Record-High Losses for Weather Disasters in the United States During the 1990s: How Excessive and Why?

During 1990–1996 the United States experienced record-setting insured property losses due to numerous weather catastrophes, each event causing $100 million or more in losses (1991 dollars). The total loss in this 7-year period, after adjustment to inflation and other factors, was $39.65 billion with $15 billion coming from one event, Hurricane Andrew. In the 1990s, 72 catastrophes occurred, half of the total number in the 40 preceding years, 1950–1989. Although the total loss and the number of catastrophes were exceptionally high in the 1990s, the average loss per event was $551 million, only slightly more than the $467 million average for catastrophes during 1950–1989. Furthermore, storm intensities in the 1990s were slightly less than those during the preceding 40 years, revealing the excess losses of the 1990s to be a result of an extremely large number of damaging storms causing losses exceeding $100 million. Examination of historical values of most weather extremes including hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes, did not show an increase during the 1990s, revealing that weather changes were not the principal cause of more catastrophes. Examination of recent demographic shifts in the U.S. reveals two changes, each based on major re-locations to higher-valued property concentrated in areas either with a high frequency of damaging storms (Gulf and East Coast), or to where even a small but intense storm can cause huge losses (urban areas and West Coast). These shifts, plus the continuing growth of population in other storm-prone areas have greatly increased society's vulnerability to storm damage. An in-depth analysis of many conditions was required to establish that the high losses and numerous catastrophes of the 1990s were largely the result of societal changes and not major weather changes. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

21世纪地震灾害的一些新特点

灾害定量化是地球科学、工程科学和社会经济科学的交叉领域。人口城市化是全球的发展趋势，特别在第三世界人口城市化的趋势越来越显著。和农村发生突发灾害农民可以很容易地进行自救和互救不同，城市居民对供水、供电、煤气、暖气、通讯和交通等基础设施有很大的依赖性，现代城市在抗御自然灾害方面，比过去任何时候都显得更加脆弱。通过统计，我们发现在灾害损失 L和表征社会财富的GDP之间存在着经验关系：L＝ a＋ b×GDP＋ c×GDP 2其中 a，b，c为正的常数。关系式表明，自然灾害造成的灾害增长要比GDP的增长要快。     

A new viewpoint of hazard assessment and management for Taiwan��s insurance issues

High rates of urbanization, environmental degradation, and industrial development in disaster-prone areas have all served to increase the extent of damage following catastrophes. Recently, losses from environmental hazards have escalated, which has resulted in a noticeable change in policy, with more emphasis on loss reduction through mitigation, preparedness, and recovery programs. This study focuses on natural disaster management in which the direct risks are posed by the natural disasters themselves. This paper presents a review of issues surrounding natural disaster risk control and insurance in Taiwan. It proposes the use of background information concerning risk control strategies as well as earthquake, typhoon, and flood insurance in Taiwan. Finally, an insurance case study is utilized to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed methodology.     

江西省永修县郭东圩环境地质评价

通过野外实地调查结合室内分析相关资料，对江西省水修县郭东圩的环境地质问题（如管涌、溃堤及冲蚀作用等）有了较清楚的认识，并且预测了郭东圩的发展演化趋势，提出了抑制水患灾害的相应对策与建议，为防洪治水规划提供依据。     

地球系统科学的发展与展望

简要回顾了地球系统科学从20世纪80年代作为人类迎接全球环境问题的挑战而提出的集成研究方法、到逐步成长为一门新兴学科的发展历程，系统阐述了地球系统科学的研究目标、研究对象、研究方法及所关注的科学问题。地球系统科学是一门连接地球科学、生命科学、计算机和对地观测技术以及其它相关科学的一门新兴的交叉学科。由于它所针对的特定的全球性环境问题，关系到社会的可持续发展和人类的切身利益，因此，它也是一门有极强生命力的科学。     

Ecological and spatial traditions in geography,and the study of environmental problems

The author outlines the relationships between geography and the study of environmental problems. After WW II when these problems were growing in number and complexity, many geographers turned to the quantitative study of spatial relations and processes, neglecting the ecological aspects of human life on earth. However, recently human and physical geography are turning again to an ecological point of view. In the study of environmental problems, a synthesis of the spatial and the ecological traditions in geography is possible. The spatial aspects of environmental problems and environmental management in a systems-theory framework are the central points in the contribution of geography to an interdisciplinary environmental science.     

