广东省土地资源可持续利用评价研究

基于广东省城市化进程中土地资源利用之特点，利用熵权技术和线性加成技术建立了广东省土地资源可持续利用的评价体系，并对广东省1992～2002年期间土地利用的基本状况进行了实证分析，研究表明：广东省土地资源利用状况从总体上看是趋好的，在经历了1992～1995年的弱可持续之后，目前已进入良性发展阶段，其经济指标和社会指标均处于良好发展势头．但资源和环境指标在2000年后呈明显下滑趋势。这应该引起政府及有关部门高度重视。     

Development and non-indigenous species at the global scale

This paper investigates the explanatory power of development, prosperity and regulatory capability as proximate causes of non-indigenous species (NIS) occurrence in different countries, doing this by statistically analysing a global cross-sectional data set. Since the quantification of development is subject to much discussion, two different indicators are tested: gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and the United Nations human development index (HDI). A corruption index is used as an indicator of regulatory capacity. In addition, variables capturing country openness, which facilitates NIS introduction, and habitat conditions, which determine NIS establishment, are included as explanatory variables. The GDP indicator together with the corruption index fits the NIS data best, where the number of NIS is higher in countries with larger incomes. However, countries with relatively high income but low institutional capacity show a larger number of NIS than countries with a similar level of income but with higher institutional capacity. The results also point to the significant contributions of openness and habitat fragmentation to NIS occurrences in the countries.     

Quantitative Evaluation and Analysis on Human Health Risk

Health condition is related to the economic and social development of a country and the whole world. We concluded that the influencing factors of health risk include environment pollution, food security, disease threat and health care condition, and then an indicators system is put forward in the paper. Based on the foundation of the indicators system, 40 countries were chosen to evaluate the condition of human health risk. With the method of Hierarchical Cluster Analysis, 40 countries were divided into four groups, and we analyzed the characteristic of each group. Compared with other countries at the similar development level of economy, the human health risk of China is much higher. We analyzed the correlation between human health risk and the economy development level, and then we concluded that a country should attach importance to improving the condition of human health, when the GNI per capita is between $ 1000 and 3000 US dollars. The stage is vital for economy development, and also for the improvement of the human health condition. We found that countries with high human health risk are mostly in Africa and Asia. The developed countries should help the developing countries reduce the human health risk for a win-win situation of the development of the whole humanity.     

Research on Indicator System of Regional Eco-efficiency: A Case Study of Chengyang District

Abstract

Eco-efficiency is a valuable tool for managing and solving issues involving resource consumption and pollution emission in current production processes. Despite the popularity of the term “eco-efficiency” in business, limited attention has been paid to measuring and reporting regional eco-efficiency for local government policy makers. Based on the concept and method of eco-efficiency, an indicator system of regional eco-efficiency is established in this study. The indicator system comprises 22 indicators, which are divided in to three categories including socio-economic development, resources consumption, environmental pressure. As a promising statistical technique, principle component analysis is used to set the weight of indicators which attempts to calculate the eco-efficiency indices of Qingdao's Chengyang District. The results show that the eco-efficiency of Chengyang District has clearly improved 35.1% with small fluctuation from 1995 to 2003. Socio-economic development index and resources consumption index also represent obvious increasing trends. The correlation coefficient between soci-economic development index and resources consumption index is 0.979, which means the social progress and economic growth of Chengyang District depend on an extravagant consumption of resources. The environmental pressure index in- creased slowly before 1997 and declined gradually after 1997, due to more attention being paid to environmental protection by local government in recent years. Chengyang District still keeps the traditional economic development mode with a high consumption and high production, so the emphases of future development should put on improving the improving the efficient use of natural resources and promoting environmental management sustainability. The results show that the indicators system of regional eco-efficiency is a promising method to quantitatively evaluate resources and environmental efficiency and provide an effective decision-making support for local governments.     

人类健康风险的定量评估与分析

通过深入研究．将人类健康风险解析环境污染、食物安全、疾病流行和医疗保障四个方面。在建立一套评价人类健康风险指标体系的基础上。对40个样本国家进行评估。用聚类分析的方法．将40个国家分为四类，在对每一类国家的人类健康风险特点进行对比发现，在同等经济发展水平下，中国的人类健康风险相对较高。通过分析人类健康风险与经济发展水平的关系得出,人均GNI 1000，3000美元是国家经济发展的关键时期。同样也是改善人类健康状况的关键时期，这一时期国家要高度重视改善人类健康状况。     

