毒害污染物生态风险评价模型研究进展

随着化学品的使用种类和数量日益增加,有毒有害污染物的生态效应逐渐受到重视.生态风险评价模型作为较好的科研和管理技术工具,被越来越广泛地用于扩散到环境中化学物质的生态风险评价中;欧美等发达国家和地区已经建立了多个生态风险评价的模型,并投入到实际应用中.本研究系统综述和总结了毒害污染物生态风险评价模型的构建方法、种类、结构以及特征,归纳了重金属和有机污染物等主要毒害物质的风险评价模型发展状况,比较了几种较为成熟的风险评价模型的具体模块和特点,分析了模型在生态风险评价中的应用以及不足之处,在总结我国生态风险评价模型的研究方向和趋势的基础上,提出模型研究和发展的具体建议.     

Applying Ecological Risk Principles to Watershed Assessment and Management

Considerable progress in addressing point source (end of pipe) pollution problems has been made, but it is now recognized that further substantial environmental improvements depend on controlling nonpoint source pollution. A watershed approach is being used more frequently to address these problems because traditional regulatory approaches do not focus on nonpoint sources. The watershed approach is organized around the guiding principles of partnerships, geographic focus, and management based on sound science and data. This helps to focus efforts on the highest priority problems within hydrologically-defined geographic areas. Ecological risk assessment is a process to collect, organize, analyze, and present scientific information to improve decision making. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sponsored three watershed assessments and found that integrating the watershed approach with ecological risk assessment increases the use of environmental monitoring and assessment data in decision making. This paper describes the basics of the watershed approach, the ecological risk assessment process, and how these two frameworks can be integrated. The three major principles of watershed ecological risk assessment found to be most useful for increasing the use of science in decision making are (1) using assessment endpoints and conceptual models, (2) holding regular interactions between scientists and managers, and (3) developing a focus for multiple stressor analysis. Examples are provided illustrating how these principles were implemented in these assessments.     

Probe into the method of regional ecological risk assessment-a case study of wetland in the Yellow River Delta in China

Ecological risk assessment (ERA) is a new field of study for evaluating the risks associated with a possible eco-environmental hazard under uncertainty. Regional ERA is more complex than general ERA, as it requires that risk receptors, risk sources, risk exposure, uncertainty and especially spatial heterogeneity all be taken into account. In this paper, a five-step process of regional ERA is developed and tested through a wetland case study in the Yellow River Delta in China. First, indices and formulas are established for measuring degrees of ecological risk and damage to ecosystems. Using a combination of remote sensing data, historical records and survey data, and with the assistance of GIS techniques, the indices and formulas are then applied to the wetland in the study area. On the basis of the assessment results, we propose a number of countermeasures for the various risk zones in the Yellow River Delta.     

Improving the TMDL Process Using Watershed Risk Assessment Principles

Ecological risk assessment (ERA) evaluates potential causal relationships between multiple sources and stressors and impacts on valued ecosystem components. ERAs applied at the watershed scale have many similarities to the place-based analyses that are undertaken to develop Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), in which linkages are established between stressors, sources, and water quality standards, including support of designated uses. TMDLs focus on achieving water quality standards associated with attainment of designated uses. In attempting to attain the water quality standard, many TMDLs focus on the stressor of concern rather than the ecological endpoint or indicators of the designated use that the standard is meant to protect. A watershed ecological risk assessment (WERA), at least in theory, examines effects of most likely stressors, as well as their probable sources in the watershed, to prioritize management options that will most likely result in meeting environmental goals or uses. Useful WERA principles that can be applied to TMDL development include: development and use of comprehensive conceptual models in the Problem Identification step of TMDLs; use of a transparent process for selecting Numeric Targets for TMDLs based on assessment endpoints derived from the management goal or designated use under consideration; analysis of co-occurring stressors likely to cause beneficial use impairment based on the conceptual model; use of explicit uncertainty analyses in the Linkage Analysis step of TMDL development; and frequent stakeholder interactions throughout the process. WERA principles are currently most applicable to those TMDLs in which there is no numeric standard and, therefore, indicators and targets need to be developed, such as many nutrient or sediment TMDLs. WERA methods can also be useful in determining TMDL targets in situations where simply targeting the water quality standard may re-attain the numeric criterion but not the broader designated use. Better incorporation of problem formulation principles from WERA into the TMDL development process would be helpful in improving the scientific rigor of TMDLs.     

