Factors affecting the variability of household water use in Melbourne,Australia

This study investigates the variability of household water use in Melbourne with the aim of improving the current understanding of factors affecting residential water use. This understanding is critical to predicting household water demand, particularly at an appropriate spatial and temporal resolution to support Integrated Urban Water Management based planning and to improve the understanding on how different household water demands respond to demand management strategies. The study used two sets of data each collected from 837 households under significantly different water use conditions in the years 2003 and 2011. Data from each household consist of the household characteristics and quarterly metre readings. Ordinary Least Square regression analysis followed by detailed analysis of each factor was used to identify key factors affecting household water use. The variables studied are household size, typology of dwelling, appliance efficiency, presence of children under 12 years, presence of children aged between 12 and 18 years, tenancy, dwelling age, presence of swimming pool, evaporative cooler, and dishwasher. All of them except presence of children aged between 12 and 18 years, tenancy and dwelling age were identified as variables that contribute to the variability of household water use in Melbourne. The study also found that the explanatory capacity of these variables increases with decreasing water use. This paper also discusses the significance of the explanatory variables, their impact and how they vary over the seasons and years. The variables found in this study can be used to inform improved prediction and modelling of residential water demand. The paper also explores other possible drivers to explain residential water use in light of the moderate explanatory capacity of the variables selected for this study thus, provides useful insights into future research into water demand modelling.     

重点工业行业碳排放现状与减排定位分析

基于企业样本数据和省级数据库,本文对中国电力、钢铁及水泥行业进行碳排放量核算、排放集中度分析、达峰情况分类及脱钩状态判断,并通过聚类分析方法判断各省份在减排行动中的定位。结果表明,全国钢铁及水泥行业碳排放量在2014年后增长明显放缓,电力行业碳排放量持续上升;在省级层面,电力、钢铁及水泥行业分别有15个、7个及12个省份碳排放量仍在快速增长;在空间分布上,电力行业碳排放呈现"东高西低",钢铁行业碳排放集中在河北周边,水泥行业碳排放呈现"南高北低中部突出";时间趋势上,各省份电力行业和水泥行业逐渐实现碳排放量与产品产量之间的脱钩,在产量增长的情况下碳排放量增长减缓甚至降低,各省份钢铁行业碳排放量与产量之间的脱钩状态则较为多样化。     

生态资产核算与生态补偿机制研究

生态资产是实现人类可持续发展的重要基础,如何科学评估和核算生态资产并建立生态补偿机制具有重要的学术价值与现实意义。本文从厘清生态资产的概念与范畴出发,梳理了有关生态资产核算方法与生态补偿机制的研究进展,并对下一步研究的重点提出了相关建议。本文认为,加强城市群生态资产相关研究很有必要,建议从生态资产空间流转与代谢的视角出发,综合考虑宏观方法与微观方法相结合,定量化评估生态资产的存量和流量,刻画生态资产的空间流转路径与代谢网络关系,深入分析关键利益相关方的价值偏好,构建市场化生态资产补偿机制,为实现生态资产合理利用提供重要的理论参考与实证参照。     

Situational Waste in Landscape Watering: Residential and Business Water Use in an Urban Utah Community1

Abstract: Landscape water conservation is an important issue for municipalities throughout the Western United States, and especially in Utah as rapid growth strains existing water supplies. We conducted interdisciplinary research in Layton, Utah, that aimed at understanding patterns of landscape water use among households and businesses. The research project involved three basic tasks. First, a landscape “water budget” was developed by producing a calibrated and classified mosaic of landscape type and area from airborne multispectral digital imagery, integrating this information with Layton City parcel boundary data to determine landscape vegetated areas per lot, and estimating irrigation needs derived from reference evapotranspiration (ETo) obtained using weather data for the Salt Lake City metropolitan region. Second, utilizing Layton water billing data, water use for each household and business was identified and categorized as “conserving,”“acceptable” or “wasteful” by determining how much the water applied varied from actual landscape plant need. Third, surveys were administered to a random stratified sample of households and businesses in the study area to investigate various factors that were hypothesized to be predictive of wasteful watering practices. This paper primarily focuses on analysis of the household and business survey data, which explores factors affecting urban landscape water use from a human behavioral perspective. We found that the most significant factors predicting actual water use were the type of irrigation system and whether the location was a household or business. Attitudinal and motivational characteristics were not consistently associated with water use. We found that wasteful watering is the result of many factors embedded in the complex context of urban landscapes. This implies that water conservation programs should identify potential wasteful users through analyses of water billing data and direct water conservation measures at these users by focusing on site‐specific evaluations and recommendations. Water audits or water checks are one such tool that some communities have employed to help people understand and assess the quantity of water needed by and applied to their landscapes. This approach provides an opportunity to evaluate situational constraints at particular locations and design appropriate strategies for reducing water waste.     

