基于环境地理信息平台的预警系统的构建

随着经济的高速发展,环境污染事故也呈现出上升的势头,环境污染事故不仅造成了环境危害,而且对人民群众的安全产生了重大威胁。鉴于环境污染事故的多发性、危害性,应急处置显然非常重要,而构建强大的应急处置信息系统有助于应急处置和分析决策的顺利进行。本文分析了环境应急处置需求,提出了建立环境污染应急管理信息系统的设计框架。     

Adaptive management of natural resources--framework and issues

Adaptive management, an approach for simultaneously managing and learning about natural resources, has been around for several decades. Interest in adaptive decision making has grown steadily over that time, and by now many in natural resources conservation claim that adaptive management is the approach they use in meeting their resource management responsibilities. Yet there remains considerable ambiguity about what adaptive management actually is, and how it is to be implemented by practitioners. The objective of this paper is to present a framework and conditions for adaptive decision making, and discuss some important challenges in its application. Adaptive management is described as a two-phase process of deliberative and iterative phases, which are implemented sequentially over the timeframe of an application. Key elements, processes, and issues in adaptive decision making are highlighted in terms of this framework. Special emphasis is given to the question of geographic scale, the difficulties presented by non-stationarity, and organizational challenges in implementing adaptive management.     

Success factors in community based natural resources management in northern Botswana: Lessons from practice

The article explores and examines challenges and lessons learned from the implementation of community based natural resources management (CBNRM) programmes in Ngamiland, northern Botswana. The article, based largely on primary data, with some secondary data sources, draws on the CBNRM framework, which promotes rural socio‐economic development and natural resources management. Among the key factors identified as pivotal to the success of CBNRM is broadening the consultation base during the mobilization phase of the programme to facilitate effective community participation and representation. Preparedness by both the implementing institutions and participating communities is also highlighted as key to effective mobilization. This means moving away from a conventional consultative forum, to a more multi‐faceted approach that will facilitate capturing the views of diverse user groups within the community. The article also suggests that feasibility studies are needed to address socio‐economic, political and cultural characteristics inherent in communities to guide programme implementation. To achieve increased community participation and enhance positive conservation attitudes, the article advocates a mobilization approach and practice that will effectively facilitate the process.     

Establishing management standards: Selected examples of the normative approach

The importance of developing evaluative standards for judging the acceptability of impacts caused by recreation is common to all recent natural resource management frameworks. A normative model has been advanced as a useful way to conceptualize, collect, and organize empirical data representing standards for resource management issues. This article summarizes the findings from social and ecological research to illustrate the utility of the normative approach from a manager's perspective. The social data (e.g., encounter norms, proximity norms, and tolerances for launch wait times) were obtained from 13 different study sites, while the ecological data (e.g., tolerances for the amount of bare ground, size of fire rings, instream flows, and wildlife management practices) were collected at three specific sites and from one statewide survey, Findings from the social research indicated that encounter norms exist for particular types of contacts with certain types of visitors at particular places and for certain types of experiences. The recreationists reported norms for acceptable distances between individuals, encounters with others at campsites or attractions, and waiting times to run rapids. These social norm evaluation techniques were also shown to be transferable to normative evaluations of ecological impacts. The users had opinions about ecological impacts and were willing to express them. In addition, the ecological norms were of moderate to high intensity. It is argued that the usefulness of normative approaches lies in their ability to characterize group agreement about appropriate use conditions or impact levels for a particular recreation experience, thus providing the evaluative information needed to establish management standards.     

Natural resource economics: Relevance in planning and management

This article provides an overview of natural resource economics. It begins with a summary of historical and current views on resource scarcity. It then discusses economic models for optimal management of non-renewable and renewable resources at the micro and macro levels and evaluates their usefulness in planning, management and policy making.     

Women and natural resource management: Illustrations from India and Nepal

This article attempts to delineate women's roles in natural resource management by highlighting their roles in management of water, agriculture, livestock, forestry and fishery. The article is based on the findings of case studies in rural areas of India and Nepal done during 2003 and 2004 by the author as well as by other researchers. Taking women as primary respondents, empirical work used participatory techniques, such as in‐depth surveys, focus group discussions and participant observation. Findings suggest that women clearly outdo men in terms of their involvement in use and management of all the studied sectors, i.e., water, agriculture, livestock, forestry and fishery. Yet, they face categorical exclusion and denial of equal sharing of benefits from natural resources. In order to ensure sustainable use of these resources, the article recommends that policy makers, planners and development workers must have a better understanding of the relative and often shifting roles of men and women in natural resource management, including division of labour, access to resources, decision‐making and traditional knowledge and practices. The article concludes with sector‐specific recommendations.     

