Examining professional emergency managers in Korea

Although the number of emergency managers has risen in South Korea (hereafter referred to as Korea) over the years, their role is not yet as defined and noteworthy compared to other professions because of its unidisciplinary approach. This article investigates how Korea has to improve emergency managers' disciplinary approach to ultimately contribute to the goal of effective transnational disaster management. This study uses qualitative content analysis of government policies, college curricula, nongovernmental organizations' (NGOs') emergency-manager certification, and mass media coverage to compare emergency managers' unidisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches. The key tenet is that Korea must change its emergency managers' unidisciplinary approach into a multidisciplinary approach because the former is less effective when dealing with complicated disaster management systems. To achieve this change, the stakeholders must carry out their assigned responsibilities under risk-oriented management. As for the study's international implications, developing nations may consider the enhancement of related educational curricula, collaborative learning, continuous evaluation, disaster awareness, and disaster prevention for the emergency managers' multidisciplinary approach.     

Monitoring Sustainable Forest Management in Different Jurisdictions

The concept of sustainable forest management (SFM) requires forest resource managers to monitor and collect information pertaining to their environmental, economic and social impact. There are increasing expectations from a variety of publics (government, customers, and other stakeholders) that forests be demonstrably well-managed, creating incentives for forest managers to design credible systems for assessing their management performance. It is against this background that local, national and international approaches to regulating forest practices have been evolving. This article reviews the different dimensions of governance as they relate to monitoring and information reporting in the forest sector. Specifically, it discusses the changing role of sovereignty, the effects of globalization and the emergence of civil society stakeholders in forestry-related decision-making. Concepts such as sovereignty and globalization have important implications for monitoring forest practices and for defining SFM. Whether SFM standard creation and enforcement involves a sovereign, shared-sovereignty or civil society approach will affect the level and nature of SFM monitoring. As a result, we need to better consider the concept of monitoring appropriate to the scale and intensity of operations, how monitoring and information reporting standards differ between jurisdictions, and what this means for independently verifying SFM at an inter-jurisdictional level.     

Partial information and complex development decisions: Illustrations from infrastructure projects

This study assesses the theoretical and practical limitations of evaluations of infrastructure projects. Existing tools used in such evaluations typically exhibit two main limitations. Firstly, they tend to accommodate only two dimensions at once and rely on extensive use of averages for additional dimensions. Secondly, they mostly produce a narrow (project exclusive) or information that is too general, thereby precluding both broader and more detailed interpretations at once.Development decisions so informed are consequently based on partial information. Too often this has produced unsatisfactory outcomes for some stakeholders along with increased risks and heightened uncertainties. This is particularly the case for infrastructure projects.This paper proposes an alternative approach to development decision-making called ‘complex stakeholder perception mapping’ (CSPM). CSPM's evaluations inclusively involve a spectrum of insights and perception maps which offer flexibility, combined with complex perceptions of multiple stakeholders on multiple aspects of development.Applicability of CSPM is demonstrated using four perceptual dimensions in infrastructure development evaluation. Different perception combinations and individual group perceptions generate patterns which indicate aspects and groups that need attention. This approach generates rigorous interpretations of information at both the micro and macro level of the project environment, thereby supporting well-informed strategic decision making to advance project outcomes.     

Agricultural practices in grasslands detected by spatial remote sensing

The major decrease in grassland surfaces associated with changes in their management that has been observed in many regions of the earth during the last half century has major impacts on environmental and socio-economic systems. This study focuses on the identification of grassland management practices in an intensive agricultural watershed located in Brittany, France, by analyzing the intra-annual dynamics of the surface condition of vegetation using remotely sensed and field data. We studied the relationship between one vegetation index (NDVI) and two biophysical variables (LAI and fCOVER) derived from a series of three SPOT images on one hand and measurements collected during field campaigns achieved on 120 grasslands on the other. The results show that the LAI appears as the best predictor for monitoring grassland mowing and grazing. Indeed, because of its ability to characterize vegetation status, LAI estimated from remote sensing data is a relevant variable to identify these practices. LAI values derived from the SPOT images were then classified based on the K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) supervised algorithm. The results points out that the distribution of grassland management practices such as grazing and mowing can be mapped very accurately (Kappa index?=?0.82) at a field scale over large agricultural areas using a series of satellite images.     

