Desertification

Land Desertification refers to land degeneration, which is also called 'Soil desertification'(Figure 1）

Figure 1:Desertification

In 1992, United Nations Environment and Development Conference made this definition for Desertification concept: "Desertification is a result to the factors of climate change and human unreasonable economic activities, which makes degradation occurs in the arid, semi-arid and sub-humid lands.

Figure 2: Soil degradation around the world

With the development of the society, desertification has become not only an ecosystem problem, but also an economical and social problem which could bring poverty and social instability. by the end of 1996, the total amount of desertification lands all around the world has reached 36 million square kilometer, accounting for 25% of  total land area on the earth. Countries around the world affected by desertification has more than 100, although people of all countries are conducting fight desertification, but at an annual rate of 50,000-70,000 expanded square kilometers, equivalent Ireland area. The twentieth century, the world will lose about a third of arable land. In humans in many of today's environmental problems, desertification is one of the most serious disasters. For people threatened by desertification, desertification means that they will lose the basis of being more basic - the disappearance of productive land. As we could see from Figure 2, the most serious degradation concentrates on Africa, China and the countries around the Mediterranean.
The causes of Desertification is various, including natural causes, climate causes, and human irrational production activity. Based on the causes, the management of desertification is obvious.

Figure 3:Plant in the polygonal ground

1. Setting sand-protecting barrier at migratory dune to weaken the erosion of wind and at the meanwhile save the rainfall to promote plant growth.
2. Control the development density of water resources, biological resources and land resources and avoid over-destroy the natural plants. Therefore, protecting and rebuilding the desert ecosystem is the basic way to restrict the expansion of desertification.
3.Control the population. Keep the population in the range of Environmental Bearing Capacity.
4. Plant more psammophytes in the desert areas to prevent the expansion of desert and promote the quality of land.
5. Using the water resources in an efficient way in terms of drawing water, water delivery and irrigation.

All in all, in the desertification, human activities play an important role; therefore, it`s no time to delay for human to take some actions to protect our own earth!




Images from:
https://userscontent2.emaze.com/images/9ca73f3c-27dd-4c2b-92cb-2aed49f8981d/25362ee0-7b7e-46fd-a033-e7dae0973a01.png
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl-H-I12s0QlKwjb07X5Q3QS-Mr9tHx87kNDkENXITyCjBt2opQM5dkX90IhDOdYwIGL1J_ua2hEuL-dWFq74kjNi4LcqRILpVZHgodkxqIQyn5TLE6ngmFOszPcNa4ICcwRYQIiAYZDi7/s1600/ghana.jpg
http://medomed.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/dry-cracked-earth.jpg

How to prevent from school bullying?

How to prevent from school bullying?

  If we want to live in a high quality of life, we cannot just focus on the external environment, but also we should care about the internal situation which is the psychological health. Bullying is a kind adverse impact on individual health.

  

What is bullying?

  Bullying is the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively dominant others. The bullying is divided into four basic types of abuse:

1.    emotional (or can be called relational)

2.    verbal

3.    physical

4.    cyber

One of most serious kind of bullying is school bullying which is a type of bullying that occurs in an educational setting. The school bullying may be more specifically characterized by five aspects as the following:

• An intention to harm
• Victimization distress
• Repetition
• Power inequity
• Provocation

How to prevent this kind of problem?

  Many parents may concern more about this issue for that they are afraid of their children would be treated like that. First of all, parents should stay connected with your child. The more you know about his or her friends and the details about his or her interactions eith classmates and peers, the more likely you are to spot any changes in your child's social interactions. If you communicate well with your child, when they get in trouble, they may ask you for help at first.

  Secondly, you should explain to your children what is school bullying, especially young children, they may not understand that hitting someone is bad. And parents also should tell your childern other kinds of bullying behaviours.

  Then, the children should be aware of how to deal with a school bullying. Children should understand what is school bullying, and should be educated that they cannot do the bullying behaviours. However, when they face the situation, they also should know how to deal with this issue. Asking teachers for help is a effective method, teachers have the right to protect children and provide a healthy study environment.

  Children need a healthy and positive circumstances to study, and we adults should provide them this kind of surroundings.

