Evolution of the regulation of the environmental radiation protection and monitoring in the Russian Federation

The evolution of the Russian Federation legislation and regulation concerning the radiation protection of the population, the environment and the monitoring is presented. The main federal laws--"On the Environmental Protection", "On the Atomic Energy Use", "On the Radiation Safety of Population", etc. as well as standards of radiation safety, sanitary and hygienic norms, international agreements and conventions are briefly summarized. Main directions towards further improvement of the environmental radioprotection regulation in Russia are pointed out.     

A common approach for radiological protection of humans and the environment

Protection of the environment is developing rapidly at the national and international level, but there are still no internationally agreed recommendations as to how radiological protection of the environment should be carried out. The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) is currently reviewing its existing recommendations for human protection. It has set up a task group with the aim of developing a protection policy for, and suggesting a framework of, the protection of the environment that could feed into its recommendations at the start of the 21st century. The task group will propose a framework for the protection of the environment from harmful effects of radiation, harmonising with the principles for the protection of humans. Although the task group has not yet finalised on the objectives for the environment, these might be to safeguard the environment by preventing or reducing the frequency of effects likely to cause early mortality, reduced reproductive success, or the occurrence of scorable DNA damage in individual fauna and flora to a level where they would have a negligible impact on conservation of species, maintenance of biodiversity, or the health and status of natural habitats or communities. To achieve these objectives, a set of reference dose models, reference dose per unit intake and reference organisms will be required.     

论环境治道变革

环境政策型态是指环境政策采取的存在方式。根据我国环境政策的绩效表现和我国市场化改革的前景 ,我国环境政策应从“政府直控型环境政策”转向“社会制衡型环境政策” ,谓之“环境政策转型” ,主要途径是扩大社会环境权益 ,同时适当简化政府环境管理过程。为了进一步激励社会力量的环境保护行动 ,建议设立“环境权益保护日” ,并建立“全国环境保护协会”。     

长江流域生态环境的意义及生态功能区段的划分

中国加入WTO之后,中国经济进一步与国际市场接轨,融入世界经济体系,机遇和挑战同在。欧美各国近年大力推行的环境标志产品认证,对第三世界商品质量设置入关的环境门槛。长江产业带作为世界最大的内河产业带和制造业基地,现在世界通行的环境管理认证体系和环境标志产品的认证,对长江流域产业尤其是外贸出口产业有长远而深刻的影响。这种认证制度,一方面对我出口商品设置了新的障碍,另一方面又将环境保护压力直接施加到企业。重视流域生态环境将从政府行为、公民压力扩展到企业行动,由于流域生态环境的负荷愈来愈重,流域生态环境的自我调节和恢复功能大幅下降,引起了日益严重的流域性生态安全问题。根据长江流域生态环境特征、不同的生态功能及存在的主要生态安全问题,将长江流域划性生态安全问题。根据长江流域生态环境特征、不同的生态功能及存在的主要生态安全问题,将长江流域划分成以下五个不同的生态功能区段,即长江源地区、金少江段（直门达至宜宾）、长江上游段（宜宾至宜昌）、长江中游段（宜昌至湖口段）、长江下游段（湖口至入海口）。针对不同区段主要的生态安全问题,应因地制宜采取相应的防范和整治措施。为保护与恢复生态功能服务。     

海洋环境公益诉讼的制度定位及体系完善

《海洋环境保护法》第89条第2款规定了海洋环境监管部门代表国家排他性提起损害赔偿的诉讼制度,为海洋环境公益提供了特殊的诉讼保护方式。因该项制度设计的粗疏以及关联政策、立法回应不足,造成对该条款规定的理论解释困惑和制度适用障碍,导致提起海洋环境公益诉讼的主体类型受限、海洋环境公益保护诉讼程序衔接不畅、海洋环境监管部门"两种角色"手段配合不当的突出问题,直接限制了环境公益诉讼制度在海洋环境保护领域的功能发挥。破解这一问题的关键在于阐明海洋环境公益保护背后的诉讼法律关系和应用法理,完善海洋环境公益保护诉讼制度体系,实现海洋环境保护的诉权利益调整和诉讼秩序优化。重点是打破现有研究的思维定式,避免将《海洋环境保护法》第89条第2款规定的诉讼类型推演为海洋环境公益诉讼并作为讨论前提,明确该条款规定为带有维护海洋环境公益特点的"准环境公益诉讼",将其与"私益诉讼""国益诉讼""环境公益诉讼"进行合理界分,为海洋环境公益诉讼的发展提供制度空间,理顺各类型诉讼和保护机制之间的关系。在此之下,完善海洋环境监管部门"两种角色"作用发挥的制度设计,保障环境行政手段与诉讼保护手段之间的衔接配合,理顺海洋环境公益保护各类型诉讼提起的顺位与程序,促进各类诉讼手段各归其位,形成与行政保护机制的合力,最终实现对海洋生态环境的整体性保护。     

