Climate hazards: Lessons from recent events in the United States

Three recent cases of climate extremes are studied to identify human impacts and response strategies and to identify common characteristics that may help illuminate the nature of climate hazards. The 1980 heat wave in the central United States, 1981 cold wave in Boston, Massachusetts, and recent flooding and lake level rise in northern Utah, illustrate several important aspects of climate hazards that separate them from the more traditional set of catastrophic events (e.g. tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes) usually dealt with by hazards research and management. Among those characteristics are an emphasis on health impacts rather than physical damage, accumulative effects rather than short shocks, a tendency for impacts to accrue to certain socio-economic classes, and relatively slow onset. The management and research implications of these hazard characteristics are explored.     

Fisheries management: integrating societal preference, decision analysis, and ecological risk assessment

Fisheries management is the practice of analyzing and selecting options to maintain or alter the structure, dynamics, and interaction of habitat, aquatic biota, and man to achieve human goals and objectives. The theory of fisheries management is: managers or decision makers attempt to maximize renewable `output' from an aquatic resource by choosing from among a set of decision options and applying a set of actions that generate an array of outputs. Outputs may be defined as a tangible catch, a fishing experience, an existence value, or anything else produced or supported by renewable aquatic resources. Overall output is always a mix of tangible and intangible elements. However defined, management goals and objectives are essential components of fisheries management or any other field of renewable natural resource management. Reaching consensus on management goals and objectives has never been a simple task. Beyond the broad and often conflicting goals of an agency, managers must decide who should set specific management objectives — agency personnel, the public, or a combination of the two. Historically, rhetoric aside, fisheries managers in North America nearly always have consulted with professionals in governmental roles to set management objectives. In a strongly pluralistic society, this often resulted in protracted political and legal conflict. Increasingly, there are calls for use of risk assessment to help solve such ecological policy and management problems commonly encountered in fisheries management. The basic concepts of ecological risk assessment may be simple, but the jargon and details are not. Risk assessment (and similar analytical tools) is a concept that has evoked strong reactions whenever it has been used. In spite of the difficulties of defining problems and setting management objectives for complex ecological policy questions, use of risk assessment to help solve ecological problems is widely supported. Ecological risk assessment will be most useful (and objective) in political deliberations when the policy debate revolves around largely technical concerns. To the extent that risk assessment forces policy debate and disagreement toward fundamental differences rather than superficial ones, it will be useful in decision making.     

人类的行为与地质灾害

全面科学地分析了人类的行为与地质灾害后，针对我国当前的实际情况，提出了几个值得深思的问题，试图提醒人们如何规范自己的行为，以达到保护环境，预防和减轻地质灾害之目的。     

自然灾害变动的集成预测模型及其应用

本文提出了以非线性回归拟合发展趋势、正弦函数逼近周期变动和马尔可夫链刻划随机扰动的集成预测模型，并应用于山东省农业自然灾害成灾面积的变动规律模拟，得到了较好的预测效果。理论和实践表明，集成预测模型优于传统的单模型预测，为预测具有复杂机制的自然灾害演变提供了一种新方法。     

自然灾害不同灾情的比较方法探讨

用计算自然灾害不同灾情的灰色关联度的方法，来对不同灾情进行比较分析。该方法不仅能够比较同一灾级中不同的灾情，也能够对不同灾级的灾情差异程度作比较分析，因而它与现有的不同灾情的比较方法相比，更科学合理。     

罗布泊野骆驼自然保护区的建设及生物多样性保护

新疆罗布泊野骆驼自然保护区位于我国西部极旱荒漠带 ,以保护世界濒危物种———野双峰驼为主要对象 ,同时也保护当地特有的地貌、盐泉、丝绸之路遗迹及其他珍稀动植物物种 ,面积 7 8× 10 4km2 。该保护区在世界生物多样性保护中有重大作用。由于周边地区经济的发展 ,对该保护区的影响逐渐扩大 ,威胁到野生动植物的生存安全 ,急需加强宣传、建卡、检查、巡护等保护管理措施 ,同时需要提高周边贫困社区人民生活水平 ,强化管制非法采矿业     

