黑河流域近两千年人—水—生态演变研究进展

理解流域历史时期的人—水—生态演变过程和规律,对其当前和未来的管理规划极为重要。通过梳理近几十年来有关学者对西北干旱区典型内陆河流域——黑河流域过去2 000年的水环境、人类活动、生态环境演变及其耦合研究等方面的成果,发现单个方面的研究均已较为普遍和成熟,并且积累了大量的素材和数据,但是缺乏以流域为单元,从长时间尺度综合考虑人—水—生态相互作用,定量分析人—水—生态协同演化过程的研究成果。今后的研究,一是应当着重于数据挖掘方法的探索,对已有成果进一步挖掘并进行对比和校正,构建一套长时间序列的可靠的人类活动、水文和生态数据集;二是应当着重于动力学模型的构建,增加生态—水文系统与人类活动的互馈机制描述,刻画人—水—生态的协同演化过程,从而达到通过揭示流域过去2 000年的人—水—生态协同演化过程,为流域当前和未来的管理提供历史镜鉴,为国内外的其他类似流域提供参考。社会水文学的提出无疑将极大地促进流域人—水—生态演变研究的发展。     

From hard-path to soft-path solutions: slow–fast dynamics of human adaptation to droughts in a water scarce environment

ABSTRACT

Droughts have long impacted humans with adverse consequences, hindering the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. To reduce vulnerability, multiple ways of adaptation have been developed, most of which, historically, focused on “hard-path” implementation of infrastructure. However, since water consumption plays a major role in the supply–demand balance, “soft-path” solutions focusing on the control of water use have recently intensified. Furthermore, due to the dynamic interaction between humans and water, changes might occur over time, requiring adaptation measures to be continually reshaped. We assess the dynamic nature of human adaptation to droughts in the semi-arid Extended Jaguaribe Basin, Brazil. We explore the shift from hard, supply-oriented measures to soft governance, and its causes: natural and socio-economic processes not anticipated in the original water resources policy. The observed phenomenon and discussion of its causes help to build knowledge on human–water interactions that are applicable more generally.     

Towards urban water sustainability: Analyzing management transitions in Miami,Las Vegas,and Los Angeles

As climate change challenges the sustainability of existing water supplies, many cities must transition toward more sustainable water management practices to meet demand. However, scholarly knowledge of the factors that drive such transitions is lacking, in part due to the dearth of comparative analyses in the existing transitions literature. This study seeks to identify common factors associated with transitions toward sustainability in urban water systems by comparing transitions in three cases: Miami, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. For each case, we develop a data-driven narrative that integrates case-specific contextual data with standardized, longitudinal metrics of exposures theorized to drive transition. We then compare transitions across cases, focusing on periods of accelerated change (PoACs), to decouple generic factors associated with transition from those unique to individual case contexts. From this, we develop four propositions about transitions toward sustainable urban water management. We find that concurrent exposure to water stress and heightened public attention increases the probability of a PoAC (1), while other factors commonly expected to drive transition (e.g. financial stress) are unrelated (2). Moreover, the timing of exposure alignment (3) and the relationship between exposures and transition (4) may vary according to elements of the system’s unique context, including the institutional and infrastructure design and hydro-climatic setting. These propositions, as well as the methodology used to derive them, provide a new model for future research on how cities respond to climate-driven water challenges.     

Tendency Analysis of Socio-hydrology Research Based on Bibliometrics

Socio-hydrology is a new inter-disciplinary science of people and water. The biblio-metrical analysis was made on the socio-hydrology papers included in the Web of Science (WoS) to obtain the study progress of socio-hydrology. The results indicated that the research areas of socio-hydrology mainly covered water resources, environmental sciences, civil engineering, geosciences, environmental engineering, agronomy, environmental studies, ecology, meteorology and atmospheric sciences, and geography. The key topics in general socio-hydrology were water resources, agricultural irrigation, and water policy. Furthermore, the research spots varied with the needs of the societal development in the different decades. They also varied among countries. The special socio-hydrology research mainly focused on water need and security in both urban and rural development, and emphasized the decision support of scientific management through effective hydrological model prediction. Its development will promote the sustainable management and utilization of water resources and help better solve water problems facing the humans.