网络模型和公路复垦土地适宜性评价

提出了人工神经网络用于公路临时用地复垦土地适宜性评价，利用该模型对京大高速公路山西段复垦山西段复垦土地进行了适宜性评价，探讨了人工神经网络在土地复垦适宜性评价时的特点和注意问题。     

区域土地可持续利用与环境政策-体化

可持续发展应分阶段、分层次地进行，为增强区域土地可持续利用，相关环境政策的制定遵循可持续发展的原则，提出了区域土地可持续利用的评价流程与环境政策形成的循环模式；介绍了国外区域开发环境影响评价的研究进展及区域环境管理规划的主要内容；分析了这一领域的相关法律问题并提出了建议。     

全国及区域性人均耕地阈值的探讨

论文首先指出并不存在联合国粮农组织提出的人均耕地面积阈值;继而认为人均耕地面积阈值具有鲜明的时间和空间特征,需要有明确的前提条件。为此按1995年的耕地实际生产力(在耕地面积中扣除菜地和经济作物用地面积),以人均400kg、450kg、500kg粮食需求量的生活标准,提出就全国平均而言,人均耕地面积不应小于0.092hm₂、0.104hm₂、0.115hm₂(可以看作当前的人均耕地面积阈值)。根据2010、2030、2050年我国的预期耕地面积以及可能达到的生产能力,按人均400kg、450kg、500kg粮食需求量的生活标准,就全国平均而言,2010年人均耕地面积不应小于0.059hm₂、0.067hm₂、0.074hm₂(可以看作近期的人均耕地面积阈值);2030年人均耕地面积不应小于0.052hm₂、0.058hm₂、0.064hm₂(可以作为中期的人均耕地面积阈值);2050年人均耕地面积不应小于0.046hm₂、0.052hm₂、0.058hm₂(可以作为远期的人均耕地面积阈值)。