Relating a recruitment shift of Patagonian grenadier (Macruronus magellanicus Lönnberg) to large-scale environmental changes off Southern Chile

The SE Pacific stock of Patagonian grenadier (Macruronus magellanicus) showed evidence of an abrupt reduction in recruitment after 2000. This drop exceeded expectations from changes in the spawning stock biomass (SSB), indicating a change in the stock-recruitment relationship (S-R). We evaluated whether variability in recruitment could be explained by concurrent changes in three environmental indices: sea-surface temperature anomaly (SSTA); southern oscillation index (SOI); and latitudinal position of the west wind drift bifurcation (WWDL). Continuous and discrete effects of these indices were tested as covariates in linear log-log and non-linear Ricker's S-R models. Discrete effects represented regime shifts detected in SSTA (1998), SOI (1998) and WWDL (1995). While SSTA was the only continuous variable found to be significant, the discrete 1998 regime shift supported the most informative model. The best Ricker's model considered a discrete intercept change in the same year: 1998. Although a spurious correlation between SSTA and S-R changes is possible, SSTA may be reflecting major physical or biological changes relevant to M. magellanicus juveniles in the SE Pacific.     

Adoption of the arctic search and rescue agreement: A shift of the arctic regime toward a hard law basis?

This paper examines the Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement—the first legally-binding instrument negotiated and adopted under the auspices of the Arctic Council—and analyzes its implications for the current Arctic regime. Led by the Arctic Council, the Arctic regime was established in a soft law format. However, the soft law nature and restricted mandates of the Arctic Council have limited its capacity to respond to new issues emerging from climate change, particularly those related to the exploitation of oil and gas reserves, commercial shipping through the region, effects on wildlife, and impacts on indigenous peoples' homelands and culture. The adoption of the Agreement represents a new approach for the Arctic States to respond to these new challenges. At the same time, it does not imply that a legally-binding instrument is necessarily preferable for every issue, and importantly, the new Arctic Agreement does not establish new institutional relationships, suggesting satisfaction among the Arctic States with the existing arrangements. Thus, although the Arctic regime is undoubtedly changing, this change should not be treated today as a shift from soft to hard law. What is more certain is that the Arctic Council will continue to function as a cooperative forum where the Arctic States can address these challenges, and its importance will only increase in coming years.     

Streamflow regimes of the Yanhe River under climate and land use change,Loess Plateau,China

Soil and water conservation measures including terracing, afforestation, construction of sediment‐trapping dams, and the ‘Grain for Green Program’ have been extensively implemented in the Yanhe River watershed, of the Loess Plateau, China, over the last six decades, and have resulted in large‐scale land use and land cover changes. This study examined the trends and shifts in streamflow regime over the period of 1953–2010 and relates them to changes in land use and soil and water conservation and to the climatic factors of precipitation and air temperature. The non‐parametric Mann–Kendall test and the Pettitt test were used to identify trends and shifts in streamflow and base flow. A method based on precipitation and potential evaporation was used to evaluate the impacts of climate variability and changes in non‐climate factors changes on annual streamflow. A significant decrease (p = 0.01) in annual streamflow was observed related to a significant change point in 1996, mostly because of significant decreases in streamflow (p = 0.01) in the July to September periods in subsequent years. The annual base flow showed no significant trend from 1953 to 2010 and no change point year, mostly because there were no significant seasonal trends, except for significant decreases (p = 0.05) in the July to September periods. There was no significant trend for precipitation over the studied time period, and no change point was detected. The air temperature showed a significant increasing trend (p < 0.01), and 1986 (p < 0.01) was the change point year. The climate variability, as measured by precipitation and temperature, and non‐climate factors including land use changes and soil and water conservation were estimated to have contributed almost equally to the reduction in annual streamflow. Soil and water conservation practices, including biological measures (e.g. revegetation, planting trees and grass) and engineering measures (such as fish‐scale pits, horizontal trenches, and sediment‐trapping dams) play an important role in reduction of the conversion of rainfall to run‐off. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wasting the rural: Meat,manure, and the politics of agro-industrialization in contemporary China

This paper uses pork as a lens on China’s rural transformations. Taking the industrialization of pig farming in the reform era as a trace on broader processes of social and environmental change, it advances three arguments. First, the massive increase in pork production and consumption since 1978 has been propelled by an industrial meat regime. A party-state led and agribusiness-operated regime, it articulates modernist notions of meat-as-progress with the relentless drive for capital accumulation. Second, using Marx’s concept of metabolic rift, the paper examines how processes of concentration in the industrial meat regime are at the same time processes of separation. This dialectical approach highlights the contradictions inherent in ongoing attempts to disembed capitalist production from biological and social relations. Finally, while official party-state discourse conceptualizes “the rural” as a production base for surplus value, and/or as a site for preserving environmental integrity, the paper’s analysis reveals a further unofficial recasting of the rural: in the process of agroindustrialization, the rural is also a sink for offloading capitalist crises. Between the rivers of manure that flow from industrial livestock operations and contaminate rural waterways; the loss of soil nutrients and food calories in the inefficient conversion of grains and oilseeds into industrial meat; the erosion of agricultural knowledge and practice that accompanies the dispossession of China’s farmers; and the shifting values of pigs, pork, and manure, this is a system that “wastes” the rural in service of capital.     