全球环境变化与综合灾害风险防范研究

实现可持续发展,需要加深理解全球环境变化对可更新资源保障能力和灾害发生频率、强度和时空格局的影响。近年来发生在世界各国的巨灾造成了严重的灾情,如2008年中国南方的冰冻雨雪灾害,2007年孟加拉国的台风灾害,2005年的美国卡特里娜飓风等。加强对全球环境变化背景下的综合灾害风险防范研究已成为一个迫切需要解决的可持续发展问题。为此,在CNC IHDP的领导下,CNC IHDP RG工作组向IHDP提出了开展全球环境变化与综合风险防范研究的建议。经过2年多的努力,作为IHDP新一轮国际性核心科学计划——综合风险防范（IHDP IRG）已经得到IHDP SC的认可,即将于2009年4月在德国波恩IHDP科学大会期间正式宣布启动。该核心计划为从事风险研究、管理和具体实践方面的全球顶级专家和组织搭建交流平台,并引导未来国际综合风险防范研究从综合灾害风险防范的科学、技术与管理问题入手,通过案例对比,从多学科角度,对综合灾害风险防范的理论和方法进行创新性研究,以推动全球综合减灾实践的深入发展。CNC IHDP RG作为这一核心科学计划的倡议、发起和主要组织者,通过该计划的成功实施,不但可以在国际上充分展现我国综合灾害风险研究领域的成果,更将有助于大幅度提升中国在全球环境变化研究中的国际地位。     

Something in the Air: Civic science and contentious environmental politics in post-apartheid South Africa

The emergence of an environmental movement in post-apartheid South Africa has involved the reframing of the environment as a ‘brown’ issue, articulating the discourse of social and environmental justice and a rights-based notion of democracy. Environmental movements have pursued a dual strategy of deliberation and activist opposition. Environmental movements have deployed science to pursue the strategic task of democratic opposition and have established networks of environmental knowledge and expertise. Ecological modernization is the dominant approach to environmental governance and adopts a science-based policy approach. In this context the regulation and management of the environment is premised on the need for science, which provides the authoritative basis for a regulatory response. In local environmental movements, there exists a fundamental tension between a cumulative history of lay knowledge about pollution and the lack of official acknowledgement of qualitative narratives. This is accompanied by a lack and suspicion of reliable official data. Environmental movements have thus employed ‘civic science’ strategically to place the issue of air pollution on the political agenda. This paper uses the case of environmental politics in Durban to reflect on the ways in which civic science and lay knowledge, together constituting community hybrid knowledge, are produced and disseminated in order to pressure the state and capital. The three ways in which knowledge is deployed are: to frame environmental problems, in strategies of oppositional advocacy, and in deliberative policy forums. Empirical analysis shows that civic science is produced through knowledge networks, and both lay knowledge and civic science are opportunistically used by environmental movements to engage both inside and outside formal policy making arenas. This deployment of hybrid knowledge by environmental movements represents a broader challenge to the power of science and technology based on increasing evidence of the hazards and risks facing ordinary people in their daily lives.     

Importance of Charles Lyell’s works for the formation of scientific geological ideology

Ch. Lyell’s works, the main work among which entitled Principles of Geology was published 180 years ago in 1830, created a new concept and laid the groundwork for modern geological science, methods for the study of geological processes and geological history based on the investigation of recent environments and processes. These propositions with natural corrections are also used in geological works at present. They have demonstrated persistence of the geological history and absence of global geological catastrophes. This fact was of great importance in science and ideology, because it changed basically the perception of the Earth’s nature and history based on the biblical world pattern.     

