The consequences of Brazil’s lack of transport planning is written in the blood of sparrows

The medium-sized cities of Brazil are those with populations of between 100,000 and 500,000 inhabitants. These cities are growing rapidly, and are characterized by poor urban planning, a loss of biodiversity and decreasing health prospects for residents. Historically, urbanization in Brazil has been associated with incentives to increase the use of private vehicles for local transport. The air pollution resulting from this “car dependency” has been quantified in some major cities in Brazil, such as the megacity of São Paulo. In this paper, we demonstrate through a bioindication study carried out in the Brazilian city of Rondonópolis, that atmospheric pollution resulting from vehicular emissions is also a measurable reality for medium-sized cities. Most Brazilian cities lack air quality measurement equipment, and we used an inexpensive and easy to apply bioindication assay to measure air pollution, and this approach could be easily implemented in those cities and beyond.     

CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION IN THE DECENTRALISATION OF BRAZIL'S WATER RESOURCES: ASSESSING PARTICIPATION IN THREE STATES

Decentralisation, the transfer of powers to a lower level of government, is thought to encourage more efficient and equitable management of natural resources. Participation of civil society organisations (CSOs) is considered critical to create positive outcomes of decentralisation. Here we examine aspects of civil society participation in decentralised management using the case of Brazil's water resources management. Several Brazilian states have enacted reforms mandating watershed committees in which the participation of civil society is either encouraged or required. However, actual participation of civil society is not yet well understood. To assess participation, we collected qualitative data on watershed districts in three Brazilian states (Bahia, Paraná and São Paulo). Our findings reaffirm the importance of the state in establishing a transparent legal framework to encourage participation and in defining “civil society”. The ability of civil society leaders to obtain and deploy local environmental knowledge, which frames environmental issues in new geographical scales, is useful to achieve the efficiency and efficacy objectives of decentralisation. However, by “upscaling” political activities beyond decentralisation's new territories, CSOs could make decentralisation irrelevant to local environmental issues.     

Palaeomagnetic study of Permocarboniferous glacial varves from the Itarare Subgroup, southern Brazil

Summary. A sequence of 167 glacial varves from Itu, State of São Paulo (Brazil), has been sampled for palaeomagnetic analysis. Since the varve thicknesses permit individual measurements, an attempt was made to compare annual palaeomagnetic results with recent observatory data. Inclination and declination plots show larger variations than those displayed by the present geomagnetic field. This could, however, be due to sedimentation factors since it may be assumed that the pattern of the present geomagnetic field variations is not greatly different from that of the Permocarboniferous field. In the next paper (Ernesto & Pacca) the experimental data are submitted to spectral analysis and the results support some of the hypotheses raised in this work.     

对自然地理区划方法的认识与思考

在研习和继承前人区划研究工作与成果的基础上, 着重于自然地理区划方法论及其体系的探讨。首先, 深入阐述了自然地理区划的内涵, 认为: 自然地理区划既是区域划分的结 果, 也是区域划分的方法与过程, 同时还是认识地理特征和发现地理规律的一种科学方法。 第二, 假设性认为自然地理区划是客观存在的, 针对不同的区划目的和采用不同的区划原则 所形成了不同类型的自然地理区划, 如部门区划与综合区划、区域区划与类型区划等, 则构 成了对区划对象的多角度认识, 并且这些区划间存在内在联系, 具有一定的一致性和可转换性。第三, 在分析总结各种自然地理区划方案研究的基础上, 提出了包括区划本体、区划原 则、区划等级系统、区划模型和区划信息系统的自然地理区划范式, 其中自然地理区划原则、等级系统和区划模型构成了区划方法的核心, 并且通过区划模型, 实现区划原则、指标体系 和单位等级系统的综合。最后, 论文对自然地理区划信息系统研究所涉及的主要科学问题和 主要功能作了简要的说明和讨论, 并指出: 在地理空间单元理论的指导下, 可以实现在统一 的科学框架下的各种自然地理区划的集成, 并为开展综合区划研究提供可用的技术方法。     

