Uncertainty in optimal pollution levels: modelling and evaluating the benefit area

This paper identifies the optimal pollution level under the assumptions of linear, quadratic and exponential damage and abatement cost functions and investigates analytically the certain restrictions that the existence of this optimal level requires. The evaluation of the benefit area is discussed and the mathematical formulation provides the appropriate methods for that to be calculated. The positive, at least from a theoretical point of view, is that both the quadratic and the exponential case obey the same form for evaluating the benefit area. These benefit area estimations can be used as indexes between different rival policies, and depending on the environmental problem, the policy that produces the maximum area will be the beneficial policy.     

Brazilian Amazonia: Industrial development and environmental monitoring

After a critical analysis of the strategies for conservation of the environment in Latin America and of large-scale development projects (agriculture and livestock raising, mining and electrical power plants) in the Amazon region of Brazil, this paper deals with the use of high-resolution satellite imagery for environmental monitoring. Two areas were considered in the study, Tucurui and Altamira. Spot/XS and Landsat/TM multispectral images were used, together with color aerial photographs of these areas. A computer-assisted visual interpretation procedure was employed to analyze images, and linear multispectral transformation was applied in selected subscenes in order to improve information extraction. The results indicate that high-resolution satellite imagery is generally compatible with the scale of the environmental problems in Amazonia and is a very efficient source of detailed information at a local scale on many aspects of the environment, in particular for monitoring changes over time in selected areas. Therefore, commercial satellite imagery, processed by specialized software, can accommodate a variety of analysis needs for decision makers and can also be an effective means of verification of international agreements on conservation of the environment in Amazonia.     

番禺区乡镇水环境污染特点与防治污染对策

本文阐述并分析了番禺区的水环境污染现状与特点,提出了番禺区水环境污染防治对策.     

Nonpoint source pollution, environmental quality, and ecosystem health in China: introduction to the special section

The rapid economic and industrial growth of China, exemplified by a 10-fold increase in its gross domestic product in the past 15 years, has lifted millions of its citizens out of poverty but has simultaneously led to severe environmental problems. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 2.4 million deaths in China per year could be attributed to degraded environmental quality. Much of China's soil, air, and water are polluted by xenobiotic contaminants, such as heavy metals and organic compounds. In addition, soil quality is degraded by erosion, desertification, and nutrient runoff. Air quality is further compromised by particulates, especially in heavily populated areas. Research shows that 80% of urban rivers in China are significantly polluted, and poor water quality is a key contributor to poverty in rural China. Economic and industrial growth has also greatly expanded the demand for water sources of appropriate quality; however, pollution has markedly diminished usable water resource quantity. Desertification and diminishing water resources threaten future food security. In recent years, China's government has increased efforts to reverse these trends and to improve ecosystem health. The Web of Science database showed that the percentage of articles on China devoting to environmental sciences increased dramatically in recent years. In addition, the top 25 institutes publishing the papers in environmental sciences were all in China. This special issue includes seven articles focusing on nonpoint source pollution, environmental quality, and ecosystem health in China. The major issues, and results of these studies, are discussed in this introduction.     

Environmental justice: Co-evolution of environmental concerns and social justice

Summary This paper describes the co-evolution of environmental concerns with civil rights. Over the last 20 years the two issues have found considerable overlap in what is now called the environmental justice movement. The results are exciting, with implications about decision-making, about protecting both environmental quality and civil rights. The promotion of environmental justice spurs social progress. Safeguarding the health of the environment(s) reinforces civil rights.The opinions in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the institutions with which they are affiliated.     

Global environmental change: the contribution of social science research to policy in the UK

Research into global environmental change in the United Kingdom, has sought to influence public policy. It has also served to refashion the social sciences themselves, forcing them to consider sustainability as a dimension of all social and economic behaviour. This paper describes the way in which the principle of enhanced sustainability might become a point of reference in social science research. It discusses, some of the lessons that have been learned from the Global Environmental Change Programme and then considers the relationship between this work and research on the environment undertaken within the natural sciences.This paper was presented as a keynote delivery at the Global Forum '94 Conference Towards a sustainable Future: Promoting Sustainable Development, Manchester, UK.     

