Relations between Environmental Right for Citizens and the Right to Use Environmental Resources owned by Company and Enterprise

From angles of administrative law and private law, the article analyzes relations between environmental right for citizens and the right to use environmental resources owned by company and enterprise and points out three principles to balancing two relations: A principle of equal protection, a principle that general interest is superior to special interest as well as taking an account for special interest, in specific circumstances, for example, in the circumstance that clashes between environmental and economic interests can not be avoided, policy makers can put an emphasis on more important social interest according after considering weight of each interest. Finally, the article reaches a conclusion that China should establish system of environmental right for citizens from legislative and administrative levels so that a harmonious society can be constructed with guarantee.

Identification of Heterogeneity of Social and Economic Environment of Land Uses in China

The robust principal component analysis （RPCA） is a technique of multivariate statistics to assess the social and economic environment quality. This paper aims to explore a RPCA algorithm to analyze the spatial heterogeneity of social and economic environment of land uses （SEELU）. RPCA supplies one of the most efficient methods to derive the most important components or factors affecting the regional difference of the social and economic environment. According to the spatial distributions of the levels of SEELU,the total land resources of China were divided into eight zones numbered by Ⅰ to Ⅷ which spatially referred to the eight levels of SEELU.

Effects of Topography and Land use on Woody Plant Species Composition and Beta Diversity in an Arid Trans-Himalayan Landscape, Nepal

Distribution patterns of plant species are believed to be impacted by small-scale habitat heterogeneity. However, there have been few comparative studies examining how woody vegetation composition and diversity varies with aspects of different orientations in the Trans-Himalayan region at a local scale. Here, we examined the effects of incoming solar radiation on variation in woody species composition and compared the diversity between the northeast- and southwest-facing slopes in a Trans-Himalayan valley of Nepal. We also examined the implicit interactions between slope orientation and land use in determining the compositional variations between the slopes. We selected two pairs of northeast- and southwest-facing slopes where the first pair has a similar land use and differs in exposure only(Pisang site) while the other pair has clear differences in land use in addition to slope exposure(Braka site). In each site, we sampled 72 plots(36 on each slope) in which the presence and absence of woody species, environmental variables, and disturbance were recorded. Correspondence Analysis(CA) results suggested that the woody species composition significantly varied between northeast- and southwest-facing slopes at both sites, and was significantly correlated with measured environmental variables such as radiation index, altitude, and canopy openness. In the Braka site,mean alpha diversity was significantly higher on southwest-facing slopes. In contrast, beta diversity and gamma diversity were greater on northeast-facing slopes at both sites. Our results suggest that topographic variables(e.g., radiation index) affect species composition between the slopes, likely due to their influence on small scale abiotic environmental variables. However, the effects of land use, such as livestock browsing/grazing may interact with the effects of slope exposure, effectively reducing differences in species composition within slopes but enhancing the differences in beta diversity between contrasting slopes in the Braka. We conclude that slope orientation and land use are important factors in structuring the woody species composition and diversity in the arid Trans-Himalayan region. We suggest that both environmental and land use variables should be taken into consideration in future studies on plant community structure along the cultural landscapes.

Sustainable water environment and water use： A perspective on water resource utilization

The 6th International Water Association Asia Pacific Regional Grouping （IWA-ASPIRE） Conference and Exhibition was held on September 20-24, 2015, in Beijing. The conference was hosted by the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences （RCEES） of Chinese Academy of Sciences （CAS）; with strong support provided by CAS, Chinese Academy of Engineering （CAE）, National Science Foundation of China （NSFC）,