当前化学品环境管理的挑战与建议

化学品环境管理是我国当前环境保护工作中亟需加强的重要领域,并且面临三大挑战:化学品种类呈爆发式增长,化学品的生产使用量呈指数式增长以及对化学品的损害特性认知滞后。现阶段,我国的化学品管理集中在对生产流通环节的安全事故防范和对次生环境污染的治理与应对,但是对化学品造成的环境影响和健康损害却还缺乏足够的重视,相应的风险管控制度和防治体系建设也还处于摸索阶段。本文从管理对象界定、化工行业管理、管理制度设计、专业能力建设和多学科技术支撑五个方面梳理了我国当前化学品环境管理工作中存在的主要问题和不足。综合我国化学工业的发展现状和化学品环境管理的现实需求,建议从五个方面加强化学品环境管理体系的建设:(1)明确化学品环境管理的对象和范围,科学制定管理战略与路线;(2)深化对化工行业发展规律的认知,加快形成行业绿色转型的共识与行动;(3)定期跟踪评估政策的实施成效,建立完善的政策调整机制;(4)总结和借鉴国内外化学品环境管理的先进经验和教训;(5)加强化学品全流程、跨领域的研究整合,大力发展检测、模拟和评估的新技术与新方法。本研究可为我国中长期化学品环境管理战略和政策制度体系的建立提供决策支持。     

新型污染物风险防范国际实践及其对中国的启示

随着重化工业的快速发展和各类化学品的大量使用,一些新型污染物对中国居民和生态环境的危害正逐步显现并日趋严重。如何进一步完善中国新型污染物的风险防范体系,是中国生态环境治理面临的重要问题。发达国家新型污染物的风险防范工作启动较早,对中国完善新型污染物风险防范体系具有重要的借鉴意义。本文从制度建设、体制机制、评估监测、科学研究等方面比较国内外新型污染物风险防范实践的异同,立足我国国情,发现国内实践还需加强之处。在此基础上,提出国际新型污染物风险防范实践对中国的启示。     

完善危险化学品的安全管理制度成为当务之急

正随着我国经济高速发展,化学品的生产和使用量持续增加,化学品生产、加工、储存、运输、使用、回收和废物处置等多个环节的环境风险日益加大。化学品种类繁多、性质复杂,在生产、储存、转移、使用及处置过程中,存在危害人体健康和生态环境的可能。如何通过实施严密的管理制度,防治化学品的危害,促进化学工业的可持续发展,在对     

毒害污染物生态风险评价模型研究进展

随着化学品的使用种类和数量日益增加,有毒有害污染物的生态效应逐渐受到重视.生态风险评价模型作为较好的科研和管理技术工具,被越来越广泛地用于扩散到环境中化学物质的生态风险评价中;欧美等发达国家和地区已经建立了多个生态风险评价的模型,并投入到实际应用中.本研究系统综述和总结了毒害污染物生态风险评价模型的构建方法、种类、结构以及特征,归纳了重金属和有机污染物等主要毒害物质的风险评价模型发展状况,比较了几种较为成熟的风险评价模型的具体模块和特点,分析了模型在生态风险评价中的应用以及不足之处,在总结我国生态风险评价模型的研究方向和趋势的基础上,提出模型研究和发展的具体建议.     

新时期完善全链条环评管理制度的建议

环境影响评价（以下简称“环评”）制度作为生态环境源头预防的重要手段，有力支撑生态文明建设、推进生态环境治理能力现代化。当前，我国已建立了包括生态环境分区管控，项目环评、规划环评，以及区域发展战略（政策）评估的环评体系和排污许可管理制度体系，但是全链条环评管理在制度联动、衔接融合和管理闭环等方面仍存在薄弱环节。为进一步健全生态环境源头预防制度体系，须加快构建功能定位明确、责任边界清晰、衔接关系顺畅的全链条环评体系；建立生态环境分区管控与环评管理、排污许可等制度之间“四联动、三融合、两闭环”的基本模式。建议进一步完善全链条管理制度顶层设计，推动重点领域科技攻关，深化政策创新试点，强化能力建设，为推进美丽中国建设提供支撑保障。     

石油企业构建双重预防机制的分析与建议

文章简要介绍了双重预防机制的由来、内涵,分析了新修订的《中华人民共和国安全生产法》关于构建安全风险分级管控和隐患排查治理双重预防机制的法律条文要求,结合中国石油企业生产安全风险防控现状,分析了石油企业构建双重预防机制存在的思想认识不深刻、管理制度和标准要求不完善等问题,提出加强宣贯、培训和交流,完善管理制度和标准,优化安全风险分级管控和隐患排查治理流程与方法等工作建议。     

