美国颗粒物污染防治政策对中国的启示

大气颗粒物污染可对公众健康和区域环境造成严重的不良影响,有效控制颗粒物排放是我国当前亟待突破的环境问题。美国颗粒物污染防治工作起步较早;联邦政府以推动空气质量达标为核心目标,分别针对电力、工业、机动车等不同排放源开展了一系列技术改造和总量控制的环境管制措施,目前颗粒物减排已取得了显著成效。回顾分析美国的颗粒物治理历程和相关经验,有助于探索和制定针对我国国情的颗粒物污染控制路线和措施,促进我国颗粒物有效减排、空气质量逐步改善。     

Chlorination Byproducts in Drinking Water Produced from Thermal Desalination in United Arab Emirates

Oil activities in the Arabian Gulf can potentially affect the quality of the intake water available for coastal desalination plants. This paper addresses such situation by investigating the quality of intake water and desalinated water produced by a desalination plant located near a coastal industrial complex in United Arab Emirates (UAE). Analyses of the organic compounds on the intake seawater reported non-detected levels in most samples for the three tested organic groups; namely Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), Phenols, and Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). Trihalomethanes (THMs) and Haloacetic Acids (HAAs) were also tracked in the intake sea water, throughout the desalination processes, and in the final produced drinking water, to evaluate the undertaken pre- and post chlorination practices. The levels of considered Chlorination Byproducts (CBPs) were mostly found below the permissible international limits with few exceptions showing tangible levels of bromoform in the intake seawater and in the final produced drinking water as well. Lab-controlled experiments on the final produced distillate showed little contribution of its blending with small percentage of seawater upon the formation of trihalomethane and in particular, bromoform. Such results indicate that the organic precursors originated in the seawater are responsible for bromoform formation in the final distillate.     

Bottom up and top down: analysis of participatory processes for sustainability indicator identification as a pathway to community empowerment and sustainable environmental management

The modern environmental management literature stresses the need for community involvement to identify indicators to monitor progress towards sustainable development and environmental management goals. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of participatory processes on sustainability indicator identification and environmental management in three disparate case studies. The first is a process of developing partnerships between First Nations communities, environmental groups, and forestry companies to resolve conflicts over forest management in Western Canada. The second describes a situation in Botswana where local pastoral communities worked with development researchers to reduce desertification. The third case study details an on-going government led process of developing sustainability indicators in Guernsey, UK, that was designed to monitor the environmental, social, and economic impacts of changes in the economy. The comparative assessment between case studies allows us to draw three primary conclusions. (1) The identification and collection of sustainability indicators not only provide valuable databases for making management decisions, but the process of engaging people to select indicators also provides an opportunity for community empowerment that conventional development approaches have failed to provide. (2) Multi-stakeholder processes must formally feed into decision-making forums or they risk being viewed as irrelevant by policy-makers and stakeholders. (3) Since ecological boundaries rarely meet up with political jurisdictions, it is necessary to be flexible when choosing the scale at which monitoring and decision-making occurs. This requires an awareness of major environmental pathways that run through landscapes to understand how seemingly remote areas may be connected in ways that are not immediately apparent.     

Impacts of Variable Climate and Effluent Flows on the Transboundary Santa Cruz Aquifer

Assessing groundwater resources in the arid and semiarid borderlands of the United States and Mexico represents a challenge for land and water managers, particularly in the Transboundary Santa Cruz Aquifer (TSCA). Population growth, residential construction, and industrial activities have increased groundwater demand in the TSCA, in addition to wastewater treatment and sanitation demands. These activities, coupled with climate variability, influence the hydrology of the TSCA and emphasize the need for groundwater assessment tools for decision‐making purposes. This study assesses the impacts of changes in groundwater demand, effluent discharge, and climate uncertainties within the TSCA from downstream of the Nogales International Wastewater Treatment Plant to the northern boundary of the Santa Cruz Active Management Area. We use a conceptual water budget model to analyze the long‐term impact of the different components of potential recharge and water losses within the aquifer. Modeling results project a future that ranges from severe long‐term drying to positive wetting. This research improves the understanding of the impact of natural and anthropogenic variables on water sustainability, with an accessible methodology that can be globally applied.     

