Public concern about,and desire for research into,the human health effects of marine plastic pollution: Results from a 15-country survey across Europe and Australia

Marine plastic pollution is caused by humans and has become ubiquitous in the marine environment. Despite the widely acknowledged ecological consequences, the scientific evidence regarding detrimental human health impacts is currently debated, and there is no substantive evidence surrounding public opinion with respect to marine plastic pollution and human health. Results from a 15-country survey (n = 15,179) found that both the European and Australian public were highly concerned about the potential human health impacts of marine plastic pollution, and strongly supported the funding of research which aims to better understand its health/wellbeing implications. Multi-level modelling revealed that these perceptions varied across socio-demographic factors (e.g. gender), political orientation, marine contact factors (e.g. marine occupation and engagement in coastal recreation activities) and personality traits (e.g. openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness). Quantifying attitudes, as well as understanding how individual-level differences shape risk perception will enable policy makers and communicators to develop more targeted communications and initiatives that target a reduction in marine plastic pollution.     

县级气象综合业务工作平台本地化

根据县级气象综合业务工作平台建设的需求,以县级气象综合业务工作平台为基础,从县级气象业务工作实际出发,利用Visual Basic 6.0程序语言编程,研制出辽宁省县级气象综合业务工作平台本地化软件,并投入县级气象综合业务应用。经业务运行表明,软件的开发和使用,达到了实时业务系统高效运行的目的,使县级气象业务向集约化方向发展。     

公共财政应急支持体系构建——以云南大姚地震为例

通过对2003年云南大姚地震中财政应急支持过程的回顾,分析了财政应对地震类突发事件中存在的一系列问题,并结合当前财政应急支持的现状,参照日本灾害救助的经验,提出了完善我国财政应急支持体系的对策建议.     

GIS的社会化及公众GIS

GIS(地理信息系统 )的发展继专业化和行业化阶段之后 ,正处于社会化发展阶段。在该阶段 ,GIS的主要作用是为公众提供信息服务。文章在分析了GIS的这种发展趋势的基础上提出了“公众GIS”的概念 ,即 :直接面向公众 ,为公众提供信息服务和辅助公众进行行为决策的地理信息系统。与传统GIS相比 ,公众GIS更具有信息服务业的特点。公众GIS的建设应该突出信息的全面性、现势性和准确性、系统的友好性以及数据的易维护性等原则。公众GIS的关键技术包括数据采集、网络、数据库、多媒体以及系统的友好性设计等技术。公众GIS在建设全国城市公众信息服务网、全国交通旅游信息网以及汽车导航信息系统等方面具有广阔的应用前景。文章对公众GIS的实例———“今日武汉”公众查询系统作了简要介绍。     

基于审查回归模型的公众气象服务支付意愿影响因素分析——以无锡、武汉和西安为例

采用审查回归模型,分别选取了中国东、中、西部的三个典型城市无锡、武汉和西安,计算了三城市受访者的支付意愿值,并对其影响因素进行了分析。结果表明：（1）支付意愿值与地区经济发展水平直接相关。无锡、武汉和西安受访者的支付意愿分别为21.68,17.15和10.07元/年;（2）年龄越长者,由于其天气知识更丰富、日常消费较节俭,对气象服务的支付意愿越低;（3）文化程度越高者,更能理解和支持气象服务事业,对气象服务的支付意愿越高;（4）月收入变量对气象服务的支付意愿有显著影响,但就不同城市的受访者而言,影响的方向并不一致。     

Plastic pollution and the open burning of plastic wastes

The open burning of plastic wastes is a practice that is highly prevalent across the globe, toxic to human and environmental health, and a critical—but often overlooked—aspect of plastic pollution. Most of the countries where such burning is widespread have laws and policies in place against it; open burning continues nevertheless. In this article, using data from ethnographic fieldwork in urban and rural sites in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Zambia, we examine local practices of open burning and investigate why regulations to tackle it have proven largely ineffective. Adopting a harm reduction approach, we then suggest preliminary measures to mitigate the health risks of open burning by targeting those plastics and packaging types that are most toxic when burned.     

