Changes in hillslope hydrology in a perched,shallow soil system due to clearcutting and residual biomass removal

Sustainable fuels legislation and volatility in energy prices have put additional pressures on the forestry sector to intensify the harvesting of biomass for “advanced biofuel” production. To better understand how residual biomass removal after harvest affects forest hydrology in relatively low slope terrain, a Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) study was conducted in the USDA Forest Service's Marcell Experimental Forest, Minnesota, USA. Hydrological measurements were made from 2010–2013 on a forested hillslope that was divided into three treatment blocks, where one block was harvested and residual biomass removed (Biomass Removed), the second was harvested and residual biomass left (Biomass Left), and the last block was left as an Unharvested Control. The pre-harvest period (2 years) was 2010–11 and post-harvest (2 years) was 2012–13. Water table elevation at the upslope and downslope position, subsurface runoff, and soil moisture were measured between May–November. Mixed effect statistical models were used to compare both the before-after and “control” treatment ratios (ratios between harvested hillslopes and the Unharvested Control hillslope). Subsurface runoff significantly increased (p < .05) at both harvested hillslopes but to a greater degree on the Biomass Left hillslope. Greater subsurface runoff volumes at both harvested hillslopes were driven by substantial increases during fall, with additional significant increases during summer on the Biomass Left hillslope. The hydrological connectivity, inferred from event runoff ratios, increased due to harvesting at both hillslopes but only significantly on the Biomass Left hillslope. The winter harvest minimized soil disturbance, resulting in no change to the effective hydraulic conductivity distribution with depth. Thus, the observed hydrological changes were driven by increased effective precipitation and decreased evapotranspiration, increasing the duration that both harvested hillslopes were hydrologically active. The harvesting of residual biomass appears to lessen hydrological connectivity relative to leaving residual biomass on the hillslope, potentially decreasing downstream hydrological impacts of similar forestry operations.     

Spatial Patterns in Nutrient and In Vivo Fluorescence Distributions in the Marginal Ice Zone and the Seasonally Open Oceanic Zone in the Indian Sector of the Antarctic Ocean, in Austral Summer

Surface temperature, salinity, concentrations of silicate (Si) and nitrate + nitrite (N), and in vivo fluorescence (Fluor) were investigated in the marginal ice zone (MIZ) and the seasonally open oceanic zone (SOOZ) (32–40°E, 64–69°S) from February 23 to 28 1992. In the MIZ the mean Si and N were 67.8 ± 2.2 M and 32.5 ± 1.7 M, respectively. There was a trend that low N values coincided with high Fluor values. Observation conducted at one point (64°S, 38°E) revealed a diel variation pattern in Fluor. Applying this pattern of deviation from noon value, all Fluor data were normalized to value at local noon. In the MIZ a significant negative correlation was observed between the normalized Fluor and N but not Si. On the other hand, Si decreased continuously from south to north in the SOOZ and was negatively correlated with the normalized Fluor. Difference in Si concentration was about 30 M between the sea around 64°S and the MIZ, while the difference in N concentration was estimated as less than 10 M. If diatoms take up silicate and nitrogen at an approximate ratio of 1:1, additional nitrogenous nutrients other than nitrate and nitrite (e.g. ammonia, urea etc.) would be required. In this case, an f-ratio of lower than 33% is obtained. It is suggested that in the MIZ abundance of phytoplankton community dominated by non-diatom increases utilizing nitrate while in the SOOZ abundance of phytoplankton community dominated by diatoms increases consuming Si and regenerated nitrogen.     

楼观台森林公园深层生态旅游开发的模式探讨

提出了深层生态旅游开发的概念,构建了一个“两翼对接”模式。在广泛野外调查的基础上,依据上述理念和开发模型,针对楼观台国家森林公园的景观资源特征,对其深层生态旅游开发进行了系统设计。具体而言,重点突出了自然山水、生物景观和道教文化三方面设计,揭示了三大类60个景物的生态文化主题,设计了相应的开发展示模式和游客生态体验方式。其目的在于,提高森林公园生态文化的展示水平和加深旅游者的生态体验。     

基于芬兰经验的我国森林资源型城市的发展研究--以伊春市为例

资源型城市的可持续发展问题一直是学术界的研究热点,但对于森林资源型城市的研究却不多见。本文概括介绍了芬兰的资源和经济发展情况,系统分析了芬兰这样一个以森林起家的经济发达国家的成功经验;并以伊春为例提出了森林资源型城市经济转型和可持续发展可资借鉴的对策和建议。     