Environmental best practice and performance benchmarks among EMAS-certified organizations: An empirical study

Voluntary certifiable environmental management standards such as ISO 14001 and EMAS have been extensively adopted and disseminated worldwide, but the rigorous assessment of the real effectiveness of these tools is challenging. There is a need for more research focused on the concrete operational implications for certified organizations. The analysis of the best in class practices of certified organization has been overlooked. In order to fill this gap, this article assesses the use of environmental best practices and performance benchmarks among EMAS-registered organizations. For that purpose, 178 environmental statements assessed by independent third-party verifiers from the Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian hotel industry are analyzed. The findings show poor use of best practices and performance benchmarks among certified organizations. The idea that EMAS signals environmentally best in class or frontrunner behavior is open to question. Implications for policy makers, managers, and other stakeholders are discussed.     

Community Participation in Natural Resources Management: Reality or Rhetoric?

In the developing world, the term ‘participation’ has in recent years become a household word in the same way that ‘democracy’ or ‘gender’ have. Development agencies are demanding increased participation in their programmes. The use of the word or its application has become a centre of debate. Due to the difficulties involved in measuring ‘participation’ or indeed determining levels at which participation should take place, who participates and when, many ‘doubting Thomases’ have questioned its effectiveness. It has, however been acknowledged in many areas that popular participation changes policies and enhances management and governance. In complex issues of natural resources management, participatory techniques have helped communities develop collective responsibilities towards management of their resources and projects. This paper discusses the complexities of community participation in natural resources management, ranging from interrelations among stakeholders to resource ownership based on the experiences in the Kasanka Game Management Area (KGMA). Lessons learnt from the Kasanka Game Management Area (GMA) communities, Serenje district, Zambia     

Public participation modes in China's environmental impact assessment process: An analytical framework based on participation extent and conflict level

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) serves as a gatekeeper to prevent environmental pollution, and public participation is a legal requirement in the EIA process that ensures people's awareness of activities that may jeopardize the environment. Recently, with the elevated awareness of environmental protection and increasing environmental sensitivity, EIA has evolved as a means for the public to show their attitudes towards environmental issues. More frequently, public protests against not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) facilities have become a significant challenge in the government's decision-making process. Government officials and EIA practitioners continue to look for a more effective way of public participation and aim to establish a platform that can involve related stakeholders. However, current research on public participation is limited to individual case studies or lacks a systematic approach to analysing diversified modes of public participation, which may differentiate levels of acceptance by the government in the EIA process and consequently lead to different effects. Therefore, from the perspectives of the participation extent and conflict level, this paper aims to establish an integrated framework to categorize different public participation patterns in EIA practices and to analyse their characteristics, such as preferences and the action logic arising from different stakeholders, including the government and public. The paper concludes that collaborative public participation is a possible way to strengthen the effectiveness of public involvement within the Chinese context.     

A comparative evaluation of the environmental impact assessment legislation of South Africa and Zambia

