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1.
William H. Renwick 《Environmental management》1988,12(3):267-272
Previous evaluations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) have focused on the effectiveness of its procedural requirements in improving the quality of decision making with respect to environmental matters. Subsequent growth of other environmental regulation and the changing role of Environmental Impact Statements in the decision-making process should also be considered. The many federal and state environmental laws passed in the 1970s have, by defining the nature and acceptability of environmental impact and prohibiting unacceptable impacts, superseded the substantive role of NEPA in environmental protection. Although the EIS continues to serve as a focus for public debate regarding proposed government actions, such debates usually center around social or economic rather than environmental issues. NEPA has thus been superseded by other environmental laws, and its role in the decision-making process today has little relation to its earlier environmental significance. 相似文献
2.
The Precautionary Principle is a legal mechanism for managing the environmental risk arising from incomplete scientific knowledge
of a proposal's impacts. The Precautionary Principle is applied to actions that carry with them the potential for serious
or irreversible environmental change. The model proposed in this paper draws on methods used in a range of disciplines for
modeling (potentially highly nonlinear) interactions between multiple parts of a complex system. These methods have been drawn
together under the common mathematical umbrella of Fitness Landscape Theory. It is argued that the model, called “Environmental
Impact Fitness Landscapes,” allows statements about the sensitivity of the gross effect from a set of impacts to be made when the number of impacts in the set, and/or their degree of interaction, is varied.
It is argued that this can be achieved through identification of “meta” or “emergent” properties of the set itself, without
reference to the specific causal chains determining behavior in specific instances. While such properties are very general,
they may at least allow for the parameterization of the effects of sets of impacts where interactions are highly uncertain
and empirical data severely limited, i.e., situations that would typically invoke the Precautionary Principle. 相似文献
3.
Environmental concerns such as loss of biological diversity and stratospheric ozone depletion have heightened awareness of the need to assess cumulative impacts in environmental documents. More than 20 years of experience with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) have provided analysts in the United States with opportunities for developing successful techniques to assess site-specific impacts of proposed actions. Methods for analyzing a proposed action's incremental contribution to cumulative impacts are generally less advanced than those for project-specific impacts.The President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) defines cumulative impact to include the impacts of past, present and reasonably foreseeable future actions regardless of who undertakes the action. Court decisions have helped clarify the distinction between reasonably foreseeable future actions and other possible future actions. This paper seeks to clarify how past and present impacts should be included in cumulative impact analyses.The definition of cumulative impacts implies that cumulative impact analyses should include the effects of all past and present actions on a particular resource. Including past and present impacts in cumulative impact assessments increases the likelihood of identifying significant impacts. NEPA requires agencies to give more consideration to alternatives and mitigation and to provide more opportunities for public involvement for actions that would have significant impacts than for actions that would not cause or contribute to significant impacts. For an action that would contribute to significant cumulative impacts, the additional cost and effort involved in increased consideration of alternatives and mitigation and in additional public involvement may be avoided if the action can be modified so that its contributions to significant cumulative impacts are eliminated.Managed by Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation under contract DE-AC05-84OR21400 with the US Department of Energy. 相似文献
4.
Environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedures have been in existence in the People's Republic of China over the last decade.
The impetus for China's introduction of EIA was provided by the Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China,
which was adopted by the Fifth National People's Congress in 1979. The EIA process, which is administrative and not statutorily
mandated, has been applied primarily to construction projects.
Four stages are typically involved in an EIA investigation: design of the investigation, evaluation of background environmental
quality, prediction of environmental impacts, and an assessment and analysis of the environmental impacts. A variety of approaches
is used for predicting and analyzing environmental impacts, ranging from ad hoc methods to fairly sophisticated mathematical
models. The results of the EIA investigation are compiled in an environmental impact statement, which is used as the basis
for decision making by personnel in environmental protection departments. The EIA process does not include provisions for
citizen notification or involvement.
Views differ concerning the effectiveness of the EIA program in protecting China's natural, social, and cultural environments.
Some hold that the EIA program has brought about improvement in environmental protection, while critics contend that the program
has had little effect in the prevention of pollution. However, most, if not all, observers seem to feel that the program should
be continued and improved. A major avenue for improvement is to place the evaluation of a particular project in a regional
context.
