环评：经济与生态环境和谐发展的关键

环评,通俗地说就是分析项目建成投产后可能对环境产生的影响,并提出污染防治对策和措施。它与经济和生态环境的和谐发展息息相关。自《中华人民共和国环境影响评价法》（以下简称《环评法》）实施以来,我国在环评方面取得哪些进步？在实际的环评工作中存在哪些问题？在新的历史时期,尤其在当前经济危机的阴霾下,如何开展环评工作？如何借鉴国外的环评经验来改进我们的工作？这些都是值得探讨的话题。为此,我们邀请安徽省环保局的有关人员,对上述问题给予解读。     

西部开发与生态经济

论述了西部大开发必须走生态型经济发展的路子，并依托西部地区资源的开发与保护，提出了西部经济开发类型的选择和有关政策支持。     

树立新疆资源开发中的生态经济观念

经济系统是社会发展的基础,生态系统是人类生存的根本,二者既对立又统一,处理好其中的复杂关系,是人类求生存求发展的先决条件。对于新疆这一沙漠化省区,尤为如此。     

Moving Towards Sustainable Development? Integrating Economic Development and the Environment in Local Authorities

The recent growth of interest in sustainable development has led to the incorporation of the concept into policy making at a variety of scales. In all cases particular emphasis is placed upon the local scale as the focus for the implementation of policy and initiatives and especially upon local authorities as the major contributor to this process. There has been little assessment, however, of the extent to which local authorities either can, or are, undertaking such initiatives. This paper examines: the potential role that local authorities can play in integrating economic development and the environment; the forms of response and initiatives that are currently in place, drawing upon survey evidence from urban local authorities in England and Wales; and some of the limits to local authority action.     

Ecological restoration as a strategy for conserving biological diversity

Though the restoration of disturbed ecosystems has so far played a relatively modest role in the effort to conserve biological diversity, there are reasons to suspect that its role will increase and that its contribution to the maintenance of diversity will ultimately prove crucial as techniques are further refined and as pristine areas for preservation become scarcer and more expensive.It is now possible to restore a number of North American communities with some confidence. However, it should be noted that many current efforts to return degraded lands to productive use, like attempts to reclaim land disturbed by mining, try only for rehabilitation to a socially acceptable condition and fall considerably short of actually restoring a native ecological community.Possible uses for restoration in the conservation of biodiversity include not only the creation of habitat on derelict sites, but also techniques for enlarging and redesigning existing reserves. Restoration may even make it possible to move reserves entirely in response to long-term events, such as changes in climate. Restoration in the form of reintroduction of single species to preexisting or restored habitat is also a critical link in programs to conserve species ex situ in the expectation of eventually returning them to the wild. And restoration provides opportunities to increase diversity through activities as diverse as management of utility corridors, transportation rights-of-way, and parks.     

岷江上游生态环境建设与经济可持续发展

岷江上游生态环境问题严重,森林破坏、植被生态功能退化、水土流失、生物多样性减少。在上游地区应加强退耕还林还草,建立生态型持续农业系统和生态文明示范区,调整产业结构,提高群众的综合素质,走可持续发展道路。     

发展循环经济是实施可持续发展战略的必然选择

阐述循环经济的基本概念、原则,及发展循环经济是实施可持续发展战略的必然选择,并提出了建议     

Engaging with the Ecological Footprint as a Decision-Making Tool: Process and Responses

Since the initial development of the Ecological Footprint in the early 1990s, the concept has gained increased interest amongst academics and practitioners internationally. In the UK, it is estimated that some 60 to 70 Ecological Footprint studies were undertaken between 1999 and 2004. Although the majority of interest in Ecological Footprinting has come from local government, a recent study has found that government officers involved in the formulation of council policy have not been able to engage with the Ecological Footprint as a process or use the results to inform policy decisions. This paper analyses how an Ecological Footprint has been developed for Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. The approach used to construct an Ecological Footprint for Cardiff has been significantly different to that which had been used previously in the UK, as it has involved a unique consortium of researchers at Cardiff University and policy development officers at Cardiff Council checking the quality of data used in the Footprint calculation, and developing a range of policy scenarios.     