美国危险化学品管理中的公众知情权及对我国的启示

在风险社会背景下,环境治理的现代化需要多元共治,而要实现公众参与、发挥公众力量,首先要保障公众享有知情权。我国危险化学品专门立法中有关公众知情权的规定存在诸多问题：公众知情权的客体范围不明确,对政府信息公开义务的规定过于笼统,公众知情权的实现与救济途径不畅,政府未依法公开信息的法律责任不足。相较而言,美国在这一领域具有一定的探索经验。立足我国国情,本文参照域外美国《应急计划与公众知情权法案》,就公众知情权提出完善我国危险化学品专门立法的法制建议,以兹借鉴。     

我国环境健康安全体系的现状及对策

随着环保“十五”计划的即将完成,我国环境健康安全体系逐步建立并完善,但在处理环境突发事件中仍暴露出在机构设置、法律法规等方面的不足。本文简要介绍了我国环境健康安全体系已取得的成绩,指出当前该体系所存在的一些不足,并通过与国外先进国家的经验进行比较,提出改善我国环境健康安全体系的一些建议。     

自然生态系统外来入侵物种管理展望

在国家层次上,我国缺少一部全面的法律或法规,缺乏必要的生态影响风险评估、监测和预警体系。今后的工作中,应当研究制定《外来入侵物种管理条例》和《外来入侵物种环境管理办法》;根据预防为主的原则,建立外来物种生态风险评估和监管;完善相关审批制度,由环保部门负责外来物种环境影响评价的管理,各部门按现有法规负责相关类别外来物种引进审批时,应商环保部门,     

重点危化品环境风险评估与突发环境事件风险评估应用分析

通过对环境保护部出台的《重点环境管理危险化学品环境风险评估报告编制指南(试行)》和《企业突发环境事件风险评估指南(试行)》中两种环境风险等级评估方法原理、评估程序、评估重点、指标设置、分级原则的比较,并结合案例,进一步分析了两套评估方法对企业日常环境风险分级管理的作用。经比较分析后,两套评估方法在石油石化行业应用时,方法原理和评估目的一致,但因指标侧重不同,导致评估结果有一定的差异,突发环境事件风险评估工作量大,却难以实现石油石化企业环境风险分级管理的目的,危化品环境风险评估过程更具指导性,但危化品名录的局限导致评估不能覆盖突发环境风险的物质,据此提出了两套方法融合后开展日常环境风险评估的建议。     

Conversion of temperate forests into heaths: Role of ecosystem disturbance and ericaceous plants

Fire and logging in nutrient-poor temperate forests with certain ericaceous understory plants may convert the forests into heaths. The process of disturbance-induced heath formation is documented by using examples ofCalluna in western Europe,Kalmia in Newfoundland, andGaultheria (salal) in coastal British Columbia. In a cool, temperate climate, rapid vegetative growth ofCalluna, Kalmia, and salal following disturbance results in increasing organic accumulation (paludification), nutrient sequestration, soil acidification, and allelochemicals. These are thought to be the main reasons to conifer regeneration failure in disturbed habitats. If continuation in forest is a land-use objective, then temperate forests with an ericaceous understory should not be logged unless effective silvicultural methods are devised to control the ericaceous plants and restore forest regeneration. Preharvest vegetation control may be considered as an option. Failure to control the understory plants may lead to a long-term vegetation shift, from forest to heathland, particularly in nutrient-poor sites. Successful methods of controllingKalmia andGaultheria, however, have yet to be developed. While theKalmia- andGaultheria- dominated heathlands are undesirable in Canada and the Pacific Northwest, a wide range ofCalluna heathlands of western Europe are being conserved as natural and seminatural vegetation.     

BIOLOGICAL INDICATORS AND BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ESTUARINE/COASTAL POLLUTION1

ABSTRACT: Sustained interest in and concern about the health status of the aquatic environment has resulted in extensive research focused on (1) effects of pollution on survival, growth, and reproduction of resource species at all life stages; (2) diseases of fish and shellfish, as they may be related to pollution and as they may serve as indicators of environmental stress; and (3) contaminant body burdens in fish and shellfish - their effects on the aquatic animals and their potential effects on humans. Effects, lethal and sublethal, of pollutants on life history stages of fish and shellfish have been documented, as have impacts on local stocks in badly degraded habitats, but as yet there has been no adequate quantitative demonstration of effects on entire aquatic species - probably because of the difficulty in sorting out relative effects of the many environmental factors that influence abundance. Sublethal effects, especially those that result in disease, have been examined intensively, and some diseases and disease syndromes have been associated statistically with pollution. Other pollution indicators (biochemical, physiological, genetic, behavioral, and ecological) have also received some attention, as have body burdens of contaminants in aquatic species. Research, especially that conducted during the past decade, has done much to clarify the many pathways and toxic effects of contaminants on aquatic animals, and has also helped to identify mechanisms for survival of fish and shellfish in the presence of environmental changes caused by human activities.     

