A systemic approach to managing multiple perspectives and stakeholding in water catchments: some findings from three UK case studies

As the EU-wide Water Framework Directive enters into public policy, the UK faces significant challenges in managing its water resources, including exceptional flood and drought events in recent years. New legislation is resurfacing existing conflicts and generating new debates among multiple stakeholders about managing water catchments. Existing policies and practices are under strain as a result. This paper reports how the SLIM project in the UK researched the role of a systemic approach to managing multiple perspectives and stakeholding in water catchments and the new challenges this presents to existing forms of knowledge and practice. The authors apply the conceptual tradition of systems thinking and practice, and the methodological approach of systemic co-researching inquiry to empirical studies in the Tweed, the Ythan, and the Eye Brook catchments, in the context of a review of policy and practice in the UK. The extent to which systems approaches to multiple stakeholding can lead to social learning for concerted action is considered. An assessment of the implications of the research findings for policies and practices in managing water catchments concludes the article.     

Vulnerability assessment for supporting the revitalisation of river floodplains

Floodplains of regulated rivers are usually exposed to the negative impacts of riverbed incision, floodplain aggradation, and climate change. These drivers have the potential to deteriorate the bio-physical status and ecosystem services of floodplains in the long run. From the point of view of management, it is thus important to predict how far the existing or envisaged management system is able to counteract the negative impacts – in other words: it is important to understand the vulnerability of the floodplain. This study focuses on the Danube riparian Gemenc floodplain in Hungary. Model-based investigations demonstrate that this floodplain is highly vulnerable to the above-mentioned drivers. It is concluded that new management strategies need to be developed and implemented in order to maintain the desired ecosystems and ecosystem services of the Gemenc in the future.     

Adaptive management of marine mega-fauna in a changing climate

Management of marine mega-fauna in a changing climate is constrained by a series of uncertainties, often related to climate change projections, ecological responses, and the effectiveness of strategies in alleviating climate change impacts. Uncertainties can be reduced over time through adaptive management. Adaptive management is a framework for resource conservation that promotes iterative learning-based decision making. To successfully implement the adaptive management cycle, different steps (planning, designing, learning and adjusting) need to be systematically implemented to inform earlier steps in an iterative way. Despite the critical role that adaptive management is likely to play in addressing the impacts of climate change on marine mega-fauna few managers have successfully implemented an adaptive management approach. We discuss the approaches necessary to implement each step of an adaptive management cycle to manage marine mega-fauna in a changing climate, highlighting the steps that require further attention to fully implement the process. Examples of sharks and rays (Selachimorpha and Batoidea) on the Great Barrier Reef and little penguins, Eudyptula minor, in south-eastern Australia are used as case studies. We found that successful implementation of the full adaptive management cycle to marine mega-fauna needs managers and researchers to: (1) obtain a better understanding of the capacity of species to adapt to climate change to inform the planning step; (2) identify strategies to directly address impacts in the marine environment to inform the designing step; and (3) develop systematic evaluation and monitoring programs to inform the learning step. Further, legislation needs to flexible to allow for management to respond.     

Implementing climate variability adaptation at the community level in the Amazon floodplain

The need to design measures for adapting to climate change is increasingly recognized as important and has encouraged research on the role of local ecological knowledge (LEK) in supporting adaptation. Studies of how LEK can help adapt to increasing climate variability remain limited. This article develops an approach through which the process of adaptation can be tracked at a community level. We describe how community residents in the Amazon floodplains incorporate natural hydrologic and ecological processes into their management systems to optimize ecosystem functioning.We describe two case studies where LEK is used as a resource by small-scale fisher-farmers in the Amazon floodplains to adapt to the increasing impacts on their livelihoods generated by changing climate patterns. This article draws on local histories and seeks to identify the critical factors that either facilitate or impede household ability to reduce their vulnerability. We found that the LEK of small fisher-farmers has facilitated the adaptation of a resource management system to optimize production across a broad range of floodplain habitats and conditions. There are, however, significant challenges to operationalizing these approaches, including an absence of systematically collected data on adaptation strategies and outcomes. In addition, local people must be integrated into policymaking processes so their knowledge can contribute to the design of locally appropriate policies for adapting to the impacts of climate related events.     