This study evaluates the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) legislation of South Africa and Zambia against the modified criteria developed by Wood (1995) to determine the extent to which they follow “good practices” and incorporate emerging environmental issues into EIA. We modified the criteria of Wood due to new environmental issues that have emerged since their formulation. Some of these issues are in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). National Environmental Acts and EIA Regulations for the two countries were reviewed to evaluate the current legislation. We also used telephone interviews to gather additional information that was not in the documents. As a fundamental component of the EIA system, the legislation needs to be clear, concise and inclusive of all the major environmental issues that affect the performance of the EIA system. Literature reveals that the performance of the Zambian EIA system is generally low compared with that of some African countries such as South Africa and Ghana; especially in terms of the quality of EIA reports and substantive environmental protection. Therefore, we hypothesised that the Zambian legislation does not follow the good practice hence the low EIA system performance. Results, however, showed that the two countries are almost on a par in terms of meeting the criteria used in this study. Hence there is more to be done to improve the quality of both countries' EIA legislation. Nevertheless, compared with the previous evaluations by Wood (1999) and Harrison (2005), the results show that there is considerable improvement in the quality of the South African EIA legislation following a series of amendments.     

An environmental risk assessment framework for enhanced oil recovery solutions from offshore oil and gas industry

Environmental risk assessments are necessary to understand the risk associated with enhanced oil recovery (EOR) solutions and to provide decision support for choosing the best technology and implementing risk-reducing measures. This study presents a review of potentially relevant environmental/ecological risk assessment (ERA) guidelines and, based on this review, proposes an initial suggestion of an ERA framework for understanding the environmental impacts from EOR solutions. We first shortlist the important elements necessary for conducting an ERA of EOR solutions from the selected guidelines. These elements are then used to build the suggested ERA framework for produced water discharges, drilling discharges and emissions to air from EOR solutions, which is the primary objective of the present study. Furthermore, the emphasis is placed on identifying the knowledge gaps that exist for conducting ERA of EOR processes. In order to link the framework with the current best environmental practices, a review of environmental policies applicable to the marine environment around the European Union (EU) was conducted. Finally, some major challenges in the application of ERA methods for novel EOR technologies, i.e. uncertainties in the ERA due to lack of data and aggregation of risk from different environmental impacts, are discussed in detail. The frameworks suggested in this study should be possible to use by relevant stakeholders to assess environmental risk from enhanced oil recovery solutions.     

Accounting for Uncertainty in Value Judgements when Applying Multi-Attribute Value Theory

In environmental decisions, analysts commonly face substantial uncertainties around stakeholders’ values judgments. Multi-Attribute Value Theory (MAVT), a family of multi-criteria decision analysis techniques, is applied in participative settings to articulate stakeholders’ values in decision-making. In MAVT, value judgments represent the intensity of individuals’ preferences in a set of objectives, which are operationalized as scaling factors or weights. Different sets of weights may express variation in people’s preferences or value judgments. Unfortunately, there are still important methodological gaps regarding how to incorporate uncertainty and the substantial variation commonly encountered in stakeholders’ preferences. This article presents a model of uncertainty that encompasses the dispersion of value judgments in MAVT. To achieve this goal, we draw on info-gap theory, which provides a mathematically grounded method for exploring sensitivity to preference weights when there are relatively high levels of uncertainties. We experimentally tested the uncertainty model in an environmental decision problem. We found that MAVT can use info-gap analysis to deal with multiple value judgments, avoiding exclusive reliance on nominal expected values to inform decisions. We explored a mechanism to explicitly consider the trade-offs between the performance of alternatives and the level of uncertainty that in any specified context a decision maker is willing to accept. Findings emphasize the potential of MAVT to support environmental management decisions, particularly in situations where multiple stakeholders and their contested value judgments have to be considered simultaneously to explore uncertainties around value trade-offs.     

The “START” framework to evaluate national progress in green buildings and its application in cases of Singapore and China

