Une dépression piézométrique naturelle en hausse au Sahel (Sud-Ouest du Niger)A rising piezometric depression in the Sahel (southwestern Niger)

In southwest Niger, the Continental Terminal water table displays a natural hollow shape about 10 m in depth over an area of 4000 km². A 10-year survey of this hollow aquifer has shown that current recharge is above $\text{20 }\text{mm}\text{yr}{}^{\mathrm{?1}}$. The water table has risen continuously since the 1950–1960s as a result of land clearance. This shows a disequilibrium in the aquifer balance. The long-term recharge rate is estimated by radioisotopes to be around $\text{1 }\text{mm}\text{yr}{}^{\mathrm{?1}}$. This figure fits with the only possible origin of the piezometric depression, i.e. evapotranspiration losses in its centre. To cite this article: G. Favreau et al., C. R. Geoscience 334 (2002) 395–401.     

Seasonal and annual variation of CO_2 flux above a broad-leaved Korean pine mixed forest

Long-term measurement of carbon metabolism of old-growth forests is critical to predict their behaviors and to reduce the uncertainties of carbon accounting under changing climate. Eddy covariance technology was applied to investigate the long-term carbon exchange over a 200 year-old Chinese broad-leaved Korean pine mixed forest in the Changbai Mountains (128°28'E and 42°24'N, Jilin Province, P. R. China) since August 2002. On the data obtained with open-path eddy covariance system and CO2 profile measurement system from Jan. 2003 to Dec. 2004, this paper reports (i) annual and seasonal variation of FNEE, FGPP and Re; (ii) regulation of environmental factors on phase and amplitude of ecosystem CO2 uptake and release Corrections due to storage and friction velocity were applied to the eddy carbon flux. Lal and soil temperature determined the seasonal and annual dynamics of FGPP and RE separately. VPD and air temperature regulated ecosystem photosynthesis at finer scales in growing seasons. Water condition at the root zone exerted a significant influence on ecosystem maintenance carbon metabolism of this forest in winter. The forest was a net sink of atmospheric CO2 and sequestered -449 g C·m-2 during the study period; -278 and -171 gC·m-2 for 2003 and 2004 respectively. FGPP and FRE over 2003 and 2004 were -1332, -1294 g C·m-2. and 1054, 1124 g C·m-2 respectively. This study shows that old-growth forest can be a strong net carbon sink of atmospheric CO2. There was significant seasonal and annual variation in carbon metabolism. In winter, there was weak photosynthesis while the ecosystem emitted CO2. Carbon exchanges were active in spring and fall but contributed little to carbon sequestration on an annual scale. The summer is the most significant season as far as ecosystem carbon balance is concerned. The 90 days of summer contributed 66.9, 68.9% of FGPp, and 60.4, 62.1% of RE of the entire year.     

基于掌上电脑的智能林火标绘仪的设计与实现

本系统是利用掌上电脑的屏幕触控技术,开发智能标绘功能,使防火工作人员在发现着火点的同时依据导航信息快速地在电子地图上标绘火头、火线的位置,撰写火情报告并输出态势图,然后通过无线上网功能,实时将标绘的信息传送给防火指挥中心,为指挥中心及时做出扑火决策提供支持。     

森林火险气象指数及其构建方法回顾

森林火灾是威胁地球生态的主要灾害之一。为实现对林区起火可能性大小、火灾强度、火灾蔓延速度以及火灾扑救难易程度进行评估和预测，国内外专家学者利用森林火灾与气象条件之间的关系研制了诸多森林火险气象指数的构建方法。作者对近几十年来国内外森林火险气象指数的研究工作进行回顾和总结，得出广泛应用的火险指数可以归纳为指数查对法、综合指标法和统计回归法等3种类型，究其原理和使用效果，各有优缺点。在实际使用过程中，需要结合我国的气候和环境特点进行适用性修正和完善。     

Paleoenvironmental analysis of a middle Wisconsinan biota site, southwestern Virginia, U.S.A.

The Ratcliff Site in southwestern Virginia lies in a small second-order stream valley filled with approximately 3.5 m of organic-rich deposits that contain bones of mammoth, mastodon, deer (or antelope), logs, and plant macrofossils. Radiocarbon analyses indicate the age of the organic-rich sediment ranges from > 44,000 to 29,100 ¹⁴C yr BP, a time period with no fossil remains reported in this region of the Appalachians. Analyses of field observations, textural data, organic carbon content, and plant macrofossils indicate that the organic-rich sediments contain interbedded standing-water and debris-flow deposits. Up to 6 m of oxidized debris-flow sediments bury the organic-rich sediments. The presence of Rubus parviflorus (Thimble Berry) throughout the deposit indicates the site had a boreal environment from > 44,000 to 29,100 ¹⁴C yr BP. Plant macrofossil evidence indicates the uplands had stands of spruce/jack-pine forests while the valley contained ponds and associated wetlands. Three debris flows occurred at the site between approximately 38,000 and 29,000 ¹⁴C yr BP, suggesting a recurrence interval for major storms of approximately 3000 yr, even though the apparent stability of the boreal environment implies a climate not conducive to catastrophic rainstorms. This conflicting combination of features suggests that during the middle Wisconsinan this area experienced generally cool climates, dominated by polar air masses, but was punctuated by relatively brief warm periods marked by incursions of tropical air masses.     

