The logistics of public participation in environmental assessment

This paper starts by investigating the rationales for public participation in environmental assessment. It is contended that access to participation may refer both to means as well as ends; thus, some advocates of citizen participation favour involvement for social and or political reasons (i.e. the participation is the end in itself). However, the value of that participation may also, as we shall see, advance quality and depth of knowledge (i.e. the participation is viewed only as a means to an end). The initial two sections, therefore, paint two broad brushstrokes: the first concerns why we should require public participation, and the second why that participation may improve the quality of our environmental assessment procedure. Further, it is then argued that the issues and problems of public participation vary across different environmental issues and also vary across different stages of the environmental assessment procedure and according to the scientific disciplines and practices involved. This paper points the way towards an open and representative style in which communities are included in environment assessment processes as a source of new or better knowledge, as well as a contribution towards what the EU refers to as the 'horizontal participatory approach'. The paper briefly considers methodological issues concerning ways in which participation might be carried out.     

Indigenous and local communities can boost seed supply in the UN decade on ecosystem restoration

The UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration is poised to trigger the recovery of ecosystem services and transform structural injustices across the world in a way unparalleled in human history. The inclusion of diverse Indigenous and local communities to co-create robust native seed supply systems is the backbone to achieve the goals for the Decade. Here we show how community-based organizations have co-developed native seed supply strategies for landscape restoration from the bottom-up. We draw on the interconnections over two decades of seed networks in Brazil and the emerging Indigenous participation in native seed production in Australia. From an environmental justice perspective, we provide a participatory seed supply approach for local engagement, noting local geographical, social and cultural contexts. Meeting large-scale restoration goals requires the connection between local seed production and collaborative platforms to negotiate roles, rights and responsibilities between stakeholders. An enduring native seed supply must include a diversity of voices and autonomy of community groups that builds equitable participation in social, economic, and environmental benefits.     

Increasing conservation management action by involving local people in natural resource monitoring

There is a need for a better understanding of the status of the environment. At the same time, concerns have been raised regarding alienation of the local populace from environmental decisions. One proposed solution is participatory environmental monitoring. When evaluating the usefulness of environmental monitoring, the focus may be on accuracy, as is usually done by scientists, or on efficiency in terms of conservation impact. To test whether investment in participatory biodiversity monitoring makes economic sense for obtaining data for management decisions, we compared the cost efficiency of participatory and conventional biodiversity monitoring methods in Philippine parks. We found that, from a government perspective, investment in monitoring that combines scientific with participatory methods is strikingly more effective than a similar level of investment in conventional scientific methods alone in generating conservation management interventions. Moreover, the local populace seemed to benefit from more secure de facto user rights over land and other resources. Participatory biodiversity monitoring not only represents a cost-effective alternative when conventional monitoring is impossible, but it is also an unexpectedly powerful complementary approach, capable of generating a much higher level of conservation management intervention, where conventional monitoring already takes place.     

Involving the public in local air pollution assessment: a citizen participation case study

The central theme of this paper is that the assessment of environmental issues requires citizen participation for several reasons, including access to local knowledge, quality assurance and to reveal values and agendas. One methodology for involving the public is presented, based around the case of air pollution assessment in Sheffield. The study procedure of using citizen groups is described, and an analysis of the material from the groups is given. The final section argues that group discussions can be an appropriate methodology for involving the public in environmental assessment, and that the participants were able to comment on the validity and quality of such technical activities as continuous monitoring and computer modelling of air pollution in an urban environment.     

Geographic information systems (GIS) for participation: the future of environmental GIS?

The conventional uses of geographic information systems (GIS) in environmental management have been criticized for being undemocratic and avoiding the social dimension of these issues. To address these criticisms, new participatory approaches are being developed by the GIS community. These new techniques involve the integration of conventional spatial data and mental maps showing communities' (or various groups') perceptions of their environment and how they use resources. Case studies using these new techniques highlight how GIS is being incorporated into participatory studies. The advantages and drawbacks of using GIS for participation are discussed, with the conclusion that the techniques provide a useful new approach for environmental management.     

Fishermen's interests and cooperation: preconditions for joint management of Swedish coastal fisheries

The participation of fishermen in fisheries management is discussed with varying ideas under the notions of "co-management", "participatory management" or "local management". Empirical studies within Swedish fishery have thrown new light on the preconditions for fishermen's participation in fisheries management. Among the important factors influencing failure or success are the two which we discuss here: the question of articulation, organization and representation of interests of fishermen and the question of trust between the groups that are usually cooperating in resource management, fishermen, governmental administrators and researchers. The research summarized has addressed the interests of fishermen with regard to resource management, local fisheries management, and participation of fishermen. The overarching question connecting the three themes is: How can the interests of fishermen be represented better within fisheries management? Interests and trust, "soft facts", can be as important for the success or failure of fisheries management and participation as can "hard facts" such as ownership rights, quantity and quality of resources or monetary value of resources.     

