首页 | 本学科首页   官方微博 | 高级检索  
相似文献
 共查询到20条相似文献，搜索用时 15 毫秒
1.
Lacustrine sediments have been widely used to investigate past climatic and environmental changes on millennial to seasonal time scales. Sedimentary archives of lakes in mountainous regions may also record non-climatic events such as earthquakes. We argue herein that a set of 64 annual laminae couplets reconciles a stratigraphically inconsistent accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C chronology in a ~4-m-long sediment core from Lake Mengda, in the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau. The laminations suggest the lake was formed by a large landslide, triggered by the 1927 Gulang earthquake (M = 8.0). The lake sediment sequence can be separated into three units based on lithologic, sedimentary, and isotopic characteristics. Starting from the bottom of the sequence, these are: (1) unweathered, coarse, sandy valley-floor deposits or landslide debris that pre-date the lake, (2) landslide-induced, fine-grained soil or reworked landslide debris with a high organic content, and (3) lacustrine sediments with low organic content and laminations. These annual laminations provide a high-resolution record of anthropogenic and environmental changes during the twentieth century, recording enhanced sediment input associated with two phases of construction activities. The high mean sedimentation rates of up to 4.8 mm year?1 underscore the potential for reconstructing such distinct sediment pulses in remote, forested, and seemingly undisturbed mountain catchments.  相似文献   

2.
The twenty-first century is likely to be characterised by large changes in regional climatic and environmental conditions, with implications for the availability and distribution of key resources such as water and productive land. While the implications of such changes for human societies are potentially profound, the empirical evidence base for understanding human–environment interactions focuses largely on the relatively recent past, during which examples of rapid and severe climate change are lacking. While there are no precise past analogues for twenty-first century climate change, the Middle Holocene Climatic Transition (MHCT), from about 6400–5000?years before present, provides us with an example of a period of large-scale global climatic reorganisation, punctuated by episodes of rapid and severe climate change, at a time when human societies were beginning to resemble those of today. A survey of archaeological and palaeo-environmental data from the northern hemisphere subtropics and other regions provides us with evidence for linked climatic, environmental and societal change during the MHCT. This evidence, the strength of which varies with location, allows us to construct convincing narratives of linked climatic, environmental and societal changes that accommodate a variety of responses and outcomes, and that are much more nuanced than narratives of the proposed climate-induced collapse of individual societies. Such synthetic studies that compare contexts across time and space can help us understand human–environment interactions during times of climatic disruption, while allowing for diverse outcomes and avoiding the pitfalls of climatic determinism.  相似文献   

3.
Current knowledge of caves and karst regions of Ecuador is scarce and broadly limited to discrete areas such as that of the Galápagos volcanokarst. In continental Ecuador, carbonate karst mostly outcrops in the Amazonian basin and accounts for 5–10% of the surface of the country. However, owing to the difficulties of access within the Amazonian rainforest, most surface and subterranean karst is yet to be revealed. In this review, we present an updated map of the solutional karst of Ecuador based on the most recent geological surveys and our own research. We describe the principal karst regions of Ecuador from the Amazonian basin (Napo and Santiago) as well as the Galápagos pseudokarst. We show that Ecuador karst research may be of considerable importance for both basic and applied research owing to its geographical position and intrinsic vulnerabilities. We discuss the main challenges of karst-related research in Ecuador, such as paleoclimatic studies, subterranean biodiversity, and archeology. We discuss the main vulnerabilities and hazards related to karst uses in Ecuador, considering the paramount importance of tourism for the country.  相似文献   

