PLANNING FOR DROUGHT: MOVING FROM CRISIS TO RISK MANAGEMENT1

ABSTRACT: Severe drought is a recurring problem for the United States, as illustrated by widespread economic, social, and environmental impacts. Recent drought episodes and the widespread drought conditions in 1996, 1998, and 1999 emphasized this vulnerability and the need for a more proactive, risk management approach to drought management that would place greater emphasis on preparedness planning and mitigation actions. Drought planning has become a principal tool of states and other levels of government to improve their response to droughts. For example, since 1982, the number of states with drought plans has increased from 3 to 29. Many local governments have also adopted drought or water shortage plans. Unfortunately, most state drought plans were established during the 1980s and early 1990s and emphasize emergency response or crisis management rather than risk management. This paper presents a substantive revision of a 10‐step drought planning process that has been applied widely in the United States and elsewhere. The revised planning process places more weight on risk assessment and the development and implementation of mitigation actions and programs. The goal of this paper is to encourage states to adopt this planning process in the revision of existing drought plans or, for states without plans, in the development of new plans.     

Evaluating Aggregate Terrestrial Impacts of Road Construction Projects for Advanced Regional Mitigation

This study presents a GIS-based database framework used to assess aggregate terrestrial habitat impacts from multiple highway construction projects in California, USA. Transportation planners need such impact assessment tools to effectively address additive biological mitigation obligations. Such assessments can reduce costly delays due to protracted environmental review. This project incorporated the best available statewide natural resource data into early project planning and preliminary environmental assessments for single and multiple highway construction projects, and provides an assessment of the 10-year state-wide mitigation obligations for the California Department of Transportation. Incorporation of these assessments will facilitate early and more strategic identification of mitigation opportunities, for single-project and regional mitigation efforts. The data architecture format uses eight spatial scales: six nested watersheds, counties, and transportation planning districts, which were intersected. This resulted in 8058 map planning units statewide, which were used to summarize all subsequent analyses. Range maps and georeferenced locations of federally and state-listed plants and animals and a 55-class landcover map were spatially intersected with the planning units and the buffered spatial footprint of 967 funded projects. Projected impacts were summarized and output to the database. Queries written in the database can sum expected impacts and provide summaries by individual construction project, or by watershed, county, transportation district or highway. The data architecture allows easy incorporation of new information and results in a tool usable without GIS by a wide variety of agency biologists and planners. The data architecture format would be useful for other types of regional planning.     

Governing green stormwater infrastructure: the Philadelphia experience

Many cities throughout the world are adopting green infrastructure techniques to reduce stormwater and sewer overflows into waterways, which is particularly problematic for places experiencing more frequent and severe rain events. Governance of green stormwater implementation is proving to be as important as the techniques themselves. Building on the climate and sustainability governance literature, we argue that effective governance requires planning across city departments, experimentation and a strategy for organisational learning. We employ a case study of Philadelphia, the first city in the United States to attempt an entirely green approach to meeting federal regulations to examine issues of governance that emerged and how they were addressed. The case study draws on interviews with fourteen public and private sector actors involved in implementation, a site visit to observe the installations and to discuss the approach with a key planner, and grey literature. We find that silos can be broken down and that if open communications and a willingness to change practices are present, obstacles cited in the literature can be overcome. The key implication is that the three elements of governance need to be built into the green infrastructure planning process. While the analysis focuses on a US city, the departments involved and the governance needs of green stormwater infrastructure are similar in cities in much of the world.     

EIA application in China's expressway infrastructure: clarifying the decision-making hierarchy

China's EIA Law came into effect in 2003 and formally requires road transport infrastructure development actions to be subject to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). EIAs (including project EIA and plan EIA, or strategic environmental impact assessment, SEA) have been being widely applied in the expressway infrastructure planning field. Among those applications, SEA is applied to provincial level expressway network (PLEI) plans, and project EIA is applied to expressway infrastructure development 'projects' under PLEI plans. Three case studies (one expressway project EIA and two PLEI plan SEAs) were examined to understand currently how EIAs are applied to expressway infrastructure development planning. Through the studies, a number of problems that significantly influence the quality of EIA application in the field were identified. The reasons causing those problems are analyzed and possible solutions are suggested aimed at enhancing EIA practice, helping deliver better decision-making and ultimately improving the environmental performance of expressway infrastructure.     

