机器学习方法在污水处理系统中的应用

由于污水处理系统一般较为复杂且受外界因素影响较多,对其进行精准调控一直是环境领域的难题之一。传统方法无法满足日益复杂的工程项目需求。近年来发展起来的机器学习方法为此类问题提供了一系列有效的解决方案。介绍了人工神经网络、支持向量机、随机森林等机器学习方法的特点,并从水质预测预警、污水处理系统故障诊断和智能控制3个方面阐述了机器学习方法在污水处理领域的应用,分析了机器学习方法相较于传统方法的优势及其应用于污水处理系统中存在的问题,展望了机器学习方法未来在污水处理领域应用的前景和趋势。     

Utilising renewable resources economically: new challenges and chances for process development

In recent years a considerable increase in interest in the development of processes based upon renewable resources has occurred. One reason for this development is the call for more sustainable and environmentally benign production processes and products.Increased utilisation of renewable resources, however, poses new challenges to chemical and process industries. These challenges arise from increased competition for renewable but still finite resources, the de-centralised production of the renewable resources and the complexity of the raw materials. These new challenges require new approaches to process development, as production systems become more complex and interlinked, logistical considerations become increasingly important and new technological solutions must be adapted to local and regional settings. As the structure of complex production systems must be newly developed and optimised, process synthesis will play an increasingly important role in process development.     

环境安全与可持续发展

本文已经提出了如果将环境安全作为人类安全被实现。那就需要较好的环境治理。环境安全可以被理解为一系列的价值观、原则、政策、技术、体制和程序,由此,社区与社会管理环境和自然资源以透明、负责任的参与和公平的方式克服可持续发展的障碍。可持续发展与环境安全是否相互依存、相互促进还需要进一步论证。环境安全和可持续发展之间的关系也常常解释为实际的产出。社会性学习对于应对有关的不安全环境,并导致不可持续发展的挑战至关重要。社会必须利用信息共享、传播和共同的理解改进决策而发展适应改变的能力。这只有通过发展学习型社会才能成为可能。环境安全和可持续发展是社会性学习的产出,而且所有相关方利用创新方法的环境友好政策,是基于环境安全和环境治理的原则为基础的,大大地推动了生态系统的管理、性别公平、尊重人权、解决冲突、建立社区信任为应对未来的意外或潜在风险和新的挑战需要适应性管理,建立社会和生态系统恢复。应集中努力改进人们的生活质量,不要使用超过环境所能承受的自然资源能力。     

A systemic approach to managing multiple perspectives and stakeholding in water catchments: some findings from three UK case studies

As the EU-wide Water Framework Directive enters into public policy, the UK faces significant challenges in managing its water resources, including exceptional flood and drought events in recent years. New legislation is resurfacing existing conflicts and generating new debates among multiple stakeholders about managing water catchments. Existing policies and practices are under strain as a result. This paper reports how the SLIM project in the UK researched the role of a systemic approach to managing multiple perspectives and stakeholding in water catchments and the new challenges this presents to existing forms of knowledge and practice. The authors apply the conceptual tradition of systems thinking and practice, and the methodological approach of systemic co-researching inquiry to empirical studies in the Tweed, the Ythan, and the Eye Brook catchments, in the context of a review of policy and practice in the UK. The extent to which systems approaches to multiple stakeholding can lead to social learning for concerted action is considered. An assessment of the implications of the research findings for policies and practices in managing water catchments concludes the article.     

Innovative policy practices to advance building energy efficiency and retrofitting: Approaches,impacts and challenges in ten C40 cities

This study examines ten programmes to advance energy efficiency and retrofitting of existing, private sector buildings in C40 cities in Asia-Pacific and USA. We set out to identify differing policy approaches, together with potential impacts and implementation challenges for each. Findings unearthed six policy models – both mandatory and voluntary – with unique impacts and challenges. We demonstrate that innovation occurs without new policy inventions and largely by necessity, as new features are added and generic models are adapted to local circumstances. Our sample demonstrated experimentation with benchmarking in the USA, comprehensive regulation in Asia, and voluntary approaches in Australia. Overall, environmental impacts are particularly slow to emerge and plagued with attribution challenges. We found limited evidence of benchmarking programme effectiveness in reducing energy consumption in the short-term, but some indication of mid-term outcomes. Driven by unique local circumstances, the cap-and-trade model stood out by fostering large, sustained and attributable GHG emission reductions and retrofitting. Market and social impacts are highly significant across all programmes, highlighting needs to consider non-environmental impacts in policy evaluation. We emphasise the complementary potential of voluntary and regulatory approaches to advancing energy efficiency and climate resilience. We also underscore the potential for reporting or benchmarking programmes to later transition to models mandating performance improvements, such as cap-and-trade.     

