The effects of conversion of tropical rainforest to rubber plantation on splash erosion in Xishuangbanna, SW China

The Xishuangbanna (SW China) landscape has changed dramatically during the past three decades due to the conversion of tropical rainforest to rubber plantations. This study characterized the influence of conversion of tropical rainforest to rubber plantation on potential splash erosion rate and actual splash erosion rate. The average potential splash erosion rate was 2.1 times higher in the rubber plantation than in the open, while for the rainforest it was only 1.2 times higher than in the open, suggesting that the rubber plantation canopy greatly increased the rainsplash erosion. The average actual splash erosion rate was 2.0 times higher in the rubber plantation than in the rainforest, demonstrating that the rainforest was more effective in controlling splash erosion. The actual splash erosion rate was considerably lower in the terrace bench than in the riser bank in the rubber plantation, indicating that the riser bank was more sensitive to raindrop splash. Hence, protection of terrace risers with productive vegetation or litter/mulch layer is of vital importance in this bench-terraced rubber plantation. These results clearly show that conversion of tropical rainforest to rubber plantation had a negative effect on controlling splash erosion.

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Effects of tropical rainforest conversion to rubber plantation on soil quality in Hainan Island, China

10.5194/bg-2021-303 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Rui Sun ◽

Guoyu Lan ◽

Chuan Yang ◽

Zhixiang Wu ◽

Banqian Chen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Soil Properties ◽

Soil Quality ◽

Tropical Rainforest ◽

Hainan Island ◽

Tropical Rainforests ◽

Forest Conversion ◽

Rubber Plantation ◽

Cellulose Decomposition ◽

Rubber Plantations

Abstract. Land-use changes can alter soil properties and thus affect soil quality. Our understanding of how forest conversion (from tropical rainforest to rubber plantations) affects soil properties and soil quality is limited. An ideal testing ground for analyzing such land-use change and its impacts is Hainan Island, the largest tropical island in China. Based on 21 soil physicochemical and biological properties, a soil quality index (SQI) employed principal component analysis to assess soil quality changes from the conversion of tropical rainforests to rubber plantations. The results showed that (i) soil available potassium, available phosphorus, microbial biomass carbon, cellulose decomposition, acid phosphatase, and urease were vital soil properties for soil quality assessment on Hainan Island. (ii) The SQI of rubber plantations decreased by 26.48 % compared to tropical rainforests, while four investigated soil properties (soil pH, total phosphorus, cellulose decomposition, and actinomyces) increased. (iii) The SQI of both the tropical rainforests and rubber plantations showed significant spatial differences, which, under tropical rainforests, was more sensitive to seasonal changes than those under rubber plantations. (iv) Structural equation modeling suggested that forest conversion directly impacted soil quality and, indirectly impacted soil qualities' spatial variation by their interaction with soil types and geographical positions. Overall, though the conversion of tropical rainforest to rubber plantation did not decrease all soil properties, the tropical rainforest with its high soil quality should be protected.

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Network complexity of rubber plantations is lower than tropical forests for soil bacteria but not fungi

10.5194/soil-2021-98 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Guoyu Lan ◽

Chuan Yang ◽

Zhixiang Wu

Keyword(s):

Network Structure ◽

Tropical Rainforest ◽

Soil Microbial Communities ◽

Hainan Island ◽

Past Research ◽

Forest Conversion ◽

Rubber Plantation ◽

Microbial Composition ◽

Rubber Plantations ◽

Soil Microbial

Abstract. Soil microbial communities play a crucial role in ecosystem functioning. Past research has examined the effects of forest conversion on soil microbial composition and diversity, but it remains unknown how networks within these communities respond to forest conversion such as when tropical rainforest are replaced with rubber plantations. In this study, we used Illumina sequencing and metagenome shotgun sequencing to analyze bacterial and fungal community network structure in a large number of soil samples from tropical rainforest and rubber plantation sites in Hainan Island, China. Our results showed only a few shared network edges were observed in both bacterial and fungal communities, which indicates that forest conversion altered soil microbial network structure. We found a greater degree of network structure and a larger number of network edges among bacterial networks in samples from tropical rainforest compared to samples from rubber plantations. The difference was especially pronounced during the rainy season and indicates that rainforest bacterial networks were more complex than rubber plantation bacterial networks. However, rubber plantations soil fungal networks showed more higher links and higher network degree, suggesting that forest conversion does not reduce fungal network complexity. We found that some groups of Acidobacteria were keystone taxa in our tropical rainforest soils, while Actinobacteria were keystone taxa in rubber plantation soils. In addition, seasonal change had a strong effect on network degree, the complexity of soil bacterial and fungal network structure. In conclusion, forest conversion changed soil pH and other soil properties, such as available potassium (AK) and total nitrogen (TN), which resulted in changes in bacterial and fungal network composition and structure.