Addressing Scottish rural fuel poverty through a regional industrial symbiosis strategy for the Scottish forest industries sector

Tackling fuel poverty is central to the delivery of the Scottish Executive’s commitment to social justice. Many Scottish rural households are not linked into the mains gas network and rely on expensive alternatives, despite being surrounded by plentiful supplies of low-cost renewable wood biomass. A regional study was undertaken to establish the potential market for pelletised wood fuel, available as a low-value by-product from the rapidly expanding Scottish forest industry sector. The wider implications of the research findings are analysed by extending the principles of industrial symbiosis from a site-specific to a regional scale. Promoting an indigenous pellet-based wood fuel market for rural Scotland would fulfil important Scottish Executive economic, social and environmental sustainability objectives. Adding off-site social symbiotic elements increases the potential for on-site technical symbiosis in nascent Scottish forest industry clusters. At present, market failure is preventing the realisation of these benefits, and the paper concludes by identifying ways in which market intermediation, through wood fuel energy service companies, might overcome the current barriers to exploiting such symbiosis.     

Enter the working forest: Discourse analysis in the Northern Forest

In 1988, four states in the northeastern USA commissioned a study to address land use changes in the Northern Forest, 26 million acres of temperate and boreal forest extending from Maine to eastern New York State. Against a backdrop of economic destabilization and concerns regarding social and ecological implications of a real estate boom, the sustained deliberative dialogue catalyzed by this study has come to rely heavily on the ambiguous concept of “working forest.” To clarify political and environmental dynamics in the region, we analyzed how people respond to and seek to capitalize on the interpretive flexibility of the term working forest. We combine an analysis of socio-political discourses of working forest based on a structured literature review with an assessment of local peoples’ definitions of working forest based on a survey conducted in a pair of contrasting New York State communities. The first study site represents an amenity-oriented community (i.e. a place where the forest supports a service economy including recreation and tourism) and the other study site represents a timber-dependent community. By linking data from community-level analysis to data derived from a general analysis of forest politics, we seek to develop a more robust perspective. By comparing discourses across differently structured communities, we investigate how local forest politics are mediated by local economic development processes. Our study empirically illustrates contested and geographically uneven processes of social construction of environment and rural development in a region confronting pressures of globalization. Results indicate that timber harvesting is a heavily privileged management objective, as a logic of ‘the forest that pays is the forest that stays’ dominates. Environmental politics in the region, and perhaps more generally, increasingly conforms to a form of pragmatism in which economic opportunities structure conservation planning and investment.     

江苏仪征捺山火山机构及玄武岩石柱林

江苏仪征捺山为一个典型的古火山口,由玄武质岩石组成的火山溢流相、爆发相、通道相等岩相在空间上呈环状分布,且均向内倾斜,构成一个上大下小、向北东倾斜的喇叭口。火山喷发时间在距今约1000万年前,属中新世晚期产物。尤其是玄武岩石柱林规模宏大,气势雄伟,千恣百态,其火山石柱林价值已不再沉寂于地学标尺上,而以一种奇致的新姿态将成为本地域旅游业的新亮点。     

The Würm in NW Iberia, a pollen record from Area Longa (Galicia)

The pollen record at Area Longa is the westernmost sequence available for investigation of the last glaciation in continental Europe. It is located in a region, NW Iberia, for which data from times earlier than the late glacial period are scarce. It comprises a series of exposed limnetic levels that lie above an Eemian (Oxygen Isotope Stage [OIS] 5e) beach and are separated by inorganic layers. The oldest limnetic level (Level I), attributed to the early glacial period (OIS 5a to OIS 5d), shows a dominance of woodland with high proportions of Fagus pollen and is tentatively identified with St. Germain I. The lower pleniglacial (OIS 4) Level II records a stadial landscape of grassland and shrub. Level III, from the pleniglacial interstade (OIS 3), reflects a complex period in which three warmer woodland phases alternated with periods of more open vegetation. This cyclical behavior correlates with the ice core isotope record and with the general tendencies observed in other Würmian pollen records, but the composition of our pollen profiles differs from those observed in these other records. In NW Iberia, the dominant trees were deciduous taxa, not conifers. Of particular note is the presence of lowland Fagus woodlands during the pre-Würm, and the occurrence of Carpinus considerably farther west than the boundary of its current distribution in the Iberian Peninsula.     

基于高光谱遥感数据提取森林结构参数的研究

以位于三峡库区的龙门河森林自然保护区为研究区,综合利用线性光谱混合模型和几何光学模型,基于高光谱遥感数据提取森林结构参数是本文研究的重点。在研究区地面调查数据的基础上,通过高光谱数据和混合光谱分解法,获得反演几何光学模型所需的四分量参数,根据背景光照分量与森林植被冠层各参数间的关系,反演得到森林冠层郁闭度及平均冠幅的定量分布图,并利用37个野外实测样本进行结果验证。