Affiliative behaviour during escape to building exits

Two models of escape behaviour are contrasted in an analysis of flight from a fire by 128 people in a public building. The ‘panic’ model assumes that escape involves a homogeneous population of individuals concerned with self-preservation, competing with each other for limited exits. The ‘affiliative’ model² predicts individuals with close psychological ties will attempt to escape in groups of two or more; flight is assumed to involve escape to familiar persons and places. Causal loglinear analysis was used to model the inter-relationships between four variables in a 2 × 2 × 3 × 2 cross-classified categorical table: (A) Group Membership (family/mixed); (B) Group Attachment at Cue (attached/separated); (C) Cue (ambiguous/verbal/unambiguous); (D) Group Affiliation at Exit (affiliated/separated). Associations were found between [BC] and [ABD] indicating strong support for model. In a situation of potential danger ‘separated’ individuals responded more often to ‘ambiguous’ cues. ‘Family’ members who were attached at cue were most likely to be together and ‘mixed’ group members apart when exiting from the building. Family members tried to adopt an optimal strategy for group rather than individual survival.     

Pointing to preschool children's spatial competence: A study in natural settings

This paper describes a series of experiments which explore the extent to which children aged three years five months to four years seven months can build a Euclidean mental representation of the environment. It was found that the children showed a higher level of spatial competence than previous research had indicated, and that their spatial ability was dependent upon the nature of the environment. Euclidean knowledge was found at all ages in a familiar environment, but especially when familiarity was brought about through self-exploration. Euclidean knowledge was least likely in a novel environment. Previous experience with the test in the familiar environments did not lead to an increase in Euclidean knowledge in the novel environment. The results are interpreted in terms of Byrne's ‘network-map’/‘vectormap’ theory of spatial knowledge.     

“林光互补”:库布其沙漠治理的探索

从单一的工程措施到复合生态治理是沙漠治理的必然趋势。为探寻沙漠复合生态治理的可行性方案，探究复合生态治理的实践过程和综合效益。通过对库布其沙漠“林光互补”的实践，进行案例研究。发现“林光互补”复合生态治理，以在沙漠地区建设光伏板的方式，将太阳能转换为电能，利用光伏板下降温增湿的优点，发展板下种植，实现经济效益的同时，减少了风沙对发电设备的影响，促进了当地生态的修复。“林光互补”的复合生态治理将经济发展与生态修复互构，促进沙漠地区的良性运行。同时还应考虑生态与人类生活的关系问题，实现沙漠治理的可持续发展。     

INTEGRATED WATER MANAGEMENT: CONTENDING WITH GARBAGE CAN DECISIONMAIUNG IN ORGANIZED ANARCHIES1

ABSTRACT: Water management in the United States has historically been characterized by a decisionmaking system that is fragmented along three dimensions: (1) physical, (2) institutional, and (3) political-technical. The result is often ‘garbage can’ decision-making in open decisionmaking structures with the attributes of an ‘organized anarchy’ rather than the rational, comprehensive decisionmaking prescribed for water management. A case study of water quality management decisionmaking in the New York Finger Lakes is used to illustrate how the garbage can model can illuminate the forces that operate in fragmented water management. Interorganizational decisionmaking theory and experience from water management integration initiatives are then applied to assess what strategies may be effective in reducing the organizational anarchy that results from fragmented water management institutions.     

Local economic development — the changing public/private sector relationship

The paper examines changing approaches to local economic development in the period since 1974. Initially, it proposes an ‘orthodox’ model of local economic development policies which emphasised the provision of a better industrial fabric, and of financial assistance to small, inner city firms. It suggests three recent directions of change in emphasis from this orthodox model: help in the creation of new entrepreneurs; replacement of public sector by private sector action; local authority shareholding in local firms by use of Enterprise Boards. Each approach makes different assumptions about the public/private sector relationship, the last two involve a more explicitly ideological stance on this issue.     

Valuation of management policies for sport‐fishing on Sweden's Kaitum river

In addition to its empirical results, this paper makes three distinct contributions to the literature on valuing fishing recreation by stated preference methods. In particular, the paper proposes a new approach to designing a choice experiment, called ‘approximate minimax design’. It employs the latest advances in optimal design theory and is much easier to compute than the ordinary minimax design. Second, the choice‐experiments are embedded in a trip frequency model, such that the changes in trip frequency can be predicted from improved fish management. Most importantly, the approach proposed in the paper provides a first step in developing dynamic fish management models, because the policies analysed may change the age‐structure of the stock. The paper also contributes with new results on anglers' valuations of angling site characteristics. They conform to traditionally obtained results but also show some unexpected results. In particular, the result does not indicate a difference in the valuation of the species caught. As expected, the application shows that the marginal value of trophy‐fish is high.     