Pictures from the following websites:

http://www.hero911.org/ways-to-stop-bullying-in-schools/

http://nobullismo.altervista.org/page/10/

Conservation Biology

Conservation Biology

  There are billions of species on our earth, and we human being is one of them. If we want to protect our planet, we should protect these variety of species. The term 'conservation biology' is derived from this reason. The conservation biology is tied closely to ecology in researching the dispersal, migration, demographics, effective population size, inbreeding depression, and minimum population viability of rare or endangered species (Benton and Ferry, 2010). 

  Conservation biology is concerned with with phenomena that affect the maintenance, loss, and restoration of biodiversity and the science of sustaining evolutionary processes that engender genetic, population, species, and ecosystem diversity. The biologists should work hard to protect those aspects by research and education. And in my opinion, there are not too many biologists, so we normal people should be involved in to this activity.

   Education is a good method to make our younger generation to be informed that the biodiversity is very important. We cannot live without those different species, and only all these creatures including our human beings live in harmony, we can make our planet become better.

   The approaches that we can do are simple. First of all, especially women should reduce to buy furs which are made by rare animals. There is a word, 'no business, no massacre'. If we restrict to buy them, those animals won't be killed. Second one is that we shouldn't involve much more in the wild animals, such as catching them into zoos, we should just leave them on the wild environment, and do not destroy their habitats.

   Although, we are not experts, but we should and we can do something indeed to protect our friends-other species, and our planet-Earth.

Picture from the following website:

http://www.frostburg.edu/home/academic/majorminors/graduate/master-of-science-applied-ecology-and-conservation-biology/

Who kills Our Communication Time?

Who kills Our Communication Time?

  With the increasing technology, people have more chance to buy a private phone. And those phones are smart phones which would help people to live a convenient life. 

  In the modern time, almost everyone processes a phone no matter he or she is a children or old person. We have to admit that those smart phones could help us to do much things. And I believe that in the future, the artificial intelligence could occur. However, there are some disadvantages of this kin of technologies. The first one comes to my mind is the loss of communication between persons. 

  

  Just like the picture above, we can see that two people site opposite to each other, but they are playing with their phones instead of talking to each other. This kind of phenomenon is very prevalent across the world. More and more people cannot live without phones. They ignore the importance of communication and social activities.

  As my experience, my boyfriend likes to play his Iphone 6 when we eat at the restaurant. I'd like to chat with him about my life and things that happened to me. When I see that he plays the phone, I just feel that I am ignored and he do not care about me. Over the time, people may be hard to communicate with others, and people may be easy to become strangers.

  Yes, technology could help to improve our life quality, however, we may lose many happiness on the phone.

Picture from the following website:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/19/world_goes_sim_free_leaving_sony_and_htc_trailing/

Could we save our habitat-Sea Level Rise Problem

Could we save our habitat-Sea Level Rise Problem

  Accelerated sea-level rise is one of the more certain consequences of greenhouse-induced climate change and would have many adverse impacts on the world’s coastline. The main reason which contributes to this phenomenon is the melting of ice sheets and glaciers (generally due to the global warming). 

  Nowadays, the argument of a global issue— sea-level rise constantly exists among the world. Because of the global climate change, the global temperature increases causing the melting of ice sheets and glaciers. However, there is a fact that should be noticed, the melting of marine surface ice do not directly contribute sea-level rise, on the contrary, the sea-level could fall because of the high marine salt concentration.

According to the 2013 IPCC report, it indicated that there is high possibility that the rate of sea level rise has increased during the last two centuries, and it is expectable that GMSL (Global Mean Sea Level) has expedited since the early 1900’s.

  As the increasing concern of this problem, we should find the solutions to mitigate the sea level rise. First we should understand the causes which lead to the issue. It is acknowledged that climate change is the major reason which may be responsible for the issue. If we can mitigate the climate change which focuses on the global warming, thus we can mitigate the sea level rise. How to solve this issue? There are some possible responses to global warming:

• Reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

  There are many activities which may help to reduce the emission including: energy conservation and increased energy efficiency; the use of low-carbon energy technologies, such as renewable energy and nuclear energy.

• Policies to reduce the global warming

  Our government or international organisations should implement the related polices to limit the industry to release less polluted air which may increase the air temperature.

