Exploring a New Regionalism-Based Approach to Managing Drinking Water Systems in Rural Regions

Rural regions face many challenges when managing drinking water systems. Current management approaches lack the ability to deal with the complexity that surrounds these infrastructure systems and the critical service they provide, in particular, the links between these systems and the economy and environment. This research explores the potential for an alternative approach. The proposed new regionalism-based approach recognizes and accounts for the myriad of influencing factors, using different mechanisms to support and encourage drinking water systems in fulfilling their potential role in supporting regional resilience. Using a case study approach, data collected from semistructured interviews indicate that elements of the proposed approach are already in use within the Kootenay Development Region of British Columbia, Canada. Results indicate that while the need for an alternate management approach is recognized, and elements of the proposed approach are increasingly applied, substantive barriers remain, such as the existing institutional and jurisdictional structure.     

国家地缘脆弱性探索——缅甸案例及对中国地缘战略启示

当今国际地缘政治经济格局正处于剧烈变动中,并对缅甸地缘环境的复杂性及地缘脆弱性产生深刻影响。缅甸所在的大湄公河次区域日益成为世界重要地缘政治力量博弈前沿和焦点。系统研究缅甸国家地缘脆弱性,对于中国西部大开发、“一带一路”及周边地缘环境建设具有重要战略意义。本文基于地缘政治及人地关系地域系统等学科理论,规范分析与实证分析相结合,从暴露性、敏感性和适应性等方面构建了国家地缘脆弱性研究框架,系统探索了缅甸典型的国家地缘脆弱性特征。资源环境禀赋、内部地域结构等引致的经济政治体系、社会文化传承等方面是缅甸脆弱性的本底特征,而缅甸与中国的地缘关系及决策则从根本上影响其地缘战略位态。缅甸地缘政治脆弱性及其与中国的相互依赖使之成为西方“U型封堵大陆战略”的薄弱点和今后角逐的着力点,也是中国解围破局重要的地缘战略出口。近期中国应通过“一带一路”孟中印缅经济走廊建设,大力加强中缅之间政治、经济、文化等各方面友好关系。     

Responding to change: Using scenarios to understand how socioeconomic factors may influence amplifying or dampening exploitation feedbacks among Tanzanian fishers

Environmental change often requires societies to adapt. In some instances, these adaptations can create feedbacks that amplify the change. Alternatively, other adaptations may dampen the change. We used semi-structured interviews with 240 fishers from nine Tanzanian coastal communities to explore responses to four hypothetical scenarios of increasingly severe declines in their average catch (10%, 20%, 30% and 50%). Overall, a higher proportion of fishers said they would respond to decline using amplifying adaptations (such as fishing harder) than dampening adaptations (such as reducing effort), particularly in the scenarios with lower levels of decline. We used a redundancy analysis to explore whether certain types of responses were related to the fishers’ socioeconomic characteristics. Fishers that would employ amplifying responses had greater economic wealth but lacked options. Fishers who would adopt dampening responses possessed characteristics associated with having livelihood options. Fishers who would adopt neither amplifying nor dampening responses were less likely to belong to community groups and sold the largest proportion of their catch. This study provides novel contributions by differentiating aspects of adaptive capacity that will amplify versus dampen environmental change and by highlighting what the resource users’ themselves say regarding responding to environmental change. Although direct policy application is limited by the study's hypothetical scenario nature, it provides a good beginning to incorporating resource users’ voices into such policy discussions.     

Bistable plant–soil dynamics and biogenic controls on the soil production function

Soil formation results from opposite processes of bedrock weathering and erosion, whose balance may be altered by natural events and human activities, resulting in reduced soil depth and function. The impacts of vegetation on soil production and erosion and the feedbacks between soil formation and vegetation growth are only beginning to be explored quantitatively. Since plants require suitable soil environments, disturbed soil states may support less vegetation, leading to a downward spiral of increased erosion and decline in ecosystem function. We explore these feedbacks with a minimal model of the soil–plant system described by two coupled nonlinear differential equations, which include key feedbacks, such as plant‐driven soil production and erosion inhibition. We show that sufficiently strong positive plant–soil feedback can lead to a ‘humped’ soil production function, a necessary condition for soil depth bistability when erosion is assumed to vary monotonically with vegetation biomass. In bistable plant–soil systems, the sustainable soil condition engineered by plants is only accessible above a threshold vegetation biomass and occurs in environments where the high potential rate of erosion exerts a strong control on soil production and erosion. Vegetation removal for agriculture reduces the stabilizing effect of vegetation and lowers the system resilience, thereby increasing the likelihood of transition to a degraded soil state. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Resilience: Analyzing the Crisis Management of Ski Resorts in China

Resilience has become an important concept for the ski resorts of China, which have suffered heavy losses due to COVID-19. In order to help China’s ski resort service industry successfully adapt to the crisis and achieve sustainable development, the goal of this paper is to develop the definition of resilience of the ski resort service industry through interviews based on the concept and general analysis framework of resilience. The ski resort resilience theory analysis framework is then constructed from the three basic elements (market, skiing, and stakeholders) and four system features (flexibility, adaptability, and collaborative learning ability). The results indicate several measures that can be taken to spread risk: enrich the product supply; eliminate risks and build a multi-agent networked industrial governance system; and establish a risk prevention and management mechanism based on a multi-organization alternative learning mechanism to overcome the difficulties encountered in the development of ski resorts.     

