Projected Changes in Discharge in an Agricultural Watershed in Iowa

Our improved capability to adapt to the future changes in discharge is linked to our capability to predict the magnitude or at least the direction of these changes. For the agricultural United States Midwest, too much or too little water has severe socioeconomic impacts. Here, we focus on the Raccoon River at Van Meter, Iowa, and use a statistical approach to examine projected changes in discharge. We build on statistical models using rainfall and harvested corn and soybean acreage to explain the observed discharge variability. We then use projections of these two predictors to examine the projected discharge response. Results are based on seven global climate models part of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 and two representative concentration pathways (RCPs 4.5 and 8.5). There is not a strong signal of change in the discharge projections under the RCP 4.5. However, the results for the RCP 8.5 point to a stronger changing signal related to larger projected increases in rainfall, resulting in increased trends, in particular, in the upper part of the discharge distribution (i.e., 60th percentile and above). Examination of two hypothetical agricultural scenarios indicates that these increasing trends could be alleviated by decreasing the extent of the agricultural production. We also discuss how the methodology presented in this study represents a viable approach to move forward with the concept of return period for engineering design and management in a nonstationary world.     

Environmental assessment in countries in transition: evolution in a changing context

Over the last fifteen years, Environmental Assessment systems of transitional societies of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia have undergone dramatic change from appraisals integrated into centrally planned economies to formal procedures aimed to ensure interdisciplinary analysis of environmental impacts and linked to publicly accountable decision-making. In most Central European nations, EA systems have been radically reformed to approximate the procedures used in developed countries, particularly in the European Union. In contrast, EA in most of the former Soviet republics has been reformed more gradually and is still based on the so-called State Environmental Review procedure inherited from the USSR and substantially different from 'Western' EA. About one-third of the transitional countries (in the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia) have, so far, failed to establish functioning EA systems. Throughout the region, there has been a gap between EA legislation and practice, especially concerning interdisciplinary analysis of environmental impacts, public participation, and utilisation of EA findings in decision-making. A key driving force in the reform of EA systems has been the change in their societal context, the so-called 'process of transition'. Three main policy agendas--environmental protection, reforms of decision-making, and conforming to international requirements--along with the institutional context of EA regulations and practice have influenced both the change of EA systems over time and the regional variations in the patterns of their evolution. This study suggests that an effective reform of an EA system should be context-sensitive, or be 'in gear' with the political and economic transition. Future EA research should consider their changing societal contexts and focused on practical effects of applying EA procedures.     

Community-company relations in gold mining in Ghana

As a result of Structural Adjustment Programme from the 1980s, many developing countries have experienced an increase in resource extraction activities by international and transnational corporations. The work reported here examines the perceived impacts of gold mining at the community level in the Wassa West District of Ghana, Africa and discusses those perceived impacts in the context of globalization processes and growing multinational corporate interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Interview data compared community members' perceptions with those of company representatives in three communities. The results indicate that communities held companies responsible for a series of economic, social, and environmental changes. While recognizing some of the benefits brought by the mines, communities felt that the companies did not live up to their responsibility to support local development. Companies responded by denying, dismissing concerns, or shifting blame. Findings from this work show that lack of engagement and action by government agencies at all levels resulted in companies acting in a surrogate governmental capacity. In such situations, managing expectations is key to community-company relations.     

电催化氧化处理难降解废水技术研究进展

电催化氧化处理难降解废水技术已得到了广泛关注.本文从电极材料与应用,电极结构及反应器形状,以及与其它处理方法联用等综述了最新研究进展,并在此基础上总结出了电催化氧化技术今后的发展方向.     

Private participation in isolated grids in Mozambique

This article presents a case study from Mozambique of the electrification of two selected towns under a World Bank financed project. Low-cost electricity services were extended to the two isolated areas after an enabling framework had been created for private sector participation. The World Bank project also demonstrates that the private sector can be attracted to participate in rural electrification schemes even in a poor country. The example shown in this article is one of the few of its kind in SubSaharan Africa.     

我国城市生态评价研究进展

城市建设带来了越来越多的生态环境问题，生态城市建设是解决这些问题的良好途径。生态城市的建设要有一定的评价体系作为支撑，本文综述了国内基于AHP方法建立的应用较为广泛的城市生态评价体系和方法，并对国内城市生态评价的现状做了分析。     

Sustainability Appraisal in neighbourhood planning in England

The preparation of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) inclusive sustainability appraisals (SAs) for neighbourhood plans (NPs) in England may be required when significant environmental effects are expected to arise from an NP. In this paper, we report on the result of a Ph.D. project, conducted between 2012 and 2015, in which all 15 NP SEA inclusive SAs that had been completed at the time were evaluated. In this context, the quality of SA practice was found to differ substantially. SAs were prepared either ‘in-house’ (i.e. by neighbourhood planning steering groups) or by consultants. The quality of SAs was found to be associated with their overall perceived degree of influence on the underlying NPs. Whilst the focus of this paper is on practice in England, findings are expected to be of interest to a wider international audience, in particular to those experimenting with voluntary neighbourhood/local level plan SA/SEA.     