Current studies provide little knowledge for a holistic assessment of green building (GB) studies and practices. This study addresses the gap by developing a systematic and multidisciplinary framework called “START” that integrates five interactive dimensions of GB, including S-stakeholders, To-total building life cycle concerns, A-actions of government, R-relevant contexts, and Ta-targets to facilitate scholars and policymakers' analysis of GB development and progress. A comparative review of Singapore's and China's GB journey has been conducted to illustrate the application of the framework. Results indicate that both countries face common challenges of achieving economic sustainability of GB due to market failure and lack of non-technical support. However, Singapore has made better progress in environmental and social sustainability than China. Singapore's GB program inclusively covers the whole building life phases whereas China mainly emphasizes on planning/design phase. Collectively, effective governance, strict law enforcement, engaged stakeholders, matured economy and emerging technologies facilitate the GB implementing in Singapore. Additional efforts are required for China to cope with its complexity and heterogeneity regarding climate zones, hierarchy of authority, and disparity of economy and resources allocation in various regions. The framework helps facilitate policymakers to comprehensively assess GB progress and highlights the importance of incorporating non-technical drivers, such as social, psychological, political factors, into multi-disciplinary research of GB programs.     

Assessment of water quality based on Landsat 8 operational land imager associated with human activities in Korea

Water pollution such as green algae blooms and eutrophication in freshwater fatally influences both water quality and human society. Water quality issues in the 4 major rivers in Korea, including the Nakdong, have recently become a major concern. For this reason, it is essential to monitor water quality parameters (WQPs) that have a widespread characteristic to ensure maintenance of an effective water management system. The possibility of utilizing remote sensing technology for monitoring water quality on a regional scale has been recently investigated. The main objective of this study is to evaluate potential applications of the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) for estimating water quality in the Nakdong River, Korea. Correlations between Landsat 8 bands and in situ measurements are determined, and water quality models are established for estimating suspended solids (SS), total nitrogen (TN), chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), and total phosphorus (TP). The results demonstrate that WQPs correlated well with band reflectance values from Landsat 8. Band 5 was reasonably correlated with all WQPs, particularly with SS (R?=??0.74) and Chl-a (R?=??0.71). This study constructed multiple regression equations for WQPs based on correlation analysis through band combination and band ratio. The spatial distribution of WQPs in the Nakdong River on October 27, 2013 and May 16, 2014 indicate that the river was nearly eutrophic from human activities. Based on the results, the Landsat 8 OLI may be an appropriate data for estimating and monitoring water quality parameters on a regional scale. However, further validation is required to support the findings of this study.     

Stakeholder perceptions of Environmental Management Plans as an environmental protection tool for major developments in the UK

Insufficient implementation and the lack of legislative requirements for follow-up measures following the approval of projects are consistently highlighted as major shortcomings of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Although adopted over 15 years ago by the World Bank, Environmental Management Plans (EMPs) were only semi-formalised in the UK in 2008 and arguably provide a continuous link or ‘bridge’ between the EIA process pre-consent and an Environmental Management System (EMS) post-consent. Drawing on twenty-one semi-structured interviews with stakeholders and thematic analysis of their responses, and a broad-scale practitioner survey, this study aimed to assess the effectiveness of EMPs as an environmental protection tool across the project lifecycle for major developments. The findings revealed a mixed picture of EMP effectiveness in practice, with EMPs only partially fulfilling a bridging role between EIA and EMS. There is no ‘gold standard’ terminology for EMPs, all having slightly different uses, thus presenting different focuses to different stakeholders and further enhancing variation in practice. For many stakeholders, the effectiveness was simply not known, due to the lack of communication and follow-up that still exists. EMP–EMS linkages were shown to be effective from the developer's perspective when a single organisation has involvement across all project phases, though weaknesses occur when multiple parties are involved. Among other stakeholders, knowledge varied significantly; whilst some were in agreement that the linkages worked, many were unaware of the connections and thought of them as two quite separate tools. Stakeholders advocated for the need to make EMPs a legal requirement; for improved communication between stakeholders during EMP implementation and increased documentation of project outcomes; and for EMPs to be consistently written by environmental professionals. Furthermore, weak links in the current process may be improved by providing detailed guidance for organisations on the potential for EMP–EMS linkages, with the additional aim of encouraging stakeholders to broaden their current specialist knowledge on environmental protection tools.     