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Drivers of difference in CO2 and CH4 emissions between rubber plantation and tropical rainforest soils

Agricultural and Forest Meteorology ◽

10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108391 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 304-305 ◽

pp. 108391

Author(s):

Wenjun Zhou ◽

Jing Zhu ◽

Hongli Ji ◽

John Grace ◽

Liqing Sha ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tropical Rainforest ◽

Rubber Plantation ◽

Ch4 Emissions

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Aeolian sand accumulation and land desertification over the past 1,500 years as revealed by two aeolian dunes in the Beiluhe Basin on interior Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, SW China

Quaternary International ◽

10.1016/j.quaint.2021.11.013 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Luyang Wang ◽

Qingbai Wu ◽

Ziteng Fu ◽

Guanli Jiang ◽

Yali Liu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tibet Plateau ◽

Aeolian Sand ◽

Sw China ◽

The Past ◽

Aeolian Dunes ◽

Sand Accumulation ◽

Land Desertification ◽

Qinghai Tibet Plateau

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CULTURE AS A BASE OF DEMOCRACY: INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC EXPERIENCE

Law Journal of Donbass ◽

10.32366/2523-4269-2020-73-4-175-181 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 73 (4) ◽

pp. 175-181

Author(s):

Tamara Sabelnykova ◽

Keyword(s):

National Culture ◽

Historical Period ◽

Cultural Participation ◽

Cultural Education ◽

Cultural Traditions ◽

The Past ◽

Democratic State ◽

Negative Effect ◽

The Government ◽

Wide Experience

The article deals with the effect of culture on democracy. Cultural traditions, which had been developing for a long historical period, led to democracy in some societies. Modern American scientists divide the world in two types of societies: with the basic values of expression and values of surviving. Democracy wins in societies with the values of expression. So it is not enough to establish democratic laws by means of setting up a democracy. This is the reason why it doesn’t work in post-soviet countries. Ukraine has a wide experience of democracy in the past and the democratic values are the part of our national mentality. But this tradition was interrupted by 300 years of colonial dependence and 70 years of soviet totalitarianism. In such conditions the development of national culture will promote the democracy. On the other hand, we should understand the significance of personal culture of every member of society. Culture allows people to realize the importance of diversity, it makes a person more open and tolerant towards other groups in society and reinforces cohesion in society. Cultural participation, active or passive, has the great importance for democracy. It enables individuals to be more active and effective citizens. Governmental programs should promote cultural participation for people to make them more open, tolerant and respectful for other people’s values, to cultivate their strategy and critical thinking. In Ukraine, where the government is not always interested in the development of democracy, citizens should maintain cultural participation on their own by bringing up their children by means of different arts and involving them in different cultural events. The important part of cultural participation is cultural education. Unfortunately the policy of modern Ukraine tends to decrease cultural education and this situation has negative effect on building a democratic state.

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Step Change Transformation of Legacy Rigs to Autonomous Drilling Rigs

10.2118/207551-ms ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sergey Ziatdinov ◽

Titto Thomas Philip

Keyword(s):

Capital Investment ◽

Business Performance ◽

High Performance ◽

Human Error ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Business Environment ◽

The Past ◽

Automation Systems ◽

Negative Effect ◽

Drilling Rigs

Abstract During the past decade, drilling automation systems have been an attractive target for a lot of operating and drilling companies. Despite progress in automation in various industries, like mining and downstream, the drilling industry has lagged far behind in the real application of autonomous technologies implementation. This can be attributed to harsh environment, high level of uncertainty in input data, and that majority of stock is legacy drilling rigs, resulting in capital intensive implementations. In the past years there have been several attempts to create fully automated rigs, that includes surface automation and drilling automation. Such solutions are very attractive, because they allow people to move out of hazardous zones and, at the same time, improve performance. However, the main deficiency of such an approach is the very high capital investment required for development of highly bespoke rigs (Slagmulder 2016). And in the current business environment, with high volatility in oil and gas prices, plus the huge negative effect of the Covid-19 crisis on the world's economic situation, it would be hard to imagine that there are a lot of companies willing to make such a risky investment. In addition to this, due to the lack of demand, the market is full of relatively new, high-performance rigs. Taking all these into account, the obvious question is whether it makes sense to invest money and time into the development of drilling automation. The answer should be yes, for three substantial reasons:Automation improves personal safety, by moving people out of danger zones;Automation improves process safety, by transferring execution from person to machine, which reduces the risk of human error;Automation improves efficiency by bringing consistency to drilling and through the use of self-learning algorithms, which allow machines to drill each successive well better than the previous. This paper will not look into surface automation, such as pipe-handling, chemical and mud handling on site. The paper is focused on the subsurface, namely on the drilling automation process, the challenges that need to be overcome to deploy a vendor agnostic system on a majority of existing rigs. A vendor agnostic system is a modification of an operator's autonomous drilling system (Rassenfoss 2011), designed to use existing rigs, BHAs, and have minimum footprint on the rigs for operational use. A vendor agnostic system will increase adoption of automated technologies and further drive improvements in operational and business performance

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The effect of corporate political advocacy on brand perception: an event study analysis

Journal of Product & Brand Management ◽

10.1108/jpbm-03-2021-3404 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Jan Klostermann ◽