基于灰色聚类法的长江经济带中心城市生态安全评价研究

以长江经济带为研究区域,选取长江经济带中心城市武汉市、上海市、重庆市为研究对象,首先运用PSR模型构建具有长江经济带特色的生态安全评价指标体系,包含目标层、准则层、指标层3个层次共31个指标;然后通过主成分分析方法进行权重求解,消除了指标间的影响,使各指标权重更加客观;最后构建基于白化权函数的灰色聚类模型对3个城市2004~2015年的生态安全状态进行评价。评价结果表明:3个城市2004~2015年间生态安全水平总体呈上升趋势,生态安全状态不断好转。     

淮南市持续发展的生态安全评价

淮南市是一所典型的煤炭资源型城市。是建立在资源、环境、经济和社会等子系统上的复杂系统。是城市发展与资源和环境保护之间矛盾较为突出的区域。主要表现在：城市布局不合理。城市整体结构不完善；人类进行煤炭资源开发利用过程中对生态和景观产生了干扰和破坏。从而造成其生态结构、功能的破坏以及量观的破碎化。本研究从压力-状态-响应三方面构建了淮南市生态安全评价指标体系。指标体系包括目标层、系统层、要素层和指标层。并给出了计算各评价指标值之闻均衡度的模型。量后结合RS、GIS技术实施该评价模型。对淮南市为实例进行了分析和评价。评价结果与实际情况基本符合。     

基于可持续发展战略的生态竞争力评价——以安徽省为例

生态资源与经济发展的关系是人类长期关注的热点问题之一。生态竞争力是指一个区域内的生态资源支撑其经济社会可持续发展所具备的资源优化配置的能力,是社会经济发展的基石。依据可持续发展理论,借鉴和参考相关生态环境及区域经济等评价指标体系,建立了以生态环境现状、生态环境压力和主动协调能力3个方面为二级指标的生态竞争力评价指标体系,并以安徽省原17个市为例,运用主成分分析和算术平均法等方法,对各市生态竞争力进行排名和系统分析。初步构建了以生态竞争力为评价指标体系的方法,其结果可为安徽省各市生态建设和经济发展提供科学依据和决策参考     

Human pathogens and their indicators in biosolids: a literature review

A growing beneficial reuse of biosolids in agriculture has led to concerns about potential contamination of water resources and the food chain. In order to comprehend the potential risks of transmission of diseases to the human population, an advanced quantitative risk assessment is essential. This requires good quantitative data which is currently limited due to the methodological limitations. Consequently, further development and standardization of methodologies for the detection, enumeration and viability assessment of pathogens in biosolids is required. There is a paucity of information on the numbers and survival of enteric virus and protozoan pathogens of concern in biosolids. There is a growing urgency for the identification of more reliable alternative indicators, both index and model microorganisms, which could be used for potential public health risk assessment. In this review, we have summarized reported literature on the numbers and fate of enteric pathogens and indicators in biosolids. The advantages and limitations of the use of conventional and alternative index and model microorganisms for the prediction of pathogen presence in biosolids are also discussed.     

城市生态系统承载理论探索与实证--以长江三角洲为例

为深入地探讨城市生态系统内部各要素的相互作用关系,将自然生态系统承载力理论扩展到城市生态系统,提出城市生态系统的承载机制概念。分别从微观作用与宏观表现两个角度提出承载机制模型,即承载递阶模型与水桶模型,初步构建了承载理论框架。在承载理论指导下,采用层次结构模型建立了承载机制评价指标体系,提出承载机制定量评估模型,由此可计算出城市生态系统承载指数,该指数是研究资源支持系统、环境约束系统与社会经济活动三者协调性以及城市生态环境对社会经济活动供容能力的重要判据。最后对长三角具有代表性的8个城市进行了实证研究。结果表明：长三角8个^城市的综合承载指数排序依次为：上海、南京、无锡、宁波、杭州、苏州、常州、扬州。     

The forecasting of municipal waste generation using artificial neural networks and sustainability indicators

The feasibility of modeling municipal waste generation (MWG) for countries at different levels of development using artificial neural networks (ANN) and selected generic indicators of sustainability was investigated. The main goals of this research were to develop ANN-based models for predicting MWG, to overcome the problem of incomplete MWG data, which is notable in developing countries, and to provide a new method for the planning of municipal solid waste management systems as well as for the simulation of various other scenarios. Data from 26 European countries was used in this study as training, test and validation datasets for the developing of ANN models. Since this kind of modeling is particularly important for developing countries where MWG data is missing or incomplete, emphasis was placed on modeling of MWG for Bulgaria and Serbia. Based on a comparison of actual MWG data with predictions given by the model, we show that ANNs can be applied successfully to modeling and forecasting MWG on a national scale. Moreover, the scope for possible application of the model is broad, since it uses generic indicators of sustainability such as gross domestic product, domestic material consumption and resource productivity, and performs well for countries with highly diversified levels of economic development, industrial structure, productivity and output.     