4.
  相似文献   

5.
The spatial distribution of soil types is controlled by a set of environmental factors such as climate, organisms, parent material and topography as well as time and space. A change of these factors will lead to a change in the spatial distribution of soil types. In this study, we use a digital soil mapping approach to improve our knowledge about major soil type distributing factors in the steppe regions of Inner Mongolia (China) which currently undergo tremendous environmental change, e.g. climate and land use change. We use Random Forests in an effort to map Reference Soil Groups according to the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) in the Xilin River catchment. We benefit from the superior prediction capabilities of RF and additional interpretive results in order to identify the major environmental factors that control spatial patterns of soil types. The nine WRB soil groups that were identified and spatially predicted for the study area are Arenosol, Calcisol, Cambisol, Chernozem, Cryosol, Gleysol, Kastanozem, Phaeozem and Regosol.Model and prediction performances of the RF model are high with an Out-of-Bag error of 51.6% for the model and a misclassification error for the predicted map of 28.9%. The main controlling factors of soil type distribution are land use, a set of topographic variables, geology and climate. However, land use and climate are of major importance and topography and geology are of minor importance. The visualizations of the predictions, the variable importance measures as result of RF and the comparisons of these with the spatial distribution of the environmental factors delivered additional, quantitative information of these controlling factors and revealed that intensively grazed areas are subjected to soil degradation. However, most of the area is still governed by natural soil forming processes which are driven by climate, topography and geology. Most importantly though, our study revealed that a shift towards warmer temperatures and lower precipitation regimes will lead to a change of the spatial distribution of RSGs towards steppe soils that store less carbon, i.e. a decrease of spatial extent of Phaeozems and an increase of spatial extent of Chernozems and Kastanozems.  相似文献   

6.
Diatom and geochemical data from Crawford Lake, Ontario, have been used to document limnological responses to periods of cultural disturbance resulting from native Iroquoian occupation of the watershed (1268–1486 AD) and Euro-Canadian agriculture and deforestation (1867 AD–present). Here, we further develop the high-resolution nature of the Crawford Lake sediment record to examine the physical, chemical and biological aspects of limnological response to human disturbances in the lake catchment area with exceptional detail. We report detailed diatom abundance and flux data for individual taxa from Crawford Lake, and further describe the relationship between assemblage composition and environmental conditions using canonical correspondence analysis (CCA). Diatom assemblage data are used to calculate diatom inferred-total phosphorus (DI-TP) concentrations for the past ∼1,000 years. We also examine the diatom community response during and after periods of disturbance by Iroquoian and Euro-Canadian populations, and compare this response to existing geochemical proxies of lake production and new elemental geochemical indicators of catchment area erosion. In particular, we explore the differing limnological response to the two distinct periods of cultural eutrophication and examine the limnological processes that occurred during the period of␣low (or no) human activity (1487–1866 AD), when geochemical indicators of lake production recovered to pre-disturbance conditions, but diatom assemblages notably did not. Our results illustrate the highly susceptible nature of diatom communities to periods of anthropogenic disturbance, and emphasize that ecological indicators (such as diatom assemblages) should be included with other proxies (such as nutrient concentrations and physical characteristics) when assessing disturbance and recovery in lake systems.  相似文献   

7.
当前,生态修复和生态补偿的相关理论在发达国家较为盛行,也有许多值得借鉴的模式。本文以日本为研究对象,重点研究了在推行生态修复和生态补偿过程中的经验教训。基于长时间在日本佐渡岛上的实地调研和深度访谈,从微观的视角分析在各级政府积极推进朱鹮生息环境修复的背景下,以农户为主体的区域居民的意识和行为,揭示了区域环境整治和农户农业经营之间的矛盾。通过深入比较传统农业经营和环境友好型农业经营在经济效益上的差异,阐明了农户反对朱鹮野化放飞和生态修复的必然性。从而提出为了尽快扭转发展中国家区域间、群体间生态效益及相关经济效益分配不公平的局面,利用经济、社会政策以及法律手段,寻求切合区域实际、各具特色的生态补偿方式的重要性。  相似文献   

8.
《The Journal of geography》2012,111(3):163-168
Abstract

This paper explores the concept of relevancy in the context of an introductory physical geography course. The concern is with a relevant content and structure. Both are introduced through a problem-orientation. Current societal problems related to the physical environment are used to introduce students to conditions and processes involving environmental elements such as atmosphere, water, soil, vegetation, and topography. Because they are societal problems, the additional element, man, is included. The structure assumes a priori that the student has some prior knowledge of environmental problems. With a relatively high level of individual involvement, the student is asked to utilize this knowledge in learning about environmental processes and physical geographic concepts. Feedback from student to instructors is maximized through greater reliance on discussion groups, exercises, papers, and a problem-solving examination. In transmitting subject matter and environmental problems information, greater reliance is placed on readings and less on lectures.  相似文献   

