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.     

Strategies for Rebuilding Closer Links between Local Indigenous Communities and Their Customary Fisheries in Aotearoa/New Zealand

There is a growing recognition that knowledge of indigenous communities, based on accumulated observations and experience over time, is significant for sustainable environmental management in collaboration with modern scientific knowledge. A number of innovative policy initiatives are currently being implemented in New Zealand to enable indigenous Maori tribes and sub-tribes to rehabilitate and manage their local fisheries in accordance with customary values and practices. These policies are an important milestone from an historical perspective as they are meant to recognise and empower the role of Maori as Treaty partners. The fisheries management regime in New Zealand now provides for Maori representation at the local level within a co-management framework that enables local Maori communities to exercise their customary rights. These institutional arrangements have been crafted to facilitate Maori input, based on customary values and practices, to complement modern Western management practices for sustainable harvesting of marine resources. Nevertheless, the degree to which these initiatives constitute an adequate response to Maori Treaty aspirations is debatable. A major constraint in this respect is that the government is compelled to recognise the needs of other, economically and politically more dominant, non-Maori user-groups in allocating and managing access to fishery resources and the marine environment.     

SIMULATION OF TEMPORAL CHANGES IN RAINFALL-RUNOFF CHARACTERISTICS,COON CREEK BASIN,WISCONSIN1

ABSTRACT: Streamflow for 67 years was simulated for Coon Creek at Coon Valley, Wisconsin, for three conditions in the drainage basin: (1) conditions in the 1930s; (2) conditions in the 1970s, excluding flood-detention reservoirs; and (3) conditions in the 1970s, including flood-detention reservoirs. These simulations showed that the changes in agricultural practices over 40 years (1940–80) reduced the 100-year flood by 53 percent (from 38,900 to 18,300 cubic feet per second). The flood-detention reservoirs reduced the 100-year flood by an additional 17 percent (to 15,100 cubic feet per second). The simulation was accomplished by calibrating a precipitation-runoff model to observed rainfall and runoff during two separate periods (1934–40 and 1978–81). Comparisons of model simulations showed that differences between the model calibrations for the two periods were statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level.     

Modelling nitrogen fluxes at the landscape scale

The distribution and impacts of different nitrogen pollutants are inextricably linked. To understand the problem fully, the interactions between the different pollutants need to be taken into account. This is particularly important when it comes to abatement techniques, since measures to reduce emissions of one nitrogen pollutant can often lead to an increase in another. This project represents a step towards greater understanding of these issues by linking together new and existing nitrogen flux models into a larger framework. The modelling framework has been constructed and some of the nitrogen flows between fields, farms and the atmosphere have been modelled for a UK study area for typical farm management scenarios.     

On the Methods for the Delimitation of Seasons

It is well known that air pollution is one of the major factors affecting human health and the activities in a town. Among the various air pollutants an interesting one, especially for sunny climates, is the reactive O₃. O₃ varies significantly through the year; it is therefore very important to know the onset and the duration of the warm period of the year since at that time O₃ concentrations increase significantly. In this work, an attempt was made to determine the onset of warm season of the year as well as its duration in various sites located in Northeastern Mediterranean. For this purpose, a fuzzy clustering method is used. The method was applied on the isobaric thickness between 1000 and 500 hPa for the period from 1974 to 1997. The results were compared to conventional methods based on synoptic classification and were found to be in good agreement.     

Distribution of fission products in dust samples from the region of Thessaloniki, Greece, after the Chernobyl nuclear accident

The distribution of the fission products (95)Zr, (95)Nb, (103)Ru, (106)Ru (determined through (106)Rh), (125)Sb, (129m)Te, (134)Cs, (137)Cs, (140)Ba, (140)La, (141)Ce and (144)Ce has been determined in dust samples from the region of Thessaloniki, Greece, after the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. The samples studied also included (110m)Ag, not belonging to the products of (235)U fission. Samples showing higher concentrations of radionuclides also show a higher content in clay minerals, whereas samples having low concentrations of radionuclides usually contain large amounts of quartz and feldspars. Desorption and leaching experiments using solutions of chlorides of sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium (0.5 N), as well as distilled and tap water, were also performed. Sodium and potassium chloride solutions were found to be efficient in desorbing and/or leaching of caesium and ruthenium isotopes to an extent of about 30%.