Potentials of the microalgae inoculant in restoration of biological soil crusts to combat desertification

The world is presently faced to the many calamities, mainly the increased and rapidly developing environmental changes, soil degradation as an example of such environmental problems which is correlated with the destructive effects of the sandstorms. Biological soil crust (BSC), a main component of soil, has various environmental functions including reduction in the erosion by increasing soil stability and providing a sanctuary for the growth of the taxa and vascular plants communities. Destruction of BSC, which naturally can be recovered slowly in a long time processes, contributes to the desertification and other environmental catastrophes. Therefore, accelerating the BSC recovery both the quality and the quantity of the crust development, especially in the desert areas, is of the prime interest. Recent advances in the BSC restoration have provided an immense potential for emulating the natural restoration methods mainly through providing soils with inoculant. This paper reviews the present restoration-based procedures for the biological soil crust restoration practice. The main landmarks are presented and highlighted including strain(s) selection and development, mass biomass production, inoculum preparation, soil inoculation, soil augmentation, nurseries, and crust succession monitoring and control. The review also introduces several successful case studies in the USA and the Republic of China. Thereafter, the paper briefly documents the future directions of the research and technologies. Development of a restoration system through the application of the microalgae inoculant is an encouraging aspect for accelerating the BSC recovery of the arid and semi-arid areas. However, further researches will help to establish and consolidate the potential of the microalgae cells and their application in desertification programs in large scales and in accordance with principles and requirements mandated by economic standards.     

The construction of a high-resolution visual monitoring for hazard analysis

High rates of urbanization, environmental degradation, and industrial development in disaster-prone areas have all served to increase the extent of damage following catastrophes. In this paper, we present a novel framework for exploiting multi-resolution dual cameras, including a wide-angle camera and a speed dome camera, to construct a wide-angle, multi-layered, high-resolution visual monitoring system for hazard assessment. Our two-part camera system requires calibration of the correspondence between the detailed and overview image captured by the speed dome camera and wide-angle fixed camera, respectively. In-factory calibration is carried out using white–black patterns for speed dome turning and multi-layered calibration. The results are displayed as wide-angle, multi-layered, high-resolution images which are built up by the speed dome camera.     

Contested H2O: Science, policy and politics in water resources management in Chile

This paper critically explores the politics that mediate the use of environmental science assessments as the basis of resource management policy. Drawing on recent literature in the political ecology tradition that has emphasised the politicised nature of the production and use of scientific knowledge in environmental management, the paper analyses a hydrological assessment in a small river basin in Chile, undertaken in response to concerns over the possible overexploitation of groundwater resources. The case study illustrates the limitations of an approach based predominantly on hydrogeological modelling to ascertain the effects of increased groundwater abstraction. In particular, it identifies the subjective ways in which the assessment was interpreted and used by the state water resources agency to underpin water allocation decisions in accordance with its own interests, and the role that a desocialised assessment played in reproducing unequal patterns of resource use and configuring uneven waterscapes. Nevertheless, as Chile’s ‘neoliberal’ political-economic framework privileges the role of science and technocracy, producing other forms of environmental knowledge to complement environmental science is likely to be contentious. In conclusion, the paper considers the potential of mobilising the concept of the hydrosocial cycle to further critically engage with environmental science.     

环境与生命矿物学的科学内涵与研究方法

环境与生命矿物学是矿物学、环境科学与生命科学之间的交叉学科,是成因矿物学在生命领域的拓展和延伸,是地球系统科学的重要组成部分。生命起源的矿物表征和矿物作用;极端环境下的生物多样性及生物与矿物的关系;生物体的矿物组成、作用、宏微观形貌和自组装结构;生命矿物成核、生长和自组装过程的有机质调控及其响应环境变化的标型特征;生物矿化的过程、机理及其资源环境效应;矿物(含药用矿物)在生命活动中的作用、过程与机理及其开发利用,是环境与生命矿物学的主要研究内容。生命矿物有其自身的特点,选择用于环境及其变迁研究的生命矿物时,应遵循"贯通性"、"灵敏性"、"统计性"和"周期性"等四原则。根据生命矿物进行环境分析研究时,要注意甄别影响矿物学特征变化的环境要素;既要善于利用较便捷成熟的成因矿物学研究手段和方法(如热发光,简称TL),还要充分利用其他学科中的技术(如计算体层摄影术,简称CT),创造性地开发生命矿物学的环境标型。     

