Detection of foreclosure-related landscape management changes using Landsat

The volume of properties affected by foreclosure over the past decade suggests the potential for dramatic change in vegetation cover due to changes in management. Yet, the specific pathology of each foreclosure, the temporal asynchrony among foreclosures, and differences in the area available for vegetation growth across properties presents challenges to observing and measuring change. This paper develops and tests a difference in deviations approach that compares the parcel NDVI to a neighborhood norm before and after foreclosure. The difference in deviations approach addresses the challenges of separating parcel-level change corresponding to foreclosure and identifies changes on both small and large parcels. The method relies on a time series of Landsat Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data, individual home foreclosure records and property tax assessment data for Maricopa County, Arizona from 2002 to 2012. To establish the level of difference associated with observable landscape change, we use a probit regression model, coding Google Earth images for properties across the range of observed deviations of difference. The basic assumption underlying the approach is that if foreclosure coincides with a change in management, it will lead to changes in vegetation structure and thus, NDVI values. We estimate that 13% of home foreclosures in Maricopa County over the period from 2002 to 2012 resulted in declines in vegetation whereas 6.5% resulted in vegetation increases. Future uses of this method for understanding landscape management in residential landscapes are discussed.     

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。     

London: a sustainable city?

Observations include:
Ian Livingstone, London: a sustainable city?, p.77
Michael Parkinson, Key challenges for European cities: achieving competitiveness, cohesion and sustainability, p.78
Chris Hamnett, London's housing, p.80
Sarah Curtis, Health in London, p.84
Martin Frost, London's transport—investing for sustainability, p.92
Chris Birks, Mike Owen and Brian Arkell, London's water resources: threat or opportunity, p.92
Sean D Beevers, David C Carslaw and Gary W Fuller, London's air quality: nitrogen dioxide and particles (PM10) in London's air—present and future, p.97
Adam D Read, Where there's muck there's brass—the 'cost' of London'swaste?, p.103     

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.     

柴达木盆地东部尕海湖DG03孔岩芯粒度特征及环境意义

对柴达木盆地东部尕海湖DG03孔岩芯沉积物的粒度特征的研究,结果表明:在12 800—11 800 cal a BP之间,DG03孔沉积物主要以砂为主,含少量的粉砂和粘土,表明钻孔地点的水动力条件比较强,湖泊水位较低,尕海地区经历了一次短暂的干旱事件,这一事件可能是该区域对全球性的YD事件的响应;全新世早中期（11 800—5 600 cal a BP）,沉积物主要以粉砂和粘土为主,钻孔地点的水动力条件比较弱,湖泊水位较高,气候环境相对湿润;全新世中晚期以来（5 600 cal a BP以来）,沉积物中砂粒组分含量越来越多,粉砂和粘土含量越来越少,平均粒径越来越大,钻孔地点的水动力越来越强,该区域经历了一个干旱化的过程。     

Economic analysis for the production of four grape cultivars using microcatchment water harvesting systems in Iran

An economic analysis was conducted for temporal yield variations of four local grape cultivars grown in rain-fed microcatchments in the Bajgah area of Fars province, in Islamic Republic of Iran. For this study, four local cultivars of grapes were considered. The cultivars examined were Black Rishbaba, Rotabi, Asgari and Black grapes. The soil type was a gravely loam with an average slope of 5–6%, in microcatchment systems, and in plots without microcatchments. Analysis of yield data with a multiple regression model indicated that a 9 m² (3×3 m) microcatchment area for each individual plant (vine) was the most appropriate area for vineyards in this region. The results also demonstrated that by using this area for each grapevine, yields (kg/ha) were 40% greater than yields obtained for vines in the standard vineyard (without microcatchments) in this area. Economic analysis was performed and the cost and income were compared for a depreciation period (life-span period) of 50 years and interest rate of 14%. The analysis showed that a microcatchment area of 9 m² is economically feasible. The Black Rishbaba rain-fed vines were the most suitable cultivar for this region. The benefit probabilities of rain-fed Black Rishbaba, Rotabi, Asgari and Black grapes with a microcatchment area of 9 m² and without such an area were 63.3% (i.e. two of 3 years), 52.4% (i.e. one of 2 years), 32.9% (i.e. one of 3 years), 13.3% (i.e. one of 8 years), and 59.5% (i.e. two of 3 years), 39.4% (i.e. two of 5 years), 31.8% (i.e. one of 3 years), and 10.7% (i.e. one of 9 years), respectively. Therefore, the Black Rishbaba and Rotabi cultivars are economically more stable in microcatchment system, while only the Black Rishbaba cultivar would be such in the standard vineyard system.     

杭州地区大气水分特征及相关问题的初步探讨

用1951年1月至2003年12月NCEP/NCAR再分析格点比湿、垂直速度资料,以及杭州站降水量资料,分析了杭州地区对流层整层可降水量、低层空气垂直上升运动强度以及地面降水量的演变特点。结果发现,可降水量与低层空气垂直上升运动具有显著的年代际变化,且这两者均利于降水的时段,降水量不一定偏多,这说明空中水资源具有很大的开发空间。对杭州6月大气可降水量的长期变化特征与全球同纬度地区作了对比,发现近53年来,杭州地区6月份降水量处于下降趋势。