Examining urban land-cover characteristics and ecological regulation during the construction of Xiong’an New District,Hebei Province,China

Development of Xiong'an New District (XND) is integral to the implementation of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) Integration Initiative. It is intended to ease the non-capital functions of Beijing, optimize regional spatial patterns, and enhance ecosystem services and living environment in this urban agglomeration. Applying multi-stage remote sensing (RS) images, land use/cover change (LUCC) data, ecosystem services assessment data, and high-precision urban land-cover information, we reveal the regional land-cover characteristics of this new district as well as across the planned area of the entire BTH urban agglomeration. Corresponding ecological protection and management strategies are also proposed. Results indicated that built-up areas were rapidly expanding, leading to a continuous impervious surface at high density. Urban and impervious surface areas (ISAs) grew at rates 1.27 and 1.43 times higher than that in the 2000s, respectively, seriously affecting about 15% area of the sub-basins. Construction of XND mainly encompasses Xiongxian, Rongcheng, and Anxin counties, areas which predominantly comprise farmland, townships and rural settlements, water, and wetland ecosystems. The development and construction of XND should ease the non-capital functions of Beijing, as well as moderately control population and industrial growth. Thus, this development should be included within the national ‘sponge city’ construction pilot area in early planning stages, and reference should be made to international low-impact development modes in order to strengthen urban green infrastructural construction. Early stage planning based on the existing characteristics of the underlying surface should consider the construction of green ecological patches and ecological corridors between XND and the cities of Baoding, Beijing, and Tianjin. The proportion of impervious surfaces should not exceed 60%, while that of the core area should not exceed 70%. The development of XND needs to initiate the concept of ‘planning a city according to water resource amount’ and incorporate rainwater collection and recycling.     

外商直接投资对空气污染影响的空间异质性分析——以中国150个城市空气质量指数（AQI）为例

空气污染问题引起了人们极大的关注。以中国2014年150个地级市作为样本数据,采用空气质量指数（AQI）作为全面衡量空气污染的指标,运用地理加权回归模型从空间异质性视角出发,分析了不同城市外商直接投资与空气污染之间的关系。研究结果表明：总体上,外商直接投资由于带来了先进的技术,有利于空气质量的改善。此外,人均地区生产总值的增加、二氧化硫和PM_2.5浓度的提高均是导致空气污染加剧的重要因素;而环保意识的提升则有利于空气质量的改善。民用汽车保有量变量在统计上不显著。从地理加权回归模型估计结果来看,不同城市的外商直接投资对环境的改善作用存在显著的空间异质性。其中,东北城市群、关中城市群和长江中游城市群外商直接投资对空气质量的改善作用最大,山东半岛城市群和川渝城市群外商直接投资对空气质量的改善作用不明显。     

The consistency between Na content distribution at the subsurface and the lake body's movement in Lop Nur

Historically, Lop Nur was a large and famous salt lake that acted as an important geographic position along the ancient ‘Silk Road’, and was associated with the surrounding old civilizations, such as Loulan and Haitou. However, it dried up before 1972. It shows a clear ‘Ear’ feature on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. The objective of this paper is to interpret Lop Nur's environmental evolution during its drying-up process based on an analysis of its sodium sedimentary feature. The genetic algorithm-partial least squares approach is introduced as a modeling method to retrieve the subsurface sodium content from polarimetric parameters obtained by Cloude decomposition. As a result, the R² and root-mean-square error can reach 0.7 and 9.1?g/kg. It is suggested that the subsurface salt content was the primary reason for the bright-grey strips textures on SAR images. Furthermore, our results show that the sodium content along the same strip changed, with its distribution exhibiting consistency with the lake body's movement driven by the strong wind. In future, high-precision topographical data will be considered, and should be helpful in the analysis of lake body movement. The method of this paper can also be applied in other similar dried salt lakes.     

To land or not to land: How do stakeholders perceive the zero discard policy in European small-scale fisheries?

The landing obligation recently adopted by the European Union's (EU) Common Fisheries Policy aims to eradicate discards in EU fisheries. The objective of this paper is to investigate the potential social and economic impacts of the discard ban in European small-scale fisheries (SSF) and the critical factors for its successful implementation. An exhaustive systematic literature review and a stakeholder consultation were carried out in order to (i) collect detailed information about current knowledge on discards in EU SSF and gauge stakeholder perceptions about potential impacts of the discard ban in European SSF, (ii) examine the capacity of the SSF industry to implement the discard ban, and (iii) explore the limits and feasibility of implementing such a measure.The results of this study show that little attention has been given by the scientific community to discards in EU SSF. Indeed, the systematic literature review shows that this problem is relatively unexplored in the EU. In addition, the effectiveness of a discard ban in industrial fisheries is still unclear, mainly because discard data are not systematically collected by fisheries authorities. Stakeholders mostly perceive that the new landing obligation was developed with industrial fisheries in mind and that compliance with the landing obligation in EU SSF will be difficult to achieve without high economic costs, such as those related to the handling and storage of unwanted fish on board.     

Struggles over work take place at home: Women’s decisions,choices and constraints in the Tiruppur textile industry,India

Examining women’s choices around paid work in south India, this article shows the need to pay greater attention to the sphere of reproduction, and in particular the way that women endeavour to fit their productive work around their reproductive roles and responsibilities. Focussing on the region of the Tiruppur garment cluster in Tamil Nadu, India, it outlines the opportunities available to rural women, shedding light first on women’s decisions whether to work or not, and second, on how women choose between particular types of work available to them. The article demonstrates the primacy of the reproductive economy in shaping women’s movements in and out of paid work, particularly the importance of stage in life course, household composition and patriarchal control to women’s decisions. Main findings of the article are that most women work, but their particular job choices reflect multiple social and reproductive constraints, while those who withdraw from work have been subjected to new expressions of patriarchy. The article advances understandings in feminist geographies of work by drawing on ethnographic insights to highlight the mutual embeddedness of the reproductive and productive economies.     