Designing the next generation of climate adaptation research for development

Adaptation research has changed significantly in recent years as funders and researchers seek to encourage greater impact, ensure value for money and promote interdisciplinarity across the natural and social sciences. While these developments are inherently positive, they also bring fresh challenges. With this in mind, this paper presents an agenda for the next generation of climate adaptation research for development. The agenda is based on insights from a dialogue session held at the 2016 Adaptation Futures conference as well as drawing on the collective experience of the authors. We propose five key areas that need to be changed in order to meet the needs of future adaptation research, namely: increasing transparency and consultation in research design; encouraging innovation in the design and delivery of adaptation research programmes; demonstrating impact on the ground; addressing incentive structures; and promoting more effective brokering, knowledge management and learning. As new international funding initiatives start to take shape, we underscore the importance of learning from past experiences and scaling-up of successful innovations in research funding models.

     

Recent socio-economic changes in relation to environmental quality of the Pearl River delta

Due to the favorable weather, abundant water resources and fertile soil, the area has been known as the homeland for crops and fish. However, being one of the most developed regions in China, the environmental quality of the Pearl River delta has deteriorated due to recent socio-economic changes during the past two decades. The drivers are industrialization and economic growth, population growth and agricultural development; and the pressures are water pollution which include nutrients and suspended solids, pesticides, other persistent toxic substances (PAHs and PCBs) and oil. These have imposed various impacts such as eutrophication, formation of red tides and biomagnification of organic contaminants through food chains. In response to these, regulatory measures have been established by the Environmental Protection Bureau of Guangdong Province, joining forces with environmental protection authorities in all urban cities and most counties, in addition to the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department, to control pollution in order to prevent further environmental deterioration and economic loss. The present paper is an attempt by following the DPSIR approach promoted by the OECD in the early 1990s and further developed by IGBP LOICZ to review the environmental quality of Pearl River with emphasis on water quality and the impact of rapid socio-economic changes.     

森林生态补偿机制若干重点问题研究

我国森林资源有限．并且大多分布在经济欠发达地区。然而森林生态效益的受益者主要是江河中下游地区,一般属于经济较发达地区。因而如何给森林生态效益提供者实施补偿．实现生态公平。建立森林生态补偿机制显得十分必要,这也是当前国内外研究的热点问题之一。结合我国的实际情况．在研究提出我国生态补偿政策总体框架和分析评价国内外森杯生态补偿研究与实践进展的基础上．对森林生态补偿机制的若干重点问题进行操讨：界定了森林生态补偿的内涵与范畴;对补偿森林类型进行分类．主要分为防护林、特种用途林两类;对森林生态补偿标准进行估算．考虑营造林的直接投入、保护森林生态功能而放弃经济发展的机会成本和森林生态系统服务功能的效益三个方面的因素;培育森林生态补偿市场化途径,加强对私人企业的激励机制．建立基金寻求国外非政府组织捐赠机构支持等办法;开征森林生态税,对征收对象、征收范围、征收依据和税率等进行研究;最后提出森林生态补偿的“三步走”战略。包括补偿基金完善阶段。补偿基金与生态税双轨并行阶段。生态税独立运行阶段。     

