Environmental Values and Water Policy

The emergence of water markets has heralded the prospect of increased efficiency in the use of the resource for extractive purposes. However, water markets have not encompassed all elements of demand for the resource. Notably, demands for the environmental public goods provided by river flows have not been revealed in markets. State Governments have instituted regulations requiring ‘environmental flows’ to be quarantined from the market allocation process. This policy has triggered negative responses from irrigators and conservationists. Lobby groups have found that the process of determining environmental flows is a prospective site for rent seeking. To avoid policy being driven by rent seeking, information on the costs and benefits of environmental flows is useful. Whereas the costs of environmental flows are readily assessed through reference to market data on irrigators’ surpluses foregone, the benefits must be estimated through the use of non‐market, stated preference valuation techniques. These techniques — including contingent valuation and choice modelling — remain controversial. Some argue that they should not be used on ethical grounds. Others argue that they cannot be used on technical grounds. These arguments are discussed in this paper, using the context of the water policy debate. The evidence is that stated preference techniques are being used, and applications have been performed in Australia in the context of riverine health. However their use remains restricted relative to the scale of the Australian natural resource management task. Some possible explanations for this limited up‐take are provided along with some suggested ways forward.     

Flies,manure, and window screens: medical entomology and environmental reform in early-twentieth-century US cities

This paper traces responses to house flies in US cities as health departments attempted to control pollution and disease in the early twentieth century. It speaks to other historical geographies about the state, citizens, and the urban environment by showing how medical entomology prescribed contradictory changes to civic and domestic space, and how urban people and nature resisted these changes. With the advent of medical entomology, health reformers came to see house flies as agents that wove the entire city together as an interconnected ecology, carrying diseases from neighborhood to neighborhood and across the threshold of the home. But different reformers argued for quite distinct exercises of power in the urban landscape and ecological processes. Some physicians and entomologists argued that the state must modernize networks of fly-breeding organic matter, most notably horse manure and human waste. Such interventions were intended to be preventive and holistic, and aimed to protect all city dwellers. Other reformers, however, doubted the capacity of the state to tame material flows of waste, and instead sought changes to domestic space that would require householders – especially women – to shore up the boundaries of the house against flies. When city governments adopted these distinct interventions they encountered quite distinct sorts of resistance because of the house fly's tight links with urban nature and domestic practices.     

个旧锡业开发与生态环境变迁(1890-1949)

随着1889年蒙自的开关,尤其是1910年滇越铁路的全线通车,极大地改善了云南的对外交通运输条件,推动了个旧锡业的迅速发展。在1890年至1949年的60年间,个旧共生产大锡323042吨,个旧锡业也取代铜业成为近代云南的矿业支柱。个旧锡业在推动云南矿业发展的同时,也对个旧及周边地区生态环境产生了巨大的影响。在1890年至1949年的60年间,个旧地区仅土法炼锡就至少消耗45万吨以上木炭。个旧、蒙自、建水、开远和石屏五县地区天然林平均覆盖率从清初的90%锐减至1940年的2.98%,近三百年间减少了80%以上,个旧锡业开发显然是五县天然林平均覆盖率急剧减少的重要原因。同时,锡矿的大量粗放开采和冶炼,也污染了个旧地区的土壤、水源和空气环境,带来了环境污染问题,影响了当地民众尤其是矿工的身体健康。因此,锡业开发是导致近代个旧及周边地区生态环境变迁的重要原因。     

开埠初期上海租界的水环境治理

以往学界对开埠初期上海租界水环境治理,一般采取填浜筑路的视角,而本文通过对档案资料的考察发现,租界当局对租界内的河浜采取了灵活的治理办法,对于挡路和阻碍市政的死水河浜进行填埋,而对于一般的潮汐河浜和航运河浜采取了清淤、疏通的保护措施,挖掘开通了新河浜,从而使河浜水系的功能得以延续。为了排水需要,租界当局辟建了下水道系统,其治理办法却借鉴于治河方法。     

Exploring the Conditions for Cooperative Energy Governance: A Comparative Study of Two Asian Pipelines

A central but often unasked question in political and sociological scholarship concerns the conditions that precipitate cooperation on large-scale transnational energy projects, especially among “developing” and “emerging” economies. Using the example of two multi-billion dollar pipeline systems – the Trans-ASEAN Natural Gas Pipeline (TAGP) Network in Southeast Asia and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline in the Caspian Sea – this article explores the factors that result in successfully completed projects, and those that lead to conflict and contention. After drawing from extensive research interviews and field research, the article approaches politics and technology through the lens of science and technology studies. It relies on the interdisciplinary concepts of “relevant social group” and “technological frame” to identify coalitions of actors associated with each pipeline project. The paper then investigates the interests and motivations behind these groups to illuminate the challenges facing the TAGP and those that accelerated the completion of the BTC. The paper concludes by offering some thoughts on the diverse elements needed to incentivise cross-border energy infrastructure, and what these may mean for energy and public policy scholars.     