中美大气污染的空间交互影响--来自国家和城市层面PM2.5的经验证据

准确识别中美大气污染的空间交互影响可以为两国在大气污染治理领域开展双边合作提供科学依据。以PM 2.5浓度表征大气污染程度,采用收敛交叉映射(Convergent Cross Mapping,CCM)方法,在采集伯克利地球发布的小时数据的基础上通过算数平均得到2018年1月1日至2018年12月31日的PM 2.5浓度日均数据,从国家和城市两个层面识别了中美大气污染的空间交互影响。研究发现,中美两国的大气污染是空间交互影响的。其中,国家层面,在CCM因果检验基础上的广义同步检验表明,在1%显著性水平上,大气污染仅存在由美国指向中国的单向因果关系。城市层面,中美两国10个样本城市之间理论上共存在50个可能的因果关系(5×5×2)。研究发现,在1%显著性水平上,美国城市指向中国城市的因果关系有12个,而中国城市指向美国城市的因果关系仅有5个。在影响强度上,美国城市的大气污染对中国城市的影响强度高于中国城市的大气污染对美国城市的影响强度,如重庆的大气污染对华盛顿的影响强度为0.21,而华盛顿的大气污染对重庆的影响强度为0.35。面对大气污染的空间交互影响,中美两国可通过积极开展联合科研攻关,厘清大气污染的传输路径及其驱动因素,进行污染物的联合监测与数据管理;通过共享大气污染治理技术和建立大气污染防治基金等方式,加强在大气污染治理领域的合作。一旦中美两国成功建立起大气污染双边合作治理体系,依靠两国的国际地位和国际影响力,必将吸引越来越多的国家参与进来共同行动,大气污染全球治理体系的构建将非常值得期待。     

Development of inherent safety and health index for formulated product design

The numerous formulated products which are introduced to the market consist of chemical ingredients that may cause various safety and health hazards to the consumers. Therefore, it is extremely important to practice a systematic methodology to formulate products with acceptable safety and health performances. This work presents an index-based methodology to assess the safety and health hazards of the ingredients during the early formulation stage of product design. Hence, new inherent safety and health sub-indexes are introduced to improve the current safety and health hazards that are needed in formulated product design. The inherent safety and health sub-indexes are assigned with scores based on the degree of potential hazards. A higher score indicates a higher safety risk or severe health effect, and vice versa. The proposed methodology will greatly assist the users to identify the adverse safety and health effects caused by the ingredients. Hence, it is pivotal to eliminate or reduce the safety and health impacts from product usage. A case study on common ingredients used in the formulation of paint is presented on this study to describe the proposed method.     

构建金厦示范区海域环境联合管理体系的设想

分析两地海洋环境管理体系互补、互动关系，提出优化管理资源配置，构建一个两地协调的海洋环境管理体系的设想，从体制上解决分割的管理体系与统一的管理目标—金厦海域管理的矛盾。     

美国的土壤污染防治体系分析与思考

追溯美国上世纪70年代发生的第一起由土壤二噁英(Dioxine)类物质导致的"腊夫运河污染事故"及1980年颁布"超级基金法"的成因.在此基础上美国构建了一套在法律、管理制度以及技术规范方面比较完善的土壤污染防治体系.论述美国政府处理土壤污染的政策法规以及相关体系的目的在于为我国治理土壤污染问题提供参考和借鉴.     

A Report on the International Conference on Climate Policy after Marrakech: Towards Global Participation

The East-West Center convened the international conference on climate policy in Honolulu, Hawaii, on September 4–6, 2003. Sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, Industrial Technology Research Institute (Taiwan), and Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (Japan), this major event covered almost every important issue and featured perspectives from the most important parties and stakeholders in formulating and implementing climate policies and taking international climate negotiations further. It brought together a remarkable cross-section of world opinion on climate policy after Kyoto. This report provides a summary of each presentation and highlights discussions organized under the following six session headings: Session 1: Climate Change in Focus – From Science to Policy; Session 2: U.S. Climate Policy and Perspectives; Session 3: European Union Climate Policy and Perspectives; Session 4: Challenges for other Major Industrialized Countries; Session 5: Issues Related to Developing Countries; and Session 6: Panel Discussions: Where Do We Go from Here?.