Cautious but Committed: Moving Toward Adaptive Planning and Operation Strategies for Renewable Energy’s Wildlife Implications

Wildlife planning for renewable energy must cope with the uncertainties of potential wildlife impacts. Unfortunately, the environmental policies which instigate renewable energy and those which protect wildlife are not coherently aligned—creating a green versus green dilemma. Thus, climate mitigation efforts trigger renewable energy development, but then face substantial barriers from biodiversity protection instruments and practices. This article briefly reviews wind energy and wildlife interactions, highlighting the lively debated effects on bats. Today, planning and siting of renewable energy are guided by the precautionary principle in an attempt to carefully address wildlife challenges. However, this planning attitude creates limitations as it struggles to negotiate the aforementioned green versus green dilemma. More adaptive planning and management strategies and practices hold the potential to reconcile these discrepancies to some degree. This adaptive approach is discussed using facets of case studies from policy, planning, siting, and operational stages of wind energy in Germany and the United States, with one case showing adaptive planning in action for solar energy as well. This article attempts to highlight the benefits of more adaptive approaches as well as the possible shortcomings, such as reduced planning security for renewable energy developers. In conclusion, these studies show that adaptive planning and operation strategies can be designed to supplement and enhance the precautionary principle in wildlife planning for green energy.     

Windows of opportunity: addressing climate uncertainty through adaptation plan implementation

There is a pressing need for municipalities and regions to create urban form suited to current as well as future climates, but adaptation planning uptake has been slow. This is particularly unfortunate because patterns of urban form interact with climate change in ways that can reduce, or intensify, the impact of overall global change. Uncertainty regarding the timing and magnitude of climate change is a significant barrier to implementing adaptation planning. Focusing on implementation of adaptation and phasing of policy reduces this barrier. It removes time as a decision marker, instead arguing for an initial comprehensive plan to prevent maladaptive policy choices, implemented incrementally after testing the micro-climate outcomes of previous interventions. Policies begin with no-regrets decisions that reduce the long-term need for more intensive adaptive actions and generate immediate policy benefits, while gradually enabling transformative infrastructure and design responses to increased climate impacts. Global and local indicators assume a larger role in the process, to evaluate when tipping points are in sight. We use case studies from two exemplary municipal plans to demonstrate this method's usefulness. While framed for urban planning, the approach is applicable to natural resource managers and others who must plan with uncertainty.     

推动生态环境规划数字化转型的研究与思考

生态环境规划在国家生态环境治理体系中发挥了越来越重要的作用。数字化技术是生态环境规划的基础工具,对于提升生态环境规划编制与实施的系统性和科学性发挥重要的作用。本文在回顾生态环境规划相关数字技术发展历程的基础上,指出了未来生态环境规划数字化转型的重要意义和必然趋势,分析了传统生态环境规划存在的一些技术方法落后、与信息化技术融合有待深入、信息化基础建设薄弱等问题和挑战,提出了生态环境规划未来数字化转型的若干建议,包括加强数值模拟、大数据分析、数字空间分析、虚拟现实等数字化技术的应用。     

Ecological Compensation in Dutch Highway Planning

The ecological compensation principle was introduced by the Dutch government in 1993. This principle is designed to enhance the input of nature conservation interests in decision-making on large-scale development projects and to counterbalance the ecological impacts of such developments when implemented. This article evaluates the application of the Dutch compensation principle in highway planning. Six current highway projects reveal consistent implementation of this principle, although provincial policies on compensation and a national method for identifying compensation measures are still under development. As the planning process has not yet been completed for all the projects, no general conclusions can be drawn on the impact of the compensation principle on highway decision-making. Nevertheless, several examples show that the principle stimulates project initiators to develop alternative routes or route sections in order to avoid or reduce ecological impacts and the need for coherent compensation measures. If the compensation principle is to be properly implemented in the context of highway planning, particular attention should be paid to the following aspects: (1) sequential assessment of overall project legitimacy and the necessity of intersecting protected areas and compensation measures, (2) the initiator's attempts to avoid and mitigate ecological impacts in developing alternative routes prior to compensation for impacts, and (3) the role of uncertain ecological impacts in identifying compensation measures, especially those concerning habitat isolation.     