The health impacts of transformative infrastructure change: Process matters as much as outcomes

BackgroundMajor infrastructure development is often transformative for society, including its health. In this realm, there is a growing trend to view airports as drivers for health. By linking airport, urban and health planning, airports can become settings for health. Engaging stakeholders and those affected by such major change in health assessments is essential. This paper demonstrates that health and health equity impacts of major infrastructure developments such as airports extend to the planning processes for these developments; it argues that building a Healthy Airport requires greater consideration of how communities are engaged in these processes.MethodsWe carried out a Health Impact Assessment of community engagement practices for the planning processes of a new greenfield airport in Australia. The standard step-wise process for completing an HIA was followed.Results151 stakeholders participated in the study. Overall, participants were dissatisfied with community engagement for the proposed airport. While there were some unanticipated positive community level impacts resulting from the engagement process (community members becoming involved in community activism), by and large community members identified mostly negative impacts including anxiety, disempowerment, poor social connection, lack of trust and aggravation of health inequities.ConclusionPotentially affected individuals and communities may feel disenfranchised by transformative infrastructure change ‘over their heads’. Missed opportunities to achieve benefits of well-executed community engagement not only lead to feelings of disempowerment and frustration among stakeholders but can potentially negatively impact on individual and community health and well-being. Health impact assessments that effectively assess planning and engagement processes can play a role in mitigating these impacts.     

A DSS for sustainable development and environmental protection of agricultural regions

This paper presents a decision support system (DSS) for sustainable development and environmental protection of agricultural regions developed in the framework of the Interreg-Archimed project entitled WaterMap (development and utilization of vulnerability maps for the monitoring and management of groundwater resources in the ARCHIMED areas). Its aim is to optimize the production plan of an agricultural region taking in account the available resources, the environmental parameters, and the vulnerability map of the region. The DSS is based on an optimization multicriteria model. The spatial integration of vulnerability maps in the DSS enables regional authorities to design policies for optimal agricultural development and groundwater protection from the agricultural land uses. The DSS can further be used to simulate different scenarios and policies by the local stakeholders due to changes on different social, economic, and environmental parameters. In this way, they can achieve alternative production plans and agricultural land uses as well as to estimate economic, social, and environmental impacts of different policies. The DSS is computerized and supported by a set of relational databases. The corresponding software has been developed in a Microsoft Windows XP platform, using Microsoft Visual Basic, Microsoft Access, and the LINDO library. For demonstration reasons, the paper includes an application of the DSS in a region of Northern Greece.     

Testing an ex-ante framework for the evaluation of impact assessment laws: Lessons from Canada and Brazil

Scholars have been increasingly investigating legislative changes in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). However, most of the existing evaluation frameworks have been applied to ex-post scenarios, after EIA laws and respective policies and regulations had been implemented for some time. This article has a twofold objective: first, to propose an ex-ante framework for the evaluation of proposed EIA laws and, second, to test the application of the framework to bills C-69 and PL-3729, which target federal-level EIA reform in Canada and Brazil, respectively. The proposed framework is meant to indicate the extent to which proposed legislative changes meet 50 good practice criteria, thus providing a more balanced and transparent account of the issues that should be addressed effectively in the legislative process and in future regulations and guidelines. Results indicate very contrasting scope and potential effects of proposed legislative changes in the two countries. Brazil's bill is essentially intended to integrate existing regulations into a law that would make EIA faster, simpler and less frequent. Canada's bill, recently approved by Parliament, includes a new Impact Assessment Act that is expected to deliver more comprehensive and credible assessments. The ex-ante framework, by exposing how close or distant proposed EIA regimes are from good practices, can be particularly helpful in lawmaking and regulatory design. The article finally discusses limitations and highlights future avenues of research.     