An earlier version of this paper was distributed at a workshop on Environmental Assessment Development Planning held in conjunction
with the VII Annual Meeting of the International Association for Impact Assessment, Brisbane, Australia, July 5–8, 1988. 相似文献
5.
This Φ Ψ study of environmental equity uses secondary quantitative data to analyze socioeconomic disparities in environmental
conditions in the Rijnmond region of the Netherlands. The disparities of selected environmental indicators—exposure to traffic
noise (road, rail, and air), NO2, external safety risks, and the availability of public green space—are analyzed both separately and in combination. Not only
exposures to environmental burdens (“bads”) were investigated, but also access to environmental benefits (“goods”). Additionally,
we held interviews and reviewed documents to grasp the mechanisms underlying the environmental equity situation, with an emphasis
on the role of public policy. Environmental equity is not a priority in public policy for the greater Rotterdam region known
as the Rijnmond region, yet environmental standards have been established to provide a minimum environmental quality to all
local residents. In general, environmental quality has improved in this region, and the accumulation of negative environmental
outcomes (“bads”) has been limited. However, environmental standards for road traffic noise and NO2 are being exceeded, probably because of the pressure on space and the traffic intensity. We found an association of environmental
“bads” with income for rail traffic noise and availability of public green space. In the absence of regulation, positive environmental
outcomes (“goods”) are mainly left up to market forces. Consequently, higher-income groups generally have more access to environmental
“goods” than lower-income groups. 相似文献
6.
Wibeck V 《Environmental management》2012,49(4):776-787
In managing environmental problems, several countries have chosen the management by objectives (MBO) approach. This paper
investigates how focus group participants from the Swedish environmental administration used metaphors to describe the mode
of organization needed to attain environmental objectives. Such analysis can shed light on how an MBO system is perceived
by actors and how it works in practice. Although the Swedish government intended to stimulate broad-based cooperation among
many actors, participants often saw themselves as located at a certain “level,” i.e., “higher” or “lower,” in the MBO system—that
is, their conceptions corresponded to a traditional, hierarchical interpretation of MBO. Prepositions such as “in” and “out”
contributed to feelings of inclusion and exclusion on the part of MBO actors. However, horizontal metaphors merged with vertical
ones, indicating ongoing competition for the right to interpret how the system of environmental objectives should best be
managed. The paper concludes that any organization applying MBO could benefit from discussing alternate ways of talking and
thinking about its constituent “levels.” 相似文献
7.
Brownfields are abandoned, idled, or underused sites whose reuse necessitates some sort of intervention. These sites are largely
urban and are frequently contaminated. Brownfield management options can be associated with three types of environmental consequences:
those resulting from changes in the site’s environmental quality (primary impacts); those resulting from the actual intervention
stage (secondary impacts); and, if the vocation of the site changes, those resulting from effects on regional land use (tertiary
impacts). Different stakeholders and decision-making contexts will place a different importance on each of these types of
impacts. This article proposes a framework for comparing brownfield management options in regard to these three types of environmental
impacts and for interpreting these results from different perspectives. The assessment framework is based on consequential
life cycle assessment (LCA), which is shown to provide environmental information on the three types of impacts. The results
for a case study are presented, where a “rehabilitation” option allowing residential redevelopment is compared to an “exposure
minimization” option not resulting in the site being reused. Calculated primary and tertiary impacts are favorable to the
rehabilitation option, whereas secondary impacts are favorable to the exposure minimization option. A ternary diagram presents
the favorable option for different stereotypical perspectives. Tertiary impacts are much greater than secondary impacts, and
consequently all perspectives that consider tertiary impacts favor rehabilitation. The perspective that considers primary
and secondary impacts receives conflicting information. The ternary diagram, showing results for all perspectives, could possibly
be useful for consensus-building among stakeholders. 相似文献
8.
A “finding of no significant impact” (FONSI) resulting from an environmental assessment (EA) was reported by the US Army in
June 1986 for the construction and utilization of a multipurpose range complex (MPRC) at the Pohakuloa Training Area, Hawaii.
