The earth's ecosystems increasingly reveal their interactivity, complexity and integrality. In this context, it makes great sense to conduct an integrated analysis and comparison of human-induced environmental impacts and the related safety thresholds, whereby one can evaluate the sustainability of human activities and measure the extent to which the carrying capacity is overshot. Built on the complementary use of environmental footprints and planetary boundaries—two novel concepts proposed recently, this paper applies the range method and distance- to- target method to the normalization and weighting of carbon, water and land deficits for 30 nations. The national environmental sustainability pressure index (ESPI) is computed and further applied to cluster analysis, which allows the 30 nations to be classified into four categories. The results illustrate that there are respectively 22, 17 and 15 nations operating in the state of overshoot in terms of greenhouse gas emission, water use and land use. The national ESPI varies from 0.39 for Brazil to 12.67 for USA. There are 3 nations with strong environmental sustainability, 8 nations with weak environmental sustainability, 9 nations with weak environmental unsustainability, and 10 nations with strong environmental unsustainability. Asia is the only continent where the four categories of sustainability are all witnessed. The global greenhouse gas emission is operating in a state of overshoot, while the water use and land use are both found to run a surplus on the global scale, as indicated by the world-average carbon, water and land footprint-boundary quotients estimated at 3.0, 0.6 and 0.7, respectively. Our conclusions are in line with the recent leading studies on the same environmental issues, providing this study with a high degree of scientific certainty. This paper aims to provide policy makers with a new insight into the evaluation of environmental sustainability through the alignment of the boundary metrics and footprint metrics, and thus can be regarded as an attempt to fill in the gap between these two fields of research. To proceed with the development of a scientifically robust methodology for environmental sustainability assessment, further improvements on this footprint-boundary integrated framework would be desirable.
With the rapid economic increase, the transboundary watershed pollution has become very seriously. From the practical experience of solving this problem in foreign countries, the control of pollutants emission by cooperation of different regions is an economic way to solve the problem. According to the current international and domestic researches, most studies were limited to analyze the benefit allocation in fully cooperative coalition while ignored the acceptability and stabilization of the benefit allocation of the cooperative groups. Based on this shortage, this paper established a cooperative game model of solving the transboundary watershed pollution problem. We used this model to analyze the Jialu River watershed whose area includes the regions of Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Xuchang and Luohe. From the perspective of game theory, we used four different benefit allocation schemes to analyze the possibility and stabilization in different cooperative groups for these regions. The results showed that the benefit allocations of Shapley value and SCRB (Separable Cost Remaining Benefit) method have better acceptability and stabilization than the rest of methods. If we use the Shapley value to allocated benefits which formed in fully cooperative coalition, Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Xuchang and Luohe can acquire benefit about 391.22×104, 100.55×104, 76.3×104 and 269.35×104 yuan, respectively. And if we use the SCRB method to allocate that benefits, then Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Xuchang and Luohe can acquire benefit about 400.94×104, 96.06×104, 74.35×104 and 266.06×104 yuan, respectively. Despite the higher likelihood of Shapley value and SCRB method to be accepted by these regions, the stabilizations of the two methods were not good enough. The benefit allocation result of Shapley value showed that the stabilization of Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Xuchang and Luohe was 0.95, 0.82, 0.86 and 0.88, respectively. Meanwhile, the result of SCRB method was that the stabilization of Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Xuchang and Luohe was 0.9, 0.9, 0.9 and 0.9, respectively. The two results indicated that the voluntary negotiation on forming fully cooperative coalition in these study regions was not sustainable.
Energy is the important factor to overcome poverty and achieve economic, social and human development. Based on the analysis of energy use of 357 farmers and herdsmen families in six counties on the Gannan Plateau, this article has studied the characteristic of rural household energy consumption in alpine Tibetan area, and analyzed the influencing factors by multiple stepwise regression method. The results show that: 1) The rural energy consumption mainly rely on local resources in the form of biomass energy such as animal's dung, and the per capita energy consumption is 996.05 kgce. The quantity of energy consumption is high, while the efficiency is low. The integrated thermal efficiency is only 18.77%, and the majority of farmers and herdsmen still stay in the state of basic survival requirement. 2) From pastoral, agro-pastoral, to agricultural areas, the energy consumption structure changes from uniform to multiform energies. The integrated thermal efficiency increases from 16.87% to 23.93%, and the per capita energy consumption decreases. The characteristic of spatial gradient is obvious. 3) The energy consumption pattern is the result of many factors, in which family size, family income, lifestyles, religion expenses, household appliances types, annual heating time and per capita arable land area are more significant factors. 4) Combined with the actual situation of agro- pastoral village, we proposed to implement herdsmen settlement project, increase the supply of modern energies, encourage the use of new energy facilities, promote the technology of efficiently and cleanly using biomass energy, and strengthen the awareness of energy-saving and environmental protection among farmers and herdsmen. On the premise of ensuring the basic energy needs of farmers and herdsmen, we should reduce the pressure of energy consumption as far as possible.