• Climate engineering

  This is also known as 'geoengineering' which is the deliberate modification of the climate.

  From those methods above, we could save our habitat from sea level rise. 

Picture from the following website:

http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/07/climate-scientist-sea-levels-could-rise-10-feet-by-2065/

Please Appreciate What We Have-Food Security

Please Appreciate What We Have-Food Security

  Food always is a global topic that many countries concern about the supply and demand. And the food price increases which draw attention of the world's policy-makers and news media to food security. How serious the situation is, we should understand this first. This blog will focus on this and provide some probable solutions for this global issue.

  

What is food security? 

  Food security has a various meanings, and the most common one is that food security is a condition related to the supply of food, and individuals' access to it. To be more specific, the food security does not mean that food which may be poisonous, but means food shortage. Concerns of food shortage have existed throughout history. At the 1974, World Food Conference defined the term 'food security' as an emphasis on supply. 

  This kind of global issue even occurs in the ancient China which was a large country of grain production. Food insecurity is not necessarily a lack of food, but is underpinned by a lack of accessibility to diverse produce, and the implications that has. In another words, the food shortage should include the diversity of food and nutrition.

Why there is food security?

  One of the reasons is agricultural industrialization. Using pesticide or chemical fertilizer may deteriorate the soil texture and pollute the underground water system. Increasing reliance on chemical fertilizers in agricultural production leads to declining crop yields, exacerbating global food crisis.

How to mitigate this issue?

  In order to mitigate this issue, we should find another way out to replace the agricultural industrialization. Some think that genetic engineering is a method to solve this problem, however there are also some drawbacks of this method. In contrast, there are some methods called 'Intelligent Farming' which includes the tillage methods may be beneficial to the biodiversity.

http://www.foodnavigator.com/Market-Trends/Africa-top-continents-set-for-food-demand-rise

http://environment.utk.edu/event/global-issues-conference/

We Need to Embellish Our City-The Urban Landscape Architecture

We Need to Embellish Our City-The Urban Landscape Architecture

The most important role of a city is to provide shelters for people who live in the city. And there are other three basic functions of a city;

• Political                                                         

         -Security 

         -Stability

         -Relative Calm

• Economic

         -General Commerce

• Social Welfare

        -Religious

        -Learning

        -Health

        -Recreation

        -Overall Quality of Life

  The urban landscape architecture is a kind of recreation for a city, and it is very important in the urban development. Although the basic function of a city is offering shelters for residents, people do not only need a house to live in, they also need some nourishment for the mind, and some spaces for entertainment and relax. The urban landscape should provide this kind of role for residents.

  Industrial Revolution brought a new design aesthetics, which focus on the machine. The machine was thought as a universal thing, therefore, coming out the Le Corbusier's rapid urbanisation model holding that a city was designed for the machine, and eventually turned into a machine. However, city is not a machine, it is a container. People who live in the city need space to entertain and relax after hard works. So the city need to provide some places which is open space for this reason. The only open space is not enough for residents, the space need to be decorated with trees and landscape.

  Landscape architecture is a multi-disciplinary field, it contains botany, art, design, and even some policies. A successful landscape design not only can improve the visual standard of a city, it even can improve the quality of residents' lives. The people who live in this city will feel comfortable and enjoyable.

Pictures from the following websites:

http://landarchs.com/top-10-landscape-architecture-projects-2015/

The Ghost City

The Ghost City

  As a planner, I am concerned about the whole plan of a city if its aggregate planning is appropriate. And I just heard of a news which attracted my eye on it which is the Detroit Bankruptcy. The city of Detroit, Michigan, filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy on July 18, 2013.

  In my opinion, the city of Detroit was famous for its automotive industry, and it is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the largest city on the United States-Canada border. 

  Because of the federal bankruptcy, the Detroit became a ghost city with few people lived there. The housing price in this city is extremely low same as the social security. This kind of issue obviously has adverse impact on the whole country's development, and it violates the sustainable development.

  The reasons for abandonment can be defined as the following aspects:

• Economic activity shifting elsewhere
• Human intervention
• Disasters, actual and anticipated
• Disease and contamination

  The city of Detroit became a ghost city because of the economic activities. And I think this is the main cause of forming a ghost city. In China, there are also some ghost area which are caused by the economic activities such as real estate transaction. 

