Assessing changing vulnerability to dengue in northeastern Brazil using a water-associated disease index approach

Water management practices and access to safe water supplies have major implications for human health. While a range of assessments has been developed to assess water vulnerability, limited work has extended these concepts to health and wellbeing. Water-associated disease cycles are characterized by complex linkages between social and ecological determinants, thus conceptualizing vulnerability in the context of health offers a useful framework for analysis. This paper applies a water associated disease index (WADI) as a tool to deepen understanding of changing vulnerability to dengue, comparing conditions in 2000 and 2010 in Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil. Multi-dimensional data were integrated into indicators of exposure and susceptibility using the WADI approach, including water access, land cover, climate, and solid waste collection, and outputs were validated and visualized in map form. The findings illustrate heterogeneous patterns of vulnerability to dengue in the region, and highlight trends of seasonal and long-term changes. Highest vulnerability was observed in densely populated Recife and the surrounding coastal region in both time periods, with climate conditions creating seasonal trends in exposure to dengue. While more remote areas in the semi-arid Sertão showed low vulnerability overall, increases were observed in some areas between 2000 and 2010 due to land use intensification and growing population densities. These findings suggest that interventions should consider the dynamic nature of social and ecological factors that contribute to health outcomes and address current as well as future populations vulnerable to dengue transmission. This vulnerability mapping approach can be applied to other water-associated diseases impacted by global environmental change to highlight priority areas for further investigation and contribute towards improving interventions.     

The new politics of pastoralism: Identity,justice and global activism

Concerns with the politics and practices of resource rights and access are integral to contemporary debates over environmental justice. Struggles over identity politics, especially the strategic articulation and deployment of particular identities at diverse geographical scales, have recently emerged as important mediators of justice claims in respect of resources rights, but also of recognition and procedural justice. To date, critical, multi-scalar analyses of identity-based claims for environmental justice have focused largely on the indigenous peoples’ movement. In doing so, they have failed to embrace an emergent dimension of identity-based, trans-scalar justice, namely the fledgling global pastoralists’ movement, the empirical focus for this paper. In the early years of the 21st century mobile pastoralists have begun to carve out new global spaces, through which diverse groups have attempted to negotiate common ground and forge common identities in their struggles for justice. In particular, mobile pastoralists have become increasingly visible in conservation politics and contests over land rights as they lay claim to both discursive and material ground as ‘custodians of the commons’ in an era of global climatic change. This paper draws on empirical work amongst pastoralists, NGOs and activists from Kenya, Mongolia and Spain to explore these identities, their implications for resource rights and access and the multi-scalar chains of accountability and legitimacy between global activists and their local constituents.     

A late Holocene paleoenvironmental reconstruction from Agua Caliente,southern Belize,linked to regional climate variability and cultural change at the Maya polity of Uxbenká

We report high-resolution macroscopic charcoal, pollen and sedimentological data for Agua Caliente, a freshwater lagoon located in southern Belize, and infer a late Holocene record of human land-use/climate interactions for the nearby prehistoric Maya center of Uxbenká. Land-use activities spanning the initial clearance of forests for agriculture through the drought-linked Maya collapse and continuing into the historic recolonization of the region are all reflected in the record. Human land alteration in association with swidden agriculture is evident early in the record during the Middle Preclassic starting ca. 2600 cal yr BP. Fire slowly tapered off during the Late and Terminal Classic, consistent with the gradual political demise and depopulation of the Uxbenká polity sometime between ca. 1150 and 950 cal yr BP, during a period of multiple droughts evident in a nearby speleothem record. Fire activity was at its lowest during the Maya Postclassic ca. 950–430 cal yr BP, but rose consistent with increasing recolonization of the region between ca. 430 cal yr BP and present. These data suggest that this environmental record provides both a proxy for 2800 years of cultural change, including colonization, growth, decline, and reorganization of regional populations, and an independent confirmation of recent paleoclimate reconstructions from the same region.     