To reveal the impact of land use change on ecological risk, dynamic changes of land uses in the Yanghe Watershed which is a typical farming-pastoral ecozone in north China were analyzed with ArcGIS technologies based on remote sensing and land use data during 1990- 2008. The Yanghe Watershed was divided into 525 ecological risk assessment units based on the theory of landscape ecology. A temporal and spatial model of ecological risk assessment in the study area was established based on land use changes and landscape structures. Results showed that the areas of farmland and grassland accounted for more than 67% of total area of the watershed. Generally, landscape ecological risk indicated by ecological assessment index (ERI) for the whole watershed increased from 0.1973 to 0.2384 during 1990 to 2008. The area for the lowest (ERI≤0.17) and the highest (ERI >0.68) ecological risks reduced by 3.53% and 0.43%, respectively, while the areas of the lower (0.17< ERI≤0.26), the medium (0.26< ERI≤0.42)and the higher (0.42< ERI≤0.68) ecological risks increased. Distributions of five ecological risk grades were relatively concentrated. The sites with the relative high risk grade (ERI >0.26) were located along the main streams and sub- streams of the Yanghe Watershed, while those with the lower risk (ERI≤0.26) were further away from these streams.
Dong People in Guizhou Province have been cultivating hundreds of varieties of glutinous rice for 2000 years, known locally as Kam Sweet Rice. Plentiful Kam Sweet Rice resources are the essential living material for Dong people in Liping County of Guizhou Province. Kam Sweet Rice is the necessary food and cultural symbol in the daily life and culture customs of Dong people. In turn, Dong's traditional customs have also promoted the sustainable cultivation and protection of Kam Sweet Rice resources. The cultivation area of Kam Sweet Rice in different historical periods has been sorted, and forty-five Kam Sweet Rice varieties were collected in Liping County during on- the- spot investigation in 2013. The results show that Kam Sweet Rice in Liping County has a large amount of varieties as well as abundant genetic diversities. Moreover, the article discusses and analyzes the relationship between the traditional cultural customs, such as food culture, festival celebrations, religious beliefs and traditional farming practices of Dong people, and the preservation of Kam Sweet Rice. It is found that Kam Sweet Rice is not only the necessary ingredients of oil tea, flat rice and pickled products in Dong People's daily life, but also the indispensable materials in their traditional festivals, courtesy calls, sacrificial ceremonies, weddings and funerals. Meanwhile, the social and economic benefits of Kam Sweet Rice were promoted through the Dong's harmonious production mode of“Rice- Fish-Duck”. This article indicates that traditional knowledge and culture customs are the essential reasons of the high genetic diversity of Kam Sweet Rice, and there is a co- evolution relationship between the landrace resources and the traditional culture. Due to the gradual reduction of Kam Sweet Rice resources in recent years, appropriate strategies and suggestions for conservation are put forward as the reference for the relevant departments.
In recent years, the study of urban heat island effect regulation mechanism mainly focused on the influence of urban green space, urban landscape park and urban water on urban land surface temperature, few studies have considered the impact of land surface humidity on environment temperature. The purpose of this paper is exploring the regulation mechanism of urban land surface humidity on urban heat island effect. Xuzhou city was chosen to be the study case. The administrative boundary vector data of Xuzhou and four summer TM images of Xuzhou area from 1985 to 2010 were used. Research methods are as follows: First, Monowindow Algorithm was used to calculate the land surface temperatures of four periods. From 1985 to 2010, the acreage proportion of urban heat island area obviously increased from 31.87% to 38.57%, but from 1991 to 2010, the acreage proportion of high intensity urban heat island decreased from 23.32% to 20.52%. Second, a new index—Urban Land Surface Wetness (ULSW) which is on behalf of the vegetation and water coverage inside the city built-up area was extracted by using K-T transformation. The mean values of ULSW index of the four TM images from 1985 to 2010 are 5.91, 5.89, 6.33 and 6.94 respectively, which showed a trend of growth. Then, using spatial overlay analysis to calculate the correlation between the land surface temperature and the ULSW, the result showed that the slope of the four linear fitting equations are all negative which means the correlation of these two indicators are negative. At last, buffer analysis was used to compute the influence of ULSW index on the surrounding environment temperature. Four typical areas were chosen in each of the four TM images, and five buffers at the interval of 60 m were set up for each selected area. The result showed that the surrounding environment temperature of the center area of higher ULSW is cooler. The cooling effect of the first buffer layer is most obvious, the average temperature drop being 1.47 ℃. The cooling effect of the outermost buffer layer is minimum, the average temperature drop being 0.12 ℃ . The further the buffer is from the center area, the less the average surrounding environment temperature drops. The final research conclusions are: 1) ULSW index simplifies the extraction process of the vegetation and water in the construction land. 2) The area where the ULSW index value is high can effectively reduce the effect of urban heat island. 3) The inside and outside temperature of the area will decrease with the increase of ULSW. 4) ULSW index can be used to indicate the urban heat island regulation ability of an area. ULSW index can be also applied to other researches such as urban cooling channel planning, urban landscape and ecology planning, urban ecology and environment evaluation.
