Mapping mountain diversity: Ethnic minorities and land use land cover change in Vietnam's borderlands

In the complex agro-ecological conditions of Vietnam's northern borderlands, attempts by ethnic minority farmers to create sustainable livelihoods, along with the impacts of state development policies, have direct consequences for land use and land cover (LULC) change. In this paper we analyse the degree to which LULC has changed and diversified from 1999 to 2009 in Lào Cai Province and the underlying relationships with ethnic minority livelihood diversification strategies. We examine the correlation between LULC diversity and various socioeconomic and biophysical proxies using a spatial autoregressive model. Our findings indicate two major changes in LULC: an increase in closed canopy forest and substantial urban growth. LULC diversity increased between 1999 and 2009, suggesting a transition between land uses and/or a diversification of livelihood strategies. Socioeconomic proxies are significant predictors of LULC diversity in both years, while biophysical proxies are only effective predictors in 2009. In-depth interviews regarding state-led policies and ethnic minority livelihoods reveal some of the underlying mechanisms of such LULC transitions and associations.     

3S技术在国家重点建设工程项目中的应用——以京沪高铁项目(天津段)为例

3S技术是测量技术发展史的一次重大突破,给测量领域带来了新的生命力,并已推广应用在国家基础建设的各个方面。本文以京沪高铁天津段这样的国家重点建设工程项目为例,介绍了3S技术在该项目从土地规划到建设运营方面的应用。     

高房价理性回归的金融通道

近年来,随着我国经济的快速增长和城市化进程的不断深入,我国出现了房价过快上涨的势头。高房价背后有着各种成因,抵押贷款证券化在解决高房价问题上具有合理性和可行性,保持审慎、稳健的监管,通过合理的金融市场建设和金融资源分配,房地产市场能够回归理性,房价回归正常合理的水平。     

Soil is brown gold in the Emilia-Romagna region,Italy

Soil is a natural resource essential to human welfare by virtue of its numerous crucial functions. In the past, soil has been taken for granted because of its widespread, albeit finite, availability. However, now that world's population is projected to exceed ten billion before the end of this century, soil is increasingly perceived as a precious commodity. Consequently, soil is increasingly under pressure by rich private investors and governments within the poorest countries to satisfy appetites for food production and biofuel. A case study is used to explore the plausibility of soil being considered as ‘brown gold’. Based on the comparison of land use maps, we estimated the value in terms of resource from raw material, carbon sink and virtual calories of the productive soil lost during the period 2003–2008 in the Emilia-Romagna Plain, one of the most productive areas of Italy. More than fifteen thousand hectares of cropland underwent land use change – in particular urbanization – over the 6-year period with an implied loss of crop production potential equivalent to the daily calorific requirement of more than 440,000 people. Taking into account that Italy is no longer self-sufficient in food production, such a loss appears to be strategically significant. Perhaps more importantly, urbanization and soil sealing has had negative ramifications on environmental sustainability, on both local and broad scales, with increased consumption of public funds. A logical framework of the socio-economic impact of land use change has been compiled and is presented as a possible example of a policy relevant approach to managing productive soils as a finite resource.     

Addressing climate change cause and effect on land cover and land use in South Asia

This paper evaluates the role of trade liberalization and agricultural intensification in mitigating climate change cause and effects on land use and emissions using a computable general equilibrium model. Our results indicate that cropland expansion triggered by climate-induced crop productivity changes results in deforestation and increases emissions in South Asia and globally. Global full trade liberalization on all goods is the optimum policy for South Asia despite significant global deforestation, but for the world, unilateral partial trade liberalization on all goods is a more appropriate policy while ensuring a considerable emissions reduction for South Asia. These results indicate that mitigation responses to climate change are location specific and no one trade policy is suitable at the regional and global levels. Lastly, agricultural intensification by improving productivity growth is the best strategy in land-based emissions mitigation, thereby avoiding the transformation of forest and pasture lands for agricultural cultivation both at regional and global levels.     

