Sustaining Rocky Mountain Landscapes: Science,Policy, and Management for the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem

In this commentary, we wish to draw from Kathryn's experience in Askole to complicate the argument we developed in favor of an autoethnographic sensibility in the earlier article in this issue (Butz and Besio 2004 ButzDavid KathrynBesio 2004 The value of autoethnography for field research in transcultural settings. The Professional Geographer 56 3 350 60 [Google Scholar]). Just as we used David's first-person singular voice in much of that article, we use Kathryn's voice here to reflect the central influence of her research circumstances on the points that we make. We will return to the first-person plural voice in the commentary's conclusion where we attempt to synthesize the lessons of our two sets of research experiences.     

不同地形特征下云南沿边村寨农户生计资产研究

依据英国国际发展署(DFID)提出的可持续生计分析框架为指导,选取与农户生计资产密切相关的评价因子,建立农户生计资本评价指标体系,对云南省25个沿边县域中具有不同地形特征的64个村寨生计资本进行了测算、对比和分析。研究发现,研究区生计资本总体水平偏低,不同地形特征下村寨间生计资本差异性较大,生计资本不平衡,针对不同的生计脆弱性,提出如下讨论:(1)人力资本上,着重加强和巩固教育和培训力度;(2)金融资本、社会资本上,加大农业现代化水平的投资力度,加大加强农业合作组织的建设;(3)物质资本上,建议增加对农业基础设施和信息媒体的建设;(4)在自然资本的脆弱性上,要在可持续性利用的基础上,大力发展循环经济。     

Discussion of “Challenges in operationalizing the water–energy–food nexus”*

ABSTRACT

We greatly enjoyed reading the paper by Liu et al., which is both timely and rich in insight, as it discusses the challenges in operationalizing the water–energy–food security (WEF) nexus. The nexus approach is gaining increasing attention, both in research and in policy documents, as reflected in the number and content of published documents in the past years and highlighted by the authors.     

Evolution and implementation of the Digital Earth vision,technology and society

Abstract

Digital Earth's framework can be traced to evolutionary threads with historic foundations that fostered the fertile conceptual and technological incubation. These threads incorporate writings, such as those of the visionary engineering-genius, Buckminster Fuller, in conjunction with an array of space age developments in computers, internet and communications, satellites, and education. In 1998, when Vice President Al Gore articulated the Digital Earth Vision, he portrayed the vision based upon myriad technology factors for the intellectual foundation and sparked a worldwide phenomenon that fortuitously included the Chinese leadership's recognition and acceptance. The Beijing Declaration is recognised for its role promulgating the International Digital Earth Symposium series to promote better understanding of the impacts of Digital Earth technology and applications on behalf of all humankind. Combinations of industrial, academic, and government organisations have advanced the technological components necessary for implementing the Digital Earth Vision at a prodigious rate. Commercial leaders, such as Google, have accelerated the influence of large segments of society towards components of the Digital Earth Vision. However, challenges still remain regarding requisite collaboration on international standards for metadata, interoperability, and data formats for space and time that will affect Digital Earth implementation scenarios. Functional requirements for the model Digital Earth geobrowser remain to be fully articulated. The current paper presents an overview of the historical components, the key players on the international scene, the catalytic technological advances, and the societal response to the growth of the Digital Earth community.     

“Building glass refrigerators in the desert”: discourses of urban sustainability and nation building in Qatar

Planners around the Arab Gulf states are increasingly drawing on narratives about “urban sustainability,” despite the fact that the explosive growth of urban centers in the Arabian desert largely defies the logic of sustainability. In this article, I consider how and with what effect these narratives have been deployed by various actors in Doha, Qatar. Eschewing a simple economistic reading, I highlight political geographic context and analyze how actors mobilize and rework these discourses. Drawing on mixed-methods fieldwork in Fall 2013, I illustrate how sustainability narratives are mobilized together with nationalist tropes about modernizing Qatar and building up the country’s international prestige, while preserving local traditions and culture through the built environment. With a focus on recent efforts to green Doha, this analysis sheds light on the disciplining function of nationalist discourses in the production and constitution of what it means to label development practices “green” in contemporary Qatar.     

Political Ecologies of Gentrification

This article explores the possibilities for a political ecology of gentrification. Gentrification research, while firmly rooted in materialist social science, has not yet broadened its interests to consider ecological aspects of, or the role in gentrification of, discourses, social movements, and state policies of the environment. Understanding the political ecologies of gentrification involves recognizing the ways in which material relations and uneven resource consumption, concepts of nature, and the politics of urban environmental management affect gentrification processes. By synthesizing diverse literatures in urban studies, political ecology, urban environmental governance, consumption studies, and gentrification, this study argues that Vancouver, British Columbia represents a well-developed urban crucible for the new political ecologies of gentrification in North America. New developments in Vancouver increasingly contribute to gentrification using languages of sustainability and green consumption in a process of ecological gentrification.     