资源约束与发展中国家的可持续发展战略

本文针对一些经济学家的观点，提出发展中国家的经济发展存在着内能补充与熵增加两个重要的资源约束条件，使得其必须把一般意义上的生产可能性边界修正为可持续的生产可能性边界。在此基础上，作者通过揭示“终极目的”，提出了既能够满足两个资源约束条件又不其最大快乐目标实现的理论构想，为发展中国家实现可持续发展选择一条现实可行的道路。     

International Legal Instruments and Regional Environmental Protection

Efficient environmental protection requires global, as well as regional ecological strategies. During the last decade numerous attempts at regional and global environmental protection have been made. But industrial environmental protection is still, above all, a national matter. National emission limit values and international technological standards still neglect to a large extent the regional aspects of pollution prevention. Recent normative texts (international standards, European directives) can be seen as the first step to filling this gap. They represent different evolutionary stages on the way from merely technocentric to regionally integrated environmental protection. We investigate the potential of some of these normative texts to operationalise regional environmental strategies. For this purpose we will provide a framework for evaluation centred on the following questions: ? Is the installation/project/organisation perceived as part of its specific environment? ? Can local immission standards be developed on the basis of a functional classification of ecosystems? ? Are methods of integrated ecological evaluation supported? The framework will be applied to examine the European directives on Environmental Impact Assessment and Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control and two ISO (International Standardisation Organisation) standards on Environmental Management Systems (ISO 14001 and 14004) with regard to basic requirements for operationalising integrated regional environmental protection.     

EPIC database on the effects of chronic radiation in fish: Russian/FSU data

The paper presents the extraction of data from the EPIC database, outlining the effects of chronic radiation exposure in fish. The EPIC database 'Radiation effects on aquatic biota' is compiled as part of the current EC Project EPIC (Environmental Protection from Ionizing Contaminants in the Arctic). The EPIC database is based on information from publications in Russian (Russian/former Soviet Union data). The data are focused on the effects in fish at relatively low doses of chronic radiation exposure. The effects are grouped by three key endpoints: morbidity, reproduction, and mortality/life shortening. A preliminary scale of dose-effects relationships for fish has been constructed.     

“地球工程”作为减缓气候变化手段的几个关键问题

减缓气候变化可以在大的地理尺度上以工程技术手段来实施。地球工程包括所有能源生产和消费以外的、不涉及工业生产过程管理的,在较大的地球尺度或规模上,去除大气中的CO2或直接控制太阳辐射而降温的各种人为的工程技术手段,主要包括三大类:绿色生物技术手段、碳捕获与埋存技术和太阳光辐射额度控制管理技术。这一类地球工程手段有着一系列经济、技术、环境、伦理、安全和不确定性含义。本文就近年来国际上关于地球工程作为减缓气候变化可能技术选择的几个关键问题开展了分析和讨论,涉及概念界定、技术特点、可能影响、治理构架等。作者认为,对于直接作用于碳的地球工程手段,如绿色生物技术手段和碳捕获与埋存技术,风险小、可操控;太阳光辐管理技术,通过人为排放到大气的SO2和气溶胶等的降温效应,来控制地球气温的上升,尽管使用的经济成本可能不高,具有实际操作可能,但其巨大的不确定性和可能的安全含义,需要引起足够的重视。从伦理上看,当代人是否有权来开展太阳光辐管理技术这类具有巨大科学不确定性的地球工程存在争议,在科学不确定的情况下采取任何行动,就失去了伦理学基础。从法律上看,人工干预太阳辐射,即使是科学实验或研究,由于其影响超出了国界,超出了当代人,也超出了人类社会,如果有人采取行动,也存在法律依据上的质疑。人工干预太阳辐射的研究和实施,需要一个国际治理构架。为了防止其他国家单独行动,需要"相互约束"的治理构架——"自我约束"以换取他国同意"自我约束"。鉴于气候变化和光辐管理在科学上的不确定性,目前不宜实施,短期内也不会提上议事日程。太阳光辐管理技术影响的复杂性和气候变化风险的迫切性,需要我们加大科学研究力度,为科学决策提供依据。中国作为一个新兴经济体,世界第一大CO2排放国,地域空间气候条件存在巨大差异性。从减排成本的角度,从气候影响的空间差异性,开展地球工程的科学研究,有着科学、政策和国际气候外交的积极意义。但是,相关的科学研究需要国际制度构架。由于气候变化框架公约及其谈判尚未涉及,需要开展系统科学、技术、经济、法律和国家安全等方面的相关研究,提高科学认知度,为国际谈判和政策选择提供决策依据。     

