Multi-index integrated assessment and analysis of town-sewage treatment priorities in China

Water quality is one of the most serious problems of environment and national sustainable development strategy now facing China. After hard work over the last several decades, urban-sewage treatment in China is now relatively well developed. It now affords mainly higher levels of sewage collection and treatment, as well as pollution-load control. The characteristic rapid urbanization now occurring in China is still increasing and developing dramatically, and involves large numbers of people. However, in towns, sewage treatment infrastructure is inadequate, and a high percentage of the sewage generated there is not effectively collected and treated. The sewage and pollution load of such towns have become the most important reason for environmental water problems in China. To understand the priorities of sewage treatment in such towns, and their spatial distribution in China, we conducted two nationwide investigations of water use and sewage discharge in towns. Based on the integrated analytic hierarchy process (AHP), assessment indices and a framework of town-sewage treatment priorities in China were constructed. Then, we assessed and analyzed the priorities of towns regarding three aspects of sewage treatment: environmental stress, economic capability, and infrastructure. The results showed that the southeast coastal areas and north China had higher demand for sewage treatment than other areas. The demand in eastern and western areas had obvious differences in spatial distribution, but had nearly no differences within those areas. The towns having the greatest demand for high-priority sewage treatment were concentrated in regions with high economic capability and intense water resource utilization.     

An integrated modeling framework for performing environmental assessments: Application to ecosystem services in the Albemarle-Pamlico basins (NC and VA, USA)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency uses environmental models to inform rulemaking and policy decisions at multiple spatial and temporal scales. As decision-making has moved towards integrated thinking and assessment (e.g. media, site, region, services), the increasing complexity and interdisciplinary nature of modern environmental problems has necessitated a new generation of integrated modeling technologies. Environmental modelers are now faced with the challenge of determining how data from manifold sources, types of process-based and empirical models, and hardware/software computing infrastructure can be reliably integrated and applied to protect human health and the environment.In this study, we demonstrate an Integrated Modeling Framework that allows us to predict the state of freshwater ecosystem services within and across the Albemarle-Pamlico Watershed, North Carolina and Virginia (USA). The Framework consists of three facilitating technologies: Data for Environmental Modeling automates the collection and standardization of input data; the Framework for Risk Assessment of Multimedia Environmental Systems manages the flow of information between linked models; and the Supercomputer for Model Uncertainty and Sensitivity Evaluation is a hardware and software parallel-computing interface with pre/post-processing analysis tools, including parameter estimation, uncertainty and sensitivity analysis. In this application, five environmental models are linked within the Framework to provide multimedia simulation capabilities: the Soil Water Assessment Tool predicts watershed runoff; the Watershed Mercury Model simulates mercury runoff and loading to streams; the Water quality Analysis and Simulation Program predicts water quality within the stream channel; the Habitat Suitability Index model predicts physicochemical habitat quality for individual fish species; and the Bioaccumulation and Aquatic System Simulator predicts fish growth and production, as well as exposure and bioaccumulation of toxic substances (e.g., mercury).Using this Framework, we present a baseline assessment of two freshwater ecosystem services-water quality and fisheries resources-in headwater streams throughout the Albemarle-Pamlico. A stratified random sample of 50 headwater streams is used to draw inferences about the target population of headwater streams across the region. Input data is developed for a twenty-year baseline simulation in each sampled stream using current land use and climate conditions. Monte Carlo sampling (n = 100 iterations per stream) is also used to demonstrate some of the Framework's experimental design and data analysis features. To evaluate model performance and accuracy, we compare initial (i.e., uncalibrated) model predictions (water temperature, dissolved oxygen, fish density, and methylmercury concentration within fish tissue) against empirical field data. Finally, we ‘roll-up’ the results from individual streams, to assess freshwater ecosystem services at the regional scale.     

