Risk Assessment and Disaster Management for Natural and Anthropogenically Induced Geologic Hazards: Application to the Preolkhon Region,Western Lake Baikal,Siberia, Russia

In the Western Lake Baikal, recent Baikal Rift's tectonics control the topography, seismicity, climate, geomorphology, and economy. Scarps, facets, structural terraces, horsts and grabens, and trapezoid valleys can be clearly observed. They have been generated by the recent tectonic movements along the faults and represent a serious geologic hazard. The specific geological conditions predetermine a unique variety of landscapes. Thus, the main type of the economy is tourism. However, unorganized tourism leads to the degradation of the unique landscapes. It increases risk and requires disaster management. Three criteria has been used for risk assessment: (1) degree of geologic hazard; (2) degree of landscape degradation; and (3) degree of the economy's vitality. The high ecological significance and low stability to antropogeneous pressure are typical for landscapes of the Western Lake Baikal. Thus, some special activities of disaster management should be implemented based on our investigation.     

1998-2012年中国耕地复种指数时空差异及动因

从国家、区域和省级三个层面上分析了1998-2012年间中国耕地复种指数的变化趋势,并基于Theil指数探讨了中国耕地复种指数的时空差异,利用计量经济学模型从人文视角探讨了耕地复种指数变化的影响因素。结果表明:1在全国尺度上,中国耕地复种指数总体上呈逐年增长的趋势。2在区域尺度上,复种指数最高的为中部地区,最低的为东北地区;而复种指数增长最快的是东北地区,最慢的是中部地区,东部地区呈下降趋势。3中国31个省份复种指数各不相同,且差距大,复种指数增长最快的是新疆、宁夏和云南。4由Theil指数值的大小可知,中国耕地复种指数的差异呈缩小态势,其主要原因为四大区域间的差异。5人口非农化比重对耕地复种指数产生了显著负向作用,产业非农化比重、农业政策、人均经营耕地和农村家庭人均经营纯收入对耕地复种指数产生了显著正向作用。最后,本文认为转移农村剩余劳动力,提高农民的经营性收入水平,促进土地流转,形成土地规模化经营,以及进一步加大对欠发达地区及粮食主产区农业发展的惠农扶持力度,充分发挥国家惠农政策的诱致作用,有利于全面提高中国耕地复种水平。     

中国东南红壤丘陵区土地利用变化的 生态环境效应研究进展

近几十年来,不合理的土地利用所引起的生态环境问题日益突出,土地利用变化的生态环境效应研究开始受到人们的关注。我国东南红壤丘陵区自然条件优越,土地利用方式多样,且变化强烈,研究该区土地利用的生态环境效应不仅对该区农业的持续发展具有重要的指导意义,而且有助于认识该区在全球变化研究中的作用。本文综述了红壤丘陵区土地利用的生态环境效应研究的成果和发展,并指出研究中存在的不足和今后的研究方向。结果表明：1)由于长期对土地资源利用的不合理利用,整个地区生态与环境遭到了严重破坏,土壤退化问题极其严重;2)研究重点从土地退化及其恢复转向土地利用对碳循环及全球变化的影响,但研究尚处起步阶段,有待深化。3)选择合理的生态农业开发模式,采用持续性的土地利用管理措施,是减少土地利用负面环境效应的有效措施。4)今后应加强退化土壤环境定量遥感技术和信息系统及土地利用变化对全球变化定量评价等方面的研究。     

Simulating urban land-use changes at a large scale by integrating dynamic land parcel subdivision and vector-based cellular automata

Cellular automata (CA) have been widely used to simulate complex urban development processes. Previous studies indicated that vector-based cellular automata (VCA) could be applied to simulate urban land-use changes at a realistic land parcel level. Because of the complexity of VCA, these studies were conducted at small scales or did not adequately consider the highly fragmented processes of urban development. This study aims to build an effective framework called dynamic land parcel subdivision (DLPS)-VCA to accurately simulate urban land-use change processes at the land parcel level. We introduce this model in urban land-use change simulations to reasonably divide land parcels and introduce a random forest algorithm (RFA) model to explore the transition rules of urban land-use changes. Finally, we simulate the land-use changes in Shenzhen between 2009 and 2014 via the proposed DLPS-VCA model. Compared to the advanced Patch-CA and RFA-VCA models, the DLPS-VCA model achieves the highest simulation accuracy (Figure-of-Merit = 0.232), which is 32.57% and 18.97% higher respectively, and is most similar to the actual land-use scenario (similarity = 94.73%) at the pattern level. These results indicate that the DLPS-VCA model can both accurately split the land during urban land-use changes and significantly simulate urban expansion and urban land-use changes at a fine scale. Furthermore, the land-use change rules that are based on DPLS-VCA mining and the simulation results of several future urban development scenarios can act as guides for future urban planning policy formulation.     