Economic analysis of adaptive strategies for flood risk management under climate change

Climate change requires reconsideration of flood risk management strategies. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA), an economic decision-support tool, has been widely applied to assess these strategies. This paper aims to describe and discuss probabilistic extensions of CBA to identify welfare-maximising flood risk management strategies under climate change. First, uncertainty about the changes in return periods of hydro-meteorological extremes is introduced by probability-weighted climate scenarios. Second, the analysis is extended by learning about climate change impacts. Learning occurs upon the probabilistic arrival of information. We distinguish between learning from scientific progress, from statistical evidence and from flood disasters. These probabilistic extensions can be used to analyse and compare the economic efficiency and flexibility of flood risk management strategies under climate change. We offer a critical discussion of the scope of such extensions and options for increasing flexibility. We find that uncertainty reduction from scientific progress may reduce initial investments, while other types of learning may increase initial investments. This requires analysing effects of different types of learning. We also find that probabilistic information about climate change impacts and learning is imprecise. We conclude that risk-based CBA with learning improves the flexibility of flood risk management strategies under climate change. However, CBA provides subjective estimates of expected outcomes and reflects different decision-maker preferences than those captured in robustness analyses. We therefore advocate robustness analysis in addition to, or combined with, cost-benefit analysis to support local investment decisions on flood risk reduction and global strategies on allocation of adaptation funds for flood risk management.     

Assessing the Vulnerability of Coastal Communities to Extreme Storms: The Case of Revere,MA., USA

Climate change may affect the frequency, intensity, and geographic distribution of severe coastal storms. Concurrent sea-level rise would raise the baseline of flooding during such events. Meanwhile, social vulnerability factors such as poverty and disability hinder the ability to cope with storms and storm damage. While physical changes are likely to remain scientifically uncertain into the foreseeable future, the ability to mitigate potential impacts from coastal flooding may be fostered by better understanding the interplay of social and physical factors that produce human vulnerability. This study does so by integrating the classic causal model of hazards with social, environmental, and spatial dynamics that lead to the differential ability of people to cope with hazards. It uses Census data, factor analysis, data envelopment analysis, and floodplain maps to understand the compound social and physical vulnerability of coastal residents in the city of Revere, MA, USA. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

滨海核电厂温排水相关若干问题研究

温排水是核电厂环境影响评价、取排水工程方案确定及工程可行性论证中需考虑的重要因素。本文针对核电厂取排水工程中与温排水散热特性相关的若干重要问题进行了研究和论述。结合海南昌江核电厂取排水工程设计、温排水模拟和温度场原型观测成果,对取排水明渠或管道中的水温沿程变化、取排水岸上回流时间迟滞、海域水面散热计算、淹没深层排水的三维水力热力特性等问题进行了论述,总结了当前研究中需要改进的内容,并给出了进一步优化与水温相关的设计、科研等方面的方法。     

An approach and preliminary model of integrating ecological and economic constraints of environmental quality in the Guayas River estuary, Ecuador

