From pastoralism to tourism: The historical impact of changing land use practices in Namaqualand

We use the concept of ecological revolutions to explain the environmental history of Namaqualand, from the advent of pastoralism 2000 years BP, to colonial settlement in the 18th century and finally to the recent trend of de-agrarianization from the middle of the 20th century. Early traveller's records and census data are used to assess changes in the human population of the region and how this affected wildlife and agricultural practices. Pre-colonial indigenous hunter-gatherer (Bushmen) and pastoralist (Khoekhoen) populations in Namaqualand consisted of probably no more than a few thousand individuals. Over the next three centuries, the general population rose steadily to more than 65,000 people but has fallen in recent years. Wildlife appears not to have been abundant in Namaqualand's pre-colonial landscapes and large springbok ‘treks’ were probably a rare event. The number of domestic livestock in Namaqualand peaked in 1957 largely as a result of an increase in the number of sheep which have fallen steadily since this time. Crop production was absent from Namaqualand's pre-colonial landscapes but increased to cover nearly 30,000 ha in the early 1970s. The area under cultivation has declined by nearly two thirds since this time largely as a result of the large-scale abandonment of wheat farming in marginal environments. We touch on differences between the communal areas and private farms, particularly in terms of their human populations and agricultural impact on the land. Repeat landscape photographs support our main findings which suggest that both rocky, upland habitats and rivers have not been transformed substantially by land use practices in Namaqualand. Instead, sandy pediments have borne the brunt of human impacts in the region. Finally, we highlight the beginning of a new ecological revolution in Namaqualand due to changes in the global and national political economy.     

广东大亚湾石珊瑚群落的分布及动态变化

2006年6月对位于南海北部亚热带的大亚湾和大鹏湾石珊瑚群落的分布、种类和覆盖率进行了调查,结果显示大亚湾共有石珊瑚24种,以秘密角蜂巢珊瑚(Favites abdita)为优势种,总覆盖率为20%,大鹏湾有石珊瑚21种,以精巧扁脑珊瑚(Platygyra daedalea)为优势种,总覆盖率为7.9%。大亚湾石珊瑚群落健康状况良好,但生长稀疏,群落密度低,空间结构简单,生长带窄;与1964年、1983年、1984年和1991年的调查结果相比,覆盖率从76.6%下降到20%,优势种从枝状的霜鹿角珊瑚(Acropora Pruinosa)转变成块状或皮壳状的秘密角蜂巢珊瑚,群落生态退化严重,主要原因可能是人为破坏活动对珊瑚本身以及生长环境造成的压力所致,包括过度捕捞、盗采珊瑚、沿岸施工和水体污染等,建议采取相应的保护措施。     

Buckling of Piles under Liquefied Soil Conditions

The paper pertains to the analysis of piles embedded in liquefiable soils to predict its’ critical buckling load under partial to full loss of lateral support over a portion of the pile length. The analysis is based on extension of Mindlin solution for a point load acting inside a semi infinite elastic half space. Degenerated solutions obtained by using the developed method compares very well with reported results. Parametric studies showed that the depth of liquefiable soil, degradation of soil strength on liquefaction, slenderness ratio, pile stiffness factor and end conditions have significant influence on the buckling behavior of the piles.     

Woody vegetation and land cover changes in the Sahel of Mali (1967–2011)

In the past 50 years, the Sahel has experienced significant tree- and land cover changes accelerated by human expansion and prolonged droughts during the 1970s and 1980s. This study uses remote sensing techniques, supplemented by ground-truth data to compare pre-drought woody vegetation and land cover with the situation in 2011. High resolution panchromatic Corona imagery of 1967 and multi-spectral RapidEye imagery of 2011 form the basis of this regional scaled study, which is focused on the Dogon Plateau and the Seno Plain in the Sahel zone of Mali. Object-based feature extraction and classifications are used to analyze the datasets and map land cover and woody vegetation changes over 44 years. Interviews add information about changes in species compositions. Results show a significant increase of cultivated land, a reduction of dense natural vegetation as well as an increase of trees on farmer's fields. Mean woody cover decreased in the plains (−4%) but is stable on the plateau (+1%) although stark spatial discrepancies exist. Species decline and encroachment of degraded land are observed. However, the direction of change is not always negative and a variety of spatial variations are shown. Although the impact of climate is obvious, we demonstrate that anthropogenic activities have been the main drivers of change.     

