Land use sustainability on the South-Eastern Amazon agricultural frontier: Recent progress and the challenges ahead

The recent decoupling of deforestation and soybean production has raised optimistic expectations towards enhanced land use sustainability in the South-Eastern Amazon agricultural frontier. Nonetheless, assessing land use sustainability implies not only the consideration of how agricultural activities affect natural ecosystems but also how they impact on society and how society can cope with them. We review some of the forthcoming challenges that the agricultural sector should address to confirm its significant progress towards land use sustainability. Firstly, we assess the recent efforts to adopt environmentally friendly practices with regard to the ongoing intensification process mainly based on double cropping systems. Secondly, while rapid agricultural development has brought major social advances, we evidence a recent trend towards a decoupling of soy production and the Human Development Index at municipality level. We then put this result into perspective considering that the trend towards agricultural intensification based on the use of large amounts of agrochemicals could lead to major health concerns which are still too rarely considered. Finally, we discuss how the recent efficient policies to contain deforestation in the Amazon can cause indirect land use changes in the Brazilian Cerrados and in African Savannas, thus potentially leading to an “illusion of preservation” at global scale. We conclude that new indicators involving social sciences are necessary to better address the complexity of land use sustainability on the still very dynamic agricultural frontier in the South-Eastern Amazon.     

Places of Agribusiness: Displacement,Replacement, and Misplacement in Mato Grosso,Brazil

This article investigates the spatial logic and different moments of place‐making during the expansion of Mato Grosso's agribusiness frontier, in the southern section of the Brazilian Amazon. The analysis is informed by three conceptual concerns: the tensions between representation and experience, between humanist and class‐based explanations, and between the intensity of place‐making and place‐framing. Empirical results from a qualitative case study (carried out between 2013–2015, when agribusiness was the undisputed locomotive of the Brazilian economy) demonstrate that socio‐spatial changes in the last four decades evolved due to the complementary pressures and controversies of displacement (particularly in the 1970s–1980s) and replacement (in the 1990s–2000s), which eventually resulted in the widespread sense of misplacement due to accumulated inequalities and entrenched forms of socioeconomic exclusion. The principal conclusion found that the places dominated by agribusiness in Mato Grosso evolved around a totalizing spatial strategy that undermined alternative forms of production and livelihoods that do not fit in the export‐oriented agricultural model.     

大型工程测量GPS控制网坐标系统的建立

在测量领域,GPS(Global Positioning System)系统已广泛用于大地测量、工程测量、航空摄影测量以及地形测量等各个方面。本文以大型工程测量控制网为例,概略叙述GPS在大型工程控制测量中的应用。     

Urban investment and development corporations,new town development and China’s local state restructuring – the case of Songjiang new town,Shanghai

This article seeks to understand China’s new urban space production and associated state space rescaling through a microscopic investigation of urban investment and development corporations (UIDCs), based on a case study of Shanghai’s Songjiang New Town Development Corporation (SNTDC). It argues that the introduction of UIDCs as both developers and managers of designated urban regions is a creation of institutional reformation to accomplish customized place- and scale-specific spatial projects under the state strategy of new urban spatial development, playing an essential part in the rescaling of state space. UIDCs are economically independent of other social groups, politically bonded with the local government, and assume entrepreneurial and administrative functions within designated areas, acting as intermediary agents to enable local states greater capacity in governing new urban space production, engineering social change, and propelling economic development.     

Assessing green gentrification in historically disenfranchised neighborhoods: a longitudinal and spatial analysis of Barcelona

To date, little is known about the extent to which the creation of municipal green spaces over an entire city addresses social or racial inequalities in the distribution of environmental amenities – or whether such an agenda creates contributes to green gentrification. In this study, we evaluate the effects of creating 18 green spaces in socially vulnerable neighborhoods of Barcelona during the 1990s and early 2000s. We examined the evolution over time of six socio-demographic gentrification indicators in the areas close to green spaces in comparison with the entire districts. Our results indicate that new parks in the old town and formerly industrialized neighborhoods seem to have experienced green gentrification. In contrast, most economically depressed areas and working-class neighborhoods with less desirable housing stock and more isolated from the city center gained vulnerable residents as they became greener, indicating a possible redistribution and greater concentration of vulnerable residents through the city.     