Urban sustainability and environmental justice: evaluating the linkages in public planning/policy discourse

Many cities' municipal governments have made some version of “sustainability” an explicit policy goal over the past two decades. Previous research has documented how the operationalisation and conceptualisation of sustainability in urban sustainability plans vary greatly among cities, particularly with respect to environmental justice. This article reports on whether and how large American cities incorporate environmental justice into their urban sustainability indicator projects. Our findings suggest that while there has been an increase in the number of cities incorporating environmental justice elements into sustainability plans since the early 2000s, their conceptualizations and implementations of sustainability remain highly constrained. The paucity of evaluative tools suggests that environmental justice efforts are potentially losing traction in public debate over macro-scale sustainability concerns (e.g. climate change) or the need for regionally competitive environmental amenities (e.g. parks). This paper concludes with suggestions for revising existing sustainability plans to better reflect environmental justice concerns.     

The Europeanisation of local environmental politics: Bathing water pollution in south-west England

The influence of European environmental policy is transforming more than just the way that environmental protection is organised and implemented in the UK. The nature of environmental politics is also changing dramatically. The paper examines the implementation of the Bathing Waters Directive in the South West of England to illustrate how Europeanisation opens up new scope and spaces for political action. The legal standards laid down in directives such as the Bathing Waters Directive provide an authoritative yardstick which environmental pressure groups can use to exert pressure at the local as well as the national level. In turn, Europe becomes increasingly viewed in the UK as the moral arbiter of what counts as 'pollution'.     

Vehicular air pollution and asthma: implications for education for health and environmental sustainability

Studies show a direct relationship between occurrence of asthma and increases of particulate matter in the air. Private transportation is found to be a significant contributor to this problem. The objective of this article is to explore this link between air pollution, asthma and vehicular dependency in order to provide recommendations for health and transport policy. This article focuses on the survey of literature on the relationship between vehicular air pollution and asthma; combining it with the literature on vehicular dependency or ‘car culture’ in the global context and in The Netherlands. This article exposes the imbalance of power between patient groups and polluting industries, and the government failure to protect the weaker party can be explained by corporate pressures. It will be argued that since air pollution is tied to the corporate support for the car industry and vested interests in promoting a ‘car culture’, strategic policy that claims to be concerned with public health should explicitly link the present pattern of mobility to public health. This article concludes with a recommendation for raising environmental health awareness by explicitly linking vehicular dependency to respiratory health through a combination of holistic and citizenship education.     

The institutional complexity of environmental policy and planning problems: the example of Mediterranean desertification

Environmental policy and planning problems are inherently complex societal problems whose solution requires the deployment of particular combinations of environmental and human resources to achieve sustainable socio-spatial development. Resources are subject, however, to diverse resource regimes. A stumbling block in devising and implementing solutions is the variance between actual resource regimes and those associated with proposed plans and policies as well as the possibility of combining them optimally. The paper explores how the institutional setting—the numerous and diverse actors and resource regimes involved—affects the output and outcomes of the principal stages of the policy and planning process, it offers proposals for institutional change and it suggests future research directions. Desertification control is analyzed as an illustrative example of a domain where institutional complexity is pronounced and crucial for the feasibility and effectiveness of policy and planning interventions.     

Application of chaos theory to solving the problems of social and environmental decline in Lesotho

This paper examines the definition of chaos theory and its use in different circumstances. The paper explains that environmental crisis is complex, chaotic and unstable and will remain so unless actions are taken to reverse the trend. It further suggests that chaos theory could be used to interpret the crisis and help identify solutions. By recommending the application of chaos theory to the environmental problems in Lesotho, the paper explores some of the key issues that contribute to and perpetuate the environmental situation, for example, the current land tenure system and the problem of overgrazing. In addition, it identifies appropriate and realistic government policies that could be implemented to address the environmental degradation in the country. The paper concludes that the application of chaos theory may be unable to help solve the environmental crisis in Lesotho unless there is political will and commitment and collective effort from all stakeholders, coupled with an attitudinal change.     