北京市密云县耕地畜禽粪便负荷估算及风险评价

以北京市密云水库水体环境保护为出发点,以土壤-植物营养学原理和科学施肥理论为指导,根据作物所需畜禽粪尿肥的最大量,估算密云县各乡镇耕地的畜禽粪便最大负荷量,并与当地畜禽粪便实际负荷量进行比较,对各乡镇畜禽养殖规模进行潜在环境风险评价。结果表明:该流域中古北口、石城和番字牌3个乡镇风险最大,北庄较大。     

泰县2000年环境保护战略目标定量考核指标研究

在泰县２０００年环境保护战略目标的基础上，根据代表性、科学性、政策导向性和可操作性４原则，选择、确定了目标定量考核的指标体系，该体系包括工业污染防治、城镇环境质量、农业自然生态环境质量和经济发展共４类１７个指标，同时提出了阶段考核得分的计算方法。     

An overview of the environmental finance policies in China: retrofitting an integrated mechanism for environmental management

Considering the significant roles of the policies in developing environmental finance, an overview is conducted on the environmental finance policies （EFPs） in China. This paper analyzed the definition, scope, evolution and main instruments of EFPs. The implementation progress of financial activities on each instrument are investigated respectively. Then the experiences learned from and failures discovered in the development of the EFPs are discussed well recommendations for further improvement of the EFPs and their implementation are provided. Our study found that the EFPs have been established in China after a four-phase evolution since the early 1980s. The policies have played a critical role in leading to a rapid development in environmental finance by involving more financial instruments to accomplish the objective-led environmental plans. Driven by the policies, the new green credit （GC）, green security （GS）, and green insurance （GI） instruments have been phased in as supplements to the conventional command and control approaches to improve the environmental governance of financial activities and pollution sources. However, the market mechanism of financial institution is limited due to their defensive and incapable performance on implementation some of EFP instruments. To further strengthen the effectiveness of EFPs in facilitating environmental man- agement, recommendations are made mainly on the aspects including developing more specific policy guidelines, enhancing information sharing and disclosure, providing sufficient economic incentives, establishing environmental liabilities with financial activities, and involving issues related to climate change, and biodiversity and ecosystem service.     

Identification and assessment of environmental burdens of Chinese copper production from a life cycle perspective

The environmental burdens of Chinese copper production have been identified and quantified in the context of typical technologies, materials supplies and environmental emissions by a life cycle approach. Primary and secondary copper production using copper ores and scraps, respectively, were analyzed in detail. The flash and bath smelting approaches and the recycling of copper scraps were selected as representative copper production processes. A quantitative analysis was also conducted to assess the influence of material transport distance in copper production. Life cycle assessment （LCA） results showed that resources depletion and human health contribute significantly to environmental burdens in Chinese copper production. In addition, the secondary copper production has dramatically lower environmental burdens than the primary production. There is no obvious distinction in overall environmental burdens in primary copper production by flash or bath smelting approach. However, resources depletion is lower and the damage to human health is higher for flash smelting approach. Ecosystem quality damage is slight for both approaches. Environ- mental burdens from the mining stage contribute most in all life cycle stages in primary copper production. In secondary copper production, the electrolytic refining stage dominates. Based on the life cycle assessment results, some suggestions for improving environmental performance were proposed to meet the sustainable development of Chinese copper industry.     

城市环境熵模型的建立及其在城市化环境影响评价研究中的应用

城市化是20世纪以来的一个全球性进程,与此同时,城市化对环境的影响也日益明显,并逐渐成为社会各界关注的焦点之一。文章在简单介绍热力学原理的基础理论、城市化概念特别是城市化对环境影响的基础上,从系统的角度深入分析了城市化对环境的影响与热力学熵原理的相似性。由此提出在城市化环境影响评价研究中借鉴热力学方法,提出了城市化环境影响评价的新概念和新方法——"城市环境熵"模型。最后,以珠江三角洲经济区城市化河水质量影响评价为例,运用"城市环境熵"模型进行了具体计算,结果表明,用此模型的评价结果与用均值化综合污染指数法的评价结果基本一致,相对误差为6.67%。可以认为用城市环境熵模型法来评价城市化对城市环境的影响是可行的。     

