Pauperizing the pastoral periphery: the marginalization of herding communities in the world’s dry lands

Environmental degradation and other socio-economic problems are too often discerned in contemporary pastoral systems in the wake of global economic change. This paper identifies cases where pastoral people respond to external pressures and opportunities in positive ways and adapt to changes. We hope that by doing this a framework of pastoral adaptations can be developed. The first part of this paper focuses on impacts of global economic change, which are mostly negative in nature. Through an extensive literature search in geography, anthropology, range management, and development field, the second part introduces cases that we categorize as positive adaptations.     

Adaptive Transitions: The Long‐Term Perspective on Humans in Changing Coastal Settings

Adaptation is a key concept in long‐term human adjustments to climate change. Despite the centrality of human decisions and actions in adaptation, much of the climate change literature is thin on humanities and social science which are the primary approaches for understanding human activity. This situation is particularly pronounced in Louisiana's discussions about its disappearing coast line where research has concentrated in understanding biophysical processes and solutions prioritize short‐term adaptations. This paper reviews the relationship of adaptation and long‐term transitions in the global change discussion and traces how disjointed adaptations in coastal Louisiana have contributed to a perilous environmental situation there. It proposes a shift from discrete adaptations to efforts that incorporate interrelated biophysical and human adaptations that can sustain long‐term transitions.     

Understanding pastoral mobility: the case of Senegalese Fulani

Based on a case study from Sahelian Senegal, this paper analyses how various actors perceive the importance of pastoral mobility and presents issues of importance for understanding the use of mobility among Fulani of Ferlo. One knowledge system is a scientific one, the 'new rangeland paradigm'. According to this, pastoral mobility is a means to balance variability in dryland resources; hence, 'nature' is the point of departure. Another knowledge system is local pastoral knowledge. For the pastoralists, the well-being of their animals is the point of departure and mobility is used to ensure that the livestock are in good condition. The paper shows that it is important to distinguish between mobility of pastoralists and of their herd; even though the pastoralists of northern Senegal have become semi-sedentary, their herds are still quite mobile. The pastoralists are willing to move around within a small territory, which they consider their place, but are unwilling to employ large-scale mobility themselves. Mobility is not of importance for their ethnic identity and some use paid herders to care for their livestock. By looking at both knowledge systems, we achieve a better understanding of pastoral mobility and how this may change in the future.     

对全球变化背景下长三角地区城镇化发展科学问题的思考

城镇化是中国现代化必由之路和实现经济可持续发展的长期国策。在全球变化背景下,如何科学评估并预测气候变化对城镇化发展的影响,阐释快速城镇化进程中应对气候变化的响应机制和适应模式,进而提出适应全球变化的城镇化可持续发展策略,是中国城镇化发展亟待解决的科学问题。长三角位于中国地势第三级阶梯的海岸带,海陆交互作用显著,是全球变化和人类活动剧烈相互作用的典型区域。长三角地区的城市化气候效应最强,水旱灾害、地面沉降、海面上升、极端气候事件对长三角城镇化发展的影响目前尚未作深入研究,气候变化和人类活动相互作用制约长三角的发展,长三角地区的城镇格局将如何应对气候变化和环境污染的影响?对该问题的回答是中国城镇化发展必须解决的难题,将直接决定中国城镇化可持续发展事业的成败。因此,开展长三角城镇化发展对全球变化的响应和适应对策研究,可为国家制定快速城镇化策略应对气候变化提供理论方法和科学决策依据。     

区域土地生产潜力对全球气候变化的响应评价——以中国北方农牧交错带中段为例

由于气候变化的不确定性,尤其由于区域对气候变化响应评价工作直接关系到区域气候变化对策的制定和区域发展,进行针对气候变化的响应研究比气候变化的影响评价研究更具现实意义。气候变化对区域土地利用会产生一系列的影响,这种影响作用下的区域的反应-相应的变化、必要的适应性调整和适应能力-即是对气候变化的响应。以敏感度和适应能力度量的脆弱性作为衡量区域对气候变化响应的指标,增强了不同研究工作的比较性,正在日益为有关学者接受,并在全球开始研究工作。本文对应用脆弱性理论进行区域气候变化响应研究做了有益的探索。选择气候变化的时间、空间变化明显的中国北方农牧业交错带的中段作为研究案例,分别对农牧业土地生产潜力相对气候变化的敏感度和区域对气候变化的适应能力进行了定量和半定量的计算与评价,从这两个方面给出脆弱性的表述作为对研究区域土地生产潜力对全球气候变化的响应评价。     

