Assessing the visual quality of green landscaping in rural residential areas: the case of Changzhou, China

Changzhou is a typical waterside municipality with approximately 2,500 years of history located south of the Yangtze River. It was an agriculturally oriented region but is becoming an industrialized region. Rural green landscaping in this region possesses characteristics of traditional Chinese gardens. This paper presents a methodology for assessing the visual quality of green landscaping in rural residential areas through public perception-based and expert/design approaches. The former approach enables us to rank green landscaping based on a survey of public preference; the latter weighs the contributions of the attributes contained in a photograph to its overall scenic beauty via correlation, regression, and factor analyses. The photographs used in the survey included road greenways, riparian greenways, residential public gardens and green landscaping around houses, with each type of landscape represented by seven photographs. In total, 141 college students and 41 other participants ranked photographs of each landscaping type from highest to lowest preference. The results indicate that the preferences of students are similar to those of the general public. Examples of green landscaping depicted in the “best” four photographs possessed more attractive qualities regarding the variety of vegetation, richness of colors and a selection of human additions compared to those depicted in the “worst” photographs. The perceived visual quality was positively influenced by, in decreasing order of importance, the variety of vegetation, color contrast, the openness of green spaces, the area of vegetation, and positive man-made elements; conversely, it was negatively influenced by the type of topography. Moreover, some suggestions were offered for future rural greening regarding perceived visual beauty.     

Progressive Optimal Technology-based Border Carbon Adjustment (POT BCA) - A New Approach to an Old Carbon Problem

The idea of Border Carbon Adjustment (BCA), which makes it possible to transform the standard tax on carbon emissions from production (origin principle) to a tax system imposed at the point of consumption (destination principle), has received a considerable amount of attention from academia and policymakers. In this paper, we go back to the source of environmental destination-based taxation and generalize the results of Markusen (Journal of International Economics, 5, 15–29, 1975) for optimal tax and tariff by extending domestic environmental policy on both goods featuring positive carbon intensities. Following Jakob et al. (Environmental and Resource Economics, 56(1), 47–72, 2013) we remove the strategic term from the optimal tariff and deal with the so-called optimal carbon tariff, targeting primarily environmental externality. Further, we develop a handy approximation for optimal tax and optimal carbon tariff structure in a multiple good setting. Such trade taxation is, however, likely to face further legal obstacles, which may hinder its implementation. This motivates us to adjust the results accordingly and to include refunds for low-carbon investments in a ‘dirty’ country granted proportionally to the difference in carbon intensities between trade partners. This new scheme, known as Progressive Optimal Technology-based Border Carbon Adjustment (POT BCA), mitigates several legal problems and increases political acceptance compared to the ‘standard’ BCA. It can also be seen as advantageous from the economic point of view: it mimics the performance of the optimal carbon tariff while aiming to decrease foreign carbon intensity over the long term.     

Accounting embodied economic potential of healthcare waste recycling—a case study from Pakistan

Proper management of healthcare wastes is a key concern across resource-constrained countries in South Asia. Existing scientific research on this topic usually involves epidemiological and behavioral studies. Similarly, environmental impact assessment of healthcare wastes is mainly conducted from an end-user or anthropocentric point of view. In this study, we took a novel approach by analyzing healthcare wastes using an ecocentric position. Here, we utilize a case study of a general public hospital in a major city of Pakistan to analyze the embodied energy of its waste fractions by category. We used Emergy analysis to assess the true economic potential of recycling these waste items. While doing so, we compared the economic potential of current waste recycling practices with the scenario of 100% recycling of useful waste fractions. We discovered that the latent embodied energy of different recyclable waste fractions made them far more valuable than their existing market prices indicate. This value increased further if the useful waste fractions were completely recycled. In conclusion, this study used empirical evidence to argue in favor of source-segregation and recycling of healthcare wastes so that the higher costs associated with natural resource extraction and processing can be avoided. Future studies considering hazardous healthcare wastes can use the approach taken in this paper to analyze the impact of other practical waste treatment procedures.     

