Privatization of rural industry and de facto urbanization from below in southern Jiangsu, China

At the heart of China’s economic transformation from plan to market is the institutional rearrangement of the ownership of property rights. Privatization of collectively owned township and village enterprises (TVEs) in recent years has significantly changed the rural economy and affected small town development in China. Located mainly in villages and small towns and producing 62% of the total industrial output in Jiangsu in 1994, TVEs played a crucial role in southern Jiangsu (Sunan)’s economic development and urbanization, giving rise to the well-known “Sunan model” of regional development during the 1980s. Since the mid-1990s, ownership transition (zhuanzhi) of the TVEs from collective to private in Sunan has altered the nature of the regional economy and the pattern of small town development. The privatization of TVEs in Sunan has been so pervasive that it can be seen as the “second industrial divide” in the region’s economy. This paper traces the evolution of ownership reform in Sunan’s rural industries leading to the current phase of privatization and analyzes the effects of privatization on de facto urbanization from below in Sunan. Given the importance of privatization, continuous scholarly monitoring of its relationship to regional economic development and urbanization from below is necessary.     

How well do ecosystem indicators communicate the effects of anthropogenic eutrophication?

Anthropogenic eutrophication affects the Mediterranean, Black, North and Baltic Seas to various extents. Responses to nutrient loading and methods of monitoring relevant indicators vary regionally, hindering interpretation of ecosystem state changes and preventing a straightforward pan-European assessment of eutrophication symptoms. Here we summarize responses to nutrient enrichment in Europe's seas, comparing existing time-series of selected pelagic (phytoplankton biomass and community composition, turbidity, N:P ratio) and benthic (macro flora and faunal communities, bottom oxygen condition) indicators based on their effectiveness in assessing eutrophication effects. Our results suggest that the Black Sea and Northern Adriatic appear to be recovering from eutrophication due to economic reorganization in the Black Sea catchment and nutrient abatement measures in the case of the Northern Adriatic. The Baltic is most strongly impacted by eutrophication due to its limited exchange and the prevalence of nutrient recycling. Eutrophication in the North Sea is primarily a coastal problem, but may be exacerbated by climatic changes. Indicator interpretation is strongly dependent on sea-specific knowledge of ecosystem characteristics, and no single indicator can be employed to adequately compare eutrophication state between European seas. Communicating eutrophication-related information to policy-makers could be facilitated through the use of consistent indicator selection and monitoring methodologies across European seas. This work is discussed in the context of the European Commission's recently published Marine Strategy Directive.     

Developing a long-term outlook for the Great Barrier Reef,Australia: A framework for adaptive management reporting underpinning an ecosystem-based management approach

The Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2009 was the first produced in response to a newly legislated requirement for five-yearly reports on the status of and outlook for the Great Barrier Reef. It adopted an ecosystem approach, assessing all habitats and species, ecosystem processes and major uses. By then considering the factors affecting the ecosystem, coupled with an assessment of management effectiveness, it provided a risk-based forward-looking projection for the ecosystem. Rarely has such a comprehensive, ecosystem-based report been produced to guide government action. With no pre-determined path to follow for interpreting the legislative requirements, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) developed a repeatable structure and method for Great Barrier Reef Outlook Reports that impartially and consistently considers the evidence and clearly presents the findings. The GBRMPA worked closely with relevant Australian and Queensland Government agencies as well as researchers, industry representatives and the community while developing the report. That such a report must be produced every five years allows an overview of the effectiveness of management responses to be regularly assessed. It also provides a transparent means of highlighting and tracking emerging risks facing the Great Barrier Reef.     

Intercomparison of shipboard and moored CARIOCA buoy seawater fCO2 measurements in the Sargasso Sea