9.
Optical dating of aeolian dynamism on the West African Sahelian margin   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  
The Sahelian Margin of West Africa is widely recognised as an area of recent environmental catastrophe and human suffering arising from food shortage and land degradation associated with prolonged drought. The propensity of this region to suffer drought has been related, using environmental data collected during the period of instrumental records, to a combination of low mean annual rainfall levels and a high degree of rainfall variability which relates to sea surface temperature anomalies in the adjacent tropical Atlantic Ocean. Despite the significant environmental and human consequences of such droughts, there is a paucity of long-term environmental data for the West African Sahel. Aeolian dune reactivations in this area are a potentially highly useful environmental archive of past periods of extended drought conditions, which may have resulted in localised or widespread dune reactivation. Here we describe the initial results from an ongoing programme of research, which seeks to develop a detailed record of past dune reactivations in Mali. We find evidence for repeated Holocene dune reactivation events and a significant number of reactivations, which commenced at the time of onset of the last major drought cycle in the early 1970s. We obtain ages as young as 20–30 years for some significant dune units (thickness up to 1 m) and describe the results of experiments which test the performance of our dating exercise. We specifically test for the significance of preheat temperature on single aliquot regeneration (SAR) equivalent dose determinations and recycling ratios; neither are found vary significantly as a function of preheating. Optical dating of sand sized quartz could provide a useful tool for palaeogeographical mapping of ancient and historical dune reactivations in this region and elsewhere.  相似文献   

10.
A Cascadia subduction-zone earthquake has the potential to generate tsunami waves which would impact more than 1000 km of coastline on the west coast of the United States and Canada. Although the predictable extent of tsunami inundation is similar for low-lying land throughout the region, human use of tsunami-prone land varies, creating variations in community exposure and potential impacts. To better understand such variations, land-cover information derived from midresolution remotely-sensed imagery (e.g., 30-m-resolution Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery) was coupled with tsunami-hazard information to describe tsunami-prone land along the Oregon coast. Land-cover data suggest that 95% of the tsunami-prone land in Oregon is undeveloped and is primarily wetlands and unconsolidated shores. Based on Spearman rank correlation coefficients (rs), correlative relationships are strong and statistically significant (p < 0.05) between city-level estimates of the amount of land-cover pixels classified as developed (impervious cover greater than 20%) and the amount of various societal assets, including residential and employee populations, homes, businesses, and tax-parcel values. Community exposure to tsunami hazards, described here by the amount and relative percentage of developed land in tsunami-prone areas, varies considerably among the 26 communities of the study area, and these variations relate to city size. Correlative relationships are strong and significant (p < 0.05) for community exposure rankings based on land-cover data and those based on aggregated socioeconomic data. In the absence of socioeconomic data or community-based knowledge, the integration of hazards information and land-cover information derived from midresolution remotely-sensed imagery to estimate community exposure may be a useful first step in understanding variations in community vulnerability to regional hazards.  相似文献   

11.
While political ideology is a consistent predictor of public environmental views in the United States, religious affiliation may also be an important correlate of environmental attitudes, especially in regions with a majority denomination. Using data from a 2014 survey in five communities across Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming (n = 906) experiencing renewable energy development, we investigate the influence of religious affiliation on environmental beliefs, views about climate change, and support for renewable energy. We are particularly interested in the influence of Mormonism, an understudied area of research. We find Mormonism, Protestantism, and Catholicism all significantly and negatively related to general pro-environment beliefs. However, this relationship doesn’t hold as consistently for views about global warming or renewable energy development. We also find income, gender, length of residence, and political orientation to be important predictors of environmental attitudes, and that general environmental beliefs are only weakly related to views about renewable energy.  相似文献   

12.
1 IntroductionM agnetic fabric is the basic character and the im portant trait for m agnetic m inerals insedim entary rocks.Ithas been w idely used in geologicaland environm entalinvestigations in thepastdecades (Ress,1965;Rolph,1989;Sagnotti,1998;Raposo,…  相似文献   

13.
Here we report our recent magnetic fabric investigation of loess deposition in Shagou section, located at the northeastern Qilian Mountains, the northeastern rim of the Tibetan Plateau. On the basis of environmental magnetism data, we indicate that the variation of anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) parameters, especially the foliation (F) and degree of anisotropy (P), might be more sensitive to the environmental change in the arid and semiarid regions than the magnetic susceptibility fluctuation. During the investigated interval, from 0.83 to 0.128 Ma, most of the middle to late Pleistocene significant climate change can be unraveled by the AMS parameters, such as the strengthening of cold/dry climate, the step drying event occurred nearly 250 ka, and the severe environmental change in MIS16. Our results also suggest that there is strong correlation between median diameter (Md) of grain size, F, and P. We propose that the AMS parameters can act as an important paleoenvironmental change indicator in the arid and semiarid regions.  相似文献   