山区农业土地利用模式的设计

本文分析了市场经济条件下我国山区农业可持续发展所面临的问题 ,提出了山区农业土地利用模式的构想。指出影响我国山区农业土地利用模式的因素主要包括自然地理因素、市场因素和土地制度因素 ,特别是市场因素和土地制度因素对于农业土地利用模式设计的影响在新的历史时期尤为突出 ;强调山区农业土地利用模式设计必须遵循自然地带规律性、与农业经济多样化和规模经营相结合、与开拓产品市场相结合的原则 ;以河南省洛宁县为例具体说明了山区农业土地利用模式设计的技术路线。     

COMMODIFYING THE ATMOSPHERE: ‘PENNIES FROM HEAVEN’*?

The atmosphere may be the most valuable resource on Earth and is worth orders of magnitude more to society than it costs as a hazard. However, the atmosphere, and information about the atmosphere, are increasingly being transformed from being considered as part of a global commons to being conceived of as a global commodity to be bought and sold. There are three basic types of atmospheric commodity: firstly, the material atmosphere itself; secondly, the physical properties of the atmosphere; and thirdly, data or information or predictions about the atmosphere. The global expenditure on national meteorological and climatological services and research has now been surpassed by the value of new economic instruments such as weather derivatives and climate emissions trading. Atmospheric scientists, climatologists and physical geographers need to be critically aware of what the consequences, both positive and negative, of these developments for science and society might be. This is particularly the case as climate change is increasingly providing new discourses for companies and governments to exploit as the atmosphere becomes a tradable green resource. This paper attempts to construct an initial critical framework of analysis drawing from broader literatures on the commodification of nature.     

江苏交通可达性与区域经济发展水平关系测度——基于空间计量视角

交通基础设施建设与区域经济发展关系研究是交通地理学关注的焦点,但现有研究对于两者的内在关系仍存较多争议。鉴于此,将可达性不同概念纳入空间计量模型,构建包含可达性与经济变化的二阶空间滞后模型,试图从空间计量视角探讨可达性变动与区域经济发展的联系。研究显示：交通建设扩大了长江南北可达性的绝对差距,增强了长三角江苏部分城镇间的凝聚力,使苏中地区顺利融入长三角;在江苏“十一五”期间,交通建设并没有促进经济发达城镇带动周边城镇发展,但是交通建设改善了城镇发展环境,对经济持续发展有积极的作用;在加强交通基础设施建设中,应注意交通建设对经济发展的结构性效益。     

Vulnerability and adaptation to climate-related fire impacts in rural and urban interior Alaska

This paper explores whether fundamental differences exist between urban and rural vulnerability to climate-induced changes in the fire regime of interior Alaska. We further examine how communities and fire managers have responded to these changes and what additional adaptations could be put in place. We engage a variety of social science methods, including demographic analysis, semi-structured interviews, surveys, workshops and observations of public meetings. This work is part of an interdisciplinary study of feedback and interactions between climate, vegetation, fire and human components of the Boreal forest social–ecological system of interior Alaska. We have learned that although urban and rural communities in interior Alaska face similar increased exposure to wildfire as a result of climate change, important differences exist in their sensitivity to these biophysical, climate-induced changes. In particular, reliance on wild foods, delayed suppression response, financial resources and institutional connections vary between urban and rural communities. These differences depend largely on social, economic and institutional factors, and are not necessarily related to biophysical climate impacts per se. Fire management and suppression action motivated by political, economic or other pressures can serve as unintentional or indirect adaptation to climate change. However, this indirect response alone may not sufficiently reduce vulnerability to a changing fire regime. More deliberate and strategic responses may be required, given the magnitude of the expected climate change and the likelihood of an intensification of the fire regime in interior Alaska.     

