白洋淀水生态综合调控决策支持系统设计

在充分挖掘白洋淀污染源控制、富营养化与沼泽化治理、长效生态节水及流域综合管理协调相关研究成果的基础上,以流域水生态系统健康和生态安全保障为目标,设计了集水生态系统健康诊断、水生态安全预警与应急、水量调控、污染物控制、淀区净化、综合调控、知识库子系统于一体的白洋淀水生态综合调控决策支持系统,为白洋淀流域的水生态安全保障提...     

三峡工程对河流生态系统服务功能影响预评价

根据三峡工程对河流生态系统服务功能影响的特点,建立了评价指标体系,预评估了三峡工程全面竣工正常运行后,对河流生态系统服务功能的6项正面影响和5项负面影响。结果表明,防洪和发电是三峡工程的主要功能,年功能价值分别为106.84×108元和211.70×108元;旅游、减少有害气体排放、改善川江航道和水库养殖也是三峡工程的重要功能;6项正面影响的年功能价值总计489.70×108元。库区污染、泥沙淤积和水库淹没是三峡工程的主要负面影响,年损失值分别为24.06×108、7.22×108和6.27×108元;对生物的影响和对河流生态系统的占据,也是不容忽视的负面影响;5项负面影响的年功能损失值总计37.83×108元。     

Clean production in context: an information infrastructure perspective

The electronics industry is generally recognized as a leader in clean production practices. Industrial ecology, however, encourages a systemic approach to sectoral behavior, which means that not just production, but also the role of electronics products and services in supporting an information culture should be considered as part of a comprehensive analysis. The eventual goal should be the production of social practices and systems that provide the desired functionality and quality of life in an environmentally acceptable manner. A conceptual framework for such an analysis of information infrastructure is presented, although the analyses and data required for a full understanding remain limited and preliminary in many ways.     

重庆三峡库区生态补偿标准差别化模型构建及应用研究

生态补偿是当前国际公认的重要的生态环境保护手段,但如何表征、量化和确定生态补偿标准,完善生态补偿机制,仍是当前生态补偿研究中的一个重要而未解决的问题.本研究以重庆三峡库区后续发展过程中不同本底类型的典型样区为研究对象,通过对重庆三峡库区各区域的自然和经济条件的分析,基于生态系统服务价值法和机会成本法,构建生态补偿标准化模型,引入差异系数,对重庆三峡库区各区域的生态补偿标准进行测算,科学制定各区域生态补偿分配标准.结果表明:位于库区西南段的主城区(包括渝北区、江北区、渝中区、江津区和北碚区等),这些区域经济实力雄厚,社会经济差异系数较大,但由于机会成本较低,受到自然价值和区域公平差异系数的影响较小,所以最终生态补偿额度比较低;三峡库区北段(巫山县、巫溪县、云阳县、奉节县和开县)的生态补偿额度较高,主要原因是机会成本大,受差异系数影响,理论损失成本大,但在这些地区的自然资源比较丰富,适合开展旅游行业,增加经济收入,缩小与其他区县的社会经济差距.     

Dynamic compartment approach for modelling regimes of carbon cycle functioning in bog ecosystems

Svirezhev's method of dynamic model design by a given “storage-flow” diagram [Svirezhev Y.M., 1997. On some general properties of trophic networks. Ecol. Model. 99, 7–17] is developed and used for investigating dynamic regimes of carbon cycle functioning in a typical boreal transitional bog ecosystem. Ecosystems are often represented by static “storage-flow” diagrams reflecting their structure and matter or energy transfer between components at fixed time moments. Using the data of such diagrams aggregated in ecological field studies one can construct a dynamic model of the ecosystem to predict its future behaviour and to estimate a response to external perturbations—natural and human. Stability of both current equilibrium and possible alternative steady states and more complicated attractors are studied under two types of parameter perturbation: CO₂ atmospheric concentration increase initiated by greenhouse effect, and change in the rate of carbon output from dead organic matter and litter which depends on the water table level and possible peat excavation. Calculation of bifurcation curves gives areas in the parameter space where stable functioning of carbon cycle is provided. Steady states can be interpreted as raised bog, meadow, forest and fen. CO₂ concentration increase leads the current state of transitional bog to loose stability with appearance of oscillatory dynamics and further evolution to the chaotic attractor. The model is rich by chaotic solutions serving as transition regimes between regular steady and periodic attractors. Another chaotic regime is formed from forest equilibrium and exists in the same area of phase space where current equilibrium is stable.     