Human well-being, the global emissions debt, and climate change commitment

Energy consumption is fundamentally necessary for human well-being. However, although increasing energy consumption provides substantial improvements in well-being for low and intermediate levels of development, incremental increases in consumption fail to provide improvements for “super-developed” countries that exhibit the highest levels of development and energy consumption. The aim of this note is, therefore, to quantitatively explore the global emissions debt and climate change commitment associated with the gap in energy consumption between the energy-saturated super-developed countries and the rest of the world. Adopting Kates’ identity, I calculate that elevating the current populations in the non-super-developed countries to the energy and carbon intensities of the United States is akin to adding the fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions of more than 15 United States to the global annual total, implying cumulative emissions of almost 4000 GT CO₂ from 2010 through 2050. The inevitability of continued emissions beyond 2050 suggests that the transition of non-super-developed countries to a US-like profile between now and 2050 could, by itself, plausibly result in global warming of 3.2 °C above the late-twentieth century baseline, including an extremely high likelihood that global warming would exceed 1.2 °C. Global warming of this magnitude is likely to cause regional climate change that falls well outside of the baseline variations to which much of the world is presently accustomed, meaning that a US-like energy-development pathway carries substantial climate change commitment for both non-super-developed and super-developed countries, independent of future emissions from the super-developed world. However, the assumption that all countries converge on the minimum energy intensity of the super-developed world and a carbon-free energy system between now and 2050 implies cumulative CO₂ emissions of less than 1000 GT CO₂ between 2010 and 2050, along with a less than 40 % probability of exceeding 1.2 °C of additional global warming. It is, therefore, possible that intensive efforts to develop and deploy global-scale capacity for low-carbon energy consumption could simultaneously ensure human well-being and substantially limit the associated climate change commitment.     

City Blueprints: baseline assessments of water management and climate change in 45 cities

Climate change and urbanization are among the most significant trends of the twenty-first century, affecting global natural resources such as water, economic development and human well-being. The growth of the world population will be absorbed by the cities. The necessity of cities adapting to these trends calls for radical changes in urban water management. In this paper, baseline assessments, i.e., City Blueprints, have been carried out for 45 municipalities and regions in 27 countries, mainly in Europe. The assessments showed that cities vary considerably with regard to their water management. This is also captured in the Blue City Index^® (BCI), the arithmetic mean of 24 indicators comprising the City Blueprint^®. Theoretically, the BCI has a minimum score of 0 and a maximum score of 10. The actual BCIs in the 45 cities and regions varied from 3.5 (Kilamba Kiaxi in Angola) to 8.5 (Helsingborg in Sweden). The BCI was positively and significantly correlated with the gross domestic product per person, the ambitions of the local authorities regarding water management, the voluntary participation index and governance indicators according to the World Bank (2013). The study also demonstrated a very significant correlation between the BCI and the University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index. The impacts of water scarcity and floods in cities are discussed. It is concluded that cities in transitional and developing countries are particularly at risk.     

The effects of globalization on Ecological Footprints: an empirical analysis

Whether globalization is sustainable is a contested issue. The quantitative literature on the Maastricht Globalization Index (MGI) and the KOF index of globalization shows that globalization contributes positively to economic and human development, environmental performance, mortality, gender equality and physical integrity rights. However, globalization also drives within-country income inequality, especially in developing countries. Evidence on the effects of globalization on the ecological environment does not provide clear patterns; various dimensions of globalization have different effects on various pollutants. This article analyzes the statistical relationship between the most recent MGI (2012 edition) and the ecological dimension of sustainable development. The latter will be operationalized by considering four variants of the Ecological Footprint. The relation between globalization and sustainable development will be controlled for GDP per capita as a proxy for affluence and report the results for Pearson’s correlations and multivariate regressions for up to 171 countries. We conclude that the overall index of globalization significantly increases the Ecological Footprint of consumption, exports and imports. The decomposition of globalization into different domains reveals that apart from the political dimension, all dimensions drive human pressures and demands on the environment. Globalization needs to go into new directions if it is to make a contribution toward all aspects of sustainable development.     