We describe conceptual and simulation models of land use within the intertidal zone of the Guayas River estuary to quantify the contribution of mangrove wetlands to maintaining environmental quality of a tropical estuary. The goal of this exercise is to demonstrate the important consideration of ecological constraints in determining economic and management decisions; and how modeling can be used to quantify impacts of land use such as loss of mangrove wetlands on environmental quality. Our conceptual model treats solar energy, river flow, and tides as forcing functions that control the properties of estuarine ecosystems, but also describes market forces and cultural policies as constraints on properties of socioeconomic systems. The controversy of coastal resource management in Ecuador centers around the relative impacts of shrimp pond construction and management as negative feedbacks to the environmental quality of the Guayas River estuary. Unique oceanographic processes and land use changes contribute to complex issues of water and habitat quality in this tropical estuary, the largest estuarine complex on the Pacific coast of South America. A dynamic box model was developed for the estuary and calibrated with data collected from a 14 month survey of water quality parameters throughout the estuary. Scenarios included conversion of mangroves to shrimp ponds in three regions of the estuary, and the construction of a dam by varying three different rates of river discharge at 100, 50 and 10% of 1989 base flow. Good water quality is maintained by the low residence time of water in the estuary (11 d) because of seasonally high river flow and tidal exchange. With a 90% reduction of mangrove forests in the estuary caused by shrimp pond construction, total nitrogen concentrations increased 5 fold. However, as river discharge decreased to 10%, the same construction caused a 60 fold increase in nitrogen concentrations to 250 μM. Increases in nitrogen concentrations were higher in the upper estuary region, with much less change in the lower estuary. Thus the sensitivity of environmental quality to changes in land use in the intertidal and upland zone are linked to the hydrography of the estuary and is site specific. In the future, the combinations of these ecological models together with economic analyses of the goods and services of mangroves may provide better techniques to evaluate the economic impacts of specific coastal zone management decisions.     

Linking corporate climate adaptation strategies with resilience thinking

Within modern society, business organizations have a co-evolutionary relationship with society and ecosystems. Business organizations face highly diverse risks which they have to recognize, reflect on and handle. Climate change and its impacts clarify the need for managing overall system risk. Research has shown that climate vulnerability of business organizations in the German food industry is characterized by impacts that, in particular, affect business organizations indirectly. Indirect climate change caused impacts are complex, uncertain and characterized by a high degree of unpredictability. They focus on the derived social, ecological, economic and cultural consequences of the direct physical impacts from a worldwide perspective. This paper shows that introducing resilience thinking helps to identify strategic risks and opportunities coping with climate change caused impacts in sense of corporate climate adaptation strategies. Furthermore, it is shown from a strategic management perspective that mitigation is a profound element of long term adaptation strategies.     

Reprint of: ‘Heimat’ as a boundary object? Exploring the potentialities of a boundary object to instigate productive science-stakeholder interaction in North Frisia (Germany)

The North Frisian Wadden Sea represents one of the best researched natural regions in the world. Since the end of the 1980s, scientific research has been carried out to scientifically study, analyse and assess this intertidal coastal zone under the conceptual umbrella of ecosystem research. The outcome of this assessment materialised in the establishment of the Nationalpark Schleswig-Holsteinisches Wattenmeer. Its implementation caused considerable conflicts between coastal inhabitants, national park authorities and government officials. Arguments in these disputes revolved around the validity and relevance of scientific knowledge generated to assess and legitimately protect the tidelands and areas of the Waddensea. In summary, the whole implementation process was locally perceived as a politically endorsed top-down enforcement strategy only allowing scientific knowledge for decision-making purposes while local concerns and ‘knowledges’ were not included. To learn from these developments and past mistakes, we compare concepts of co-management, boundary work and boundary objects (BO) to theoretically and methodologically explore their potentials to generate shared meanings and instigate communication in the context of future managing purposes. Against this theoretical background, we propose the empirical show-case example of the German concept of ‘Heimat’ as a BO to assess its applicability to study place-based meanings and to illustrate it as a practice-oriented point of entry to initiate productive science-stakeholder interaction (SSI) in managing the North Frisian Wadden Sea.     

Collaborative governance versus constitutional politics: decision rules for sustainability from Australia’s South East Queensland forest agreement

Australia’s Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) (1995–2000) involved a national program of bioregional assessment for native forest conservation and timber resource management. Eleven assessments covering 46 million ha or 6% of Australia, resulted in nine agreements (RFAs) between federal and state governments. While groundbreaking in some respects, however, the program had significant governance problems. Its main outcomes—intergovernmental agreements—were intended to overcome rather than resolve competing bodies of public opinion, and hence always risked entrenching rather than addressing underlying policy conflicts.This article reviews the problems inherent in the official approach, by contrasting it with the outcome reached in the major forest assessment not translated into an RFA. In September 1999, the South East Queensland assessment resulted in an agreement between lead timber production interests, key environmental NGOs and the state government, although rejected by the national government. Unique in Australia and rare in the world, this state-stakeholder agreement suggests the emergence of new decision rules for long-term resolution of biodiversity and natural resource conflicts. Consistently with other case studies, these centre on a fresh approach to integration of conflicting values, and the need for governments to accept more collaborative roles in environmental governance.     