There was little public response, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service and state agencies were consulted and had few comments
concerning the results of the botanical surveys used in the assessment. Construction of the $24 million project was begun
in 1988. Near the end of construction in 1989 a lawsuit was filed to halt construction because an environmental impact statement
(EIS) had not been done for the project, and the plaintiff thought that significant damage had occurred to several unusual
ecosystems. Judgment was against the plaintiff and construction continued. An appeal was filed with the 9th Circuit Court.
As MPRC construction was nearly complete, and on advice of Department of Justice lawyers, the Department of Army agreed to
settle out of court. The settlement in part called for: (1) the plaintiff to drop the appeal and allow construction to be
completed as scheduled, and (2) the Department of Army to prepare an EIS for the operation of the MPRC. A subsequent botanical
survey for the EIS discovered one endangered plant species, four category 1 candidate plant species (taxa with sufficient
data to support listing as endangered or threatened), three category 2 candidate plant species (taxa with some evidence of
vulnerability but insufficient data to support listing at this time), one category 3a species (presumably extinct taxa), and
possibly three undescribed species growing within the MPRC boundary. The MPRC case study is an excellent example of why the
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) must be modified to require in-depth and thorough environmental surveys. 相似文献
9.
Biodiversity offsets seek to compensate for residual environmental impacts of planned developments after appropriate steps
have been taken to avoid, minimize or restore impacts on site. Offsets are emerging as an increasingly employed mechanism
for achieving net environmental benefits, with offset policies being advanced in a wide range of countries (i.e., United States,
Australia, Brazil, Colombia, and South Africa). To support policy development for biodiversity offsets, we review a set of
major offset policy frameworks—US wetlands mitigation, US conservation banking, EU Natura 2000, Australian offset policies
in New South Wales, Victoria, and Western Australia, and Brazilian industrial and forest offsets. We compare how the frameworks
define offset policy goals, approach the mitigation process, and address six key issues for implementing offsets: (1) equivalence
of project impacts with offset gains; (2) location of the offset relative to the impact site; (3) “additionality” (a new contribution
to conservation) and acceptable types of offsets; (4) timing of project impacts versus offset benefits; (5) offset duration
and compliance; and (6) “currency” and mitigation replacement ratios. We find substantial policy commonalities that may serve
as a sound basis for future development of biodiversity offsets policy. We also identify issues requiring further policy guidance,
including how best to: (1) ensure conformance with the mitigation hierarchy; (2) identify the most environmentally preferable
offsets within a landscape context; and (3) determine appropriate mitigation replacement ratios. 相似文献
10.
This paper offers a field tested community environmental policing model to address the pressing environmental management challenges of reducing e-waste burning in informal e-waste hubs, and enforcement against informal polluting industries more broadly. This is based on our intervention to reduce e-waste burning in a substantial informal e-waste hub in the West Bank, Palestine, a 45 km2 region in which an estimated 5–10 metric tonnes of cables are burnt daily, causing serious environmental and public health consequences. In analogous e-waste hubs in the global South, environmental management solutions have focused on economically attractive alternatives to replace cable burning or policies that integrate informal recyclers with formal e-waste management systems—achieving little success. Our paper describes a two-pronged intervention in Palestine’s e-waste hub, which reduced e-waste burning by 80% through a combination of economically competitive cable grinding services and an “active” community environmental policing initiative that lowered barriers to and successfully advocated for governmental policing of e-waste burning. Our discussion of this intervention addresses the community environmental policing literature, which has documented few successes stories of real improvements to the enforcement of environmental violations. We argue that existing strategies have relied on “passive” approaches comprised of monitoring and reporting environmental violations to advocate for change. Our strategy offers a template to improve outcomes through a more “active” approach, moving from monitoring environmental violations through understanding the rationale and dynamics of violators, identifying environmental policing barriers, and implementing a feasible and persuasive strategy to overcome them. 相似文献
11.
Current “business as usual” projections suggest greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized nations will grow substantially
over the next decade. However, if it comes into force, the Kyoto Protocol will require industrialized nations to reduce emissions
to an average of 5% below 1990 levels in the 2008–2012 period. Taking early action to close this gap has a number of advantages.