Sediment-chemistry response to land-use change and pollutant loading in a hypertrophic lake, southern Sweden

Responses to recent land-use changes and pollutant loading in the sediment of a hypertrophic lake in southern Sweden were studied by comparison of geochemical, pollen and magnetic records with historical land-use data. A chronology was constructed for the last two centuries by correlating changes in the pollen diagram to major events in the land-use history. Sediment accumulation was low (mean c. 0.2 g cm^-2 yr^-1) prior to 1800 AD, when less than 25% of the catchment was arable land. Reorganization of the agrarian system during the 19th century increased the annually tilled area by 300%, which accelerated soil erosion and substantially increased the accumulation of allochtonous matter in the lake. Since the turn of the century 90% of the catchment has been ploughed every year. The deposition of clastic matter in the lake has, however, decreased due to a gradual rerouting of the drainage system, which has reduced the effective catchment area by c. 85%.Authigenic vivianite (Fe3(PO4)2.8H2O) is a major P phase in the preindustrial non-sulphidic sediments, which suggests that the sediments at that time served as a fairly efficient sink for P. The arable expansion, increased manuring and, eventually, the introduction of artificial fertilizers during the 19th century led to a massive influx of nutrients, which elevated primary production in the lake. Subsequent development of bottom water anoxia around 1900, in combination with an additional pollutant burden of sulphate within the lake basin, led to major alterations of the biogeochemical cycles. The most critical change in the post-1900 sediments involved the cycling of Fe and P. The linkage between the lacustrine P and Fe cycles can explain that FeS formation was paralleled by a release of P from the sedimentary pool. This supply of P to the lake basin must have supplemented the nutrient supply by modern agriculture and contributed to recent hypertrophication. The bacterial sulphate reduction also affected the generation of alkalinity which supported a significant calcite precipitation in the post-1900 sediments.S is enriched 10-fold in the post-1900 sediments compared to preindustrial values. Along with the rise in S, soot particles derived from fossil fuel combustion appear in the sediments for the first time. Therefore, Bussj¨osj¨on is thought to be a good example of how a well-buffered, highly productive lake may respond to the pollution by sulphur from acid rain.     

基于BDI决策的MAS-CA模型黄海海滨城镇格局模拟研究——以大连金石滩为例

基于BDI决策MAS-CA模型,利用1998年、2003年、2008年和2013年土地利用数据,对大连金石滩2020年和2030年城镇区域面积进行模拟,Kappa系数达到0.635。研究结果表明：① BDI决策补充了MAS-CA模型决策的不足,使得模型整体框架进一步完善,模拟结果具体准确,精度达到89.1%。② 金石滩城镇用地呈现出依附海岸线和交通线的格局,向海岸线靠拢,城镇用地在中部区域比较集中且城镇用地有向周围区域扩张的趋势,葡萄沟村、河咀子村、庙上村、什字街村转变最大。③ 从金石滩城镇格局的模拟结果发现,海岸线因素引导着城镇格局的转变方向。滨海地区的生态环境容易被破坏,政府应该采取措施寻找土地利用与生态环境保护的完美平衡点。     

The role of soybean production as an underlying driver of deforestation in the South American Chaco

South America’s tropical dry forests and savannas are under increasing pressure from agricultural expansion. Cattle ranching and soybean production both drive these forest losses, but their relative importance remains unclear. Also unclear is how soybean expansion elsewhere affects deforestation via pushing cattle ranching to deforestation frontiers. To assess these questions, we focused on the Chaco, a 110 million ha ecoregion extending into Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay, with about 8 million ha of deforestation in 2000–2012. We used panel regressions at the district level to quantify the role of soybean expansion in driving these forest losses using a wide range of environmental and socio-economic control variables. Our models suggest that soybean production was a direct driver of deforestation in the Argentine Chaco only (0.08 ha new soybean area per ha forest lost), whereas cattle ranching was significantly associated with deforestation in all three countries (0.02 additional cattle per hectare forest loss). However, our models also suggested Argentine soybean cultivation may indirectly be linked to deforestation in the Bolivian and Paraguayan Chaco. We furthermore found substantial time-delayed effects in the relationship of soybean expansion in Argentina and Paraguay (i.e., soybean expansion in one year resulted in deforestation several years later) and deforestation in the Chaco, further suggesting that possible displacement effects within and between Chaco countries may at least partly drive forest loss. Altogether, our study showed that deforestation in the Chaco appears to be mainly driven by the globally surging demand for soybean, although regionally other proximate drivers are sometimes important. Steering agricultural production in the Chaco and other tropical dry forests onto sustainable pathways will thus require policies that consider these scale effects and that account for the regional variation in deforestation drivers within and across countries.     