Temporal variations of fluoride concentration in Isparta public water system and health impact assessment (SW-Turkey)

Water–rock interaction is one of the prime factors affecting the fluoride contents of surface and groundwater. If fluoride concentration of drinking water has been neglected, excess fluoride can cause serious dental and medical problems on human health, which is well known at Golcuk-Isparta region. In the research area, Egirdir lake, Golcuk lake and surrounding springs have been utilized as drinking water sources. Golcuk lake water and surrounding groundwaters have high fluoride content (1.4–4.6 mg/l), which is above the WHO standards. Fluoride is predominantly supplied by dissolution of fluoride within the fluormicas of volcanics during the circulation of water. Fluoride concentrations of waters have shown variations for dry and rainy seasons depending on the degree of interaction between groundwater and volcanic rocks. It tends to decrease in rainy seasons and increase in dry seasons for all years. In this study, temporal variations and spatial distribution of fluoride concentration in public water system of Isparta were investigated to get benefit using GIS techniques from1990 to 2003 years. Extremely fluoride concentrations were measured in the public water system in 1990 at almost every district of the city. In 2003, fluoride content of the public water system decreased in some district of city due to drinking water has started obtaining from Egirdir lake in 1995. The fluoride contents of Isparta drinking water ought to be modified with suitable mixture of lake waters and groundwater point of view to health impact.     

South African eucalypts: Health,trees, and atmospheres in the colonial contact zone

In this article I suggest that a reading of previous studies, which cast the early transfers of eucalyptus to South Africa along economic and aesthetic rationales can be enhanced by medical history. Through a case from King William’s Town in the 1870s, I show that the appeal of the eucalyptus hinged on the olfactory aspect of the trees, which were conceived as an important public health factor. I then proceed to outline how a clearer understanding of the role of olfaction in ecological studies can uncover new aspects of social dynamics and human relations to the natural environment. I argue that taking the atmosphere seriously as the medium through which we interact with the world, opens for an understanding of olfaction as an important and largely unexplored ethos that guided the dramatic reshaping of the colonial landscapes during much of the nineteenth century.     

Research on Cultural Dimension of Natural Disaster:A Literature Review

Culture provides an important perspective to understand society. It is one of the key factors that impact how people behave themselves, interact with one another, view the world; what they believe and value. Therefore, a good understanding of public disaster awareness and disaster coping is impossible without taking their culture context into consideration. Since the 1960s, cultural dimension in disaster issues and/or disaster reduction practices has been attracting increasingly attention; many empirical or theoretical explorations have been reported. This review aims to give an overview of research progresses on how culture impacts public awareness and coping of disasters, and analyze the corresponding implications for disaster research and disaster reduction practice. This review summarizes that: ①There is unanimous consensus on public awareness and coping of disaster, which are affected by their culture context. While the knowledge about the ways and degree of impact is still limited, further research is warranted. In addition, more systematic and in-depth studies conducted from cross-cultural perspectives are needed to design to further explore the origins of variance in public disaster awareness and coping, and to what extent from cultural differences. ②Research on public awareness of disaster, emergency response and recovery indicated that culture might have double-side impacts on disaster management—sometimes cultural factors such as value, norm, custom and belief might lead to people more vulnerable than the others, even could be the root causes, but they could also be the source of people’s resilience to disaster in some cases. How to identify those positive and negative impacts, then develop cultural-oriented disaster management policy is a challenge issue, which need special attention. ③There is an increasing acknowledgement that local knowledge and disaster subculture could play an important role in public disaster coping, while the lacking of the awareness of the value of local knowledge, the change of lifestyle, and the impact from external culture pose a threat to the inheritance of some local, traditional disaster coping strategies. So exploring how to conserve, protect, identify, document them, then combine them with modern science and technology should and will be the focus of relevant studies. On the bases of these summarizations, in terms of cultural dimension of natural disaster research in China, systematic and in-depth studies are needed to explore how Chinese culture affects public disaster awareness and coping, what cultural resources can be used in disaster (risk) reduction and for building and enhancing disaster resilience, and how to use them.