A theory of evaluation applied to human-environment systems

1. 1. The writers present the general theory of evaluation that is being developed by their group.

2. 2. The evaluation of a human environment is a complex mental process.

3. 3. In an effort to express numerically the quality of an environment, one tends to oversimplify the complex aspects of it and the entailing problems in relation to its inhabitants.

4. 4. In this paper, some examples are taken in the evaluation of thermal environments, wherein much has been said and done in setting up numerical scales to express human comfort, and yet neither clear-cut explanations nor convincing logic seem to exist to terminate the argument over the widely scattered and sometimes seemingly contradicting experimental data.

5. 5. The writers suggest that many of the reasons for this confusion may be traced back to the oversimplified notion of evaluation.

6. 6. It is shown that there are various possibilities when looking at the scales of evaluation.

7. 7.|The nominal scale, least studied of all the four traditional scales, may be given a prominent place in evaluating a thermal environment. The pseudo-interval order scale is another example.

福州地区桑白蚧发生动态和药剂防治试验

桑白蚧在福州地区一年发生4代．以雌成虫在寄主枝干上越冬．越冬代(第4代)一雌虫产卵量多的达278粒．少的36粒,平均171粒,比第2代产卵量多2．6倍．比第3代多4．5倍．药剂防治试验结果,在2龄幼蚧高峰期,用25％扑虱灵可温性粉剂1500倍液,40％氧化乐果乳油800-1000倍液和95%机油乳剂50—100倍液喷雾．防治效果可达90％左右．用25％扑虱是可湿性粉剂1000-1500倍液．喷酒幼蚕触杀试验和喷洒桑叶喂蚕胃毒试验结果．对幼蚕安全．用扑虱灵防治桑树上的桑白蚧,对养蚕业无不良影响。     

Developing Regenerate: A circular economy engagement tool for the assessment of new and existing buildings

The transition toward a circular economy (CE) is key in decarbonizing the built environment. Despite this, knowledge of—and engagement with—CE philosophies remains limited within the construction industry. Discussion with practitioners reveals this to be contributed to by a lack of clarity regarding CE principles, with numerous organizations recommending implementation of differing and sometimes conflicting principles. In addition, a systematic assessment of how building designs consider CE is made difficult by the multiple design areas required to be considered and the large amount of design data required to do so. The absence of a systematic CE assessment causes a lack of comparability across designs, preventing benchmarking of CE practices in building design at present. This paper details the development of Regenerate, a CE engagement tool for the assessment of new and existing buildings, established in an effort to overcome the aforementioned barriers to the adoption of CE within the construction sector. A CE design workflow for the built environment is proposed, comprising four overarching circularity principles (Design for Adaptability; Design for Deconstructability; Circular Material Selection; Resource Efficiency) and contributing design actions. In addition to engaging stakeholders by enabling the assessment of building designs, the tool retrieves key data for further research. Information on completed design actions as well as recycling and waste metrics is collected to facilitate future CE benchmarking. “Bill of materials” data (i.e., material quantities) is also compiled, with this being key in material stock modeling research and embodied carbon benchmarking.     

Experimental evidence of size-selective harvest and environmental stochasticity effects on population demography,fluctuations and non-linearity

Theory and analyses of fisheries data sets indicate that harvesting can alter population structure and destabilise non-linear processes, which increases population fluctuations. We conducted a factorial experiment on the population dynamics of Daphnia magna in relation to size-selective harvesting and stochasticity of food supply. Harvesting and stochasticity treatments both increased population fluctuations. Timeseries analysis indicated that fluctuations in control populations were non-linear, and non-linearity increased substantially in response to harvesting. Both harvesting and stochasticity induced population juvenescence, but harvesting did so via the depletion of adults, whereas stochasticity increased the abundance of juveniles. A fitted fisheries model indicated that harvesting shifted populations towards higher reproductive rates and larger-magnitude damped oscillations that amplify demographic noise. These findings provide experimental evidence that harvesting increases the non-linearity of population fluctuations and that both harvesting and stochasticity increase population variability and juvenescence.     

Initiating and promoting the aquatic ecosystem health concept: the Society and the Journal

Since the 1970's the management of aquatic habitats has changed from piecemeal monitoring to the ecosystem approach; this was initiated in the North American Great Lakes, comprising social, economic, and environmental aspects. The information included in this paper is based on the presentation made at the Seminar On Ecosystem Approach To Water Management held in Oslo, Norway during 1991. Recently, the multidisciplinary, holistic, and integrated concept of ecosystem health has emerged, and is being advanced for the implementation of an ecosystem approach to environmental management, which has resulted in the formation of an international society (Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management Society) and the publication of a primary journal (Journal of Aquatic Ecosystem Health). The information has been updated to incorporate new developments and recent progress about the Society and the journal since the Oslo Seminar.     

