Economic rent : Incidence in selected metals and minerals

The magnitude of the ‘economic rent’ and its distribution among producing countries, mineral exploitation companies and consumers has become a dominant issue in national and international policy formulation, but the difficulties in measuring the rent add to the problems of determining its equitable distribution. This paper examines the nature of the rent and estimates its incidence in bauxite, copper, iron ore, phosphate rock, tin and petroleum. Rents were found to be low for bauxite and iron ore. Bauxite, phosphates and petroleum producers have increased their share of the rent, though this trend now seems to be reversing for bauxite and phosphates. Only in tin, and to a lesser extent petroleum, have the exporting countries captured significant shares in total rent. Otherwise, the rent is largely concentrated at the processing stage, which suggests that processing plant would have to shift to the producing countries if they are to claim a larger share.     

GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT1

There are four groundwater resources to be managed: yield, storage capacity, water-in-storage, and transmissivity. Management concepts have changed over the years, with today's concept which covers comprehensive integrated use of the four groundwater resources with surface water resources to provide the most efficient water service for an area in terms of quantity, quality, and cost. Complete geologic and hydrologic understanding provides a base for formulation of plans which can utilize the techniques of artificial recharge, control of sea water intrusion, and variation of pumping patterns while protecting the resources through proper well construction and abandonment, placement of sanitary landfills, and liquid waste disposal. Plan formulation involves varying recharge and extraction amounts while maintaining the total of pumped groundwater and developed surface water equal to the projected and future demand. Physical limitations of the system must be recognized to assure reality of the plans. Legal constraints should not be placed on the plan formulation process. A present worth or other technique is used to provide an economic comparison among plans. Implementation will entail development of legal and organizational structure, with the most difficult problems relating to the management organization in terms of boundaries and powers.     

Environmental criteria in industrial facility siting decisions: An analysis

Environmental criteria are increasingly being employed in industrial facility siting, usually in multicriteria decision contexts, together with technical, socioeconomic and other considerations. This paper analyzes the criteria that have appeared in the published literature with the aim to offer guidance for their selection in a particular facility location problem. A number of alternative classification schemes are presented, first based on the most prevalent classification dimensions which are: the economy-environment relationship, purpose of the criterion, complexity, spatial and temporal scale, and level of measurement. The major scheme adopted draws from the economy-environment relationship and assigns environmental critera to one of seven categories: general characterizations of the environment, characteristics of individual environmental components, measures of the magnitude and intensity of the activity, measures of the nature and volume of wastes which are produced, characteristics of impacts on separate environmental media and receptors, general characterizations of environmental quality, and impacts on humans. Within each of these categories the criteria are analyzed in terms of the other classification dimensions. Common characteristics among the various criteria as well as future trends in their development are identified. This paper also discusses the most important factors conditioning the choice of criteria in a particular facility siting context and outlines a systematic procedure for their selection in real-world applications.     

Theoretical orientations in environmental planning: An inquiry into alternative approaches

In the process of devising courses of action to resolve problems arising at the society-environment interface, a variety of planning approaches are followed, whose adoption is influenced by—among other things—the characteristics of environmental problems, the nature of the decision-making context, and the intellectual traditions of the disciplines contributing to the study of these problems. This article provides a systematic analysis of six alternative environmental planning approaches—comprehensive/rational, incremental, adaptive, contingency, advocacy, and participatory/consensual. The relative influence of the abovementioned factors is examined, the occurrence of these approaches in real-world situations is noted, and their environmental soundness and political realism is evaluated. Because of the disparity between plan formulation and implementation and between theoretical form and empirical reality, a synthetic view of environmental planning approaches is taken and approachesin action are identified, which characterize the totality of the planning process from problem definition to plan implementation, as well as approachesin the becoming, which may be on the horizon of environmental planning of tomorrow. The suggested future research directions include case studies to verify and detail the presence of the approaches discussed, developing measures of success of a given approach in a given decision setting, and an intertemporal analysis of environmental planning approaches.     

Relatedness communicated in lemur scent

Lemurs are the most olfactory-oriented of primates, yet there is still only a basic level of understanding of what their scent marks communicate. We analyzed scent secretions from Milne-Edwards' sifakas (Propithecus edwardsi) collected in their natural habitat of Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar. We sought to test whether the scent mark could signal genetic relatedness in addition to species, sex, season, and individuality. We not only found correlations (r ²?=?0.38, P?=?0.017) between the total olfactory fingerprint and genetic relatedness but also between relatedness and specific components of the odor, despite the complex environmental signals from differences in diet and behavior in a natural setting. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of an association between genetic relatedness and chemical communication in a wild primate population. Furthermore, we found a variety of compounds that were specific to each sex and each sampling period. This research shows that scent marks could act as a remote signal to avoid inbreeding, optimize mating opportunities, and potentially aid kin selection.     

Multisensor monitoring of plume dynamics in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea

We used data from various space-borne sensors to monitor the marine ecosystem in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea, at the Costa Dorada, between the City of Barcelona and the estuary of the river Ebro. The aim of this study was to demonstrate that the combination of different remote sensing data (acquired at different electromagnetic frequencies) allows for an improved monitoring system, in particular for a better monitoring of the marine ecosystem and, hence, a better coastal zone management. We present remote sensing data acquired by the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and the Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) aboard the Second European Remote Sensing Satellite (ERS-2), and by the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (Sea WiFS) on the SeaStar satellite. By combining the different data we are able to overcome specific drawbacks of the single sensors, like an insufficient temporal coverage, or a strong dependence on weather and daylight conditions. Within the study area two main features have been selected as examples, which are well visible on many of the analysed images. The first one exhibits a higher load of chlorophyll-a and surface-active compounds and a lower sea surface temperature (SST), which is likely to be caused by the plume of the river Llobregat, southwest of Barcelona. It can clearly be seen from the imagery how the river plume is driven along the coast by the local currents. The second feature can be related to cooling water being released from a nuclear power plant and causing turbulence in the water body, which in turn gives rise to signatures visible on the ERS-SAR imagery.     

Youth environmental attitudes in Australia and Brunei: implications for education

This paper explores similarities and differences in the knowledge, beliefs and actions that comprise the environmental attitudes of senior secondary school students in Australia and Brunei. Utilising data from a wider international study in Asia and the Pacific (Yencken et al. , 2000), the paper uses findings from these two countries to illustrate the pervasiveness of global environmental concerns over local cultural influences in the construction of youth environmental attitudes in Australia and Brunei. Thus, young people in these countries, as they do in all parts of the Asia-Pacific region, have very similar levels of environmental awareness and knowledge, sources of environmental, beliefs, systems or world views about the environment, and levels of perceived control over environmental trends. They also have a shared desire for schools to do more in the area of environmental education. The paper concludes that much more effort needs to be made in certain areas. The first is to encourage teachers and others who have influence over young people to develop their own knowledge and skills to be able to teach environmental education effectively. The second is in the area of curriculum and pedagogical reform so that young people explore the many possible ways in which current systems can change to support sustainability, in which current lifestyles reflect these systems, and in which their own actions can contribute to a sustainable future.