Adaptive management: Promises and pitfalls

Proponents of the scientific adaptive management approach argue that it increases knowledge acquisition rates, enhances information flow among policy actors, and provides opportunities for creating shared understandings. However, evidence from efforts to implement the approach in New Brunswick, British Columbia, Canada, and the Columbia River Basin indicates that these promises have not been met. The data show that scientific adaptive management relies excessively on the use of linear systems models, discounts nonscientific forms of knowledge, and pays inadequate attention to policy processes that promote the development of shared understandings among diverse stakeholders. To be effective, new adaptive management efforts will need to incorporate knowledge from multiple sources, make use of multiple systems models, and support new forms of cooperation among stakeholders.     

Wildlife management: Managing the hunt versus the hunting experience

Deer hunter satisfaction is investigated from two perspectives, (1) satisfaction with the hunt/harvest and (2) satisfaction with the overall hunting trip experience. Regression analysis is used to determine what variables best predict satisfaction with the hunt and the hunting experience. Results indicate that animal population variables (number of deer seen, shot at, bagged) are the best determinants of a quality deer hunt, while environmental (outdoors) and social (crowding and hunter behavior) are the best predictors of a quality hunting trip experience. Wildlife managers and researchers need to realize that deer hunters view the hunt/harvest as different from the hunting trip experience and need to manage for both aspects of hunter satisfaction.     

Risk management in the Federal Republic of Germany

Spectacular industrial accidents, such as the ones in Bhopal, Mexico City, and Basle, have in recent times made the risks associated with the modern chemicals industry unmistakably evident. It has been seen that effective emergency plans for the people living in the vicinity of a hazardous installation become particularly important. The situation of hazardous installations in the Federal Republic of Germany is reviewed and the three-stage safety system, which is established within the German Regulation on Major Industrial Accidents (Störfallverordnung), is described. The evaluation of the current practice shows a couple of problems, especially connected with off-site safety precautions. The disaster control teams are often ill-equipped and inadequately trained. There is a need for further establishment of detailed and specific emergency plans, especially in rural areas. It is expected that the updating of the Regulation on Major Industrial Accidents, which is at present being undertaken in the Federal Republic of Germany and the compilation of instructions for the competent authorities will contribute to better emergency plans for the protection of areas in the vicinity of hazardous industrial installations.     

Valuing natural resources and the implications for land and water management

New models of sustainable development stress the importance of the efficient management of resources, including labour, capital equipment and natural resources. Overuse of the resource base today will lead to shortages tomorrow; yet it can be a difficult task persuading politicians and planners in developing countries of the importance of resource management. This paper suggests methodologies for doing so and argues the urgency of the task.     

Design principles and common pool resource management: an institutional approach to evaluating community management in semi-arid Tanzania

This paper analyses the role of institutions in the management of common pool resources (CPRs) in semi-arid Tanzania. Common property regimes have often been considered inadequate for the management of CPRs because of the problems of excludability, but they are becoming more widely supported as the way forward to overcome the problems of resource use and degradation in developing countries. A series of design principles for long enduring common property institutions have been proposed by Ostrom, but there is concern that they are not applicable to a wide range of real life situations or that they may be specific to certain types of CPR. Here, we compare these principles to the situation prevailing in 12 villages in six districts in semi-arid Tanzania. Data on management institutions were collected through semi-structured interviews and meetings at district and village level. The combined information was used to make a qualitative assessment of the strength with which each design principle appeared to operate in the management of forest, pasture and water resources. Boundaries, conflict and negotiation in CPR management are of key importance in semi-arid regions. However, the need for flexibility in order to deal with ecological uncertainty means that many management institutions would be considered weak or absent according to the design principle approach. This supports the view that the design principles should not be used as a 'blueprint to be imposed on resource management regimes' rather that they provide a framework for investigating common property regimes with the proviso that, certainly for semi-arid regions, they may highlight where management cannot be explained by institutional theory alone.     