Status and trends in EFlows in southern Africa

Environmental Flows (EFlows) are defined as the quantity, timing and quality of the flow of water, sediment and biota necessary to sustain freshwater and estuarine ecosystems, and the human livelihoods and well-being that depend on these ecosystems. As such they are a vital component of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). A recent survey found that, in general, Africa lags behind schedule with respect to the global SDG Target 6.5 to implement IWRM at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation as appropriate. This web-based review explores progress made in EFlows Assessments and implementing their outcomes in southern Africa. It outlines the apparent impetus to the uptake of EFlows provided by legislation, common funding mechanisms for EFlows assessment and evolving trends in EFlows assessment. It also highlights instances of implementation of EFlows in both in-country and transboundary settings.     

Pesticides in rain in four agricultural watersheds in the United States

Rainfall samples were collected during the 2003 and 2004 growing seasons at four agricultural locales across the USA in Maryland, Indiana, Nebraska, and California. The samples were analyzed for 21 insecticides, 18 herbicides, three fungicides, and 40 pesticide degradates. Data from all sites combined show that 7 of the 10 most frequently detected pesticides were herbicides, with atrazine (70%) and metolachlor (83%) detected at every site. Dacthal, acetochlor, simazine, alachlor, and pendimethalin were detected in more than 50% of the samples. Chlorpyrifos, carbaryl, and diazinon were the only insecticides among the 10 most frequently detected compounds. Of the remaining pesticide parent compounds, 18 were detected in fewer than 30% of the samples, and 13 were not detected. The most frequently detected degradates were deethylatrazine; the oxygen analogs (OAs) of the organophosphorus insecticides chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion; and 1-napthol (degradate of carbaryl). Deethylatrazine was detected in nearly 70% of the samples collected in Maryland, Indiana, and Nebraska but was detected only once in California. The OAs of chlorpyrifos and diazinon were detected primarily in California. Degradates of the acetanilide herbicides were rarely detected in rain, indicating that they are not formed in the atmosphere or readily volatilized from soils. Herbicides accounted for 91 to 98% of the total pesticide mass deposited by rain except in California, where insecticides accounted for 61% in 2004. The mass of pesticides deposited by rainfall was estimated to be less than 2% of the total applied in these agricultural areas.     

生物体内有机氯农药的研究进展

有机氯农药是高残留农药，进入生物体后会长期残留，对生物体产生危害。近年来，生物体中的有机氯农药的研究越来越引起各国环境化学家、生态学家的重视，渐渐成为环境化学、生态毒理学研究的热点之一。本文总结了近年来国际上有关生物体内有机氯农药的研究进展情况，以及所取得的主要研究成果。     

Investment in human capital in Africa

Summary The author analyses the problems currently faced by the African continent, recognises six factors which he believes are important in influencing the analysis, and argues that the only secure, renewable asset any country or continent has, is its people. He maintains that people development, rather than the classical economic forms of encouraging development, offers Africa a viable way forward. He then identifies a number of specific issues within such a strategy of investment in human capital.Brian Walker is the President of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and this address was given at the inaugural meeting of the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless, in London, on 18th April, 1985. A second, earlier, associated address was published inThe Environmentalist 5(3) 167–170.     

怀化农业可持续发展面临的问题

农业可持续发展在很大程度上依赖于农业自然资源的可持续利用。利用系统分析法讨论了怀化实施农业可持续发展战略面临的一系列问题，包括观念落后、自然资源利用率低、浪费严重、农业生态环境恶化和自然灾害频繁等，提出了可行的对策，指出农业可持续发展应从自然、经济和社会再生产过程中消除影响农业可持续发展的不利因素，积极发展中国的生态农业。     

Prospects of localism in community energy projects in Nigeria

A notable feature of development aid since the 1960s has been a paradigm shift from centralised project planning and management to decentralised approaches. The transition from top-down to bottom-up elevates the concept of localism in project management for vulnerable groups. This change resonates well in community-based resource management schemes in privileging the locale in terms of generation of knowledge and how problems and remedies are enunciated. Localism conceptualised as devolving central-level government functions to non-state actors in social service delivery is contradictory and seems to negate state powers. This paper explores this trajectory to explicate the forms of localism and the contradictions from its multiple conceptualisations that influence energy access. Using qualitative methodology and interviews, it analyses renewable energy projects directed at poverty alleviation in rural communities in Nigeria while deploying a political ecology framework of power relations to highlight the dynamics of localism. While localism is touted as a constraint in the development process due to localism of action, the paper demonstrates its prospects and how scaling-up of operations may augur well for altering its conceptualisation and with far-reaching consequences for community sustainable energy projects.     