Radioactivity in the environment around past radium and uranium mining sites of Portugal

Measurements of ambient radiation doses and determination of radionuclide concentrations in mining waste and soils were performed in 60 areas of former radium and uranium mining. In several places, mining waste and low-grade uranium ore left on the surface contain radioactivity above regional background. Most of the former mining sites present no enhanced radionuclide concentrations. However, in the mining facilities where the radioactive ore was chemically extracted, mill tailings contain materials with elevated levels of radioactivity, up to 200 times the levels in unaffected soils of the region. Mud from neutralization ponds used to treat acid mine waters contains also elevated radionuclide concentrations. Furthermore, depending on the type of waste, the radioelement composition varies. Environmental rehabilitation measures shall take these differences into account in order to prevent in the long term the radioactive contamination of agriculture soils and water resources, and to ensure adequate radiological protection to the public and to the environment.     

Governance, institutions and the environment-income relationship: a cross-country study

This paper examines the environment-income relationship in the context of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), and explores the possible role that factors like governance, political institutions, socioeconomic conditions, and education play in influencing this relationship. The results suggest that the EKC exists for carbon dioxide emissions for cross-country data over the period 1984–2002. However, there is nothing automatic about this relationship; policies designed to protect the environment may be responsible for this phenomenon. Two other significant findings are: one, countries with better quality of governance, stronger political institutions, better socioeconomic conditions and greater investment in education have lower emissions; and two, only around 15% of the countries in the dataset have reached income levels high enough to be associated with an unambiguous decline in emissions. The implications of these results are discussed within the context of the international environmental policy arena and the Kyoto Protocol. One of the main objectives of this paper is to bridge the gap between studies conducted on the EKC and developments in the international environmental policy arena. As a final note this paper emphasizes that one needs to connect the body of knowledge on the EKC hypothesis to the international environmental policy arena, despite the apparent difficulty of doing so. One hopes that future studies will further build on this line of thought.

Perspectives and limitations of indicators in water management

This paper addresses the issue of indicators for water management by considering why we need them, what the characteristics of a good indicator should be, how they can add value to policy and decision-making, and what are their limitations. There are a vast quantity of data available on water in Europe from which a range of basic trend indicators has been derived. Most of these indicators address "what is happening?"-type questions. Some indicators go further and address "does it matter?" questions by assessing trends against prescribed standards and targets. There have been some interesting developments in indicators which help to understand the demand side of water management and to assess the relative efficiencies of resource usage in different socio-economic sectors. More effort is needed to bring together relevant social, economic and environmental information interactively to define indicators that address questions about the sustainability of water use and the contribution of the water environment to our overall quality of life. The development of indicators to date has concentrated on making the best use of available information. However, we now need to move from a position of "best available information" towards "best needed information". This will require better communication between information users and providers. It will also require a rethinking of exactly what our priority knowledge needs are to support policy-making and environmental management. This is essential if we are to obtain the best value from limited monitoring resources by eliminating the current redundancy in reporting requirements and refocusing programmes to deliver priority information needs. Electronic Publication     

Status report on standard-setting work in the area of environmental radioactivity measurement

Environmental assessment studies are regularly commissioned to study the impact of radioactive substances on the environment and the public, in response to concern about the presence of such substances. The credibility of such studies relies on the quality and reliability of radionuclide analysis as well as the sample representativity of the radiological situation. The recent expansion from national stakeholders to those involving other states requires that activity measured in effluents or environmental samples in a country are reliable and reproducible so as to be accepted by all states potentially concerned by regional contamination. The standard-setting approach, based on consensus, seemed to lend itself to a settlement of technical aspects of potential dispute. This document describes standardization organizations, French and international, the standards published, as well as standardization work under way on the measurement of radionuclides found in environmental matrices.     

