基于风险地形建模的毒品犯罪风险评估和警务预测

犯罪具有明显的时空特征,研究犯罪问题离不开时间和空间维度分析,以及产生犯罪的社会、地理、生态、环境等因素。风险地形建模是美国学者研发的空间风险评估和警务预测技术,已在全球六大洲45个国家和美国35个州得到了独立测试和验证,被广泛应用于警务预测、国土安全、交通事故、公共医疗、儿童虐待、环境污染、城市发展等多个领域。在毒品、纵火、爆炸、强奸、抢劫、盗窃等犯罪研究领域更是取得了显著成果。本文运用犯罪热点分析和风险地形建模,以长三角地区N市毒品犯罪为研究对象,对该市2015年毒品犯罪的危险因子、空间盲区、风险地形进行分析,探索毒品犯罪的生成机理和演化规律,并对2016年毒品犯罪进行预测。研究结果表明,N市毒品犯罪呈现明显的犯罪热点和冷点;出租屋、酒店、车站、ATM机、停车场、娱乐场所、城市快速路、网吧是N市毒品犯罪的风险性因素。风险地形建模能较好地预测毒品犯罪。公安机关禁毒部门应据此进行严密管控,逐步限制、消除犯罪产生地、犯罪吸引地、犯罪促进地的生存土壤和条件。     

国外生态旅游研究进展及启示

作为替代性旅游和可持续旅游的实现形式,生态旅游从提出就受到学者们的重视。本文以Web of Science核心合辑收录的国外生态旅游期刊文章为基础,对筛选出的546篇文献进行综述分析,梳理和归纳相应的研究热点和研究方法,并从生态旅游内涵、利益相关者、客源市场、目的地、影响和评估6方面阐明国外生态旅游的研究进展和主要内容。结果表明：国外生态旅游研究以应用为导向,具有研究区域资源特征明显、研究对象不断扩展、研究内容逐渐深入的特点,并呈现跨学科、多视角的研究态势。结合国外的研究经验,本文提出未来中国应就完善生态旅游理论体系、妥善处理利益相关者的关系、总结生态旅游者行为规律、拓展目的地的研究尺度和管理模式、重视生态旅游的影响研究和优化效果评估方法6方面加强研究,以促使研究体系完善和优化。     

Economic‐Development Stakeholder Perspectives on Boomtown Dynamics in the Eagle Ford Shale,Texas

Unconventional oil and gas production in the United States reversed a decades‐old trend of rising oil imports, provided an argument for lifting the U.S. crude oil export ban and motivated the development of domestic natural gas export facilities. But the most visible impact of unconventional‐hydrocarbon extraction is the creation of boomtowns in rural regions. Despite widespread media coverage, scholarly analysis of boomtowns is restricted to regional econometric studies with little attention to how economic stakeholders understand and respond to booming economies. Here we analyze interviews with key economic stakeholders in the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas. Respondents consider their community's economic success relative to the price of oil and indicate concerns about the deterioration of roads, high housing demand, and skyrocketing wages. We also re‐examine John Gilmore's foundational work on boomtowns in the 1970s in the context of contemporary unconventional extraction.     

In search of meaningful assessment in the university curriculum: the case for culturally relevant pedagogy

ABSTRACT

The poor performance of Pacific students at university is a concern for every level of society. Conventional models of teaching, learning and assessment have overlooked the cultural background of students, yet the effects of this oversight have been disastrous, alienating and disempowering. Studies of and developments in education in the Pacific and elsewhere offer opportunities to rethink the methods of teaching, learning and assessment of Pacific students in ways that are congruent with their home culture. Informed by the principle of so’a lau pule (the Samoan concept of consensus through consultation and conversation) and ethnographic research methods, this study describes an attempt to rethink ways of teaching, learning and assessing student performance in a third-year course on Resource Conservation and Management in the School of Geography, Earth Science and Environment at the University of the South Pacific. Introduced in 2007, the Student Innovative Contribution to Knowledge (SICK) allows students to participate in key decisions concerning teaching, learning and assessment. SICK is grounded in the principles of inclusiveness and participation. It takes account of the skills and abilities of Pacific students and is aligned with the philosophical basis of Pacific cultures. One hundred and fifty-eight students took part in this study over a 5-year period. Analysis was based on students’ written reviews of the semester’s work, in-depth conversation with individual students and the end-of-the-course evaluation. The findings show that, while students embrace the need for non-conventional forms of teaching, learning and assessment, the most frequently cited responses for non-participation are poor time management and varying perceptions of what is considered an innovative assessment. This study shows that understanding the cultural background of students is critical to creating culturally inclusive learning environments.     

