Social construction of sustainability in water companies in the Dutch coastal zone

This article addresses the question, “How is the concept of sustainable development translated into the business practices of the Dutch drinking water sector?” Two companies along the Dutch coast developed their own versions of sustainability, based upon their particular context and influential stakeholders. Operating in the coastal zone means that they have to deal with vulnerable freshwater systems and this leads to more use of surface water instead of groundwater.     

我国环境空气颗粒物质量基准研究框架及研究体系的构建

空气颗粒物来源广泛、组成复杂,我国目前尚未有一套基于完整科学理论和足量实测数据支持的颗粒物基准体系,导致其来源、暴露水平、健康和环境风险信息量不足,相关标准制、修订的依据不足. 解析了美国环境空气质量管理的模式,并追踪了美国基准文件的发布历程和世界卫生组织导则值的发布和修订历程. 辨析了环境空气颗粒物质量基准与标准的内涵,分析了空气颗粒物质量基准研究对环境空气质量标准制/修订的支撑作用. 综合国外环境基准体系框架构成和已有研究成果,结合国内空气颗粒物质量基准研究现状和存在的问题,基于“污染源—环境空气浓度—暴露水平与剂量—健康/环境效应与风险”的各环节研究方法与目标,提出了“2-4-4”基准研究框架体系,即颗粒物质量基准研究包括空气颗粒物人体健康基准和空气颗粒物环境效应基准两部分,其中人体健康基准包括颗粒物污染特征与来源解析、个体暴露、剂量-效应关系及人体健康效应四部分,空气颗粒物环境效应基准包括颗粒物对生态系统、能见度、建筑物和材料、气候的影响四部分. 建议我国应开展大气污染健康影响前瞻性队列研究和对生态环境影响研究,采用多种方法,包括近期发展的暴露组学方法,系统研究空气颗粒物特别是PM_2.5载带的有毒有害组分对公众健康的危害和风险;基于我国人群或区域调查结果,建立我国空气颗粒物特别是PM_2.5环境质量基准体系,定期发布质量基准文件.      

Trade-offs and performances of a range of alternative global climate architectures for post-2012

Quantitative assessments help to highlight the main features of climate policies by better identifying their strengths and weaknesses. In this study, we develop a grading system for assessing thirteen proposals for post-2012 climate policy. We believe that these proposals contain appropriate policy instruments which will be considered for discussions about how to design the post-2012 climate agreement. Our grades are based on four criteria: environmental effectiveness, cost effectiveness, distributional considerations and institutional feasibility. We analyze the grades with two complementary methods: principal component and cluster analysis. Our results entail three policy implications. Firstly, the higher the number of policy instruments a proposal comprises, the more difficult might be its implementation. Secondly, proposals which include a meaningful effort by the U.S. tend to fail in environmental effectiveness and institutional feasibility. Thirdly, we identify that the “first best” and the “second best” approaches belong to a stable policy group, and both may be considered as suitable candidates for post-2012 climate policy.     

Sustainability Potential Analysis (SPA) of landfills—a systemic approach: initial application towards a legal landfill assessment

Assessing landfills in terms of sustainable development (SD) is a difficult task. Landfills might, for example, remain reactive for hundreds or even thousands of years, a fact that conflicts with the fundamental SD principle of inter-generative equity. The Sustainability Potential Analysis (SPA) is a comprehensive assessment approach that aims at assessing the potential of a system to hinder or support SD from a systemic perspective. In this paper, we present an initial operationalization of this approach for a pragmatic legal landfill assessment and its application to assess two prototypic Swiss landfills as part of a pilot study. Thereby, the six generic criteria of SPA are specified using 18 Functional Key Variables (FKVs), such as “control of pollutant release” or “resilience to intended human impacts.” The first results from the pilot study indicate that SPA and its generic criteria provide a purposeful guiding framework for achieving a systemic and comprehensive SD assessment that seems (i) to be feasible for practical application, (ii) sensitive for relevant SD issues, and (iii) transparent for the addressees of the assessment results.     