  In many Chinese cities, especially those second-tier cities, the governments do not consider the practical situation of the demand of housing, they just want to gain more political achievements in their official careers, so they construct more houses which exceed the demand of the city. Those houses or apartments are abandoned. 

  This kind of issue is also a result of unsustainable development. This phenomenon is a social issue that impact citizens' daily life. The specific reason why the Detroit bankruptcy is the shortage of manufacture. Without manufacture, people have no chance to get jobs, so they move to another cities to find jobs, the city of Detroit bankruptcy. Similar with the Detroit, Chinese cities which lack the industries providing jobs and necessity of daily life, the city is easier to become a ghost city. Another factor is infrastructure. A developed service system can help to attract people to live in the city and provide a better life quality.

  From the case study of the city of Detroit, the elimination of ghost city is not complex. If the government can provide the factories which means the job opportunities, thus the people can live, the city won't be a ghost city then.

Pictures from the following websites:

http://evolvedweb.deviantart.com/art/Ghost-city-81835915

http://coolinterestingstuff.com/modern-ghost-town-motor-city-detroit-usa

Light pollution-A cause of eye diseases

  In my blogs, I talked about several different pollution which are air pollution, visual pollution and E-waste. And in this blog, I want to talk about the other pollution which is called light pollution. According to Wikipedia, the light pollution also known as photopollution or luminous pollution, is excessive, misdirected, or obtrusive artificial light. Pollution is the adding -of/ added light itself, in analogy to added sound, carbon dioxide, etc.

Light pollution compares with starlight in the night sky for residents, interferes with astronomical observatories, and like any other form of pollution, disrupts ecosystems and has adverse health effects, and the pollution can be divided into to major categories:

• Unpleasant light that intrudes on an otherwise natural or low-light setting
• Excessive light (generally means indoors' lights) that leads to discomfort and adverse health effects

  The consequences of this kind of issue can be seen as the following:

• Energy waste
• Effects on animal and human health and psychology
• Disruption of ecosystem
• Effect on astronomy
• Increase in atmospheric pollution
• Reduction of natural sky polarization

  The reduction of this issue includes many things such as reducing sky glow, reducing glare, reducing light trespass, and reducing clutter. And some possible solutions include (Wikipedia):

1.    Utilizing light sources of minimum intensity necessary to accomplish the light's purpose

2.     Turning lights off using a timer or occupancy sensor or manually when not needed

3.    Improving lighting fixtures, so that they direct their light more accurately towards where it is needed, and with fewer side effects

4.    Adjusting the type of lights used, so that the light waves emitted are those that are less likely to cause severe light pollution problems. Mercury, metal halide and above all first generation of blue-light LED road luminaires are much more pollutant than sodium lamps: Earth atmosphere scatters and transmits blue light better than yellow or red light. It is a common experience observing "glare" and "fog" around and below LED road luminaires as soon as air humidity increases, while orange sodium lamp luminaires are less prone to show this phenomenon

5.    Evaluating existing lighting plans, and re-designing some or all of the plans depending on whether existing light is actually needed

  I hope that we can mitigate this kind of issue and help to protect our planet to let we human beings live in a beautiful and environmental friendly earth.

Picture from the following website:

http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/nlpip/lightinganswers/lightpollution/abstract.asp

1. Where We Live Matters for Our Health: Neighbourhoods and Health

Introduction

Just as conditions within our homes have important implications for our health, conditions in the neighbourhoods surrounding our homes also can have major health effects. There is a statement that social and economic features of neighbourhoods have been linked with mortality, general health status, disability, birth outcomes, chronic conditions, health behaviours and other risk factors for chronic disease, as well as with mental health, injuries, violence and other important health indicators.

How could neighbourhood affect health? 

There are three major aspects including physical environment, social environment, and service environment.

• The physical environment includes the “built environment”— the environment resulting from structures built by humans—as well as the natural environment. Health can be adversely affected by poor air and water quality or proximity to facilities that produce or store hazardous substances;9 by substandard housing conditions exposing residents to lead paint, mold, dust or pest infestation; by lack of access to nutritious foods and safe places to exercise combined with concentrated exposure and ready access to fast food outlets and liquor stores; and by adverse traffic conditions.