Using Paleo Reconstructions to Improve Streamflow Forecast Lead Time in the Western United States

In water stressed regions, water managers are exploring new horizons that would help in long‐range streamflow forecasts. Oceanic‐atmospheric oscillations have been shown to influence streamflow variability. In this study, long‐lead time streamflow forecasts are made using a multiclass kernel‐based data‐driven support vector machine (SVM) model. The extended streamflow records based on tree ring reconstructions were used to provide a longer time series data. Reconstructed data were used from 1658 to 1952 and the instrumental record was used from 1953 to 2007. Reconstructions for oceanic‐atmospheric oscillations included the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, and North Atlantic Oscillation. Streamflow forecasts using all four oscillations were made with one‐year to five‐year lead times for 21 gages in the western United States. This is the first study that uses both instrumental and reconstructed data of oscillations in SVM model to improve streamflow forecast lead time. SVM model was able to provide “satisfactory” to “very good” forecasts with one‐ to five‐year lead time for the selected gages. The use of all the oscillation indices helped in achieving better predictability compared to using individual oscillations. The SVM modeling results are better when compared with multiple linear regression model forecasts. The findings are statistical in nature and are expected to be useful for long‐term water resources planning and management.     

Journalists' views of advertiser pressures on agricultural news

All major journalism ethical codes explicitly state that journalists should protect editorial copy from undue influence by outside sources. However, much of the previous research on agricultural information has concentrated on what information various media communicate (gatekeeping studies) or communication's role in increasing innovation adoption (diffusion studies). Few studies have concentrated specifically on organizational and structural constraints that might adversely affect agricultural journalists' ethical standards; those that have, focus largely on farm magazines. A study of newspaper reporters who cover agricultural news found that the most pressing ethical concern is the effect of advertiser (agri-business) pressure on editorial copy, and that their concerns in general parallel those of farm magazine writers and editors. The majority reported being in situations in which they might be exposed to advertiser pressure, including pressures to change or withhold editorial copy. Large minorities suggested that advertising pressures affect the overall environment in which agricultural journalists work, and more than one in ten said they allow advertiser pressures to influence editorial decisions. The newspaper reporters who cover agricultural beats showed slightly more resistance to advertiser pressure than did farm magazine editors in a parallel study.     

Definition Procedures Have Little Effect on Performance of Environmental Classifications of Streams and Rivers

Mapped environmental classifications are defined using various procedures, but there has been little evaluation of the differences in their ability to discriminate variation in independent ecological characteristics. We tested the performance of environmental classifications of the streams and rivers of France that had been defined from the same environmental data using geographic regionalization and numerical classification of individual river valley segments. Test data comprised invertebrate assemblages, water chemistry, and hydrological indexes obtained from sites throughout France. Classification performance was measured by analysis of similarity (ANOSIM). Geometric regions defined by a regular grid and without regard to environmental variables and a posteriori classifications based on clustering the test datasets defined lower and upper bounds of performance for a given number of classes. Differences in classification performances were generally small. The ANOSIM statistics for the a posteriori classifications were around twice that of all environmental classifications, including geometrically defined regions. The hydro-ecoregions performed slightly better for the invertebrate data and the network classification performed slightly better for the chemistry and hydrological data. Our results indicate that environmental classifications that are defined using different procedures can be comparable in terms of their ability to discriminate variation of ecological characteristics and that alleged differences in performance arising from different classification procedures can be small relative to unexplained variation. We conclude that definition procedures might have little effect on the performance of large-scale environmental classifications and decisions over which procedures to use should be based primarily on pragmatic considerations.     

Urban ecological systems: scientific foundations and a decade of progress

Urban ecological studies, including focus on cities, suburbs, and exurbs, while having deep roots in the early to mid 20th century, have burgeoned in the last several decades. We use the state factor approach to highlight the role of important aspects of climate, substrate, organisms, relief, and time in differentiating urban from non-urban areas, and for determining heterogeneity within spatially extensive metropolitan areas. In addition to reviewing key findings relevant to each state factor, we note the emergence of tentative "urban syndromes" concerning soils, streams, wildlife and plants, and homogenization of certain ecosystem functions, such as soil organic carbon dynamics. We note the utility of the ecosystem approach, the human ecosystem framework, and watersheds as integrative tools to tie information about multiple state factors together. The organismal component of urban complexes includes the social organization of the human population, and we review key modes by which human populations within urban areas are differentiated, and how such differentiation affects environmentally relevant actions. Emerging syntheses in land change science and ecological urban design are also summarized. The multifaceted frameworks and the growing urban knowledge base do however identify some pressing research needs.     