Collaborative Implementation for Ecological Restoration on US Public Lands: Implications for Legal Context,Accountability, and Adaptive Management

The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP), established in 2009, encourages collaborative landscape scale ecosystem restoration efforts on United States Forest Service (USFS) lands. Although the USFS employees have experience engaging in collaborative planning, CFLRP requires collaboration in implementation, a domain where little prior experience can be drawn on for guidance. The purpose of this research is to identify the ways in which CFLRP’s collaborative participants and agency personnel conceptualize how stakeholders can contribute to implementation on landscape scale restoration projects, and to build theory on dynamics of collaborative implementation in environmental management. This research uses a grounded theory methodology to explore collaborative implementation from the perspectives and experiences of participants in landscapes selected as part of the CFLRP in 2010. Interviewees characterized collaborative implementation as encompassing three different types of activities: prioritization, enhancing treatments, and multiparty monitoring. The paper describes examples of activities in each of these categories and then identifies ways in which collaborative implementation in the context of CFLRP (1) is both hindered and enabled by overlapping legal mandates about agency collaboration, (2) creates opportunities for expanded accountability through informal and relational means, and, (3) creates feedback loops at multiple temporal and spatial scales through which monitoring information, prioritization, and implementation actions shape restoration work both within and across projects throughout the landscape creating more robust opportunities for adaptive management.     

Economic,ecological, and equity dimensions of brownfield redevelopment plans for environmental justice communities in the USA

ABSTRACT

This paper employs qualitative content analysis to assess 28 brownfield redevelopment plans produced as part of a US Environmental Protection Agency programme. The analysis framework followed the economic, ecological, and social equity dimensions of sustainable development. The findings illustrate that, in terms of economic dimensions, most plans discussed financing the overall project, but few mentioned site values or the pivotal cost of remediating brownfield sites or addressed questions related to liability, the transfer of ownership of sites, or the end use of remediated sites. In terms of ecological dimensions, while many plans suggested “green” uses of existing brownfields, few discussed the impacts of the plans on urban ecological issues or offered technical feasibility of remediating the sites. In terms of social equity dimensions, half of the plans described potential local jobs stemming from the proposed redevelopment, but many did not discuss the human impacts of remediating contaminated sites or the costs of doing nothing. Most plans mentioned community engagement methods but not their outcomes, making the degree to which the lessons gleaned from such engagement influenced the plans totally unclear. Despite the programme’s explicit focus on the nexus of environmental justice and local environments, many plans struggled to address the topic in favour of tackling broader economic, environmental, and equity issues. Overall, this paper contributes to the understanding of brownfield redevelopment planning by not only summarising and synthesising the tendencies of existing plans but also suggesting strategies to address areas in which current planning efforts fall short.     

工业园区绿色发展重点领域及其开发性金融应用研究

工业园区的绿色发展是我国经济绿色转型和可持续发展的基石,对实现我国生态文明建设具有重要的意义。而工业园区绿色发展中的基础设施建设等任务的资金需求周期长、盈利性较弱,极其需要开发性金融的大力支持。本文识别了开发性金融引导工业园区绿色发展的重点领域,主要包括构建生态产业链、完善环境基础设施建设、推进清洁生产、促进园区环境能力建设等,并进一步分析了各领域的建设目的、重点项目及实施主体。同时,从加强多方合作、优化投融资方式等角度,提出提升开发性金融服务能力、有效支持工业园区绿色发展的建议。     