A 7000-year record of environmental change,including early farming impact,based on lake-sediment geochemistry and pollen data from County Sligo,western Ireland

Detailed, chronologically tightly constrained, lake-sediment-based geochemical and pollen records have enabled local changes in soil erosion, woodland cover and composition, and prehistoric farming impact to be reconstructed in considerable detail. The profile opens shortly after 7800 BC when tall canopy trees were well-established and presumably in equilibrium with their environment. A distinct perturbation that involved an increase in pine and birch, a decrease in oak and a minor opening-up of the woodland is regarded as the local expression of the 8.2 ka climate anomaly. Lack of response in the geochemical erosional indicators is interpreted as evidence for drier conditions. A short-lived, over-compensation in climate recovery followed the 8.2 ka event. Neolithic farming impact is clearly expressed in both the pollen and geochemical data. Both datasets indicate that Neolithic impact was concentrated in the early Neolithic (3715–3440 BC). In the interval 3000–2700 BC there appears to have been a break in farming activity. The pollen data suggest substantially increased farming impact (both arable and pastoral) in the Bronze Age, with maximum farming and woodland clearances taking place in the late Bronze Age (1155–935 BC). These developments are poorly expressed in the geochemical record, possibly due to within-lake changes.     

Evolution of the stress and strain fields in the Eastern Cordillera,Colombia

This work integrates stress data from Global Positioning System measurements and earthquake focal mechanism solutions, with new borehole breakout and natural fracture system data to better understand the complex interactions between the major tectonic plates in northwestern South America and to examine how the stress regime in the Eastern Cordillera and the Llanos foothills in Colombia has evolved through time. The dataset was used to generate an integrated stress map of the northern Andes and to propose a model for stress evolution in the Eastern Cordillera. In the Cordillera, the primary present-day maximum principal stress direction is WNW–ESE to NW–SE, and is in the direction of maximum shortening in the mountain range. There is also a secondary maximum principal stress direction that is E–W to ENE–WSW, which is associated with the northeastward “escape” of the North Andean block, relative to stable South America. In the Cupiagua hydrocarbon field, located in the Llanos foothills, the dominant NNE–SSW fractures are produced by the Panama arc–North Andes collision and range-normal compression. However, less well developed asymmetrical fractures oriented E–W to WSW–ENE and NNW–SSE are also present, and may be related to pre-folding stresses in the foreland basin of the Central Cordillera or to present-day shear associated with the northeastward “escape” of the north Andean block. Our study results suggest that an important driver for orogenic deformation and changes in the stress field at obliquely convergent subduction zone boundaries is the arrival of thickened crust, such as island arcs and aseismic ridges, at the trench.     

Studies on the Coral Reefs of the South China Sea: From Global Change to Oil-Gas Exploration

Studies on the coral reefs of the South China Sea (SCS) was the theme of the 6th Session of the 3rd Conference on Earth System Science (CESS) in Shanghai, 2014. This session discussed the most recent study developments on the SCS coral reefs, including coral reefs’ responses to global changes, coral reefs’ records on past climatic variations, and the activities about constructions and oil gas explorations in the coral reefs areas of the SCS. Disturbed by intensive anthropogenic activities and global climate warming, coral reefs in the SCS have declined dramatically, reflecting the up to 80% decrease of living coral cover and many areas having less than 20% of living coral cover. Geochemical data of SCS coral skeletons clearly show that since the Industry Revolution, the pollution situation of the SCS have dramatically increased and the seawater pH values have been continuously lowering, i.e. oceanic acidification. All these environmental phenomenon are further stressing the healthy development of the coral reef ecosystem in the SCS. Meanwhile, the poor coral reef ecosystems in the SCS are facing more anthropogenic disturbances such as coastal developments and engineering constructions. Obviously, the SCS coral reefs will be faced with more environmental challenges in the coming future. We therefore suggest that the policy makers should realize the extreme importance and the fragile of the coral reef ecosystems, and scientifically and with great cautions design construction project when in coral reef areas. We initiated the concept of “green engineering” for future developments in coral reef areas. Coral reefs are widely spreading in the whole SCS, and most of them developed since Miocene. Variations in coral reef structures provide good future oil-gas exploration. Because the SCS coral reefs have a long-developing history and a wide spatial distribution, they provide great potential in recording past environmental changes.     