The effect of fiscal decentralization,environmental regulation,and economic development on haze pollution: empirical evidence for 270 Chinese cities during 2007–2016

The current discourse addresses fiscal issues, financial decentralization, and environmental quality and significantly affects economic development and sustainability. This investigation aims to address the research gap in fiscal decentralization and haze pollution for innovation and sustainable growth. This study uses the annual data of 270 Chinese cities from 2007 to 2016 for comprehensive analysis and employs spatial regression methods. The key findings imply that haze pollution in neighbouring cities causes further ecological issues. While the environmental regulations of China tend to have negative impacts on pollution, fiscal decentralization was found to be a key contributor to environmental pollution in Chinese cities. Overall, the study supports the validity of the pollution refuge hypothesis in China. Lastly, the conclusions allow us to conclude that China might need micro-level reforms regarding fiscal decentralization, environmental tax laws, and encouragement of cleaner production technologies.

     

Monitoring of air pollution in Indian metropolitan cities: modelling and quality indexing

Air quality in cities is the result of a complex interaction between natural and anthropogenic environmental conditions. Delhi, as well as many other cities in India, is facing problems concerning air pollution. The increase in industrialisation and the vehicle fleet, poor control on emissions and little use of catalytic converters, produce a great amount of particulate and toxic gases. Data on air pollutants and meteorological variables were collected in the metropolitan cities Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai for the period July–August, 2001. Data were treated with the bivariate regression model to explore the influence of the meteorological variables on air pollutant concentrations, and were also used to compute an Air Quality Index, using the weighted arithmetic mean method. The proposed index seems to be applicable in the assessment of overall air quality with respect to air pollutants.     

Temporal and spatial variations in the relationship between urbanization and water quality

With the development of economy, most of Chinese cities are at the stage of rapid urbanization in recent years, which has caused many environmental problems, especially the serious deterioration of water quality. Therefore, the research of the relationship between urbanization and water quality has important theoretical and practical significance, and it is also the main restriction factor in the urbanization advancement. In this work, we investigated the impact of urbanization on the water quality of the nearby river. We established a comprehensive environmental assessment framework by combining urbanization and water quality, and one model was designed to examine the impact of urbanization on the water quality in Jinan from 2001 to 2010 with factor component analysis. The assessment of urbanization level was accomplished using a comprehensive index system, which was based on four aspects: demographic urbanization, economic urbanization, land urbanization, and social urbanization. In addition, synthetic pollution index method was utilized to assess the water pollution of Xiaoqing River in the study area. Through the analysis of regression curves, we conclude that (1) when the urbanization level is below 25 %, the relationship is low and irregular; (2) if the urbanization level varies between 25 and 40 %, there will be an irreversible degradation of stream water quality; (3) there is a positive correlation between urbanization and pollution levels of urban river after the adjustment period; and (4) land and demographic aspects have the highest independent contribution. This study is a useful reference for policymakers in terms of economic and environmental management.     

Combating land degradation through participatory means: the case of Swaziland

This paper examines a community grazing project to rehabilitate degraded land in Swaziland. Using data from interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups, we show that the ways in which participatory, decentralized approaches to natural resource management play out at the local level are closely linked to national-level power structures. The successes and issues that emerge at different stages of the grazing project reflect local socioeconomic priorities and show how people manage their time and labor according to household livelihood goals. However, the project favored the interests of cattle owners who were already the more socially and politically powerful members of the community. We argue that for participatory natural resource management to be more meaningful to communities, projects should focus on local ecological priorities, rather than addressing the environmental concerns that are rooted within existing dominant power structures. This requires change to social and political relationships across levels and the building of new institutions.     