地理国情分类区划模型构建及实证研究——以河南省为例

地理国情分类区划是认知和分析地理国情的有效途径,是研究认识地理国情类型特征、组合及其演变趋势的区域差异和地理国情空间分异的基础。本文通过对地理国情普查的基本统计数据进行分析,制定了地理国情分类区划的指标体系;基于多维尺度分析和聚类分析,构建了地理国情分类区划模型。选择河南省地理国情普查数据,对其进行分类区划实验。通过对地理国情数据进行多维尺度分析,根据分析的可视化结果,可直观地确定地理国情的分类区划数,并将此设置为初始的聚类数;在此基础上进行k均值聚类,可实现河南省地理国情的分类区划,通过对各聚类簇中指标数据特征进行分析,并根据各聚类簇中心对区划各类型进行定义和解释,最后对聚类结果进行空间化表达。结果表明：河南省地理国情可划分为指标数据极值区、指标数据低值区、指标数据中值区和指标数据高值区4类,且根据空间集聚性分析,可判断分类区划的空间集聚效应显著,各区划类型间相互包容和渗透,集聚呈4条西南?东北的条状带。该项工作可为统筹地理国情与区域可持续发展,制定切实可行的区域发展政策提供科学依据。     

China＇s geographical regionalization in Chinese secondary school curriculum （1902-2012）

As geographic literacy training is an essential content for Chinese citizens’ literacy education,national geographical education is one of the indispensable key aspects of that training.Because of China’s vast land area and the significance of the regional differences,it is difficult for students to receive a solid education regarding China’s geography.In 1902,the government established the geography curriculum and began to incorporate the concept of geographical regionalization to facilitate the teaching of China’s geography by publishing the first syllabi,which was modified later and put into use in 1904.Since 1904,numerous geography textbooks have attempted to find an appropriate way to present China’s geographical regionalization,as it is important for secondary students to have a clear understanding and appreciation for the different regional characteristics.Accordingly,the geographical regionalization content is divided into four main phases:1902 to 1927;1928 to 1948;1949 to 1986;and 1986 to the present.During these phases,the content related to China’s geographical regionalization in secondary middle school geography textbooks has been gradually simplified and has adopted a more scientific foundation,thus leading to the present time where there are now four geographical regional areas.From this historical study,we find that while China’s geographical regionalization has gradually matured,there are still some problems.For example,dividing the study into four regions to describe the panorama of China is too simplified,and the learning therefore becomes too scattered and haphazard,particularly given the new curriculum reform.     

Land Changes Fostering Atlantic Forest Transition in Brazil: Evidence from the Paraíba Valley

The Atlantic Forest biome has only 13 percent of its pristine vegetation cover left. This article analyzes the consequences of land changes on forest cover in the Paraíba Valley, São Paulo state, Brazil, from 1985 to 2011. Multitemporal satellite image classifications were carried out to map eight land use and land cover classes. The forest cover increased from 2,696 km² in 1985 to 4,704 km² in 2011, mostly over areas of degraded pastures. The highest rates of afforestation were observed within protected areas around eucalyptus plantations. On the other hand, deforestation processes were concentrated on areas covered by secondary forests. Socioeconomic changes taking place in particular Brazilian settings, such as industrialization and agricultural modernization, allied to the Paraíba Valley's natural biophysical constraints for agricultural production, have led the region to experience a remarkable case of forest transition.     

医学地理和环境健康研究的主要领域与进展

通过对近年国内外医学地理和环境健康相关领域的文献检索分析发现,人口健康是当前国际地理学和环境科学研究的核心内容之一,其研究趋势可以归纳为以下几个方面:①重视全球环境变化对人类健康的影响。包括全球大气组成改变(气候变化和臭氧层耗散)对健康的影响、土地利用/土地覆被变化与健康、全球环境变化与传染病、食物生产系统改变与健康和城市化与健康等;②环境健康风险评估领域进一步拓展,除重金属、持久性有机污染物等有毒有害污染物的健康风险外,有关生态、灾害和场地环境污染对健康影响的综合风险评估日益受到重视;③重视社会人文因素与自然因素交互作用对健康的影响,特别是经济发展和城市化过程中收入、产品和服务分配不均造成的卫生不公平对健康的影响;④重视人口老龄化过程的时空差异及其对社会的影响和老龄人口的健康、医疗与养老需求及其可达性研究;⑤地理信息系统和模型等技术被广泛用于疾病和健康的空间数据管理、空间分布规律和空间影响因素分析等领域,并为疾病监测、卫生管理和卫生规划提供了强有力的技术支撑。随着国内在相关领域需求和国际交流的增加,我国近年的相关研究有了较大的发展并得到国际社会的认可,医学地理作为一门学科,在我国人口健康研究中正发挥越来越重...     