Collaborative environmental governance and transaction costs in partnerships: evidence from a social network approach to water management in France

Several studies attempt to explain how collaborative environmental governance processes operate, but the question of why collaboration relationships form has received much less attention. Motivated by this need, this paper provides insights to the broad question: why does collaborative river basin management in France depend so heavily on partnerships made up around a few actors? Accordingly, our analytical framework develops a transaction cost explanation for the extent to which participatory procedures help stakeholders to identify partners and initiate collaboration, and for the causal link between the attributes of these stakeholders and their partnerships. The p2 model is implemented to investigate partnership networks of the key actors that govern the management of the Gironde estuary, the study case. The results provide evidence that environmental institutions bring together heterogeneous actors who might not be ready for collaboration, thereby actors’ perceived power similarity; their geographical proximity and co-presence in formal fora limit transaction costs.     

Big data and predictive analytics to optimise social and environmental performance of Islamic banks

Environment Systems and Decisions - Regardless of known as environment-friendly entities, Islamic banks indirectly impact the environment through their clients’ engagement and slow response...     

Using a choice experiment to measure the environmental costs of air pollution impacts in Seoul

Air pollution, a by-product of economic growth, has been incurring extensive environmental costs in Seoul, Korea. Unfortunately, air pollution impacts are not treated as a commercial item, and thus it is difficult to measure the environmental costs arising from air pollution. There is an imminent need to find a way to measure air pollution impacts so that appropriate actions can be taken to control air pollution. Therefore, this study attempts to apply a choice experiment to quantifying the environmental costs of four air pollution impacts (mortality, morbidity, soiling damage, and poor visibility), using a specific case study of Seoul. We consider the trade-offs between price and attributes of air pollution impacts for selecting a preferred alternative and derive the marginal willingness to pay (WTP) estimate for each attribute. According to the results, the households' monthly WTP for a 10% reduction in the concentrations of major pollutants in Seoul was found to be approximately 5494 Korean won (USD 4.6) and the total annual WTP for the entire population of Seoul was about 203.4 billion Korean won (USD 169.5 million). This study is expected to provide policy-makers with useful information for evaluating and planning environmental policies relating specifically to air pollution.     

Economic transition and environmental sustainability: effects of economic restructuring on air pollution in the Russian Federation

Economic liberalization in former socialist countries may have various implications for their environmental sustainability. Positive effects of this process are potentially associated with improved efficiency, investments into cleaner technologies, responsiveness to environmentally aware markets, and ending subsidies to heavy industries. On the other hand, market liberalization may result in weaker environmental controls, economic instabilities distracting attention from environmental issues, and increasing orientation towards profit-making leading to more intensive exploitation of natural resources. In addition, trade liberalization may result in shifts towards more pollution and resource-intensive industries. This article seeks to quantify effects of economic restructuring in Russia on air pollution from productive economic sectors in the 1990s. Air pollution in Russia had significantly declined in 1991-1999, however, this decline was largely due to economic decline, as the overall pollution intensity of the economy had decreased only slightly. The factors that affected the pollution intensity are: (1) a decrease in the combined share of industrial and transport activities in the economy and (2) changing pollution intensities of the industrial and transport sectors. The pollution intensity of the Russian industry had remained relatively stable during the 1990s. This was the result of the two opposite and mutually canceling trends: (a) increasing shares of pollution-intensive branches such as metal smelting and oil production vs. less pollution intensive manufacturing and (b) decline in pollution intensities within the industrial branches. The article proposes a methodology by which the contribution of both factors to the overall pollution intensity of the industrial sector can be quantified. The pollution intensity of the Russian transport sector appears to have declined in the first half of the 1990s and increased in the second half. The most recent trend can be explained by a rising proportion of private motorcars used for transportation of people and goods instead of traditional rail and other public transport. The findings of the paper demonstrate that shifts towards more pollution-, resource- and energy-intensive industries as a result of economic liberalization emerges as a significant negative factor of the process of economic transition threatening sustainability of emerging market economies. A research agenda to further investigate these impacts is proposed.     

