MEASURING THE SITE-SPECIFIC RECREATION BENEFITS RESULTING FROM IMPROVED WATER QUALITY: AN UPPER BOUND APPROACH1

The estimation of the value of recreation benefits resulting from improved water quality is required for many purposes. In particular, the Water Pollution Control Act of 1980 requires the consideration of the reasonableness of costs of reducing water pollution in relation to benefits to be derived from establishing effluent standards (Clean Water Act of 1977). Recreation is often the most important benefit resulting from water quality improvement. Current methods used to calculate recreation benefits are either not site-specific or are expensive and controversial. This paper presents a relatively simple, inexpensive, and less controversial method of calculating site-specific recreation benefits resulting from improved water quality. It does this by producing an upper bound estimate which often is adequate for the relevant decision. The upper bound estimates is based on two assumptions: 1) there are alternative equivalent substitute sites for the newly augmented water quality site, and 2) the new augmented recreation opportunities at the site will be used to their maximum supply capacity. Clearly, if an upper bound benefit estimate in a cost-benefit ratio does not produce a favorable ratio, no other benefit estimate will. In cases where this estimate produces an ambiguous result resort must be had to other more precise methods of estimation.     

黄河中游水保措施对入黄干支流泥沙特性的影响:Ⅱ.减沙效益分析

应用文献［１］关于不同地貌类型及不同水保措施条件下黄河干支流中泥沙粒径分布的研究结果,可以对相应条件下的减沙效益进行有效的分析。利用文献［１］模型,本文不仅探讨了在给定地貌类型条件下各类水保措施实施前后流域汇入黄河干支流的泥沙总量的变化,而且还在扣除降雨变化的影响之后,预测了各类组合条件下非均匀泥沙中减沙效果最佳的粒径级和相应粒径级泥沙的减沙量,预测结果得到了黄河干支流各站所有实测资料的验证。文中还简要讨论了人类活动（主要是开矿）对减沙效益的影响。     

Economic viability study of a separate household waste collection in a developing country

This article reports a study of the economic viability of a separate household waste collection project, and considers its social and environmental benefits. The study was developed from the database obtained through the pilot project on separate collections in João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba, in the northeast region of Brazil. The pilot project had been supported by the local municipal council since September 2000. The methodology applied to this study of economic viability is based on the economic quantification of the benefits and costs involved in the process of a separate collection of household waste. The benefits to the environment, owing to the reduction of the final disposal of household waste, were also evaluated. The results of this research are encouraging for the benefit cost relation (B/C) of both the quantified economic components and the environmental aspects. The values found for the relation B/C ranged from 1.27 to 1.77 depending on the economic quantification of the direct and indirect benefits to the components involved in the project, i.e., the waste collectors, the municipal council, the sellers of recycled material, and the recycling industry.     

开展持续清洁生产 确保环境和经济协调发展

辽阳石化分公司现有的装置排放的污染物种类多、浓度高,易对环境造成污染,因而推行清洁生产策略将为企业带来较好的效益。在2002年,该公司对污油装置、二氧化碳装置和双环装置实施了清洁生产方案。同时还通过完善各项规章制度,解决了开展清洁生产的资金和技术问题,分析了污染物产生的原因,制定了切实可行的改革方案。实施新方案后年创效益360万元以上。同时,装置的外排污水量同比减少了40.6%,污水处理费同比降低了48.5%,取得了显著的经济效益和社会效益。     

Valuing the benefits of the urban forest: a spatial hedonic approach

This paper measures the benefits of the urban forest by examining its effect on housing prices. A Geographic Information System is used to develop a measure of the urban forest, the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index, from satellite imagery and to construct other variables from a variety of sources. Spatial hedonic housing price models for the Indianapolis/Marion County area are estimated. The models indicate that greener vegetation around a property has a positive, significant effect on housing price, holding everything else constant. This effect is dominated by measures at the neighborhood level. These findings indicate that property owners value the urban forest, at least in part, by the premium they pay to live in neighborhoods with greener, denser vegetation. These findings also indicate that public action to maintain and enhance the urban forest may be warranted. Planners and urban foresters can use these findings to inform public and policy debates over urban forestry programs and proposals.     

ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF ON-FARM WATER MANAGEMENT PROJECTS1

ABSTRACT: During the last three decades, developing countries have invested enormous amounts of resources (running into billions of dollars) in the development of large surface irrigation systems. Investment funds were largely spent on the development of the main systems such as dams, canals and distributaries. Very little attention and resources have been spent on the development of below-the-outlet subsystems, in spite of very low levels of water use efficiency due to lack of proper land leveling, high water losses in field channels, and skewed distribution of available water among farmers served by individual water courses. This state of affairs has resulted in a lack of confidence on the part of most farmers in the reliability of surface irrigation systems to deliver water on time and in adequate quantities which, in turn, has resulted in farmers using below optimum levels of all other complementary inputs except labor. Realizing the importance of improving water use efficiency, both the domestic governments and donor agencies are increasingly paying serious attention to these problems. On-Farm Water Management (OFWM) as a strategy to improve water use efficiency and consequently agricultural production in many developing countries has been currently receiving very wide and vigorous consideration among economists, water management experts, policymakers, and donor agencies. A judicious use of the newly allocated funds of OFWM projects obviously needs proper evaluation procedures so that money could be allocated for the most deserving purposes and projects. In particular, recently, private profitability calculations due to public investments in OFWM activities have received attention from economists and decision makers in developing countries’governments and in donor agencies are very much interested in knowing the impacts of their investments in OFWM activities on farmers’income and welfare. However, the evaluation procedures commonly used in empirical studies, using a production function approach, seem to be at variance and sometimes inconsistent with proper comparative-static procedures. Thus, the primary objective of this paper is to develop consistent procedures for evaluating the impacts created by OFWM investments on farmers’income and resource use. In this context, the paper examines the critical relationship between the market price of the agricultural output and production function parameters which are affected by the OFWM investments.     

A meta‐analysis of the antecedents of work–family enrichment

This study meta‐analytically examined theoretically derived antecedents of both directions of work–family enrichment (sometimes labeled facilitation or positive spillover), namely, work–family enrichment and family–work enrichment. Contextual and personal characteristics specific to each domain were examined. Resource‐providing (e.g., social support and work autonomy) and resource‐depleting (e.g., role overload) contextual characteristics were considered. Domain‐specific personal characteristics included the individuals' psychological involvement in each domain, the centrality of each domain, and work engagement. Results based on 767 correlations from 171 independent studies published between 1990 and 2016 indicate that several contextual and personal characteristics have significant relationships with enrichment. Although those associated with work tend to have stronger relationships with work–family enrichment and those associated with family tend to have stronger relationships with family–work enrichment, several antecedent variables have significant relationships with both directions of enrichment. Resource‐providing contextual characteristics tend to have stronger relationships with enrichment than do resource‐depleting characteristics. There was very little evidence of gender being a moderator of relationships between contextual characteristics and enrichment. Lastly, meta‐analytic structural equation modeling provided evidence that a theoretical path model wherein work engagement mediates between several contextual characteristics and enrichment is largely generalizable across populations.     

植物篱种植模式综合效益研究

植物篱种植模式是一种有效的山区水土保持、土壤改良以及多种经营的耕作模式。该模式自20世纪70年代以来在热带非洲和东南亚等地区进行了试验、示范和较为系统的研究，作为坡耕地水土保持和土壤改良的生物措施受到广泛重视。20世纪80年代以来该模式在我国很多地区也进行了研究、示范和推广，并取得显著成效。本文在国内外已有研究基础上，采用层次分析法对四川省宁南县马桑坪的等高固氮植物篱种植模式的生态效益、经济效益、社会效益及综合效益进行了较为系统的分析和评价。评价结果表明，植物篱种植模式的生态效益、经济效益、社会效益及综合效益均大于顺坡耕作模式，种植新银合欢植物篱比种植山毛豆植物篱的综合效益高；在种植相同植物篱树种的前提下，施磷肥比不施磷肥的效果好。同时，针对该技术目前在研究和应用方面存在的问题提出了一些建议。     

企业员工安全文化素质的层次分析

建设良好的企业安全文化可以预防企业的事故发生,而企业员工安全文化素质则是企业安全文化的根基,也是企业安全文化的具体体现。通过建立员工安全文化层次渐近模型,分析企业员工安全文化素质的5个层次,即安全的无意识、体制约束下的安全意识、自我的安全意识、自我的可控安全意识、超越自我的安全意识。从中得出,员工安全文化素质的培养是一个长期的渐进的过程,是相互协作的结果。员工安全意识的培养是企业安全文化的标志,它需要良好的氛围,并且体现了企业安全文化的核心本质。因此,培养员工安全文化意识对解决企业安全文化建设及保证企业安全运转具有十分重要的意义。     

THE WATER RESOURCES COUNCIL'S PROPOSED PRINCIPLES AND STANDARDS - AN ECONOMIC COMMENT1

The way the Water Resources Council proposes to measure the beneficial effects of national economic development and recreation is questioned and alternatives suggested. In measuring the former, the assumptions specified by the Council are questioned because they do not hold true in the market place. In addition, the Council's method of simulating a price per recreation day implies that an arbitrary price be selected from a range and multiplied times the number of days at no charge for use of the facilities. It is contended that these procedures would over state the economic benefits which in the real market would be measured by the selected price times the quantity demanded at that price.