The energy-environment nexus: aerosol science and technology enabling solutions

Energy issues are important and consumption is slated to increase across the globe in the future. The energy-environment nexus is very important as strategies to meet future energy demand are developed. To ensure sustainable growth and development, it is essential that energy production is environmentally benign. There are two temporal issues—one that is immediate, and needs to address the environmental compliance of energy generation from fossil fuel sources; and second that is the need to develop newer alternate and more sustainable approaches in the future. Aerosol science and technology is an enabling discipline that addresses the energy issue over both these time scales. The paper is a review of aspects of aerosol science and engineering that helps address carbon neutrality of fossil fuels. Advanced materials to meet these challenges are discussed. Future approaches to effective harvesting of sunlight that are enabled by aerosol studies are discussed.     

The role of knowledge and research in facilitating social learning among stakeholders in natural resources management in the French Atlantic coastal wetlands

Environmental policy development increasingly refers to procedural approaches where local organisational structures are set up to initiate social interactions, to establish common working methods and to formulate collective agreements. In a context of complexity and uncertainty regarding environmental issues at stake, deliberations are mostly about managing interdependencies, i.e., building agreements and implementing changes so as to reconstruct the links between natural, technical and social phenomena. We see these deliberations as situations where social learning occurs; as an iterative process of knowledge co-production (i.e., of ‘knowing’) among stakeholders brought into interaction. Our research aims at better understanding these processes in the context of French Atlantic coastal wetlands where multi-stakeholder platforms for decision-making have become the dominant process for implementing natural resources management policies. Our studies focus on the challenge of managing the production and application of knowledge in social settings, in which scientists themselves come to play a role. They show how scientific knowledge can acquire heuristic value when used in the context of intervention research, as well as revealing some of the ethical dilemmas this may pose for the role of researcher.     

Environmental supply chain dynamics

This paper investigates the circumstances under which “environmental supply chain dynamics” (ESCD) emerge. ESCD are a phenomenon where environmental innovations diffuse from a customer firm to a supplier firm. Its relevance is based on the argument that systemic approaches are needed to understand the environmental implications of industrial systems, of which supply chains are a key component. Furthermore, buyer–supplier relationships play a critical role in the decision-making processes of most suppliers, which in turn has the potential to stimulate environmental change within the supply chain. Based on case studies in the British and Japanese food retail sector and the British aerospace industry, it will be shown that ESCD emerge if there is a channel leader with sufficient channel power over their suppliers, technical competencies, and are themselves under specific environmental pressure.     

Meeting lifelong learning needs by distance teaching – Clean technology

The role of education and training is increasingly implicit, if not explicit, in environmental legislation and in management system standards. The consequence of these pressures is that organisations must develop their personnel for continuous improvement in environmental performance. Continuing professional development is a lifelong activity that can be supported by distance learning. Some approaches to this are described including various electronic resources, but all emphasise the broad range of issues that come into environmental decision making. The approaches also reflect the growth in corporate environmental reporting and the disclosure of environmental performance indicators. Performance measures of different media are outlined, while the efficiency, especially in relation to energy use, makes distance learning an application of cleaner production principles.     

The proboscis extension reflex to evaluate learning and memory in honeybees (Apis mellifera): some caveats

The proboscis extension reflex (PER) is widely used in a classical conditioning (Pavlovian) context to evaluate learning and memory of a variety of insect species. The literature is particularly prodigious for honeybees (Apis mellifera) with more than a thousand publications. Imagination appears to be the only limit to the types of challenges to which researchers subject honeybees, including all the sensory modalities and a broad diversity of environmental treatments. Accordingly, some remarkable insights have been achieved using PER. However, there are several challenges to evaluating the PER literature that warrant a careful and thorough review. We assess here variation in methods that makes interpretation of studies, even those researching the same question, tenuous. We suggest that the numerous variables that might influence experimental outcomes from PER be thoroughly detailed by researchers. Moreover, the influence of individual variables on results needs to carefully evaluated, as well as among two or more variables. Our intent is to encourage investigation of the influence of numerous variables on PER results.     