Assessing inundation damage and timing of adaptation: sea level rise and the complexities of land use in coastal communities

Climate change exacerbates the public policy challenges already present in managing contested landscapes. Coastal managers deal with multiple stressors and multiple stakeholders and have a difficult challenge in managing competing land use as sea level rise (SLR) reduces the amount of prized coastal land. The information needed to inform on the type and timing of adaptation strategies reflects a major gap in the planning and implementation of adaptation options. We present here an inundation risk assessment framework (IRAF) for estimating the impacts of increasing SLR inundation extent probabilities and the cost of inundation damage through time for public and private infrastructure assets. The framework integrates the cost of damage across asset classes in order to help decision-makers judge the economic utility of various adaptation options and the timing of implementation. We provide an example of this methodology using a case study from Southeast Australia in a low lying estuarine region with an increasingly urbanized population. The methodology shows a clear pathway in which to integrate multiple asset classes into a temporally based damage cost analysis. Such methodology will help address the timing of adaptation and allow for the development of trigger points to guide adaptation planning. Thus, the framework developed in this paper can be easily transferred to other regions and countries facing the same types of SLR risks. As SLR and inundation encroachment continue to occur, decisions regarding protection, repair, and retreat will be made depending on the resources available to local governments. The challenge is to balance decision making with both the timing of implementation as well as costs (both of action and inaction). By understanding the areas of land lost to inundation and the cost of inaction through time, local governments can assess the rationality of adaptation at points in the present and future.     

Biodiversity of microarthropods in agricultural soils: relations to processes

Soil microarthropods (principally mites and collembolans) are among the unseen faunal diversity in nearly all agricultural soils. Microarthropods participate in the complex food webs of soils, but their importance is seldom appreciated. Laboratory and field results show that microarthropods have impacts on organic debris, microbial decomposers, nematodes, roots and pathogenic fungi. However, their impact on primary production is only indirect. Opportunities for managing soil microarthropods in agricultural soils have been ignored.     

Temporal nutrient variation in soil and vegetation of post-forest pastures as a function of soil order,pasture age,and management,Rondônia,Brazil

Understanding pasture degradation processes is key for sustainable development in the Amazon region. Pasture degradation can be indexed by pasture nutritional status, which is impacted by environmental and human related factors. Most studies of the biogeochemistry of Amazonian pastures have been restricted to highly acidic soils with little focus on how management affects pasture biogeochemistry. We investigated soil physical and chemical properties and grass nutrients under different edaphic conditions and management practices in Rondônia state, in the southwestern Amazon region. Our objectives were to analyze the impacts of soil order, pasture age, and pasture management on soil fertility, bulk density and plant nutrients, in order to understand sustainability needs for the future of this region. We sampled 17 study sites on Oxisols, Ultisols, and Alfisols. The pasture age classes we used consisted of 6–10, 11–15, and >16 years including forest as the control. We also evaluated the impact of beef and dairy management strategies on pastures installed on Ultisols. Pastures on Alfisols showed the highest soil P, Ca, and base saturation, properties that decreased gradually after 5 years of pasture installation. In contrast, pastures on Oxisols showed low and stable levels of nutrients regardless of age. Foliar nutrient concentrations appear to be influenced by edaphic conditions. Soil P and foliar P concentration were highly correlated. In general, pasture age was a poor indicator of soil fertility and foliar chemistry because of high variability among pastures belonging to the same soil order. In terms of the impacts of pasture management, we did not observe significant differences in soil or foliar properties in pasture used for beef and dairy on Ultisols.     