A data-driven framework to model the organism–environment system

Organisms modify their development and function in response to the environment. At the same time, the environment is modified by the activities of the organism. Despite the ubiquity of such dynamical interactions in nature, it remains challenging to develop models that accurately represent them, and that can be fitted using data. These features are desirable when modeling phenomena such as phenotypic plasticity, to generate quantitative predictions of how the system will respond to environmental signals of different magnitude or at different times, for example, during ontogeny. Here, we explain a modeling framework that represents the organism and environment as a single coupled dynamical system in terms of inputs and outputs. Inputs are external signals, and outputs are measurements of the system in time. The framework uses time-series data of inputs and outputs to fit a nonlinear black-box model that allows to predict how the system will respond to novel input signals. The framework has three key properties: it captures the dynamical nature of the organism–environment system, it can be fitted with data, and it can be applied without detailed knowledge of the system. We study phenotypic plasticity using in silico experiments and demonstrate that the framework predicts the response to novel environmental signals. The framework allows us to model plasticity as a dynamical property that changes in time during ontogeny, reflecting the well-known fact that organisms are more or less plastic at different developmental stages.     

2000—2019年四川省植被恢复成效与影响因素

国家实施天然林资源保护工程与退耕还林等生态建设工程,为构筑长江上游生态屏障、促进长江流域经济可持续发展做出了突出贡献;评估退耕还林等生态工程实施后植被恢复成效及影响因素是促进区域植被恢复优化与生态环境改善的关键一步。基于MODIS MOD13Q1数据,应用Theil Sen斜率与Mann-Kendall趋势检验、“基线”评价方法、时空地理加权回归模型等量化不同时间尺度的植被时空变化、恢复成效和恢复机制。结果表明(1)植被覆盖状况良好,截止2019年底,四川省91%的区域植被出现增长,四川盆地东北部、四川省南部地区以及东南部乌蒙山、川西北高原地区植被覆盖较高;成都市内以及周围市区植被覆盖率较低。(2)植被恢复成效时空差异显著,占全省面积98.68%的区域植被恢复成效明显,高值区面积占比71.47%,集中于除成都平原外的四川省绝大部分区域。(3)气候变化对植被变化的影响以不显著为主,气温、降水对四川省植被恢复影响微弱,海拔和>35°坡度面积比等地理环境因子则以弱抑制作用为主。(4)在相对平稳的气候背景下,人均财政支出、耕地面积与人均GDP所代表的社会经济因素是植被恢复成效改善的重要影...     

变化环境下火干扰研究进展

火是地球系统的重要过程,也是一种剧烈的环境干扰因素。火是生态系统变化的驱动力和催化剂,调节着生态系统的结构和功能,同时反馈给气候系统。近年来,世界多个国家相继爆发了历史上罕见的极端火事件,使得火干扰、气候变化和人类活动之间的相互作用关系得到了空前的关注。主要从3个方面回顾了变化环境下火干扰研究的进展,包括(1)火干扰的时空格局;(2)火干扰的驱动机制;(3)火干扰的生态效应。概括起来,遥感技术的发展使得火监测精度不断提高,对火时空格局的刻画由过去侧重火燃烧面积单一因素转向具有多重属性的火干扰体系。气候变化和人类活动共同决定着火干扰的分布格局、频率和强度,考虑气候的季节性能够提高火干扰的预测能力。火干扰调节着生态系统的草木平衡,对于生物多样性和生境的维持非常重要。此外,火干扰通过生物质燃烧释放的大量温室气体影响大气组成和空气质量,同时通过改变地表状况和陆-气相互作用来影响气候系统。正确理解气候-植被-火之间的相互作用和反馈机制有助于未来火干扰体系的预测。随着高温、大风、干旱等极端气候事件增多,未来全球大部分区域火发生的风险增加,但是人类活动可能会使火和气候之间的关系发生解耦。可持续的火管...     

荒漠植物不同功能群性状特征及其与土壤环境的关系

研究不同功能群植物性状差异及其与土壤环境关系对于充分掌握植物的环境适应策略至关重要。以艾比湖流域为研究区,利用荒漠植物的植物高度、叶片碳、氮、磷、硫、钾、钙、钠、镁含量等9个性状,将高、低土壤水盐环境下的植物划分为5个功能群,分析不同功能群的植物组成、性状差异及其与土壤环境的关系。结果表明：(1)不同土壤水盐环境下,其植物功能群组成不同;其中白刺、胡杨和罗布麻在两个土壤水盐环境下的功能群中均存在。(2)植物的功能性状在不同土壤水盐环境下也发生了适应性的变化。高土壤水盐环境下3个功能群的植物高度、叶片碳、氮、磷和钙含量显著高于低土壤水盐环境功能群(P<0.05);低土壤水盐环境下2个功能群的植物叶片硫、钠和镁含量高于高土壤水盐环境功能群。(3)土壤含水量(SVWC)、电导率(EC)、pH以及土壤磷含量对荒漠植物功能性状影响较大。在高土壤水盐环境下,EC、pH与植物高度,叶片钾、钙含量正相关,与叶片硫含量负相关;在低土壤水盐环境下,SVWC、EC与植物高度呈显著正相关(P<0.05)。研究有助于理解荒漠植物对极端环境的适应对策,为保护荒漠地区生物多样性提供理论依据。