Discharge permit market and farm management nexus: an approach for eutrophication control in small basins with low-income farmers

The economic concerns of low-income farmers are barriers to nutrient abatement policies for eutrophication control in surface waters. This study brings up a perspective that focuses on integrating multiple-pollutant discharge permit markets with farm management practices. This aims to identify a more economically motivated waste load allocation (WLA) for non-point sources (NPS). For this purpose, we chose the small basin of Zrebar Lake in western Iran and used the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) for modeling. The export coefficients (ECs), effectiveness of best management practices (BMPs), and crop yields were calculated by using this software. These variables show that low-income farmers can hardly afford to invest in BMPs in a typical WLA. Conversely, a discharge permit market presents a more cost-effective solution. This method saves 64% in total abatement costs and motivates farmers by offering economic benefits. A market analysis revealed that nitrogen permits mostly cover the trades with the optimal price ranging from $6 to $30 per kilogram. However, phosphorous permits are limited for trading, and their price exceeds $60 per kilogram. This approach also emphasizes the establishment of a regional institution for market monitoring, dynamic pricing, fair fund reallocation, giving information to participants, and ensuring their income. By these sets of strategies, a WLA on the brink of failure can turn into a cost-effective and sustainable policy for eutrophication control in small basins.     

瑞典的水环境保护经验及对我国的启示

介绍了瑞典的水环境保护法规政策、水环境保护机构、污水处理体系及其在水环境保护方面的特色做法。结合目前我国水环境管理所处的阶段,从顶层设计、宣传教育、项目管理、污染防治等方面,总结了瑞典经验对我国水环境保护工作的启示。     

Cumulative risk assessment for an urban agglomeration based on a relative risk model and multi-media fugacity model: A case study in Guangdong province,China

Urban agglomeration, which is an organism with distinct organizational characteristics, differs from a single city. In its policy-level environmental impact assessment, the ecological and health risks need to be addressed in a unified manner, because multiple cities interact and influence each other, and the environmental risks have multiple elements, multiple processes, and multiple effect interaction and superposition. To this end, this study proposed a regional-level cumulative risk assessment framework coupling a relative risk model (RRM) with a multi-media fugacity model (MFM). The RRM translated the risk causal relations into four city-differentiated matrices, which consisted of normalized factors (NFs), ranging from 0 to 1, that were indicative of the impact intensity and possibility. The MFM was embedded into the RRM to generate the NFs. The NFs were multiplied for each city-source-endpoint combination to get the overall risk score, and the score provided policy references. This framework was applied to Guangdong Province of China (GD). As heavy metal contamination is one of the GD's major concerns, this study analyzed their cumulative risks due to industrialization for the year 2020 and compared the city level and industrial level risk scores. The results showed that the central part of GD was under the highest risk, with Guangzhou, Foshan, and Jiangmen having the highest risk. From the perspective of the risk pressure sources, Pb and Cd were the biggest stressors. Non-ferrous/ferrous metals mining and processing and metal products manufacturing were the major threats. As these industries gain greater footholds in the GD's ecologically susceptible region, the relevant policies should be elaborately designed before new entrants commence their operations.     

Spheres of public conversation: Experiences in strategic environmental assessment

This paper draws on earlier research, a national review of Scottish SEA practice and a survey of practitioners and stakeholders engaged in SEA and spatial planning in one Scottish city-region, to explore claims being made in the academic literature for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) as a tool for deliberative plan-making. We consider whether there is evidence that Scottish SEA practice is helping create more inclusive plan-making processes in light of recent legislative changes, thereby fulfilling one of the expectations of Scottish Government. The macro analysis found that although there are opportunities for stakeholders to engage in the Scottish SEA process the level in practice is extremely low, a finding which mirrors experience in England and elsewhere. The more detailed micro analysis reveals a more nuanced picture within the spatial planning system, however, suggesting the existence of two distinct spheres of public conversations, one characterised by active dialogue about the environmental effects of alternative strategies amongst public sector stakeholders and the other involving non-governmental stakeholders and community groups in a much more limited way. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible explanations for this outcome, concerning asymmetric incentive structures and the application of power, and a consideration of the implications in relation to the competing discourses of SEA.