Predicting oxygen in small estuaries of the Baltic Sea: a comparative approach

Coastal eutrophication, manifested as hypoxia and anoxia, is a global problem. Only a few empirical models, however, exist to predict bottom oxygen concentration and percentage saturation from nutrient load or morphometry in coastal waters, which are successfully used to predict phytoplankton biomass both in lakes and in estuaries. Furthermore, hardly any empirical models exist to predict bottom oxygen from land-use. A data set was compiled for 19 estuaries in the northern Baltic Sea, which included oxygen concentration and percentage saturation, water chemistry, estuary morphometry, and land-use characteristics. In regression analyses, bottom oxygen was predicted both as a function of the percentage of watershed under agriculture and of mean depth. These models accounted for ca. 55% of the variation in oxygen. Additionally, oxygen was linked to fetch (diameter of the area in the direction of the prevailing wind), which accounted for 30% of the variation in oxygen. This suggests that shallow Finnish estuaries are wind-sensitive. In ‘pits’ (sub-thermocline waters of deep basins), near-bottom total nitrogen strongly correlated with oxygen percentage saturation (R²=0.81). Neither chlorophyll a, total phosphorus nor nutrient loading explained oxygen variation in entire estuaries or in ‘pits’, probably mainly due to annual sedimentation/sediment–water flux dynamics. On the basis of the results of cross-validation, the models have general applicability among Finnish estuaries.     

The Wild Life of Pesticides: urban agriculture,institutional responsibility,and the future of biodiversity in Sydney's Hawkesbury-Nepean River

Agricultural chemicals are a notoriously intractable source of environmental pollution. Offering enhanced agricultural productivity, they simultaneously risk degrading the ecological basis upon which agriculture depends. This paper considers chemicalisation as a cause of the erosion of aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem resilience, focusing on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River and the small-scale horticulturalists who supply the city's fresh vegetable markets, working under the pressure of urbanisation, retail monopolies, indifferent land-use planning, and often without access to information about pesticide use in the languages they understand. Arguing that standard practices of ‘risk management’ are unable to adequately control chemical contamination, the paper presents findings from interviews with actors within the ‘assemblage’ of institutions with responsibility for agriculture, water quality, and environmental protection, in order to assess the effectiveness of pesticide governance in the Greater Sydney Basin. It appears that pesticide pollution is far from being tamed: it is rarely measured nor monitored, neither is it a priority of any particular agency. Arguing that public health, the long-term viability of local farming and the ecological well-being of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River are mutually consistent goals, we conclude that these vital elements of the common-weal are currently subject to a system of ‘organised irresponsibility’. The paper concludes by proposing several ways forward.     

1947～2007年上海中心城区居住空间分异变化——基于居住用地类型视角

采用4种分异度测度模型,在街坊尺度和乡镇尺度下,对上海中心城区1947～2007年11个时相的各类居住用地空间分异程度进行计算。发现1949年后各类居住用地分异度呈现不同的波动过程。不同时期居住用地总体分异程度的计算表明,1949年前空间分异严重,计划经济时期有所降低,转型期则又明显上升。不同时期居住用地等级高低与其分异度大小呈现不同的结构特征,1949年前高等级居住用地分异度高、中低等级居住用地分异度较低,形成"一高两低"结构;计划经济时期则是居住用地等级越高,分异度越大的"正相关"结构;90年代后则是最高和最低等级的居住用地分异度高,而中等居住用地分异度最低的"V"型结构。不同时期居住用地空间分异结构特征间的演进,直接原因是新式住宅的建设和旧城的改造,深层次原因则是土地使用制度的变迁和城市空间组织模式的转变。