Design training and aesthetic evaluation: An intergroup comparison

A number of studies have observed differences in the evaluation of visual, aesthetic stimuli between those with and without professional training in art and design. If exposure to design training underlies such differences it follows that evidence of training effects should be observable when comparing subjects at different stages of design training, and not observable when comparing subjects at different stages of non-design training. In addition, this evidence should be consistent with directional predictions. The study reported in this paper investigated this question using a sample of 192 trained and untrained subjects in an evaluative task. Subjects were from two departments (Design and Computer Studies) of the same educational establishment and comprised balanced groups of lecturers, 1st, 2nd and 3rd year undergraduate students. The results obtained demonstrated evaluative differences and patterns of association both within and between the subject groups consistent with a training hypothesis.     

Trade-offs between development,culture and conservation – Willingness to pay for tropical river management among urban Australians

Australia’s system of tropical rivers constitutes one of the largest and least changed drainage networks in the world. However increasing demand for water in parts of Australia, along with ongoing drought, is driving pressure to develop these rivers. This paper reports the results of a choice experiment (CE) to assess the benefits of different management strategies for three tropical rivers in northern Australia: the Daly, Mitchell and Fitzroy Rivers. The CE was carried out using a survey mailed to Australian urban populations. The results showed that 90% of Australians were willing to pay a once-off payment for the management of tropical rivers. Respondents who had visited or lived near the rivers were willing to pay more for cultural, recreational and environmental services than those who had not. Respondents classed as ‘developers’, who made up only 4% of the 684 respondents, considered a substantial income from irrigated agriculture as important. Unlike ‘environmentalists’ and ‘neutrals’, ‘developers’ were unwilling to pay for high quality recreational fishing or for having floodplains in good environmental condition. All groups, however, were willing to pay for high cultural values.     

Attitudes to nuclear energy: Beliefs,values and false consensus

Attitudinal differences regarding the use of nuclear energy were investigated. Results obtained in a random sample drawn from the population of four communities in The Netherlands within 30 miles of a nuclear power plant showed a strong relationship between subjects' attitudes towards nuclear energy and their perceptions of the possible consequences of nuclear energy. ‘Pro’- and ‘con’-subjects showed marked differences in the importance attached to the different possible consequences and their endorsement of the salience of more general social issues. Results provide support for the view that individuals perceive a false consensus with respect to the relative prevalence of similar attitudes among other people. Finally, subjects' perceptions of others with similar or opposing attitudes towards the issue of nuclear energy showed marked differences in evaluation especially for the extreme attitude groups.     

‘Green On Green’: Public perceptions of wind power in Scotland and Ireland

The wind energy debate represents a new kind of environmental controversy which divides environmentalists of different persuasions who attach contrasting priority to global and local concerns. Case studies of public attitudes towards existing and proposed windfarm developments in Scotland and Ireland are used to test three counter-intuitive hypotheses derived from previous attitudinal research. These are: (a) that local people become more favourable towards windfarms after construction; (b) that the degree of acceptance increases with proximity to them; and (c) that the NIMBY syndrome(not-in-my-back-yard) does not adequately explain variations in public attitudes. All three hypotheses are supported by this study. Large majorities favour wind power development in principle and in (local) practice. Although some aspects of NIMBY attitudes exist, the surveys reveal an ‘inverse NIMBY’ syndrome, whereby those with windfarms in their ‘backyard’ strongly support the technology. The research endorses the view that aesthetic perceptions, both positive and negative, are the strongest single influence on individuals' attitudes towards wind power projects. Comparison of the current institutional factors driving wind energy development with those during earlier eras of hydro-power development and large-scale afforestation emphasizes the need for strategic planning guidance. The potential for using a planning-led approach to windfarm developments by adopting ‘Indicative Windfarm Strategies’ is discussed.     

Local governance of greenhouse gas emissions from air travel

Global greenhouse gas emissions from air travel (GHG-A) are on the rise, and projections point towards a rapid growth in the coming decades. This study aims to examine how local government (cities), addresses GHG-A in their Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAP). To fulfil this aim, over 200 SEAPs were analysed focusing on three issues: (1) Treatment of GHG-A in local emissions inventories; (2) Policy initiatives within this domain; and (3) The cities’ perceptions of the conflicts of interests. Results showed that more than half of the cities acknowledge the challenge of GHG-A, around one third include GHG-A in their emissions inventories, and more than one quarter have initiated policy interventions. To categorise these interventions, we have added a mode ‘governing by agenda setting’ to an existing analytical framework, ‘Modes of governing’. With their authority limited to the local setting, this mode of governing is a common channel for cities to push changes at higher levels.     