The ocean is an important sink for carbon and heat, yet high-resolution measurements of biogeochemical properties relevant to global climate change are being made only sporadically in the ocean at present. There is a growing need for automated, real-time, long-term measurements of CO₂ in the ocean using a network of sensors, strategically placed on ships, moorings, free-drifting buoys and autonomous remotely operated vehicles. The ground-truthing of new sensor technologies is a vital component of present and future efforts to monitor changes in the ocean carbon cycle and air–sea exchange of CO₂.A comparison of a moored Carbon Interface Ocean Atmosphere (CARIOCA) buoy and shipboard fugacity of CO₂ (fCO₂) measurements was conducted in the western North Atlantic during two extended periods (>1 month) in 1997. The CARIOCA buoy was deployed on the Bermuda Testbed Mooring (BTM), which is located 5 km north of the site of the US Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS). The high frequency of sampling revealed that temperature and fCO₂ responded to physical forcing by the atmosphere on timescales from diurnal to 4–8 days. Concurrent with the deployments of the CARIOCA buoy, frequent measurements of surface fCO₂ were made from the R/V Weatherbird II during opportunistic visits to the BTM and BATS sites, providing a direct calibration of the CARIOCA buoy fCO₂ data. Although, the in situ ground-truthing of the CARIOCA buoy was complicated by diurnal processes, sub-mesoscale and fine-scale variability, the CARIOCA buoy fCO₂ data was accurate within 3±6 μatm of shipboard fCO₂ data for periods up to 50 days. Longer-term assessments were not possible due to the CARIOCA buoy breaking free of the BTM and drifting into waters with different fCO₂-temperature properties. Strategies are put forward for future calibration of other in situ sensors.     

Molecular investigations into pollutant impact on roundnose grenadier (C. rupestris) and transplanted common mussel (M. edulis) in Skagerrak, the North Sea

The use of a suite of different biochemical markers in the deep sea fish Roundnose grenadier and caged common mussels, and analyses of contaminant levels in the mussels, indicate that Skagerrak are more polluted than waters around the Faroe Islands. In Roundnose, induction of ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) is consistent with increased benzo(a)pyrene hydroxylase (BPH) in mussels and elevated levels of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in mussels and sediment from Skagerrak. This evidence of a large-scale environmental impact of pollutants should lead to further efforts to decrease transport into, and deposition of, waste compounds in the Skagerrak area.     

Paleolimnological evidence of mining and demographic impacts on Lac Dauriat, Schefferville (subarctic Québec, Canada)

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of fossil diatoms and geochemical signals preserved in the sediments of Lac Dauriat (subarctic Quebec) were performed to evaluate the impacts of nearby mining activity and the expansion of the town of Schefferville on the water quality of the lake, and to reconstruct the changes of its trophic status. The presence of taxa typical of nutrient-enriched environments (e.g., Cyclostephanos invisitatus, Nitzschia gracilis, Nitzschia perminuta) and the low percentages of chrysophytes were indicative of the advanced state of eutrophication of the lake during the peak of mining activity, and were evidence of the negative impacts of municipal waste on the water quality of Lac Dauriat. Sedimentary analysis of metals, notably lead, mercury, cadmium, bismuth, cobalt, copper and zinc, showed maximum concentrations between 1940 and 1960 with mining era to pre-development enrichment factors ranging from 4.5 to 7.9. The changes seen in recent sediments reflected 3 distinct stages in the recent history of this ecosystem: (a) the non-perturbed, pre-mining (1882–1939), (b) the perturbed, mining period (1939–1977) with accelerated eutrophication, and (c) the post-mining period (1977–1999) with indications of natural recovery of the system after the installation of a water treatment plant in 1975, the closing of the mine in 1983, and the subsequent exodus of the town’s population. Despite the trajectory towards a return to the lake’s natural conditions, water resource managers and (paleo-)limnologists should be alarmed that the impacts of past human disturbance are still in evidence more than 20 years after the closure of the mines, and that Lac Dauriat has yet to reach its natural state of the period preceding extreme anthropogenic impact.     

Flood Management Strategy for the Upper and Middle Odra River Basin: Feasibility Study of Raciborz Reservoir

The river Odra, which rises in the Czech Republic and disgorges into the Baltic, suffered an extreme flood in July 1997 which was responsible for the loss of 55 lives and over a billion dollars worth of damage in southern Poland. The return period of the flood is variously estimated between 250 and 1000 years. The paper describes the hydrological and hydraulic studies undertaken for a flood reservoir (storage capacity is approximately 180,000,000 m³) to be constructed on the River Odra just upstream the ancient town of Raciborz, on the border between Poland and Czech Republic. These studies included the hydrodynamic modelling of a 220 km stretch of the river down to the city of Wroclaw where most of the damage occurred, flood damage analysis with and without the proposed reservoir, sensitivity analysis of operating rules for Nysa reservoirs and improvement of flood control capacity of existing channels and polders. Cost-benefits analysis, environmental impact assessments and resettlement plans, in addition to the engineering studies of the dam itself, were also carried out during the project stage but have not been included in the present paper.