Assessing the Impact of Carbon Tax Differentiation in the European Union

To what extent do the welfare costs associated with the implementation of the Burden Sharing Agreement in the European Union depend on sectoral allocation of emissions rights? What are the prospects for strategic climate policy to favor domestic production? This paper attempts to answer those questions using a CGE model featuring a detailed representation of the European economies. First, numerical simulations show that equalizing marginal abatement costs across domestic sectors greatly reduces the burden of the emissions constraint but also that other allocations may be preferable for some countries because of pre-existing tax distortions. Second, we show that the effect of a single country's attempt to undertake a strategic policy to limit impacts on its domestic energy-intensive industries has mixed effects. Exempting energy-intensive industries from the reduction program is a costly solution to maintain the international competitiveness of these industries; a tax-cum-subsidy approach is shown to be better than exemption policy to sustain exports. The welfare impact either policy – exemption or subsidy – on other European countries is likely to be small because of general equilibrium effects.     

Cost-Benefit Analysis and the environment: The time horizon is of the essence

Cost-Benefit Analysis is a key tool for evaluating welfare gains or losses from an investment. It is now well established that environmental impacts are crucial to consider the full welfare implications of a project. Debate has focussed on approaches to improve the valuation of environmental impacts, and controversy in the discounting of future impacts to present values. The issue of the time horizon of analysis is frequently overlooked. The framing of the time horizon has major implications, as environmental costs and benefits often accrue in the long-term. The technical aspects of setting the time horizon are reviewed, along with updates to practice guidance, noting the longer time horizons now becoming typical. It is demonstrated that the time horizon can have a considerable impact on results, even more substantial than the discount rate. While uncertainty is noted as a technical challenge to longer-term analysis, the use of scenarios and sensitivity testing are noted as an appropriate response. For projects with long-term environmental effects, such as those related to air pollution, climate change and ecosystem damages, it is recommended to use timescales of 100+ years for economic evaluation of the impact. Failing to fully capture these long-term welfare gains and losses will distort analysis with a bias towards those projects that are more carbon-intensive, or environmentally damaging. Such a bias would undermine not only the evaluation, but welfare and sustainable development in general.     

Revisiting urban sustainability from access to jobs: Assessment of economic gain versus loss of social equity

This study has aided an understanding of how the built environment impacts multiple facets of sustainability from perspective of job access that potentially assist in environmental protection, economic development, and social justice. However, the latter two contributions entail tradeoffs that are little-discussed in empirical research. We elaborate upon the manner in which job access affects economic and social sustainability and focus on tradeoffs between the two. We measure and characterize the impact of job access on housing prices and the spatial distribution of disadvantaged populations across New York City, using census data. Results document not only that there are significant positive effects of job access on housing but also that higher housing prices screen out disadvantaged populations and undermine social equity. Findings highlight the paradox in sustainable development that job access seldom exhibits simultaneous positive effects on economic and social equity. We propose that urban built environment might have sigificantimpact on and might be a solution to the tension between economic benefits and social loss regarding job accessibility. That is, appropriate spatial land use planning and public policies could maximize individual welfare and sustainability for future cities-a new perspective of achieving urban sustainability. The major challenge is finding a workable balance between economic and social sustainability that is theoretically sound and empirically feasible.     

global climate change: processes and products – an overview

Our knowledge of global climate change has many uncertainties.Whether global air temperature will increase, by how much, and when,are subject to debate, but there is little doubt that troposphericconcentrations of several trace gases are increasing. While possibleincreases in the average air temperature is a product of these changes,the increases in the trace gases alone will have an effect on agriculture.Increases in the ambient concentrations of carbon dioxide are expectedto have a positive net effect on crop production. In contrast, anyincreases in the penetration of surface-level ultraviolet-B (280–320 nm)radiation, and known increases in surface ozone concentrations, areconsidered to have adverse effects on certain crops. Our presentknowledge of the joint effects on crops of elevated levels of carbondioxide, ultraviolet-B radiation and ozone, and possible alterations in airtemperature and precipitation patterns, is virtually zero. Therefore, anypredictions of the effects of global climate change on agriculture aresubject to significant uncertainties. In contrast, coupling of climatechange (only temperature and precipitation) models to crop productionhas led to a number of future scenarios. In spite of theirpresent limitations, results from these efforts can be useful in planningfor future agriculture.     

