Wild things in urban places: America's largest cities and multi-scales of governance for endangered species conservation

Endangered species live inside the world's most densely populated cities. In the United States, the Fish and Wildlife Service is responsible for the protection and recovery of endangered species – wherever those species are found. Unfortunately, very little is known about urban endangered species policy or programs. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the five largest cities in the United States and examines issue of governance around conservation. Cities have a responsibility to steward the environment, but through the 1973 Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service has a legal mandate to protect endangered species throughout the country. Thus, this paper asks: What is the USFWS doing inside cities to recover endangered species? What are cities doing? Conservation is a shared duty but it is not clear that anyone is taking responsibility for urban endangered species.     

基于CFD技术的河谷型城市风环境模拟——以兰州市城关区为例

本文应用CFD软件对多种流场的强大模拟功能,模拟小尺度的兰州市城关区风环境。选用SRTM资料表征兰州市城关区的地形,应用ArcGIS生成兰州市地形模型,计算相关参数,将计算得到的地形粗糙度和兰州多年气候资料转化为CFD模型的数字参数及模拟边界条件等,首次模拟得到河谷型地区兰州城关区的风环境。结果表明:（1）河谷型地区中,气流过山时风速达最大值,依山体高度增大,而在背风坡风速值明显降低,达到0～1 m·s-1;（2）气流过境时在沿河谷前进,且在谷底风速值达0～1 m·s-1;（3）在模拟城市热岛效应的对比实验中,地块加热对气流过境有停滞作用。     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article: Boundary Control and Legal Priniciples . Curtis M. Brown , Walter G. Robillard and Donald A. Wilson . Lost Initiatives: Canada's Forest Industries, Forest Policy, and Forest Conservation . R. Peter Gillis and Thomas R. Roach . The Navajo Atlas: Resources, People, and History of the Dine Bikeyah . James M. Goodman . The City and the Sign . M. Gottdiener AND Alexandros Ph . Lagopoulos , EDS. The Comfortable House: North American Suburban Architecture 1890–1930 . Alan Gowans . Arabic-Islamic Cities. Building and Planning Principles . Besim Salim Hakim . Contemporary Climatology . Ann Henderson -Sellers and Peter J. Robinson . A Trace of Desert Waters . Samuel G. Houghton . Geography, Resources and Environment. Vol. 1: Selected Writings of Gilbert F. White. Vol. 2: Themes from the Work of Gilbert F. White . Robert W. Kates AND Ian Burton , ED. Spatial Dimensions of Unemployment and Underemployment (A Case Study of Rural Punjab) . Gopal Krishan . Maps of the Holy Land: Cartobibliography of Printed Maps, 1475–1900 . Compiled by Eran Laor , assisted by Shoshana Klein . The Geography of Third World Cities . Stella Lowder . A Perspective on U.S. Farm Problems and Agricultural Policy . Lance Mc Kinzie , Timothy G. Baker AND Wallace E. Tyner . Soil Erosion and Its Control. R.P.C . Morgan , ED Geopolitics . Patrick O'Sullivan . Landscape, Meanings and Values . Edmund C. Penning -Rowsell AND David Lowenthal , EDS.     

Big Data Resource Planning for Food Safety: a Preliminary Exploration of the “Environment,Food and Health” Information Chain

Environmental pollution, food safety and health are closely linked. A key challenge in addressing the problem of food safety and protecting public health is building an integrated knowledge base to inform policy and strengthen governance. This requires breaking down the trans-departmental information barrier across the environment, food and health domains to ensure the effective flow of data and the efficient utilization of resources, and facilitate the collaborative governance of food safety. Achieving this will be crucial for the development of health and medical care in China in the era of big data. Currently, the information resources commanded by various departments are incomplete and fragmented. Data resources are also organized in vertical silos and there is a lack of data sharing within and across policy streams. To provide the basis for more effective integrated collection and analysis of data in future, this study summarizes the information resources of various departments whose work relates to interactions between environment, food and health, and presents measures to strengthen top-down design, and establish unified data standards and a big data sharing platform. It also points to the need for increased training of data analysts with interdisciplinary expertise.     

东北地区资源型城市转型过程中社会—经济—环境协调演化特征

借鉴协调发展相关理论,构建综合评价资源型城市社会、经济和环境转型的指标体系,利用面板数据回归模型测算2000-2014年系统内各要素对资源型城市协调转型的作用,对东北地区资源型城市转型以来协调发展的时空格局进行分析。研究发现：① 东北地区资源型城市转型协调水平呈现波动式缓慢上升的走势,共出现四次较大幅度的波动,空间上差异性先减弱后加剧,协调程度较高的地区主要集中在辽宁省南部,失调城市分布在黑龙江省北部边缘地区,无论是协调度水平变化或是空间分布上这种“两极”分化的趋势越来越明显。② 东北地区资源型城市协调转型发展总体水平不高,从划分类型看,协调发展型城市在社会—经济—环境各方面作用力均衡较好,对社会服务设施完善等方面投入强于发展调和型城市和失调衰退型城市,钢铁型城市协调转型水平强于石油型城市和冶金型城市,森工型城市表现最弱。③ 第三产业发展、教育、技术、非国营经济、生产生活环境等因素对协调转型的促进作用显著,但历史遗留问题、产业结构升级等仍待进一步解决,同时也对实践创新、体制机制改革提出了高要求。     