黄河三角洲土地利用与土地覆被的质量变化

土地利用／土地覆被变化（LUCC）在全球环境变化与可持续发展研究中占有重要地位。其质量变化尤能反映人类开发活动的环境效应。运用遥感信息土地分类和植被指数提取、土壤定点采样实测和统计分析相结合的方法，研究了黄河三角洲地区数年至20余年的土地利用／土地覆被的质量变化。其在区域总体上向好的方向发展，但在内部地段间存在着差异和不平衡。盐渍土改造的任务仍然十分艰巨。地力下降的隐患不可忽视。进而分析了变化的驱动力并提出土地持续利用对策。     

基于ESDA-GIS的城镇群体空间结构

基于ESDA-GIS的空间分析框架,利用江苏省1346个小城镇的统计数据,对其城镇群体空间结构进行了研究。首先对统计数据进行了概括性因子分析,抽取的规模与经济因子值的频率分布都是偏态的,且两因子之间不存在规模-效益的正相关性。随后,对小城镇群体的空间结构进行了探索性分析,由密度图显示:小城镇空间分布不均衡,其密度由东南部的沿长江、环太湖地区向西和向北递减。通过空间自相关测度分析得出:小城镇的经济因子的空间分布具有正相关性,呈现出空间集聚的特征;规模因子的空间相关特征不明显。最后,将小城镇的局域空间自相关系数按县(市、区)行政单元进行聚类,利用方差图的结论修正聚类结果,得出江苏省小城镇经济发展类型分区:三区、一环(带)、一片,即苏北中部地区、苏中及宁镇区、苏锡常地区、苏北边缘环带、睢宁片区,对应的经济发展类型分别为:弥漫发展型、极核发展型、集群发展型、过渡发展型、持续贫困型。     

全球变化对中国粮食安全的影响分析

以斯德哥尔摩环境研究所(SEI)建立的粮食需求和供应模型为基础,同时采用Ds和Shaw建立的全球变化各因子对粮食需求和供给影响的模型对其变量进行修正,结合唐国平、李秀彬的结果,模拟计算了全球变化条件下,我国未来粮食需求量和产量。在分析中发现:受全球变化的影响,在保持人民消费水平持续增长的条件下我国未来粮食生产有可能不能满足需求增长的要求,存在7～8%的粮食缺口。但是,由于全球变化的各个因素都存在很大的不确定性,而且技术进步对增加粮食产量有很大促进作用。计算结果揭示,只要采取正确的措施来尽量减少全球变化带来的不利影响,危机是可以避免的     

Quitovac Oasis: A Sense of Home Place and the Development of Water Resources

Agricultural development at Quitovac, a Sonoran Desert oasis that is an ancestral home of the Tohono O’odham people, was first interpreted in the literature as a typical example of an indigenous community succumbing to the economic pressures of industrial society. However, a humanistic analysis of the cultural and historical context and the results of ethnographic fieldwork leads to a radically different interpretation of recent community actions. Community-initiated institutional and economic changes can be understood as creative and resilient adaptations, and perhaps a resolution, to a complex social and religious challenge to the community’s identity. Notwithstanding the economic failure of part of the development efforts, the overall effects are interpreted as strengthening the residents’ sense of their home place and ensuring the continuation of religious rites associated with this sacred place.     

Quitovac Oasis: A Sense of Home Place and the Development of Water Resources

Agricultural development at Quitovac, a Sonoran Desert oasis that is an ancestral home of the Tohono O’odham people, was first interpreted in the literature as a typical example of an indigenous community succumbing to the economic pressures of industrial society. However, a humanistic analysis of the cultural and historical context and the results of ethnographic fieldwork leads to a radically different interpretation of recent community actions. Community‐initiated institutional and economic changes can be understood as creative and resilient adaptations, and perhaps a resolution, to a complex social and religious challenge to the community's identity. Notwithstanding the economic failure of part of the development efforts, the overall effects are interpreted as strengthening the residents’ sense of their home place and ensuring the continuation of religious rites associated with this sacred place.     

A spatiotemporal calculus for reasoning about land-use trajectories

Earth observation images are a powerful source of data about changes in our planet. Given the magnitude of global environmental changes taking place, it is important that Earth Science researchers have access to spatiotemporal reasoning tools. One area of particular interest is land-use change. Using data obtained from images, researchers would like to express abstractions such as ‘land abandonment’, ‘forest regrowth’, and ‘agricultural intensification’. These abstractions are specific types of land-use trajectories, defined as multi-year paths from one land cover into another. Given this need, this paper introduces a spatiotemporal calculus for reasoning about land-use trajectories. Using Allen’s interval logic as a basis, we introduce new predicates that express cases of recurrence, conversion and evolution in land-use change. The proposed predicates are sufficient and necessary to express different kinds of land-use trajectories. Users can build expressions that describe how humans modify Earth’s terrestrial surface. In this way, scientists can better understand the environmental and economic effects of land-use change.     