Managing for Multiple Resources Under Climate Change: National Forests

This study explores potential adaptation approaches in planning and management that the United States Forest Service might adopt to help achieve its goals and objectives in the face of climate change. Availability of information, vulnerability of ecological and socio-economic systems, and uncertainties associated with climate change, as well as the interacting non-climatic changes, influence selection of the adaptation approach. Resource assessments are opportunities to develop strategic information that could be used to identify and link adaptation strategies across planning levels. Within a National Forest, planning must incorporate the opportunity to identify vulnerabilities to climate change as well as incorporate approaches that allow management adjustments as the effects of climate change become apparent. The nature of environmental variability, the inevitability of novelty and surprise, and the range of management objectives and situations across the National Forest System implies that no single approach will fit all situations. A toolbox of management options would include practices focused on forestalling climate change effects by building resistance and resilience into current ecosystems, and on managing for change by enabling plants, animals, and ecosystems to adapt to climate change. Better and more widespread implementation of already known practices that reduce the impact of existing stressors represents an important “no regrets” strategy. These management opportunities will require agency consideration of its adaptive capacity, and ways to overcome potential barriers to these adaptation options.     

THE HYDROLOGIC ENGINEERING CENTER EXPERIENCE IN NONSTRUCTURAL PLANNING1

ABSTRACT: The Hydrologic Engineering Center, Corps of Engineers, has been engaged in research, training, and project assistance in non-structural flood control planning for Corps offices across the United States since 1975. Lessons learned from this experience deal with the role of nonstructural measures in flood plain management, the role of creativity in analysis, the role of analysis, and tools for analysis. The role of nonstructural measures in flood control planning depends upon the scale of the problem, the nature of the measure, the degree of protection desired, and whether damage is to existing or future property. An earnest seeking for nonstructural opportunities, a field presence for their formulation, and compatbility with local infrastructure plans are prerequisite to creative use of nonstructural measures. Analysis is a necessary complement of creativity. Several tools for nonstructural analysis have been developed and applied to flood problems involving several hundred and several thousand structures.     

Enhancing Plan Quality: Evaluating the Role of State Planning Mandates for Natural Hazard Mitigation

Traditionally, responsibility for land planning in the United States lies with local governments. However, a growing number of states over the past several decades have attempted to exert more influence on how local governments plan for development. This paper uses empirical data from natural hazard elements of 139 community plans in five states to assess whether such state mandates actually result in better local plans. We find that a state mandate not only achieves plans from communities that otherwise would not make a plan, but in addition those plans are of higher quality than plans made voluntarily in communities not under a mandate to plan. W e find that a state mandate substitutes for the absence of any positive political forces for planning and overcomes local political, economic and physical obstacles to planning. Further, the form of the mandate and the state level implementation effort makes a difference, so that some states' mandates achieve local plans of higher quality than those created in other mandating states. Because the data on which these conclusions are based are limited to natural hazards elements of general plans, we feel most confident about their generalization to all elements of local plans.     

Developing green infrastructure ‘thinking’: devising and applying an interactive group-based methodology for practitioners

Recent years have witnessed a wave of interest in the concept of green infrastructure (GI) as a means of applying an ecosystem approach to spatial planning practice; however, more limited attention has been paid to decision-making processes or tools to enhance GI within spatial plans and guidance. We address this deficit by reporting on the development and application of an interactive group-based methodology to enhance GI ‘thinking’ and interdisciplinary collaboration, drawing on the literature on the sociology of interactions. Our findings suggest that a game-based approach to GI problem-solving was successful in breaking down professional barriers by creating an informal learning arena, providing an enabling opportunity for participants to solve problems in an iterative, non-linear style to develop principles for action with transferability to ongoing plan formation. This style of problem-solving was characterised by shifting norms and routines of interaction, leading to problem re-framing and a search for alternative solutions.     

