A review on current status of municipal solid waste management in India

Municipal solid waste management is a major environmental issue in India. Due to rapid increase in urbanization, industrialization and population, the generation rate of municipal solid waste in Indian cities and towns is also increased. Mismanagement of municipal solid waste can cause adverse environmental impacts, public health risk and other socio-economic problem. This paper presents an overview of current status of solid waste management in India which can help the competent authorities responsible for municipal solid waste management and researchers to prepare more efficient plans.     

环境监测管理信息平台的开发与应用研究

针对环境监测管理信息平台的开发与应用,介绍了环境监测管理信息平台和开发,探讨了环境监测信息平台的主要功能,主要包括环境监测的人员管理、仪器设备管理、标准物质管理和质控管理,介绍了环境监测信息平台系统的特点,主要是环境监测的信息收集和利用、智能化预警机制、方便的信息查询,提出了环境监测平台实施中的探讨,如环境监测的前期设计和沟通、数据初始化和数据动态更新.     

运用绩效管理推动地方政府抓紧抓实生态环境建设

绩效管理作为推动地方政府建设生态环境的有效手段和方式,能够把生态环境建设纳入地方政府的绩效管理,从而推动地方政府实施生态环境建设。在此过程中应侧重于如下几个问题：提高环境保护在政府绩效评价体系中的地位与比重;探索建立生态文明建设动态评价系统,对环境质量和生态发展进行区域性监控与跟踪;将国家环境功能区划纳入到地方经济社会发展规划中,成为地方政府绩效考核的基本依据和内容;坚持绩效管理理念,推进环境风险全过程管理;强化目标责任制,构建科学发展的长效机制;从以内部考核为主向内外考核兼顾转变。     

Multi-level discrepancies with sharing data on protected areas: what we have and what we need for the global village

Protected areas present a global heritage. Assessing conservation achievements in protected areas is of crucial importance with respect to the on-time delivery of international biodiversity conservation targets. However, monitoring data from publicly accessible databases for comparative studies of conservation achievements in the protected areas of the world are very scarce, if not non-existent. At first glance this is surprising because, with regards to protected areas, at least according to well established protected area management guidelines and widely accepted public mandates, a great deal of monitoring work and data gathering is to be conducted. This would imply that data on changes of biodiversity in protected areas could be expected to exist, and the constant progress in information technologies and Web tools engenders hope that some of it might even be available online for the global public. This review article presents the results of an extensive online search and review of existing monitoring data from freely accessible online databases for its use in an assessment of conservation achievements in a larger sample of protected areas. Results show two contrary sides to the status quo of accessible data from the World Wide Web for conservation science: data overkill and data scarcity with poor metadata provision. While ever more research is, in fact, based on open-access online data, such as extrapolations of species ranges used in conservation management and planning, it remains almost impossible to obtain a basic set of information for an assessment of conservation achievements within a larger number of protected areas. This awareness has triggered a detailed discussion about the discrepancies in sharing data at the level of protected areas; mismatching relationships between expected activities in protected areas and the capacity for delivering these requirements are certainly among the main challenges. In addition, the fear of data misuse potentially resulting in harm for nature, careers, and competencies still seems to be a critical barrier strictly controlling the willingness to share data. Various initiatives aimed at tackling technical and cultural obstacles are introduced and discussed to reach the goal of a modern resource management based on adaptive management using digital opportunities of the new millennium for a sustainable global village.     

Framework and Tools for Agricultural Landscape Assessment Relating to Water Quality Protection

While many scientific studies show the influence of agricultural landscape patterns on water cycle and water quality, only a few of these have proposed scientifically based and operational methods to improve water management. Territ’eau is a framework developed to adapt agricultural landscapes to water quality protection, using components such as farmers’ fields, seminatural areas, and human infrastructures, which can act as sources, sinks, or buffers on water quality. This framework allows us to delimit active areas contributing to water quality, defined by the following three characteristics: (i) the dominant hydrological processes and their flow pathways, (ii) the characteristics of each considered pollutant, and (iii) the main landscape features. These areas are delineated by analyzing the flow connectivity from the stream to the croplands, by assessing the buffer functions of seminatural areas according to their flow pathways. Hence, this framework allows us to identify functional seminatural areas in terms of water quality and assess their limits and functions; it helps in proposing different approaches for changing agricultural landscape, acting on agricultural practices or systems, and/or conserving or rebuilding seminatural areas in controversial landscapes. Finally, it allows us to objectivize the functions of the landscape components, for adapting these components to new environmental constraints.     