• The social environment includes the quality of relationships—such as trust, connectedness and cooperation—among neighbourhood residents. Health can also be shaped by the social environments of neighbourhoods—that is, by characteristics of the social relationships among their residents, including the degree of mutual trust and feelings of connectedness among neighbours. 

• The service environment includes neighbourhood resources for education, employment, transportation, health care, grocery shopping, recreation and other services directly or indirectly tied to health. The availability of services and opportunities in neighborhoods is another general pathway through which neighborhoods can influence health. Where we live is highly correlated with the quality of schools, transportation and other municipal services, health care services and employment opportunities to which we have access. Health care can influence health in relatively direct ways. Education, employment opportunities and other services influence health more indirectly, such as by providing the means to achieve an adequate standard of living now and in the future. 

Neighbourhood improvement

There are eight ways to improve your neighbourhood relating to your neighbours as following;

1. Reach out

2. Get involved with your neighbours

3. Make a connection with your neighbours

4. Be considerate of others

5. Be generous

6. Draw neighbours together

7. Extend your church affiliation

8. Volunteer in your neighbourhood

Sources:

http://torontoist.com/2013/08/extra-extra-neighbourhood-rankings-rob-ford-editorials-and-prefab-buildings/

Plastics is good or bad?

The invention of plastics brings much convenience to our life; however, attendant disadvantages are also increasingly evident. That`s because it is difficult to be degraded, and if we dispose plastics through traditional method such as compost and landfill, the plastic could stay for over hundred years.

There are several disadvantages of overuse of plastics:

1. Arbitrary throw of plastic bags has destroyed the beauty of initial natural landscape;

2. Many wild animals die due to  mistaking plastics;

3. Plastic landfill will affect the permeability of soil, make destruction of the soil quality, and restrain the growth of  plants by 30% or more;

4. Landfill of plastic also affect the water quality and bring disease to human;

5. And if disposing plastics through burning, it will create poisonous gas which is harmful for animals and human and make them malformed or died.

Plastic waste

Plastic burning

Considering these disadvantages, adoptable and appropriate methods need to be utilised to dispose plastic waste. There should be several methods including:

1. Recycling plastic stuff such as plastic bottles as material of renewable plastic for reuse.

2. Collecting plastic waste as material for refining gasoline and diesel. (1 ton of plastic waste could be used to refine approximately 700 kilogram gasoline or diesel)

Plastic brings more convenience to our daily life and makes goods more flexible. However, it is a double-edged sword, and how to deal with the waste of plastic would be drawn human`s attention. And with the improvement of technology, I hope more new materials could be created to replace plastic and make our environment more sustainable.

Images from:

http://www.susanfreinkel.com/books_Plastic.html

http://cdn.songshuhui.net/wp-content/uploads/%E5%A1%91%E6%96%994%E9%A2%98%E5%9B%BE%E4%B8%8B.jpg

Wildfire

  A wildfire is an uncontrolled fire in an area of combustible vegetation that occurs in countryside area. It also has other names, such as brush fire, bush fire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, peat fire, vegetation fire, and veldfire. These names may be used to describe the same phenomenon relying on the type of vegetation which are being burned, and the regional variant of English being used. The standards of distinguishing wildfire from other fires include its extensive size, the speed at which it can spread out from its original source, its potential to change direction unexpectedly, and also its ability to jump gaps such as roads, rivers and fire breaks. Wildfires are characterized in terms of the cause of ignition, their physical properties such as speed of propagation, the combustible material present, and the effect of weather on the fire.

  Forest fire are a common occurrence in Australia due to the generally hot and dry climate, they pose a great risk to life and infrastructure during all times of the year, though mostly throughout the hotter months of summer and spring. Fossil records and human history contain accounts of wildfires, because wildfires can occur in periodic intervals.

  Wildfires can cause extensive damage, both to human life and property, but they also have various beneficial effects on wilderness areas. Some plant species depend on the effects of fire for growth and reproduction, although large wildfires may also have negative ecological effects.

