复合垂直流湿地反应动力学及水流流态的研究

 提出一种新型的复合垂直流湿地系统(IVCW),并对其反应动力学和系统的实际流态进行了研究.经过中试的运行试验,得到了系统对COD去除的反应速率方程,由示踪剂试验确定了系统中水流的停留时间分布(RTD),提出RTD的不同是湿地处理效率差异的主要原因,进而运用串联反应器模型和离散流模型两种非理想流态模型,模拟IVCW的实际水流流态,经过比较发现离散流模型模拟的效果较好.     

Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and the human immune system: 4 studies on two Spanish families with increased body burdens of highly chlorinated PCDDs

The consequences of exposure of people to highly chlorinated polychlorodibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) are much less known than those of TCDD. We report on levels of PCDDs (and PCDFs) in 13 members of two families poisoned by contaminated cooking oil. Originally, all persons displayed chloracne as an early symptom. Persisting hexa- and higher chlorinated PCDDs could be analysed many years after exposure. Highest values found in blood lipids were: OCDD 660,000 pg/g; HpCDD 58,000 pg/g; HxCDDs: 3500 pg/g. None of the participants exhibited increased TCDD levels at the time of study. During a period of 6 years, HpCDD and OCDD disappeared from the blood lipids much faster in persons exposed as children or young adults, than from lipids of their parents. Surface receptors on blood lymphocytes of the members of the two families and the proliferative capacity of these blood cells in the presence of typical stimulants were analysed. Even in family members with the highest body burdens of hexa- to octachlorinated PCDDs we could not detect pronounced changes from a reference population with respect to the immunological markers. Minor deviations of levels of some receptors in a few, but not all, highly exposed persons suggested a similar trend to those reported in previous studies of persons with body burdens of > or =3000 pg TCDD/g blood lipids. An increase in the number of total blood lymphocytes in some subjects exposed as children may have similarity with highly TCDD-exposed children in Seveso.     

Global environmental consequences of increased biodiesel consumption in Switzerland: consequential life cycle assessment

This study assesses the direct and indirect environmental impacts to be expected if Switzerland should replace one percent of its current diesel consumption with imports of A) soybean methyl ester (SME) from Brazil, or B) palm methyl ester (PME) from Malaysia. In order to take into account possible future consequences, what-if scenarios were developed and assessed by means of a consequential LCA. In contrast to attributional LCA, the consequential approach uses system enlargement to include the marginal products affected by a change of the physical flows in the central life cycle. This means that the LCA considers all inputs and outputs which are linked to biodiesel production and that the product system is subsequently expanded to include the marginal products affected. Both future systems are assessed in comparison with the environmental scores of the fossil equivalent to biodiesel, i.e. diesel low in sulphur. The environmental burdens are measured by means of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), land occupation and various non-aggregated and aggregated environmental impact indicators.In sum, the environmental impacts of an increased SME consumption depend on the environmental scores of the marginal replacement products on the world market, rather than on local production factors. In other words, the marginal products assumed to be affected are most important for the results obtained, i.e. in particular the marginal vegetable oil, fodder cake and land areas. In this study it is SME production increased at the expense of the available soybean oil which shifts the impacts associated with soybean oil production to the production of the marginal vegetable oils on the world market. In this perspective, it is not relevant in which country biodiesel production takes place, but rather which vegetable oil is involved. With respect to PME, the most relevant determining factor for the environmental impacts is the land area affected by the increased cultivation of oil palms. Currently, this expansion displaces primarily peat land and rain forest. This causes GHG emissions which are much higher than the emissions of the fossil reference. All in all, both PME from Malaysia and SME from Brazil cause more environmental impact than allowed by the Swiss tax redemption on agro-biofuels (max. 60% GHG emissions and 125% UBP of the fossil reference).     

反应器理论在复合垂直流构建湿地水流流态研究中的应用

运用反应器理论研究了一种新型的复合垂直流构建湿地系统(IVCW)的水流流态,由示踪剂试验得到水流停留时间分布(RTD),从而确定了IVCW在水力负荷为200～800mm/d时,停留时间为19～35h,并由RTD曲线的特征值确定IVCW的水流流态介于理想推流与完全混合流之间,同时应用离散流模型,不仅较好地模拟了IVCW的实际水流流态,还得到了水流的Peclect准数在11～19之间.通过有植物与无植物系统的对照发现植物根系有利于IVCW的水流流态接近理想推流状态.     

An overdue alignment of risk and resilience? A conceptual contribution to community resilience

A systematic review of literature on community resilience measurement published between 2005 and 2014 revealed that the profound lack of clarity on risk and resilience is one of the main reasons why confusion about terms such as adaptive capacity, resilience, and vulnerability persists, despite the effort spared to operationalise these concepts. Resilience is measured in isolation in some cases, where a shock is perceived to arise external to the system of interest. Problematically, this contradicts the way in which the climate change and disaster communities perceive risk as manifesting itself endogenously as a function of exposure, hazard, and vulnerability. The common conceptualisation of resilience as predominantly positive is problematic as well when, in reality, many undesirable properties of a system are resilient. Consequently, this paper presents an integrative framework that highlights the interactions between risk drivers and coping, adaptive, and transformative capacities, providing an improved conceptual basis for resilience measurement.     

Climate change mitigation in Austria and Switzerland: The pitfalls of federalism in greening decentralized building policies

The present paper analyses and compares how federalism in Austria and Switzerland affected climate change mitigation in the fully decentralized building sectors of the two countries during the Kyoto Period (1990–2012). This is of interest because the environmental significance of federal political systems is still contested. We first review the literature on federalism in the context of environmental and climate policymaking, and we show that the effects of federal political systems can be positive or negative (depending on interactions between politics and problem characteristics). We then summarize the two qualitative country studies. By analysing who initiated and coordinated respective policies at what time and why, we show that respective policy changes neither emerged bottom-up nor diffused between provinces/cantons, although the latter are fully responsible for building policies. While most policy changes were triggered by federal and/or European Union interventions, the provinces/cantons usually delayed and/or watered down policy changes to smallest common denominator solutions. Based on these findings we conclude that the building sectors of the two countries became more efficient despite, not because of federalism. Against this background we recommend centralizing building policies, or to engage sub-national actors in national target-setting early on.     

The vertical integration of Lisbon and sustainable development strategies across the EU: How different governance architectures shape the European coherence of policy documents

In Europe, sustainable development (SD) is pursued with not one but two overarching strategies, i.e., the so-called Lisbon and SD strategies. While the Lisbon Strategy is a genuinely European response to global economic and social pressures, SD strategies are national efforts corresponding with international (mainly United Nations) guidance to better coordinate and integrate economic, social and, in particular, environmental policies. The present paper explores the vertical coordination and coherence of the two pan-European strategies. After reviewing the international background of SD strategies and the EU origins of the Lisbon strategy, the paper characterizes and compares the governance architectures of the two strategies. With a solid background on how vertical policy integration functions in the two processes, the paper then shows how this affects the coherence of respective strategy structures and monitoring indicators. Based on an extensive empirical stocktaking study of the objectives and indicators in Lisbon and SD strategies across Europe it is shown that, despite the stronger European coordination through the Open Method of Coordination, the Lisbon process entailed only slightly more coherent national strategies than international guidance did in the context of SD strategies. Thus, the paper concludes that the influence international organizations such as the UN and the OECD have on national policy-making must not be underestimated.