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Copyright of Regional Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines the making of local climate governance in the Chinese setting where central-local inter-governmental relations continue to play critical part in almost every policy domain. Through analysing the climate responses of the three provincial-level governments at the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), the paper argues that the process of “experimentation under hierarchy” is relevant to understanding the evolving of the subnational climate regime in the YRD region. We find the preponderance of the central authorities in initiating national climate strategies and galvanising responses at the local level. Meanwhile, provincial governments have been able to leverage climate plans and actions to achieve their own gains. These findings suggest that any optimism about subnational climate activism in a Chinese setting has to be mixed with caution. In fact, the shadow of hierarchical authority structure lingers and plays important part in the initiation of subnational response and spurring climate responses and innovations from below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diverse and well-preserved latest Permian phytoplankton assemblages are described from four sections of the Yangtze Block, South China from localities in Zhongzhai (Guizhou Province), Shangsi (Sichuan Province), Xiakou (Hubei Province) and Dongpan (Guangxi Province). Most of the species have been reported previously from other upper Permian sections worldwide. The South Chinese phytoplankton taxa are generally very small in size, usually displaying diameters of about 20 μm and commonly include the generaMicrhystridium,VeryhachiumandLeiosphaeridia. However, larger taxa with vesicles often exceeding 80 μm in diameter, such asDictyotidium, are also abundant in the Shangsi section. Due to the presence of large populations ofMicrhystridiumandVeryhachium, a simple classification scheme for theMicrhystridium/Veryhachiumcomplex is proposed, based on the geometrical shape of the vesicle. We propose dividing the complex into five groups: theVeryhachium cylindricumgroup, representing all ellipsoidal specimens; theVeryhachium trispinosumgroup, all with triangular-shaped vesicles; theVeryhachium lairdiigroup, all with rectangular forms; theMicrhystridium pentagonalegroup, all with pentagonal specimens; and theMicrhystridium brevegroup, which includes all spherical forms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Outward expansion of urban lands in the developing nations is often associated with a substantial loss of environmental resources such as forests, wetlands, freshwater and cash crop fields. Yet, determining how different aspects of urbanisation – such as city population size and spread pattern of built-up lands – contribute to the cumulative loss of resources remains controversial. In this study, data sets were constructed describing changes to land cover across 65,200 grid cells at 1 km2 spatial resolution for China's Changjiang Delta Region over the past 60 years. The results showed that the region lost 12.2% of total resource sites. The distribution of resource degradation showed a highly dispersed pattern and was not confined to a few intense areas associated with large cities. No empirical evidence was found that city population size alone accurately predicts the distribution of resource loss. Very large cities (N = 4) contributed 35% to the total loss, demonstrating impacts similar to those of much more scattered towns (N = 230). Urban expansion of large cities may lead to extensive resource loss; however, a set of non-linear mechanisms, such as the diminishing effects of per-unit area urban spread on resources and interactions between urban patterns and the size of urban spread, can also play a significant role in downsizing the negative effects of large cities on resource sites. Thus, effective urban policies should carefully weigh the cumulative urban spread mechanisms of both large and small cities responsible for spatially dispersed degradation of environmental resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrological Sciences Journal/Journal des Sciences Hydrologiques is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)