Inserting socio-environmental variables in the power sector expansion planning

Energy models consider technical and economic criteria to define the optimal energy mix to produce electricity. However, the results are sub-optimal from the social point of view, since they do not include socio-environmental factors. The purpose of this study is to access the sustainability of power plants considering technical-economic, socio-environmental and institutional aspects so that to improve the expansion planning. Thus, the efficiencies calculated by slacks based measure approach of Data Envelopment Analysis methodology can be implemented as constraints in the models, signalizing that the socio-environmental impact cannot exceed a limit, which can be calculated by the energy model itself. The results show that renewable power plants contribute more to allocative efficiency than fossil fuel ones, both in terms of social and environmental aspects, which are of utmost importance in ranking power plants to model power capacity expansion. Considering just technical and economic factors has proved to be insufficient to optimize the system in terms of allocative efficiency.     

太湖流域水生态环境功能分区管理指标达成效率评估和预警研究

太湖流域严峻的水生态环境形势备受关注,而水生态环境功能分区管理体系实施现状和效果无法被准确把握。以太湖流域水生态环境功能分区为研究对象,基于四象限法则和二维向量结构指标体系等方法论,综合障碍因子分析与目标可达性分析,对太湖流域水生态环境功能分区管理绩效评估目标达成效率进行评估和预警,为水生态环境功能分区管控提供技术指导。结果表明,江苏省太湖流域目标达成效率情况较好,"高效"、"一般"、"低效"的比例依次下降,高预警级别的区域较少;环境效率指标中单位面积污染物减排管控效率较高,环境质量指标整体表现良好,须谨防向"低效"转变。     

Impact of urbanization on natural ecosystem service values: a comparative study

With rapid population growth and rural to-urban migration in many Chinese cities, a large amount of natural lands have been converted to urban and agricultural lands recently. During this process of land conversion, economic development and quality of life improvement are considered as major goals, and their influences on ecological systems have often been neglected. The degradation of natural ecological systems due to land use change, however, has become severe,and may require immediate attentions from urban planners and local governments. Taking HaDaQi industrial corridor, Heilongjiang Province, China,as a case study area, this paper examined the trend of land use changes during 1990–2005, and quantified their influences on natural eco system service values. In particular, this study applied two major valuation methods, and examined whether different valuation methods generate significantly different results. Analysis of results suggests that human dominated land uses (e.g., urban and agriculture)have expanded rapidly at the cost of natural lands (e.g., wetlands and forest). Due to these land use changes, the total ecosystem service value decreased 29% (2.26% annually) from 1990 to 2005 when the first method was applied, and this rate is estimated to be 15.7% (1.13% annually)with the second approach. Moreover, the annual rate of ecosystem service value decline during 2000–2005 is about four times higher than that in 1990–2000 with both methods, suggesting much more severe ecosystem degradation during 2000–2005.     

Urban gray vs. urban green vs. soil protection — Development of a systemic solution to soil sealing management on the example of Germany

Managing urban soil sealing is a difficult venture due to its spatial heterogeneity and embedding in a socio-ecological system. A systemic solution is needed to tackle its spatial, ecological and social sub-systems. This study develops a guideline for urban actors to find a systemic solution to soil sealing management based on two case studies in Germany: Munich and Leipzig. Legal-planning, informal-planning, economic-fiscal, co-operative and informational responses were evaluated by indicators to proof which strategy considers the spatial complexity of urban soil sealing (systemic spatial efficiency) and, while considering spatial complexity, to assess what the key management areas for action are to reduce the ecological impacts by urban soil sealing (ecological impact efficiency) and to support an efficient implementation by urban actors (social implementation efficiency). Results suggest framing the systemic solution to soil sealing management through a cross-scale, legal-planning development strategy embedded in higher European policies. Within the socio-ecological system, the key management area for action should focus on the protection of green infrastructure being of high value for actors from the European to local scales. Further efforts are necessary to establish a systemic monitoring concept to optimize socio-ecological benefits and avoid trade-offs such as between urban infill development and urban green protection. This place-based study can be regarded as a stepping stone on how to develop systemic strategies by considering different spatial sub-targets and socio-ecological systems.     