14.
基于生态压力指数的新疆生态安全时空动态分析   总被引：3，自引：0，他引：3  
郭鹏程  包安明 《中国沙漠》2012,32(1):235-243
通过计算2000-2007年新疆各地州(市)的生态足迹和生物承载力,选取生态压力指数(EPI)构建区域生态安全评价模型,对不同地区的生态安全状况进行了评价并分析其时空动态变化。结果表明:①2000-2007年新疆各地州(市)人均生态足迹均呈增长趋势,而生物承载力总体上呈减少趋势。②西部大开发战略实施以来,新疆经历了由生态安全向生态不安全演变的过程;各地州(市)生态不安全程度逐年增加,且增加幅度不等。③新疆生态安全程度的空间分布呈现一定的规律性,北部地区＞中部地区＞东、西部地区＞天山北坡地区。  相似文献   

15.
Anthropogenic environmental degradation transforms mature vegetation into sites in succession, and actions to restore these altered environments must be based on ecological theories. Nucleation, promoted by facilitation, is an ecological process that can be applied to the restoration of altered environments. The original vegetation of many semi-arid regions has been profoundly altered, and is difficult to recuperate due to rigorous climates. Observations of secondary succession sites raise the following question: do some semi-arid plant species promote nucleation processes and can they therefore be considered nurse species? To address this question, vegetation surveys were undertaken in different environments: under the canopy of the shrub Combretum leprosum and in adjacent open areas. Shrubs in different stages were classified by canopy size: small, intermediate and large. Diversity and number of seedlings increased as the size of the C. leprosum canopies increased. Some of the environmental variables examined supported the role of C. leprosum as a facilitator species, such as the improvement in soil conditions under its canopy. Thus C. leprosum could be of significant importance in restoring degraded areas of the semi-arid region where it is present, by allowing the establishment of other plant species.  相似文献   

16.
Relatively little is known about past cold-season temperature variability in high-Alpine regions because of a lack of natural cold-season temperature proxies as well as under-representation of high-altitude sites in meteorological, early-instrumental and documentary data sources. Recent studies have shown that chrysophyte stomatocysts, or simply cysts (sub-fossil algal remains of Chrysophyceae and Synurophyceae), are among the very few natural proxies that can be used to reconstruct cold-season temperatures. This study presents a quantitative, high-resolution (5-year), cold-season (Oct–May) temperature reconstruction based on sub-fossil chrysophyte stomatocysts in the annually laminated (varved) sediments of high-Alpine Lake Silvaplana, SE Switzerland (1,789 m a.s.l.), since AD 1500. We first explore the method used to translate an ecologically meaningful variable based on a biological proxy into a simple climate variable. A transfer function was applied to reconstruct the ‘date of spring mixing’ from cyst assemblages. Next, statistical regression models were tested to convert the reconstructed ‘dates of spring mixing’ into cold-season surface air temperatures with associated errors. The strengths and weaknesses of this approach are thoroughly tested. One much-debated, basic assumption for reconstructions (‘stationarity’), which states that only the environmental variable of interest has influenced cyst assemblages and the influence of confounding variables is negligible over time, is addressed in detail. Our inferences show that past cold-season air-temperature fluctuations were substantial and larger than those of other temperature reconstructions for Europe and the Alpine region. Interestingly, in this study, recent cold-season temperatures only just exceed those of previous, multi-decadal warm phases since AD 1500. These findings highlight the importance of local studies to assess natural climate variability at high altitudes.  相似文献   

17.
There is increasing evidence that people interpret their risk from environmental hazards through places—such as urban neighborhoods. At the same time, heightened levels of mobility are theorized to be leading to a so-called “placeless society” and possibly nullifying theories of locality-based risk perception. The purpose of this study is to combine environmental risk-hazards scholarship with work in urban geography to explore the following question: is perception of vulnerability to terrorism influenced by place and mobility, and if it is, what is the relationship? Drawing on interviews with 93 householders in Boston, Massachusetts, I demonstrate that people perceive vulnerability via understanding the transportation environment as a place—not simply a conduit—and that these perceptions reflect larger societal structures, such as wealth and gender disparities, that combine with (im)mobility and human subjectivity to amplify or attenuate a person’s sense of vulnerability. These findings bring an understanding of subjective experience to the geography of transportation systems, which has not yet been theorized within the urban disaster literature.  相似文献   