Realizing the Potential of Ecosystem Services: A Framework for Relating Ecological Changes to Economic Benefits

Increasingly government agencies are seeking to quantify the outcomes of proposed policy options in terms of ecosystem service benefits, yet conflicting definitions and ad hoc approaches to measuring ecosystem services have created confusion regarding how to rigorously link ecological change to changes in human well-being. Here, we describe a step-by-step framework for producing ecological models and metrics that can effectively serve an economic-benefits assessment of a proposed change in policy or management. A focus of the framework is developing comparable units of ecosystem goods and services to support decision-making, even if outcomes cannot be monetized. Because the challenges to translating ecological changes to outcomes appropriate for economic analyses are many, we discuss examples that demonstrate practical methods and approaches to overcoming data limitations. The numerous difficult decisions that government agencies must make to fairly use and allocate natural resources provides ample opportunity for interdisciplinary teams of natural and social scientists to improve methods for quantifying changes in ecosystem services and their effects on human well-being. This framework is offered with the intent of promoting the success of such teams as they support managers in evaluating the equivalency of ecosystem service offsets and trades, establishing restoration and preservation priorities, and more generally, in developing environmental policy that effectively balances multiple perspectives.     

Joint Working within Local Government: Air quality as a case-study

Air quality management (AQM) is a process of environmental control that must be embedded within a wide range of policy areas, from local-scale initiatives to international treaties, if it is to be successful. Because of the integrative aspects of AQM, it is imperative that joint working is undertaken within local authorities and other involved parties. Environmental health departments have taken the lead role in AQM as they have traditionally had responsibilities for some other aspects of pollution control. However, AQM requires input from a variety of professionals such as transport planners, land-use planners, economic development officers and Local Agenda 21 (LA21) officers, as well as environmental health professionals. This paper examines the involvement of these professions within the AQM process. Results are presented from a widespread questionnaire survey of urban local authorities in England. In the case of air quality, it is concluded that co-operation between the necessary professions is still at an early stage. Transport planners are more fully engaged with the process than are land-use planners or economic development officers. In order that the joint working process develops appropriately, it is suggested that LA21 officers have an important role in facilitating inter-professional working to support the AQM process.     

Joint Working within Local Government: air quality as a case-study

Air quality management (AQM) is a process of environmental control that must be embedded within a wide range of policy areas, from local-scale initiatives to international treaties, if it is to be successful. Because of the integrative aspects of AQM, it is imperative that joint working is undertaken within local authorities and other involved parties. Environmental health departments have taken the lead role in AQM as they have traditionally had responsibilities for some other aspects of pollution control. However, AQM requires input from a variety of professionals such as transport planners, land-use planners, economic development officers and Local Agenda 21 (LA21) officers, as well as environmental health professionals. This paper examines the involvement of these professions within the AQM process. Results are presented from a widespread questionnaire survey of urban local authorities in England. In the case of air quality, it is concluded that co-operation between the necessary professions is still at an early stage. Transport planners are more fully engaged with the process than are land-use planners or economic development officers. In order that the joint working process develops appropriately, it is suggested that LA21 officers have an important role in facilitating inter-professional working to support the AQM process.     

区域经济政策对区域经济发展的影响——以山东半岛城市群为例

区域经济快速、健康、稳定发展是区域社会发展中的重大战略问题。随着近些年来区域经济发展速度的不断加快,市场机制“马太效应”和试错性逐渐显现出来,为区域经济政策的形成创造了条件。以山东省制定的山东半岛城市群区域经济政策为例,分析了区域经济政策对区域经济发展的影响,评价其政策效应,讨论如何更加有效地保障该区域经济政策的实施,从而实现区域经济均衡发展的总体目标。     

Preliminary Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Great Western Development Strategy: Safeguarding Ecological Security for a New Western China

The Great Western Development Strategy (GWDS) is a long term national campaign aimed at boosting development of the western area of China and narrowing the economic gap between the western and the eastern parts of China. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) procedure was employed to assess the environmental challenges brought about by the western development plans. These plans include five key developmental domains (KDDs): water resource exploitation and use, land utilization, energy generation, tourism development, and ecological restoration and conservation. A combination of methods involving matrix assessment, incorporation of expert judgment and trend analysis was employed to analyze and predict the environmental impacts upon eight selected environmental indicators: water resource availability, soil erosion, soil salinization, forest destruction, land desertification, biological diversity, water quality and air quality. Based on the overall results of the assessment, countermeasures for environmental challenges that emerged were raised as key recommendations to ensure ecological security during the implementation of the GWDS. This paper is intended to introduce a consensus-based process for evaluating the complex, long term pressures on the ecological security of large areas, such as western China, that focuses on the use of combined methods applied at the strategic level.     