Combinatorial optimization of elk habitat effectiveness and timber harvest volume

Forest resource planning processes in the western United States have been placing an increasing emphasis on wildlife and fish habitat goals. With this in mind, we developed a method that incorporates a Habitat Effectiveness Index (HEI) for Roosevelt elk (Cervus elaphus roosevelti) into the objective function of a mathematical forest planning model. In addition, a commodity production goal is proposed (maximum timber production), and the habitat and commodity production goals are allowed to act as goals in a multi-objective goal programming planning problem. A heuristic programming technique (tabu search) is used to develop feasible solutions to the resulting non-linear, integer programming problem. Using a hypothetical example, we illustrate results of five scenarios, where the emphasis of the achievement of one or both goals is altered. The main contribution of this approach is the ability to measure and evaluate the trade-offs among achieving a certain level of a complex wildlife goal and achieving commodity production goals. These trade-offs are measured using a flexible model, allowing planners to formulate non-linear spatial goals as objectives of a problem, rather than forcing them to rely on posterior evaluations of the suitability of management plans to goals such as elk HEI.     

中国生态监测存在问题及发展趋势

在生态学的基本理论基础上,探讨了生态监测的科学内涵,明确了生态监测对象就是生态系统,目标是认识反映生态系统的状态和演变趋势,为管理和决策提供科学依据。深入分析了中国生态监测存在的5个问题:生态监测缺乏统一管理,部门间任务存在交叉和重复;生态监测技术不够规范,信息整合与利用困难;生态监测网络松散,国家级生态监测网络建立缓慢;环境监测法律依据不足,法制保障力度亟待加强;生态监测能力水平普遍较低,亟待建设。最后,从国家现实需求、生态监测现状以及监测技术发展的历史规律,探讨了未来中国生态监测的总体发展趋势。     

新疆土地生态环境问题与对策

土地生态环境是人类生存发展的基本条件,是经济、社会发展的基础.在当前的经济形势下,包括水土流失、土壤盐碱化、植被破坏等一系列土地荒漠化问题以及由于荒漠化而造成的生物多样性受损引起人们的广泛关注.为了实现经济的可持续发展目标,加强新疆的综合竞争能力,在区域开发过程中要注重土地生态环境建设.本文对新疆土地生态环境现状与存在的问题进行分析,阐明了土地生态环境恶化的原因,提出土地生态环境建设的对策.     

土壤重金属污染生态风险评价方法综述

生态风险评价是风险论与生态学、环境科学、地学等多种学科相互交叉的边缘学科.以土壤生态系统为对象,介绍了目前已有的几类重金属污染生态风险评价方法,包括概念模型法、数学模型法、指数法、形态分析法、植物培养法等.指出根据研究目的与污染特性选择适当的评价方法,可以为土壤生态风险管理提供科学信息.     

An Indicator for the Economic Performance and Ecological Sustainability of Nations

This document proposes a new indicator to assess countries’ sustainability. The indicator synthetises measures of economic and ecological efficiency. In other words, we assess the ability of countries to use resources to produce the maximum possible amounts of goods and services while keeping production activities’ impact on the environment as low as possible. The measure of ecological efficiency is the ecological reserve/deficit (ERD), which is based on the concept of ecological footprint. The new indicator is computed using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, a well-known non-parametric technique that delivers measures of productive efficiency by comparing outputs to inputs used in production. We modify the standard DEA model in two ways. Firstly, we allow for negative input and output data. Secondly, to increase DEA discriminating power of countries, we compute anti-efficiency measures. This allows us to obtain a ranking of countries based on the best and worst performances. Results show that the new efficiency indicator is valid and that high ERD positively influences the ranking of countries. Introducing anti-efficiency provides more plausible results and a more accurate ranking, for example high-polluting countries like China previously economically efficient are now ranked as low efficient when sustainability is taken into account.

     

基于农业面源污染风险区的生态保护红线优化方法分析

将农业面源污染风险区划入生态保护红线中，防范由此导致的饮用水水源富营养化现象，是值得深入探讨的科学问题。以南水北调中线重要水源地丹江口水库流域十堰段为例，基于农业面源污染风险区的识别，通过情景分析探讨生态保护红线优化方法，改善区域生态环境，推动绿色发展。结果表明：将农业面源污染极高风险区划入生态保护红线，区域氮、磷流失削减率可分别达35.9%和26.33%,在一定程度上增强了生态系统连通性，且人口生态压力指数较小(0.23),可统筹生态效益和经济效益的发展。研究结果有望为存在农业面源污染风险的丘陵山区提供一种红线优化新思路。