It reduces the risks of passing thresholds that trigger climate change “surprises.” Early action also increases future generations'
ability to choose greater levels of climate protection, and it leads to faster reductions of other pollutants. From an economic
sense, early action is important because it allows shifts to less carbon-intensive technologies during the course of normal
capital stock turnover. Moreover, many options for emission reduction have negative costs, and thus are economically worthwhile,
because of paybacks in energy costs, healthcare costs, and other benefits. Finally, early emission reductions enhance the
probability of successful ratification and lower the risk of noncompliance with the protocol. We discuss policy approaches
for the period prior to 2008. Disadvantages of the current proposals for Credit for Early Action are the possibility of adverse
selection due to problematic baseline calculation methods as well as the distributionary impacts of allocating a part of the
emissions budget already before 2008. One simple policy without drawbacks is the so-called baseline protection, which removes
the disincentive to early action due to the expectation that businesses may, in the future, receive emission rights in proportion
to past emissions. It is particularly important to adopt policies that shift investment in long-lived capital stock towards
less carbon-intensive technologies and to encourage innovation and technology development that will reduce future compliance
costs. 相似文献
12.
13.
Marc J. Stern S. Andrew Predmore Michael J. Mortimer David N. Seesholtz 《Journal of environmental management》2010,91(6):1371-1379
We conducted a survey of 3321 Forest Service employees involved in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) followed by five focus groups to investigate agency views of the purpose of agency NEPA processes and their appropriate measures of success. Results suggest the lack of a unified critical task for Forest Service NEPA processes and that employees' functions relevant to NEPA influence their views of its meaning. Compared to other agency personnel, members of interdisciplinary teams who carry out most day-to-day NEPA-related tasks placed greater emphasis on minimizing negative environmental and social impacts, satisfying multiple stakeholders and avoiding litigation and appeals. Line officers, who typically serve as the decision makers following NEPA processes, placed greatest emphasis on efficient implementation and least emphasis on minimizing impacts. Advisory personnel placed greatest emphasis on effective disclosure of analyses and decision-making. We discuss the structural origins of these differences as well as their implications. 相似文献
14.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and the Chlorine Chemistry Council, the Chemical Manufacturers
Association, and others have been embroiled in a legal challenge concerning the US EPA's “reversal” regarding the scientific
assessment of chloroform's carcinogenicity. This issue arose during the US EPA's November 1998 promulgation of a Maximum Contaminant
Level Goal for chloroform in the Stage 1 Final Rules for Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts in drinking water. In this
paper we adopt a claimsmaking approach: to trace the development and outcome of the chloroform court challenge in the USA,
to examine the construction of scientific knowledge claims concerning chloroform risk assessments, and to investigate how
different interpretations of scientific uncertainties regarding the evidence are contested when such uncertainties are brought
into a regulatory and judicial arena. This “science war” (Chlorine Chemistry Council and others v. US EPA and others) took
place in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The scientific “authority” in the construction of scientific
claims in this dispute is based on the International Life Sciences Institute expert panel report on chloroform. Examining
these science wars is important because they signal critical shifts in science policy agendas. The regulatory outcome of the
chloroform science war in the United States can have profound implications for the construction and acceptance of scientific
claims regarding drinking water in other jurisdictions (e.g., Canada). In this challenge, we argue that the actors involved
in the dispute constructed “boundaries” around accepted and credible scientific claims. 相似文献
15.
Two frequent beliefs about rural environmental attitudes are examined conceptually and empirically: (1) the common conception
that rural environmental concerns are expressed predominantly by wealthy community newcomers; and (2) the related position
that long-time rural residents are hostile to the environmental cause.
We argue conceptually, through the use of a 2×2 community matrix, that environmental attitudes are equally likely to be expressed
by what we term “upper middle income newcomers,” “lower middle income newcomers,” “upper middle income locals,” and “lower
middle income locals.” Empirically, we find that although wealthy newcomers express the strongest environmental attitudes
in the community, their concerns represent only a small percentage of rural environmental attitudes consisting of respondents
who make less than $40,000 a year in household income are over 40 years of age, possess less than a college education, and
work in a nonprofessional occupation. This new category expresses environmental concerns at least equal to the rest of the
community on three of four measures of environmental attitudes.
The findings provide insight into the widespread and cross-sectional nature of rural environmental concern. The implication
is that environmental groups will find significant sources of political support in rural communities, provided they craft
their environmental message in a language consistent with rural attitudes and values.