青海湖流域自然生态保护与经济社会可持续发展对策

青海湖流域是青海省重要的畜牧业生产基地之一,在全省经济社会中有着特殊的地位。文章在阐述青海湖流域自然生态环境现状、分析流域生态环境主要问题及其原因和流域生态环境保护重要性的基础上,提出了青海湖流域生态保护与可持续发展对策与建议。     

Engaging Economic Development Agencies in Environmental Protection: the case for embedded autonomy

This article examines the role of economic development agencies in strengthening the environmental performance of industry within rapidly industrialising East Asian economies. Three case-study examples are considered, namely, the role of the Industrial Development Board in reducing industrial pollution in Taiwan, pollution control in the palm oil industry in Malaysia, and the role of the Economic Development Board in influencing environmental performance of industry in Singapore. The concept of embedded autonomy is developed to consider the ways in which agencies of economic development can work with firms and industries while simultaneously remaining autonomous from these firms with respect to setting and enforcing performance standards. The three cases suggest that a form of policy integration that more directly integrates economic and environmental goals within agencies of economic development may be feasible, but only where there exists a strong autonomous government bureaucracy and where there is strong societal commitment to improving the environmental performance of industry.     

Ecological Innovation: Biomimicry as a New Way of Thinking and Acting Ecologically

In this article, we critically reflect on the concept of biomimicry. On the basis of an analysis of the concept of biomimicry in the literature and its philosophical origin, we distinguish between a strong and a weaker concept of biomimicry. The strength of the strong concept of biomimicry is that nature is seen as a measure by which to judge the ethical rightness of our technological innovations, but its weakness is found in questionable presuppositions. These presuppositions are addressed by the weaker concept of biomimicry, but at the price that it is no longer possible to distinguish between exploitative and ecological types of technological innovations. We compare both concepts of biomimicry by critically reflecting on four dimensions of the concept of biomimicry: mimesis, technology, nature, and ethics.     

Modeling the Impacts of Two Bark Beetle Species Under a Warming Climate in the Southwestern USA: Ecological and Economic Consequences

Predicted climate warming is expected to have profound effects on bark beetle population dynamics in the southwestern United States. Temperature-mediated effects may include increases in developmental rates, generations per year, and changes in habitat suitability. As a result, the impacts of Dendroctonus frontalis and Dendroctonus mexicanus on forest resources are likely subject to amplification. To assess the implications of such change, we evaluated the generations per year of these species under three climate scenarios using a degree-day development model. We also assessed economic impacts of increased beetle outbreaks in terms of the costs of application of preventative silvicultural treatments and potential economic revenues forgone. Across the southwestern USA, the potential number of beetle generations per year ranged from 1–3+ under historical climate, an increase of 2–4+ under the minimal warming scenario and 3–5+ under the greatest warming scenario. Economic benefits of applying basal area reduction treatments to reduce forest susceptibility to beetle outbreaks ranged from 7.75/ha (NM) to7.75/ha (NM) to 95.69/ha (AZ) under historical conditions, and 47.96/ha (NM) to47.96/ha (NM) to 174.58/ha (AZ) under simulated severe drought conditions. Basal area reduction treatments that reduce forest susceptibility to beetle outbreak result in higher net present values than no action scenarios. Coupled with other deleterious consequences associated with beetle outbreaks, such as increased wildfires, the results suggest that forest thinning treatments play a useful role in a period of climate warming.     

Iron Ore Industry Emissions as a Potential Ecological Risk Factor for Tropical Coastal Vegetation

In the coastal zone of the Espírito Santo state, Brazil, fragments of restinga, which form a natural ecosystem, share their space with an increasing number of iron ore industries. The iron ore dust and SO(2) originating from the industry processing activities can interfere with the vegetation of the adjacent ecosystems at various levels. This study was undertaken in order to evaluate the effects of industry emissions on representative members of the restinga flora, by measuring physiological and phenological parameters. Foliar samples of Ipomoea pes caprae, Canavalia rosea, Sophora tomentosa, and Schinus terebinthifolius were collected at three increasing distances from an ore industry (1.0, 5.0, and 15.0 km), and were assessed for their dust deposition, chlorophyll, and Fe content. Phenological monitoring was focused on the formation of shoots, flowers, and fruits and was also performed throughout the course of a year. The results showed that the edaphic characteristics and the mineral constitutions of the plants were affected by industry emissions. In addition, the chlorophyll content of the four species increased with proximity to the industry. Phenological data revealed that the reproductive effort, as measured by fruit production, was affected by emissions and S. tomentosa was the most affected species. The use of an integrative approach that combines biochemical and ecological data indicates that the restinga flora is under stress due to industry emissions, which on a long-term basis may put the ecosystem at risk.