18.
The behavior and fates of environmental pollutants within the cryosphere and the associated environmental impacts are of increasing concerns in the context of global warming.The Tibetan Plateau(TP),also known as the"Third Pole",represents one of the most important cryospheric regions in the world.Mercury(Hg)is recognized as a global pollutant.Here,we summarize the current knowledge of Hg concentration levels,pools and spatio-temporal distribution in cryospheric environments(e.g.,glacier,permafrost),and its transfer and potential cycle in the TP cryospheric region.Transboundary transport of anthropogenic Hg from the surrounding heavily-polluted regions,such as South and Southeast Asia,provides significant sources of atmospheric Hg depositions onto the TP cryosphere.We concluded that the melting of the cryosphere on the TP represents an increasing source of Hg and brings a risk to the TP environment.In addition,global warming acts as an important catalyst accelerating the release of legacy Hg from the melting cryosphere,adversely impacting ecosystems and biological health.Furthermore,we emphasize on the remaining gaps and proposed issues needed to be addressed in future work,including enhancing our knowledge on some key release pathways and the related environmental effects of Hg in the cryospheric region,integrated observation and consideration of Hg distribution,migration and cycle processes at a key region,and uses of Hg isotopic technical and Hg models to improve the understanding of Hg cycling in the TP cryospheric region.  相似文献   

19.
We investigated the effect of frustule morphology on the distribution of various diatom taxa on microscope cover slips, using an artificial assemblage. Seven diatom morphotypes were processed separately in nitric acid and an eighth morphotype (Chaetoceros muelleri) was processed in Lugol’s. These were mixed into a single assemblage and dried on a cover slip. We then mapped the locations of all 1,664 valves in the debris area, which covered 244.4 mm2. The inner half of the debris area (A = 122.2 mm2, r ≤ 6.237 mm,), the “Central Region,” contained 1,303 valves (78 % of the total). Each of the eight morphotypes was significantly (p ≤ 0.035) more numerous in the Central Region than in the Marginal Region. In addition, the assemblages in the two Regions were quite distinct: C. muelleri accounted for 19 % of the Central Region diatoms, but 57 % of the Marginal Region ones, whereas Surirella peisonis accounted for 17 and 6 %, respectively. We also considered valve distribution relative to aliquot volume by comparing the number of valves under the proximal 50 μl of the aliquot (r ≤ 4.758 mm) with the number of valves under the distal 50 μl. Four morphotypes were significantly (p < 0.02) more numerous in the Proximal Region. In contrast, valves of C. muelleri were significantly more numerous in the Distal Region (p < 10?43). Valve distribution may reflect valve morphology, such as spine length and degree of silicification. Also important may be other environmental variables, such as the abundance and size of sediment particles. Although preliminary, these data indicate that some taxa are not distributed randomly on cover slips, especially valves that have long spines, thin walls, or thick walls. Whereas many natural assemblages lack such morphotypes, investigators must be aware of such potential heterogenous distributions when counting.  相似文献   

20.
China is physically and socio-economically susceptible to global warming-derived high temperature extremes because of its vast area and high urban population density. This article presents a scenario-based analysis method for high temperature extremes aimed at illustrating the latter’s hazardous potential and exposure across China. Based on probability analysis, high temperature extreme scenarios with return periods of 5, 10, 20, and 50 years were designed, with a high temperature hazard index calculated by integrating two differentially-weighted extreme temperature indices (maximum temperature and high temperature days). To perform the exposure analysis, a land use map was employed to determine the spatial distribution of susceptible human activities under the different scenarios. The results indicate that there are two heat-prone regions and a sub-hotspot occupying a relatively small land area. However, the societal and economic consequences of such an environmental impact upon the North China Plain and middle/lower Yangtze River Basin would be substantial due to the concentration of human activities in these areas.  相似文献   

设为首页 | 免责声明 | 关于勤云 | 加入收藏

Copyright©北京勤云科技发展有限公司  京ICP备09084417号