Developing Governance Principles for Public Natural Resources

Wildlife governance principles (WGPs) identify desirable governance characteristics for wildlife conservation in the United States (US). The types of institutional, ecological, and socio-cultural challenges that WGPs are designed to address also affect governance of public natural resources other than wildlife and in places other than the US. This raises the possibility that a similar set of governance principles might help natural resource professionals working in other resource contexts address the particular challenges they face. We describe the process by which we developed WGPs and offer seven practically oriented questions to help natural resource professionals ascertain whether a similar set of principles could improve governance in their context. In some contexts, minor modification of WGPs might be appropriate; in others, the process by which we developed WGPs could serve as a blueprint for formulating appropriate principles.     

Mapping the Stakeholders: Using Social Network Analysis to Increase the Legitimacy and Transparency of Participatory Scenario Planning

Participatory scenario planning (PSP) processes rely on accurate stakeholder identification to develop a key set of critical uncertainties. While many stakeholder analysis methods are able to identify stakeholders and describe their relationships, we found these efforts to have limited use in the fast-moving and in-depth approach of PSP research. We find that social network analysis (SNA) is an efficient, objective, and transparent approach to stakeholder identification in highly contested natural resource management issues. We present a case study of our research on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula to describe how SNA’s ability to contextualize the relations between actors can benefit participatory research.     

Regional differentiation of ecological conservation and its zonal suitability at the county level in China

China’s investments, financial incentives and deductions in terms of ecological conservation are based at the county level. Therefore, the monitoring and assessment of the effects of ecological conservation at the county level is important to provide a scientific basis for the assessment of the ecological and environmental quality at the county scale. This paper quantitatively estimated the dynamics of high-quality ecosystems and vegetation coverage over the past 15 years, and their relationships with the number of ecological conservation programs at the county level were analyzed. Then, the effects of ecological conservation measures on ecological changes at the county level and their regional suitability were assessed and discussed. The results showed that counties with a percentage of high-quality ecosystems greater than 50% were primarily distributed in northeastern China, southern subtropical China and the southeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and those with a percentage lower than 20% were mostly distributed in northwestern China, the southwestern karst region and the North China Plain. In recent decades, ecological conservation has focused on ecologically fragile regions; more than five ecological conservation programs have been implemented in most counties of the Three River Source Region in Qinghai Province, southeastern Tibet, western Sichuan, the Qilian Mountains, southern Xinjiang and other western regions, while only one or zero have been implemented in the eastern coastal area of China. Over the past 15 years, the proportional area of high-quality ecosystems has increased in approximately 53% of counties. The vegetation coverage of counties in the Loess Plateau, Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (Jing-Jin-Ji), Sichuan-Guizhou-Chongqing, and Guangdong-Guangxi provincial-level areas has increased significantly. However, it decreased in northern Xinjiang, central Tibet, central and eastern Inner Mongolia, the Yangtze River Delta and other regions. The relationships between the numbers of ecological conservation programs and the indicators of ecosystem restoration response, such as high-quality ecosystem and vegetation coverage, do not show positive correlations. These results suggest that ecological conservation programs should be planned and implemented according to the distribution patterns of high-quality ecosystems and that restoration measures such as afforestation should follow natural principles and regional differentiation under the background of climate change.     