水中氯离子测定时干扰物的消除

用硝酸银滴定法测定水中氯离子时，存在S~2-、SO_3~2-、S_2_O_3~2-的干扰，原用H_2O_2消除干扰，但滴定到达终点后，颜色不太稳定，为此，我们采用过硫酸钾氧化法进行消除干扰的试验。实践证明,该方法对消除上述干扰物是可行的，对测定石油勘探开发废水中氯离子时消除干扰是适用的。     

土壤中硫化物预处理方法的改进

通过对土壤中硫化物测定预处理方法━━━━氮气吹气法的试验装置、预处理酸度、温度、吹气时间及载气速度等条件的研究和改进。以多孔吹球代替单孔吹管 ,在土壤的水溶液中加入NaOH、EDTA和Vc ,以NaOH -EDTA -TEA(三乙醇胺)代替Zn(Ac)2-NaAc为吸收液 ,并采取了逐步加压吹气方法 ,通过对回收率、精密度及底泥对比试验 ,效果提高显著 ,回收率由原方法的40%～60 %提高到90 %以上 ,吹气时间缩短了20 % ,装置简单 ,便于推广应用。     

Factors driving deforestation in common-pool resources in northern Mexico

The theory of collective action has been extensively used to explain the relationship between common-based property regimes and the conservation of natural resources. However, there are two key components of the theory that literature reports as puzzles in which no consensus exists about their effect on the performance of common-pool resources. These are group size and heterogeneity. This study analyzes the effects of these two key components on the effectiveness of community-based forestry, called ejidos, to protect their forest resources in northern Mexico. We used a multinomial logit model to determine the contribution of 16 explanatory variables to the dependent variable, a measure of success of ejidos defined by the presence of deforested, degraded, or forested conditions. The results show that corn yield, marginality, percent of forest area, total population, a forest value index, distance to markets, roads and towns, were all statistically significant in driving deforested conditions. Deforestation becomes more attractive for poor communities and as corn yield and distance to towns, roads, and markets decrease. In general, group size and heterogeneity had no significant effects on the presence of deforested conditions. Deforestation is driven by resource-specific characteristics, such as location and soil productivity, not by ejidos' attributes, such as total area or number of members. We argue that current institutional policies focusing on the structure of property right arrangements should be shifted (1) to provide better technology for land cultivation; (2) to reduce the marginality problem in poor communities; and (3) to strengthen local institutions.     

Water management problems in economies in transition

Ambitious programmes of reform in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are threatened by a serious deterioration of the environment. Large-scale damage of the natural environment in many forms, including water pollution has created development barriers which adversely affect the living conditions of current and future generations. Despite similar patterns of environmental policy in the CEE countries compared with their Western counterparts, neither environmental legislation nor economic incentives have produced any significant improvement in water quality over the last 10–20 years. For that very reason in the transition period, it is necessary to identify existing deficiencies in the system and to build up a mixed system of new institutions of water management, more realistic legislation with a strong enforcement system, and market based incentives for water conservation and protection against pollution.     

Levels of lead in blood in residents of Kuwait

Following an examination of blood samples from 1000 persons from Kuwait, a number of important differences in the levels of lead in the blood were noted. There were significant differences between the sexes living in the same residential area. Certain significant lead in blood differences were also found between females and males who dyed their hair, and between smokers and non-smokers. Lead in blood concentrations were also tested for the various blood groups of the respondents. It was noted that O⁺ blood group respondents were found to have higher lead levels than those of other major blood groups.     

Improvements in financing for sustainability in solid waste management

Contributing elements toward the development of a sustainable solid waste management system in Tucumán, Argentina, are described. Changes in the working environment for the wastepickers have been instrumental in providing a livable wage and diminished health and environmental risks to the wastepickers and to neighboring residents. Income levels to the wastepickers are now approximately 1.75 times minimum wages in Tucumán and are being driven almost entirely by the recycling of plastics. Educational improvements in Tucumán, which are assisting sustainability of the solid waste system, are being significantly improved by the operation of a pilot scale project, by demonstrating opportunities to government officials and school children. Improved financial sustainability to the solid waste management system is also potentially available from carbon credit trading opportunities, presenting the opportunity for 1.2 times the income available from recycling efforts.