How well is the EU protecting its seabirds? Progress in implementing the Birds Directive at sea

The European Commission has repeatedly requested its Member States to fully implement one of the world's oldest nature legislation laws, the Birds Directive, by designating Special Protection Areas (SPAs) in the marine environment. The current work analyses the spatial coverage offered by the SPA network to the 82 species of seabirds that occur in EU waters, and compare it to that of Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs), as defined by BirdLife International. Marine SPAs represent 3.9% of the EU's marine area, while the IBA network represents 4.4%. On average, only 0.05% of the EU marine area is protected, and there are enormous regional differences. On average, SPAs and IBAs both cover 16.0% of the breeding distribution range of seabird species, but only1.4% of their non-breeding distribution range. SPAs cover more than 50% of the breeding range of only one seabird family, Procellariidae, and both SPA and IBA networks offer greater coverage to threatened species than to non-threatened ones. The year when Member States were legally obliged (2008 onwards) to declare their marine SPA networks is not significantly related to their network size, and that those species subjected to tracking studies or have well known breeding colonies benefit from higher coverage. Methodological challenges that were once posed to implement the Birds Directive at sea are largely overcome, and political will is the main driver for identifying, designating and managing a complete network of marine SPAs in the EU.     

The Baltic Sea environment and the European Union: Analysis of governance barriers

The EU enlargement brought the Baltic Sea into the sphere of EU environmental policymaking, making the sea, with the exception of Russia, an EU inland sea. Yet, the state of the Baltic Sea environment is deteriorating at an alarming pace. This paper describes the evolution of the EU governance of the Baltic Sea environment, focussing on governance barriers. The findings demonstrate how the choice of analytical lens influences the construction of governance barriers and the respective intervention strategies. Such understanding can help policy practitioners in their search for successful measures to improve the governance situation in the Baltic Sea region.     

大连市滨海湿地现状及加强管护工作对策研究

文章利用遥感技术获取了大连市2016年滨海湿地基本状况信息,通过实地调查和查阅资料基本摸清了研究区水鸟及栖息地概况,收集整理了研究区开展滨海湿地管理与保护工作情况,简要阐释了当前滨海湿地管护工作中存在的功能退化等问题,辨识性分析了引发问题的填海造地、建设力度与保护经费不足等驱动力因素,提出了应从健全滨海湿地管理与保护制度机制、加大新建保护区与已建保护区管护工作力度、开展生态修复工作、开展滨海湿地生态补偿工作、严格自然滨海湿地开发利用管理和加强滨海湿地调查监测6个方面加强滨海湿地管护工作的对策及建设性意见。     

Numerical simulations of a highway bridge structure employing passive negative stiffness device for seismic protection

A new passive seismic response control device has been developed, fabricated, and tested by the authors and shown to be capable of producing negative stiffness via a purely mechanical mechanism, thus representing a new generation of seismic protection devices. Although the concept of negative stiffness may appear to be a reversal on the desired relationship between the force and displacement in structures (the desired relationship being that the product of restoring force and displacement is nonnegative), when implemented in parallel with a structure having positive stiffness, the combined system appears to have substantially reduced stiffness while remaining stable. Thus, there is an ‘apparent weakening and softening’ of the structure that results in reduced forces and increased displacements (where the weakening and softening is of a non‐damaging nature in that it occurs in a seismic protection device rather than within the structural framing system). Any excessive displacement response can then be limited by incorporating a damping device in parallel with the negative stiffness device. The combination of negative stiffness and passive damping provides a large degree of control over the expected performance of the structure. In this paper, a numerical study is presented on the performance of a seismically isolated highway bridge model that is subjected to various strong earthquake ground motions. The Negative Stiffness Devices (NSDs) are described along with their hysteretic behavior as obtained from a series of cyclic tests wherein the tests were conducted using a modified design of the NSDs (modified for testing within the bridge model). Using the results from the cyclic tests, numerical simulations of the seismic response of the isolated bridge model were conducted for various configurations (with/without negative stiffness devices and/or viscous dampers). The results demonstrate that the addition of negative stiffness devices reduces the base shear substantially, while the deck displacement is limited to acceptable values. This assessment was conducted as part of a NEES (Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation) project which included shaking table tests of a quarter‐scale highway bridge model. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

长江经济带开发与保护空间格局构建及其分析路径

长江流域经济—社会—生态系统完整,是中国国土空间开发最重要的东西轴线,在区域发展总体格局中具有重要战略地位。当下,为应对全球经贸格局重组、国家与区域经济社会转型以及资源环境约束趋紧等新形势,国家提出依托长江黄金水道,构建横贯东西、辐射南北、通江达海、经济高效、生态良好的中国经济新支撑带,这就要求长江经济带形成人口资源环境协调的均衡化开发与保护格局。本文基于“点—轴”、分区式与多中心网络式等空间组织结构,明确空间格局的推演逻辑与思路。进而,在区域差异性分析与空间开发适宜性评价基础上,认为长江经济带需重点构建以“一轴两翼,三区六廊”为主体的开发格局、以“六大片区”为主体的农业发展格局、以“五大屏障”为主体的生态安全格局,并提出不同区域差异化发展导向、路径与制度建议,以及今后长江经济带空间结构需进一步研究的主要科学问题。     

