Innovating resource regimes: Water, wastewater, and the institutional dynamics of urban hydraulic reach in northwest Mexico

The twin facets of urban hydraulic reach - cities’ appropriation of water from surrounding regions and irrigation use of urban wastewater over a growing rural footprint - form an emerging global policy challenge, especially as democratizing societies seek institutional means to address both urban growth and water scarcity. A central concern of this paper is to demonstrate that policy regionalism, as a process-based understanding of institutions and decision-making, better explains the causes, forms, and outcomes of hydraulic reach than do more structural approaches. Hermosillo, Mexico presents an unfolding case of rural-urban tension for control over rivers and aquifers as well as the infrastructure for water capture, storage, conveyance, and wastewater release. The analysis employs process documentation of water transfer and wastewater negotiations through interviews, review of primary documents, and field observations. Hermosillo’s recourse to negotiated agreements and quasi-market transactions, led by an emerging group of public sector innovators, advances understanding of water policy in Mexico by moving beyond prevailing concerns with the water reform’s neoliberal underpinnings to exploration of rapidly changing urban-centered experimentation. We conclude that evolving urban-rural power disparities and water resource landscapes of urban growth will drive continued expansion of hydraulic reach in water-scarce regions globally.     

福建德化吉溪铅锌多金属矿异常区地质特征及找矿远景分析

德化吉溪铅锌多金属矿异常位于溪口组中,其Ⅳ号蚀变体(矽卡岩)、V号蚀变体(铅锌矿化脉)均分布在接触带附近.区内断裂是较好的导矿储矿构造,与Pb、Zn异常关系密切.通过对异常区地球化学特征及成矿地质条件等分析,认为该区有一定找矿远景.     

智利Rodados Negros铁矿床地质特征、成矿机理与找矿前景分析

通过对智利Rodados Negros铁矿床地质特征实地考察和对地质资料综合分析,阐明了智利海岸山脉成矿带铁氧化物-铜-金型矿床的成矿机理,对该类型矿床的找矿前景进行了初步探讨并提出找矿思路.     

Planning the sea: The French experience. Contribution to marine spatial planning perspectives

As marine spatial planning is developing, prompted by the European Union through common principles prescribed in a road map, it is important to disseminate and analyse what has been put forward as the French experience in this field. Hence, the experience of the schémas de mise en valeur de la mer immediately proves to be original in its framework and deeply rooted in French specificities. However, a further analysis of this procedure implemented over several decades highlights the perspectives that would be worth integrating into French and European considerations. This paper thus provides information referring to the SMVM experience, presents an analysis of its results, and attempts to draw lessons from it with regard to recent developments in French marine policy.     

The conservation of seals in Irish waters: How research informs policy

Ireland's waters represent a valuable resource encompassing productive fishing grounds and important oil and gas reserves. As a species rich marine environment, Ireland's waters are also an important habitat for many species of marine mammal. Specifically, grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) and harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) are widespread in Irish coastal waters and at least 24 species of cetacean have been reported at sea. The coastal zone represents critical habitat for many of these species, in particular seals that use both terrestrial and aquatic coastal habitat and are vulnerable to habitat degradation. Increasing exploitation of marine resources has increased their exposure to a range of anthropogenic effects including pollution and habitat loss. As top predators seals interact with commercial fisheries both directly and indirectly for resources and conflicts arise. The relatively recent move towards ‘greener’ resource exploitation such as marine renewable energy does not come without negative consequences for marine mammals including seals, which are afforded protection under national and international conservation legislation, highlighting the difficulties faced by resource managers. The sustainable exploitation of resources whilst conserving biodiversity is a challenging task and effective management implementation depends on appropriate policy informed by reliable scientific data. This paper outlines the conservation needs of seals in Irish waters, reviews our current knowledge of these species in Irish water, provides a critical analysis of the existing legislative framework and describes how research outputs can inform present and future policy decisions.     

Determining policy-efficient management strategies in fisheries using data envelopment analysis (DEA)

In this paper, the authors analyze a wide range of recreational management strategies for their impacts on red snapper yield, economic surplus and the fish stock. Simulating a wide range of policies, the authors find Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) inspired policy efficiency frontiers that lead to finding those management strategies that offer the greatest level of economic surplus for any biological target, looking at both the east and west Gulf of Mexico fisheries. Red snapper has been declared overfished since 1988 and the 2005 SEDAR 7 stock assessment declared red snapper were overfished and undergoing overfishing. In November 2009, the update of the assessment declared that overfishing was no longer occurring but that the red snapper stocks needed to be rebuilt. In this analysis, it was found that red snapper are neither overfished or undergoing overfishing. The main difference between the present model and the SEDAR 7 model is that the latest model uses a higher mortality rate for juveniles and a density dependent model. The authors also suggest that the east and west should be managed as separate units.     