地市级环境监测站历史转型期管理体制与职能定位探讨

通过对30多家地市级环保局"三定"方案调查研究,分析并列举了环境保护历史转型期地市级环保局分管监测工作机构模式,对环境监测管理体制、职能定位不同的设计、规划,提出了当前环境管理体制与环境监测管理中存在的各类问题。围绕建设"先进的环境监测预警体系"是环境监测历史转型的根本任务,研究提出了单列型、合署型监测管理与履职型、拓展性、创新性监测职能定位建设模式。     

To kill or not to kill—Practitioners’ opinions on invasive alien species management as a step towards enhancing control of biological invasions

The spread of invasive alien species (IAS) has become an increasingly important environmental, social and economic issue in almost all regions of the world. To have the capacity to effectively counter the effects of invasions, besides basic research on invasion processes and the ecological impacts of IAS, there is a need to get an information and better understanding of the effectiveness of biological control and its social acceptability. Conservation practitioners are a particular group of stakeholders as they act in the first line to undertake control actions again IAS spread. Yet, not many research was done to deliver quantitative, comprehensive information on practitioners’ knowledge and attitudes towards IAS. In this paper, we present a study from Poland—a country with relatively well preserved nature, yet currently facing the problem of biological invasions in the terrestrial and aquatic environments. We investigated nature conservation practitioners’ knowledge of biological invasions, their views on the principles and methods of IAS control, and their degree of acceptance of control methods. We conducted a survey among people professionally involved in nature conservation in Poland and collected 916 questionnaires (out of 3330 sent). Overall, we find that conservation practitioners in Poland accept the use of radical methods of control, yet they differ about the use of various types of control method, and about the various control methods application to various systematic groups. Also, the level of practitioners’ knowledge is rather limited—both in relation to correct identification of IAS, as well as to knowledge on legal regulations. We also highlight significant differences between decision-makers and professionals not perceiving themselves as decisive over IAS management. We show examples suggesting that nature conservation practitioners may not hold well-formed opinions on the principles and methods of dealing with alien species. This is surely an important deficit to overcome to enhance the effectiveness of IAS control.     

Critical infrastructures and responsibility: A conceptual exploration

In this article some considerations are presented as a starting point for judging responsibility for infrastructural systems from a moral point of view. Infrastructural systems are essential for present day high-tech society. Without good working infrastructural systems people would hardly be able to survive. The importance and relevance of good working critical infrastructures for states and other public authorities are illustrated with some examples. Next, the meaning of the concept of responsibility in relation to infrastructural systems is developed. Outcome responsibility and remedial responsibility – developed in philosophy of law and political philosophy – are elaborated as useful concepts for dealing with responsibilities in infrastructural systems. This analysis is applied to the players on the infrastructural field: governments and other public authorities, non-state institutional actors and last but not least individual agents. In a last paragraph some conclusions are drawn, which can be applied for apportioning responsibility for infrastructures in practice.     

Governance of environmental risk: new approaches to managing stakeholder involvement

Disputes concerning industrial legacies such as the disposal of toxic wastes illustrate changing pressures on corporations and governments. Business and governments are now confronted with managing the expectations of a society increasingly aware of the social and environmental impacts and risks associated with economic development and demanding more equitable distribution and democratic management of such risks. The closed managerialist decision-making of the powerful bureaucracies and corporations of the industrial era is informed by traditional management theory which cannot provide a framework for the adequate governance of these risks. Recent socio-political theories have conceptualised some key themes that must be addressed in a more fitting approach to governance. We identify more recent management and governance theory which addresses these themes and develop a process-based approach to governance of environmental disputes that allows for the evolving nature of stakeholder relations in a highly complex multiple stakeholder arena.