Towards a Zero Waste Strategy for an English Local Authority

Many developed countries are using a challenging Zero Waste concept to change current waste management practices to more sustainable methods of managing waste, including household waste. The concept includes waste prevention; high levels of recycling and recovery of all resources from waste; and behavioural change. This research provides a case study on the development of a Zero Waste Strategy (ZWS) for Charnwood Borough Council (CBC), an English Local Authority (LA), which has an established household waste management system.This paper describes the steps taken by the authors, together with CBC to devise and implement a ZWS. A series of focus groups were held involving elected members of the LA and members of the community. The aim was to identify the core aspects of environmental, operational and social demands in order to prioritise actions to be included in a draft ZWS. The draft underwent wider public consultation, which highlighted areas for revision, and following revision has been adopted by the LA. The ZWS takes into account local issues, local policies, alongside national strategies and legislation.Many of the options identified during this research complement each other and if used in combination may see large steps taken towards Zero Waste. This is difficult to achieve without a holistic approach to waste generation, collection, treatment and disposal. Key findings from this research are to switch the focus from recycling to reuse and waste prevention, alongside increasing education and behaviour change programmes for householders. Additionally, the potential value of separately collecting food waste, with a recognised high potential yield, must be explored to ensure meeting targets set in the ZWS and the requirements of the Landfill Directive.     

长三角城市居民家庭直接能耗碳排放空间特征及影响因素研究

目前关于碳排放的研究主要以国家和行政省(自治区、直辖市)为研究对象,围绕城市尺度家庭层面碳排放的研究相对匮乏,而家庭是社会最基本的组成单位,针对相关的碳排放特征及影响问题亟待解决.本文以2007—2016年长三角地区26个地级市数据为样本,测算城市居民家庭直接能耗碳排放量.利用K均值聚类法、空间相关性检验及空间面板建模等方法,考察城市居民家庭直接能耗碳排放量的空间演变分布特征及影响因素.结果表明:①城市居民家庭直接碳排放量高的城市位于长三角中部偏东的位置,排放量低的城市集中在西部位置,中部地区的碳排放量增长速度普遍快于其他地区.②长三角地区城市居民家庭直接能耗碳排放的空间关联程度呈"N"字形趋势,处于高高集聚状态的区域集中在以苏州市等为核心的偏中部地区,处于低低集聚状态的区域集中在西部边缘地区.③前后5年的回归结果对比表明:户均人口数由不显著的正向影响因素转变为重要的抑制因素;户均私家车与每户拥有的城市道路面积联合效应的正向影响作用越来越强烈.研究结论可为城市在动态制定碳减排政策时提供理论依据.     

Mining development,income growth and poverty alleviation: A multiplier decomposition technique applied to China

Mining has grown rapidly and is expected to continue to develop solidly in the future with the economic development in China. Based on this trend, how an increase in the outputs of mining sectors affects household income and poverty alleviation is an issue worthy of study. A multiplier decomposition method within a social accounting matrix (SAM) framework shows the linkages through which a mining sector's output contributes to household income growth and poverty alleviation. The decomposition applied to China reveals that mining development has more significantly positive impacts on the high and middle income household than low income household. Moreover, the decomposition incorporated with the Foster, Greer and Thoerbecke (FGT) poverty measure shows that the ‘coal’ sector contributes most to poverty alleviation and the low income household group, which has the biggest poverty rate, is the smallest beneficiary from the mining development. Thus, the policy implication is proposed that the government should give appropriate adjustment on the distribution of income between rich and poor households and help the unskilled human capital from the household group at a low income level to handle advanced technology of mining through education and training to reduce poverty more effectively.     

