Development of monitoring and assessment of forest biomass and carbon storage in China

Addressing climate change has become a common issue around the world in the 21st century and equally an important mission in Chinese forestry.Understanding the development of monitoring and assessment of forest biomass and carbon storage in China is important for promoting the evaluation of forest carbon sequestration capacity of China.The author conducts a systematic analysis of domestic publications addressing＂monitoring and assessment of forest biomass and carbon storage＂in order to understand the development trends,describes the brief history through three stages,and gives the situation of new development.Towards the end of the 20th century,a large number of papers on biomass and productivity of the major forest types in China had been published,covering the exploration and efforts of more than 20 years,while investigations into assessment of forest carbon storage had barely begun.Based on the data of the 7th and 8th National Forest Inventories,forest biomass and carbon storage of the entire country were assessed using individual tree biomass models and carbon conversion factors of major tree species,both previously published and newly developed.Accompanying the implementation of the 8th National Forest Inventory,a program of individual tree biomass modeling for major tree species in China was carried out simultaneously.By means of thematic research on classification of modeling populations,as well as procedures for collecting samples and methodology for biomass modeling,two technical regulations on sample collection and model construction were published as ministerial standards for application.Requests for approval of individual tree biomass models and carbon accounting parameters of major tree species have been issued for approval as ministerial standards.With the improvement of biomass models and carbon accounting parameters,thematic assessment of forest biomass and carbon storage will be gradually changed into a general monitoring of forest biomass and carbon storage,in order to realize their dynamic monitoring in national forest inventories.Strengthening the analysis and assessment of spatial distribution patterns of forest biomass and carbon storage through application of remote sensing techniques and geostatistical approaches will also be one of the major directions of development in the near future.

An input-output model for energy accounting and analysis of industrial production processes： a case study of an integrated steel plant

To promote sustainability, it has become increasingly vital to properly account material and energy flows in industrial production processes. Therefore, a generic process-level input-output （IO） model was developed to provide an integrated energy （material） accounting and analysis approach for industrial production processes. By extending the existing processlevel IO models, the production, usage, export and loss of by-products were explicitly considered in the proposed IO model. Moreover, the by-products allocation procedures were incorporated into the proposed IO model to reflect individual contributions of products to energy consumption. Finally, the proposed model enabled calculating embodied energy of main products and total energy consumption under hierarchical accounting scope. Plant managers, energy management consultants, governmental officials and academic researchers could use this input-output model to account material and energy flows, thus calculating energy consumption indicators of a production process with their specific system boundary requirements. The accounting results could be further used for energy labeling, identifying bottlenecks of production activities, evaluating industrial symbiosis effects, improving materials and energy utilization efficiency, etc. The model could also be used as a planning tool to determine the effect that a particular change of technology and supply chains may have on the industrial production processes. The proposed model was tested and applied in a real integrated steel mill, which also provided the reference results for related researches. At last, some concepts, computational issues and limi- tations of the proposed model were discussed.

Participatory approach to design social accountability interventions to improve maternal health services:a case study from the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Background:Social accountability(SA)comprises a set of mechanisms aiming to,on the one hand,enable users to raise their concerns about the health services provided to them(voice),and to hold health providers(HPs)accountable for actions and decisions related to the health service provision.On the other hand,they aim to facilitate HPs to take into account users’needs and expectations in providing care.This article describes the development of a SA intervention that aims to improve health services responsiveness in two health zones in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Methods:Beneficiaries including men,women,community health workers(CHWs),representatives of the health sector and local authorities were purposively selected and involved in an advisory process using the Dialogue Model in the two health zones:(1)Eight focus group discussions(FGDs)were organized separately during consultation aimed at sharing and discussing results from the situation analysis,and collecting suggestions for improvement,(2)Representatives of participants in previous FGDs were involved in dialogue meetings for prioritizing and integrating suggestions from FGDs,and(3)the integrated suggestions were discussed by research partners and set as intervention components.All the processes were audio-taped,transcribed and analysed using inductive content analysis.Results:Overall there were 121 participants involved in the process,51 were female.They provided 48 suggestions.Their suggestions were integrated into six intervention components during dialogue meetings:(1)use CHWs and a health committee for collecting and transmitting community concerns about health services,(2)build the capacity of the community in terms of knowledge and information,(3)involve community leaders through dialogue meetings,(4)improve the attitude of HPs towards voice and the management of voice at health facility level,(5)involve the health service supervisors in community participation and;(6)use other existing interventions.These components were then articulated into three intervention components during programming to:create a formal voice system,introduce dialogue meetings improving enforceability and answerability,and enhance the health providers’responsiveness.Conclusions:The use of the Dialogue Model,a participatory process,allowed beneficiaries to be involved with other community stakeholders having different perspectives and types of knowledge in an advisory process and to articulate their suggestions on a combination of SA intervention components,specific for the two health zones contexts.

Ecological Footprint Evaluation of Three Types of Wood Flooring in China based on Their Production Data from 2000 to 2018

To encourage the environmental responsibility of consumers and manufacturers for forest management,it is necessary to evaluate the environmental influences of forest products.Ecological footprint(EF) is an internationally recognized indicator for estimating the natural capital consumption and environmental influences of various forest products.In this study,we developed an accounting model for the EF evaluation of wood flooring,which is a tertiary forest product,by the method of transformation.Next,we used that model to evaluate the EF of three types of wood flooring in China according to their production data from 2000 to 2018.We collected the necessary data by visiting typical enterprises in China and referring to the relevant literature.According to our results,the average EFs of solid wood flooring,engineered solid wood flooring and laminate flooring between 2000 to 2018 were 3.13×10^(6),1.05×10^(7) and 5.07×10^(6) gha,respectively.The total EFs of solid wood flooring,engineered solid wood flooring and laminate flooring from 2000 to 2018 were 5.95×10^(7),1.99×10^(8) and 9.64×10^(7 )gha,respectively.The coefficients of variation(CV) of the EFs for these three types of wood flooring were 0.45,0.87 and 0.76,respectively.The average and total EFs of the engineered solid wood flooring were the largest among the three types of wood flooring.The per capita EF and unit EF for the engineered solid wood flooring were also the highest among the three types of wood flooring.The EFs showed an upward trend with irregular fluctuations from 2000 to 2018 for all three types of wood flooring.It is necessary to reduce the EF of the engineered solid wood flooring and use more environmentally friendly products,such as solid wood flooring,for environmental protection.