The Mobile Street Food Service Practice in the Urban Economy of Kumba, Cameroon

The mobile food service practice is one of multiple survival strategies adopted by poor urban households in Cameroon to maintain and expand the base of subsistence incomes, especially in the current surge of economic crisis. Though a fast-growing informal sector enterprise, it is still at an artisanal stage in urban Cameroon, creating an urgent need for a supportive policy environment that could have measurable positive impacts on improving the productivity, welfare and income levels of the micro-entrepreneurs. This study looks at the mobile food service practice in Kumba, Cameroon, in terms of its basic characteristics, the locational factors influencing its socio-spatial distribution, the critical success factors (CSFs) determining customer choices, and its impacts on the local environmental resources and quality of urban life. The mobile food service practice creates employment, generates income, and acts as a food energy-support instrument to the urban poor and local economic activities operating in Kumba. The vendors, who are mostly women, can make incomes that are 405 per cent of the national minimum wage and, thus, contribute financially towards the education, health and survival of their families. The paper provides some recommendations on ways to improve the efficiency of this sector so as to achieve sustainable economic and social development and to enhance empowerment thereof.     

Chasing a 'loose and baggy monster': almshouses and the geography of charity

This paper goes some way towards redressing the lack of geographical literature on charity through exploring the geography of the British domestic charitable sector. The size and geography of the third sector is outlined, followed by an analysis of how almshouses can be understood as inherently geographical and deeply embedded in local social networks of inclusion as well as exclusion.     

Promoting social justice and conserving montane forest environments: a case study of Nepal's community forestry programme

This paper analyses participatory forest policy and the ways it has influenced the relationships between people as it relates to the forest resource management. This case study was conducted in the middle hills of Nepal, and information was collected through direct observation, individual interviews, group discussion and secondary information analysis. It substantiates a few examples of how the community forestry programme can be used as a means to promote the participation of the women, the poor and dalit (untouchables) in forest resource management, as well as enhancing social justice and improving the forest resources in their locality. However, it also demonstrates that though the community forestry programme has a positive impact, it faces several constraints and challenges. The local Forest User Group is controlled by a few élites making the poor and disadvantaged vulnerable to further marginalization. The results of the case study strongly indicate that community forestry processes must address the political, economic and social needs of the forest users, and also provide a neutral platform on which the poor can present their cases.     

State forestry and spatial scale in the development discourses of post-colonial Tanzania: 1961–1971

At independence, Tanzanian foresters believed that state-led forestry could provide a lasting contribution to the development aspirations of the newly independent country. Yet they were gradually marginalized within Julius Nyerere's project of socio-economic transformation. By exploring the spatial dimensions of competing land use discourses of the time, I hope to offer an interpretation as to how and why forestry's marginalization happened. I argue that at least some of this marginalization was the result of differences inherent in the scale of focus between forestry and the larger, contemporaneous socio-economic and political discourses dominant in the period. At independence, Nyerere positioned development efforts more squarely within the national political institutions of the state and for the nation, writ whole. With its professional and discursive ties to an international forestry order and its spatial biases, Tanzanian foresters were poorly placed to respond or adapt to changes in the political discourse and in the economic conditions of resource extraction. In short, they were unable to adjust to changes in the scale of development praxis in Tanzania. I conclude by suggesting two points. First, that the history of land use and natural resource management choices in post-colonial Tanzania can be better understood through a historical-geographical, or spatialized, theoretical framework. Second, that current historical-geographical theory could be fine tuned through reflection on its utility in describing and explaining land use politics in post-colonial developing contexts.     

'Trees, forests and communities': some historiographical approaches to environmental history on Africa

Focusing on the contested issue of trees and forests, this paper looks at various ways in which historians have explored environmental change and human agency in Africa. It looks in particular at the colonial period and positions the case of the Cape Colony (South Africa) in a broader historiographical context. Colonial silviculture involved both the appropriation of the natural forests and the creation of exotic plantations. These policies generated a mixture of reactions from African communities and had varying effects on the environment. Colonial science and the projects it gave rise to have since been critiqued, contributing to the promotion of community-based forestry schemes that try to incorporate indigenous knowledge and ideas about land use.     

Natural recovery from accelerated forest ditch and stream bank erosion five years after harvesting of plantation forest on Plynlimon,mid‐Wales

Erosion rates surveyed using 230 erosion pins on 24 occasions over eight years (1994–2001) on forested stream banks, tributaries and forest ditches in the 0·89 km² Nant Tanllwyth catchment, part of the Hafren Forest on Plynlimon, mid‐Wales, showed statistically significant increases of up to 40 mm a^?1 in mean erosion rates during the two‐year period in which environmentally sensitive plot‐scale timber harvesting operations took place (1996–97). In the four years following timber harvesting mean erosion rates at all sites recovered to levels that were lower than before the harvesting operations began. This is attributed to increased light levels, following canopy removal, allowing vegetation to colonize exposed banks. There was a statistically significant relationship (p < 0·05) between mean erosion rate in 2000–01 (four years after harvesting) and percentage vegetation cover at erosion monitoring sites in the clearfelled (south tributaries) area though the same relationship did not hold for sites on the mainstream banks or for sites on the north (mature forest) ditch sites. The implications of natural vegetation colonization for management of such streams are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.