区域地质灾害趋势预测理论与方法

区域地质灾害趋势预测对于国家土地资源的合理开发利用和制定减灾防治对策具有重要意义。本文总结了区域地质灾害三个层次评估的理论与方法, 即基于自然属性的地质灾害研究、基于风险分析的地质灾害研究和基于信息-决策支持系统的地质灾害研究。作者认为, 运用GIS技术, 将这三层次的评价方法结合起来, 是进行区域地质灾害趋势预测的有效途径。本文最后介绍了1∶600万全国地质灾害趋势预测图编制的思路与成果。     

外商在华投资的地域差异对我国经济发展格局的影响

本文从对外资企业调查的角度出发，力图分析影响外商在华投资地域差异性的主要因素。在探讨外商投资地域特征的基础上，从三个层次研究了外资在华分布的不平衡性对我国经济发展格局起了再次塑造作用。以优化经济发展软环境为契机，对我国未来利用外资发展区域经济提供了科学的政策和建议。     

“This is a Montreal Issue”: Negotiating responsibility in global production and investment networks

While geographers have increasingly focused on how global commodity and production networks create new ‘geographies of responsibility’ there has been little empirical work considering how responsibility is worked into management systems and social activism in such networks. Drawing on literature from global production networks, geographies of responsibility and other literatures, this paper explores the dynamic and contested ways in which concepts of responsibility can play a role in network regulation. Both foreign direct investment and commodity networks (here referred to as ‘global production and investment networks’) are subject to complex negotiations and compromises involving corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives as well as shareholder activist, human rights, labor, and environmental activism. This is illustrated by reference to conflicts in Canada over Alcan, Inc.’s investments from 1993 to 2007 in the Utkal Alumina Project in Orissa, India. The project involved significant socio-environmental conflict. In Canada, Alcan’s investment was met by civil society campaigns that tested the company’s commitments to sustainability and corporate social responsibility. The case study suggests revising theories of geographies of responsibility. While foreign direct investment can create new relationships between distant others, these are fluid and contingent and not necessarily desirable. Rather than see networks as a source of responsibility we should work to ensure that the relationships that networks foster be structured to ensure our deeper values are respected.     

Funding low carbon cities: local perspectives on opportunities and risks

There are compelling reasons for policy makers to be interested in the low-carbon agenda. More than half of the world's population lives in, and more than half of the world's economic output comes from, cities. Up to 70% of global carbon emissions can also be attributed to consumption that takes place in cities. Recent research has shown that cost-effective investments in low-carbon options could deliver a 40% reduction in GHG emissions from cities by 2020, while also providing wider economic benefits such as enhanced competitiveness and increased employment. As yet, however, investments in low-carbon cities have not been made at scale due mainly to the scale of the finance required, local government budgetary constraints, and perceptions about their costs and benefits. With a focus on the UK, a contemporary account is provided of what local authorities see as the major financial risks associated with funding low-carbon cities. Practical proposals – which also have more general relevance to the future financing of low-carbon cities around the world – are offered on how local authorities, in conjunction with central government, the private sector, and institutional investors, can effectively manage these risks.

Policy relevance

Cities house more than half of the world's population, generate more than half of the world's economic output, and produce between 40% and 70% of all anthropogenic GHG emissions. In the UK, 70% of such emissions are under the influence of its local authorities. Thus, one of the key public policy challenges for the low-carbon transition is how it should be financed. There are several obstacles and related risks to this transition, including financial and legal obstacles and the differing views and perceptions of stakeholders. These can be attenuated, somewhat, by national government support at scale, local authority leadership, and cooperation between other authorities and the private sector, and the development of tools and guidance to reduce transaction costs.     

The A.D. 79 eruption as a future explosive scenario in the Vesuvian area: evaluation of associated risk

 Due to the lack of an effective policy of planning and prevention, over the past decades the area around Mt. Vesuvio has undergone a steady increase in population and uncontrolled housing development. Consequently, it has become one of the most hazardous volcanic areas in the world. In order to mitigate the damage that the impact of an explosive event would cause in the area, the Department of Civil Defense has worked out an Emergency Management Plan using the A.D. 1631 subplinian eruption as the most probable short-term event. However, from 25 000 years B.P. to present, the activity of the Somma-Vesuvio volcano has shown a sequence of eight eruptive cycles, which always began with a strong plinian eruption. In this paper we utilize the A.D. 79 eruption as an example of a potential large explosive eruption that might occur again at Vesuvio. A detailed tephrostratigraphic analysis of the eruption products was processed by a multivariate statistical analysis. This analysis proved useful for identifying marker layers in the sequences, thus allowing the recognition of some major phases of synchronous deposition and hence the definition of the chronological and spatial evolution of the eruption. By combining this reconstruction with land-use maps, a scenario is proposed with time intervals in the eruptive sequence similar to those reported in Pliny's letter. Thus, it was calculated that, after 7 h from the start of the eruption, a total area of approximately 300 km² would be covered with the eruption products. In the following 11 h, a total area of approximately 500 km² would be involved. The third and last phase of deposition would not cause significant variation in the total area involved, but it would bring about an increase in the thickness of the pyroclastic deposits in the perivolcanic area. Received: 30 November 1996 / Accepted: 29 May 1997     

Volcanic risk ranking for Auckland, New Zealand. I: Methodology and hazard investigation