Pollution characteristics of ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the southeast coastal cities of China

With the rapid urbanization, the southeast coastal cities of China are facing increasing air pollution in the past decades. Large emissions of VOCs from vehicles and petrochemical factories have contributed greatly to the local air quality deterioration. Investigating the pollution characteristics of VOCs is of great significance to the environmental risk assessment and air quality improvement. Ambient VOC samples were collected simultaneously from nine coastal cities of southeast China using the Tedlar bags, and were subsequently preprocessed and analyzed using a cryogenic preconcentrator and a gas chromatography–mass spectrometry system, respectively. VOC compositions, spatial distributions, seasonal variations and ozone formation potentials (OPFs) were discussed. Results showed that methylene chloride, toluene, isopropyl alcohol and n-hexane were most abundant species, and oxygenated compounds, aromatics and halogenated hydrocarbons were most abundant chemical classes (62.5–95.6 % of TVOCs). Both industrial and vehicular exhausts might contribute greatly to the VOC emissions. The VOC levels in the southeast coastal cities of China were sufficiently high (e.g., 6.5 μg?m^?3 for benzene) to pose a health risk to local people. A more serious pollution state was found in the southern cities of the study region, while higher VOC levels were usually observed in winter. The B/T ratio (0.26?±?0.09) was lower than the typical ratio (ca. 0.6) for roadside samples, while the B/E (1.6–7.6) and T/E (7.2–26.8) ratios were higher than other cities around the world, which indicated a unique emission profile in the study region. Besides, analysis on ozone formation potentials (OFPs) indicated that toluene was the most important species in ozone production with the accountabilities for total OFPs of 22.6 to 59.6 %.     

Operationalizing ecosystem service bundles for strategic sustainability planning: A participatory approach

The ecosystem service concept is recognized as a useful tool to support sustainability in decision-making. In this study, we collaborated with actors in the Helge å catchment, southern Sweden, in an iterative participatory ecosystem service assessment. Through workshops and interviews, we jointly decided which ecosystem services to assess and indicators to use in order to achieve a sense of ownership and a higher legitimacy of the assessment. Subsequently, we explored the landscape-level interactions between the 15 assessed services, and found that the area can be described using three distinct ecosystem service bundles. The iterative, participatory process strengthened our analysis and created a shared understanding and overview of the multifunctional landscape around Helge å among participants. Importantly, this allowed for the generated knowledge to impact local strategic sustainability planning. With this study, we illustrate how similar processes can support local decision-making for a more sustainable future.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01378-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

论中国环境影响评价中公众参与的一般模式

公众参与在环境影响评价中的作用是不可替代的,并成为各国环评的基本内容.环评中公众参与的一般模式包括公众享有环境知情权和参与决策权、合适的公众参与的主体范围、明确的公众参与环评的程序和方法以及公众参与环评的保障机制.为更好地发挥环评的作用,应当从实体和程序两方面对法规加以完善.还应在信息公开、立法的完善和配套制度的建立等方面完善环评中的公众参与制度.     

Assessment of coastal ecosystems vulnerability to pollution: Algiers coast,Algeria

Coastal areas are frequently influenced by direct and/or indirect multiple anthropogenic pressures, which impacts marine life. Those perturbations may act in a heterogeneous way with a different intensity and are related to the complexity of coastal ecosystems. To visualize all these interactions at a local scale, a methodology inspired from many researches has been implemented in order to search, identify, and classify coastal ecosystems according to their sensitivity to anthropic pressure exerted by coastal cities. Thus, producing vulnerability maps will be essential tools to local coastal managers. We have applied this methodology on five coastal municipalities in Algiers. Firstly, the environmental sensitivity of coastal ecosystems was assessed by analyzing these four sub-indices: biological sensitivity, geomorphological sensitivity, hydrodynamic characteristics, and pollution intensity. Secondly, an assessment of the anthropogenic pressures presented by each municipality was carried out. Five sub-indexes have been taken into consideration when conducting this assessment: human activities, infrastructures, vectors of pollution, urbanization, and regulatory protection. Then, vulnerability maps were produced by the overlapping of sensitivity and anthropic pressure maps. The results assessed for the environmental vulnerability indicated that most areas are moderately to highly vulnerable, especially in the municipalities of Bab El Oued, Rais Hamidou, and Ain Bénian. The analysis of the obtained results shows the potential applicability of this methodology because they accurately reflect the reality. Therefore, these results can be useful to decision-makers by providing them with a relatively rational decision-making tool to prioritize future management and planning efforts.

     

The invisibility of fisheries in the process of hydropower development across the Amazon

We analyze the invisibility of fisheries and inadequacy of fishers’ participation in the process of hydropower development in the Amazon, focusing on gaps between legally mandated and actual outcomes. Using Ostrom’s institutional design principles for assessing common-pool resource management, we selected five case studies from Brazilian Amazonian watersheds to conduct an exploratory comparative case-study analysis. We identify similar problems across basins, including deficiencies in the dam licensing process; critical data gaps; inadequate stakeholder participation; violation of human rights; neglect of fishers’ knowledge; lack of organization and representation by fishers’ groups; and lack of governmental structure and capacity to manage dam construction activities or support fishers after dam construction. Fishers have generally been marginalized or excluded from decision-making regarding planning, construction, mitigation, compensation, and monitoring of the social–ecological impacts of hydroelectric dams. Addressing these deficiencies will require concerted investments and efforts by dam developers, government agencies and civil society, and the promotion of inter-sectorial dialogue and cross-scale participatory planning and decision-making that includes fishers and their associations.     