To grasp the evolution characteristics of the annual runoff and sediment in the Jinghe River Basin, moving average test was applied to analyze multi-year and annual variation based on annual runoff and sediment of Zhangjiashan Hydrological Station, and moving correlation analysis and double mass curve were used to detect the abrupt change point of the relationship of flow-sediment. With P-III curve method and popular Copula-constructed two-dimensional joint distribution of runoff and sediment, the variation characteristics of runoff and sediment were analyzed, and the encounter probability of rich-poor runoff and sediment in different periods were calculated. Results showed that: the alteration of runoff- sediment relationship occurred in 1980s. Compared to the period of 1956-1982, the mean value of runoff and sediment decreased by 29.10% and 29.45% in 1983-2010. When P is less than 90%, the annual flow and runoff keep decreasing, and when P exceeds 90%, the flow decreases and the sediment keeps increasing. The designed value of water and sediment should be corrected. In different periods the synchronous frequency of both rich and poor was greater than the frequency of rich-poor, and the probability of rich-poor was the smallest (0.35% and 1.10% respectively in different periods). In the period of 1983- 2010, the frequencies of different combinations become more even. The study can provide technical support for water and sediment disaster reduction and project management.
This study aims to analyze hydrological effects of water reservoirs on hydrological processes using SVM, MRL and ANN techniques. The results indicate that: 1) ANN model performs well in handling hydrological processes under the influences of human activities, the construction of water reservoirs in this study, and climate changes. The ANN model is accepted as the right model for the hydrological simulations. 2) Generally, two time periods can be identified with different influences of water reservoirs within the East River Basin: 1974- 1982 is characterized by insignificant hydrological alteration and influences of hydraulic facilities are minor; the period of 1983-2000 is dominated by significant alterations of hydrological processes with influences of water reservoirs on hydrological processes, and the result is to flatten the fluctuation of hydrological processes. 3) The hydrological processes of the Longchuan, Lingxia and Boluo stations are heavily influenced by hydrological regulations of water reservoirs with different influences: Boluo station is heavily influenced by hydrological regulations of water reservoirs and is followed by Lingxia and Longchuan stations. Besides, the monthly streamflow changes are subject to flattening processes under the influences of water reservoirs.
Using the data of CERES SSF Aqua MODIS Edition 1B/2B/3A from January 2003 to December 2012 and the data of the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) of NASA's EOS, the inter-annual variation of lower layer cloud parameters, including ice water path, effective temperature, effective height and ice particle effective diameter, over the Tianshan Mountains was analyzed. The results showed that the values of ice water path, cloud effective temperature, cloud effective height and ice particle effective diameters of lower layer cloud over the Tianshan Mountains were in the range of 32.7-92.0 g/m2, 214.9-257.3 K, 3.9- 5.7 km and 12.7-22.4 μm respectively. The cloud ice water path, cloud effective temperature, cloud effective height showed decreasing trends and ice particle effective diameter showed an increasing trend.
Land use patterns in the inner cities are often complex and diverse. This paper firstly develops a technical method specially for extracting land information of the inner city based on the method of object-oriented classification, and then collects Resources Satellite No.3 Image to extract land information of the urban areas within the Fourth Ring Road in Beijing city and evaluates the accuracy of the classification result. The results show: by means of multiresolution segmentation, membership function and reasonable classification levels, and by use of the characteristics of spectrum, shape, texture and spatial relationships of different objects, objectoriented method can not only extract water, green land, construction land and undeveloped land, but also extract industrial land, low-intensity and high-intensity residential land, and land to be developed in the study area. The paper takes full use of the characteristics of the high resolution image. The overall accuracy achieves 87.00%, and the Kappa coefficient is 0.8539. The classification results are acceptable.