Urban Water Resources Quota Management: The Core Strategy for Water Demand Management in China

Since China has the largest population in the world, the available water resources per capita in China are very limited. With the rapid economic development that is currently occurring, the shortage of water resources at the national level has become extremely critical. How to solve the problems due to water scarcity and water pollution has received increasing attention from the Chinese government and various communities. In order to provide a sustainable development environment for 1.6 billion people in the future, the whole country has started to reform urban water resources management systems in terms of related policies, regulations, methodologies, and technologies focusing on improving the efficiency and effectiveness in water use. Urban water quota management has now become a core strategy in developing a water resources governance model for water demand management aiming at establishing a water-saving society. This paper introduces the main stages and the processes of implementing water quota management in China, analyzes the basic principles, and expounds the elements, information foundation, core module and operational model of the urban water quota management system. It has been demonstrated that urban water quota management has made some remarkable contribution not only in transforming the pattern of water mode and strengthening water management enforcement but also in integrating various management methods in saving water and preventing pollution.     

A preliminary study on potential of developing shower/laundry wastewater reclamation and reuse system

With the ever-increasing urban population and economic activities, water usage and demand are continuously increasing. Hence, finding/re-creating adequate water supply and fully utilizing wastewater become important issues in sustainable urban development and environmental benign aspect. Considering Hong Kong's situation, e.g., lack of natural fresh water, domination of municipal wastewater, etc., developing wastewater reclamation and reuse system is of specific significance to exploit new water resource and save natural fresh water supplied from Mainland China. We propose and have carried out some preliminary studies on the potential of categorizing municipal wastewater, developing grey and storm water recycling system in public housing estate, investigating the feasibility and potential of using reclaimed grey water, etc. Since there is very limited experience in grey water recycling, such initial studies can help to understand and increase knowledge in utilizing grey water, to foresee the feasibility of developing new water resource, to estimate the cost-effectiveness of reclaiming grey water in metropolitan city.     

Sustainable natural resource management through multi-regional cooperation

Management of natural resources has clear implications for local, national, and supranational territorial units because of diverse and fundamental implications linked to how and where they are managed. There is a strong need to go beyond local, regional or even national administrative borders, redesigning new geographical areas and starting cross-border cooperative actions for more sustainable natural resource management. In this paper, European Union and Italian water policies are analysed, showing that, in Italy, the situation regarding institutional actors involved in water management is quite complex, particularly taking a watershed approach. Management of an important watershed in the south of Italy is taken as an example, showing how natural resources could be managed effectively through multi-regional cooperation. In this context, the work presented here introduces Multi-Criteria Decision Aid (MCDA) as a new multidisciplinary approach to structuring and analysing conflicts between stakeholders involved in the decision making process.     

龙口市海水入侵动态系统分析与防治对策

海水入侵已成为全球普遍关注的地下水环境问题,它不仅严重地威胁着人类淡水资源,而且破坏生态环境平衡,制约着社会经济可持续发展。以山东省龙口市为靶区,通过分析研究衡量海水入侵重要因子－氯离子浓度时空分布规律及其影响因素,探索海水入侵动态系统规律,提出防治海水入侵的措施和对策。     

From chemical risk assessment to environmental resources management: the challenge for mining

On top of significant improvements and progress made through science and engineering in the last century to increase efficiency and reduce impacts of mining to the environment, risk assessment has an important role to play in further reducing such impacts and preventing and mitigating risks. This paper reflects on how risk assessment can improve planning, monitoring and management in mining and mineral processing operations focusing on the importance of better understanding source–pathway–receptor linkages for all stages of mining. However, in light of the ever-growing consumption and demand for raw materials from mining, the need to manage environmental resources more sustainably is becoming increasingly important. The paper therefore assesses how mining can form an integral part of wider sustainable resources management, with the need for re-assessing the potential of mining in the context of sustainable management of natural capital, and with a renewed focus on its the role from a systems perspective. The need for understanding demand and pressure on resources, followed by appropriate pricing that is inclusive of all environmental costs, with new opportunities for mining in the wastes we generate, is also discussed. Findings demonstrate the need for a life cycle perspective in closing the loop between mining, production, consumption and waste generation as the way forward.     