Passive and active adaptive management: approaches and an example

Adaptive management is a framework for resource conservation that promotes iterative learning-based decision making. Yet there remains considerable confusion about what adaptive management entails, and how to actually make resource decisions adaptively. A key but somewhat ambiguous distinction in adaptive management is between active and passive forms of adaptive decision making. The objective of this paper is to illustrate some approaches to active and passive adaptive management with a simple example involving the drawdown of water impoundments on a wildlife refuge. The approaches are illustrated for the drawdown example, and contrasted in terms of objectives, costs, and potential learning rates. Some key challenges to the actual practice of AM are discussed, and tradeoffs between implementation costs and long-term benefits are highlighted.     

Capital assets and intercultural borderlands: socio-cultural challenges for natural resource management

In their design or implementation, many natural resource management (NRM) programs ignore critical socio-cultural dimensions of the challenge to advance sustainability. Building on particular ideas about culture and human ecosystems, we combine the strengths of the capital assets model of sustainability and the idea of intercultural borderlands to respond to this gap. To advance our thesis about the utility of these tools, we critically reviewed and analysed a cross-disciplinary literature relating to the socio-cultural dimensions of NRM. This paper stems from that labour and examines particular tensions that arise in land management as a result of Australians' specific colonial and postcolonial legacies. These tensions--related to ethnicity, gender, population, age and health--are among the threads in the larger tapestry that comprises the socio-cultural dimensions of NRM. For the Australian case, they are central, longstanding and persistent, and thus worthy of analysis; and they are applicable in general terms to other places with similar histories of settlement and land use.     

Against idealistic beliefs in the problem-solving capacities of integrated resource management

Integrated resource management (IRM) is currently implemented in many parts of the world. This article promotes a pragmatic interpretation and suggests that idealistic beliefs in the problem-solving capacities of IRM are not justified. Successful implementation and performance of IRM are primarily a function of the historical context into which a project is placed. A comparative analysis of several case studies in Western Canada provides evidence for this argument, and the results can be summarized in a conceptual model about integration in resource management. IRM is interpreted as a process of constructing an objective reality of integration for sectorial management decisions, and this construction involves the transformations of power structures. This article suggests several pragmatic conclusions for IRM practice.     

Integrating long-term stewardship goals into the remediation process: natural resource damages and the Department of Energy

The United States and other developed countries are faced with restoring and managing degraded ecosystems. Evaluations of the degradation of ecological resources can be used for determining ecological risk, making remediation or restoration decisions, aiding stakeholders with future land use decisions, and assessing natural resource damages. Department of Energy (DOE) lands provide a useful case study for examining degradation of ecological resources in light of past or present land uses and natural resource damage assessment (NRDA). We suggest that past site history should be incorporated into the cleanup and restoration phase to reduce the ultimate NRDA costs, and hasten resource recovery. The lands that DOE purchased over 50 years ago ranged from relatively undisturbed to heavily impacted farmland, and the impact that occurred from DOE occupation varies from regeneration of natural ecosystems (benefits) to increased exposure to several stressors (negative effects). During the time of the DOE releases, other changes occurred on the lands, including recovery from the disturbance effects of farming, grazing, and residential occupation, and the cessation of human disturbance. Thus, the injury to natural resources that occurred as a result of chemical and radiological releases occurred on top of recovery of already degraded systems. Both spatial (size and dispersion of patch types) and temporal (past/present/future land use and ecological condition) components are critical aspects of resource evaluation, restoration, and NRDA. For many DOE sites, integrating natural resource restoration with remediation to reduce or eliminate the need for NRDA could be a win-win situation for both responsible parties and natural resource trustees by eliminating costly NRDAs by both sides, and by restoring natural resources to a level that satisfies the trustees, while being cost-effective for the responsible parties. It requires integration of remediation, restoration, and end-state planning to a greater degree than is currently done at most DOE sites.     