杭州市城市和郊区表土磷库及环境风险评价

杭州市城市和郊区土壤磷素具有明显的积累特征并有较高的潜在释放能力。可提取态P(包括H2O-P、NaHCO3-P.NaOH-P和HCl-P)平均在80％左右，其中以HCl—P的比例最高，平均约55％。32个研究土样中，26个土样的水可溶性(H20—P)在10mg／kg以上，15个土样的NaHCO3—P在100mg/kg以上。酸性条件下P的释放潜力明显增加。土壤水溶性P含量及在酸性条件下P的释放量与土壤总P呈正相关，与土壤pH负相关。     

Sustainability indicators for environmental performance and sustainability assessment of the productions of four fine Italian wines

Increased awareness of the importance of environmental protection and the introduction of international standards like ISO 14001 stimulated development of environmental sustainability indicators as a means to measure systems environmental performance. Here, a thermodynamic approach, emergy analysis (Odum, 1988) was used to obtain sustainability indicators able to analyse and quantify the productive and ecological performance of four famous Italian wine productions: Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino, Nobile di Montepulciano, and Barbera d'hti. The application to agricultural production was motivated by the growing need for productive and environmentally sound development in modern agriculture, in which the resource base, the environment, is preserved. The choice of wines, more precisely, grape production, is due to their importance for Italian agriculture and the economy. All the wines demonstrated a good long-term environmental sustainability, especially in view of their high quality and in comparison with the average Italian wine production. Emergy analysis proved a powerful tool for assessing environmental performance of these systems, and its use could easily be extended to other wine productions to obtain a form of environmental performance classification of this product. Systematic use of emergy analysis to assess environmental performance of different processes and products, not necessarily in agriculture, could be useful for environmental certification.     

First steps in strategic environmental assessment (SEA) adoption for coastal planning in Sicily (South Italy)

The Industrial District (I.D.) of Messina was the first public authority to consider useful the application of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) procedure for the development of an Industrial Plan regarding a coastal area. At the moment the I.D. includes six areas, but the application of the SEA concerns only the area of Pace del Mela (along the north-eastern coast of Sicily), where a “District of the two Seas” will be created, based on the synergetic development between an industrialized niche (shipbuilding) and touristic development (port and hotels). The area in which this type of intervention will occur is not in use at the moment and it was not possible to collect environmental data. For this reason, in order to describe the environmental features of this territory, we took into consideration a few indicators which could be easily identified, necessary for a post evaluation which considers the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the industrial and suburban structures to be built.     

Critical environmental indicators: performance indices and assessment models for sustainable rural development planning

Sustainable development planning must be based on environmental and biophysical baseline indices that effectively define comparative development potential and environmental constraints. As such, indices must define the comparative advantage of the natural resource base and measure the fundamental capacity to sustain production rates of natural resource goods and services used to create societal well being. Complex biophysical and socioeconomic characteristics affect the identification and selection of sustainable development strategies. When derived from effective baseline indicators, indices may be used to define the spatial and temporal distribution of economically viable production opportunities and may be expressed in derived indices that realistically describe basic production opportunities and guide the selection of feasible, long-term development strategies. Specifically, representative indices are critical in the identification of development goals and realistic objectives and can be used to evaluate, select and implement sustainable development strategies and plans. It is stressed that the relevancy and effectiveness of public policies depend on the identification of representative evaluation models and baseline indices to define development strategies that are both environmentally sustainable and economically viable. In this context, the role of baseline indicators that define natural resource production capacities is discussed. This includes potential resource uses, derived benefits and their economic and environmental impacts. Key thematic indicators are suggested that may be especially useful in identifying development alternatives and impacts. This suggested that clearly defined environmental pollution limits or impact standards be used to define public risk tolerance limits and carrying capacity constraints. It is argued that these measures may be more effective in directing policy choices than economic valuation of non market goods and services that represent environmental externalities associated with resource exploitation options and economic development strategies. To this end, examples of thematic indicators and derived indices are introduced that may prove effective in resource assessment, economic evaluation and strategic development planning.     