基于环境态度的城市居民环境友好行为意向及认知差异——以海口市为例

居民的行为是社会对环境产生影响的关键因素,对环境有着直接或间接的影响。遏制环境退化,实现可持续发展不仅仅取决于政府,同时与公众的环境态度和行为也有着密不可分的关系。环境态度是否会影响人们实施环境友好行为是研究中的一个重要问题。本研究采用在海口市的调查数据,分析了居民所持的环境态度对其环境友好行为意向的影响。采用"新生态范示"量表(NEP)测量居民的环境态度,并根据环境态度倾向,运用K-Means聚类法将居民划分为近生态中心主义者、近人类中心主义者,在此基础上,应用独立样本t检验,比较了持不同环境态度者在环境友好行为意向与认知上的差异。     

基于地理学视角的中国山水画分析

本文从美术地理学的角度出发阐述了中国山水画的地域差别,指出地理环境对山水画的影响主要表现在几方面:即对山水画作品面貌的影响,对山水画家创作灵感的影响,对作品风格和地域特色的影响,对山水画派和地域人才形成的影响。因而,地理环境是艺术家创作的对象和源泉,也是决定美术风格的关键因素,对山水画派和地域人才的形成具有重要影响。     

不同类型道路密度对公共空间盗窃犯罪率的影响——基于ZG市的实证研究

道路密度对犯罪分布存在影响已得到大多数学者的证实,但忽略了不同类型道路属性的差异对犯罪的影响。不同类型道路在社会-建成环境等各种属性方面存在较大的差异,因此明确不同类型道路密度对公共空间盗窃犯罪率存在的影响有助于犯罪的防控。基于此,本文以派出所为单元构建多元线性回归模型进行研究。研究发现,不同类型道路密度对公共空间盗窃犯罪率影响不同：城市次干道、城市支路和其他可通车道路密度对公共空间盗窃犯罪率有正向影响;不可通车道路密度对公共空间盗窃犯罪率有负向影响;城市主干道密度对公共空间盗窃犯罪率影响不显著。不同类型道路社会-建成环境的差异是公共空间盗窃犯罪率不同的原因。研究结果可为犯罪精准防控提供指导。     

Storm flooding,coastal defence and land use around the Thames estuary and tidal river c.1250–1450

Climatic deterioration in the later middle ages was associated with an increasing frequency of marine storm surges affecting the coasts of the southern North Sea. This paper investigates the impact of storm surges upon the lands bordering the Thames estuary and tidal river between the mid-thirteenth and mid-fifteenth centuries. Land use in the coastal and riverine marshes is reviewed, and the means and costs of defence against marine flooding explored. The impact of flooding upon human use of the marshlands, upon the suburbs of medieval London and upon the Thames fisheries are all investigated. Stress is placed upon the complex interaction of economic and environmental factors in determining the response to the threat of marine flooding.     

Pressurised pastoralism in South Gobi, Mongolia: what is the role of drought?

The desert-steppe region of southern Mongolia is susceptible to drought and extreme winter weather ( dzud ) that in combination form Mongolia's worst natural hazard. Low precipitation and high climatic variability in this dryland environment impact the landscape and affect pastoralism, the dominant rural lifestyle. Using the Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI), this paper identifies drought occurrence in South Gobi Province, Mongolia. It then examines the relationship of drought with climate factors, interaction with vegetation (derived from Normalised Difference Vegetation Index - NDVI - data), and local human and livestock populations, and the dzuds of 1999–2001. Results show that drought is recurrent in the region, reaching extreme intensity most recently in 2005–2006. In contrast with the prevailing concept of drought impacting dzuds , the study did not find a connection between drought and dzud in South Gobi Province. Though repeated events, these natural hazards occur independently in the region. Climatic variables show increasing temperatures (>1°C), fluctuating precipitation patterns and a decline in vegetation cover. The principal long-term correlation of drought is with human population rather than natural factors, dzud or livestock numbers.