Environmental service payments: evaluating biodiversity conservation trade-offs and cost-efficiency in the Osa Conservation Area, Costa Rica

The cost-efficiency of payments for environmental services (PES) to private landowners in the Osa Conservation Area, Costa Rica, is evaluated in terms of the trade-off between biodiversity representation and opportunity costs of conservation to agricultural and forestry land-use. Using available GIS data and an 'off-the-shelf' software application called TARGET, we find that the PES allocation criteria applied by authorities in 2002-2003 were more than twice as cost-efficient as criteria applied during 1999-2001. Results show that a policy relevant assessment of the cost-effectiveness of PES relative to other conservation policies can be carried out at regional level using available studies and GIS data. However, there are a number of data and conceptual limitations to using heuristic optimisation algorithms in the analysis of the cost-efficiency of PES. Site specific data on probabilities of land-use change, and a detailed specification of opportunity costs of farm land, labour and capital are required to use algorithms such as TARGET for ranking individual sites based on cost-efficiency. Despite its conceptual soundness for regional conservation analysis, biodiversity complementarity presents a practical challenge as a criterion for PES eligibility at farm level because it varies depending on the set of areas under PES contracts at any one time.     

Reconnecting to the Biosphere

Humanity has emerged as a major force in the operation of the biosphere, with a significant imprint on the Earth System, challenging social-ecological resilience. This new situation calls for a fundamental shift in perspectives, world views, and institutions. Human development and progress must be reconnected to the capacity of the biosphere and essential ecosystem services to be sustained. Governance challenges include a highly interconnected and faster world, cascading social-ecological interactions and planetary boundaries that create vulnerabilities but also opportunities for social-ecological change and transformation. Tipping points and thresholds highlight the importance of understanding and managing resilience. New modes of flexible governance are emerging. A central challenge is to reconnect these efforts to the changing preconditions for societal development as active stewards of the Earth System. We suggest that the Millennium Development Goals need to be reframed in such a planetary stewardship context combined with a call for a new social contract on global sustainability. The ongoing mind shift in human relations with Earth and its boundaries provides exciting opportunities for societal development in collaboration with the biosphere--a global sustainability agenda for humanity.     

The World on a Collision Course and the Need for a New Economy

The first part of the paper is an attempt to demonstrate that what we are going through at the present time is not just an economic-financial crisis, but a crisis of humanity. It seems that for the first time in human history several crises converge to simultaneously reach their maximum level of tension. The dominant economic model is to a great degree responsible for the world’s collision course. Hence a number of myths that sustain the model are listed and analyzed. It is argued that a new economy, coherent with the problematiques of the twenty first century, needs urgently to be devised. The second part proposes the foundations for a new economy based on five fundamental postulates that allow the construction of transdisciplinary, holistic, and systemic visions to adequately understand the interdependence of all the elements that sustain life. It is stressed that it is no longer acceptable that Universities still teach economic theories of the nineteenth century in order to tackle twenty first century problems that have no precedence.     

Acidification Remediation Alternatives: Exploring the Temporal Dimension with Cost Benefit Analysis

Acidification of soils and surface waters caused by acid deposition is still a major problem in southern Scandinavia, despite clear signs of recovery. Besides emission control, liming of lakes, streams, and wetlands is currently used to ameliorate acidification in Sweden. An alternative strategy is forest soil liming to restore the acidified upland soils from which much acidified runoff originates. This cost–benefit analysis compared these liming strategies with a special emphasis on the time perspective for expected benefits. Benefits transfer was used to estimate use values for sport ffishing and nonuse values in terms of existence values. The results show that large-scale forest soil liming is not socioeconomically profitable, while lake liming is, if it is done efficiently—in other words, if only acidified surface waters are treated. The beguiling logic of “solving” an environmental problem at its source (soils), rather than continuing to treat the symptoms (surface waters), is thus misleading.