L andsat-7 SLC- OFF ETM遥感数据下载及在太湖蓝藻水华监测中的应用

利用互联网上USGS提供的公益性Landsat-7SLC—OFFETM遥感数据下载服务,建立了太湖地区2003年-2008年ETM遥感影像数据库,开展蓝藻水华面积解译和暴发特征分析。统计结果表明,2007年和2008年太湖蓝藻水华暴发呈加剧态势。     

Energy-related carbon emissions mitigation potential for the construction sector in China

China is undertaking a huge number of building and infrastructure projects. As a large consumer of energy-intensive building material, the construction activities provoke large direct carbon emissions in upstream industrial sectors (i.e. embodied carbon emissions). This paper aims to explore how construction-related climate policies could contribute to future national carbon emission mitigation efforts by employing a demand-side input-output model and scenario analysis. First, a hypothetical extraction approach is used to estimate the overall carbon emissions induced by the construction sector in the base year. Then scenario analysis is conducted to quantify the sector's technical potential for carbon mitigation in 2030 and 2050. We find that implementing construction-related climate measures in China could mitigate 2.5 Gt construction-induced CO2 in 2030, and 6.4 Gt in 2050 — more than Europe's annual total carbon emissions in 2015. More efficient electricity use could make a substantial contribution in the short-term. However, material-related initiatives, especially those focused on metal recycling, could yield significant carbon mitigation from 2030 onwards. Our findings suggest China to optimize the relationship between urbanization and construction to comply with the country's climate commitments better. Mechanisms to reform supply-side incentives, such as mandatory carbon labelling for construction material throughout the supply chain, could offer immediate benefits.     

Assessing corporate project impacts in changeable contexts: A human rights perspective

Project-level impact assessment was originally conceived as a snapshot taken in advance of project implementation, contrasting current conditions with a likely future scenario involving a variety of predicted impacts. Current best practice guidance has encouraged a shift towards longitudinal assessments from the pre-project stage through the implementation and operating phases. Experience and study show, however, that assessment of infrastructure-intensive projects rarely endures past the project's construction phase. Negative consequences for environmental, social and health outcomes have been documented. Such consequences clarify the pressing need for longitudinal assessment in each of these domains, with human rights impact assessment (HRIA) as an umbrella over, and critical augmentation of, environmental, social and health assessments. Project impacts on human rights are more closely linked to political, economic and other factors beyond immediate effects of a company's policy and action throughout the project lifecycle. Delineating these processes requires an adequate framework, with strategies for collecting longitudinal data, protocols that provide core information for impact assessment and guidance for adaptive mitigation strategies as project-related effects change over time. This article presents general principles for the design and implementation of sustained, longitudinal HRIA, based on experience assessing and responding to human rights impact in a uranium mining project in Malawi. The case study demonstrates the value of longitudinal assessment both for limiting corporate risk and improving human welfare.     

Dynamic game strategies for construction and demolition waste recycling with learning and reference effects

Construction and demolition waste (C&DW) recycling can effectively reduce the environmental impacts caused by the massive amounts of untreated C&DW, and can promote the sustainable development of the construction industry. This study aims to provide relevant insights for the implementation of C&DW recycling, and can be practically used to guide participants' dynamic strategies in the presence of both the reference price effect and cost learning effect. Based on game theory, a static model is developed as a benchmark, including a construction materials manufacturer and a C&DW recycler under a government subsidy. Then, a dual-period dynamic model combining the learning and reference effects is established to broaden the understanding of C&DW recycling management. On this basis, the decisions and revenues of players are compared and analysed, and managerial insights are obtained through numerical analysis. It is found that both the learning and reference effects affect the manufacturer's decisions and revenues, and that the reference effect has a much greater impact on profit than the learning effect. In addition, only the learning effect has a positive influence on the recycler's recycling efforts and profits, thereby promoting C&DW recycling and reducing environmental impacts. Moreover, government subsidies always benefit the environment and recycler, and as the learning ability becomes stronger, the subsidy becomes more efficient in reducing the environmental impacts and improving the recycler's profit. Comparatively, the impact of subsidy on the manufacturer's profits depends on the learning ability. When the learning ability is relatively high, a higher subsidy is detrimental to the manufacturer in the short term but benefits it in the long term.     