Voluntary Agreements as an environmental policy instrument — evaluation criteria

As the resource to voluntary action grows wider, a question must be held on the factors that influence the performance of a Voluntary Agreement as an environmental policy instrument. Our goal in this paper is to answer that question, outlining the main variables that make a Voluntary Agreement simultaneously efficient, effective and just. Using several articles on the subject of voluntary action, under the themes of “economic regulation” and of contracts under “asymmetric information”, as well as available reports on the Portuguese and European experience on the use of Voluntary Agreements, we will undertake this objective following three steps: (i) we begin by underlining the main factors that justify the private and public option for Voluntary Action. (ii) We then present an analysis of the co-regulation process under the requirements of the three E criteria: efficiency, effectiveness and equity. (iii) Finally we conclude by presenting an “evaluation table” that summarises the elements that we found to be the most important for the “performance” of the voluntary action in each one of those criteria.     

我国典型流域镉水质基准研究

对《我国淡水水生生物镉基准研究》一文推算的国家镉基准进行了修正,采用“重新计算法”推算了我国典型流域的镉生物基准,并以辽河上游的大伙房水库为试点,利用“水效应比值法”推算了区域镉基准. 结果表明:我国国家镉急性和慢性基准分别修正为1.81和0.21 μg/L;珠江流域、长江流域、太湖流域和辽河流域的镉急性基准分别为3.60,3.61,3.19和2.95 μg/L;镉慢性基准分别为1.39,0.06,0.04和0.04 μg/L;大伙房水库镉急性和慢性基准分别为2.72和0.05 μg/L. 流域及区域的镉急性基准值全部大于国家急性基准值,但大部分镉慢性基准都严于国家慢性基准.      

“三门六科”水质基准最少毒性数据需求原则

MTDR(最少毒性数据需求)是水质基准推算中数据应用的重要原则. 以重金属Pb2+、Cd2+、Cu2+、Zn2+、Hg2+、Cr6+为例,在广泛搜集物种毒性数据的基础上,通过数据比较分析,初步研究了我国水生生物基准的MTDR. 结果表明:Hg2+、Pb2+和Cu2+基于“三门六科”推导的急性基准值与基于美国“三门八科”MTDR的推算结果相近,分别相差20.5%、25.2%和33.3%;Cd2+、Zn2+和Cr6+的计算结果差别较为明显,表明相对于美国“三门八科”MTDR,在我国生物毒性数据缺乏的情况下,“三门六科”MTDR对于部分污染物基本可行,但仍具有一定的不确定性. “三门六科”包括鲤科、除鲤科外的另一科鱼类(冷水鱼优先)、两栖类、浮游甲壳类、昆虫类和环节动物类.      

Development of weighting factors in the context of LCIA

A new method is proposed for the identification of environmental impact category weights using a panel approach and a MultiCriteria Decision Aid (MCDA) for use within the weighting step in Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA). Seven environmental criteria were assessed by panellists and weights were obtained. The weighting factors of 10 impact categories were calculated according to a four-step procedure: (1) criteria definition; (2) scoring of each impact category (scale of 1–100, 100 causing the most damage) according to seven environmental criteria (human health, ecosystem health, resource consumption as well as scale, duration, reversibility and “distance-to-target”) by a panel of Canadian citizens; (3) assessment of each criterion's importance using a “resistance to change” approach; and (4) criteria aggregation (through MCDA) which allowed the calculation of a final weighting score for each impact category. The greatest advantage of this procedure is the ease with which it can be implemented in a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study whatever the LCIA method is used. Integrating weighting factors specific to the Canadian environmental context into a site-dependant LCIA method will contribute to the progress of LCA in Canada.     

Artificial intelligence in obstetric ultrasound: A scoping review

The objective is to summarize the current use of artificial intelligence (AI) in obstetric ultrasound. PubMed, Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov databases were searched using the following keywords “neural networks”, OR “artificial intelligence”, OR “machine learning”, OR “deep learning”, AND “obstetrics”, OR “obstetrical”, OR “fetus”, OR “foetus”, OR “fetal”, OR “foetal”, OR “pregnancy”, or “pregnant”, AND “ultrasound” from inception through May 2022. The search was limited to the English language. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they described the use of AI in obstetric ultrasound. Obstetric ultrasound was defined as the process of obtaining ultrasound images of a fetus, amniotic fluid, or placenta. AI was defined as the use of neural networks, machine learning, or deep learning methods. The authors’ search identified a total of 127 papers that fulfilled our inclusion criteria. The current uses of AI in obstetric ultrasound include first trimester pregnancy ultrasound, assessment of placenta, fetal biometry, fetal echocardiography, fetal neurosonography, assessment of fetal anatomy, and other uses including assessment of fetal lung maturity and screening for risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes. AI holds the potential to improve the ultrasound efficiency, pregnancy outcomes in low resource settings, detection of congenital malformations and prediction of adverse pregnancy outcomes.     