Understanding the factors that influence household use of clean energy in the Similipal Tiger Reserve,India

Biotic pressure in and around protected areas (PA) is the primary cause of biodiversity loss in many developing countries across the globe. The pressure comes partly from biomass energy dependency in the form of heavy extraction of fuelwood from the forests. Although biomass fuels provide easily accessible and affordable sources of domestic energy to the rural masses, their combustion results in environmental and health‐related hazards. The objectives of this paper are to assess the patterns of household energy use in a subsistence forest economy and analyze the factors that influence their energy use choice for cooking and lighting. The paper uses primary data collected randomly from 244 households located in and around the Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR), situated in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. Age of the household head, number of days in wage employment, number of adult males and females in a household, education of the household head and landholding size are found to be the major variables that determine household fuelwood collection sources inside the reserve. Considering household structure as an income indicator, the analysis clearly shows that non‐poor households prefer to use clean energy (i.e. solar) for lighting, while poor households tend to use solid fuel. Energy policies for development should be based on the realistic proposition that fuelwood will remain the major source of energy for cooking for substantial proportions of the world’s population. Promotion of public education, social forestry schemes and fuel‐efficient improved chulhas should be encouraged in order to reduce household dependence on fuelwood. Moreover, devolving sufficient property rights over forest resources to local communities may help secure their broad‐based and active participation in the decision‐making process, which may result in a positive change in the attitude of the local people towards biodiversity conservation.     

我国居民生活垃圾分类处理研究综述

居民生活垃圾分类处理是我国生态建设研究的重要内容。随着绿色环保、循环经济的不断推进,如何有效处理居民生活垃圾是我国社会各界亟待解决的问题。以中国知网数据库20多年有关居民生活垃圾分类处理的研究文献为研究对象,对我国学界对此问题的研究状况进行了分析研究。自1996以来我国学界关于居民生活垃圾分类处理的研究不断增加;近15年的研究主题主要集中在我国居民生活垃圾分类回收现状、垃圾处理技术与方法、垃圾分类管理制度及运行机制、其他国家居民生活垃圾分类处理的先进经验介绍等几方面。在综合分析研究现状的基础上,反思现有研究有待加强改进之处,以期为我国居民生活垃圾分类和处理研究提供参考。     

居民生活用电碳排放交易机制研究

个人排放交易被认为可以促进居民参与碳减排,但是因其减排收益难以覆盖高昂的建立和运行成本,降低了公众接受度。本文提出除了考虑碳减排的收益外,更需要关注个人排放交易机制的教育价值、形成正确的激励以及鼓励创新的价值,并提出可以基于当前国内多地实行的阶梯电价制度,利用电力系统现有的用户网络和账户系统,建立居民生活用电碳排放交易机制,以降低成本并实现上述价值。在此基础上,就居民生活用电碳排放交易机制的配额设定与分配、配额交易以及清缴问题做了细致的分析,并提出绿色电力作为补充电力可以免费获得碳配额以促进绿色消费。同时,比较分析了在居民生活用电交易机制和阶梯电价制度下,不同居民家庭以及电力公司的用电成本(收益),指出了其在形成正确的激励方面的作用。最后指出在条件成熟的情况下,居民生活用电碳排放交易机制可以扩展到居民的其他能源消费领域,以实现更为全面的个人排放交易。     

Gifting,ridding and the “everyday mundane”: the role of class and privilege in food waste generation in Indonesia

Current research on household food waste has not considered the impact of the inter-class power dynamics between employers and domestic helpers on food waste management and generation in the Global South. This article focuses on the issue of food justice and will demonstrate that it is important to reconsider household food practices within the framework of unequal power dynamics in household units – especially between employers and their domestic helpers. Informed by food waste regime conceptual framework, this paper will examine the complex food provisioning practices of Indonesian households. The research draws on 21 in-depth interviews with households of varying incomes, multiple site visits, participant observation and going along on grocery trips to better understand the power dynamics and practices that result in, or prevent the generation of household food waste. In addition, 12 key informant interviews with government officials, traditional food vendors, supermarket managers, and a waste collector was also conducted. In an Indonesian context, understanding the interclass dynamics of the household, namely, who gets to define what is “food” and what is “waste” is key to understanding the broader phenomenon of food waste in order to promote solutions to food waste prevention and food insecurity that is socially and environmentally just.     

