Exurbia from the bottom-up: Confronting empirical challenges to characterizing a complex system

We describe empirical results from a multi-disciplinary project that support modeling complex processes of land-use and land-cover change in exurban parts of Southeastern Michigan. Based on two different conceptual models, one describing the evolution of urban form as a consequence of residential preferences and the other describing land-cover changes in an exurban township as a consequence of residential preferences, local policies, and a diversity of development types, we describe a variety of empirical data collected to support the mechanisms that we encoded in computational agent-based models. We used multiple methods, including social surveys, remote sensing, and statistical analysis of spatial data, to collect data that could be used to validate the structure of our models, calibrate their specific parameters, and evaluate their output. The data were used to investigate this system in the context of several themes from complexity science, including have (a) macro-level patterns; (b) autonomous decision making entities (i.e., agents); (c) heterogeneity among those entities; (d) social and spatial interactions that operate across multiple scales and (e) nonlinear feedback mechanisms. The results point to the importance of collecting data on agents and their interactions when producing agent-based models, the general validity of our conceptual models, and some changes that we needed to make to these models following data analysis. The calibrated models have been and are being used to evaluate landscape dynamics and the effects of various policy interventions on urban land-cover patterns.     

Near-Wall Flow Development After A Step Change In Surface Roughness

An experimental study of the initial flow field downstream of a step change in surface roughness is presented. The roughness length of the downstream surface was approximately tenfold that of the upstream roughness and, unlike all previous studies, attention was concentrated on the roughness sublayer region beneath the inertial (log-law) region. The experiments were conducted at a boundary layer Reynolds number of about 6 × 10⁴ (based on layer thickness andfree-stream velocity) and around a longitudinal location where the (downstream) roughness length, z_o2, was about 1% of the boundary-layer thickness atthe roughness change point.The thickness of the roughness sublayer was found for the two roughness. It was observed that the vertical profiles of mean velocity and turbulence characteristics started to show similarity after about 160z₀₂ downstream of the roughness change. The presence of a shear stress overshoot is shown to depend strongly on the precise location (with respect to the roughness elements) at which the measurements are made and the thickness of the equilibrium layer is shown to be very sensitive to the way it is defined. It is demonstrated that the growing equilibrium layer has first to encompass the roughness sublayer before any thickness of inertial sublayer can be developed. It follows that, in somepractical cases, like flows across some urban environments, the latter(log-law) region may never exist at all.     

民丰县近48年霜冻特征分析及防御对策

利用民丰县近48a霜冻气候资料,分析了初、终霜冻日及无霜期历史演变特征,提出了相应防御对策措施熏分析结果呈示:民丰县近48a来初霜期呈偏晚趋势,终霜期略偏早趋势,无霜期呈延长趋势。这种变化趋势与气候变暖理论相一致。     

黑龙江省气候变化趋势对小麦产量的影响

利用黑龙江省1961～2003年逐日气象资料,采用世界粮食研究模型(WOFOST)和气候变化趋势分析的数学方法,分析了气候变化趋势对小麦产量变化趋势的影响.在黑龙江省中部、东部和北部相对湿润的小麦种植区域,辐射量降低趋势是小麦模拟产量降低趋势的主要气候原因;在松嫩平原西南部的齐齐哈尔市、大庆市和哈尔滨市,降水量增加的趋势是小麦模拟产量增加趋势的主要气候原因;在西北部的北安、五大连池、克山和克东4县,辐射量增加趋势是小麦模拟产量增加趋势的主要气候原因;黑龙江省小麦模拟产量变化趋势百分率的平均值为-1.57%/10a.     

自然与人文交互作用下的干旱区典型绿洲耕地动态变化驱动力分析——以新疆于田绿洲为例

 绿洲是干旱区独特的自然景观,是人们生产生活的载体。如何在保持经济发展、提高人民生活水平的基础上保护有限的耕地资源,是关系到干旱区绿洲和谐以及可持续发展的重要问题。选取干旱区典型绿洲——于田县1949\_2004年的自然与人文统计资料,首先分析了五十余年来该县耕地变化的情况。然后从自然与人文两个角度对影响耕地面积变化的因子进行分析,结果表明,自然因素往往构成一定区域绿洲发展的基本限制,人为因素在短时期内,对耕地的变化起着决定性作用,这种作用如果顺应自然因素的限制,则对绿洲发展有利,绿洲稳定性增强;反之,绿洲稳定性减弱,由于新疆绿洲外围多为戈壁及沙漠,因此,对绿洲的利用要遵循自然规律,以保护绿洲为前提,合理利用水等自然资源,否则绿洲的面积随时都有可能缩小。     