Volcanic eruptions typically produce a number of hazards, and many regions are at risk from more than one volcano or volcanic field. So that detailed risk assessments can be carried out, it is necessary to rank potential volcanic hazards and events in terms of risk. As it is often difficult to make accurate predictions regarding the characteristics of future eruptions, a method for ranking hazards and events has been developed that does not rely on precise values. Risk is calculated individually for each hazard from each source as the product of likelihood, extent and effect, based on the parameters order of magnitude. So that multiple events and outcomes can be considered, risk is further multiplied by the relative probability of the event occurring (probability_e) and the relative importance of the outcome (importance_o). By adding the values obtained, total risk is calculated and a ranking can be carried out.This method was used to rank volcanic hazards and events that may impact the Auckland Region, New Zealand. Auckland is at risk from the Auckland volcanic field, Okataina volcanic centre, Taupo volcano, Tuhua volcano, Tongariro volcanic centre, and Mt. Taranaki volcano. Relative probabilities were determined for each event, with the highest given to Mt. Taranaki. Hazards considered were, for local events: tephra fall, scoria fall and ballistic impacts, lava flow, base surge and associated shock waves, tsunami, volcanic gases and acid rain, earthquakes and ground deformation, mudflows and mudfills, lightning and flooding; and for distal events: tephra fall, pyroclastic flows, poisonous gases and acid rain, mudflows and mudfills, climate variations and earthquakes. Hazards from each source were assigned values for likelihood, with the largest for tephra fall from all sources, earthquakes and ground deformation, lava flows, scoria fall and base surge for an Auckland eruption on land, and earthquakes and ground deformation from an Auckland eruption in the ocean. The largest values for extent were for tephra fall and climate variation from each of the distal centres. However, these parameters do not give a true indication of risk. In a companion paper the effect of each hazard is fully investigated and the risk ranking completed.     

Risk analysis for clustered check dams due to heavy rainfall

Check dams are commonly constructed around the world for alleviating soil erosion and preventing sedimentation of downstream rivers and reservoirs.Check dams are more vulnerable to failure due to their less stringent flood control standards compared to other dams.Determining the critical precipitation that will result in overtopping of a dam is a useful approach to assessing the risk of failure on a probabilistic basis and for providing early warning in case of an emergency.However,many check dams are built in groups,spreading in several tributaries in cascade forms,comprising a complex network.Determining the critical precipitation for dam overtopping requires a knowledge of its upstream dams on whether they survived or were overtopped during the same storm,while these upstream dams in turn need the information for their upstream dams.The current paper presents an approach of decomposing the dam cluster into(1)the heading dam,(2)border dams,and(3)intermediate dams.The algorithm begins with the border dams that have no upstream dams and proceeds with upgraded maps without the previous border dams until all the dams have been checked.It is believed that this approach is applicable for small-scale check dam systems where the time lag of flood routing can be neglected.As a pilot study,the current paper presents the analytical results for the Wangmaogou Check Dam System that has 22 dams connected in series and parallel.The algorithm clearly identified 7 surviving dams,with the remaining ones being overtopped for a storm of 179.6 mm in 12 h,which is associated with a return period of one in 200 years.     

A multi-level perspective on climate risks and drivers of entrepreneurial robustness – Findings from sectoral comparison in alpine Austria

Recent works on organizational adaptation to climate change have repeatedly stressed that – despite concerns about large-scale impacts of climate change on supply chain networks – studies on climate change adaptation in manufacturing industries are still surprisingly scarce. The following study develops a systemic analytical framework based on which climate risks for manufacturing industries are reviewed and drivers (defined as supportive factors) of entrepreneurial robustness are examined. The analysis builds upon a case study in the alpine Austrian state of Tyrol where an intense regional rise of average temperatures occurs, going along with increased risks of natural mountain hazards and exposed settlement structures. In this climate-sensitive setting the authors conducted a survey on risk perceptions among 102 managers from manufacturing firms. Based on a comparison of the sectors metal and engineering, timber products, and construction, the authors argue that drivers of entrepreneurial robustness can be subsumed under five major strategic principles: (a) the deployment of slack resources, (b) vertical supply chain integration, (c) manufacturing flexibility, (d) material efficiency, and (e) technological risk prevention. Departing from the empirical results, the authors argue that across these principles the development of drivers depends on an interplay of structural prerequisites and human decisions on the levels of the focal firm, the supply chain network, and the political, economic, and geographic environment. In this sense, the authors conceptualize different forms of contingencies – thus effects influencing the development of drivers – within an ontology which may support further system-oriented analysis of climate change adaptation in industry.     

基于GIS的沪汉蓉高铁线路暴雨灾害风险区划

通过收集整理沪汉蓉高铁沿线近13 a相关资料,采用层次分析法、专家打分法和加权综合评价法,通过暴雨灾害的危险性、孕灾环境的敏感性、承载体的易损性和防灾减灾能力等4类因子构建了沪汉蓉高铁线路暴雨灾害风险区划模型,绘制了沪汉蓉高铁线路暴雨灾害风险区划图。结果表明,沪汉蓉高铁线路暴雨灾害风险呈现西部高于东部特征,4个高风险区主要集中在武汉以西,分别为湖北天门—潜江段、宜昌西部—恩施东部、重庆东部、四川内江—资阳段,高风险区段与高铁沿线主要暴雨多发区中心位置基本一致,研究成果对沪汉蓉高铁沿线市县开展暴雨灾害防御工作具有较好的决策参考作用。