生态文明阈值和绿值二步测度:指标-指数耦合链方法

拟破解生态文明测度和评价的现存难题:在指标选取方面,评价目标模糊,指标筛选的主观性强,缺乏结构化方法,导致指标泛化,与一般环境经济评价混淆;在测度标尺方面,无法确定生态文明阈值,对不同文明阶段用同一把尺子去衡量,导致一些非生态文明区域的排名反而靠前;在应用价值方面,综合指标值失去生态经济意义,只是一个抽象的排名数字,导致测度结果不便于理解和运用。为此,依据文明演化的共生理论创立指标-指数耦合链方法,用以导出生态文明测度的阈值和绿值二步指数。依次运用扎根理论法、PSIR及SEM结构模型、足迹家族法、Lotka-Volterra模型等工具,构建从生态文明的指标体系到二步指数的结构化耦合链。全过程始终聚焦生态文明的本质属性——产业与生态的互利共生性:以定性科学属性为出发点,以人与自然复合系统的结构模型为纽带,以生态文明阈值和绿值二步指数定量模型为归宿点。其中,阈值用产业受力指数、生态受力指数和共生度指数3项指数进行衡量,合称为阈值指数;而绿值用1项综合反映区域产业与生态的总量、共生程度和均衡程度的绿值指数进行衡量。据此进行区域生态文明的二步测度。第一步,基于阈值指数的阶段或资格判定:通过产业与生态的共生性,考量被测区域是否进入生态文明门槛,"未入门"区域处于哪一个文明阶段。第二步,基于绿值指数的水平判定:通过产业与生态的互利共生程度,考量"入门"区域的生态文明水平。研究表明,指标-指数耦合链方法不仅可以有效克服单纯指标体系综合法或指数函数法的缺陷和难点,而且能够将两者的长处结合起来。如此,不仅能够避免生态文明测度结果与物质文明"成正比"的弊端,而且能够通过从生态文明二步指数回溯至指标体系的逆向解耦,分析出导致生态文明问题的根本原因,便于提出切中肯綮的对策。     

Research on Indicator System of Regional Eco-efficiency:A Case Study of Chengyang District

Eco-efficiency is a valuable tool for managing and solving issues involving resource consumption and pollution emission in current production processes. Despite the popularity of the term “eeo-efficiency“ in business, limited attention has been paid to measuring and reporting regional eco-efficiency for local government policy makers. Based on the concept and method of eco-efficiency, an indicator system of regional eco-efficiency is established in this study. The indicator system comprises 22 indicators, which are divided in to three categories including socio-economic development, resources consumption,environmental pressure. As a promising statistical technique,principle component analysis is used to set the weight of indicators which attempts to calculate the eco-efficiency indices of Qingdao‘s Chengyang District. The results show that the eco-efficiency of Chengyang District has clearly improved 35.1% with small fluctuation from 1995 to 2003. Socio-economic development index and resources consumption index also represent obvious increasing trends. The correlation coefficient between soci-economic development index and resources consumption index is 0.979, which means the social progress and economic growth of Chengyang District depend on an extravagant consumption of resources. The environmental pressure index increased slowly before 1997 and declined gradually after 1997, due to more attention being paid to environmental protection by local government in recent years. Chengyang District still keeps the traditional economic development mode with a high consumption and high production, so the emphases of future development should put on improving the improving the efficient use of natural resources and promoting environmental management sustainability. The results show that the indicators system of regional eco-efficiency is a promising method to quantitatively evaluate resources and environmental efficiency and provide an effective decision-making support for local governments.     

Are SDGs suitable for China’s sustainable development assessment? An application and amendment of the SDGs Indicators in China

In order to further ensure that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is to be implemented and the action measures of all countries are consistent, the United Nations has put forward a set of indicators to monitor and evaluate the progress of global sustainable development. This set of evaluation indicators is aimed for global and regional progress. An important feature of the evaluation indicators is that they are internationally comparable, but due to the large differences in the levels of sustainable development among countries, this framework of evaluation indicators has a disadvantage that it does not apply to tracking the progress of sustainable development at the national level. This paper focuses on the analysis of specific issues in the application of the global sustainable development indicators framework to meet the goals and targets of the UN and builds a system of evaluation indicators to assess the progress of sustainable development at the national level in China, and offers a perspective to assess China’s progress as well.     