Ecosystem-based marine spatial management: Review of concepts, policies, tools, and critical issues

Conventional sectoral management and piecemeal governance are considered less and less appropriate in pursuit of sustainable development. Ecosystem based marine spatial management (EB-MSM) is an approach that recognizes the full array of interactions within an ecosystem, including human uses, rather than considering single issues, species, or ecosystem services in isolation. Marine spatial planning and ocean zoning are emerging concepts that can support EB-MSM. EB-MSM is driven by high-level goals that managers aim to achieve through the implementation of measures. High-level goals and objectives need to be translated into more operational objectives before specific targets, limits and measures can be elaborated.Monitoring, evaluation and adaptation are necessary to ensure that marine management measures are both effective and efficient. Solid monitoring frameworks are the foundation of adaptive management, as they provide the necessary information to evaluate performance and the effectiveness of management actions. Marine protected areas (MPAs) - possibly set up in networks - constitute a key component in EB-MSM policies and practises and have been applied as a cornerstone in conservation of marine biodiversity, management of fish populations, development of coastal tourism, etc. Moreover, MPA experiences have provided methods and concepts (such as zoning) to a wider EB-MSM context. The assignment of values to biophysical features of the marine environment allows the direct assessment of related management choices and may assist EB-MSM.A range of monetary valuation techniques have been proposed to reduce attributes of goods and services to a single metric. However, in the marine environment such an approach is often over simplistic, and thus less reductive techniques may be necessary. Rather than producing a single metric, the results of non-monetary assessments guide policy allowing weight to be given as necessary to potential areas of conflict and consensus.Strategies to take into account climate change effects and geohazard risks in EB-MSM have been applied or proposed worldwide. EB-MSM regimes must be alert to such risks and flexible to account for changes.     

珠三角与粤北地区农村居民旅游认知特征对比分析

对珠三角的广州、东莞、佛山、江门以及粤北地区的韶关、清远和河源7个代表样地共计14个样本镇的1 120人(户)进行了农村居民旅游态度与出游特征问卷调查,并对1 040份有效样本从人口特征、旅游认知特征和旅游消费行为特征等方面进行详细分析.结果表明:(1)珠三角地区和粤北地区农村居民对旅游的态度普遍较好,但获取旅游信息的...     

Mining threatens isolated indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon

The largest concentration of isolated indigenous peoples in the world is in the indigenous lands of the Brazilian Legal Amazon. However, the right to self-isolation and the survival of these societies are at risk because powerful interests want to exploit the natural assets of their relatively untouched areas. These ambitions are reflected in a recent bill (PL191/2020), which proposes opening up indigenous lands to mining. We assess the threat imposed by mining to isolated peoples and the indigenous territories they occupy. Specifically, we cross data on mining requests received by the National Mining Agency with information on the distribution of isolated indigenous groups recorded by the Socio-Environmental Institute, in order to evaluate the number and aerial extent of requests for mineral prospecting and operation registered in indigenous lands with isolated groups. We also analyze whether mining requests are related to the presence of isolated groups, the state of knowledge about them, and the current existence of illegal mining operations. Our results indicate that, even though mining is not yet allowed in indigenous lands, mining companies are very active in the search for exploitable areas in these territories. If bill PL191/2020 passes, mining operations would affect more than 10 million hectares in 25 indigenous lands in the Legal Amazon region that are home to 43 isolated groups. We found that the situation is especially worrisome for 21 isolated groups whose lands concentrate 97% of all mining requests. Mineral-rich areas overlap remote areas where more indigenous peoples persist in isolation, so that mining requests are significantly related to the presence of isolated groups. Nonetheless, we show that companies are hesitant to invest in lands with well-known isolated groups that could impede the licensing process and pose reputational risks to the companies. Brazil’s mechanisms for environmental and indigenous protection have been dismantled by the current presidential administration and offer no guarantees for a safe coexistence between extractive operations and isolated peoples. Thus, the approval of bill PL191/2020 could lead to undesired contact and the extinction of a large number of unique peoples, societies and cultures.     

Advising national climate policy makers: A longitudinal analysis of the UK Climate Change Committee

Despite the recent proliferation of national climate change advisory bodies, very little is known about what advice they provide, to whom, and when. To address these gaps in the literature, this article systematically analyses all 700 of the recommendations made by the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) in the period 2009–20. The CCC is one of the oldest climate change advisory bodies of its kind in the world and its design has been widely emulated by other countries. For the first time, this article documents how the CCC’s mitigation and adaptation recommendations have changed over time with respect to their addressee, sectoral focus and policy targets. It reveals that they became: more numerous per year; more cross-sectoral in their nature; clearer in targeting a specific addressee; and more focused in referring to specific policy targets. By drawing on Fischer’s synthesis of policy evaluation to derive a measure of policy ambition, it also reveals that despite many of its recommendations being repeated year after year, the CCC has become more willing to challenge the policy status quo. It concludes by identifying future research needs in this important and fast-moving area of climate governance, notably understanding the conditions in which the recommendations of advisory bodies (do not) impact national policy.