“I…don’t want to see you flashing your bits around”: Exhibitionism,othering and good motherhood in perceptions of public breastfeeding

Stigma and concern about public breastfeeding have been identified as contributing towards low breastfeeding rates in high-income countries. Despite this, very little research has examined public perceptions of breastfeeding. Among existing studies, lack of familiarity with breastfeeding, sexist views and hyper-sexualisation of the breast were identified alongside discomfort at viewing breastfeeding by strangers. During 2014, in the United Kingdom (UK), several cases of women being criticised for breastfeeding in public appeared in national newspapers. A Critical Discourse Analysis approach was used to theoretically frame analysis of 884 naturally occurring comments relating to a protest supporting women’s right to breastfeed in public from the UK’s most popular online news site, Mail Online. Findings are discussed in relation to mothers’ roles as citizens and sexual beings, with a particular focus on the visibility of breasts in public space. Women who breastfeed in public were viewed as unattractive, lazy, bad parents and lacking in self-respect. More specifically, women who breastfed in public were viewed as exhibitionist. This was contrasted with the desirability of breastfeeding within the home, which was seen as an appropriate way to feed an infant. The undesirability of public breastfeeding was inherently linked to sexuality, with breastfeeding women viewed as sexual aggressors (“flashers”) or inviting sexual contact from men. It is argued that these views originate in unequal gender relationships in society and the framing of breasts as sexual rather than nurturing. These discourses are played out in public space in which mothers are marginalised in a patriarchal society.     

Inferring trip purposes and uncovering travel patterns from taxi trajectory data

Global positioning system-enabled vehicles provide an efficient way to obtain large quantities of movement data for individuals. However, the raw data usually lack activity information, which is highly valuable for a range of applications and services. This study provides a novel and practical framework for inferring the trip purposes of taxi passengers such that the semantics of taxi trajectory data can be enriched. The probability of points of interest to be visited is modeled by Bayes’ rules, which take both spatial and temporal constraints into consideration. Combining this approach with Monte Carlo simulations, we conduct a study on Shanghai taxi trajectory data. Our results closely approximate the residents’ travel survey data in Shanghai. Furthermore, we reveal the spatiotemporal characteristics of nine daily activity types based on inference results, including their temporal regularities, spatial dynamics, and distributions of trip lengths and directions. In the era of big data, we encounter the dilemma of “trajectory data rich but activity information poor” when investigating human movements from various data sources. This study presents a promising step toward mining abundant activity information from individuals’ trajectories.     

Experimental investigation of the load exerted by nonstationary internal solitary waves on a submerged slender body over a slope

Laboratory experiments are performed in a large stratified fluid flume to examine the characteristics of the load on a submerged slender body that is exerted by a nonstationary internal solitary wave (ISW) from its interaction with a gentle slope. The nonstationary ISW over the slope and its load on the body are measured by using multi-channel conductivity-probe arrays and a specially designed force measurement device, respectively, and the body’s vertical and horizontal positions on the load are determined by analyzing the effects of the incident ISW’s amplitude. The experimental results show that the load on the slender body increases as the incident ISW’s amplitude increases; additionally, the effect of oscillations is enhanced because of the ISW’s distortion, breaking and fission. The oscillating action from fission waves becomes dominant as the amplitude reaches a certain value. Additionally, the load is correlated with body’s vertical position relative to the pycnocline. The magnitudes of the vertical and horizontal forces reach a maximum and minimum in the pycnocline, respectively, and the horizontal force in this direction is the opposite above and below the pycnocline. Compared to a case without a slope, the load on the slender body increases because of the nonstationary ISW, and its effect on the maximum force is transferred to the pycnocline. When the body’s horizontal position is located close to the top of the slope, the direction of the horizontal and vertical forces remains consistent, but its acting time becomes longer. In addition, high-frequency actions on the slender body are impacted by nonstationary ISWs near the slope’s top.     

An integrated approach to the estimation of streamflow drought quantiles / Une méthode intégrée d’estimation des quantiles de sécheresse hydrologique

Abstract

Abstract An approach was developed for combining streamflow drought information from synthetic (generated) data with data reconstructed based on palaeoclimatic information (tree ring widths). The tree ring data were used to reconstruct streamflow in periods when no streamflow data were collected. The reconstructed data were then used as a source of historical data for estimating drought severity quantiles. The generated data were obtained using a nearest neighbour resampling method while the tree ring reconstruction was accomplished using a regression model. The application of the approach was to data from the Athabasca River in Alberta, Canada. The results demonstrate the feasibility and the utility of the approach for obtaining more accurate and precise estimates of extreme drought severity quantiles.     

Experience of the International Association of Geoanalysts as a Certifying Body

Reference materials (RMs) to support geoanalysis have a long history, dating back to the issuance of G-1 and W-1 in 1951. This paper addresses only one aspect of the most recent part of that history, the experience of the International Association of Geoanalysts (IAG) as a certifying body. In 2002, the Certification Committee of the IAG met in Potsdam to discuss becoming a certifying body able to produce RMs for the geoanalytical community. Following that meeting, the IAG developed and published a protocol to assure that IAG RMs would meet International Organization for Standardization (ISO) guidelines to the fullest extent possible. Many practical problems arise in the application of the recommendations of the ISO Guides to any one specific certification project. The recommendations describe the ideal; achievable reality is always somewhat less than that ideal, presenting a significant challenge to the IAG as a certifying body. This paper will summarise experience to date, while focusing on the most challenging issues, deriving uncertainties compliant with the Guide to Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM) and establishing traceability of certified values (CVs).