CHEAP POWER - AN EXPENSIVE FAILURE: HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT IN NEWFOUNDLAND1

ABSTRACT By creating the 459,000 kW Bay d'Espoir h.e.p. scheme, the Newfoundland government hoped that the consequent doubling of the island's electricity supply would not only eliminate a deficite situation but provide power for industrial development. These hopes have not been fulfilled, and only one company, producing elemental phosphorus, was attracted to the island by the government's ‘cheap power’ policy. In addition to the continuing power subidy, this company received considerable federal and provincial incentives by locating its plant in Newfoundland. To these direct financial costs have to be added the environmental destruction and deterioration stemming from the h.e.p. development and the haste with which its construction was undertaken, and the catastrophic pollution problem created by effluent from the phosphorus plant. The costs of the ‘cheap power’ policy have been, and continue to be, massive for Newfoundland, Canada's poorest province. Further, the policy has made little or no impact on the small job market and the very large unemployment problem.     

Identifying the motivations of environmental volunteers

The natural environment benefits greatly from the work of volunteers. However, little is known as to why people are willing to volunteer their time to such programs. The study participants were 401 volunteers from six natural resource organizations. The study identified and assessed motivations of volunteers within the conservation and natural resources arena. The results suggest that there are many volunteer motivations, although ‘helping the environment’ clearly emerged as most important. Second-tier motivations included ‘improving areas that volunteers use for their own recreation’, ‘expressing their values’, ‘learning about the natural environment’ and ‘socializing with people with similar interests’. Managers need to consider these motivations, developing programs in order to provide volunteers with an experience that meets their motivations. By developing programs with volunteer motivations in mind, managers will better be able to recruit and retain volunteers within their organizations.     

Environmental management intentions: An empirical investigation of Argentina's polluting firms

This paper builds on past behavioural research which explicitly recognises that ‘actions’ are preceded by ‘intentions’ which are in turn determined by individual mindsets, locus of control, principles of governances and context factors. More concretely, it presents a model that investigates the extent to which environmental behavioural intentions are explained by i) managers' core values, basic assumptions, and beliefs, ii) individual and socio-cognitive frames, iii) principles of governance, and iv) context factors. Context factors include obstacles and drivers of greener behaviours, market pressures, and firm demographics. The resulting theoretical framework is tested empirically through regression analyses that use data gathered from a survey of 536 Argentinean firms in polluting industries. The model performs well, explaining approximately 50% of the variations in the (pro) environmental behaviour of firms. Policy implications are briefly discussed.     

Midnight at the oasis: does restoration change the rigs-to-reefs debate in the North Sea?

ABSTRACT

In the North Sea, many oil and gas fields will reach the end of their productivity and their associated structures will be decommissioned. OSPAR decision 98/3 prescribes removal of all disused offshore structures as the only acceptable decommissioning option. This policy is the legacy of the 1995 Brent Spar incident, which resulted in the current dominant discourse of ‘Hands off the Oceans,’ ruling out the conversion of oil and gas rigs into artificial reefs (Rigs-to-Reefs (RtR)). The shift from a conservation to a restoration paradigm could open up the RtR debate. In this paper, a discourse analysis is carried out to discern whether and how ideas about RtR and ecosystem restoration are articulated to challenge the dominant ‘Hands off the Oceans’ discourse and thereby bring about change in North Sea decommissioning policy. A discourse analytic framework is applied to elucidate whether an ‘RtR as Restoration’ discourse can be distinguished and how competing claims are presented in the various storylines. Our analysis shows an ‘RtR as Restoration’ discourse, consisting of four different storylines. Given the fragmented nature of this discourse, the ‘RtR as Restoration’ discourse will not overcome the dominant ‘Hands off the Oceans’ discourse.     

Consumer understanding of product lifetimes

Throwing products away before they fail or are broken is at the heart of consumer behaviour in developed economies such as the UK. Products are often discarded for reasons of fashion, or to keep up with technological advances, rather than because they have reached the end of their functional life. Such behaviours contribute to resource depletion, greenhouse gas emissions, and physical waste which needs to be managed. Extending the length of time that products are kept in use (whether by their original or subsequent owners) can contribute to greater resource efficiency, with significant potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This research was undertaken to support the development of evidence-based policy in the UK on the role of longer product lifetimes in achieving sustainable consumption and waste prevention. Twelve qualitative discussion groups, involving 115 consumers, were carried out to explore consumer influences on product lifetimes including: which factors influence purchase decisions; the care of products in use; and disposal decisions. A new typology was developed to describe how products meet consumers’ various needs for ‘workhorses’, ‘investment’ and ‘up-to-date’ products; and how lifetime is an outcome of the ‘nature’ of a product (functional life) and its ‘nurture’ (lifetime in use) by consumers. The results demonstrate that consumers have come to expect constant and rapid up-dating of products. In particular, having the latest versions of products is strongly associated with personal identity and feelings of success in life. There is little evidence of concern about the environmental consequences of a ‘throwaway society’. The low cost of new products, which enables rapid updating for reasons of fashion, is a key barrier to encouraging consumers to keep products in use for longer. Some opportunities were identified however for certain ‘workhorse’ and ‘investment’ products that are valued more for their functionality than fashion.     