  Strategies of wildfire prevention, detection, and suppression have changed and varied over the years, and further development of technology and research are encouraged by international wildfire management experts. One of the more controversial techniques is controlled burning: permitting or even igniting smaller fires to minimize the amount of flammable material available for a potential wildfire. While some wildfires burn in remote forested regions, they can cause extensive destruction of homes and other property located in the wildland-urban interface: a zone of transition between developed areas and undeveloped wilderness.

Picture from the following website:

http://inhabitat.com/?s=wildfire

Human Overpopulation

Human Overpopulation

  The sharp rise of world population growth rate is the current situation. An important symbol is the short time of population expansion. The world population increased from 5 billion to 10 billion using 200 years while it increased from 10 billion to 20 billion using only 100 years. It is clear that the resources on our earth are limited, that means more people would consume more resources. Thus, one day, the resources would be run out of, and our planet would be destroyed earlier.

  The reason for this rapid population growth is  the improvement of living conditions and medical technology leading to the reduction of death rate. The life expectancy continues to increase, which is the main reason for the overpopulation.

  Currently, there is more than 50% of the world's population which is under 25 years old, the structure present typical growth type. It would decide the continuously growth of population in the future for a long time. As the earth's space and resources are limited, controlling the population expansion is an urgent task.

   In China, the government implements a policy called 'one-child policy'. China, it is known as the biggest country in term of population, which now has almost 14 billion people living in the country. This policy was first introduced in 1978 and enacted on September 18th, 1980 to alleviate social, economic and environmental problems in China. The positive effects of this policy can be seen as the following:

• Reduce the overall population
• Change the demographic structure including age structure, sex structure and ethnic structure.
• Increase the family deposit

  However there also has several negative effects. The most contentious one is human right violations. Many experts hold the viewpoint that one-child policy has been challenged for violating a human right to determinate the size of one's own family.

  

  Whether this policy could help to mitigate the overpopulation effectively is a question.

Picture from the following website:

http://wakingupwisconsin.com/shattered-lies-overpopulation/

Electrical Appliances in our family

With the development of society, people`s life is becoming more and more automated and electrified. The household appliances are also becoming more and more diverse and multi-functional. Televisions, refrigerators, air conditions, washers/ dryers, computers, etc.take hold over almost every family, and they are part and parcel of our lives.

fridges

washers/dryers

Televisions

However, while these electric appliance makes our daily life much more convenient and comfortable, they are also brings negative effects to us．For example, Freon which is used in fridges and air conditions may cause the ozone hole; overuse of appliances may lead to electricity in short supply. What`s more, over-depending on these stuff makes people more lazy and lose many skills and abilities which we had before. Therefore I recommend that in some situation we could control our use of these appliances to reduce the use of electricity and at the meanwhile protect our environment.


There are several things we could do at home to achieve that goal:

-Air dry. Let your hair and clothes dry naturally instead of using a electrical machine.
-Avoid pre-heating the oven. Unless you need a precise baking temperature, start heating your food right when you turn on the oven. 
-Reduce the use of air condition. According to doctors` recommend, keeping staying in a room with air condition could cause many diseases. So using natural ventilation instead would be great.
-Don`t rinse. If you use a dishwasher, stop rinsing your plates before you run the machine.
-Solar energy. If possible, install solar panels in your house which could also reduce your electricity bill.-Keep the light off when you don`t use it.
-Reducing the time wasted on TV, go out and have some fun and communication with your friends instead. It would be wonderful for your health and social circle.

people needs other

Based on my own experience, some electrical appliances provide advantages to our life, but on the other way, some ones make our life more sealed and lazy. Let us use appliances in a more smart and sustainable way, and remember that no matter how powerful the machine is, it can replace the position of other people in our life, which means people are social animals and we can`t live only with machines and without others.

give others a hug

From now on reducing using the electrical machines and give a hug to the nature and others!












Pictures are from:
http://echeapwasheranddryer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/030510whirlpool-vantage-washer-and-dryer-full-shot.jpg
http://www.sghometheatre.ca/images/Televisions_6.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/06/15/article-0-1A46B815000005DC-130_638x739.jpg
http://cdn.tinybuddha.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Hugs1-300x199.jpg
http://www.archstonerecovery.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Hug1.jpg