Considering science needs to deliver actionable science

Conservation practitioners, natural resource managers, and environmental stewards often seek out scientific contributions to inform decision-making. This body of science only becomes actionable when motivated by decision makers considering alternative courses of action. Many in the science community equate addressing stakeholder science needs with delivering actionable science. However, not all efforts to address science needs deliver actionable science, suggesting that the synonymous use of these two constructs (delivering actionable science and addressing science needs) is not trivial. This can be the case when such needs are conveyed by people who neglect decision makers responsible for articulating a priority management concern and for specifying how the anticipated scientific information will aid the decision-making process. We argue that the actors responsible for articulating these science needs and the process used to identify them are decisive factors in the ability to deliver actionable science, stressing the importance of examining the provenance and the determination of science needs. Guided by a desire to enhance communication and cross-literacy between scientists and decision makers, we identified categories of actors who may inappropriately declare science needs (e.g., applied scientists with and without regulatory affiliation, external influencers, reluctant decision makers, agents in place of decision makers, and boundary organization representatives). We also emphasize the importance of, and general approach to, undertaking needs assessments or gap analyses as a means to identify priority science needs. We conclude that basic stipulations to legitimize actionable science, such as the declaration of decisions of interest that motivate science needs and using a robust process to identify priority information gaps, are not always satisfied and require verification. To alleviate these shortcomings, we formulated practical suggestions for consideration by applied scientists, decision makers, research funding entities, and boundary organizations to help foster conditions that lead to science output being truly actionable.     

Co-development of an integrated assessment framework to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of selected nature-based water treatment technologies in Sri Lanka,The Philippines,and Vietnam

Water quality is a critical challenge in Asia in the context of growing industrialization, urbanization, and climate change. Nature-based solutions (NbS) could play an important role in reducing urban water pollution, while generating multiple co-benefits that could make cities more liveable and resilient. In this regard, a number of pilot and demonstration projects have been set up to explore their potential across cities in Asia. Their effectiveness and impacts, however, have not been adequately documented, thus how they can be sustained, replicated and up-scaled remain poorly understood. This study aims to contribute to addressing this challenge by co-developing an integrated assessment framework and employing it to understand how existing evaluations of NbS in the region can be improved. It focuses specifically on a set of nature-based solutions that have been employed for water treatment across six cities in Southeast Asia (two in each Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Vietnam), namely, floating wetlands, constructed wetlands and maturation ponds. The study also suggests specific methodologies for capturing a set of core indicators considered relevant for assessing the effectiveness and capturing the multi-faceted impacts of the examined NbS.     

Dynamic Bayesian networks for reliability evaluation of subsea wellhead connector during service life based on Monte Carlo method

The subsea wellhead connector is a critical connection component between subsea Christmas tree and subsea wellhead for preventing the leakage of oil and gas in the subsea production system. Excited by cyclical loadings due to environmental forces and the other support forces, the subsea wellhead connector is prone to the failure, which could lead to the loss of subsea tree or wellhead integrity and even catastrophic accidents. With the Monte Carlo simulation method, this paper presents a reliability analysis approach based on dynamic Bayesian Networks, aiming to assess the failure probability of the subsea wellhead connector during service life. Take the driving ring component of the subsea wellhead connector as an example to demonstrate the reasonability of the proposed model. The generation data is processed by the transform between the numerical value and the state variable. Based on the stress-strength interference theory, the structure reliability of the driving ring with 96.26% is achieved by the proposed model with the consideration the aging of the material strength and the most influential factors are figured out. Meanwhile, the corresponding control measures are proposed effectively reduce the failure risk of the subsea wellhead connector during service life.     

Critical review for the quantification of leachate production: Evaluation example for the “Oum Azza” public landfill in Rabat city,Morocco

The estimation of leachate quantities produced in landfills is necessary to dimension the treatment plants allowing to reduce the polluting load of these effluents and consequently avoid their negative impacts on the environment. Different leachate quantification methods were used in this study to assess the leachate volume produced at the Oum Azza landfill. The water balance method give comparable estimations of leachate production to the Ouled Berjal landfill ratio. The first method showed average values between 487 and 495 m³/day for 2015, 2018, and 2019, and at the same time, the second method gave values between 470 and 477 m³/day for the same years. In contrast, the World Bank ratio showed high values that vary between 2260 and 2295 m³/day for 2015, 2018, and 2019. The on-site data and the statistical analysis showed us that the World Bank ratio is not adapted for the estimation of the leachates produced in Oum Azza landfill, while the water balance and the ratio of Ouled Berjal landfill allowed to give comparable results to reality.     