Quantifying natural resource injuries and ecological service reductions: challenges and opportunities

The natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) are complex and have been difficult to implement. The complexity and difficulty in implementation arise both from the assessment procedures specified in agency NRDA guidance and from the limited ability of ecologists to quantify impacts of hazardous substances on natural resources. This paper explores the scientific aspects of NRDA implementation, and discusses conceptual and methodological relationships between NRDA and the much broader field of ecological risk assessment (ERA). We discuss three critical components of the NRDA assessment approach: measuring natural resource injuries and reductions in resource services; evaluating causality; and establishing baseline conditions. We identify (1) specific approaches drawn from ERA practice that could improve each of these components, and (2) research needs and institutional changes that may improve the ability of the NRDA process to achieve its stated objectives. We recommend the acceleration of the ongoing dialogue among NRDA practitioners from the Trustee and PRP communities as a first step toward resolving the procedural and technical deficiencies of the NRDA process.     

采掘行业环境影响评价制度存在问题的探讨

环境影响评价是环境管理的重要组成部分,为我国的环境管理决策提供重要依据。但在实际工作中,我国的环境管理工作仍然存在一定的问题。本文结合采掘行业的特点,分别从法律层面、设计层面和环境影响评价层面等三个方向进行分析,结合发现的问题提出建议,力求从不同的角度完善相关制度和技术要求。从而使采掘行业的环境管理能全面涵盖采掘行业开发过程,最大程度地减少采掘行业开发过程中的环境影响,完善采掘行业环境影响评价制度,对我国采掘行业生态环境的改善及环境影响评价法制建设起到一定的借鉴意义。     

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.     

浅议经济开发区环境风险评价

从经济开发区与建设项目环境风险的区别入手,分析了开发区环境风险评价的特点,并对开发区环境风险评价的内容及方法进行了阐述。通过实例分析,提出了适合于开发区环境风险评价的内容与模式,并提出在开发区环境风险评价方法上需要进一步丰富和发展的内容。     

环境风险评价的实践与发展

环境风险评价（Environmental Risk Assessment ERA）是环境影响评价的一个重要分支,主要分析评价环境中的潜在危险。本文围绕开展ERA的必要怀、国内外ERA发展现状等方面进行了评述,在此基础上针对目前ERA工作中的不足提出了三点建议。     

Environmental Justice,Local Knowledge,and Risk: The Discourse of a Community-Based Cumulative Exposure Assessment

While risk assessment continues to drive most environmental management decision-making, its methods and assumptions have been criticized for, among other things, perpetuating environmental injustice. The justice challenges to risk assessment claim that the process ignores the unique and multiple hazards facing low-income and people of color communities and simultaneously excludes the local, non-expert knowledge which could help capture these unique hazards from the assessment discourse. This paper highlights some of these challenges to conventional risk assessment and suggests that traditional models of risk characterization will continue to ignore the environmental justice challenges until cumulative hazards and local knowledge are meaningfully brought into the assessment process. We ask whether a shift from risk to exposure assessment might enable environmental managers to respond to the environmental justice critiques. We review the US EPA's first community-based Cumulative Exposure Project, piloted in Brooklyn, NY, and highlight to what extent this process addressed the risk assessment critiques raised by environmental justice advocates. We suggest that a shift from risk to exposure assessment can provide an opportunity for local knowledge to both improve the technical assessment and its democratic nature and may ultimately allow environmental managers to better address environmental justice concerns in decision-making.     