地域系统研究的开拓与发展

通过分析中科院地理科学与资源研究所地域系统研究的开拓与发展历程,总结了"综合自然区划-生态地理区域系统-综合区划"重要发展阶段的创新成果,介绍了重要的格局研究所取得的进展。地域系统研究与社会发展的客观需求密切相关。20世纪50年代,为了认识自然规律,为农业生产布局服务,开创了综合自然区划;20世纪90年代,从生态建设和环境保护的需求出发,将生态系统观点、生态学原理和方法引入地域系统研究,开展了生态地理地域系统研究;随着地球系统科学和可持续发展研究的深入,从20世纪末开始探索综合区划研究,自然要素和社会经济要素的有机融合成为近期格局研究的鲜明特色。在此过程中,地域系统研究的方法论和技术手段不断创新,遥感、地理信息系统和数值模型等的深入应用,极大地推进了该领域的研究。中科院地理资源所的地域系统研究,始终与国家的重大经济建设和环境保护紧密结合,成为今后自然地理学乃至地理学发展的一个重要方向。     

国外地理学对公共卫生问题的研究与启示

在工业化、城镇化、信息化持续发展,全球变化和全球事件轮番冲击的背景下,公共卫生研究不断深化,已发展为全球性的跨学科议程及研究热点。回顾相关文献发现,国内外地理学对公共卫生问题的研究在数量上均经历了缓慢上升、加速上升和当前的快速上升阶段,但切入角度和关注议题存在差异。本文通过梳理国外地理学对公共卫生问题的研究,对这一领域概念、理论、方法的发展及热点进行归纳总结和综合评述,探讨健康老龄化、健康不平等、融合健康考量的城市规划等议题下现有研究的主要争议、前景及其对国内研究的启示,尤其指出气候变化和传染病大流行等外部压力下暴露出的地理学研究契机,以期拓展视野、聚焦问题,为国内地理学者参与公共卫生研究提供参考。     

Brazil’s Financial Centers in the Twenty-first Century: Hierarchy,Specialization, and Concentration

The purpose of this article is to examine how the geography of Brazil’s financial centers changed since 2000 in terms of financial center hierarchy, specialization, and spatial concentration. To address these questions, we use data on employment and mergers and acquisitions in financial and business services, complemented with data on remuneration and bank assets. Our results show that São Paulo has consolidated its dominance as Brazil’s primary financial center, with market for corporate control as an important channel of this process. Rio’s decline as a financial center, which started more than fifty years ago, has continued into this century. At the same time, Brasília has emerged as the third most important financial center of Brazil. We document the recent dynamic of this territorial division of labor, with Rio’s specialization in insurance and Brasília’s dependence on government-owned banks. Finally, we show signs that Brazil’s financial center activities might be following an inverse U-shaped pattern whereby increasing geographical concentration is followed by its slow decline. Key Words: Brazil, concentration, financial centers, São Paulo, territorial division of labor.     

A parsimonious crop-water productivity index: an application to Brazil

Reducing poverty in rural areas of developing countries requires sustained and sustainable increases in agricultural water productivity. However, aside from traditional measures of precipitation, little is known about water available to farmers or how productively they use it. We present a crop-water productivity index (a ratio of the value of annual crop production to a dimensionless potential water availability index) for large water basins using readily available low-resolution data. The index is transferable, permits direct inter-basin comparisons, and is simple to calculate. We calculate the index for each municipality in the São Francisco river basin in Brazil. No clear patterns linking water availability and value of agricultural output are evident, even though clusters of municípios with high- and low-crop-water productivity emerge, and the former may be useful in guiding policies aimed at increasing water productivity. Finally, analyses of the effects of information uncertainty on the crop-water productivity index suggest that the returns to agricultural investments in certain places in the São Francisco river basin are more risky than others. Improvements in data quality and quantity can help refine estimates of the index and reduce their uncertainty.     

关于综合地理区划若干问题的探讨

以地域单元作为重要层次,从区域角度研究可持续发展是地理学深入探讨人地关系地域系统、协调人和自然关系的必要途径。综合地理区划以可持续发展为目标,涉及自然因素和人文因素,其划分原则有：自然和人文地域分异规律相结合,综合分析和主导因素相结合,发生统一性原则,宏观区域框架与地域类型相结合等。综合地理区划的指标体系应涵盖环境、资源、经济、社会与人口等方面,须选择有代表性的指标,要求简洁实用,避免繁杂。所选指     

关于开展中国综合区划研究若干问题的认识

过去半个多世纪,我国的自然与社会经济格局发生了重大变化,单纯对自然或某一部门进行的区域刻画已经不能适应新形势下经济社会可持续发展的需要。因此,亟待开展中国综合区划研究工作。编制中国综合区划方案所要解决的重要科学技术问题包括:服务对象与研究目标;综合区划理论体系;地域系统主要要素的变化过程、格局及其相互作用关系;中国地域系统重要界线的确定;典型区域的辨识及其特征分析;世界地理格局与中国综合地域系统相互作用;数据的采集、处理、量纲化;综合区划的集成方法;中国地域系统未来发展情景分析;综合区划方案的动态演示系统。     