Carbonation and CO2 uptake of concrete

This study developed a reliable procedure to assess the carbon dioxide (CO₂) uptake of concrete by carbonation during the service life of a structure and by the recycling of concrete after demolition. To generalize the amount of absorbable CO₂ per unit volume of concrete, the molar concentration of carbonatable constituents in hardened cement paste was simplified as a function of the unit content of cement, and the degree of hydration of the cement paste was formulated as a function of the water-to-cement ratio. The contribution of the relative humidity, type of finishing material for the concrete surface, and the substitution level of supplementary cementitious materials to the CO₂ diffusion coefficient in concrete was reflected using various correction factors. The following parameters varying with the recycling scenario were also considered: the carbonatable surface area of concrete crusher-runs and underground phenomena of the decreased CO₂ diffusion coefficient and increased CO₂ concentration. Based on the developed procedure, a case study was conducted for an apartment building with a principal wall system and an office building with a Rahmen system, with the aim of examining the CO₂ uptake of each structural element under different exposure environments during the service life and recycling of the building. As input data necessary for the case study, data collected from actual surveys conducted in 2012 in South Korea were used, which included data on the surrounding environments, lifecycle inventory database, life expectancy of structures, and recycling activity scenario. Ultimately, the CO₂ uptake of concrete during a 100-year lifecycle (life expectancy of 40 years and recycling span of 60 years) was estimated to be 15.5%–17% of the CO₂ emissions from concrete production, which roughly corresponds to 18%–21% of the CO₂ emissions from the production of ordinary Portland cement.     

Environmental quality control and environmental games

Conclusion  In this paper we have considered a specific environmental game emphasizing both control-prevention efforts and the propensity to pollute by a firm which adopts a given pollution abatement technology. A random payoff game was constructed and solved under a risk neutral assumption and quadratic utilities for both the firm and the environmental controller. The game thus defined, provides a wide range of interpretations and potential approaches for selecting a control-inspection policies to prevent environmental risks. There are of course many facets to this problem, which could be considered and have not been considered in sufficient depth. For example, more complex control mechanisms and liabilities, the effects of insurance and risk sharing, the application of cooperative efforts and subvention of pollution abatement investments (through tax incentives and their like), etc. have not been considered [5,7]. These are topics for further research. The basic presumption of this paper is that it is very difficult to fully enforce pollution prevention by firms, as a result, some controls are needed to ensure that firms be controlled so that appropriate efforts are carried.     

Measuring the Welfare Cost of Climate Change Policies: A Comparative Assessment Based on the Computable General Equilibrium Model GEMINI-E3

Measuring the welfare cost of climate change policies is a real challenge, raising difficult issues of micro- and macro-economics: cost-benefit analysis on the one hand, foreign trade and international specialization on the second hand. At the domestic level the possible existence of distortions, in particular in the fiscal system, may either increase or alleviate the welfare cost of a climate change policy, as illustrated by the debate on double dividend. Effects on the prices in international markets and distorted competition between countries committed to abate (Annex B) and uncommitted countries affect both the sharing of the burden, in particular through the change in the terms of trade, and the allocation of activities with the frequently waved threat of delocalization. Based on a companion theoretical analysis, the present paper aims at putting order in the welfare analysis of climate change policy and to present and compare various estimations, issuing from macro- or computable general equilibrium models. Beside the global welfare cost, the paper focuses on the marginal abatement cost and its relation to the carbon price.Most present conceptual and applied analysis is based on the case of a single domestic household-consumer. Taking into account several consumers raises new challenges, concerning equity but even more fundamentally the mere definition of fiscal distortion, which have not yet been really addressed.     

Optimal Environmental Policy for a Polluting Monopoly with Abatement Costs: Taxes Versus Standards

In this paper, we characterize the optimal environmental policy for a polluting monopoly that devotes resources to abatement activities when damages are caused by a stock pollutant. With this aim, we calculate the stagewise feedback Stackelberg equilibrium of a (differential) policy game where the regulator is the leader and the monopolist is the follower. Our analysis shows that the first-best policy consists of applying a Pigouvian tax and a subsidy on production equal to the difference between the price and the marginal revenue. However, for a stock pollutant, the Pigouvian tax is not equal to the marginal damages but is given by the difference between the social and private valuation of the pollution stock. On the other hand, if a second-best emission tax is used, the tax is lower than the Pigouvian tax and the difference decreases with the price elasticity of the demand. Finally, we find that taxes and standards are equivalent in a second-best setting. In the second part of the paper, we solve a linear-quadratic differential game and we obtain that the first-best tax increases with the pollution stock whereas the subsidy decreases. Moreover, the tax is negative for low values of the pollution stock, i.e., for low values of the pollution stock, we obtain that the social valuation of the stock is lower than the private valuation. Furthermore, when a second-best policy is applied, the steady-state pollution stock is lower than the steady-state pollution stock associated with the efficient outcome.     

