For your eyes only? Evaluating a coordinated and multiple views tool with a map,a parallel coordinated plot and a table using an eye-tracking approach

Geographic visualization tools with coordinated and multiple views (CMV) typically provide sets of visualization methods. Such configuration gives users the possibility of investigating data in various visual contexts; however, it can be confusing due to the multiplicity of visual components and interactive functions. We addressed this challenge and conducted an empirical study on how a CMV tool, consisting of a map, a parallel coordinate plot (PCP), and a table, is used to acquire information. We combined a task-based approach with eye-tracking and usability metrics since these methods provide comprehensive insights into users’ behaviour. Our empirical study revealed that the freedom to choose visualization components is appreciated by users. The individuals worked with all the available visualization methods and they often used more than one visualization method when executing tasks. Different views were used in different ways by various individuals, but in a similarly effective way. Even PCP, which is claimed to be problematic, was found to be a handy way of exploring data when accompanied by interactive functions.     

Tracking embodied carbon flows in the Belt and Road regions

In the past few decades, economic globalization has driven rapid growth of cross-border trade and a new international division of labor, leading to increasing inter- country embodied carbon flows. Multi-region input-output (MRIO) analysis is used to identify embodied carbon flows between major world regions, including seven regions along the Belt and Road (BR), and the spatial distribution of production- and consumption-based carbon intensities. The results show that current embodied carbon flows are virtually all from BR regions to developed countries, with more than 95% of world net embodied carbon exports coming from BR regions. Consumption in the United States and European Union countries induce about 30% of the carbon emissions in most BR regions, indicating that the former bear a high proportion of consumers’ responsibility for the carbon emitted in the latter. For this reason, measuring environmental responsibilities from consumption rather than a production- based perspective is more equitable, while developing countries should be given a louder voice in the construction through dialogue and cooperation, in part in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, of an inclusive global climate governance system.     

Linking Tarim Basin sea retreat (west China) and Asian aridification in the late Eocene

The Tarim Basin in western China formed the easternmost margin of a shallow epicontinental sea that extended across Eurasia and was well connected to the western Tethys during the Paleogene. Climate modelling studies suggest that the westward retreat of this sea from Central Asia may have been as important as the Tibetan Plateau uplift in forcing aridification and monsoon intensification in the Asian continental interior due to the redistribution of the land‐sea thermal contrast. However, testing of this hypothesis is hindered by poor constraints on the timing and precise palaeogeographic dynamics of the retreat. Here, we present an improved integrated bio‐ and magnetostratigraphic chronological framework of the previously studied marine to continental transition in the southwest Tarim Basin along the Pamir and West Kunlun Shan, allowing us to better constrain its timing, cause and palaeoenvironmental impact. The sea retreat is assigned a latest Lutetian–earliest Bartonian age (ca. 41 Ma; correlation of the last marine sediments to calcareous nannofossil Zone CP14 and correlation of the first continental red beds to the base of magnetochron C18r). Higher up in the continental deposits, a major hiatus includes the Eocene–Oligocene transition (ca. 34 Ma). This suggests the Tarim Basin was hydrologically connected to the Tethyan marine Realm until at least the earliest Oligocene and had not yet been closed by uplift of the Pamir–Kunlun orogenic system. The westward sea retreat at ca. 41 Ma and the disconformity at the Eocene–Oligocene transition are both time‐equivalent with reported Asian aridification steps, suggesting that, consistent with climate modelling results, the sea acted as an important moisture source for the Asian continental interior.     