土壤污染物的生态毒理效应和风险评估研究进展

环境生态风险评估（ERA）流程已经被纳入全球环境政策中，既用于规范新化学物质的授权和营销（前瞻性环境生态风险评估），也用于评估潜在的污染场地（回顾性环境生态风险评估）。将土壤生态毒理学应用于风险评估，能阐明有毒物质对土壤生态系统中生命有机体的危害程度与范围。笔者主要介绍了应用评估因子法和物种敏感度分布法对基于效应数据进行的外推与估算，并综述了欧美等主要国家和地区的土壤生态风险评估框架、相关法律法规及其实施情况等，为中国开展土壤污染物生态毒理效应和风险评估等相关研究提供参考。     

研究冷却塔噪声环境影响评价及污染防治措施

随着我国社会经济的发展速度不断加快,城市化建设层次越来越高,大量中央空调设备的冷却塔噪声影响到了人们的日常生活质量。基于此,本文重点针对冷却塔噪声环境的影响进行了分析和研究,提出了相关的有效防治策略,以此有效提高人们的生活质量和舒适度。     

含锌废物综合利用项目环境影响评价工程探索

工业生产的废物当中包含多种重金属,例如钢铁厂的粉尘当中就含有锌。含锌粉尘不仅会在高炉内循环和富集,影响高炉的运行,还会造成环境污染。基于此,本文主要分析含锌废物综合利用,对该项目进行环境评价,探讨有效的对策,以提高含锌废物综合利用的科学性,提高环境保护等级。     

Inherent thermal runaway hazard evaluation method of chemical process based on fire and explosion index

Thermal runaway hazard assessment provides the basis for comparing the hazard levels of different chemical processes. To make an overall evaluation, hazard of materials and reactions should be considered. However, most existing methods didn't take the both into account simultaneously, which may lead the assessment to a deviation from the actual hazard. Therefore, an integrated approach called Inherent Thermal-runaway Hazard Index (ITHI) was developed in this paper. Similar to Dow Fire and Explosion Index(F&EI) function, thermal runaway hazard of chemical process in ITHI was the product of material factor (MF) and risk index (RI) of reaction. MF was an indicator of material thermal hazards, which can be determined by initial reaction temperature and maximum power density. RI, which was the product of probability and severity, indicated the risk of thermal runaway during the reaction stage. Time to maximum rate under adiabatic conditions and criticality classes of scenario were used to indicate the runaway probability of the chemical process. Adiabatic temperature rise and heat of the desired reaction and secondary reaction were used to determine the severity of runaway reaction. Finally, predefined hazard classification criteria was used to classify and interpret the results obtained by this method. Moreover, the method was validated by case studies.     

建筑安全风险因素分级排序的风险矩阵法

为减少风险分级排序时产生的风险结,在引入施工安全事故频率的基础上,采用单元格细化和Borda序值法改进原有的风险矩阵法。改进后的方法使得风险等级数量增加,风险结数量减少。将该方法应用于脚手架工程的风险因素的分级与排序,风险等级分为6级,且实现了12个因素的明确排序。     

基于Tripod-Beta模型的船舶火灾事故风险分析

为深入分析船舶火灾事故风险因素及其后果产生的影响,通过分析1991-2017年全球船舶火灾事故调查报告,从人员、管理、船舶设备、货物、环境5个方面对船舶火灾影响因素进行识别研究;采用三脚架事故致因模型(Tripod-Beta model),构建考虑安全栅的船舶火灾事故情景演化模型,识别船舶火灾关键影响因素;并在样本量较少的情况下,采用信息扩散理论计算船舶火灾发生率;最后,利用布尔函数和风险矩阵,对船舶火灾事故风险进行评价研究。结果表明:船员不安全行为和船舶设备表面过热、设备短路是船舶火灾事故的关键风险因素;事故后果链中安全栅遭到破坏时,船舶火灾风险处于不希望发生范围内。该方法能有效评估船舶火灾风险的等级,满足海事管理部门的监管工作需求。