Ethics, genetics and dynamics: an emerging systematic approach to radiation protection of the environment

There is now a general consensus of opinion that an explicit approach is necessary to demonstrate radiation protection of the environment, and that this approach needs to be developed in a systematic way. The framework that is emerging links ethical and moral issues (anthropocentric, biocentric, and ecocentric) to broad-based principles and objectives of environmental protection (sustainable development, maintaining biological diversity, and habitat protection) and then links these, in turn, to the needs of current environmental management practices, such as environmental exploitation, pollution control, and nature conservation. The relevance of this to radiation is that its effects (such as causing early mortality, morbidity, reduced reproductive success, as well as resulting in observable (scorable) cytogenetic damage) are those that may have a bearing on these same environmental management practices. The devise that would appear to be most useful to bridge the gap between our disparate data on radiation effects and the needs of environmental management, is that of adding to the concept of Reference Man in the shape of a small set of Reference Animals and Plants. This approach has now been adopted by the ICRP, adding new dynamics-the motive forces, both moral and physical-to the subject. The way is now clear for rapid progress to be made on a number of fronts.     

城市化:浙江省推进经济与环境"双赢"的战略选择

改革开放以来,浙江省实际上走的是一条反集聚效应的农村工业化道路,它违背了世界各国城市化要求非农业人口向城市转移的一般规律,这种脱离了城市化的工业化进程,所引发的环境污染主要是通过“市场失效”和“政府失灵”来实现的,并对浙江省经济社会的可持续发展产生了一系列的不利影响。因此,要尽快从以农村工业化为主转到以城市化为主推动经济增长上来,努力探索出一条在推进城市化进程中解决环境污染问题、最终实现经济发展与环境保护“双赢”的新路子。     

ICT applications in the research into environmental sustainability: a user preferences approach

Whether information and communication technology (ICT) constitutes a threat or a cure to environment??s deterioration is controversially discussed. Empirical evidence on the impacts of ICT is rare, so that generalizable lessons can hardly be drawn. This study provides empirical results on the role of ICT in research for environmental sustainability, but instead of ascertaining the impact of ICT on environmental protection, we conduct an analysis of the use of ICT in sustainability research. We assess the preferences of experts in different thematic sustainability fields for applying ICT tools, and we investigate ways to improve the application of these tools in order to augment their returns with respect to environmental protection research. This analysis is based on a set of surveys that were administered to international experts to evaluate the importance of ICT in environmental sustainability research and the research demands in key environmental sectors, such as climate change, natural resources, energy and biodiversity. The methodological framework is built on the analysis of users?? preferences for future developments in ICT tools using stated preferences techniques. Overall results suggest that ICT tools need to be developed in specific contexts, taking into account users?? needs and expectations. Our analysis shows that the use of ICT in environmental research is of great importance in the scientific community, but it can also play a crucial role in the policy context.     

Evaluation of 38 years of radiological environmental data for the nuclear research facility in South Africa

Environmental monitoring has been conducted at the South African National Nuclear Research Facility (Necsa site) for the past 38 years. Included in this monitoring programme was the assessment of water, fish and sediment samples. The objective of this project was to review the data of these assessments to establish if the Necsa activities had any impact on the environment. An assessment of the management of discharge limits was included in the review. Fluctuations in the data reviewed can partly be ascribed to errors in sampling techniques and analysis methods, but mostly to external factors. Two main external factors identified during the review were: dilution effects based on the flowrate in the Crocodile River and the percentage of full capacity of the Hartbeespoort Dam, and the atmospheric fallout from nuclear weapons testing. In this project, the impact of these factors were investigated with the help of correlation coefficient calculations and graphs. It was concluded that the flowrate of the Crocodile River and percentage full capacity of the Hartbeespoort Dam did have an impact on the beta activity measured in water and fish samples, and the (nat)U activities measured in water samples. The measured fallout from nuclear weapons testing in the southern hemisphere also had an impact on the beta activity in water. The assessment of the environmental monitoring data also showed that accidental releases were measurable in the environment. The added routine impact to a member of the public downstream from Necsa was on average an annual dose of 0.54 microSv more than that to a person living upstream from Necsa, which is considered insignificant in international radiation protection norms. The conclusion can be made that the monitoring programme is successful in satisfying its main objective, which is to determine the effects of the discharges on the environment and the immediate population.