违反环保法行为应承担的法律责任

《中华人民共和国环境保护法》最大的特点,就是强化了环境的监督管理,加强了法律责任,有很强的操作性。对违反环境保护法的行为,必须实施法律制裁。该法针对不同性质的环境违法行为,相应规定了必须承担的行政责任、民事责任和刑事责任三个方面。一、行政责任在环保法中的行政责任,是指由特定的国家行政机关(依法规定拥有     

环境法律责任的分类与特征

简要分析了环境法律责任的特点,并就环境行政责任、环境民事责任和环境刑事责任的性质、种类和内容分别进行了论述,简要概括了环境纠纷的解决途径,并突出强调了环境诉讼的时效和证据。     

国外环境法律制度中的刑事责任

随着对污染和破坏环境危险性和危害性的认识不断加深,目前世界各国都在对危害环境的违法行为加重追究法律责任。这不仅表现在民事责任和行政责任上,而且也表现在刑事责任方面,主要是: 一、扩大了对违犯环境保护法规行为刑事制裁的范围,     

违反“大气法”的法律责任

为了建立完整的大气保护制度,更好地推动大气污染防治工作,第六届全国人大常委会第22次会议通过了《中华人民共和国大气污染防治法》,并将其付诸实施。《大气污染防治法》(以下简称《大气法》)对造成大气污染,致使他人遭受损失的违法行为应承担的法律责任,作了明确规定。包括行政责任、民事责任和刑事责任三个方面。 (一)行政责任。行政责任是指违反《大气法》的规定,造成危害和损失的单位和个人,应承担的法律责任。《大气法》规定的对违法者依法追究行政责任的惩罚措施,分为行政处罚和行政处分两种。 1、行政处罚:是指根据《大气法》的规定,由专门的国家行政机关(环保部门、交通部门、公安部门、铁道部门、渔业管     

何谓环境保护法中的刑事责任

我国《环境保护法(试行)》(以下简称“环保法”)依违法主体的违法内容和违法情节,将法律责任分为三种:行政责任、经济责任和刑事责任。环保法中的刑事责任与行政责任和经济责任不同。 1、环保法中刑事责任的承担者必须是严重违反环保法构成犯罪的主体。行政责任和经济责任的承担者只能是一般违反环保法而尚未构成犯罪的一般违法主体。 2、行为人是否承担刑事责任只能由司法机关按刑事诉讼的法定程序加以确认,行为人承担行政责任或经济责任则只要由行政机关按行政诉讼程序即可确认。 3、环保法中的刑事责任所带来的法律后果,绝大多数伴随着刑事处罚。刑事     

墨西哥环境行政责任制度简介

一、墨西哥联邦环境保护法的构成墨西哥联合王国由31个州和联邦特区组成，其环境法由联邦法和州法共同构成，本文所要介绍的是墨西哥联邦法对于环境行政责任的确定。在墨西哥，最重要的联邦环境法为“生态平衡与环境保护总则”，它适用于联邦领域内的一切环境事物，如联邦保护区的管理，联邦管辖区域的大气污染防治，危险原料和废物的处置以及从性质上看有高度危险的活动与行为。墨西哥联邦环境保护法还包括有关环境影响、大气污染、水污染、噪声、危险废物的联邦环境条例。另外，墨西哥政府还公布了一些官方标准，这些标准涉及有害气体排放…     

环境行政处罚中罚款的几个问题

罚款是环保部门或其它依法行使环境监督管理权的部门,依法责令违反环保法规的行为人缴纳一定数额金钱的行政制裁措施。由于罚歉执行起来简便、有效,因而它已成为环境行政处罚中运用得最广泛、最普遍的行政责任方式。但是在实践中,有的执法机关或其工作人员却滥用罚款权,影响法律的严肃性;也有一些被罚单位利用法律规定上的不足或对罚款的一些误解,与执法机关胡搅蛮缠,妨碍法律的实施。目前,因罚款而引起的环境行政诉讼时有发生。为了使人们对罚款有正确的认识,提高行政执法水平,笔者现就罚款的几个问题谈谈个人看法。     

违反《水法》行为应承担的法律责任

《中华人民共和国水污染防治法》(以下简称《水法》)正式颁布体现了党和国家对人民健康的关心,代表了全国人民的意愿,它标志着我国的环境保护工作已进入了用法制手段管理水环境的新阶段。这部《水法》具有我国的特色,适应本世纪末生产翻两番实现小康生活水平的要求。为了保证《水法》的各项规定顺利实施,对违反法律规定的行为绳之以法,承担法律责任,给予必要的制裁是完全必要的。《水法》第六章明确规定了对违法行为应承担的法律责任,主要有三类:行政责任、民事责任和刑事责任。承担法律责任的主体可以是自然人(公民),也可以是法人(企业、事业单位或其它组织)。     

水污染第三方治理机制中第三方的不正当竞争法律责任

"环境污染第三方治理"是党和政府顺应时代发展提出的治污新模式,也使得专业污水处理公司成为市场经济新的经营主体。水污染第三方治理机制中的第三方在参与市场竞争的过程中,可能会出现串通投标、商业贿赂和垄断协议等不正当竞争行为,这就需要法律对这些行为进行相应的规制,明确第三方承担民事责任的赔偿数额,区别对待行政责任的不同情况以及对第三方承担刑事责任的方式作出具体的规定,这些都有利于"环境污染第三方治理"在我国的推广实施。     

海洋环境污染损失的赔偿问题

《中华人民共和国海洋环境保护法》第七章对污染损害海洋环境行为的法律责任作了原则规定,并分为下述三种:行政责任、民事责任和刑事责任。行政处罚是由国家机关对犯有违法行为的单位和个人采取的一种制裁措施。这类违法行为通常较轻微,不足以构成刑事责任。根据《海洋环境保护法》第四十一条的规定,这种制裁措施包括:警告、罚款、赔偿国家损失及其他行政限制措施,如责令限期治理,缴纳排污费,支付消除污染的费用等。民事责任是指肇事者应当负责赔偿因污染损害海洋环境而对集体或个人的财产造成的实际损失。根据《海洋环境保护法》第四     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.