环境损害司法鉴定意见采信标准研究

作为环境司法审判实践的关键环节,环境损害司法鉴定意见是事实判断与法律判断间的纽带。但科学探究与法律辩护是两种不同的认知模式。科学旨在对现象进行分析形成系统的知识;而法律是在有限的期限内对事实问题进行裁决,因此"事实判断""科学判断"与"法律判断"三者之间存在着天然的语言差异。且由于环境资源类司法鉴定的专业性强,鉴定人与法官的知识背景又各不相同,对该领域的知识可能并不了解,这可能会导致科学家(鉴定人)的科学知识不能与法官的法律知识相衔接,鉴定意见中的科学表述不能转化为法庭审判可以采用的关键证据,直接影响环境损害司法鉴定工作效率。为此,应当建立以真实性和充分性为主要类型的证据采信标准作为环境损害鉴定意见采信规则,提高审判质效,确保环境案件审判的科学性和公正性。     

Making consumption “reasonable”

In light of the theoretical implications from ecological economics and industrial ecology, increased efforts should be undertaken by policy makers to make consumption “reasonable”. To remain sustainable, “reasonable” decisions should take into account the long-term survival of ecosystem and acknowledge the fact that the existence of human species ultimately depends on it. Two additional objectives should complement “reasonable” consumption: (1) changing product systems so that products are properly managed at the end of their useful lives. (2) making products more environmentally friendly. A case study of the Integrated Product Policy of the European Union reveals that it addresses the above objectives selectively. The general conclusions are that “reasonable” behaviour is challenged by conflicting interests of various market actors, that economic reasoning should complement environmentally “reasonable” behaviour, and that “reasonable” consumption should indeed be discussed in conjunction with “reasonable” production.     

Skewness and kurtosis of measured raindrop size distributions

Skewness and kurtosis are used to investigate particle size distributions. A quantitative method is introduced to distinguish between a gamma distribution and an exponential (e.g. Marshall-Palmer) distribution. For this method, two “deviation coefficients” are introduced, which are the skewness and the square root of the kurtosis of the measured distributions divided by their values for an exponential distribution. The method is illustrated with data for raindrop size distributions from four case studies and demonstrates that the data are inadequately described by the Marshall-Palmer distribution, although it does appear to be an “equilibrium” distribution toward which steady precipitation appears to tend.     

内蒙古自治区地震群测群防工作现状调查与对策研究

地震群测群防工作是我国防震减灾工作的一大特色,是群众参与防震减灾工作的重要途径。经过50年的发展,形成了以"三网一员"为主体的群测群防工作新格局。通过问卷调查和访谈等研究方法对内蒙古自治区地震群测群防"三网一员"工作现状进行调查,查找了存在的6类问题,分析了问题根源,并从厘清两类关系、提高重要性认识,坚持属地为主、分级管理体制,落实各负其责、密切配合的工作机制,坚持因地制宜、稳步推进的工作原则四个方面提出相应对策,力求构建一套适合本地区的"三网一员"管理模式,为我区建立群测群防体系运行长效机制提供建议,也为全国群测群防工作提供技术参考。     

Generation of hydrocarbons in source rocks

Generation of hydrocarbons in source rocks is controlled by their temperature history with burial, as well as by quantity, type and structure of their kerogens. The degree to which hydrocarbon generation processes have advanced in a given source rock can be recognized on the basis of elemental analysis of kerogens (H/C-O/C diagrams), as well as by analysis of yield and composition of extractable hydrocarbons. The “liquid window” or main phase of petroleum generation corresponds to a subsurface temperature interval of 60–150 °C. The overall chemical evolution of kerogens and their reaction products in this interval are exemplified here for several source rock series on the basis of organic carbon mass balance calculations. In this way the changes of the ratio of “reactive carbon” to “dead carbon” with maturity increase become obvious.     