Change in vegetation cover in East Timor, 1989–1999

Forest resources play a key role and provide many basic needs to communities in developing economies. To assess the patterns of vegetation cover change, as a corollary of resource utilization, satellite imagery, ground truth data, and image processing techniques can be useful. This article is concerned with identifying change in major vegetation types in East Timor between 1989 and 1999, using Landsat Thematic Mapper data. The results highlight a significant level of deforestation and decline in foliage cover. All major vegetation cover types declined from 1989 to 1999, and there was a sizeable increase in degraded woodlands. This decline has had considerable impact on the livelihoods of rural and urban communities. Causes for these changes include: economic exploitation of abundant resources; and implications of transmigration policies implemented during Indonesian rule, resulting in increased competition for land and woodland resources. As the new nation of Timor‐Leste establishes itself, it must consider its current stock and distribution of natural capital to ensure that development efforts are geared towards sustainable outcomes. Without the knowledge of historical patterns of resource consumption, development efforts may, unwittingly, lead to continuing decline in forest resources.     

An overview of the methods used in the characterisation of natural organic matter (NOM) in relation to drinking water treatment

Natural organic matter (NOM) is found in all surface, ground and soil waters. During recent decades, reports worldwide show a continuing increase in the color and NOM of the surface water, which has an adverse affect on drinking water purification. For several practical and hygienic reasons, the presence of NOM is undesirable in drinking water. Various technologies have been proposed for NOM removal with varying degrees of success. The properties and amount of NOM, however, can significantly affect the process efficiency. In order to improve and optimise these processes, the characterisation and quantification of NOM at different purification and treatment processes stages is important. It is also important to be able to understand and predict the reactivity of NOM or its fractions in different steps of the treatment. Methods used in the characterisation of NOM include resin adsorption, size exclusion chromatography (SEC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and fluorescence spectroscopy. The amount of NOM in water has been predicted with parameters including UV-Vis, total organic carbon (TOC), and specific UV-absorbance (SUVA). Recently, methods by which NOM structures can be more precisely determined have been developed; pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS), multidimensional NMR techniques, and Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS). The present review focuses on the methods used for characterisation and quantification of NOM in relation to drinking water treatment.     

四川省卧龙地区土壤中二噁英类化合物和多氯萘的海拔梯度分布及对牦牛的毒性风险评价

初步研究了四川省卧龙地区5个不同海拔高度的表层土壤和2个牦牛样品中二噁英/呋喃(PCDD/Fs)、共平面多氯联苯(co-PCBs)和多氯萘(PCNs)的分布特征、来源、毒性当量以及生态风险状况.土壤样品中总2,3,7,8-PCDD/Fs的含量范围为2.48-4.30 pg·g-1dw,平均3.50 pg·g-1dw,最高含量在海拔3927 m的塘房.co-PCBs的总含量平均为9.14 pg·g-1dw,最高值在海拔4487 m的垭口.总2,3,7,8-PC-DD/Fs和总co-PCBs含量随海拔高度的变化表现出正相关关系.不同海拔高度土壤中的PCDD/Fs和co-PCBs异构体的分布相似,表明具有相同的来源.总PCNs与海拔梯度呈负相关关系,最高含量出现在海拔3345 m的贝母坪,平均21.4 pg·g-1dw,主要以3.氯为主.土壤中PcDD/Fs毒性当量浓度范围为0.29-0.43pg TEQ·g-1dw.牦牛肉和牦牛组织中PcDD,/Fs总浓度分别为27.5和23.6 pg·g-1脂肪,毒性当量浓度为4.04和4.07 pg TEQ·g-1脂肪.结果表明,牦牛中的PCDD/Fg,co-PcBs和PCNs不大可能对卧龙地区人群导致严重的负面效应.     

The effects of adaptation measures on hurricane induced property losses: Which FEMA investments have the highest returns?

This paper evaluates the relative effectiveness of FEMA expenditures on hurricane induced property losses. We find that spending on FEMA ex-ante mitigation and planning projects leads to greater reductions in property losses than spending on ex-post adaptation programs – specifically, a one percent increase in annual spending on ex-ante risk reduction and warning projects reduces damages by 0.21 percent while a one percent increase in ex-post recovery and clean-up spending reduces damages by 0.12. Although both types of program spending are effective, we find the marginal return from spending on programs that target long-term mitigation and risk management to be almost twice that of spending on ex-post recovery programs. With the predicted increases in the frequency and severity of North Atlantic hurricanes in the future, our findings suggest there are important potential gains that could be realized from the further diversification of FEMA spending across project categories.