Participation in payments for ecosystem services: Case studies from the Lacandon rainforest, Mexico

Understanding people’s willingness to participate in projects and programmes of payments for ecosystem services (PES) has not been a key analytical concern of the scholarly literature around this new field of environmental policy and practice. This paper analyses participation in four communities benefiting from payments for biodiversity and carbon fixation in Mexico, and contrasts the results for each case with neighbouring communities that do not receive payments. We take a holistic approach that accounts for procedural rules, actors’ interactions, institutions and values, and individuals’ characteristics. We show that the nature of PES rules and the effectiveness of communication with government officers and NGOs influence resource managers’ ability and willingness to participate. We highlight community size, resource managers’ ability to diversify livelihood activities and local perspectives on the conservation of common forests, particularly sacred values and intergenerational concerns on forest conservation, as critical participation drivers. This analysis provides insights on why and how these new institutions may be attractive for some resource managers and permits to draw some recommendations for the future design of PES projects and programmes.     

City senses: On the radical possibilities of pragmatism in geography

This paper explores the radical possibilities of pragmatism for geography using the illustration of arguments concerning a renewed (urban) public realm through the exchange of validity claims in communication. Pressing further the pragmatist possibilities of Habermas’s idea of communicative action it draws on John Dewey’s work, and a range of contemporary pragmatist philosophers, to consider human communicability in its widest sense. This is then explored using an example of the spatiality and performativity of body-minds in a range of communicative spaces of the city. Then the paper moves on to consider the radical implications of pragmatism for geography in general in terms of body-mind/environment relations; a transactional view of space; experience, rationality and radical democracy.     

Identifying China’s leading world city: a network approach

This paper reports our research on China’s world cities. Formal network analysis of air passenger linkages for recent years among China’s most populous cities and among many of the world’s largest cities allows us to identify the country’s leading world city from among the leading Mainland candidates, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. We theorize our findings about China’s world cities in relation to both global forces (and China’s increasing entanglement with them) and the policies and actions of the national state. We examine the national and global urban network through a longitudinal, two-level analysis of airline passenger travel for four time points between about 1990 and 2005. We show that Beijing was China’s leading world city at the beginning of the time period, a status it lost nationally in as early as 1995, and then globally 10 years later. On the other hand Shanghai became China’s leading world city, and it acquired this status first nationally in 2000, and then globally in 2005. The changing status of the Chinese capital corresponds to the country’s increasing involvement with the capitalist world economy. Shanghai’s ascendance as the leading world city in China may indicate that global forces have come to play an increasingly important role relative to that of the developmental state.

青岛胶州湾地区重大工程建设项目设计的地质基础

本文以青岛胶州湾地区的基本地质条件为基础，分析研究了该地区地质基础对重大工程建设项目设计的影响，提出了青岛市重大工程项目设计的基本原则和对城市整体规划的具体建议。     

A modelling study of ecosystem dynamics and nutrient cycling in the Humber plume, UK

The European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model (ERSEM) has been coupled with a two-dimensional depth-averaged transport model of the Humber plume region and run to simulate 1988–1989. Simulations of the spatial and temporal variations in chlorophyll-a, nitrate, phosphate and suspended particulate matter distributions in winter, spring and summer show how the development of the spring bloom and subsequent maintenance of primary production is controlled by the physicochemical environment of the plume zone. Results are also shown for two stations, one characterised by the high nutrient and suspended matter concentrations of the plume and the other by the relatively low nutrient and sediment concentrations of the offshore waters. The modelled net primary production at the plume site was 105 g C m⁻² a⁻¹ and 127 g C m⁻² a⁻¹ offshore. Primary production was controlled by light limitation between October and March and by the availability of nutrients during the rest of the year. The phytoplankton nutrient demand is met by in-situ recycling processes during the summer. The likely effect of increasing and decreasing anthropogenic riverine inputs of nitrate and phosphate upon ecosystem function was also investigated. Modelling experiments indicate that increasing the nitrogen to silicate ratio in freshwater inputs increased the production of non-siliceous phytoplankton in the plume. The results of this model have been used to calculate the annual and quarterly mass balances describing the usage of inorganic nitrogen, phosphate and silicate within the plume zone for the period of the NERC North Sea survey (September 1988 to October 1989). The modelled Humber plume retains 3.9% of the freshwater dissolved inorganic nitrogen, 2.2% of the freshwater phosphate and 1.3% of the freshwater silicate input over the simulated seasonal cycle. The remainder is transported into the southern North Sea in either dissolved or particulate form. The reliability of these results is discussed.     

大亚湾海域重金属潜在生态危害评价

采用金属潜在生态危害系数和危害指数的评估方法，评价了大亚湾海域重金属对海洋生态系统的潜在危害。结果表明，大亚湾海域重金属潜在生态危害轻微，而养殖海区和近岸海区的重金属潜在生态危害则相对较重，大亚湾海域重金属的潜在生态危害较珠江口外浅海轻。     

广州在沿海开放城市的旅游形象定位研究

根据国际形象设计发展趋势,提出城市旅游形象设计应有３个层次：一是城市旅游整体形象;二是城市旅游吸引物的特色形象;三是旅游企业形象。根据Ｊｅｎｓｅｎ－Ｖｅｒｂｅｋｅ都市旅游产品界定模式,结合广州实际,分析了广州的旅游吸引物,将广州旅游形象定位为（１）商都旅游,包括购物,美食、商务旅游和现代化城市景观的游览;（２）近现代史迹旅游,包括古代史迹和建筑艺术的观赏,其形象口号为“两个中心”,即商贸中心和近现