Sustainable urban development: definition and reasons for a research programme

The concept of sustainable development is steadily approaching recognition, if not full disciplinary autonomy, becoming the focus of new theoretical and normative reflection. However, the same cannot be said of a more specific field of application of that same concept - the urban environment. In our opinion, this has been hindered until recently by some unresolved problems - of definition, methodology and epistemology - intrinsic in the more general concept, and also by some specificities of the urban case that have not been sufficiently borne in mind. This paper aims at directly facing these unresolved problems, and proposes a definition on which later empirical studies and new theoretical elaborations may be based. A city is, by nature, a manufact, an almost entirely artificial object, constructed for historical goals of socialisation, synergy, increase of knowledge and social wellbeing. A 'weak' concept of sustainability, which permits ample substitutability between production inputs and utility function inputs, is almost impossible to avoid. When considering the problem in its entirety, we must combine the socio-cultural, economic and environmental elements, which all go towards the construction of that complex set of relations we call city. Sustainable urban development may be defined as a process of synergetic integration and co-evolution among the great subsystems making up a city (economic, social, physical and environmental), which guarantees the local population a non-decreasing level of wellbeing in the long term, without compromising the possibilities of development of surrounding areas and contributing by this towards reducing the harmful effects of development on the biosphere.     

Evolution of China’s water issues as framed in Chinese mainstream newspaper

There is an urgent need globally to trigger fundamental societal changes in water management away from existing unsustainable paradigms. This paper attempts to understand the evolution of newspaper coverage of water issues in China by analyzing water-related articles in a major national newspaper, the People’s Daily, over the period 1946–2012 using a content analysis approach. The major findings include the following: (1) water issues were in relatively prominent positions in the newspaper; (2) the reporting of water issues in China experienced three stages: 1946 to the middle of 1980s—flood and drought control and water for food production, the middle of 1980s to 1997—water for economic development, and 1998 to the present—water for the environmental sustainability and economic development; (3) the reporting of water issues in the People’s Daily clearly reflected China’s top-down water resources management system, and no “real” public opinions on water were reported during the study period; and (4) the People’s Daily is just a wind vane of Chinese mainstream values and policies on water. The findings supported the realist assumption that the societal value changes on water issues in China were triggered by a range of factors including biophysical pressure (floods and droughts), political campaign (the Cultural Revolution), macro-economic reform (Reform and Opening-up), water institutional arrangement (the Water Law), and water management reform (the No. 1 Central Document on water reform). While there are similarities and differences between this study and other studies, important implications for more sustainable water management are a need to strengthen academic specialists’ and NGO’s voices in the newspaper to create a better informed public, and to stimulate practices toward sustainable water use.     

Co-design of experimental nature-based solutions for decentralized dry-weather runoff treatment retrofitted in a densely urbanized area in Central America

The quality of water in many urban rivers in Latin America is increasingly degrading due to wastewater and runoff discharges from urban sprawl. Due to deficits in sanitary drainage systems, greywater is discharged to the stormwater drainage network generating a continuous dry-weather runoff that reaches rivers without treatment. One of the main challenges in the region is to achieve sustainable management of urban runoff for the recovery of rivers ecosystem integrity. However, retrofitting conventional centralized wastewater drainage networks into the existing urban grid represents important social, economic and technical challenges. This paper presents an alternative adaptive methodology for the design of Nature-based Solutions for decentralized urban runoff treatment. Through this study, technical solutions commonly used for stormwater management were adapted for dry-weather runoff treatment and co-designed for the particular conditions of a representative study area, considering space availability as the main constraining factor for retrofitting in urban areas. The application of a co-design process in a dense neighbourhood of the Great Metropolitan area of Costa Rica brought to light valuable insights about conditions that could be hindering the implementation of NBS infrastructures in Latin America.     

我国城镇可持续发展的水资源问题与对策

本文简述了我国水资源的现状,指出水短缺和水污染是制约我国城镇可持续发展的两个主要问题,并探讨了解决问题的对策强调工农业及城市用水的节水,实施污水回用和海水利用等方法开发新水源,进行科学的水资源管理.     

Using a Set of Strategic Indicator Systems as a Decision-making Support Implement for Establishing a Recycling-oriented Society - A Taiwanese Case Study (16 pp)