Social cost of environmental pollution and application of counter measures through clean development mechanism: in the context of developing countries

The developing countries i.e., the non-Annex-I countries (parties to the Kyoto Protocol but not responsible to any reduction target yet) in the Kyoto Protocol whose economies are in transition are also allowed to reduce GHG emissions. Among these, the countries that have accepted the Kyoto Protocol may be benefited from CDM projects to promote sustainable development. The developed countries i.e., the Annex-I countries (that have signed the Kyoto Protocol & are responsible to have specific GHG emission reduction target) or the investing countries, in return, have privilege to purchase CER credits (in units equivalent to one tonne of CO₂ gas emission reduction) to meet the emission target as specified in the Kyoto Protocol. The key step in understanding about CDM is to grasp the concept of “baseline” and “additionality”. The “Baseline” is the emissions level that would have existed if a CDM project had not happened. The feature of an approved CDM project is that the planned reductions would not occur without the additional incentive provided by emission reduction credits; this concept is known as “Additionality”. According to environmental additionality concept, baseline emission minus project emission is equal to emissions reduction. “Investment Additionality,” ultimately rejected during negotiation of the “Marrakech Accords” and “Financial Additionality,” are the two important concepts. The concept of trading of CER matches to the idea of Pigovian tax (equal to the negative externality and which is considered one of the “traditional” means of bringing a modicum of market forces) in Economics, making pollution more costly to the polluter, as the polluters have negative cost since they save money by polluting; hence, there are supposed negative externalities associated with the market activity. Economic theory predicts that in an economy where the cost of reaching mutual agreement between parties is high and where pollution is diffuse, Pigovian tax will be an efficient way to promote the public interest and will lead to an improvement of the quality of life measured by the Genuine Progress Indicator and other human economic indicators, as well as higher gross domestic product growth. We can seek a level of pollution such that the marginal savings (MS) to one polluting unit from pollution (−MC) is equal to marginal damage (MD) from pollution over the entire population, since pollution is a public bad i.e., MS (x*) = ∑MD_i (x*) where ∑D_i (x) is the total damage. Though the responsibility of reduction in emission does not lie on the non-Annex-I countries, still effort of maintaining global emission balance can be expected equally from developed and developing countries. The responsibilities of Kyoto Protocol are (a) to reduce global GHG emissions, (b) to bring about sustainable development in the developing countries lie on above two groups since its effect on February 16, 2005. Different polluters have different costs of pollution control. The least costly way of controlling pollution from various sources that reflects different costs of pollution control making the set of environmental regulations to achieve the emission target at the lowest cost makes the regulation cost-effective. Though efficiency is not attainable for many regulations, cost-effectiveness is attainable.     

Strengths and weaknesses of common sustainability indices for multidimensional systems

Sustainability is rapidly moving from an abstract concept to a measurable state of dynamic human-ecological systems. The large number of economic, social, and environmental indicators currently available provides an unwieldy view of system sustainability. To aid policy decisions, these indicators are therefore either presented in the context of a conceptual framework, or quantitatively aggregated into indices. Due to the quantitative nature of sustainability indices, their results may be given more weight by scientists and policy-makers. However, policy decisions can be ineffective or even counterproductive if they do not consider factors which influence index behavior: the scale of the available data and choice of system boundaries; the inclusion, transformation, and weighting of indicator data; and the aggregation method used. As previous reviews have demonstrated, sustainability indices do not rank countries consistently, even when using some of the same indicator data. Several improvements would increase the utility of sustainability indices for policy decisions, particularly the identification of biases introduced by the index methodology and data inclusion. The discrepancy of current sustainability indices due to theoretical or methodological differences supports the use of several complementary indices.     

Derivation of a household-level vulnerability index for empirically testing measures of adaptive capacity and vulnerability

Recent studies have projected significant climate change impacts in Africa. In order to understand what this means in terms of human well-being at local level, we need to understand how households can cope and adapt. This need has led many authors to argue for approaches to adaptation that are based on vulnerability analysis. Vulnerability is one of the key terms in the climate change literature, but little progress has been made in the field of its quantification. Typically, indicators are combined according to a weighing scheme, with the identification of indicators and the weighing schemes based on expert judgment rather than empirical evidence. In addition, most quantitative assessments are applied to countries or other administrative units, whereas managing climate risk has traditionally been the responsibility of households. We therefore focus on the adaptive capacity of households. We analyze the coping strategies and vulnerability to climatic stresses of agro-pastoralists in Mozambique and test the validity of a number of commonly used vulnerability indicators. We derive a household-level vulnerability index based on survey data. We find that only 9 out of 26 indicators tested exhibit a statistically significant relationship with households’ vulnerability. In total, they explain about one-third of the variation in vulnerability between households, confirming the need for more research on underlying determinants and processes of vulnerability. With inclusion of local knowledge, our study findings can be used for local targeting, priority setting and resource allocation. Complemented with studies analyzing climate change impacts and findings from country-level adaptive capacity studies, governmental policy can be informed.