沈抚污灌区结冻土壤中微生物群落及石油烃优势降解菌的筛选

针对已有50余年污水灌溉历史的沈抚污灌区石油污染结冻土壤中微生物种群及石油优势降解菌株进行了分离、筛选及初步鉴定。结果表明:石油污染土壤中的细菌总数是未污染土壤的100倍左右,其真菌和放线菌数量也明显超过未污染土壤。通过筛选,共得到17株石油烃优势降解细菌和11株真菌,其中,降解性能较强的细菌为12号,石油烃降解率为30.54%,初步鉴定为芽孢杆菌属(Bacillus);降解性能较强的真菌为22号真菌,石油烃降解率为34.21%,初步鉴定为常现青霉(Penicil-liam freguentans Westling)。     

金选矿厂含氰废水中氰化物降解及其环境风险评价

对陕西凤县四方金矿选矿过程中氰化物的迁移转化和降解进行了研究,结果表明,其尾矿库外排含氰废水氰化物浓度达到国家规定的排放标准。在此基础上对氰化物环境风险进行评价,为同类项目尾矿浆和尾矿水环境风险评价提供可信的基础数据。     

Forest law enforcement in the Brazilian Amazon: Costs and income effects

Despite recent success in reducing forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon, additional forest conservation efforts, for example, through ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation’ (REDD+), could significantly contribute to global climate-change mitigation. Economic incentives, such as payments for environmental services could promote conservation, but deforestation often occurs on land without crucial tenure-security prerequisites. Improving the enforcement of existing regulatory disincentives thus represents an important element of Brazil's anti-deforestation action plan. However, conservation law enforcement costs and benefits have been much less studied than for conditional payments. We develop a conceptual framework and a spatially explicit model to analyze field-based regulatory enforcement in the Brazilian Amazon. We validate our model, based on historical deforestation and enforcement mission data from 2003 to 2008. By simulating the current conservation law enforcement practice, we analyze the costs of liability establishment and legal coercion for alternative conservation targets, and evaluate corresponding income impacts. Our findings suggest that spatial patterns of both deforestation and inspection costs markedly influence enforcement patterns and their income effects. Field-based enforcement is a highly cost-effective forest conservation instrument from a regulator's point of view, but comes at high opportunity costs for land users. Payments for environmental services could compensate costs, but will increase budget outlays vis-à-vis a command-and-control dominated strategy. Both legal and institutional challenges have to be overcome to make conservation payments work at a larger scale. Decision-makers may have to innovatively combine incentive and disincentive-based policy instruments in order to make tropical forest conservation both financially viable and socially compatible.     

天然水体中酚的降解动力学

本文报道了天然水体中低浓度酚的降解动力学;计算了它的降解速率常数、降解活化能等。降解半表期是t_(1/2)=1.5d~(-1)(10℃),t_(1/2)=O.74d~(-1)(30℃)。低浓度酚的降解动力学跟天然水体中酚的降解情况比较接近。本文的结果对环境评价、蓄水库工程设计等很有参考价值。     

Modelling the sustainability and productivity of pastoral systems in the communal areas of Namaqualand

We investigated the effects of rainfall and the number of animals on changes in vegetation and on the output of milk and meat from the communal areas of Namaqualand. Previously published short- and long-term models link processes that range from the levels of tissue (in, for example, the mammary gland), to the milk yields of individual animals, to the growth and survival of their young and to long-term changes in plant species populations at the ecosystem level. These models have been used to study how different factors and management strategies affect livestock productivity and vegetation composition on a 20,000 ha rangeland in Namaqualand. First, the inter-relations between rainfall, stocking rate and productivity were studied using the short-term model. This model shows that in addition to total rainfall and stocking rate, the timing of rainfall within a year also influences doe live weight and survival to the end of the year. When the long-term model is run, using recorded rainfall, predictions of small stock numbers agree closely with livestock data recorded over the same 30-year period. One thousand replicates of 100-year runs of the long-term model were then used to study the probable impact of different upper limits to stock numbers on animal performance. Off take (sales and slaughterings) are maximal when stock numbers are limited to 2000 adults. Animal numbers increase marginally as the limit is increased above this level, but the variability between years in numbers increases. Secondly, the long-term model was used to study the long-term effects of the stocking rate strategies on rangeland condition. The model predicts that although these effects are variable, when moderately degraded range is stocked with an upper limit at the recommended level it is unable to recover to less degraded states over 100 years. Thirdly, the model was used to examine the effects of reduction in stock numbers and slaughtering of kids in a drought year on goat numbers during the subsequent 5 years. Finally, the model predicts that a 10% reduction in mean annual rainfall will lead to a 35% reduction in animal numbers over 200 years.