Fostering coastal resilience to climate change vulnerability in Bangladesh,Brazil, Cameroon and Uruguay: a cross-country comparison

This paper describes a comparative study of four different cases on vulnerability, hazards and adaptive capacity to climate threats in coastal areas and communities in four developing countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon and Uruguay. Coastal areas are vulnerable to sea-level rise (SLR), storm surges and flooding due to their (i) exposure, (ii) concentration of settlements, many of which occupied by less advantaged groups and (iii) the concentration of assets and services seen in these areas. The objective of the paper is twofold: (i) to evaluate current evidence of coastal vulnerability and adaptive capacity and (ii) to compare adaptation strategies being implemented in a sample of developing countries, focusing on successful ones. The followed approach for the case evaluation is based on (i) documenting observed threats and damages, (ii) using indicators of physical and socioeconomic vulnerability and adaptive capacity status and (iii) selecting examples of successful responses. Major conclusions based on cross-case comparison are (a) the studied countries show different vulnerability, adaptive capacity and implementation of responses, (b) innovative community-based (CBA) and ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) and (c) early warning systems are key approaches and tools to foster climate resilience. A recommendation to foster the resilience of coastal communities and services is that efforts in innovative adaptation strategies to sea-level rise should be intensified and integrated with climate risk management within the national adaption plans (NAPAs) in order to reduce the impacts of hazards.     

Effect of acid precipitation on leaching of nutritionsand aluminium from forest soils

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油田生产设施环境安全距离理论与估算方法初探

石油生产会带来各种不利的环境影响,甚至造成许多重大安全隐患,并由此对区域生态环境构成严重威胁.对此笔者提出环境安全距离概念及其理论模型,并结合油田主要生产设施的环境影响分析,给出了油田生产过程中气体污染物排放、噪声污染、井喷、管线泄漏和火灾爆炸的环境安全距离估算方法,从而为减轻油田生产的潜在环境影响和损害,解决城市规划建设与油田已建设施之间的矛盾和确保油田生产的环境安全提供科学依据和管理对策.     

宁夏干旱地区工业区对农田土壤重金属累积的影响

随着我国东部沿海地区产业向中西部地区转移,曾经被冠以"净土"的西北干旱地区受到了工业排放污染的威胁.本文以宁夏某县枸杞种植地为研究对象,采用GIS技术,以工业区为中心,结合当地主导风向,沿着黄河进行带状布点采样,分析工业区的建立对农田土壤重金属Zn、Cr、Ni、Mn、Co、Cu、Cd、Pb污染的影响.结果表明,研究区农田土壤重金属累积程度较轻,只有少数样点发生人为Zn和Cd累积;工业区土壤中除了Ni元素以外,其它7种元素都有累积,其中Cd元素浓度达到污染水平的样点占总样点数三分之一.空间分布格局分析结果表明,枸杞地土壤中Cd、Zn、Cu、Mn和Pb等5种元素的分布与工业区位置有较强的相关性.从土壤重金属含量的角度来看,研究区的工业区影响还未造成枸杞地土壤重金属污染,并且由于该区域土壤的pH值普遍较高(平均pH值为8.54),因此,可以认为目前还不存在农田土壤重金属污染问题.但是工业区对农田土壤中重金属累积趋势的影响较为明显.此外,工业区对灌溉水中重金属元素的浓度也有一定影响.     

一种海岸带生态安全管理方法及其应用

论述了海岸带生态安全管理的内涵,提出战略环境评价作为一种海岸带生态安全管理的方法,是有效的辅助决策工具,分析了面向海岸带生态安全管理的战略环境评价的对象、主要内容与范围以及评价方法,介绍了自然资源可持续利用评价的一种方法———资源定位法。并以象山港作为实例研究,运用资源定位法进行战略环境评价,评价结果表明象山港的主导功能应是水产养殖,同时兼顾滨海旅游是最佳的选择,港口建设应以小型的民用码头为主。