Post-earthquake economic resilience and recovery efficiency in the border areas of the Tibetan Plateau: A case study of areas affected by the Wenchuan Ms 8.0 Earthquake in Sichuan,China in 2008

Journal of Geographical Sciences - The border areas of the Tibetan Plateau and the neighboring mountainous areas have a high incidence of earthquakes with a magnitude greater than Ms 5.0, as well...     

Effects of bottleneck blockage on the resilience of an urban stormwater drainage system

ABSTRACT

Severe urban floods have frequently caused social and financial infrastructure problems due to a lack of hydraulic capacity of urban drainage systems or the structural failure of network elements. Conventional, reliability-based design methods of drainage networks only provide acceptable performance under expected conditions of loading. In this study, a new approach based on resilience is proposed for the rehabilitation of urban drainage systems; this approach is able to maintain a predefined service level under both external and unexpected internal loads, including different scenarios of blockage and a severe rainfall event. The performance of different design methods: resilient, non-resilient, deterministic and uncertain models, is comprehensively compared and the most appropriate approaches are introduced. The results show that the new resilient approach outperforms conventional design/rehabilitation methods in terms of flood volume reduction. Additionally, the single blockage scheme and the Poisson distribution-based model show the best performance to enhance the resilience of the network.     

城市韧性对旅游经济的空间溢出效应研究——以长三角城市群为例

城市为旅游发展提供支撑,其韧性水平对区域旅游发展具有重要的影响。论文利用长三角城市群各地区2004—2018年的面板数据,在定量测算城市韧性的基础上,借助空间面板杜宾模型揭示城市韧性对旅游经济的空间溢出效应。结果显示：长三角各地区城市韧性水平空间差异显著,但总体上韧性水平呈现上升趋势。城市韧性与旅游经济之间存在较强的空间相关性,城市韧性对旅游经济具有显著的空间溢出效应(ρ=0.444,P<0.01)。其中,城市经济韧性和城市生态韧性对旅游经济具有正向溢出效应,城市社会韧性和城市工程韧性对旅游经济具有负向溢出效应。未来城市旅游发展需要关注城市韧性水平,注重城市韧性的空间溢出效应,避免虹吸效应,同时还需要加强长三角城市群区域间交流合作,促进旅游经济高质量发展。     

全球气候变化下南海诸岛保护优先区识别分析

全球变化下,珊瑚礁保护区是保护生物多样性、增强珊瑚礁对气候变暖抵抗力的有效方式,而维持珊瑚礁弹性是其核心内容。针对珊瑚礁最具有威胁性的热压力因子,基于南海1982—2009年卫星观测海表面温度（SST）数据和CMIP5加拿大地球系统模式CanESM2模型预估的2006—2100年南海SST数据构建热压力强度模型,从维持珊瑚礁弹性的角度识别IPCC RCP 4.5和RCP 8.5情景下南海诸岛保护优先区。结果表明：RCP 4.5和RCP 8.5情景下13%左右的南海诸岛珊瑚礁识别为保护优先区。根据热压力强度与珊瑚抵抗力及避难所关系,西沙群岛七连屿和晋卿岛近年观测与未来预估的热压力强度均比较低,在保障其服务功能的基础上建议实施完全保护;东沙群岛东沙环礁和中沙环礁排洪滩近年观测急性热压力强度较高但未来预估热压力强度较低,建议实施50%禁止利用保护;中沙群岛黄岩岛近年观测和未来预估的急性热压力强度均比较低,建议实施50%多用途保护。南沙群岛有14%左右的珊瑚礁识别为保护优先区,根据其热压力强度可实施30%~100%禁止利用保护或30%~50%多用途保护。RCP 4.5和RCP 8.5情景下的南海诸岛保护优先区及保护对策,可为维持珊瑚礁生态弹性及应对全球气候变化提供重要的参考价值。     

社会-生态系统适应性治理研究进展与展望

社会—生态系统（SES）由社会子系统、生态子系统及两者的交互作用构成,具有不同于社会系统或生态系统单独具有的结构、功能和复杂特征。社会—生态系统适应性治理旨在通过适应性的社会权利分配与行为决策机制,使社会—生态系统能够在动态条件下可持续地保障人类福祉。适应性治理理论的形成受到“公共池塘资源管理”“韧性”和“治理”3方面理论的影响,并为“转型治理”与“协作治理”提供了建构基础。该理论具有以下3个主要目的：① 理解和应对社会—生态系统多稳态、非线性、不确定性、整体性以及复杂性;② 建立非对抗性的社会结构、权利分配制度以及行为决策体系,匹配社会子系统与自然子系统;③ 通过综合方法管理生态系统,使其可持续提供生态系统服务。因此,面对人类行为主导地表过程的“人类世”,实现适应性治理有助于应对社会—生态系统的复杂性与不确定性。鉴于中国的生态环境正处于迅速变化时期,且中国与世界各国间的相互影响日益复杂,未来研究可重点关注以下3个方面：① 理解耦合系统的多元互动过程,增强适应能力;② 强调社会—生态系统的整体性研究;③ 提高环境变化背景下理解和预测系统动态的能力。