Engaging with the natural environment: The role of affective connection and identity

Research has shown pro-environmental behaviour to be positively associated with the strength of emotional connection towards the natural environment. The present study (N=199) investigated the predictive utility of an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) [ Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behaviour. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211] for people's intentions to engage with the natural environment. It was hypothesised that both affective connection and identification with the natural environment would contribute significantly to the prediction of people's intentions. A secondary hypothesis was that participants who had grown up in rural areas would report more positive orientations towards engaging with the natural environment than would urban participants. The research found that affective connection was a significant independent predictor of intentions to engage with the natural environment. Environmental identity was only a significant predictor in the absence of affective connection in the regression model. As predicted, rural and urban participants differed significantly along the measured variables.     

Environmental compliance: The good, the bad, and the super green

Although many empirical studies have examined firms' decisions to participate in voluntary environmental programs, relatively few have examined why firms choose different levels of compliance with environmental regulations. This paper uses primary data to examine why some firms violate regulatory standards on water pollution, solid waste, toxic and hazardous waste, and hazardous air emissions, while others over-comply with them. The results suggest that different factors drive decisions to violate or over-comply with an environmental regulation. Some evidence was found to support the strategic behavior theory of environmental overcompliance, but no corroborating evidence was uncovered to support the green consumer theory.     

A systems approach to the evaluation of natural resource management initiatives

Adopting a new paradigm for natural resource and environmental policy that emphasises continuous change, adaptation and learning demands a new approach to evaluation to enable improvements in the way these initiatives contribute to sustainable resource use. Evaluation is fundamental to identifying change, supporting an adaptive approach that is flexible enough to meet the challenge of change, and enabling learning at individual, community, institutional and policy levels. Based on a consideration of changing approaches to natural resource management (NRM) policy and observations and experiences in the practical assessment of on-the-ground initiatives, the authors develop a set of principles for evaluation in NRM that: (a) addresses evaluation from a systems perspective, (b) links objective to consequence, (c) considers the fundamental assumptions and hypotheses that underpin core policy or program objectives, (d) is grounded in the natural resource, policy/institutional, economic, socio-cultural and technological contexts of implementation in practice, (e) establishes practical and valid evaluation criteria by which change can be monitored and assessed, (f) involves methodological pluralism including both quantitative and qualitative methods to ensure rigour and comprehensiveness in assessment, and (g) integrates different disciplinary perspectives (i.e. social, economic, environmental, policy and technological). The paper develops a systems-based evaluation framework that incorporates these principles and also recognises the multiple levels and nested nature of NRM policy, namely: problem characterisation, policy formulation and intent, program logic, and on-ground implementation. Finally, we demonstrate its utility through application to three contrasting Australian case studies: a community-based Integrated Catchment Management policy implementation; a resource information delivery system; and the development of a Decision Support System.     

Canadian manufacturing: The impacts of natural resource price increases on input demands and costs

The separate effects of 50% increases in the prices of energy, renewable and nonrenewable natural resource inputs on factor demands and production costs are simulated for Canadian total manufacturing and six two-digit industries. Both renewable and nonrenewable natural resource price increases have a substantially greater effect upon the demands for other factors and upon production costs than a parallel energy price increase. These results are important from a policy perspective and justify the further disaggregation of inputs in this and in other models of input demand.     

Assessing the role of learning devices and geovisualisation tools for collective action in natural resource management: Experiences from Vietnam

In northern Vietnam uplands the successive policy reforms that accompanied agricultural decollectivisation triggered very rapid changes in land use in the 1990s. From a centralized system of natural resource management, a multitude of individual strategies emerged which contributed to new production interactions among farming households, changes in landscape structures, and conflicting strategies among local stakeholders. Within this context of agrarian transition, learning devices can help local communities to collectively design their own course of action towards sustainable natural resource management. This paper presents a collaborative approach combining a number of participatory methods and geovisualisation tools (e.g., spatially explicit multi-agent models and role-playing games) with the shared goal to analyse and represent the interactions between: (i) decision-making processes by individual farmers based on the resource profiles of their farms; (ii) the institutions which regulate resource access and usage; and (iii) the biophysical and socioeconomic environment. This methodological pathway is illustrated by a case study in Bac Kan Province where it successfully led to a communication platform on natural resource management. In a context of rapid socioeconomic changes, learning devices and geovisualisation tools helped embed the participatory approach within a process of community development. The combination of different tools, each with its own advantages and constraints, proved highly relevant for supporting collective natural resource management.