Intra-seasonal rainfall and piped water revenue variability in rural Africa

Rainfall patterns influence water usage and revenue from user payments in rural Africa. We explore these dynamics by examining monthly rainfall against 4,888 records of rural piped water revenue in Ghana, Rwanda, and Uganda and quantifying revenue changes over 635 transitions between dry and wet seasons.Results show operators experience revenue variability at regional and intra-seasonal scales. Revenues fall by an average of 30 percent during the wettest months of the year in climate regimes with consistent wet season rainfall. However, seasonally stable revenues are observed in areas where consecutive dry days are common during the wet season, potentially reflecting a dependency on reliable services. We also find changes in tariff level, waterpoint connection type, and payment approach do not consistently prevent or increase seasonal revenue variability.Local revenue generation underpins delivery of drinking water services. Where rainfall patterns remain consistent, piped water operators can expect to encounter seasonal revenue reductions regardless of whether services are provided on or off premises and of how services are paid for. Revenue projections that assume consistent volumetric demand year-round may lead to shortfalls that threaten sustainability and undermine the case for future investment. Intra-seasonal rainfall analysis can enhance rural piped water revenue planning by offering localised insight into demand dynamics and revealing where climate variability may increase dependency on reliable services.     

内蒙古半农半牧区农户生计资产与生计方式研究——以科右中旗双榆树嘎查为例

基于可持续生计框架,采用统计分析和深度访谈法,将研究区293户农户按生计活动类型划为牧户（牛户、羊户、牛羊户和马户）、种植户和非农户,并按农户生计资产总值进一步划为高、中、低3个等级类型,进而分析了不同类型和不同等级农户的生计资产与生计活动及方式的依存关系。研究发现：各类农户的生计资产均值差距明显,牧户最高,为0.37,种植户为0.25,非农户为0.21;牧户的劳动力、草场、牲畜、现金、贷款等资产均值最高,种植户的农机和耕地资产均值最高,非农户的社会资产均值最高。目前,半农半牧区的农户仍然以旱作种植业和草地畜牧业为主要生计,但农牧业生产均面临较大的资源环境压力;非农户只占15.3%,且面临非农就业机会不足、个人技能缺失、语言障碍和务农时间与用工季节的冲突。最后,提出了提高农户收入和改善农户生计的对策建议。     

Land use sustainability on the South-Eastern Amazon agricultural frontier: Recent progress and the challenges ahead

The recent decoupling of deforestation and soybean production has raised optimistic expectations towards enhanced land use sustainability in the South-Eastern Amazon agricultural frontier. Nonetheless, assessing land use sustainability implies not only the consideration of how agricultural activities affect natural ecosystems but also how they impact on society and how society can cope with them. We review some of the forthcoming challenges that the agricultural sector should address to confirm its significant progress towards land use sustainability. Firstly, we assess the recent efforts to adopt environmentally friendly practices with regard to the ongoing intensification process mainly based on double cropping systems. Secondly, while rapid agricultural development has brought major social advances, we evidence a recent trend towards a decoupling of soy production and the Human Development Index at municipality level. We then put this result into perspective considering that the trend towards agricultural intensification based on the use of large amounts of agrochemicals could lead to major health concerns which are still too rarely considered. Finally, we discuss how the recent efficient policies to contain deforestation in the Amazon can cause indirect land use changes in the Brazilian Cerrados and in African Savannas, thus potentially leading to an “illusion of preservation” at global scale. We conclude that new indicators involving social sciences are necessary to better address the complexity of land use sustainability on the still very dynamic agricultural frontier in the South-Eastern Amazon.     

Understanding the dynamics of sustainability transitions: the Home Insulation Program

The Home Insulation Program (HIP) in Australia is an outstanding example of a contemporary attempt to intervene in a socio-technical regime. The program, implemented in 2009 under the then Australian Labor Party government led by Kevin Rudd, was targeted at stimulating the retrofit insulation industry. The objective was to both improve the energy efficiency of homes and thereby contribute to Australia’s emissions reduction targets by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to stimulate the Australian economy at the time of the global financial crisis. The program ended early following a number of economic issues and health and safety concerns. Despite previous investigation into the HIP reviewing its design and implementation, the focus has been on economic issues and health and safety concerns. To date there has been no investigation of the HIP as a sustainability transition. This article integrates socio-technical transition theory (STTT) and political ecology (PE) approaches to analyse the HIP and identify lessons for future sustainability transition initiatives. This is achieved by illustrating the effect of regime management (RM) on the orientation of niche governance (NG) which highlights the importance of considering the RM and NG aspects of STTT with a PE approach in symmetry, in order to adequately account for political and economic contest and power relations, which are ubiquitous in environmental management governance.     