科尔沁沙地春季冷锋过境的地面风况特征

对13个气象台站2014年5月上旬逐时风况的分析发现：（1）受高空槽和地面低压的影响,科尔沁沙地冷锋过境时瞬时风速8h内快速增加到10m·5s^-1以上,风向转为西北风;（2）上风向锡林郭勒草原的冷锋推进速度约为12.5m·5s^-1,科尔沁沙地主体部分则降到9.21m·5s^-1,总体推进速度因地而异;（3）风速的功率谱以大兴安岭东麓的林西县幅值最大,科尔沁左翼后旗最小;（4）沙地和草原两地区分别存在区域性10h、25h和2h、4h周期性,而冷锋过境引起的强风周期性不明显;（5）常年稳定而频繁的冷锋过境,不仅造成了沙丘的形态变化和不同程度的位移,而且还塑造和维持着该区沙丘群的多种空间格局。     

Nonprofit Foundations and Grassroots Organizing: Reshaping Urban Governance

Collaborative urban governance has increased the role of community organizations in local decision-making processes. These organizations need financial resources in order to participate in urban governance. In this article, I examine the impact of foundation grants on the relationships and agendas of four community organizations in one neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. Drawing on interviews, observations of organizations, and archival research, I demonstrate that in the 1990s, nonprofit foundations had a significant impact on the formation of new organizations and on their agendas in the neighborhood. Foundations are, therefore, an important player in urban governance, shaping a “neighborhood policy regime.”     

Water temperature dynamics in High Arctic river basins

Despite the high sensitivity of polar regions to climate change and the strong influence of temperature upon ecosystem processes, contemporary understanding of water temperature dynamics in Arctic river systems is limited. This research gap was addressed by exploring high‐resolution water column thermal regimes for glacier‐fed and non‐glacial rivers at eight sites across Svalbard during the 2010 melt season. Mean water column temperatures in glacier‐fed rivers (0.3–3.2 °C) were lowest and least variable near the glacier terminus but increased downstream (0.7–2.3 °C km^–1). Non‐glacial rivers, where discharge was sourced primarily from snowmelt runoff, were warmer (mean: 2.9–5.7 °C) and more variable, indicating increased water residence times in shallow alluvial zones and increased potential for atmospheric influence. Mean summer water temperature and the magnitude of daily thermal variation were similar to those of some Alaskan Arctic rivers but low at all sites when compared with alpine glacierized environments at lower latitudes. Thermal regimes were correlated strongly (p < 0.01) with incoming short‐wave radiation, air temperature, and river discharge. Principal drivers of thermal variability were inferred to be (i) water source (i.e. glacier melt, snowmelt, groundwater); (ii) exposure time to the atmosphere; (iii) prevailing meteorological conditions; (iv) river discharge; (v) runoff interaction with permafrost and buried ice; and (vi) basin‐specific geomorphological features (e.g. channel morphology). These results provide insight into the potential changes in high‐latitude river systems in the context of projected warming in polar regions. We hypothesize that warmer and more variable temperature regimes may prevail in the future as the proportion of bulk discharge sourced from glacial meltwater declines and rivers undergo a progressive shift towards snow water and groundwater sources. Importantly, such changes could have implications for aquatic species diversity and abundance and influence rates of ecosystem functioning in high‐latitude river systems. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Decreasing trend of sediment transfer function of the Upper Yellow River,China, in response to human activity and climate change

Abstract

An index (F_s) for sediment transfer function is introduced, based on the sediment budget at the channel scale. The purpose of this study is two-fold: to gain a deeper insight into how F_s is influenced by natural and human factors, and to provide some new knowledge for decision making in the management of the Upper Yellow River, China. Since 1960, the F_s of the Lanzhou to Toudaoguai reach of the Upper Yellow River shows a decreasing trend. At the drainage basin level, the decreased F_s can be explained by changes in precipitation and air temperature, as well as by a number of variables describing human activity, such as reservoir regulation, water diversion, and soil and water conservation. The higher temperature reduces the transfer function, while the larger runoff coefficient increases it. At the channel level, the decreased F_s can be explained by a number of variables of flow and sediment input. Three countermeasures for restoration of the F_s are suggested.

Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz     

Illegal Farmland Conversion in China's Urban Periphery: Local Regime and National Transitions

Through a case study in a village located in suburban Haikou City, Hainan Province, this article suggests the existence of a local development regime that exercises illegal farmland conversion in China's urban periphery. This regime consists not only of state officials and business investors, but also of local farmers anxious for off-farm employment. Our study highlights the broad transitions that led to the rise of local development regimes in China's urban periphery. These transitions include (1) the development of the local state, (2) farmers' changing relations with local authorities, and (3) the asymmetrical liberalization of land transaction rights in rural and urban areas. Whereas the state government still manages to intervene in the local conversion of farmland, such intervention is increasingly ineffective as economic liberalization intensifies. A series of potential policies are recommended to protect farmland and agricultural livelihoods in the context of rapid urbanization.     

济南泉域地下水位动态及其对降水响应的交叉小波分析

利用1988—2009年济南泉域8个地下水位动态观测点不同时段观测资料及1998—2009年降水数据,采用连续小波变换、交叉小波变换方法对济南泉域地下水位动态的多时间尺度特征、相互关系及其对降水的响应进行了分析。结果表明:①济南泉域地下水位动态存在显著的0.82～1.16 a的主振荡周期,低频部分仅在部分年份存在1.95～3.09 a的振荡周期;②含水岩组富水性对地下水位动态存在影响,研究区主径流方向上弱富水性地段地下水位动态时滞较强富水性地段长,强富水性地段4个观测孔地下水位波动时序基本一致;③地下水位动态对降水的响应滞后明显,为73.06～134.42 d,总体表现为地下水径流路径越长,响应越滞后;④基于地下水位动态与基于降水—地下水位动态交叉小波变换得到的观测点对水位动态的滞后时间多数一致,同一径流路径上局部点对滞后时间之和与全局点对有很好的对应关系。交叉小波分析可定量评价泉域地下水位动态及其与降水的相关关系。