基于NPP数据和样区对比法的青藏高原自然保护区保护成效分析

在青藏高原选择11个代表性自然保护区,基于高寒草地植被净初级生产力（Net Primary Production,简写NPP）变化过程数据,比较分析了自然保护区与其相邻等面积区域的NPP变化差异;采用样区对比法,在自然保护区内外选取21组对比样区,比较自然保护区建立前后及其内外的生态状况,评估了自然保护区的保护成效。研究表明：1. 1982-2009年间,82%的代表性自然保护区NPP比保护区周邻区域及青藏高原的平均水平低,反映了自然保护区的生态系统状况更为脆弱;2. 在代表性自然保护区中,曼则塘自然保护区的NPP增长趋势最为明显,塔什库尔干野生动物自然保护区的NPP增长趋势最弱;除色林错自然保护区外,以草甸和湿地为主的自然保护区NPP增速明显高于以草原与荒漠草地为主的自然保护区;3. 代表性样区的研究发现：① 自然保护区内76%以上的样区和国家级保护区内82%以上的样区NPP增加幅度明显高于保护区外对应样区的增幅;② 取得明显保护效果的有中昆仑、长沙贡玛、若尔盖和色林错等自然保护区;曼则塘自然保护区的东南部边缘地区和塔什库尔干野生动物自然保护区的北部边缘地区的效果不明显,可能与保护区及其周邻地区人类扰动增强密切相关;③ 高寒草甸类型自然保护区的保护效果最为显著,高寒草原类型自然保护区的保护效果较差。本研究展示了样区对比法在评估大区域生态变化中所具有的独特优势,其关键在于科学设计样区并进行合理的空间抽样。     

黄河首曲地区生态旅游开发适宜区识别与分类研究——结合旅游者偏好的分析（英文）

黄河首曲地区具有突出的生态功能和较高的旅游价值。为保障湿地的完整性保护及尊重当地居民的雪山崇拜,研究首先对不可开发区和可开发区进行了识别分析,认为不管是严格的生态旅游还是一般的生态旅游活动都只能在有效生态旅游区进行,生态旅游的适宜性分析与区划也主要围绕可开发区展开。研究选取距水域湿地距离、草地覆盖情况、森林覆盖情况、海拔高度、坡度和原生态性六个表征地区自然性的标准,采用GIS技术与层次分析法相结合的方法对可开发区生态旅游适宜性进行了分析,层次分析法权重源于旅游者偏好调查,并基于适宜度空间分布格局进行了区域分类。可开发区的生态旅游适宜性可划分为五级,I级地区适宜度最低,最不适合发展严格的生态旅游,V级地区适宜度最高,原生态景观价值突出,生态旅游发展潜力最大。出于协调旅游功能与生态功能的统一以实现地区生态旅游资源可持续利用的目的,黄河首曲地区被划分为五类亚区,且均具有各自特殊的主导服务功能。研究最终根据各亚区的特殊服务功能提出了相应的调控措施。研究结论有助于促进生态旅游的合理性规划及未来可持续发展。     

龙涧泉岩溶水系统特征

文章以地下水系统理论为指导,对龙涧泉岩溶水系统的边界条件、人工干预条件下地下水动力场演化特征等方面进行了系统的研究。根据区域地质、构造、地形地貌和水文地质条件,探究了龙涧泉岩溶水系统,圈定了系统的范围、边界性质、流动系统内部及其与外部系统之间的关系,确定龙涧泉为系统的唯一天然排泄口,龙涧泉岩溶水系统与白浪岩溶水系统无直接水力联系。龙涧泉岩溶水系统岩溶水补给来源主要是大气降水、河流入渗及侧向径流补给,现状条件下总补给量为864.42万m3/a,多年平均补给量为836.81万m3/a;排泄主要是水源地开采和矿山排水,现状开采量为4 117.2万m3/a。由于开采量大于允许开采量,并超过了总补给量,区内岩溶水一直处于超采状态。2004—2008年矿区岩溶水实测年均下降1.61 m/a,多年（1984—2008）水位平均降幅为5.68 m/a,最大降幅17.42 m/a。此外还讨论了岩溶水系统的补给、排泄条件,提出了龙涧泉岩溶水开发、保护、复泉与管理龙涧泉岩溶水系统的建议。      

落石冲击作用下被动柔性防护网整体结构试验

针对被动柔性防护网受力系统,介绍了被动柔性防护网在国内外的应用和研究现状,阐明了被动柔性防护网的构成和传力机理,揭示其抵抗落石冲击的基本原理。为分析被动柔性防护网整体受力机理和响应特点,进行了在落石作用下被动柔性防护网足尺模型的冲击试验,分析了被动柔性防护网受到冲击之后的整体变形以及减压环、钢柱等关键构件的耗能及其破坏机理,为被动柔性防护网的结构计算分析与设计提供一定的参考依据。     

巴丹吉林沙漠景区旅游环境容量

沙漠旅游环境容量有特殊性,对巴丹吉林沙漠旅游环境容量的4类结构体系测算表明：旅游空间容量和旅游生态环境容量是沙漠旅游开发的瓶颈,生态环境容量是沙漠旅游最敏感的因素,社会经济因子不是该沙漠景区旅游环境容量的限制因子,旅游心理容量的影响不大。结合旅游环境容量评估结果及限制因子分析,设置不同的生态容量方案。对游客人数的的动态变化研究表明景区还处于旅游发展阶段,但旅游旺季的旅游环境容量几乎接近饱和。最后提出对景区开发保护的策略。