国家生态环境保护规划发展历程及展望

伴随着生态环境保护和生态文明建设工作不断发展,中国的生态环境规划经过近45年的探索发展,规划理念与时俱进,规划层级不断提升,规划体系不断优化,规划技术方法不断探索实践,生态环境规划的发展对促进生态文明建设工作、系统谋划环境污染治理,改善生态环境质量发挥了重要作用,但还存在着五年综合规划统领作用未有效发挥、规划实施管理较为薄弱、规划技术支撑不足等问题。在生态文明建设进入到以降碳为重点战略方向、推动减污降碳协同增效、促进经济社会发展全面绿色转型、实现生态环境质量改善由量变到质变、美丽中国建设起步开局的关键时期,生态环境规划要健全规划体系、强化规划空间属性、建立全过程实施管理体系,提升规划编制实施管理水平,进一步发挥规划的基础性、统领性、战略性和创新性作用,促进美丽中国建设目标早日实现。     

What drives plan implementation? Plans,planning agencies and developers

This article investigates the determinants of plan implementation by applying a recently‐developed Plan Implementation Evaluation methodology. The lack of methodology to assess the implementation of plans has so far precluded any systematic analysis of the determinants of the implementation of local environmental plans. The article focuses on the implementation of plans in New Zealand. The key factors of implementation are: the quality of the plan; the capacity and commitment of land developers to implement plans; the capacity and commitment of the staff and leadership of planning agencies to implement plans; and the interactions between developers and the agency. The analysis is based on 353 permits implementing six local environmental plans in New Zealand, and on surveys of the developers who obtained the permits and of the planning agencies that granted the permits. The analysis finds that plan implementation is mainly driven by the resources of the planning agencies and by the quality of the plans, rather than by the characteristics of developers. Investments in plan writing and agency and staff capacity building thus improve the implementation of plans in the long‐run.     

Effective Planning and Implementation of Ecological Rehabilitation Projects: A Case Study of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada)

The literature guides environmental planning and, specifically, how to use ecological rehabilitation projects to achieve long-term planning goals and landscape-scale environmental sustainability. There is, however, a perceived gap between principles in the literature and the use of them by practitioners involved in smaller-scale ecological rehabilitation projects. Using interviews with practitioners involved in 11 projects within the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, we tested whether practitioners used five principles for effective planning and implementation of ecological rehabilitation that we derived from the literature. These five principles were: establishing political and ecological context, using ecologically appropriate objectives and practices, using comparative multidisciplinary and cross-scale approaches, using adaptive planning and implementation, and establishing good communication within and external to projects. Few projects followed all five principles, and practitioners indicated that they used three more project-specific principles: obtaining political/social support, promoting projects and changing attitudes about projects, and securing sufficient and persistent funding to maintain a project's life. While the literature emphasizes that ecological rehabilitation is only effective if projects are coordinated on a watershed basis, most practitioners focused solely on the goals of their specific project. The gap between literature and practice may arise because most practitioners are new to the field of ecological rehabilitation and still are focused on the methods involved. Time pressures force practitioners to obviate the literature and get projects started quickly, lest support evaporate. Complicating these difficulties is decreased support from federal and provincial governments for large-scale environmental planning. It is unclear whether ecological rehabilitation projects in Waterloo Region (at least) will ever become effective at promoting landscape-scale ecological goals or remain smaller-scale stop-gaps.     

生态产品价值实现的“一村万树”绿色期权模式

随着经济的不断发展，越来越多的国家和地区开始重视绿色高质量发展，对生态产品的研究也在不断加强。各种政策工具相继出现，致力于将自然给予的生态产品资本化，并赋能经济发展。其中，衢州市柯城区的“一村万树”项目就是一种具有创新性的生态产品价值实现模式。本文对衢州市柯城区“一村万树”项目及其绿色期权模式进行研究，结合部门统计数据和空间信息数据，对“一村万树”项目实施区2018年的生态效益进行核算，并选取柯城区2010—2018年相关社会经济统计数据进行相关性分析，探析项目的社会经济效益，最后在量化分析的基础上结合公共池塘资源治理的八条设计原则，定性分析了“一村万树”绿色期权的合理性。结果显示：“一村万树”实施区2018年的生态效益为124.63亿元，约为研究区国内生产总值估算值的1.68倍，说明该项目具有巨大的生态效益；同时，相关分析结果表明该项目实施对当地第三产业的发展有较大的促进作用。柯城区“一村万树”项目以及绿色期权模式给当地带来了巨大的生态和社会经济效益，为我国的乡村绿化建设和生态产品价值实现提供了一种新范式。