Selection and integration of environmental impacts in the Danish transport infrastructure assessment process

Transport projects have numerous consequences for the environment, society and economy, and thus an EU Directive has stated a number of impacts that need to be assessed prior to any major intervention. This paper is set in a Danish context where the EU requirements have been adopted in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regulation along with national requirements. In recent years, however, the EIAs have been criticised for an inconsistent inclusion of impacts and unclear assessment process. A selection of EIAs is for this reason reviewed and compared to the EU Directive and corresponding works in Sweden and the UK to identify potential opportunities for improvements. From the literature study, an overview table with all potential relevant impacts for transport projects is set up to assist the EIA process. For the sake of simplicity and transparency, the impacts selected from this table should, however, be further reduced in number to ensure that only the most important impacts are included in the process. To further increase simplicity and transparency in the EIA process, a novel framework for assessing different types of impacts is proposed. In this framework, a comprehensive decision support tool involving stakeholders is in focus. The framework is supplemented with a procedure for generating objectives and presenting results in an appropriate way to the many stakeholders involved. The impacts overview table and the assessment techniques are applied to a case study to illustrate the process, and finally, conclusions and perspectives for future work within the field are set out.     

欧盟土壤环境评价监测项目及其对我国农用地质量监测的启示

＂十二五＂期间,我国国土资源调查评价的重点任务之一是建立农用地质量监测体系。当前我国农用地质量变化监测技术仍然处于研究探索阶段,欧盟土壤环境评价监测项目是较为成熟的监测项目,可为中国农用地质量监测工作提供借鉴。文章分别就欧盟土壤环境评价监测的相关研究和国内学者对农用地质量监测的研究进行了综述,认为欧盟土壤环境评价监测项目在指标选取、监测网络建立、数据更新技术等方面建立了较为成功的机制。未来中国农用地质量监测工作可在关注土壤环境质量、分类土壤退化原因、针对性地选取指标、应用DPSIR模型、确定监测点的方法、充分利用原有监测网络和监测数据等方面借鉴欧盟经验。     

Methodological approach of coastal areas concerning typology and spatial indicators, in the context of integrated management and environmental assessment

The general objective of this paper is to trigger off the development of a more comprehensive approach to Hellenic coastal areas (in the perspective of territorial cohesion), at local level and especially along the non-urban areas close to the sea. Methodological issues linked to the building of an appropriate coastal database constitute the key goal of this paper (the space and time scale, the relationship to the already proposed set of indicators, the impact of driving forces and policies, the possible sources of data and their feasibility etc.). Furthermore, specific emphasis should be given to the choice of new indicators, particularly for the coastal abiotic environment and the land cover/uses along coastal areas, especially near the seafront. Those indicators should be able to aid the formation (in the near future) of an algorithm linked to the total man-made activities in coastal areas. In conclusion, this paper will be considered successful if the just above illustrated objectives could enrich the argument about the typology of coastal areas and the development of a spatial (coastal) observatory. Actually, this paper is part of a broader research of the author regarding the monitoring of coastal spatial changes in different scales (AMICA, “Appraisal of man-made interventions along the Hellenic coastal areas”). This research aims to broaden the coastal knowledge (not only by means of coastal data) on behalf of all stakeholders been implicated into sustainable spatial planning, integrated coastal management and the strategic environmental assessment along coastal areas.

Evaluating the environmental impacts of an urban wetland park based on emergy accounting and life cycle assessment: A case study in Beijing

In this paper, emergy accounting (EA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) methods are employed to investigate a typical urban wetland park, the Green Lake Urban Wetland Park (GLUWP) of Beijing, in terms of its environmental and capital inputs, ecosystem services and organic matter yields, environmental support, and sustainability. The LCA method is also used to obtain a quantitative estimation of the environmental impact of discharges during the entire life cycle of the GLUWP. Various emergy-based indices, such as emergy yield ratio (EYR), environmental load ratio (ELR), emergy sustainability index (ESI), net economic benefit (Np), and environmental impacts of process-based LCA, including global warming potential (GWP), eutrophication (EU), nonrenewable resource depletion (RU), energy consumption (EN), acidification potential (AP), photochemical oxidant creation potential (POCP), particulate matter (PM) and wastes (W), are calculated. The results show that the GLUWP has higher proportions of renewable resource input, less pressure on the environment, more environmental support and better ecological and economic benefits, which can be considered as an environment-friendly and long-term sustainable ecological practice, compared with another constructed wetland in Beijing. Meanwhile, the dominant environmental impact is induced by POCP with the construction phase contributing the most on the entire life cycle. It is expected that increasing green area, extensively using environment-friendly materials, optimizing construction techniques and reducing power consumption can promote the sustainability of the GLUWP.     