An assessment of conservation alternatives of Laelia albida (Orchidaceae) in Zapotitlan Salinas,Puebla, through the Mexican Wild Species Extinction Risk Evaluation Method (MER): Culture and uses of the biological resource

Defining conservation-liable species is one of the main issues that conservation biology faces. Elucidating species selection criteria through institutional regulations and management system settlement are among the challenges that correct biodiversity use presents. In this work, we evaluate a Laelia albida (“white little nun”) orchid population, in the Zapotitlán Salinas Valley, Mexico, through the Mexican Wild Species Extinction Risk Evaluation Method (MER) criteria in order to obtain data that could support the proposal of its being included in a Mexican official norm. On the other hand, we present experiences that help establish other alternatives, which include ex situ and in situ conservation, as well as the inhabitants instruction for the integral development of the resource, specially because this is an ethnobotanically important species embedded in the valley inhabitants cultural life. L. albida is one of the characteristic elements of the “Día de Muertos” festivities altars, a worldwide recognized traditional religious celebration, and one of the most rooted among the Mexican mestizo population.     

中国新型城镇化发展的“C 模式”研究

研究了以美国为首的发达国家城镇化的发展历程,称为“A模式”,主要特征为城市低密度蔓延、全民机动化、资源大量消耗、一次性产品泛滥、过度消费等,总结经验教训,对比中国特色城镇化的发展历程,称为“ B模式”,主要特点是起步晚、水平较低、速度快,从资源与环境的角度分析了中国城镇化发展状况以及面临的形势,指出中国继续以“B模式”的城镇化发展将不可持续,不再适应中国建设“新型城镇化”的发展目标和日益提高的环保要求,探索实现中国“新型城镇化”的发展目标的“C模式”,即是坚持以节约优先、保护优先、自然恢复为原则,走以新型工业化和农业现代化推动下的新型城镇化道路。     

关于土壤环境污染及控制指导值制订问题的探讨

《土壤污染防治行动计划》是国家系统开展土壤污染预防、保护、管控和治理的重大战略部署。文章从污染物来源和土壤污染判断依据两方面探讨了"土壤污染"的概念;提出了我国的"土壤环境污染控制指导值"包括3套指导值,分别为"土壤环境风险筛选值"、"土壤环境修复指导值"和"土壤环境修复启动值",并分析了3套指导值的目标定位、制订策略和执行策略。     

The neglected heart of science policy: reconciling supply of and demand for science

The funding of scientific research is almost always justified in terms of the potential for achieving beneficial societal outcomes. In pursuing a particular societal outcome, how can we know if one research portfolio is better than another? In this paper we conceptualize: (1) science in terms of a “supply” of knowledge and information, (2) societal outcomes in terms of a “demand” function that seeks to apply knowledge and information to achieve specific societal goals, and (3) science policy decision-making as a process aimed at “reconciling” the dynamic relationship between “supply” and “demand.” The core of our argument is that “better” science portfolios (that is, portfolios viewed as more likely to advance desired societal outcomes, however defined) would be achieved if science policy decisions reflected knowledge about the supply of science, the demand for science, and the relationship between the two. We provide a general method for pursuing such knowledge, using the specific example of climate change science to illustrate how research on science policy could be organized to support improved decisions about the organization of science itself.     

陆海统筹视角下茂名市海岸带生态安全格局规划研究

作为国土空间规划的三大战略格局之一,生态安全格局是海岸带地区生态安全的重要保障。本研究遵循“陆海统筹、生态优先”的理念,基于“本底分析-要素识别-格局构建”的总体思路,采用陆海生态敏感性评价、最小累积阻力模型、“源地-廊道-节点”模型等分析方法,规划构建了茂名市海岸带的生态安全格局。结果表明：(1)研究区的海岸侵蚀和特殊生境以不敏感为主,一般生境以轻度敏感为主,水土流失、风暴潮、赤潮、海岸带利用以中度敏感为主,社会经济以高度敏感为主;(2)研究区生态敏感性总体较高,陆海复合系统的综合敏感性指数由陆地向海洋呈现“减小-增加-减小”的空间变化规律;(3)本研究共提取出生态源地21块,面积116.78 km²;识别出生态廊道35条、生态节点24个,分别呈“一横五纵三环”“陆多海少、南多北少”的空间分布格局;(4)本研究构建出“一带、三湾、五廊、多点”的区域生态安全格局,在此基础上提出规划指引,以期为茂名市海岸带的生态文明建设提供科学指导。