Things are gettin' bad fast. Easterners and environmentalists comin' down here from the big cities are tryin' to turn our
way of life completely upside down.
A western US rancher quoted in Krakauer (1991) 相似文献
16.
Frederick Steiner Scott Pieart Edward Cook Jacqueline Rich Virginia Coltman 《Environmental management》1994,18(2):183-201
The protection of wetlands and riparian areas has emerged as an important environmental planning issue. In the United States,
several federal and state laws have been enacted to protect wetlands and riparian areas. Specifically, the federal Clean Water
Act includes protection requirements in Sections 301 and 303 for state water quality standards, Section 401 for state certification
of federal actions (projects, permits, and licenses), and Section 404 for dredge and fill permits. The Section 401 water quality
state certification element has been called the “sleeping giant” of wetlands protection because it empowers state officials
to veto or condition federally permitted or licensed activities that do not comply with state water quality standards. State
officials have used this power infrequently. The purpose of this research was to analyze the effectiveness of state wetland
and riparian programs. Contacts were established with officials in each state and in the national and regional offices of
key federal agencies. Based on interviews and on a review of federal and state laws, state program effectiveness was analyzed.
From this analysis, several problems and opportunities facing state wetland protection efforts are presented. 相似文献
17.
娱乐及餐饮业近年来发展迅速,开展这类项目的环境影响评价工作首先应确保其环保审批手续的前置性。环评单位应在项目筹划初期介入,工作中应以项目合理选址和提出具有可操作性的污染防治措施这两个侧重面开展工作,作出准确的评价结论,给出可行的污染防治措施及方案。只有这样,才能编制出较为完善的环境影响评价文件,才能达到预防或减轻不良环境影响的最终目的。 相似文献
18.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), a significant percentage of residential onsite sewage
systems (OSSs) are failing at any given time. The US EPA has therefore issued a set of recommended guidelines for OSS regulatory
programs aimed at reducing overall failure rates. We conducted a survey of OSS regulatory program administrators with jurisdictions
bordering a Great Lake. Our goal was to determine their programs’ capacities to meet the US EPA’s recommendations. We found
that although some local programs meet the US EPA’s recommendations, most do not. In this article, we present our findings
and conclusions for one of the US EPA’s models, the baseline “Homeowner Awareness” model. Most areas do not have recommended
requirements that systems be inspected when properties transfer between owners. A majority do not track changes in ownership
within the computerized databases they use to record information about systems. Although most provide at least “one-time”
information to homeowners regarding proper OSS maintenance, most do not contact them periodically with reminders of needed
maintenance. We include recommendations for resolving some of the issues that our research identified. 相似文献
19.
Charles H. Eccleston 《环境质量管理》1998,7(3):9-17
It is vital that federal managers consider new approaches for enhancing environmental protection while reducing redundancies and cost. Faced with increasing environmental issues, compliance requirements, competing resources, and tightened budget constraints, agencies must seek innovative approaches for doing more with less. The diverse array of confusing and sometimes inappropriate or conflicting regulatory requirements compounds compliance complexities and increases the need to seek resourceful solutions. At a time when NEPA is coming under closer congressional scrutiny, an integrated NEPA/EMS paradigm provides a key for increasing the effectiveness and uniformity of implementing NEPA at the early planning stage, while reducing cost, delays, and redundancies. Effectively integrated, NEPA satisfies one of the five, and perhaps most important, principles of an EMS-environmental planning. NEPA's regulatory requirements not only are consistent with the objective of an EMS, but actually enhance the effectiveness of an EMS. An integrated approach provides the added benefit of increased environmental coordination and heightened communications that translates into further cost reduction and fewer delays. The strategy described in this article is designed to balance the rigors of an international standard with the need to efficiently implement an integrated NEPA/EMS system, given a diverse set of challenging circumstances and constraints. 相似文献
20.
耿世刚 《中国环境管理干部学院学报》1999,(1)
最近颁布的《建设项目环境保护管理条例》,使我国环境影响评价制度在法制化的轨道上又向前迈进了一步,对我国环境影响评价工作的开展将产生重大影响。本文就原《建设项目环境保护管理办法》与新条例作出分析比较。 相似文献