中国农产品产地环境标准中存在的问题与对策研究

目前中国已经颁布的各类产地环境类标准已超过30多个(不含地方标准)，与欧美发达国家同类标准相比，中国现行的产地环境类标准普遍存在着制定程序不严谨、相关标准之间衔接统一不够、标准的科学技术水平不高、标准的针对性与实用性不强、标准与分析检验方法不配套等共同的问题。通过实例和数据，对以上问题进行了研究和分析，提出了改革现行的标准管理模式、加强基础性科学研究、借鉴和引进国际先进标准、培育专业技术队伍等对策措施。     

中国快速城镇化的边际环境污染效应变化实证分析

通过建立模型并实际测算城镇化每增长1个百分点引起的污染物产排放变化量,来分析我国城镇化发展的边际环境污染效应。结果显示,我国城镇化发展与环境污染之间的矛盾仍十分突出,1996-2009年期间,城镇化每增长1个百分点带来的城镇生活污水排放量、COD产生量、NH3-N产生量、NOx排放量、CO2排放量、城镇生活垃圾产生量仍呈上升趋势。由于近年来城镇污水处理率明显提升,城镇化每增长1个百分点带来的COD和NH3-N排放量由＂十五＂的增加逐步转为＂十一五＂的减少;由于城镇生活用煤的减少,城镇化每增长1个百分点带来的SO2排放量在＂十五＂＂十一五＂期间都呈减少趋势。为减少环境污染,我国应选择有中国特色的城镇化发展道路,合理把握城镇化发展速度和节奏,促进城镇与环境协调发展。     

Brood sex ratios, female harem status and resources for nestling provisioning in the great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus)

The theory of parental investment and brood sex ratio manipulation predicts that parents should invest in the more costly sex during conditions when resources are abundant. In the polygynous great reed warbler, Acrocephalus arundinaceus, females of primary harem status have more resources for nestling provisioning than secondary females, because polygynous males predominantly assist the primary female whereas the secondary female has to feed her young alone. Sons weigh significantly more than daughters, and are hence likely to be the more costly sex. In the present study, we measured the brood sex ratio when the chicks were 9 days old, i.e. the fledging sex ratio. As expected from theory, we found that female great reed warblers of primary status had a higher proportion of sons in their broods than females of lower (secondary) harem status. This pattern is in accordance with the results from two other species of marsh-nesting polygynous birds, the oriental reed warbler, Acrocephalus orientalis, and the yellow-headed blackbird Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus. As in the oriental reed warbler, we found that great reed warbler males increased their share of parental care as the proportion of sons in the brood increased. We did not find any difference in fitness of sons and daughters raised in primary and secondary nests. The occurrence of adaptive sex ratio manipulations in birds has been questioned, and it is therefore important that three studies of polygynous bird species, including our own, have demonstrated the same pattern of a male-biased offspring sex ratio in primary compared with secondary nests. Received: 1 June 1999 / Received in revised form: 10 January 2000 / Accepted: 12 February 2000     

转基因生物环境释放风险评估的原则和一般模式

风险评估是转基因生物环境释放依法管理的一项重要内容 ,也是生物安全研究的核心内容之一。本文在分析和比较国内外有关转基因生物风险评估方法的基础上 ,结合作者近年来对转基因生物风险评估的专题研究 ,对转基因生物环境释放风险评估的基本原则和一般模式进行了全面的描述。这种模式一般包括危险识别、风险估算和风险评价 3个连续过程 ,并可分解为 7个具体步骤