The energy requirement of cut flowers and consumer options to reduce it

Like all consumer products, cut flowers require energy during their life cycle. The aim of this article is to examine how households can reduce their primary energy requirement for the decorative and gift functions provided so far by cut flowers without reducing their consumption level, also taking into account the financial cost. In 1990, an average Dutch household purchased 11 times one or more bouquets containing a total of about 250 flowers for Dfl. 170, which require together about 2.2 GJ, 1% of the total primary household energy requirement. The energy intensity of flowers is among the highest of all non-energy household purchases: on average 12.9 MJ/Dfl. The high energy requirement of cut flowers makes it interesting to take a closer look at less energy-intensive alternatives, like replacing flowers as a gift with other presents, making more use of flowering indoor plants and selecting less energy-intensive flowers (from abroad, other species, other seasons). The calculations suggest that if all the energy reduction options discussed here are applied to a substantial extent, the cumulative energy required for flowers purchased by an average Dutch household can be halved. More research is needed to investigate the acceptance of the proposed measures and the feasibility of a combination of measures.     

面向城市管理的城市建筑存量研究综述

城市建筑存量研究是为适应当前城市管理的需要而出现的理论研究,与国家制定的城市可持续发展战略具有内在一致性。本文对城市建筑存量的概念进行解析,全面阐述了城市建筑存量研究的意义,概述了城市建筑存量研究的系统边界、内涵和研究方法等,总结了城市建筑存量研究的三大领域：城市建筑存量时空演变及影响因素研究、城市建筑废弃物资源化开发潜力分析研究和城市可持续管理决策支持系统开发的研究现状。目前城市建筑存量理论体系尚不够完善、定量工具和基础数据库严重缺乏,对于城市决策支持不足,未来应在城市建筑存量时空演变及环境影响分析、开发融合多学科交叉及新技术应用的分析方法和辅助城市可持续管理决策三个领域加强和深化研究。     

A Multi‐Scale Analysis of Low‐Rise Apartment Water Demand through Integration of Water Consumption,Land Use,and Demographic Data

Over the past decades, multi‐unit housing developments have been vastly expanded across urban areas due to the population growth. To properly supply water to this growing sector, it is essential to understand the determinants of its water use. However, this task has largely remained unexplored through the empirical study of water demand mainly due to the scarcity of data in this sector. This study integrated apartment water consumption, property characteristics, weather, water pricing, and census microdata to overcome this issue. Using a rich source of GIS‐based urban databases in Auckland, New Zealand, the study developed a large dataset containing the information of 18,000 low‐rise apartments to evaluate the determinants of water use both in the household scale and aggregated scale. The household‐scale demand analysis helped to assess the heterogeneity in responses to the demand drivers specifically water price across different consumer groups, whereas the aggregated analysis revealed the determinants behind the spatial variation in water demand at the census area unit level. Through applying panel data models, the study revealed the household size as the most important determinant of apartment water use in Auckland, where other socioeconomic factors, building features, and water pricing were not significant determinants. This knowledge of determinants of water demand can help water planners to better manage water demand in the compact urban environments.     

Review of socio-economic drivers of community acceptance and adoption of decentralised water systems

The aim of this paper is to highlight key social and economic drivers crucial to understanding community acceptance and adoption of decentralised water systems. The review focused on social science literature pertaining to alternative forms of household water, with an emphasis on research examining decentralised water acceptance. Researchers consistently reported that most communities were open to alternative water sources for domestic applications; however, this was highly dependent upon the level of personal contact with the water. Acceptance and adoption of alternative water technology, such as decentralised systems, was influenced by risk perception, water culture, and threat perception. Motivational drivers were also identified as potentially influencing adoption of decentralised systems. A clear limitation of the literature was found to be an over-reliance on measuring people's intentions to adopt alternative water systems and building a conceptual understanding of acceptance solely on hypothetical water supply scenarios. Further, within the social science literature there appears to be a skewing towards focusing on acceptance of centralised alternative water, such as recycled and desalinated water systems. Although there are some research outcomes that are generalizable to the decentralised water context, it is clear that there is a significant gap in the knowledge base of social drivers specific to the acceptance of decentralised water systems and the factors contributing to its widespread use. It is recommended that future research focus on examining public attitudes relevant to decentralised water systems, as well as adoption behaviours among current users of these systems. This will assist in developing policies specific to domestic decentralised water use.     