Background Scope and Aims. To realize the vision of sustainable development (SD) originating from the ‘only one earth’ philosophy, and to integrate the conceptions of ecology and sustainability into the planning and decision-making criteria of urban growth management, the establishment of a recycling-oriented society (ROS) is essential. However, before the above intention can be achieved, it is indispensable to develop a system of strategic indicators for supporting a radical reformation of the urban development plan. Therefore, this study, based on the conception of the new urban development pattern ROS, attempted to carefully choose a sample city in Taiwan for launching a preliminary case study, and furthermore designed and proposed a concise and strategy-oriented assessment indicator system termed ROSAIS. ROSAIS, on the one hand, can act as a compass for understanding resource using efficiency and recycling status during city development and, on the other hand, can serve as an implement supporting decision-making for ROS construction.Methods According to the definition and spirit of ROS, the structure of ROSAIS should clearly represent the relationship between resources and environment in human activities. The eco-efficiency indicator system (EEIS) and environmental symbiosis indicator system (ESIS) can be considered two key sub-indicator systems, and are the necessary components of ROSAIS. EEIS chooses the dominant production sectors in urban economic activities to calculate their eco-efficiency (EE). Separately, for obtaining a consensus regarding the framework of ESIS, the questionnaire approaches and expert consultation, together with the research experience and foundation of current relevant studies and indicator systems, are applied when crucial resource and environmental issues and respective indicators are selected.Results and Discussion The calculation results of EEIS in this case study indicated that among the three dominant production activities (agricultural, fishery, and animal husbandry sector) the fishery sector has the highest EE, which indicates that the fishery activities and resources significantly influence the sustainability of the economic-environmental system of the sample city. Furthermore, according to a consensus achieved in ESIS, local green spaces, resource recovery, energy consumption pattern change, freshwater conservation and greenhouse effect abatement were considered as the five crucial issues influencing how the case study city can develop into an ES-city. The rate of local green spaces, resource recycling, freshwater conservation and the rate of reduction of nonrenewable energy use as well as carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were used to evaluate the above five issues.Conclusion This case study is unparalleled in Taiwan. Even in Japan, where ROS legislation has been implemented, this kind of study remains in the preliminary stages. Furthermore, when communicating the indicator results, it is essential to provide the context and countermeasures of the crucial issues that are faced. The two sub-indicator systems proposed in this case study could comply completely with the above-mentioned requirements. For example, the EEIS provides information for achieving a balance between environmental burden and economic benefits among dominant production sectors; the ESIS provides information for setting strategies for overcoming the crucial issues faced. Recommendation and Outlook This study recommends that urban planers should consider the construction of the corresponding strategic indicator system to be indispensable, and makes further use of the indicator results related to the environmental education of residents for identifying and promoting participation with ROS, and turning them into implements for supporting urban SD decision-making. Furthermore, a successful indicator system depends on data availability and quality. This study recommends that urban planers should pay considerable attention to constructing relevant data collection channels, databases and the data quality.     

Evaluating the risks of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) pollution of urban groundwater

MTBE, a fuel oxygenate added to gasoline in parts of the USA, appears to have imposed significant adverse impacts on groundwater. In the UK, the impacts of MTBE are not well known in part because insufficient data has been presented to allow an accurate assessment. With the recognition of urban groundwater as a potentially valuable resource due to the growing pressure on rural groundwater, there is need for pollution risks to urban groundwater to be evaluated for contaminants such as MTBE. This paper presents the application of a risk-based water management tool called Borehole Optimisation System (BOS) in the evaluation of the risk of MTBE to urban groundwater at city scale using Nottingham city as our case study. The risk model was validated by comparison of its predictions with observations of MTBE detections for about 1100 boreholes in England and Wales. The output of the risk analysis was the production of a map showing the predicted MTBE concentration at all locations in the city. The results indicate that MTBE does not currently pose a major risk to urban groundwater although there may be a potential risk to groundwater in the southern part of the city where most industries are concentrated.     

From Valuation to Governance: Using Choice Experiment to Value Street Trees

This paper reports a choice experiment used to estimate the value of street trees in the city center of Lodz, Poland, and the broader context of how valuation results helped to improve governance of urban ecosystem services in this city. Based on a simplified inventory of trees, we prepared a set of hypothetical programs which put varying emphasis on the different ways to increase the numbers of trees, along with different levels of a hypothetical tax that would have to be paid by respondents to implement a given program. Our study indicated that the 351 surveyed Lodz residents were willing to pay the highest price for greening those streets where currently there are few or no trees and confirmed the general importance of planting trees. The results provided an argument in the debate on the new development strategy for the city and helped to promote the concept of ecosystem services.     

Reclaiming the Definition of Sustainability (7 pp)

BACKGROUND AND SCOPE: Since its inception two decades ago, the concept of sustainable development has suffered from a proliferation of definitions, such that it has increasingly come to mean many things to many different people. This has limited its credibility, called into question its practical application and the significance of associated achievements and, overall, limited the progress in environmental and social developments which it was designed to underpin. GOAL: This viewpoint article is intended to re-open the concept of sustainable development for discussion 20 years on from the Brundtland Report, in the context of the current state of the world, our growing understanding of ecosystems and their response to stressors and the parallel increase in recognition of inherent limitations to that understanding. APPROACH: Following a brief review of the diverse manner in which the concept has developed over time, we present the case for application of a series of simple conditions for sustainability, originally developed by The Natural Step in the early 90s, which nevertheless still provide a sound basis on which progress towards sustainable development could be monitored. The paper also highlights the unavoidable links between sustainability and ethics, including those in the sensitive fields of population and quality of life. DISCUSSION: Overall we argue the need for the concept of sustainable development to be reclaimed from the plethora of economically-focused or somewhat vague and un-measurable definitions which have found increasing favour in recent years and which all too often accompany relatively minor progress against 'business as usual'. RECOMMENDATIONS AND PERSPECTIVES: The vision encapsulated in the Brundtland Report was ground-breaking. If, however, true sustainability in human interactions with the biosphere is to be realised, a far stronger and more empirical interpretation of the original intent is urgently required. To be effective, such an interpretation must encompass and guide developments in political instruments and public policy as well as corporate decision-making, and must focus increasingly on addressing the root causes of major threats to sustainability rather than just their consequences.     