1990-2018年土地利用/覆盖变化研究的特征和进展

土地利用/覆盖变化（LUCC）是地表综合集成研究的一个学科基础和前沿领域。本文利用定性与定量相结合的方法对1990—2018年的LUCC研究进展进行了系统综述。在回顾LUCC研究历程的基础上,结合文献分析,详细总结了不同LUCC研究阶段的基本特征和主要进展。进而阐述了当前LUCC研究面临的主要挑战,提出了未来LUCC研究的主要发展方向。1990年以来LUCC研究关注度不断提升,相关英文论文发文量和引文量呈指数增长趋势。LUCC研究正从1990—2004年间的过程研究阶段和2005—2013年间的影响研究阶段迈向2014年以后的可持续性研究阶段。当前LUCC研究正面临着如何借鉴可持续科学框架、整合新兴技术和支撑国土空间规划等挑战。未来LUCC研究需要与景观可持续科学和地理设计紧密结合,积极面向国土空间规划主战场,为建设美丽中国和落实联合国可持续发展目标服务。     

COVID-19风险冲击对疫区农户生计资本的影响及其抵御效应——以湖北、安徽、重庆为例

新冠肺炎(COVID-19)疫情给农户生计发展带来了重大风险,而生计资本是抵御疫情冲击、阻断返贫危机的关键。论文以重点疫区湖北省及周边地区为研究区域,基于可持续生计分析框架,从生计资本“结构—存量”多维视角出发,采用内生转换回归模型分析疫区465户农户生计资本对疫情风险的抵御作用。研究发现：① 重点疫区农户生计资本总量不高,疫情可能诱发生计脆弱性但不是唯一要素,基层公共卫生建设也极为重要;② 生计资本对疫情风险有显著抵御效应,人力资本维度作用更为凸显,物质资本占比过高反而会削弱疫情应对能力;③ 农户生计资本结构与存量分布不均,家庭劳动力、健康投入、财富积累、居住环境、社会阅历等是核心要素;④ 疫后生计恢复主要依赖于人力与金融资本的积累,而帮扶关键在于应急和兜底保障,要根据区域农户生计特征拟定差异化的疫情常态防控举措。     

Resilience,Adaptability, and Regime Shifts Thinking: A Perspective of Dryland Socio-ecology System

Arid areas are widespread globally and support a third of the world’s population’s livelihoods. The increasing population, urbanization, land-use changes, and the climate significantly affect coupled natural and human systems and threaten environments and socio-ecological land systems. The degradation of drylands poses a severe and widespread threat to the lives of millions of people, especially in developing countries and in the global environment. This review assesses published literature on dryland socio-ecological systems to reveal current research trends and changes in research themes over time and introduces basic theories and advances in dryland socio-ecological system frameworks, resilience measurement, and regime shifts. Developing a more general but adaptable framework and a more practical strategy for long-term coordination and partnership and attaining specific insights into ecological services should receive more attention and be strengthened in future studies on drylands sustainability.     

Explaining the stickiness of supply chain relations in the Brazilian soybean trade

The global trade of agricultural commodities has profound social-ecological impacts, from potentially increasing food availability and agricultural efficiency, to displacing local communities, and to incentivizing environmental destruction. Supply chain stickiness, understood as the stability in trading relationships between supply chain actors, moderates the impacts of agricultural commodity production and the possibilities for supply-chain interventions. However, what factors determine stickiness, that is, how and why farmers, traders, food processors, and consumer countries, develop and maintain trading relationships with specific producing regions, remains unclear. Here, we use data on the Brazilian soy supply chain, a mixed methods approach based on extensive actor-based fieldwork, and an explanatory regression model, to identify and explore the factors that influence stickiness between places of production and supply chain actors. We find four groups of factors to be important: economic incentives, institutional enablers and constraints, social and power dimensions, and biophysical and technological conditions. Among the factors we explore, surplus capacity in soy processing infrastructure, (i.e., crushing and storage facilities) is important in increasing stickiness, as is export-oriented production. Conversely, volatility in market demand expressed by farm-gate soy prices and lower land-tenure security are key factors reducing stickiness. Importantly, we uncover heterogeneity and context-specificity in the factors determining stickiness, suggesting tailored supply-chain interventions are beneficial. Understanding supply chain stickiness does not, in itself, provide silver-bullet solutions to stopping deforestation, but it is a crucial prerequisite to understanding the relationships between supply chain actors and producing regions, identifying entry points for supply chain sustainability interventions, assessing the effectiveness of such interventions, forecasting the restructuring of trade flows, and considering sourcing patterns of supply chain actors in territorial planning.     

21世纪初中国土地利用强度的空间分布格局

土地利用强度直接反映了人类活动对自然生态系统的影响程度,成为全球环境变化的重要驱动力,也是土地利用可持续程度的重要测度指标。当前土地科学研究主要关注土地覆被变化及其对生态环境的影响,而土地利用强度的高分辨率时空表达尚在探索阶段。本文基于土地利用栅格成分数据、遥感数据、社会经济数据等空间化指标要素,根据地表被人类活动干扰程度及其可逆性分为人工地类、半人工地类、半天然地类、天然地类4个一级类型;依据耕作强度、人口密度等人类活动强度指标分为22个二级类型,获得空间分辨率为1 km的中国土地利用强度图。21世纪初全国人工地类、半人工地类、半天然地类和天然地类的面积比例分别为0.71%、19.36%、58.93%和21%,人口分布密集的东南部土地利用强度类型多样,且整体高于人口稀疏的西北部;随着经度的增加,土地利用强度类型由以天然地类和半天然地类为主转变为半天然地类和半人工地类为主;东部省市区土地利用强度高于中、西部,西部省市区土地利用强度最低;土地利用强度类型呈区域性集聚分布。与已有研究相比,该研究有效刻画了中国土地利用强度的空间异质性,有助于深入理解人类与自然生态系统的交互格局及其生态环境效应,为可持续土地利用政策的制定提供科学依据。