MUNICIPAL WATER USE AND WATER RATES DRIVEN BY SEVERE DROUGHT: A CASE STUDY1

ABSTRACT: This paper synthesizes and interprets data pertaining to the evolution of average water revenue, water use, and the average cost of water supply in the City of Santa Barbara, California, from 1986 to 1996, a period which included one of the most devastating droughts in California this century. The 1987–1992 drought hit the study area particularly hard. The City of Santa Barbara was dependent exclusively on local sources for its water supply. That made it vulnerable as the regional climate is prone to extreme variability and recurrent droughts. The 1986–1992 drought provided a rare opportunity to assess the sensitivity of municipal water use to pricing, conservation, and other water management measures under extreme drought conditions. Our analysis indicates that the average cost of water rose more than three-fold in real terms from 1986 to 1996, while the gap between the average cost of supply and the average revenue per unit of water (= 100 cubic feet) rose in real terms from $0.14 in 1986 to $ 0.75 in 1996. The rise of $3.08 in the average cost of supplying one unit of water between 1986 and 1996 measures the cost of hedging drought risk in the study area. Water use dropped 46 percent at the height of the drought relative to pro-drought water use, and remains at 61 percent of the pre-drought level. The data derived from the 1987–1992 California drought are unique and valuable insofar as shedding light on drought/water demand adaptive interactions. The experience garnered on drought management during that unique period points to the possibilities available for future water management in the Arid West where dwindling water supplies and burgeoning populations are facts that we must deal with.     

Adaptive management: Promises and pitfalls

Proponents of the scientific adaptive management approach argue that it increases knowledge acquisition rates, enhances information flow among policy actors, and provides opportunities for creating shared understandings. However, evidence from efforts to implement the approach in New Brunswick, British Columbia, Canada, and the Columbia River Basin indicates that these promises have not been met. The data show that scientific adaptive management relies excessively on the use of linear systems models, discounts nonscientific forms of knowledge, and pays inadequate attention to policy processes that promote the development of shared understandings among diverse stakeholders. To be effective, new adaptive management efforts will need to incorporate knowledge from multiple sources, make use of multiple systems models, and support new forms of cooperation among stakeholders.     

SOUND POLICY OR SMOKE AND MIRRORS: DOES ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT MAKE SENSE?1

ABSTRACT: Protection of ecosystems as entities on the landscape has attracted a wide range of support. Ecosystem-based public policies are claimed to be more effective, efficient, and scientifically sound than other approaches to environmental and natural resource policy. The ecosystem concept was never intended to serve as a public policy guide or to determine landscape units for land management purposes. This paper critically examines the use of the ecosystem concept in public policy and land use management and analyzes the proposed rule to manage the National Forest System according to ecosystem management principles. The concept is found to be unsuitable as a basis for guiding environmental and natural resource public policies in general while the proposed rule to manage the national forests according to ecosystem management principles is shown to be incoherent.     

INTEGRATED RIVER BASIN OPTIMIZATION: MODELING ECONOMIC AND HYDROLOGIC INTERDEPENDENCE1

ABSTRACT: This paper presents an integrated optimal control model that optimizes economic performance of reservoir management in watersheds in which there are significant economic and hydrologic interdependencies. The model is solved using the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS). Results show that application of this model to New Mexico's Rio Chama basin can increase total system benefits over historical benefits by exploiting complementarities between hydroelectricity production, instream recreation, and downstream lake recreation.     

城市可持续发展政策的取向与反思

本文对城市可持续发展进行了概述，从物理环境、经济环境和社会环境的相互作用的角度分析了城市可持续发展的政策取向，对当今的可持续发展的政策进行反思，提出了建立环境公平促进可持续发展的政策思路。     

加强经济欠发达地区乡镇企业排污收费工作的探讨

根据经济欠发达地区乡镇企业排污收费工作的特点及难点，健全地方法规；加强排污收费队伍建设；增加排污收费透明度，实行阳光收费；科学制定工作程序，使其规范化、制度化、程序化，将对同类地区执法收费具有一定指导意义。     

政策干预对提高煤矿职工素质影响探讨

煤矿井下作业人员素质低,是煤矿事故多发的重要原因之一.建议从大幅度提高煤矿井下人员工资待遇,吸引高素质人才从事煤矿工作;全方位开展煤矿职业培训工作,坚持先培训后就业,实行煤矿从业准入制;对现在岗的煤矿从业人员分期分批进行培训,实现煤矿从业人员持证上岗;政府出台政策,强制煤矿企业开展职工岗位技术培训和安全培训等4个方面着手,切实提高煤矿从业人员的整体素质,减少煤矿事故的发生.     

关于区域环境保护政策的思考

本文从通过分析我国环境保护政策存在的缺口和目前对这种理念的研究进展,并根据环境问题本身的特性以及环境问题产生的背景差异提出重新确立环境保护政策的调控范围的观点,并提出了这种观点对于对我国环境保护政策以及环境保护工作的重要意义。     

城市水环境建设中的资本运作探讨

城市水环境的治理和改善需要高额资金，建设中的资本运作尤为重要。本文在论述了传统水环境建设投资模式及其缺陷的基础上提出了城市水环境建设中资本运作的基本思路，从成立专业投资公司、拓宽融资渠道和确立收益回报形式等几个主要环节详细阐述了资本运作基本模式的组成和功能，介绍了新的融资渠道和收益形式，并对新的资本运作模式应注意的问题进行了深入的分析。     

BSE in the UK: Why the Risk Communication Strategy Failed

The 2000 BSE Inquiry report points out that the most serious failure of the UK Government was one of risk communication. This paper argues that the government's failure to communicate the risks BSE posed to humans to a large degree can be traced back to a lack of transparency in the first risk assessment by the Southwood Working Party. This lack of transparency ensured that the working party's risk characterization and recommendations were ambiguous and thus hard to interpret. It also meant that uncertainties were not addressed in a satisfactory way. In the recommendations, the attitude to uncertainty was implicit rather than explicit.The risk communication based on the report amplified these flaws. Most importantly, it did not address the uncertainty at all. Apparently, the reason for this was fear of overreaction by the public. However, the result was counter-productive, because the risk communication did not then appear trustworthy. Later risk assessments and risk communication omitted to correct these flaws. Indeed, the fact that, following receipt of new information, advisory experts and policy makers had changed their views of the risk to humans was never clearly communicated to the public. There seemed to be little faith in the public's ability to reach a balanced judgment regarding the uncertainties.In the concluding section of the paper, this analysis is compared with the food standards agency's (FSA's) approach to BSE. The intervention of this agency was seen as one of the more important efforts to restore consumer confidence in British beef. And the agency certainly appears to be committed to openness and to addressing scientific uncertainty. However, using the risk of BSE in sheep as a case study, the paper shows that transparency – i.e., the clear presentation of factual and normative claims and assumptions underlying advice, and openness about the reasoning based on these claims and assumptions – is less than fully achieved in the FSA's work.