Big Data Resource Planning for Food Safety: a Preliminary Exploration of the “Environment,Food and Health” Information Chain

Environmental pollution, food safety and health are closely linked. A key challenge in addressing the problem of food safety and protecting public health is building an integrated knowledge base to inform policy and strengthen governance. This requires breaking down the trans-departmental information barrier across the environment, food and health domains to ensure the effective flow of data and the efficient utilization of resources, and facilitate the collaborative governance of food safety. Achieving this will be crucial for the development of health and medical care in China in the era of big data. Currently, the information resources commanded by various departments are incomplete and fragmented. Data resources are also organized in vertical silos and there is a lack of data sharing within and across policy streams. To provide the basis for more effective integrated collection and analysis of data in future, this study summarizes the information resources of various departments whose work relates to interactions between environment, food and health, and presents measures to strengthen top-down design, and establish unified data standards and a big data sharing platform. It also points to the need for increased training of data analysts with interdisciplinary expertise.     

Analysis of Spatial Mismatch of Tourism Development in Guangdong Province

The spatial mismatch situation of tourism development in Guangdong Province is analyzed by gravity model and two-dimensional matrix based on the spatial mismatch hypothesis, and the results are visualized using ArcGIS software. This study finds that varying degrees of spatial mismatch exist between the level of tourism development, abundance of tourism resources and accessibility of tourism locations in the 21 cities in Guangdong Province. The gravity centers for tourism economy, tourism resources and tourism location are (113.55° E, 23.00° N), (113.69° E, 23.21° N) and (113.74° E, 22.86° N), respectively. According to the two-dimensional combinatorial matrices, synchronous development is shown in 10 prefecture-level cities for the tourism revenue-resource abundance combination, whereas it is shown in seven prefecture-level cities for the tourism revenue-tourism location combination. Guangzhou and Shenzhen are synchronous-double high zones for both combinations, while Foshan, Qingyuan, Yangjiang, Zhongshan and Jieyang are deviating-negative mismatch zones for both combinations. Furthermore, the vast majority of prefecture-level cities within the province currently present mismatching trends in tourism development. Based on the analysis results, corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are put forward taking into account the actual situation and opportunities for further tourism development in various prefecture-level cities.     

Use a Spatial Analysis Model to Assess Habitat Quality in Lashihai Watershed

Habitat quality assessments are of great significance for protecting biodiversity. This study analyzes the changing habitat quality of Lashihai watershed based on SPOT satellite images. We extracted the land use data for Lashihai watershed in Yunnan province for the years 2000 and 2015, and then used an InVEST model to evaluate habitat degradation, habitat quality and habitat scarcity in the study area from 2000 to 2015. Spatial statistical methods were used to determine changes to spatial dynamics. Results indicate that the number of areas with habitat degradation was generally small, and that both the number of areas with habitat degradation and the degree of degradation had fallen noticeably during the fifteen-year study period. In general, the quality of habitats was maintained or improved, while the quality of habitats decreased in only a few areas. The scarcity of habitats for cultivated land had increased, the tension between people and land use was relatively prominent. The reason habitat quality in Lashihai watershed has improved can be attributed to three factors: 1) The policy of returning farmland to forests since 2000 has been well implemented and has achieved remarkable results. Loss of forests from logging and deforestation has basically been eliminated, and great progress has been made restoring the ecological environment. 2) High background value of quality habitat suitability benefits from the research area’s high vegetation coverage. 3) The development of the local tourism economy has transformed the area’s ecological advantages into an economic bonus, greatly increasing the income level and living standards of residents. At the same time, the ecological resource bonus has increased the enthusiasm of residents for ecological protection and has helped to promote the protection of local eco-systems, both reducing ecological degradation and improving habitat quality. At the same time, increasing conflicts between land and people should be addressed. Support is needed to promote development of the ecological economy while continuously reducing ecological degradation and further increasing residents’ income. There must be less reliance on industry and less pressure on both land and people, all the while ensuring that the local economy and ecology can more forward together in a sustainable way.