从系统点论环境地质学的研究方法

环境地球化学是地球化学与环境科学结合衍生的一门新兴的边缘学科。文章概括论述了学科的性质，提出环境地球化学发展的主要领域：全球环境变化的环境地球化学研究、地球化学环境与人体健康、地球化学环境与农业、环境污染的地球化学，并对各个领域研究的现状作了概述与分析，进一步提出了研究的具体方向。     

全球变化和可持续发展科学

文章回顾了全球变化研究的发展史 ,介绍了IGBP ,IHDP ,WCRP ,DIVERSITAS 4个国际全球变化研究组织的研究方向与核心内容以及它们共同提出的碳循环、食物、水资源三大课题。全球环境变化的实质是人与自然界关系的变化。人类活动改变地球系统动力的强度已经超过自然界变动的限度 ,“人类世”的概念与可持续发展科学应运而生。西方学者认为发达地区与发展中地区之间存在着阻碍可持续发展的鸿沟。笔者从可持续发展科学的角度讨论了发达地区与发展中地区的关系 ,并以我国东部与西部为例 ,指出若能通过政府的可持续发展政策 ,推动各职能系统的工作 ,实现信息、技术、经济的不断交互流动 ,就可以找到消除鸿沟的途径。     

国际及中国地球科学发展态势文献计量分析

以SCI、ESI（基本科学指标数据库）、GEOREF等数据库为统计分析源,对1993—2003年国际及中国地球科学的发展现状和发展态势从文献计量学的角度进行统计分析,分析了国际地球科学论文产出的主要领域、国家、机构、科学家和期刊,对中国地球科学论文产出的主要领域进行比较分析,并通过论文产出、被引频次、篇均被引频次和国际1%顶尖论文数量对比反映中国的科学影响力。结果表明,国际环境科学和生态学研究论文增长很快,占地球科学相关主题领域论文的比例也比较大,但中国生态学研究论文无论从占国内22个学科论文产出的比例,还是从占全球该领域的比例来说都有较大差距;中国地质科学领域研究重点在地球化学、金属矿产和能源的经济地质学,但在环境地质学领域研究相对较少,而国际上环境地质学研究论文的发展已经大大高于传统的地质学论文。     

The neoliberalization of ecosystem services: wetland mitigation banking and problems in environmental governance

Wetland mitigation banking is an American neoliberal environmental policy that has created a functioning market in `ecosystem services', commodities defined using the holistic measures of ecological science. The development of this market is discussed as a project of environmental governance, defined as the nation-state's regulation of ecological relations within its territory towards stabilizing capitalist relations of power and accumulation. I argue that the wetland banking industry serves as a bellwether that presages problems that other strategies of neoliberal environmental governance will experience. Ethnographic, economic and ecological data from the Chicago-area wetland banking industry inform a discussion of two major obstacles to neoliberal strategy: the problem of relying on ecological science to define the unit of trade, and the problem of aligning the somewhat independent relations of law, politics, markets and ecosystems across an array of spatial scales. Theoretical guidance is sought from recent work on `social natures' and from the Regulationist approach to institutional political economics.     

Challenges and strategies for better use of scientific information in the management of coastal estuaries

