"What Works Well; What Needs Improvement": Lessons in public consultation from British Columbia's resource planning processes

Resource planning and management in British Columbia, Canada, has been steadily moving towards more active public participation. While government agencies have long been required to consult the general public during the course of land or resource use planning, the 1990s brought in a period of more intense public involvement. In terms of resource planning, this led to the creation of several new planning processes. Given that there is now considerable experience with the Commission on Resources and Environment (CORE) and the Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP) processes, it is time for an appraisal. In particular, the paper examines the public's perceptions of these processes with respect to 'what works well' and 'what needs improvement'. The results highlight a number of areas to which process designers and managers should direct attention. There are three key items of note. First, there are generally low levels of awareness by respondents of public consultation processes in their community. Second, there is a need for access to timely, relevant and readable information throughout the course of the process in order to keep participants and the public as up-to-date as possible. Finally, there must be greater clarity about the process itself, including mandates, participants and decision-making powers.     

The concept of the Portuguese National Ecological Reserve: constraints and impossibilities in the Azores Archipelago

The biophysical features of small islands (SI) distinguish them from other territories; isolation, small size and several anthropogenic pressures reduce the resilience of ecosystems and increase their vulnerability to global changes. Many SI have a shortage of infrastructures, institutions and technical/financial resources that hinder planning and require different integrated solutions. In Portugal, the National Ecological Reserve (NER) is legally binding for spatial planning instruments. It aims to defend natural values and areas of ecological value, or sensibility, or susceptible to natural hazards. However, the criteria for the design of NER are strictly set for mainland territory, not taking into account specific features of small islands. A case study of the Azores Archipelago is used to demonstrate that spatial planning instruments should be adapted to island contexts. Such adaptation will increase the effectiveness of their implementation in relation to the protection of natural resources, stability of biophysical structures and prevention of natural hazards. Observing the main differences between mainland and the Azores Archipelago it is possible to define a methodological transposition of the NER aims and goals into an island context. This approach is an answer to the constraints in effective adaptation of spatial planning instruments for islands.     

Biological aspects of metal waste reclamation with biosolids

Smelter waste deposits pose an environmental threat worldwide. Biosolids are potentialy useful in reclamation of such sites. Biological aspects of revegetation of Zn and Pb smelter wastelands using biosolids are discussed in this report. The goal of the studies was to assess to what extent biosolid treatment would support ecosystem functioning as measured by biological indicators such as enzyme activities of revegetated metal waste or plant growth. Another crucial aspect was related to the assessment of metal transfer to the ecosystem which could affect the health of local fauna and also create a food chain risk. A field experiment was conducted on a smelter waste deposit in Piekary Slaskie, Silesia, Poland, with two separate fields - established on wastes from the Welz and Doerschel smelting processes. The tested methods allowed revegetation of the fields - application of municipal biosolid at the rate 300 dry t ha(-1) combined with the incorporation of commercial lime in a mixed oxide and carbonate form at the rate of 1.5 and 30 t for Welz waste or use of a 30 cm by-product lime cap followed by incorporation of biosolid at a rate of 300 t ha(-1) for the more acidic Doerschel waste. Studies on biological activities demonstrated that the reclamation methods used are an effective way to establish new, fully-functioning ecosystems that support plant growth. They also provided strong evidence that forage crops grown on Zn, Cd and Pb contaminated sites reclaimed using lime and biosolids do not pose identified risk for wildlife and food safety.     

Waiting for Peace: Perspectives from Action-oriented Research on the Humanitarian Impasse in the Caucasus

Cease-fires in the Caucasus during the past five years have prevented large-scale life-threatening emergencies and created space for peace negotiations. Yet genuine conflict resolution and normalisation have proven elusive, frustrating the return of uprooted populations and constraining reconstruction. This paper reviews a series of seven strategy sessions held in Moscow and the Caucasus in late 1998 to reflect upon the performance of humanitarian agencies and stimulate greater synergies with diplomatic actors. An experiment in promoting discussion of recently conducted independent policy research throughout the north and south Caucasus, the series resulted in a fresh look at the issues in the region and at agency headquarters. The generic nature of the policy challenges gives the experience potential relevance well beyond the region.     