Land system change in Italy from 1884 to 2007: Analysing the North–South divergence on the basis of an integrated indicator framework

Over the past centuries, land systems in Italy experienced fundamental shifts, owing to the availability of new energy forms, population surges, and technological progress. The 20th century was characterized by massive productivity increases, accompanied by gradual land abandonment and the return of forest land. We here analyze 120 years of land system change in Italy, applying the human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) framework, a metric for socio-economic pressures on terrestrial ecosystems. HANPP allows integrating ecological with societal perspectives, by systematically quantifying (a) biomass harvest and (b) the difference between potential productivity of ecosystems and current productivity induced by land use processes, such as land conversion, or land degradation. Besides assessing national trends we calculated HANPP separately for the Italian North and South between 1934 and 2007, in order to scrutinize if high regional discrepancies in terms of natural and socio-economic preconditions translate into diverging land system trajectories. Our results show that national HANPP has been declining from 78% of natural productivity before WWII to 56% in 2007, indicating a declining land -use induced pressure on biomass flows over time. Simultaneously, biomass harvest increased by around 26% due to agricultural intensification, despite shrinking croplands. Although we found a significant difference between the Northern and Southern region in the absolute levels of several land use indicators related to biomass appropriation, the overarching trends of land system change were remarkably similar in both regions. This suggests that underlying drivers of land system change, such as policies aimed at land-use intensification and structural change were equally dominating land system trajectories in the North and South of Italy, not withstanding their socio-ecological divergences.     

高职院校思政课教学有效性研究——教学情景设计研究

长期以来,高职院校思想政治理论课教学一直面临一种尴尬的境地:一方面,学生对课程本身存在偏见和抵触,另一方面,课堂以教师为主体,学生被动地听,这种教学忽视了学生的自主学习和探究,使学生缺少独立思考的时间和空间,因而教学效果差。而情景教学法能较好地激发学生学习兴趣、发挥其主体性,因此,情景教学法成为职教院校思想政治课教学方法改革的重要内容之一。本文结合教学实践,从教学内容,教学开展方式等方面阐述了情景教学法在高职思政课教学中的应用。     

Transdisciplinarity in land use science – A review of concepts,empirical findings and current practices

In the search for solutions to complex real-world problems, the benefits of transdisciplinary research (TDR) have been widely heralded. Land use science appears to be a designated field for TDR. However, to date, the additional expenses of TDR are accompanied by a so far not proved added value, and empirical findings are claimed to be scarce and dispersed over several disciplines and case studies.We reviewed 299 articles obtained from a structured literature search to (1) investigate the current differences between theory and practice, (2) identify empirical findings, and (3) ascertain the contributions of TDR to promoting sustainable land use management.Our results demonstrate that, in spite of an increasing conceptual consistency in the theoretical discussion of TDR, the implementation of TDR remains a substantial challenge, in part because of the gap between theory and practice. In addition, research on TDR is science and process centred. The benefits of TDR in addressing real-world problems within the field of land use remain unproven.     

Identifying and mapping the tourists⿿ perception of cultural ecosystem services: A case study from an Alpine region

Landscapes provide an array of services to society, from the provision of food and material, to the provision of cultural ecosystem services such as recreation, aesthetics or spirituality. Studies on cultural ecosystem services, however, remain rare and little is known about the spatial localisation of these services. In this study, we adopt and test a framework to identify and map the provision of cultural ecosystem services as perceived by tourists in an Alpine region, i.e. the region of South Tyrol in Italy. A photo-based questionnaire survey is combined with cartographical representations of landscape types to elicit hot and coldspot areas of cultural ecosystem service provision. We statistically test for influences of the land use type and the respondents' socio-demographic background on the tourists' perception of these services. The results show that different spatial patterns emerge for each of the investigated cultural ecosystem services depending on the distribution and extent of the landscape types to which they are related. In particular traditionally managed landscapes, small in extent and mainly scattered over large areas between 1000 and 2200 m a.s.l., are hotspot areas of aesthetic beauty, leisure activities and spirituality. In contrast, intensively managed landscapes, mainly located in the lowland plains of the study site, are considered to be more important for the provision of cultural heritage values. While the results suggest that land use type exerts the strongest influence upon tourists' perception, factors such as the respondents' perceived importance of the services, their gender, cultural background, environmental engagement and experience with the landscape play a significant but subordinate role. We conclude that the spatially explicit information about the provision of cultural ecosystem services can serve as a helpful basis for the design and further implementation of land use policies that acknowledge the high touristic value of traditionally used landscapes in mountain regions.