The ebb and flow of capital in Indonesian coastal production systems

The global fisheries sector has undergone both rapid industrialization and considerable resource depletion. Unlike fisheries in the Northern Hemisphere, the Indonesian (and indeed Southeast Asian) sector is still largely dominated by small-scale producers, who are partially embedded within a subsistence economy. Changes in the nature of production and livelihoods in the fisheries sector appear similar to those in land-based agriculture but have received far less attention in the literature and demand further analysis given the distinct characteristics of the natural resource base. Using national datasets complemented by insights from a two-month period of fieldwork in South Sulawesi, this paper presents the process of capital intensification underpinning national fisheries growth and how it is transforming small-scale production systems. Despite increasing market integration, we found that smallholders have persisted across coastal production systems to an even stronger degree than land-based agriculture. We suggest some reasons why this is so. However, we also observed evidence of internal class differentiation within coastal communities. Such differentiation, combined with resource degradation and depletion, exposes the poorest in the community to enhanced livelihood vulnerability.     

Modelling the effect of changing precipitation inputs on deep soil water utilization

Forests in the Southeastern United States are predicted to experience future changes in seasonal patterns of precipitation inputs as well as more variable precipitation events. These climate change‐induced alterations could increase drought and lower soil water availability. Drought could alter rooting patterns and increase the importance of deep roots that access subsurface water resources. To address plant response to drought in both deep rooting and soil water utilization as well as soil drainage, we utilize a throughfall reduction experiment in a loblolly pine plantation of the Southeastern United States to calibrate and validate a hydrological model. The model was accurately calibrated against field measured soil moisture data under ambient rainfall and validated using 30% throughfall reduction data. Using this model, we then tested these scenarios: (a) evenly reduced precipitation; (b) less precipitation in summer, more in winter; (c) same total amount of precipitation with less frequent but heavier storms; and (d) shallower rooting depth under the above 3 scenarios. When less precipitation was received, drainage decreased proportionally much faster than evapotranspiration implying plants will acquire water first to the detriment of drainage. When precipitation was reduced by more than 30%, plants relied on stored soil water to satisfy evapotranspiration suggesting 30% may be a threshold that if sustained over the long term would deplete plant available soil water. Under the third scenario, evapotranspiration and drainage decreased, whereas surface run‐off increased. Changes in root biomass measured before and 4 years after the throughfall reduction experiment were not detected among treatments. Model simulations, however, indicated gains in evapotranspiration with deeper roots under evenly reduced precipitation and seasonal precipitation redistribution scenarios but not when precipitation frequency was adjusted. Deep soil and deep rooting can provide an important buffer capacity when precipitation alone cannot satisfy the evapotranspirational demand of forests. How this buffering capacity will persist in the face of changing precipitation inputs, however, will depend less on seasonal redistribution than on the magnitude of reductions and changes in rainfall frequency.     

农牧交错带典型偏农区土地利用变化及其原因分析——以奈曼旗尧勒甸子村为例

中国北方农牧交错带东部农业以种植业为主。土地利用变化对农业的可持续发展具有深刻的影响。尧勒甸子村是农牧交错带典型的偏农区,50a来土地利用发生很大变化。其变化表现出明显的阶段性,20世纪80年代前后明显不同。本文主要分析了农业用地和沙漠化土地的变化,并从国家政策、土地产权制度、人口、牲畜、系统结构等方面的变化探讨了其土地利用变化的原因。     

It starts at home? Climate policies targeting household consumption and behavioral decisions are key to low-carbon futures

Through their consumption behavior, households are responsible for 72% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, they are key actors in reaching the 1.5 °C goal under the Paris Agreement. However, the possible contribution and position of households in climate policies is neither well understood, nor do households receive sufficiently high priority in current climate policy strategies. This paper investigates how behavioral change can achieve a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in European high-income countries. It uses theoretical thinking and some core results from the HOPE research project, which investigated household preferences for reducing emissions in four European cities in France, Germany, Norway and Sweden. The paper makes five major points: First, car and plane mobility, meat and dairy consumption, as well as heating are the most dominant components of household footprints. Second, household living situations (demographics, size of home) greatly influence the household potential to reduce their footprint, even more than country or city location. Third, household decisions can be sequential and temporally dynamic, shifting through different phases such as childhood, adulthood, and illness. Fourth, short term voluntary efforts will not be sufficient by themselves to reach the drastic reductions needed to achieve the 1.5 °C goal; instead, households need a regulatory framework supporting their behavioral changes. Fifth, there is a mismatch between the roles and responsibilities conveyed by current climate policies and household perceptions of responsibility. We then conclude with further recommendations for research and policy.     

构建一个经济-气候新模型评价气候变化对粮食产量的影响

将气候变化研究和农业经济研究相结合,构建了一个经济-气候新模型,用来评价全球气候变化对粮食产量影响的问题。提出在经济模型C-D生产函数中添加气候变化因子,建立一个新的评价模型,作为连接气候变化因素和经济变化因素的桥梁,并对该模型的性能及合理性进行了初步的模拟和验证。