Constituency Bias in a Federal Resource Management Agency: a Confirmatory Analysis

In a 1989 article, Ben Twight and Fremont Lyden compared the attitudes of national forest managers in the United States in 1981 with those of its major constituents to assess the extent to which the U.S. Forest Service was biased: were the beliefs and values of agency employees concerning resource management more representative of one of two major constituent groups, environmentalists and forest utilizers? The research tested Culhane's (Public Lands Politics: Interest Group Influence on the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins University Press. 1981) theory that the Forest Service occupies a middle ground in its attitudes relative to those of its environmental and utilization constituencies. They concluded that the agency did not; ideologically, district rangers were quite close to the Forest Service's utilizer constituency and relatively far from its environmentalist constituency. Given recent changes in the attitudes of Forest Services managers, the present study sought to answer the question: what do these changes reveal about the ideological position of the agency in 1981 vis a vis its position in 1990, and what are their implications for continuing concerns over the agency's representation of all interest groups? The response to survey questions of four groups—1990 district rangers and district rangers, environmentalists and forest utilizers in 1981—were combined for statistical comparison. Discriminant analyses were conducted to clarify the differences in the groups. Although the hypothesized bias of the Forest Service toward the traditional utilizer position was confirmed, the results also suggested that managers' values and attitudes had changed over the decade. The major issue underlying this bias—preservation versus utilization of resources—no longer adequately represented the agency's position, which has been fragmented into concerns with multiple issues.     

Pelvic restraint cushion sled test evaluation of pelvic forward motion

Objective: This study was designed to evaluate the performance of a pelvic restraint cushion (PRC), a submarining countermeasure that deploys under the thighs when a crash is detected in order to block the forward motion of the pelvis.

Methods: Sled tests approximating low- and high-speed frontal impacts were conducted with 4 female postmortem human subjects (PMHS) restrained by a lap and shoulder belt in the right front passenger seat. The subjects were tested with and without a PRC.

Results: The PRC is effective in reducing forward motion of the PMHS pelvis and reduces the risk of injury due to lap belt loading in a high-speed frontal crash.

Conclusions: Although small sample size limits the utility of the study's findings, the results suggest that the PRC can limit pelvic forward motion and that pelvic injury due to PRC deployment is not likely.     

Overview of a combined computational–experimental evaluation for the assessment of panoramic sunroof impact characteristics for ejection mitigation

Abstract

Objective: To meet increasing customer demand, many vehicle manufacturers are now offering a panoramic sunroof option in their vehicle lineup. Currently, there is no regulatory or consumer test aimed at assessing the potential for ejection mitigation of roof glazing, which leaves manufacturers to develop internal performance standards to guide designs. The goal of this study was to characterize the variety of occupant-to-roof impacts involving unbelted occupants in rollover crashes to determine the ranges of possible effective masses and impact velocities. This information can be used to define occupant retention requirements and performance criteria for roof glazing in occupant ejection protection.

Methods: This study combined computational (MADYMO and LS-Dyna) simulations of occupant kinematics in rollover crashes with laboratory rollover crash tests using the dynamic rollover test system (DRoTS) and linked them through controlled anthropomorphic test device (ATD)-to-roof (“drop”) impact tests. The DRoTS and the ATD drop tests were performed to explore impact scenarios and estimate dummy-to-roof impact impulses. Next, 13 sets of vehicle kinematics and deformation data were extracted from a combination of vehicle dynamics and finite element model simulations that reconstructed variations of rollover crash cases from the field data. Then occupant kinematics data were extracted from a full-factorial sensitivity study that used MADYMO simulations to investigate how changes in anthropometry and seating position would affect occupant–roof impacts across all 13 cases. Finite element (FE) simulations of ATD and Global Human Body Models Consortium (GHBMC) human body model (HBM) roof impacts were performed to investigate the most severe cases from the MADYMO simulations to generate a distribution of head-to-roof impact energies.

Results: From the multiparameter design of experiment and experimental study, kinematics and energy output were extracted and analyzed. Based on dummy-to-roof impact force and dummy-to-roof impact velocity, the most severe rollover scenarios were identified. In the DRoTS experiments followed by the drop tests, the range of identified impact velocities was between 2 and 5.8 m/s. However, computational simulations of the rollover crashes showed higher impact velocities and similar effective masses. The largest dummy-to-roof impact velocity was 11 m/s.

Conclusions: This study combined computational and experimental analyses to determine a range of possible unbelted occupant-to-roof impact energies. These results can be used to determine design parameters for an impactor for the assessment of the risk of roof glazing ejection for unbelted occupants in rollover crashes.