Private sector participation in urban water and sanitation: Realising social and environmental objectives in developing countries

There has been a large increase in private sector participation (PSP) in the urban water supply and sanitation (WSS) sector in recent years. However, even with increased PSP, public authorities will still have to: ensure that the service providers do not use their market power to exploit customers; internalise public health and environmental externalities; provide mechanisms whereby water consumption is sustainable and allocated efficiently between alternative uses; and stand as a guarantor of a level of service provision that is consistent with a basic standard of living. While there is considerable literature addressing the first of these four issues, the latter three are rather less adequately addressed. Through a review of a number of case studies (Abidjan, Buenos Aires/Cordoba, Mexico City and Manila), this paper provides an overview of the issues involved and some of the mechanisms available to the authorities responsible for the regulation of the sector.     

An overview of Turkish research and education in environmental social science

The article presents an overview of environmental psychology research and education in Turkey within the general context of environmental social science. Brief accounts of the context, issues, ideas and methods of research are provided. Reference is made to relevant key research centres and education programmes. The findings of a survey that aimed to reveal the potential and orientations of such research in Turkey are used to support the arguments.The recent environmental social research reviewed indicates conflicting attitudes to the environment as a consequence of the joint existence of Eastern and Western life styles; contradictory conceptualizations of concepts such as crowding, complexity and privacy in comparison to the findings of Western studies, lack of specialization in use of space in the Western sense and a highly male and adult centred place use.A call is made for international collaboration with the developing and industrialized nations for joint work on theoretical and empirical issues in the field of environmental social sciences.     

Assessing pollution levels in sediments of a harbour with two opposing entrances: environmental implications

The harbour of Ceuta, North Africa, differs substantially from conventional harbours with only one entrance since it has two opposing entrances and a channel which increases water renewal and local currents, with implications for sedimentary processes, levels of pollution and oxygen concentration. The distribution of heavy metals, nutrients and total hydrocarbons was investigated in sediment samples from this particular harbour. The grain size effect, a normalization technique using Fe concentrations and different sediment quality guidelines are discussed, and the data from the harbour of Ceuta are compared with other harbours worldwide. In spite of the water renewal, sediments inside the harbour of Ceuta were characterised by moderate levels of pollution, mainly hydrocarbons (496--6972 microg/g), P (282--1350 microg/g), N (100--2600 microg/g) and heavy metals Cu (5--865 microg/g), Pb (10--516 microg/g), Zn (296--695 microg/g), Cr (13--381 microg/g) and Ni (8--671 microg/g). Taking into account that there is no industrial activity around the harbour of Ceuta, the major sources of contamination are the sewage effluents of urban influence, anti-fouling paints and accidental oil spills during loading and dumping involved in shipping operations. The design of Ceuta harbour should be taken into consideration in the design, construction and management of future harbours.     

生物技术在油气田环境污染治理中的应用

介绍了生物技术及其在环境污染治理中的应用状况，根据我国油气田环境污染治理现状，提出了生物技术在我国油气田环境污染治理中重点研究的方向和步骤以及应用前景。     

Coefficients of pollution: Interindustry linkage and pollution in Belgium

The paper briefly develops an approach toward using pollution coefficients from one country as an expedience for applying an environmental economic analysis to a separate, but similar country for which hard data may not be available.The Coefficients are defined based upon information available from the Netherlands and the United States in combination with input-output data available for Belgium. A combination of the various data results in a crude estimate of the direct and indirect pollution generation per unit activity in different sectors on a country-wide basis.