Numerous studies have concluded that better use of scientific information could improve the quality of coastal and estuarine environmental management. Approaches for effecting such a change include ecosystem-based, integrated, and adaptive management, but such basic re-orientation of estuarine and coastal management has proved difficult to achieve. Even environmental indicators, seemingly straightforward ways of injecting scientific information into decision making, have achieved broad on-the-ground use in relatively few instances—principally the largest estuary management programs. A conceptual framework useful for examining environmental management systems affecting the five PNCERS (Pacific Northwest coastal Ecosystems Regional Study) estuaries conceives of environmental managers, researchers, and interested and affected parties in the public as interacting through the multi-layered institutional arrangements that currently promote the utilization, management, or protection of coastal and estuarine resources. Considerable variation exists in the approach and effectiveness of the region's environmental management organizations. Interaction between science and management in the region appears to be limited to an extent by high transaction costs; a cultural divide between environmental scientists and environmental managers is perceived by members of both groups who work with the PNCERS estuaries as inhibiting communications between them. Mechanisms that both groups identify as useful for improving the flow of information between science and management are little used, perhaps as a result. The two groups have very different patterns of information dissemination and acquisition, and though both chose agency archives and databases as their top methods for disseminating information, neither group relies much on these vehicles for information they seek. Both residents' and practitioners' perceptions of threats to the PNCERS estuaries show patterns of estuary-to-estuary variation. One theme that emerges is that problems associated with poor land management in adjacent uplands are common to most of these estuaries, potentially providing a sense of commonality through which a more regional approach to estuary management could emerge. A common set of estuarine environmental indicators implemented for all estuaries could help instigate such a regional approach, but resource constraints, especially at the local level, will have to be overcome for that to occur. There is currently substantial lack of common vision among coastal practitioners as to the purpose and desirability of indicators, and relatively little experience or knowledge of their use, particularly at the local level. Use of estuarine science in the management of these estuaries appears to be greatest during periods in which the largest programmatic shifts in environmental management approaches occur, an observation consistent with other studies that have concluded that the use of environmental science in environmental management tends to be episodic.     

环境磁学理论、方法和研究进展

环境磁学是一门介于地球科学、环境科学和磁学之间的边缘科学。环境磁学可提供大量有关区域或全球环境变化及人类活动对环境影响等的重要信息,其研究范围迅速扩大,已成为当今地学前沿学科之一。本文在简述了环境磁学的理论和方法的基础上,介绍了环境磁学中几个主要研究领域如古气候与古环境变化、土壤学和环境污染研究等方面所取得的进展,指出了环境磁学研究中存在的不足之处,并提出了近年来环境磁学的一些新的发展趋势：①加强磁信息与地质记录之间的定量研究;②利用磁信息加强应用研究;③环境磁学与地球化学方法密切相结合;④建立全球磁数据     

Impact cratering — fundamental process in geoscience and planetary science

Impact cratering is a geological process characterized by ultra-fast strain rates, which generates extreme shock pressure and shock temperature conditions on and just below planetary surfaces. Despite initial skepticism, this catastrophic process has now been widely accepted by geoscientists with respect to its importance in terrestrial — indeed, in planetary — evolution. About 170 impact structures have been discovered on Earth so far, and some more structures are considered to be of possible impact origin. One major extinction event, at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, has been firmly linked with catastrophic impact, but whether other important extinction events in Earth history, including the so-called “Mother of All Mass Extinctions” at the Permian-Triassic boundary, were triggered by huge impact catastrophes is still hotly debated and a subject of ongoing research. There is a beneficial side to impact events as well, as some impact structures worldwide have been shown to contain significant (in some cases, world class) ore deposits, including the gold-uranium province of the Witwatersrand basin in South Africa, the enormous Ni and PGE deposits of the Sudbury structure in Canada, as well as important hydrocarbon resources, especially in North America. Impact cratering is not a process of the past, and it is mandatory to improve knowledge of the past-impact record on Earth to better constrain the probability of such events in the future. In addition, further improvement of our understanding of the physico-chemical and geological processes fundamental to the impact cratering process is required for reliable numerical modeling of the process, and also for the correlation of impact magnitude and environmental effects. Over the last few decades, impact cratering has steadily grown into an integrated discipline comprising most disciplines of the geosciences as well as planetary science, which has created positive spin-offs including the study of paleo-environments and paleo-climatology, or the important issue of life in extreme environments. And yet, in many parts of the world, the impact process is not yet part of the geoscience curriculum, and for this reason, it deserves to be actively promoted not only as a geoscientific discipline in its own right, but also as an important life-science discipline.