中国沿海地区水资源及生态环境持续利用战略

由于地质和地理条件的特殊性,沿海地区生态环境极其脆弱和敏感。水资源短缺、水环境污染、海水入侵、地面沉降、生态环境退化和海平面上升,已构成我国沿海地区实现可持续发展战略面临的重大资源和环境问题。水资源和生态环境的持续利用,已成为我国沿海地区一项极其重要的战略任务。根据可持续发展理论,通过建立适应水资源持续利用的管理体制、政策和运行机制,采取生态环境可持续保护策略,可完全达到水资源和生态环境的持续利用,并有效实现中国沿海地区资源、环境与经济、社会的有机协调及经济、社会的持续、稳定、健康发展     

循环经济理念下的城市污水处理浅析

随着城市化和现代化进程的推进,污水回用处理技术问题困扰着城市的可持续发展,并影响着水资源的再生回用和可持续发展。文中以循环经济思想理念为基础,叙述了中国水环境的现状、国内外污水资源的研究进展、循环经济的含义以及在循环经济观念下的污水处理新思路,探求了城市污水处理的重要性,以变废水负价值的被动处理,转变为盈价值的资源化与经济化利用,形成新的经济增长点,实现环境效益、经济效益和社会效益的高度统一,真正实现可持续发展。     

The process and mechanism of urban environmental change: an evolutionary view

This paper discusses how an evolutionary viewpoint can contribute to the understanding of the processes and mechanisms of urban environmental change. There are four major components in the urban environmental evolution concept: (a) cities can be viewed as complex systems that are subject to constant change, which constitutes a dynamic evolutionary process; (b) urban environmental profiles of cities are diverse, but there are certain commonalities in the longitudinal dynamics among different cities; (c) nevertheless, there is a strong non-linearity in the trajectories of the environmental evolution of cities, rather than there being a fixed common pattern; (d) the trajectory is shaped by a unique combination of endogenous and exogenous forces, reflecting both the outer pressures and the responses within the city. The evolutionary perspective has important policy implications by emphasising the possibility for cities in developing countries to follow a more environmentally sound pathway to sustainable development.     

The mining sector of Liberia: current practices and environmental challenges

Liberia is endowed with an impressive stock of mineral reserves and has traditionally relied on mining, namely iron ore, gold, and diamonds, as a major source of income. The recent growth in the mining sector has the potential to contribute significantly to employment, income generation, and infrastructure development. However, the development of these mineral resources has significant environmental impacts that often go unnoticed. This paper presents an overview of the Liberian mining sector from historical, current development, and economic perspectives. The efforts made by government to address issues of environmental management and sustainable development expressed in national and international frameworks, as well as some of the environmental challenges in the mining sector are analyzed. A case study was conducted on one of the iron ore mines (China Union Bong Mines Investment) to analyze the effects of the water quality on the local water environment. The results show that the analyzed water sample concentrations were all above the WHO and Liberia water standard Class I guidelines for drinking water. Finally the paper examines the application of water footprint from a life cycle perspective in the Liberian mining sector and suggests some policy options for water resources management.     

Microbial biomass carbon and enzyme activities of urban soils in Beijing

Introduction  

To promote rational and sustainable use of soil resources and to maintain the urban soil quality, it is essential to assess urban ecosystem health. In this study, the microbiological properties of urban soils in Beijing and their spatial distribution patterns across the city were evaluated based on measurements of microbial biomass carbon and urease and invertase activities of the soils for the purpose of assessing the urban ecosystem health of Beijing.     

The application of satellite remote sensing to coastal management in Singapore

This paper reviews the application of satellite remote sensing to management of Singapore's coastal environment. Remotely sensed data have been used for marine habitat mapping, water quality monitoring, ship and ship-wake detection, oil spill detection, red tide monitoring, and mapping of reclamation activities. While these applications clearly cover most of the range of opportunities for use of remotely sensed data in the coastal zone, there is still a need for more complete baseline studies of natural resources and habitats, and monitoring of the impacts of development on the coastal and marine environment. There is also a requirement for more management-oriented research and continued development and revision of the available datasets. Integration and exchange of information between management agencies and research groups is also an important aspect of sustainable management of Singapore's coastal environment and marine resources.