How farmers develop local ecological knowledge for on-farm tree management: The perspectives of some farming communities of Ghana

Scientific insights into what it means to manage on-farm trees by local farmers, is an essential step towards documenting local ecological knowledge for sustainable landscape management. A study was therefore conducted in the Kumawu Forest District in the Ashanti Region of Ghana to assess how farmers conceptualise on-farm tree management and develop local knowledge for it. Using a case study approach, data were collected through informal interviews and focus group discussions with 120 farmers drawn from 15 communities who were involved in the management of three cropping systems; cocoa, maize and cassava-cocoyam-plantain mix. It was observed that the farmers regard on-farm tree management as a continuous process which occurs in three phases of the farming cycle; land preparation, crop cultivation and fallow management. For each of the three phases, farmers are guided by specific principles that ensure enough light penetration in-between tree crowns in the land preparation phase, suitable spacing between trees and crops in the crop cultivation phase and adequate tree regeneration in the fallow phase. The decisions made during the selection of tree species, spacing of trees adjudged suitable for any particular cropping system and recruitment of saplings prior to the fallow phase of farming constitute tree management. Farmers develop tree management knowledge by studying the physical characteristics of species, matching them to ecological functions they could perform and how they are likely to respond to treatments meant to control or enhance their development. Species are then subjected to trial and recommended or otherwise.     

Methodology for Natech coupling risk assessment using correlative multi-criteria decision-making method

When a natural disaster occurs, it may damage multiple industrial facilities in a certain area at the same time, and the resulting Natech events may have an impact on the surrounding industrial facilities, generating coupling risk. In this study, the assessment of Natech events coupling risk is conducted using the method of correlated multi-criteria decision-making, and the knowledge of fuzzy measures is introduced to solve the uncertainty problem in Natech coupling risk. Natech Coupling Risk Index is constructed to involve physical and functional facilities. The concept of equivalent population is proposed to compare the risks generated by physical facilities and functional facilities. And economic indicators are added to calculate the comprehensive risk value. The purpose of this contribution is to enable local government managers to use their expertise and resources and the existing risk assessment of the plants themselves and rely on the scoring of experts limitedly to quickly and easily identify potential high Natech risk areas. In the calculation process of coupling risk, the government can also take the lead to promote information communication between different plants and other industrial subjects. The proposed method was applied in a realistic chemical industry area in Guangzhou, China and in a hypothetical town. The result shows that the physical risk may be transferred to the population and economy through the coupling between industrial facilities and the functional link between functional facilities and population and economy.     

煤矿突发事件应急救援的群决策方法

提出了基于直觉模糊集的煤矿突发事件应急救援TOPSIS群决策模型。其中决策者权重采用偏好值与群体平均偏好值的相似度计算,属性指标权重采用直觉模糊熵权法确定。通过直觉模糊加权集成运算将各决策矩阵进行合成得到综合决策矩阵,利用改进后的直觉模糊距离公式计算出全部备选救援方案到正负理想解的距离,根据TOPSIS运算结果可以确定最佳事故救援决策方案。最后通过黑龙江省鸡西某矿的实例分析,验证了该模型的有效性及合理性。     

基于成本收益理论的井场作业人员不安全行为决策分析

为有效制定油气田井场作业人员不安全行为的防范措施,降低事故发生可能性,基于成本收益理论建立油气田井场作业人员的行为决策模型,通过仿真计算定量分析了不同影响因素对不安全行为产生的影响程度。结果表明:正向激励和负向激励对不安全行为的降低幅度为21.8%,17.2%,负向激励和监督力度共同作用下不安全行为可降低44.8%。油田企业在保证利润的前提下应优先提升HSE奖励水平,合理控制罚金水平的同时加大管理监督力度,从而有效减少作业人员不安全行为的发生,保障企业的安全生产。     

灾害救援中基于民众心理感知的应急物资多阶段分配问题研究

为有效解决在保证高效完成救援任务的同时考虑受灾民众行为，进而提高灾民对救援处置效果的满意度问题，结合行为运筹学相关理论和不公平厌恶理论，提出民众对于应急物资到达时间的风险感知度量模型，以及民众对于所得到的应急物资数量的公平满意度度量模型，构建基于灾民心理感知的应急物资多阶段调度模型，解决应急物资到达时间风险感知、物资分发数量公平满意度等多目标下的调配决策问题；设计基于蚁群优化思想的求解算法。研究结果表明:通过实例分析对比验证了模型在提升灾区民众对于应急物资分发策略满意度方面的有效性。     

The impact of government subsidy and tax policy on the competitive decision-making of remanufacturing supply chains

In this paper, we consider a two-period competition model of a remanufacturing supply chain consisting of three members: a new product manufacturer, a recycler and a remanufacturer. The manufacturer supplies new products in the first period and the remanufacturer participates in the competition in the second period. We consider three scenarios in the second period: (1) there is no government subsidy in the competition; (2) there is only government subsidy in the competition; (3) there are both government subsidy and tax in the competition. First, we give the optimal decision-making of the manufacturer, the remanufacturer and the government in the three scenarios; second, we analyse changes in the decision-making of the manufacturer and remanufacturer in the three scenarios and compare their results. We analyse the effects of government subsidy and tax and their asymmetric use on manufacturers’ and remanufacturers’ decision-making variables and competitive performance. We also take consumer awareness of environmental protection into account and examine its impact on subjects’ decisions. Lastly, we operate a numerical example to show the results.     

Coming to the table: collaborative governance and groundwater decision-making in coastal California

Collaborative governance is on the rise in the United States. This management approach brings together state and non-state actors for environmental decision-making, and it is frequently used in California for decisions regarding local groundwater management. This study examines groundwater decision-making groups and practices in a central California coastal community to understand whether groups meet specific collaborative governance criteria and whether and why certain subsets of the population are excluded from groundwater decision-making practices. It also identifies actions for better group inclusion. We find that small farmers, the Hispanic/Latino community, and the general public are often excluded from groundwater decision-making groups and practices due to unawareness, mistrust, and insufficient resources. Education and awareness as well as incentives could help increase inclusion. This study provides insights into more equitable groundwater decision-making groups and practices, and also calls for more critical examination of the current stakeholder approach to decision-making.     

Application of environmental risk assessment for strategic decision-making in coastal areas: case studies in China

Environmental risk assessment (ERA) is a powerful technical tool for analyzing potential and extreme adverse environmental impacts, and has found wide application in supporting decision-making processes over the last two decades. However, to date there has been no interrelated application of ERA to support the processes of strategic decision-making (SDM), especially in coastal areas.

In this paper, we attempt to verify the feasibility of the proposed integrated ERA–SDM approach and its methodology by applying it to two case studies (in Xiamen Bay and Luoyuan Bay) of the principal coastal functional zoning (PCFZ, a kind of SDM and similar to the coastal and marine spatial planning in western). The results show that the integrated ERA–SDM approach could integrate ERA into the entire SDM process, directly support the PCFZ, and avoid or mitigate dire environmental risk that can be introduced by SDM processes.     

完善公众参与环境决策机制的法制探讨

公众参与环境决策是一项重要的公众民主权利。我国已经将环境公众参与作为一项重要的环境保护法律制度,但是由于目前我国环保法律制度的不完善,在实施公众参与环境决策机制上存在着诸多问题,本文从法制的角度探讨了公众参与环境决策的理论依据,分析和论证建立适合我国国情的公众参与环境决策制度的主要方式,并提出完善公众参与环境决策制度的建议。