A global comparison of carbon-water-food nexus based on dietary consumption

Exploring the environmental impact of dietary consumption has become increasingly important to understand the carbon-water-food nexus, vital to achieving UN sustainable development goals. However, the research on diet-based nexus assessment is still lacking. Here, we developed an Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output (EE-MRIO) model with compiling a global MRIO table based on the latest Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) 10 database, where we specifically constructed a water withdrawal account and matched it to each economy at the sectoral level. The regional heterogeneity and synergy of carbon-water nexus affected by dietary patterns in nine countries was explored. The results show that: (1) Dietary consumption is the main use of water withdrawal for each country; Japan, the US, South Korea, and India have a high per capita dietary water footprint. Mainly due to consumption of processed rice, Japan has the highest per capita value of 488 M³/year, accounting for 63.4% of the total water footprint. (2) The total dietary carbon footprints in China, India, and the US are high, which is mainly caused by the high consumption of animal products (including dairy) either due to the large population (China, India) or animal-based diet (the US). Americans have the highest per capita dietary carbon footprint, reaching 755.4 kg/year, 2.76 times that of the global average. (3) Generally, imported/foreign footprints account for a greater share in dietary water and carbon footprints of developed countries with an animal-based diet. (4) In the nexus analysis, the US, Japan, and South Korea are key-nexus countries, vegetables, fruit and nuts, tobacco and beverages, and other food products are selected as key-nexus sectors with relatively high dietary water and carbon footprint. Furthermore, dietary consumption choices lead to different environmental impacts. It is particularly important to find a sustainable dietary route adapted to each country considering that heterogeneity and synergism exist in key-nexus sectors to achieve the relevant Sustainable Development Goals.     

Evaluating restoration of man‐made slopes: a threshold approach balancing vegetation and rill erosion

The management of reclaimed slopes derived from industrial and civil activities (e.g. surface mining and road construction) requires the development of practical stability analysis approaches that integrate the processes and mechanisms that rule the dynamics of these ubiquitous emerging ecosystems. This work describes a new modelling approach focused on stability analysis of water‐limited reclaimed slopes, where interactive relationships between rill erosion and vegetation regulate ecosystem stability. Our framework reproduces two main groups of possible trends along the temporal evolution of reclaimed slopes: successful trends, characterized by widespread vegetation development and the effective control of rill erosion processes; and gullying trends, characterized by the progressive loss of vegetation and a sharp logistic increase in erosion rates. Furthermore, this analytical approach allows the determination of threshold values for the state variables (i.e. vegetation cover and rill erosion) that drive the system's stability, facilitating the identification of critical situations that require specific human intervention (e.g. revegetation or, in very problematic cases, revegetation combined with rill network destruction) to ensure the long‐term sustainability of the restored ecosystem. The application of our threshold analysis framework in Mediterranean‐dry reclaimed slopes derived from surface coal mining (the Teruel coalfield in central‐eastern Spain) showed a good field‐based performance. Therefore, we believe that this model is a valuable contribution for the management of water‐limited reclaimed systems, including those associated with rill erosion, as it provides a tool for the evaluation of restoration success and can play an important role in decision‐making during ecosystem restoration in severely disturbed landscapes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

传统农业地区能值生态足迹分析——以贵州省从江县为例

传统农业生态系统正面临着来自现代化发展及其带来的技术经济变革的严重威胁,在一些传统农业地区现代农业替代传统农业已经引发了严重的生态环境问题。生态足迹,作为可持续发展评价的方法之一,由于无法全面衡量人类活动对生态系统造成的各种影响,因此无法揭示传统农业地区真实的生态环境状况,也无法给出科学合理的可持续发展评价。能值生态足迹是对传统生态足迹的一种改进,试图利用能值分析理论的优点囊括人类利用生态系统产品和服务的各种活动。然而,目前能值生态足迹研究往往受到传统生态足迹理论的局限,无法真正将人类消费的各种资源、产品和服务纳入进来。为此,本文将生态系统服务概念引入能值生态足迹理论框架中,进一步改进和完善了能值生态足迹模型,使之能够全面衡量人类活动的生态环境影响。本文利用改进的能值生态足迹模型,以我国传统农业地区贵州省从江县为例,开展生态环境状况评估和可持续发展评价。结果表明,从江县2007年人均能值生态承载力为9.3311 ha,人均能值生态足迹为14.5638 ha,人均能值生态赤字为5.2327 ha。可见,从江县的生态承载力仅能满足当地居民消费总需求的64%,当地处于不可持续发展状态,生态环境状况不容乐观。这与传统生态足迹的评价结果差异十分显著。传统生态足迹评价结果显示,从江县的生态承载力不仅能够满足当地居民的消费需求而且有少量生态盈余。进一步分析显示,从江县居民对生态系统的污染物吸纳服务和侵蚀控制服务的消费,在从江县总生态足迹中占有相当大的比例。这说明,从江县传统农业生产方式受现代农业影响而发生的部分改变,所产生的生态环境影响已经逐步显现。过量施用化肥农药所引起的面源污染以及频繁翻耕和砍伐森林所引起的水土流失,已经严重威胁当地的生态环境健康和可持续发展。