The ecological awareness of Bulgarian industrial managers

Summary Over 600 industrial managers in Bulgaria were individually interviewed to determine their ecological awareness and their attitudes towards the environment. The interviews took place at an unusual time in 1990 when these managers were beginning to move from a position of government control and interference, but were becoming affected by a situation of increasing economic difficulties. Various specific profiles of environmental awareness of the managers were registered, depending on the technologies used by their industrial enterprise, the degree to which the labour force was acquainted with the environmental hazards, and the pressures from the ecological movements and legislature.Unfortunately, at the time of the interviews, few of teh managers-despite two-thirds of their industrial enterprises being strong or intermediate polluters-were under serious pressure to resolve their ecological problems, and many (44 percent) were unaware of these problems. Repeated studies of this nature will hopefully demonstrate improvements in the ecological awareness of the managers which may result from legislative and educational measures proposed, in part, by the authors.Dr Ivan T. Chalakov is the senior author of this paper which has been prepared by the staff of the Institute of Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Drs Chalakov, Kotzewa and Todorova are Research Fellows in the Department of Sociology of Science Psychology respectively. The other authors assisted with this research.     

Design of an institutional decision-making process: the case of urban water management

Urban water infrastructure expenditures cause a major financial burden to municipalities. In the opinion of many policy-makers, public funds may alleviate this burden and facilitate environmental policies. However, practice has shown that despite ambitious policies, funding often follows traditional cost-dominated thinking. In Austria, national policy-makers were interested in new guidelines for funding that increase the transparency of the planning, ensure the adequate treatment of ecological problems, and foster stakeholder involvement, but keep the process as simple as possible, and require minimal changes of the current guidelines. An interdisciplinary project team conducted such a study. Its outcome was tested in two pilot projects. Based on these experiences, policy-makers finally implemented the recommended guidelines for the funding of communal urban water infrastructure projects. A general observation about the policy-making process was a conservative attitude of policy-makers. They prefer simple constraints (precautionary principle) and flexible negotiations (delegation) to complex assessment and decision-aid methodologies.     

基于大数据的水环境风险业务化评估与预警研究

随着生态环境大数据的不断建设,国家级、流域级和行政区级别的大数据中心相继产生。快速、高效地分析和利用实时产生、类型多样的环境大数据,提取环境大数据在风险评估与预警的价值,具有重要的意义,也充满挑战。本文基于环境大数据的数据特点和不同层次的组织管理特征以及环境风险评估预警的业务化需求,构建基于大数据的流域环境风险评估与预警技术及其业务化系统的体系、分析环境风险智能识别模式、研究环境风险高效模拟预测和评估的方法,并提出一套满足各级管理部门需求,高效利用环境大数据的多中心业务化系统。     

Assessing ecological risk on a regional scale

Society needs a quantitative and systematic way to estimate and compare the impacts of environmental problems that affect large geographic areas. This paper presents an approach for regional risk assessment that combines regional assessment methods and landscape ecology theory with an existing framework for ecological risk assessment. Risk assessment evaluates the effects of an environmental change on a valued natural resource and interprets the significance of those effects in light of the uncertainties identified in each component of the assessment process. Unique and important issues for regional risk assessment are emphasized; these include the definition of the disturbance scenario, the assessment boundary definition, and the spatial heterogeneity of the landscape. Although the research described in this article has been funded wholly or in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through Interagency Agreement Number DW89932112-01-2 to the U.S. Department of Energy, it has not been subjected to EPA review and therefore does not necessarily reflect the views of EPA and no official endorsement should be inferred.     

Between environmental and ecological democracy: theory and practice at the democracy-environment nexus

ABSTRACT

Concepts of ecological and environmental democracy seek to reconcile two normative ideals: ensuring environmental sustainability while safeguarding democracy. These ideals are frequently conceived as being in conflict, as democracy is perceived as too slow and cumbersome to deliver the urgent large-scale collective action needed to tackle environmental problems. Theories addressing the democracy-environment nexus can be situated on a spectrum from theories of ecological democracy that are more critical of existing liberal democratic institutions to theories of environmental democracy that call for reforming rather than radically transforming or dismantling those institutions. This article reviews theoretical and empirical scholarship on the democracy-environment nexus. We find continued theoretical and empirical diversity in the field, as well as vibrant debates on democratising global environmental politics, local material practices, and non-human representation. We argue for stronger dialogue between environmental political theory and empirical, policy-oriented research on democracy and sustainability, as well as further exploration of complementarities between ecological and environmental democracy. We identify four main areas of challenge and opportunity for theory and practice: public participation and populism; technocracy and expertise; governance across scales; and ecological rights and limits.     