Adapting bridge infrastructure to climate change: institutionalizing resilience in intergovernmental transportation planning processes in the Northeastern USA

Multi-level governance networks provide both opportunities and challenges to mainstream climate change adaptation due to their routine decision-making and coordination processes. This paper explores institutionalizing resilience and adaptation to climate change in the intergovernmental transportation planning processes that address bridge infrastructure in the Northeastern United States (USA), specifically in Vermont and Maine. The research presented here relies on nine interviews with policy-makers and planners, a survey of transportation project prioritization criteria, development of a longitudinal bridge funding database, and its integration with publicly available geospatial data. It presents a novel spatial analysis methodology, a modified version of which could be adopted by transportation agencies for prioritizing scarce adaptation funds. Although transportation agencies are undertaking a variety of mitigation activities to address business-as-usual needs, climate change adaptation and resilience efforts remain underprioritized. Adaptation is a global concern, but impacts vary dramatically between regions and require localized solutions. Bridges and culverts, which are especially vulnerable to climate-induced flooding impacts, have complex maintenance and design processes and are subject to convoluted adaptation planning procedures. Critical gaps in resources and knowledge are barriers to improved adaptation planning. Restructuring the transportation project prioritization procedures used by planning organizations to explicitly include adaptation may provide a novel strategy to institutionalize resilience in transportation. These procedures must be considered in the context of the intergovernmental networks that exist to support transportation infrastructure. Although these networks will likely vary across countries, the approaches introduced here to study and address transportation infrastructure adaptation may be applied to many settings.     

Analysis of institutional adaptation: integration of biodiversity conservation into forestry

Integrating biodiversity conservation into forest management requires changes in the practices of those public and private actors that have implementing responsibilities and whose strategic and operational opportunities are at stake. Understanding this kind of context-dependent institutional adaptation entails bridging between two analytical approaches: policy implementation and organizational adaptation. This article combines these two approaches by reviewing them, and their caveats, and by summarizing empirical analyses of organizational competences, specialization, professional judgment, and organizational networks in the organizational field of non-industrial private forestry in Finland. Drawing on these theoretical and empirical analyses, the article discloses the broad phenomenon of institutional adaptation in the integration of biodiversity conservation and forest management. The empirical analyses point to the dominance of hierarchical policy implementation over strategic organizational adaptation. Together with the detected isomorphism of professional norms and networks, these contribute to meeting minimum standards but can constrain the ways in which the organizations and professionals respond to the challenge of biodiversity conservation. The detected inertia signals lack of alertness. It is perhaps also an indication of self-sufficiency among the actors. The interpretation of these responses to challenges and responsibilities across the public and private sector boundaries demonstrates the necessity of combining the two traditionally segregated approaches.     

Games by which to learn and teach about sustainable development: exploring the relevance of games and experiential learning for sustainability

This paper discusses the roles of games in experiential learning for sustainability. It includes applied emphases upon four topics: (1) The challenges of sustainable development education with the need for interdisciplinarity, knowledge, skills and attitudinal training and with a special focus upon the urgent needs for paradigm, context and practice changes to help ensure that we make progress toward sustainable societies. We emphasize that these characteristics challenge existing teaching and educational philosophies and methods. (2) The theory of experiential learning, as developed by David Kolb in the nineteen eighties. We underscore that experiential learning is a good model for education for sustainability. (3) The usefulness of games as tools in learning processes. Various aspects of games are discussed such as the ‘functions of games’ and ‘the different categories of games,’ and ‘the role of games in learning and particular in experiential learning.’ These three aspects form the theoretical part of the paper. (4) Brief reviews of some illustrative games. The authors provide practical advice on how to play games in the context of learning for SD. They underscore facets such as the contextualization of games, technical aspects of playing games and the debriefing after the games have been played. The authors conclude the paper with conclusions that games are potentially relevant in all of the four learning phases of experiential learning. Games are especially relevant in phase four. In this phase games can contribute to helping learners to effect shifts in their personal paradigms, context and practice that are needed for sustainable development. The final conclusion is that many games exist and have been proven to be helpful. Educators are invited to change their curricula to facilitate usage of games as integral components of their educational philosophy tools and practice.     

Clearing the way for reducing emissions from tropical deforestation

Carbon emissions from tropical deforestation account for about 25% of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions but cannot be credited under current climate change agreements. In the discussions around the architecture of the post-2012 climate regime, the possibility of including credits for reduced emissions from deforestation arises. The paper reviews two approaches for this, compensated reductions (CR) as proposed by Santilli et al. and the Joint Research Centre proposal that combine voluntary commitments by non-Annex I countries to reduce emissions from deforestation with carbon market financing. Both approaches have the clear advantages of simplicity and the possibility of fitting to an evolving greenhouse gas emission reduction regime. The authors consider the strengths and limitations of each proposal and build upon them to address several implementation challenges and options for improvement. Given the urgency of avoiding dangerous climate change, the timely development of technically sound, politically acceptable, cost-effective and practicable measures to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation is essential. These two approaches take us a step closer to this goal, but they need to be refined rapidly to enable this goal to be realised.     