Research Progress in Responses of Modern Terrestrial Plant Carbon Isotope Composition to Climate Change

Global climate change has been one of the most concerned environmental problems in the world since the 1980s. Since stable carbon composition (¹³C) in plant tissues can record abundant information on climate changes, it has been widely used as an important climate proxy in global change studies and becomes a powerful tool for obtaining paleoclimate information, understanding paleoenvironment reconstruction and modern climate change, and predicting future climate trends. However, a lot of potential uncertainties have always involved in the reconstruction of paleoclimate and paleoenvironment by carbon isotope of the past period sediment or fossils. Among them, the most dominant uncertainty is due to our poor understanding of the relations between carbon isotope ratios of plants and climatic factors and the climatic and environmental significance indicated by modern plant ¹³C. This may limit the application of plant ¹³C in the study of climatic and environmental changes. Based on the Summary of plant ¹³C fractionation and carbon isotope distribution of different photosynthetic plants, the effects of environmental factors, e.g., temperature, precipitation, atmospheric CO₂ concentration, and altitude on terrestrial plant ¹³C and their relationships were reviewed in this paper, and the response mechanism of plant ¹³C to climate changes were also analyzed. Furthermore, the current existing problems and the future prospects in carbon isotope study were discussed. It is pointed out that strengthening some studies such as the response of C₄ plants ¹³C to climate environmental parameters, the transformation relation of different scale plant ¹³C, intersection and permeation of related disciplines, and various proxies and scientific method, will undoubtedly make us have a more accurate understanding of the climate history and eventually broaden the development of the field during the process of global change study by plant carbon isotope techniques.     

Disaster Risk Science Development and Disaster Risk Reduction Using Science and Technology

Based on a series of international conferences for establishing HFA2 framework, this paper analyzed key issues of frontier of disaster risk science, integrated disaster prevention and mitigation strategies and integrated disaster risk governance. The future direction of disaster risk science was comprehensively discussed according to the widely discussed Post 2015 Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA2). It was proposed to deepen the cognition of the complexity of disaster system in terms of recognizing the complexity of disaster system from the interaction among various elements of the system, recognizing the complexity of climate change risk from the regional characteristics and formation mechanism of the global climate change and recognizing the complexity of the catastrophe risk from the regional development levels and patterns. Furthermore, it was suggested to make integrated disaster risk reduction strategies and countermeasures from the perspective of the complexity of the disaster system, including the establishment of regional integrated disaster risk governance framework to face climate change, the establishment of integrated disaster risk governance system in multi-spatial scale, the establishment of disaster risk governance financial system integrating the insurance, bonds and lottery, the establishment of consilience mode in integrated risk governance considering multi-stakeholder and the establishment of modeling and simulation platform integrated disaster risk information services and disaster risk reduction strategies. Finally, it was pointed out that the assessment of disaster risk levels for different regions in multi spatial scale can provide robust scientific support for integrated disaster risk governance of the world and regions, industries and enterprises so as to improve response to global change and guarantee a global and regional sustainable development.     

Earth System Science: Conception and Misconception——To the Third Conference on Earth System Science,Shanghai

Earth system science should not be understood as an all embracing term that combines various disciplines studying the planet Earth. Rather, it is a new approach to consider interaction between its various subsystems, and seeks to integrate various research fields to understand the Earth as a system. Earth system science has developed from global changes studies, then extended into the deep geological past and now is facing a new challenge connecting the surface processes with those in the Earth’s interior.     

基于ArcGIS镶嵌数据集的正射影像数据库构建方法初探

数字正射影像数据具有直观、信息量大、覆盖面广和经济、方便、获取快速等优点,是我国基础地理信息数据库的重要内容。本文讨论了基于ArcGIS镶嵌数据集栅格模型构建数字正射影像数据库的一些基本问题。首先对近年来的影像空间数据库技术进行了梳理,然后基于ArcGIS镶嵌数据集模型提出了数字正射影像数据库构建方法,其中对影像入库涉及的栅格数据存储模型、建库步骤、相关参数等问题进行了分析与探讨。最后,开展了海南省某测区小型正射影像数据库构建试验,通过试验证明了文中方法的可用性与可靠性。