Management of sustainability transitions through planning in shrinking resource city contexts: an evaluation of Yubari City,Japan

This paper evaluates the planning competences required to enact a managed transition to sustainability at the municipal level for cities facing population, economic and employment decline. Drawing on the ‘shrinking cities’ literature, we argue consolidation of the built environment can become a focal point for sustaining citizen welfare when transitioning cities that are facing decline, especially those previously reliant on resource industries. We evaluate the former coal mining city of Yubari, Japan, which is developing a consolidated urban form with the aim of creating a ‘sustainable’ future city. Findings from interviews and content analysis of Yubari’s planning policy indicate, however, that to translate ‘shrinking’ a city into a managed transition, spatial planning must be accompanied by a wider range of social policy measures and strong cross-sectoral engagement. We also caution that the unique geographical and political context of Yubari mean its model may not be directly replicable in other contexts.     

The jurisdictional framework for municipal action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: Case studies from Canada,the USA and Germany

Abstract

The development of ‘indicators’ and associated techniques for the appraisal of ‘sustainability’ requires efforts to systematically define, quantify and aggregate many disparate dimensions of social, environmental and economic performance. This necessarily raises a number of serious theoretical and methodological difficulties, including those relating to the selection and framing of ‘problems’ and ‘options’, the treatment of deep uncertainties and the ‘impossibility’ of aggregating in analysis the divergent social interests and value judgements which govern the prioritisation of the different dimensions of ‘sustainability’. After exploring the depth and scope of some of these difficulties, this paper argues that they render futile any attempt to develop an ‘analytical fix’ for the problems of appraisal. In this light, systematic public participation is recognised not just as an issue of political efficacy and legitimacy, but also as a fundamental matter of analytical rigour. However, it is also concluded that once aspirations to the ‘analytical fix’ are renounced, there is much that might be contributed by transparent, straightforward quantitative analytical tools and the paper ends with some recommendations and an example in this regard.     

Regional Industries and Environmental Impacts. Long-run Regional Economic Effects of Climate Change: The Case of the Coastal and Estuary Zone of the German Northwest

The paper explores the relations of (1) regionalized climate change impulses; (2) their impacts on regional industry sectors; and (3) a regional econometric impact analysis. It develops a methodology by which the impulses of a regional climate change scenario can be transformed into ‘primary’ impacts on the capital stock and value added of climate-sensitive regional industries. These industries are vulnerable to ‘creeping’, i.e. continuous, climate change impulses, and they tend to react through ‘defensive’ investment. In addition, a singular flooding event is simulated for a specific local area and its different capital stocks. The stock damages and value-added losses of both the continuous industrial impacts and the singular flooding are inserted into a regional econometric model. This is sectorally disaggregated in stock, value-added and investment functions. It is also calibrated in the very-long run (through to the year 2040), according to different scenarios. The regional economic ‘secondary’ effects on the regional GNP are calculated. In addition to the calculation of regional economic primary and secondary impacts, the methodological issue of generating more transparency of the causal chains by use of damage functions, reaction functions, and comparative defensive strategies are discussed.     

Editorial The Good,the Bad and the Bubbly

Biodiversity planners increasingly recognise the need for delivering action on a ‘wider countryside’, rather than on a purely site‐centred, basis. Ecological processes often take place at the ‘landscape scale’ and are not sufficiently accommodated within reserves, and a failure to reflect this in biodiversity planning has been one of the contributors to species and habitat decline. However, there are generally few powers to enforce compliance with spatial rural land‐use strategies, and biodiversity plans at the landscape scale must rely heavily on incentives, advice and goodwill. Not surprisingly, this results in a substantial gap between policy and implementation. One way of analysing the causes of, and potential solutions to, implementation failure is to examine the barriers to plan uptake. This paper addresses barriers to biodiversity action in three case‐study areas in terms of ‘force fields’, depicting the nature and strength of negative and positive influences on land managers and conservation staff. It is concluded that a clearer understanding of the nature of ‘barriers’ can lead to improved targeting on potential ‘bridges’ to a better future.