Governance across the land-sea interface: A systematic review

Governance across the land-sea interface is an emerging challenge. The propensity for, and intensity of social-ecological interactions across this interface (e.g., eutrophication, sedimentation) are being exacerbated by cross-system threats (e.g., climate change). We draw on a systematic review of 151 peer-reviewed papers on governance and land-sea connections to (1) outline the current state of the literature, (2) examine the predominance of different approaches to address land-sea interactions, (3) characterize how governance is conceptualized within these approaches, (4) investigate governance challenges, and (5) provide insights into effective governance. The review finds that the number of relevant papers published per year has generally been increasing, and most of these papers are found in interdisciplinary journals. Ecosystem-based management is the most predominant approach found in the literature as a means to address land-sea interactions. Papers referring to ecosystem-based management are more likely than those referring to alternative management approaches (e.g., integrated management) to highlight science-policy integration and the need to account for interactions between ecosystem components as elements of effective governance. The main governance challenges include determining boundaries, addressing cross-scale effects, and accessing knowledge. However, few empirical studies of governance across the land-sea interface have been completed. A richer conceptual framework of governance is required to improve our ability to navigate the rapid social and environmental change occurring across the land-sea interface.     

Climate change in the urban environment: Advancing,measuring and achieving resiliency

Climate change poses new and unique challenges that threaten lives and livelihoods. Given the increasing risks and looming uncertainty of climate change, increasing attention has been directed towards adaptation, or the strategies that enable humanity to persist and thrive through climate change the best it can. Though climate change is a global problem often discussed at the national scale, urban areas are increasingly seen as having a distinct role, and distinctive motivation and capacity, for adaptation. The 12 articles in this special issue explore ways of understanding and addressing climate change impacts on urban areas. Together they reveal young but rapidly growing scholarship on how to measure, and then overcome, challenges of climate change. Two key themes emerge in this issue: 1) that we must identify and then overcome current barriers to urban adaptation and 2) frameworks/metrics are necessary to identify and track adaptation progress in urban settings. Both of these themes point to the power of indicators and other quantitative information to inform priorities and illuminate the pathway forward for adaptation. As climate change is an entirely new challenge, careful measurement that enables investment by private and public parties is necessary to provide efficient outcomes that benefit the greatest number of people.     

Framework for participative reflection on the accomplishment of transdisciplinary research programs

In response to the increasingly complex social–ecological issues facing society, there is a growing trend to conduct environmental research in large collaborative programs. This approach is described as transdisciplinary research as it transcends formal disciplinary boundaries, explicitly acknowledges that many different perspectives are relevant to the resolution of complex problems, and actively involves the users of research. This poses challenges for the evaluation of “impact” as any evaluation process must take into consideration the different expectations, values, culture, language and reward structures of the main participating groups, the funders, researchers and end users. How can these participating groups learn about the progress of a transdisciplinary research program in a way that is purposeful and structured, continues through the life of the program, and includes explicit feedback mechanisms that facilitate adaptation during the course of the program? This paper presents a framework for co-reflecting on the accomplishment of transdisciplinary research programs. The framework incorporates the perspectives of funders, researchers and users, and recognizes that while they place different emphasis on measures of achievement such as efficiency, rigor and relevance, ultimate accomplishment in terms of translating knowledge into practice requires that the needs and expectations of all three groups are adequately addressed. What emerges from the framework is the importance of early investment in processes, behaviors and relationships that foster social learning and the co-production of the knowledge and understanding that are required to ensure relevance; while maintaining emphasis in the traditional areas of formally testing evidence and mentoring young researchers to ensure rigor and build confidence and capacity in transdisciplinary approaches.     

Climate change and transdisciplinary science: Problematizing the integration imperative

In this article we critically examine the ‘integration imperative’ in transdisciplinary environmental science and build on social constructivist and political theories to suggest alternative approaches of knowledge co-production in transdisciplinary settings. Our argument builds upon a body of literature in social studies of science to cull insights about knowledge co-production, social learning, and the ecology of team science, particularly as it relates to climate change adaptation. Couched in this transdisciplinary literature, we demonstrate, is the assumption that integration necessarily can and should be a regulative ideal. We critique this assumption by examining the ‘messy’ politics of achieving consensus among radically different, and sometimes irreconcilable, ways of knowing. We argue that the integration imperative conceals the friction, antagonism, and power inherent in knowledge co-production, which in turn can exclude innovative and experimental ways of understanding and adapting to climate change. By way of conclusion, the final section explores three alternative models of knowledge co-production – triangulation, the multiple evidence-based approach, and scenario building – and illustrates their application in the context of transdisciplinary research in climate change adaptation in the arctic, focusing on alternative means of cross-boundary engagement with indigenous ways of knowing.