Urban Heat and Climate Justice: A Landscape of Thermal Inequity in Pinellas County,Florida

The combined effects of two global trends, urbanization and climate change, have generated considerable concern regarding their adverse and disproportionate impacts on the health of urban populations. This study contributes to climate‐justice research by determining whether elevated levels of urban heat, indicated by land surface temperature (LST), are distributed inequitably with respect to race/ethnicity, age, and socioeconomic status in Pinellas County, Florida. Our study utilizes 2010 MODIS and Landsat medium‐resolution, remotely sensed thermal data, census socio‐demographic information, and both conventional and spatial statistical methods. Results indicate that LST is significantly greater in census tracts characterized by higher percentages of certain racial/ethnic minorities and higher poverty rates, even after controlling for contextual factors and the effects of spatial autocorrelation. This reveals the presence of a landscape of thermal inequity: uneven distribution of heat within the built urban environment and a community structure with varying vulnerability.     

Functional distance does not predict interspecific synchrony,but functional diversity directly affects community stability

Several studies attempt to understand the mechanisms underlying compensatory and synchronous dynamics, and how these mechanisms relate to community stability. For this purpose, the use of functional traits, in theory, would allow for a direct evaluation of whether functional similarity generates compensatory dynamics or interspecific synchrony. Likewise, a trait-based approach is also needed to evaluate the effect of functional biodiversity on community stability. Using phytoplankton data from the Cana Brava Reservoir (Goiás State, Brazil), we tested whether interspecific synchrony depends on functional distance and whether variability in total abundance depends on community synchrony and functional diversity. We did not find a significant relationship between interspecific synchrony and functional distance. However, we found a predominance of positive correlations between pairs of species and a strong negative relationship between functional diversity and community variability. Our results suggest that interspecific synchrony cannot be reliably predicted by functional distance. Given the predominance of positive synchrony, we indirectly infer that environmental variations similarly controlled the dynamics of most species. Our findings also highlight the stabilizing role of functional diversity.     

关中盆地地下水脆弱性评价指标体系的探讨

地下水脆弱性是近几年来出现的新概念，在分析国内外有关地下水脆弱性研究现状的基础上根据关中盆地的地貌、地质、水文地质以及环境问题，探讨了地下水脆弱性的概念，提出了关中盆地地下水脆弱性评价指标体系。     

Risk assessment of earth fractures by constructing an intrinsic vulnerability map,a specific vulnerability map,and a hazard map,using Yuci City,Shanxi, China as an example

Risk assessment of earth fracture hazards is particularly useful for regulatory, managerial, and decision-making purposes at all levels of government. A three-map method that includes intrinsic vulnerability, specific vulnerability, and hazard maps is developed to assess the earth fracture hazards in Yuci City, Shanxi, China. The intrinsic (natural) vulnerability map is based on the assessment of various natural factors by coupling the technologies of a Geographical Information System (GIS) to an Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The specific vulnerability map is generated by coupling the technologies of a GIS and an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). According to the overlapping principles of multiple geo-information systems, the hazard map is therefore defined by overlapping the intrinsic and specific vulnerability maps using a spatial-operation function in the GIS. Unlike the intrinsic vulnerability map, the hazard map takes into account human activities and the importance of the area to be assessed. The proposed three-map approach is not only scientifically valuable, but provides a more realistic assessment of earth fracture hazards as well.     

The impact of “community” on fisheries management in the US Northeast

The discourse of fisheries science and management displaces community and culture from the essential economic dynamic of fisheries. The goal of this dominant discourse is to enclose fisheries, to constitute them as within the singular and hegemonic economy of capitalism. Alternative economies, such as those based on the presence of community, are always seen as either existing before or beyond the dominant economic formation. The category of community is, nevertheless, being incorporated into contemporary fisheries science and management where it has the potential to disrupt the ontological foundations of the current management regime. To avoid disruption, community is situated such that it is the domain of anthropology while the essential economic dynamic of fisheries remains the purview of fisheries bioeconomics. Community can be identified, documented, and analyzed but always only as a site of economic impact and never as a constituent of the economic itself. Curiously, this disciplining of community has a literal geographic dimension: the discursive domain of bioeconomics corresponds to the spatial domain of fisheries resources themselves while that of fisheries social science/anthropology corresponds to the terrestrial locations where fishers reside. Fishing ports become the place of community while the actual common property resource remains the site where the essential economic dynamic reigns uncompromised.     

Global environmental change: conceptualising the growing challenge for cities in poor countries

Ongoing urbanisation makes cities a key focus for global environmental change (GEC) research, creating an imperative for a new, city-scale, research agenda. The vulnerability of urban populations to the multiple stresses of GEC lies at the core of overlapping domains of knowledge that could be better integrated in advancing research. The urban development, global change and disasters literatures are fragmented and reveal fundamental cleavages over the role that government could play in mitigating vulnerability to multiple threats and challenges. Important empirical gaps exist, especially on cities of the South. While there are significant knowledge gaps and numerous tensions within and between schools of thought, this overview suggests useful entry points for framing an invigorated research agenda on urban GEC.     

GIS‐Based Indices for Comparing Airline Flight‐Path Vulnerability to Volcanoes

Volcanic ash can cause physical damage to an aircraft to the point of mechanical and electrical malfunction. In the event of an ash plume, aircraft would likely be diverted or grounded, leading to economic losses. This article presents two indices to compare the economic vulnerability of flight paths to volcanic ash plumes. The first index includes three factors for a flight path: wind direction, distance to the volcano, and flight‐path attributes (i.e., number of flights per day, number of potential passengers, and average ticket cost). The second index compares the threat posed by different volcanoes to an airline flight‐path network. A case study is presented for two airlines in the northwest United States to a Mt. Adams eruption. The results show that although the first airline has more flight paths in the region, the second airline is slightly more vulnerable due to the spatial relationships of its flight paths to the volcano and their attributes.     

Views from the vulnerable: Understanding climatic and other stressors in the Sahel

In much of sub-Saharan Africa, considerable research exists on the impacts of climate change on social-ecological systems. Recent adaptation studies emphasize sectoral vulnerability and largely physical adaptation strategies that mirror anti-desertification plans. The adaptive role of subsistence farmers, the vulnerable ‘target’ population, is largely overlooked. This article aims to fill this gap by putting the views from the vulnerable in the center of the analysis. Drawing from participatory risk ranking and scoring among smallholders in central Senegal, data on multiple hazards indicate that farmers’ adaptive capacity to climate change is undermined by poor health, rural unemployment, and inadequate village infrastructure. Results from conceptual mapping reveal incomplete understanding of causes and consequences of climate change. Yet, shared knowledge and lessons learned from previous climatic stresses provide vital entry points for social learning and enhanced adaptive capacity to both wetter and drier periods now and in the future.     

基于GIS多准则空间分析(SMCE)的青海省矿产资源开发地质环境脆弱性评价

青海省具有丰富的矿产资源，其可持续开发战略与规划应建立在对地质环境脆弱性评价的基础上。笔者通过分析青海省环境地质问题和地质灾害发育的基本规律，建立了青海省未来矿产资源开发的地质环境脆弱性评价的框架。提出了地质环境脆弱性评价的基本准则和地质评价指标。在荷兰国际地球科学测量与观测学院（ITC）开发的GIS软件——ILWIS环境下，利用其新开发的空间分析功能的SMCE模块，对青海省的地质环境脆弱性进行了评价。结果表明，具有矿产资源远景开发的地区地质环境比较脆弱，对未来的矿产资源开发有着较大的制约作用。