Neighbourhood characteristics and urban gardens in the Toledo metropolitan area: staffing and voluntarism,food production,infrastructure, and sustainability practices

Urban gardens are important sources of sustenance for communities with limited access to food. Hence, this study focuses on food production in gardens in the Toledo metropolitan area in Northwest Ohio. We administered surveys to 150 garden managers from November 2014 to February 2015 in our attempt to better understand how neighbourhood racial composition and poverty levels are related to staffing and voluntarism, food production and distribution, the development of infrastructure, and the adoption of sustainability practices in urban gardens. The results from 30 gardens are presented in this paper. We used Geographic Information Systems to map the gardens and overlay the map with 2010 census data so that we could conduct demographic analyses of the neighbourhoods in which the gardens were located. Though the gardens were small – two acres or less – up to 46 varieties of food were grown in a single garden. Gardens also operated on small budgets. Food from the gardens was gifted or shared with friends, family, and neighbourhood residents. Gardens in predominantly minority neighbourhoods tended to have fewer institutional partners, less garden infrastructure, and had adopted fewer sustainable practices than gardens in predominantly White neighbourhoods. Nonetheless, residents of predominantly minority and high-poverty neighbourhoods participated in garden activities and influenced garden operations. Volunteering and staffing were racialised and gendered.     

Predicting deer-vehicle collisions in an urban area

Collisions with deer and other large animals are increasing, and the resulting economic costs and risks to public safety have made mitigation measures a priority for both city and wildlife managers. We created landscape models to describe and predict deer-vehicle collision (DVCs) within the City of Edmonton, Alberta. Models based on roadside characteristics revealed that DVCs occurred frequently where roadside vegetation was both denser and more diverse, and that DVCs were more likely to occur when the groomed width of roadside right-of-ways was smaller. No DVCs occurred where the width of the vegetation-free or manicured roadside buffer was greater than 40 m. Landscape-based models showed that DVCs were more likely in more heterogeneous landscapes where road densities were lower and speed limits were higher, and where non-forested vegetation such as farmland was in closer proximity to larger tracts of forest. These models can help wildlife and transportation managers to identify locations of high collision frequency for mitigation. Modifying certain landscape and roadside habitats can be an effective way to reduce deer-vehicle collisions.     

MANGANESE CYCLE IN IMPOUNDMENT WATER

Manganese entering impounded water will undergo a cyclic transformation. Oxidation precipitates manganese from top waters. At the bottom of the lake, biological activity will render manganese soluble by both intracellular as well as extracellular activity. The study was made to demonstrate that biological reduction and transformation, organometallic complexation, together with the presence of carbon dioxide and the lowering of pH all have some effect on the solubility of manganese. Dissolved manganese may be brought back to top waters during the lake overturn and therefore deteriorates the water quality.     

Effect of Light on Biodegradation of Estrone, 17β‐Estradiol,and 17α‐Ethinylestradiol in Stream Sediment

Biodegradation of [A‐ring ¹⁴C] Estrone (E1), 17β‐estradiol (E2), and 17α‐ethinylestradiol (EE2) to ¹⁴CO₂ was investigated under light and dark conditions in microcosms containing epilithon or sediment collected from Boulder Creek, Colorado. Mineralization of the estrogen A‐ring was observed in all sediment treatments, but not epilithon treatments. No difference in net mineralization between light and dark treatments was observed for ¹⁴C‐E2. Net mineralization of ¹⁴C‐E1 and ¹⁴C‐EE2 was enhanced in light treatments. Extents of ¹⁴CO₂ accumulation and rates of mineralization were significantly greater for E2 than E1 under dark conditions, but were comparable under light conditions. These results indicate substantial differences in the uptake and metabolism of E1 and E2 in the environment and suggest biorecalcitrance of E1 relative to E2 in light‐limited environments. The extent of ¹⁴CO₂ accumulation and rate of mineralization for EE2 in dark treatments were less than half of that observed for E2 and generally lower than for E1, consistent with previous reports of EE2 biorecalcitrance. However, ¹⁴CO₂ accumulation and rates of mineralization were comparable for EE2, E2, and E1 under light conditions. These results indicate photoactivation and/or phototransformation/photodegradation processes can substantially enhance heterotrophic biodegradation of estrogens in sunlit environments and may play an important role in estrogen transport and attenuation.