Chris Hydock ◽

Reinhold Decker

Keyword(s):

Event Study ◽

Design Methodology ◽

Political Advocacy ◽

Moderating Effects ◽

Negative Effects ◽

Content Type ◽

The Past ◽

Negative Effect ◽

Brand Perception

Purpose In recent years, brands have increasingly engaged in corporate political advocacy (CPA; also termed brand activism or corporate sociopolitical activity) by taking positions on polarizing sociopolitical issues. Recent experimental research suggests that consumers respond to CPA based on its alignment with their own values, and that it typically induces an overall negative response. This study aims to provide additional insights by exploring consumer brand perceptions following CPA. Design/methodology/approach An event study of 106 CPA events and weekly consumer brand perception data was conducted. A regression model was used to investigate the moderating effects of CPA effort, concurrence and the strength of the online protests evoked by the CPA. Findings The results show that CPA had a negative effect on consumers’ brand perceptions and that the effect was stronger for customers relative to non-customers. The negative effect was attenuated by CPA concurrence and amplified by effort. Additionally, online protests were driven by the CPA effort and had a strong negative effect on brand perception. Online protests were stronger in the past, and, in turn, the negative effects of CPA on brand perceptions have slightly weakened in recent years. Originality/value This study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the role of online protests following CPA and distinguishing consumer and customer responses. This study also provides converging evidence of the moderating effects of effort and concurrence identified in previous studies.

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Comparison of Soil Microbial Composition and Diversity Between Mixed and Monoculture Rubber Plantations in Hainan Province, China

Tropical Conservation Science ◽

10.1177/1940082919876072 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

pp. 194008291987607 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Muhammad Tahir Jatoi ◽

Guoyu Lan ◽

Zhixiang Wu ◽

Rui Sun ◽

Chuan Yang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Soil Ph ◽

Hevea Brasiliensis ◽

Fungal Communities ◽

Rubber Plantation ◽

Sequencing Analysis ◽

Microbial Composition ◽

Bacterial Composition ◽

Rubber Plantations ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Soil Bacterial

This study aimed to compare monoculture and mixed rubber plantations in terms of their soil bacterial and fungal composition. An Illumina MiSeq sequencing analysis was performed to investigate the composition and diversity of the soil bacterial and fungal communities among three different rubber ( Hevea brasiliensis) plantations: monoculture, Mixed 1 ( Hevea brasiliensis and Mytilaria laosensis), and Mixed 2 ( Hevea brasiliensis and Michelia macclurei) in Hainan. The results showed that the bacterial composition of the three rubber plantations was basically similar. However, there was a significant difference in fungal communities among the three rubber plantations at both the phylum and operational taxonomic unit level. The species richness, Chao, and Shannon diversity of bacterial communities of monoculture rubber plantations were higher than the Mixed 1 and Mixed 2 rubber plantations, whereas all diversity indexes of fungal communities were relatively equal for the monoculture and mixed rubber plantations. Soil nutrition (such as total nitrogen and total potassium) and soil pH are the main drivers of the bacterial composition ( p < .001). However, soil pH and water content are the main drivers of the fungal composition ( p < .001), and to some extent, soil pH can increase soil bacteria diversity. We suggest that alkaline fertilizers should be applied in mixed rubber plantations to improve the soil pH and, consequently, to increase the total diversity of the rubber plantation.

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Experimental Setup for Splash Erosion Monitoring—Study of Silty Loam Splash Characteristics

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12010157 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 157 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

David Zumr ◽

Danilo Vítor Mützenberg ◽

Martin Neumann ◽

Jakub Jeřábek ◽

Tomáš Laburda ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Kinetic Energy ◽

Soil Surface ◽

Outer Diameter ◽

Rainfall Simulator ◽

Soil Particles ◽

Splash Erosion ◽

Laboratory Setup ◽

Before And After ◽

Silty Loam ◽

Raindrop Splash

An experimental laboratory setup was developed and evaluated in order to investigate detachment of soil particles by raindrop splash impact. The soil under investigation was a silty loam Cambisol, which is typical for agricultural fields in Central Europe. The setup consisted of a rainfall simulator and soil samples packed into splash cups (a plastic cylinder with a surface area of 78.5 cm2) positioned in the center of sediment collectors with an outer diameter of 45 cm. A laboratory rainfall simulator was used to simulate rainfall with a prescribed intensity and kinetic energy. Photographs of the soil’s surface before and after the experiments were taken to create digital models of relief and to calculate changes in surface roughness and the rate of soil compaction. The corresponding amount of splashed soil ranged between 10 and 1500 g m−2 h−1. We observed a linear relationship between the rainfall kinetic energy and the amount of the detached soil particles. The threshold kinetic energy necessary to initiate the detachment process was 354 J m−2 h−1. No significant relationship between rainfall kinetic energy and splashed sediment particle-size distribution was observed. The splash erosion process exhibited high variability within each repetition, suggesting a sensitivity of the process to the actual soil surface microtopography.

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