BRAZILIAN IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES AND THE GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION*

ABSTRACT. In the late 1980s more than 1 million Brazilians left Brazil without returning. Today an estimated 2 million Brazilians live abroad, 1.2 million of them in the United States. In this article I show that Brazilians migrate for a variety of reasons, including the geographical imagination. Why are so many Brazilians leaving for the United States? What are their geographical imaginations, and how are they described in their migration process? Using primary and secondary data and multiple methods, I address these questions by providing insights into Brazilian migrants' place perceptions, experiences, and reasons for migrating, focusing on the geographical imagination. Those migrants who end up returning to Brazil are more likely to cite financial and curiosity reasons for having migrated. A web of transnational religious and social networks sustains those immigrants who remain in the United States. Reasons for migrating are not economic alone; rather, they are based on interrelated and complex factors that range from adventure to curiosity, the cultural influence of the United States, family members, education, and escape.     

Location-based anonymization: comparison and evaluation of the Voronoi-based aggregation system

Hospitals and health care organizations collect large amounts of detailed health care data that is in high demand by researchers. Thus, the possessors of such data are in need of methods that allow for this data to be released without compromising the confidentiality of the individuals to whom it pertains. As the geographic aspect of this data is becoming increasingly relevant for research being conducted, it is important for an anonymization process to pay due attention to the geographic attributes of such data. In this paper, a novel system for health care data anonymization is presented. At the core of the system is the aggregation of an initial regionalization guided by the use of a Voronoi diagram. We conduct a comparison with another location-based system of anonymization, GeoLeader. We show that our system is capable of producing results of a comparable quality with a much faster running time.     

生态屏障约束下的综合功能区划研究——以云南省昭通市为例

Ecological shelter zones reconstruction is an ecosystem restoration and conservation project aimed to the ecological safety of nations, regions and basins. Reconstruction of ecological shelter zones of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River became one of the most important tasks of Western Development strategy. This article, taking Zhaotong as an example, studies the functional regionalization of ecological shelter zones. The study supplies a case for functional regionalization of small and medium regions whose main tasks are environment reservation. With the guidance of theories of functional regionalization, and based on the analysis of Zhaotong＇s natural, ecological and socioeconomic factors, the paper suggests five principles for factors selection. These principles include： （1） reversing order evaluation; （2） selecting main factors; （3） keeping the integrality of administrative regions of towns; and （4） making the products acceptable by local government. To analyze spatial status of selected factors, LUCC data in 2002, 1：50,000 relief maps and town-unit socioeconomic statistical data in 2004 are used. RS and GIS tools are also applied to melt traditional and modern geographical methods. This would be useful to functional regionalization research in mountainous areas. As a conclusion, the leading functional regions of ecological conservation or economic development are suggested, respectively. Zhaotong city is divided into two-level functional regions. The first-level includes three leading functional regions and they will lead developing direction of sub-regions. The second-level includes eight sub-regions, which are policy implemented regions, and will supply guidance to Zhaotong＇s ecological shelter zones reconstruction.     

Review and prospect about China natural regionalization for highway

In the 1950s, research on natural regionalization for highway was set out in China. This paper reviews its history and introduces the relative research in other countries. Based on the comparative analysis of the different research angles among different countries, suggestions about the future work are offered. The relations between physiographical indexes and the indexes directly related with highway engineering are suggested to be studied and the basic data for highway be tested and collected all over the country. These works will be of help to the guidance of regionalization for highway engineering. And the impact of highway on the geographical environment should also be considered in highway natural regionalization.     

中国农业地理和土地利用的近期研究

近十余年来,中国农业地理与土地利用的研究主要在以下方面:农业地理丛书的编写,完成了中国农业地理总论和21部分省(自治区、直辖市)的农业区域地理著作;承担全国综合农业区划、自然区划、农业各部门与农业技术条件区划,进行了农业区划理论与方法的研究;对农业发展战略与我国人口、资源与环境的国情研究;为促进农业生产稳定发展,以因地制宜为原则进行农业各部门生产布局研究;1/100万土地利用图与土地资源开发、利用和保护的研究。上述研究是持续而广泛的,在理论上和实践上都取得了很大进展。     

中国公路自然区划的回顾与展望

1IntroductionHighway, as a kind of man-made structure, will become a part of the geographical environment and be impacted by all sorts of natural factors after it is finished. On the other hand, highway also brings some changes to the geographical environment. A highway often passes through different natural regions, so it must be adaptable to any geographical environments. On the basis of deep understanding of the geographical environment, service life and normal level of the highway can be e…