Depiction of Wild Food Foraging Practices in the Media: Impact of the Great Recession

The practice of gathering and harvesting wild foods has seen renewed interest in recent decades. In addition to contributing to food security and food sovereignty, foraging plays a role in promoting socioecological resilience and creating communities of belonging. However, foraging is generally prohibited by regulations governing public lands in the United States and elsewhere. The growth in food forests suggests public policymakers and land managers’ may be interested in reconsidering this broad prohibition of foraging but require an information base to do so. While a body of research on foraging exists, news media coverage of foraging represents an additional, readily available source of input. As a consequence, framings of foraging in media coverage likely influence managers’ deliberations on this practice. The current paper uses automated content analysis to understand how the practice of gathering and consuming wild foods is framed in print and digital news media, and how these depictions have varied in a 15-year period that includes the Great Recession. Our results show that prevalent framings of foraging represent it variously as a self-provisioning practice or a source of luxury commodities and experiences, with economic uncertainty appearing to affect the frequency of each framing by news media sources. Given managers’ ease of access to them, these distinct framings may influence future regulatory landscapes of foraging.     

Numerical Model of Two-Phase Flow in Dissolvable Porous Media and Simulation of Reservoir Acidizing

Mathematical model of porous media dissolution coupled with two-phase flow is proposed. The model is based on the conception of dissolvable porous medium with deformable mass-variable porous skeleton. Model can be used for simulation of coupled chemo- and hydrogeomechanical processes which are difficult to examine experimentally. Acidizing of calcite oil reservoir is used as an example of the process. Water solution of hydrochloric acid and oil are two fluid phases of the model with several components. Dissolvable porous media is treated as deformable mass-variable solid phase. Change in mass of the solid phase is caused by hydrochloric acid dissolving the calcite part of the solid phase. Dissolution is supposed to be congruent; kinetics is governed by the Nernst law. Software for numerical solution of the model is developed. It uses AmgCL parallel library for high-performance computing in order to deal with large algebraic systems on the each time step of calculations. The library uses algebraic multigrid methods for preconditioning and parallel iterative solvers. NVidia CUDA framework is used as a backend to perform GPGPU calculations, because it proved to be faster than OpenCL framework on this problem. Numerical experiments on the basis of data set from real reservoirs are conducted with the developed software. Good correlation between field and calculated data is achieved. Numerical experiments for different configurations of heterogeneous layer are performed. Acidizing of layers with highly permeable conduit and with random distribution of permeability is modeled.     

Capacity of soil loss control in the Loess Plateau based on soil erosion control degree

The capacity of soil and water conservation measures, defined as the maximum quantity of suitable soil and water conservation measures contained in a region, were determined for the Loess Plateau based on zones suitable for establishing terraced fields, forestland and grassland with the support of geographic information system (GIS) software. The minimum possible soil erosion modulus and actual soil erosion modulus in 2010 were calculated using the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE), and the ratio of the minimum possible soil erosion modulus under the capacity of soil and water conservation measures to the actual soil erosion modulus was defined as the soil erosion control degree. The control potential of soil erosion and water loss in the Loess Plateau was studied using this concept. Results showed that the actual soil erosion modulus was 3355 t?km^-2?a^-1, the minimum possible soil erosion modulus was 1921 t?km^-2?a^-1, and the soil erosion control degree was 0.57 (medium level) in the Loess Plateau in 2010. In terms of zoning, the control degree was relatively high in the river valley-plain area, soil-rocky mountainous area, and windy-sandy area, but relatively low in the soil-rocky hilly-forested area, hilly-gully area and plateau-gully area. The rate of erosion areas with a soil erosion modulus of less than 1000 t?km^-2?a^-1 increased from 50.48% to 57.71%, forest and grass coverage rose from 56.74% to 69.15%, rate of terraced fields increased from 4.36% to 19.03%, and per capita grain available rose from 418 kg?a^-1 to 459 kg?a^-1 under the capacity of soil and water conservation measures compared with actual conditions. These research results are of some guiding significance for soil and water loss control in the Loess Plateau.     

Public Perceptions of Natural Character in New Zealand: Wild Nature Versus Cultured Nature

Results of empirical research undertaken in New Zealand to determine public perceptions of natural character in the biophysical environment are presented and related to recent theoretical literature. The research comprised two distinct case studies using Q method and photographs, in which participants evaluated natural character in terms of their own landscape experiences by ranking the photographs in order of preference. The results confirm prevailing responses to nature recently specified in North American literature, and have some policy implications for environmental management in New Zealand.