Water resources development and impact assessment in the Mekong Basin: which way to go?

The Mekong River Basin is facing rapid changes, including intensive plans for water development. While the different development projects are considered to be important for economic development, the negative impacts that they are likely to cause for ecosystems and livelihoods are estimated to be remarkable. Yet, existing impact assessment processes seem in many cases to be inadequate to capture even the actual magnitude of the impacts at different levels. This article looks at the different impact assessment processes and their challenges in the basin. It is argued that impact assessment in this kind of dynamic and complex setting requires better coordination between assessments at different levels. Basinwide impact assessment would benefit from a more adaptive, multilevel approach that makes better use of assessments from local levels up to the regional level and builds on more participatory and interdisciplinary methods. Successful impact assessment also requires the recognition of the highly political nature of water development and related planning processes.     

A comparison between two full-scale MBR and CAS municipal wastewater treatment plants: techno-economic-environmental assessment

A holistic assessment procedure has been used in this study for comparing conventional activated sludge (CAS) and membrane bioreactor (MBR) processes for the treatment of municipal wastewater. Technical, social, administrative, economic and environmental impacts have been evaluated based on 1 year of operational data from three full-scale lines (one MBR and two CAS) working in parallel in a large municipal treatment plant. The comparative assessment evidences a slight advantage of the conventional process in the studied case, essentially due to lower costs, complexity and energy consumption. On the other hand, the MBR technology has a better social acceptance and similar overall environmental footprint. Although these results are influenced by site-specific parameters and cannot be generalized, the assessment procedure allowed identifying the most important factors affecting the final scores for each technology and the main differences between the compared technologies. Local conditions can affect the relative importance of the assessed impacts, and the use of weighting factors is proposed for better tailoring the comparative assessment to the local needs and circumstances. A sensitivity analysis on the weighted final scores demonstrated how local factors are very important and must be carefully evaluated in the decision making process.     

Megacities and atmospheric pollution

About half of the world's population now lives in urban areas because of the opportunity for a better quality of life. Many of these urban centers are expanding rapidly, leading to the growth of megacities, which are defined as metropolitan areas with populations exceeding 10 million inhabitants. These concentrations of people and activity are exerting increasing stress on the natural environment, with impacts at urban, regional and global levels. In recent decades, air pollution has become one of the most important problems of megacities. Initially, the main air pollutants of concern were sulfur compounds, which were generated mostly by burning coal. Today, photochemical smog--induced primarily from traffic, but also from industrial activities, power generation, and solvents--has become the main source of concern for air quality, while sulfur is still a major problem in many cities of the developing world. Air pollution has serious impacts on public health, causes urban and regional haze, and has the potential to contribute significantly to climate change. Yet, with appropriate planning, megacities can efficiently address their air quality problems through measures such as application of new emission control technologies and development of mass transit systems. This review is focused on nine urban centers, chosen as case studies to assess air quality from distinct perspectives: from cities in the industrialized nations to cities in the developing world. While each city--its problems, resources, and outlook--is unique, the need for a holistic approach to the complex environmental problems is the same. There is no single strategy in reducing air pollution in megacities; a mix of policy measures will be needed to improve air quality. Experience shows that strong political will coupled with public dialog is essential to effectively implement the regulations required to address air quality problems.     

Citizen participation for integrated assessment: new pathways in complex systems

Citizen or community participation is a guiding principle for environmental decision-making, but in practice it is often compromised and contradictory. Two themes in participation can be defined. One is in the 'product' or outcome of decision-making, and aims for more effective and appropriate evaluations and decisions. The other is participation in the 'process', where devolved decision-making itself can serve wider social and economic goals. Although both strands are crucial for the practice of 'integrated assessment' in environmental governance, a clearer view is needed of the scope and limits of such participation. This paper explores such scope and limits by applying a conceptual 'integrated assessment' framework. This is drawn from a major case study on sustainable development for a city-region in the north of the UK. Such a framework helps to identify the many roles of citizen participation from a complex systems perspective. Selected examples of current practice highlight the problems and opportunities for citizen participation in environmental governance.     

关于在环境影响评价过程中开展公众参与的思考

通过对不同形式公众参与优缺点的分析,提出今后有效开展公众参与的建议,旨在探讨《中华人民共和国环境影响评价法》实施后,中国应如何开展环境影响评价中的公众参与。