Land use change and resource management in the Jnane Mas valley (Khenifra,Middle Atlas,Morocco)

The purpose of this paper is to bring into light the landscape change and natural resources management in the Moroccan Middle Atlas across centuries. The pastoral way of life prevailed for many centuries. However, following the results of this research, evidence of important socioeconomic changes and resources use is found. Ancient agricultural activities, as well as the exploitation of the forest and even mineral resources have been growing activities over time. The survey shows that the agricultural activity has existed for several centuries as indicated by terraces and encrusted travertine channels used for irrigation. The landscapes and the ways of resources use are therefore in continuous change. The increasing needs in water and agriculture for demographic and climatic reasons (the dry periods in summer or periodic droughts) generated because of intensive over-exploitation of resources. The vegetation degraded facing human pressure (the pastoral activities, the coal of wood making, the lime manufacturing, etc.). Field observations show that irrigation has been used in this domain, for several centuries. Travertine channels, encrusted in the valleys of Jnane Mas and Arougou, illustrate these ancient uses of water resources for agriculture irrigation.     

农户受灾经历对气候变化感知与适应行为的影响研究

采用陕北农户样本调查数据与气象数据,使用独立样本T检验和路径分析探究农户受灾经历对气候变化感知与适应行为的影响。结果发现:受灾经历越丰富的农户越能准确感知气温、降水变化和全球变暖。农户的受灾经历对气温变化感知有正向影响,并通过其对迁移适应行为有间接的负向影响;受灾经历对降水变化感知有负向影响,并通过其对技术适应行为有负向影响、对迁移适应行为产生正向影响;农户受灾经历增强了全球变暖信念,并通过其对经济适应行为和技术适应行为产生间接的正向影响;受灾经历对迁移适应行为有直接的负向影响。     

中国北方农牧交错区土地荒漠化的环境脆弱性机制分析

在综合分析中国北方农牧交错区自然 、经济和社会环境的基础上,概括出导致该地带土地 荒漠化的生态环境脆弱性机制：①脆弱的自然条件奠定了特殊的地貌格局和脆弱的地表物质基础,受东亚季风影响的气候条件是土地荒漠化的自然驱动力。②人类不合理的经济活动是土地荒漠化的直接推动力。③不利的社会因素加快了土地荒漠化的进程。     

Pacific Futures? Geography and Change in the Pacific Islands

Abstract. The alarm raised by the prospect of global warming and rising sea levels has led to concern about the future of Pacific Island states. Although major problems may eventuate from global climatic change, this paper argues that the range, magnitude and uncertainty of other mainly social and economic processes is such that simple prediction is impossible. Instead a more wide ranging geographical approach is required which recognises both regional diversity and human activity and response.     

中国灾害风险与贫困互相关效应的理论分析与实证研究

在全球自然灾害频发和贫困长期且不均衡展布的背景下,灾害风险与贫困的联结成为学术界和利益相关者关注的焦点。基于自然灾害风险管理和社会-生态韧性评估的基本原理,系统论述了灾害致贫和贫困致险的作用机理与驱动路径,这种互相关效应称为灾害风险-贫困的“羁绊”;基于中国31个省（自治区、市）2010—2019年的面板数据,运用计量经济学回归分析方法,以证实减轻灾害风险和扶贫脱贫在省域尺度上存在双向加持的作用。结果表明：（1） 较高的致灾因子危险性、承灾体暴露性和脆弱性及复杂的灾害风险情景引发了人员伤亡、资产破坏和经济损失等多重负面影响,最终导致和加剧了经济、机会、能力和文化的多维度贫困;贫困群体农业生计和家庭资产的高暴露性和低韧性放大和累积了灾害风险。（2） 中国在脱贫攻坚和全面建设小康社会的进程中,减灾扶贫和脱贫降险的循环效应显著,籍此带来了乡村振兴、治理现代化等战略的属性加持。（3） 贫困致险的机制较为隐性且主要显现于广布型灾害风险情景,对其无视或轻视可能带来投资减灾失效、学科范式陷阱和不可持续发展等诸多后果。研究结果可为中国的减灾和扶贫协同发展提供理论依据和现实证据,并为贯彻落实经济、政治、文化、社会和生态文明建设“五位一体”战略,实现“双碳”目标和应对全球气候变化提供智力支撑。