环境法视域下的生物安全风险规制

生物安全领域的环境风险包括科技风险、生态风险和环境健康风险三种类型。我国目前尚未形成健全的生物安全风险规制制度体系,科技风险规制机制不健全、生态风险规制忽视生物多样性保护、环境健康风险规制领域尚存空白等问题依然存在。为此,应确立多元化的立法目的体系,推动风险规制的类型化制度安排,有效衔接生物安全立法与环境保护法律规范,以最大限度地预防和降低生物安全风险可能带来的损害。     

Implications of environmental program planning for siting a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain,Nevada, USA

The US Department of Energy (DOE) plans to conduct site characterization studies at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, to determine if the location is a suitable site for a nuclear waste repository. In lieu of traditional environmental review in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, the DOE is relying on an environmental assessment (EA) mandated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 as the cornerstone of its environmental program for the Yucca Mountain Project. Because of statutory restrictions, the EA is not based on comprehensive baseline information. Neither does it address fundamentals of environmental analysis such as ecological integrity and assessment of cumulative impacts. Consequently, the present environmental program for Yucca Mountain reflects decisions made without complete information and integrated environmental review. The shortcomings of the program risk compromising the natural integrity of Yucca Mountain and invalidating future assessment of the ability of a nuclear waste repository located at the site to protect the environment. Significant improvements are needed in the repository siting program before it can serve as a model of how society can evaluate the long-term environmental consequences of advanced technologies, as has been suggested.     

The Ways of Wickedness: Analyzing Messiness with Messy Tools

The revelatory paper, “Dilemmas in the General Theory of Planning,” by Rittel and Webber (Policy Sci 4:155–169, 1973) has had great impact because it provides one example of an emergent consensus across many disciplines. Many “problems,” as addressed in real-world situations, involve elements that exceed the complexity of any known or hoped-for model, or are “wicked.” Many who encounter this work for the first time find that their concept of wicked problems aptly describes many environmental disputes. For those frustrated with the lack of progress in many areas of environmental protection, Rittel and Webber’s work suggested a powerful explanatory hypothesis: Complex environmental problems cannot be comprehended within any of the accepted disciplinary models available in the academy or in discourses on public interest and policy. What should we conclude about the future of social improvements, and about the possibilities for rational discourse leading to cooperative action, with respect to this huge number of pressing public, environmental problems? Can we find ways to address environmental problems that improves the ability of communities to respond creatively and rationally to them? I will argue that, while the Rittel-Webber critique requires us to abandon many of the assumptions associated with a positivistic view of science and its applications to policy analysis, it also points to a more productive direction for the future of policy analysis. I will introduce “boundary critique,” developed within Critical Systems Theory (CST), an approach that offers some reason for optimism in dealing with some aspects of wickedness.     

环境风险评价构架的探讨

本文归纳并概括了国际上和我国环境风险评价的一般构架,从环境风险评价、安全评价、健康评价、生态评价、最大可信灾害事故及最大可接受水平等几个方面对我国环境风险评价一般构架进行了探讨,分析了我国环境风险评价构架中存在的问题,提出了进一步完善我国环境风险评价一般构架的方法,并辅以了案例分析。     

区域环境司法协作的理论溯源与制度回应——以长三角地区为例

区域环境司法协作是区域环境资源审判一体化发展的重要面向。而区域环境司法协作的运行机理在于对生态环境整体主义的遵循、对司法理性所蕴含的价值目标的践行以及对协同理论的运用。目前,长三角地区在区域环境司法协作方面已经进行了积极探索,但仍面临着法治实践异化、制度生态化不足、保障机制缺乏等问题。本文建议区域环境司法协作应在把握司法权属性基础上恰当处理政策与法律的互动关系,加强协作制度体系对生态环境利益的考量和保护,并通过信息、人员与考核等保障机制充分激发协作主体的内生动力和活力。