Pollute less or tax more? Asymmetries in the EU environmental taxes – Ecological balance nexus

This paper examines the impact of environmentally related taxes on environmental performance in the EU-15 countries during the period of 1995–2016 by utilizing an innovative non-linear model, which is the panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) model. Although the effectiveness of environmental taxes has been discussed before, the potential effects of these taxes on ecological balance sheets as a measure to reflect human pressures on the environment/ecosystem have not been fully investigated. This paper, therefore, deals with total ecological balance and its main components, which are based on the major types of ecologically productive areas such as cropland, grazing land, forest area, and fishing grounds. The results indicate that revenues from environmentally-related taxes as a share of GDP significantly lower the ecological deficits after exceeding a certain threshold level, but not cropland balance accounts. Thus, well-designed environmental taxes on the optimal level have the potential to reduce environmental problems/ ecological imbalance, if not implemented in conjunction with policies such as tax exemptions, refunds or tax allowances that limit their impact.     

Using a neural network approach and time series data from an international monitoring station in the Yellow Sea for modeling marine ecosystems

The international marine ecological safety monitoring demonstration station in the Yellow Sea was developed as a collaborative project between China and Russia. It is a nonprofit technical workstation designed as a facility for marine scientific research for public welfare. By undertaking long-term monitoring of the marine environment and automatic data collection, this station will provide valuable information for marine ecological protection and disaster prevention and reduction. The results of some initial research by scientists at the research station into predictive modeling of marine ecological environments and early warning are described in this paper. Marine ecological processes are influenced by many factors including hydrological and meteorological conditions, biological factors, and human activities. Consequently, it is very difficult to incorporate all these influences and their interactions in a deterministic or analysis model. A prediction model integrating a time series prediction approach with neural network nonlinear modeling is proposed for marine ecological parameters. The model explores the natural fluctuations in marine ecological parameters by learning from the latest observed data automatically, and then predicting future values of the parameter. The model is updated in a “rolling” fashion with new observed data from the monitoring station. Prediction experiments results showed that the neural network prediction model based on time series data is effective for marine ecological prediction and can be used for the development of early warning systems.     

How to effectively guide carbon reduction behavior of building owners under emission trading scheme? An evolutionary game-based study

The building sector accounts for the largest proportion of global carbon emissions. The implementation of a market-based emission trading scheme offers a wider range of strategic choices and greater flexibility for building owners to reduce carbon emissions, but few of them are enthusiastic and actively engaged. To address the problem, this study explores how governments can effectively guide the carbon mitigation actions of building owners under an emission trading scheme (ETS) by continually adjusting and optimizing their regulation strategies. First, an extended evolutionary game model is built, considering the synergistic effect of multiple regulation policies, to theoretically depict the long-term interactive, extensive correlative, and dynamic feedback relationship between the government and building owners. Second, taking advantage of system dynamics as a policy laboratory, a scenario cultivation and simulation analysis is conducted to fully investigate the implementation effects of different regulation strategies based on the behavioral responses of building owners under different scenarios. The city of Shenzhen is a pioneer in covering the building sector in its carbon trading scheme in China, and its hotels above four stars are selected as the realistic setting for the simulation analysis. The results demonstrate that under the emission trading scheme, compared with increasing levels of carbon monitoring and non-financial incentives for building owners, intervention measures, including penalties, subsidies, and public scrutiny, are more efficient and important for the government. These findings provide important theoretical guidance and practical implications for the government to further adjust and optimize its carbon regulation strategies for the building sector.     

Apportionment of Recycle to Industrial Reuser and Consumer

Reusable products (e.g., packaging) feature a finite lifetime: After a number of trips, if not discarded by the consumer, they are sent for material recycling by the industrial reuser. A method for analytical determination of recycling of no longer reusable products by the industrial reuser is proposed. Industrial reuser recycling is shown to depend nonlinearly on the lifetime and on the reuse retention factor, which is dimensionless and ranges from zero to one. As the retention factor increases, the industrial reuser becomes the main recycler, while recycling from consumer waste recovery disappears and vice versa as the ratio tends to zero. This implies that for highly reusable packaging, post-consumer collection and recycling systems may be unnecessary, and recycling should be credited to the refilling/packaging industry. The total number of reuse trips and the annual reuse frequency have no impact on the industrial reuser recycling level. The results may serve for environmental monitoring of packaging products for apportionment of recycling credit and of reuse/recycling incentives to industry and to post-consumer recycling systems and for planning and sizing of packaging waste recovery facilities (collection, transportation, separation).