运用树木活力度进行城市生态环境质量分区--以吉林市为例

城市生态环境质量是影响城市景观和居民身心健康的重要因素，环境质量分区是进行生态环境评价的基础性工作。在以往生态环境质量评价中，通常采用单一的环境污染指标，难以全面综合的反应生态环境质量状况。植被的面貌是一定时期内大气、土壤、水分、人类活动综合作用的结果。由于树木有生命而又不能移动，它的健康状态是一定时期因素内，综合地反映其生活环境条件的最好尺度。借鉴国外环境诊断的研究方法，提出“树木活力度”，即树木的枝、叶、梢、树形等各个部位的生长状况和健康程度这一新的综合生态指标，并结合实际，以吉林市为例，对运用这一指标进行城市生态环境质量评价的方法、原理、问题等进行了初步探讨。指出运用树木活力度进行城市生态环境质量分区，具有迅速目测、计算简便，快速经济的特点，是当前较为流行的一种景观诊断的简便易行的方法。     

灌溉对甘肃中部黄土台塬区地面塌陷及生态环境影响研究

甘肃中部黄土台塬地面塌陷实质上是由水利灌溉引起的新的生态环境问题。文章在深入调查、勘测和试验研究的基础上，综合分析了地面塌陷变形的成因机制，认为黄土台塬地面塌陷变形除了黄土母质理化性质和人类活动等因素外，主要是不合理灌溉引起的。过量大水漫灌使大量渗入的水体将土壤中起固结作用的盐分和粘粒矿物淋溶殆尽，使原始结构破坏，进而崩解、湿陷。随下渗水量的增加，犁底层及以下隔水层孔洞进一步发展为洞穴和陷缝，大面积塌陷变形随之出现，同时也成为台塬滑坡的诱导因素。研究为黄土台塬灌区突出的水利环境问题治理和生态重建方案提供了基础依据。     

Globalisation, Regionalisation and Local Voices: The Asian Development Bank and Rescaled Politics of Environment in the Mekong Region

Globalisation is manifested in the Mekong Region both through processes and discourses that reflect the ideology of a borderless world allowing easy passage of capital and commodities, and through resistance to such processes in an increasingly transnationalised civil society movement. However, more immediately significant supranational integrative agendas take the form of regionalisation, a process that has received less attention but which raises analogous concerns of re-scaled governance. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been a catalysing force for regionalisation amidst a host of regional processes and initiatives; as such it has found itself the object of critique as an institution and through the specific projects it has supported that have impacted on local communities and ecosystems. Meanwhile, local and NGO voices associated with the emergence of a vibrant civil society in Thailand and nascent civil society responses in neighbouring countries have challenged claims on resources made in the name of national development and regional integration.
This paper considers some key issues of re-scaling resource and environmental politics in the Mekong Region, and the extent to which challenges have been recast from national to regional development agendas. Politics of environment are shown to exist as a general rather than exceptional response to the region's development direction, and it is suggested that equitable and sustainable development increasingly needs to address simultaneously the re-scaling and reconfigurations of power in both environmental politics and the "infrapolitics" of environment. The paper is illustrated with case studies of dams in Laos and Thailand.     

乌梁素海湿地环境演变

The environment evolution of Wuliangsuhai wetland since 1986 is analyzed based on the remote sensing principle. The total water area of Wuliangsuhai lake has been increased during the past 17 years. The open water area had an increasing trend before 1987, and the trend was decreasing up to 1996, then the trend has increased again since 2000; the variation of the water area with dense aquatic weed is basically contradictory to the variation of open water area. The natural reed area had been decreased before 1987, and then it has been increased. The areas of shallow water and swamp have been slightly increased, in fact, the variations are quite steady. The artificial reed area has been increased since the reed plantation was started in 1988. The relationships of the water environment, the climate, hydrology and different types of areas are discussed, and then the technological measures for sustainable development and utilization of Wuliangsuhai lake water environment are proposed.     

'Just sustainability': the emerging discourse of environmental justice in Britain?

Environmental justice is both a vocabulary for political opportunity, mobilization and action, and a policy principle to guide public decision making. It emerged initially in the US, and more recently in the UK, as a new vocabulary underpinning action by community organizations campaigning against environmental injustices. However, as the environmental justice discourse has matured, it has become increasingly evident that it should play a role in the wider agendas for sustainable development and social inclusion. The links between sustainability and environmental justice are becoming clearer and more widely understood in the UK by NGOs and government alike, and it is the potential synergy between these two discourses which is the focus of this paper. This paper argues that the concept of 'just sustainability' provides a discourse for policymakers and activists, which brings together the key dimensions of both environmental justice and sustainable development.