Who's in and why? A typology of stakeholder analysis methods for natural resource management

Stakeholder analysis means many things to different people. Various methods and approaches have been developed in different fields for different purposes, leading to confusion over the concept and practice of stakeholder analysis. This paper asks how and why stakeholder analysis should be conducted for participatory natural resource management research. This is achieved by reviewing the development of stakeholder analysis in business management, development and natural resource management. The normative and instrumental theoretical basis for stakeholder analysis is discussed, and a stakeholder analysis typology is proposed. This consists of methods for: i) identifying stakeholders; ii) differentiating between and categorising stakeholders; and iii) investigating relationships between stakeholders. The range of methods that can be used to carry out each type of analysis is reviewed. These methods and approaches are then illustrated through a series of case studies funded through the Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme. These case studies show the wide range of participatory and non-participatory methods that can be used, and discuss some of the challenges and limitations of existing methods for stakeholder analysis. The case studies also propose new tools and combinations of methods that can more effectively identify and categorise stakeholders and help understand their inter-relationships.     

Reluctant pioneers in the European periphery? Environmental activism,food consumption and “growing your own”

East European food self-provisioning (FSP) has fascinated scholars of post-socialism ever since the early 1990s. In keeping with its predominantly economic and cultural conceptualisations, much of this research has been concerned with FSP’s role in household economy and with the social profile of its practitioners. In contrast to western conceptualisations of FSP as an opportunity to expand food activism and foster social justice and environmental sustainability, post-socialist FSP has rarely been considered as such. In Czechia, FSP is practised by 43% of citizens and many of them do so in a relatively environmentally friendly way. Yet, most food-related campaigns run by environmental NGOs (ENGOs) pay little attention to FSP and focus on market-based ethical consumerism and alternative food networks instead. Using insights from actor-network theory, this paper discusses how Czech ENGO activists engage with FSP through discourse and in practice. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with leading activists, we show that FSP does figure in non-food-related campaigns and that the FSP practised by activists themselves or the FSP carried out by relatives and relatives’ friends are not the same as the FSP on which they are reluctant to campaign. These differences, which include controllability and the time-consuming nature of practising FSP according to some of the activists’ ideals, help this paper to come to an initial understanding of why Czech ENGOs do not run campaigns explicitly focused on FSP at the moment and shed some light on how this could change in the future.     

An Experimental Study on the Effect of Electrolytic Concentration on the Rate of Hydrogen Production

The effects of concentration of electrolytes on hydrogen production rate (HPR) at different applied voltages were experimentally evaluated in this research paper. The rate of hydrogen production was found to be directly proportional to the concentration of total dissolved solids and the efficiency did not change much with the change in the concentration of solids. Sensitivity analysis of the electrolysis system was also carried out to understand the relative importance of concentration of total dissolved solids (TDS) on the HPR, which can help for an optimum design.     

Policy And Practice Green Grass and Brown Roots: Understanding Environmental Problems in Deprived Neighbourhoods

Understanding neighbourhood conditions can play an important role in urban environmental management, especially when environmental services are lacking and new approachesare being debated. This paper describes and evaluates three research methods for assessing some of the environmentalproblems facing low income households and communities: (1) broad spectrum household surveys; (2) participatory rapid assessment; and (3) contingent valuation. As part of the study upon which this paper is based, the techniques were applied on a small scale in Jakarta. The paper finds that each technique can provide important and often complementaryinsights. The broad spectrum survey is particularly suitable to broad based planning, participatory appraisal to NGO initiatives and contingent valuation to utility pricing decisions.     

Identifying the key factors in increasing recycling and reducing residual household waste: a case study of the Flemish region of Belgium

The competent waste authority in the Flemish region of Belgium created the 'Implementation plan household waste 2003-2007' and the 'Implementation plan sustainable management 2010-2015' to comply with EU regulation. It incorporates European and regional requirements and describes strategies, goals, actions and instruments for the collection and treatment of household waste. The central mandatory goal is to reduce and maintain the amount of residual household waste to 150 kg per capita per year between 2010-2015. In literature, a reasonable body of information has been published on the effectiveness and efficiency of a variety of policy instruments, but the information is complex, often contradictory and difficult to interpret. The objective of this paper is to identify, through the development of a binary logistic regression model, those variables of the waste collection scheme that help municipalities to reach the mandatory 150 kg goal. The model covers a number of variables for household characteristics, provision of recycling services, frequency of waste collection and charging for waste services. This paper, however, is not about waste prevention and reuse. The dataset originates from 2003. Four out of 12 variables in the model contributed significantly: income per capita, cost of residual waste collection, collection frequency and separate curbside collection of organic waste.