Regional Economic Efficiency and Its Influencing Factors of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Metropolitans in China Based on a Heterogeneity Stochastic Frontier Model

Using a heterogeneity stochastic frontier model(HSFM),we empirically investigated the economic efficiency of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei from 2003 to 2016 and its influencing factors.The key findings of the paper lie in:1)in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei,the overall economic and technological efficiency tended to increase in a wavelike manner,economic growth slowed down,and there was an obvious imbalance in economic efficiency between the different districts,counties and cities;2)the heterogeneity stochastic frontier production functions(SFPFs)of Beijing,Tianjin and Hebei were different from each other,and investment was still an important impetus of economic growth in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei;3)economic efficiency was positively correlated with economic agglomeration,human capital,industrial structure,infrastructure,the informatization level,and institutional factors,but negatively correlated with the government role and economic opening.The following policy suggestions are offered:1)to improve regional economic efficiency and reduce the economic gap in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei,governments must reduce their intervention in economic activities,stimulate the potentials of labor and capital,optimize the structure of human resources,and foster new demographic incentives;2)governments must guide economic factors that are reasonable throughout Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and strengthen infrastructure construction in underdeveloped regions,thus attaining sustainable economic development;3)governments must plan overall economic growth factors of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and promote reasonable economic factors(e.g.,labor,resources,and innovations)across different regions,thus attaining complementary advantages between Beijing,Tianjin,and Hebei.     

规划建筑面积指标校核方法的研究与实施

为规范建设项目指标校核测绘工作,本文以武汉市经济技术开发区为例,实现建设项目指标校核作业和管理的标准化和规范化,保障了测绘生产的顺利实施,研究和制定了建设项目指标校核的测绘作业方法和管理办法。为以后类似的建设项目指标校核专项测绘作业提供了借鉴,为补充和完善《武汉市测绘工程技术规定》提供了资料和技术储备。     

关于工程勘察项目成本管理的探讨

工程勘察项目的成本管理,直接关系到工程勘察企业的经济效益和生死存亡。本文分析了当前工程勘察项目管理中存在的常见问题,并针对所存在的问题探讨了如何科学、有效地进行勘察项目成本管理。为工程勘察企业完善项目成本管理,适应勘察市场,获取良好经济效益,做大做强企业提供一点借鉴。     

泥石流防治工程可靠性的超越概率

根据降雨频率重现期统计结果,汶川地震灾区近年来毁坏或失效的泥石流防治工程大多与设计标准降雨频率关系不明显,但与大暴雨和特大暴雨雨强关系密切。所以,在泥石流防治工程可靠性评价方法中,可以引入超越概率的概念,亦即发生超出设计标准降雨频率的工程毁坏或失效概率。本文采用数理统计方法,以震区都江堰泥石流工程为例,讨论了泥石流防治工程的超越概率问题。建立了以雨强为标准的超越概率统计模型。     

中国大陆下扬子及邻区地壳结构基本特征:深地震测深研究综述

系统回顾了20世纪70年代以来在中国大陆下扬子及其邻区开展的深地震测深工程,总结了相关宽角反射/折射地震资料的波组特征及地壳结构的基本特征。下扬子及邻区深地震测深资料普遍具有较清晰的初至震波Pg、上地壳底界面反射波P1、中地壳底界面反射波P3、莫霍界面反射波Pm及上地幔顶部首波Pn,震相连续,易追踪对比。受浅表沉积盖层或基岩等的影响,Pg波常出现局部延迟滞后或走时超前现象。尤其是大别造山带个别炮点的反射能量较弱或同相轴扭曲、波形紊乱等,均与地壳内界面和莫霍面的深度突变或破碎有关。该区域地壳结构大致分为上、中、下3层,但视资料情况中地壳和下地壳又可进一步划分为2个亚层。华北地台和扬子地台地壳厚度30~36km,莫霍界面形态变化较缓,存在局部隆起,下地壳平均速度6.7±0.3km/s。但大别造山带下方地壳厚度32~41km,莫霍界面下凹且出现4~7km垂向错断,下地壳平均速度6.8±0.2km/s。