Water Governance and Water Use Efficiency: The Five Principles of WUA Management and Performance in China1

Wang, Jinxia, Jikun Huang, Lijuan Zhang, Qiuqiong Huang, and Scott Rozelle, 2010. Water Governance and Water Use Efficiency: The Five Principles of WUA Management and Performance in China. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 46(4): 665-685. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2010.00439.x Abstract: In recent years China has attempted to reform water management by decentralizing water management responsibilities. The overall goal of our paper is to better understand the emergence of water user associations (WUAs) in China and assess if they are adhering to the practices spelled out by the Five Principles, a set of recommended practices that are supposed to lead to successful WUA operation. Using four sets of different types of villages to examine implementation and performance, we find that World Bank-supported WUA villages (“Bank villages”) can be thought of as operating mostly according to the Five Principles. For example, the Bank villages were endowed with a more reliable water supply; were set up and were operating with a relatively high degree of farmer participation; and leaders were more consultative and the process more formal. When WUAs are run according to the Five Principals, we show that WUAs increase water use efficiency. The study also provides evidence that there is a perception in the Bank villages that water management is improving in general and that there is less conflict both within the village and among villages. Perhaps more importantly, we find that the Bank’s effort to promote WUAs extended beyond their own project villages. The openness, consultative nature, and transparency found in the Bank WUAs are also found (albeit at a somewhat lower level) in the non-Bank WUA villages.     

Ecological Survey of Coastal I Water Adjacent to Nuclear Power I Plants in Taiwan

A total of six nuclear reactors installed in three power plants, two along the northern and one along the southern coasts of Taiwan, started their operations one after another since October 1977. Owing to the large quantities of cooling water intake into and discharge from the plants, some environmental factors such as water temperature, chlorine, environmental radioactivity and nearshore currents may be significantly changed. Variations of these abiotic environmental factors may influence the biological activities in the ecosystem, particularly doing some kinds of damage to marine biological resources. Therefore, the possible environmental impact upon the biological systems including the fishery resources along the northern and southern coasts of Taiwan should be studied before and during the plant operation.

We have started the long-term programmes of biological, chemical and hydro-graphical surveys of the nuclear power plant sites on both northern (since July 1974) and southern (since July 1979) coasts of Taiwan. the survey items include ocean currents, physical and chemical properties of sea water, primary productivity, specific compositions and interspecific relationships among phyto- and zooplankton, algae, invertebrates, corals, and fishes; and radionuclides in water and biological specimens, and fishery statistics. in general, except for a few events, the operations of the six units of nuclear power plants have not produced detectable effects on the marine ecosystem. Radio activity levels and radionuclides in water and the biological specimens remained the same as background levels throughout the survey period. However, the events of coral bleaching and fish body anomalies caused by thermal discharges were observed respectively along the outlets of third and second Nuclear Power Plants. the purposes of this paper are to report and evaluate these two events during the operations of nuclear power plants in Taiwan.     

Inexact fuzzy-stochastic constraint-softened programming – A case study for waste management

In this study, an inexact fuzzy-stochastic constraint-softened programming method is developed for municipal solid waste (MSW) management under uncertainty. The developed method can deal with multiple uncertainties presented in terms of fuzzy sets, interval values and random variables. Moreover, a number of violation levels for the system constraints are allowed. This is realized through introduction of violation variables to soften system constraints, such that the model’s decision space can be expanded under demanding conditions. This can help generate a range of decision alternatives under various conditions, allowing in-depth analyses of tradeoffs among economic objective, satisfaction degree, and constraint-violation risk. The developed method is applied to a case study of planning a MSW management system. The uncertain and dynamic information can be incorporated within a multi-layer scenario tree; revised decisions are permitted in each time period based on the realized values of uncertain events. Solutions associated with different satisfaction degree levels have been generated, corresponding to different constraint-violation risks. They are useful for supporting decisions of waste flow allocation and system-capacity expansion within a multistage context.     

美国公共管理面面观——在伊利诺伊州芝加哥市感受美国

美国政府的公共管理是建立在美国特有的政治制度和经济体制的基础上的。 美国的政府体系是由联邦、州和地方政府三个层级组成的联邦制政府体系,它们分别具有各自独立的政府权威和管辖领域．实行多中心治理和法定分权体制。联邦政府由立法机构、行政机构和司法机构三个分支组成,实行三权分立的政治体制。     

长江河口近岸水体自然净化作用及其初步评价

按照水体的净化机理，结合长江口和上海滨岸带近岸水体的物理、化学和生物等因素的实际特征，对近岸水体的自然净化作用进行了阐述和分析。并在历史资料和实测资料基础上，就近岸水体的自然净化作用进行了评价。评价结果表明，因长江河口近岸水体存在较强的自然净化作用机制，近岸水体体的自然净化能力较强，环境容量较大，但由于污染物输入量的不断增加，部分岸段近岸水体的环境质量有逐渐下降的趋势；近岸水体的自然净化作用具有明显的季节性变化，长江口南岸水域洪水季节水体的自然净化作用比估水季节强，而杭州湾北岸水域的自然净化作用表现为相反的变化趋势，因此建议在近岸污水排放过程中应考虑近岸水体的净化能力，遵循水体的自然净化作用规律。     

西北地区水资源—生态可持续发展的若干问题探讨

基于对西北地区大开发的关键性难题与一些违背自然规律的不良倾向的讨论 ,认为大开发的实施需要在系统科学思维的基础上综合考虑资源—环境—经济的协调发展。近年来 ,许多科学家从各种角度揭示了我国西北乃至北半球中纬度地区持续干旱的发展规律 ,对干旱化趋势与水盐失衡的分析表明 ,西北地区气候干旱化将长期存在 ,生态将继续退化 ,这种趋势是人力不可抗拒的。人为活动尤其是水资源的开发利用 ,对土壤生态的影响是非常明显的 ,应该在严格控制水资源利用总量的前提下 ,调整用水格局 ,发展节水经济 ,科学确定社会经济用水和生态用水的比例 ,保证必须的生态用水 ,大力发展生态植被。指出在分析西北生态环境问题时过于强调人为活动而忽视自然因素作用的倾向 ,讨论了水库兴修、灌溉、土地利用与改良、深层水利用、水环境脆弱性等水资源—生态建设与可持续发展中的若干关键性问题     

精神文明建设与可持续发展

本文从多个层次论述了精神文明建设与可持续发展的关系。完善市场经济新秩序中丰富精神文明建设和培育文化力 ,构建以人的全面发展为战略主导的社会、经济、文化、科教、生态、资源、环境和谐统一的可持续发展机制。实现市场经济、精神文明、可持续发展的和谐统一     

秦巴山区降雨侵蚀力时空变化特征

降雨侵蚀力时空变化特征的研究对区域土壤侵蚀风险评估及水土保持规划具有重要的意义。利用秦巴山区及周边地区共63个气象站1961~2016年的逐日降雨量数据计算各站的降雨侵蚀力,借助Kriging空间插值法、Mann-Kendall趋势检验、Pettitt突变检验等方法分析了秦巴山区降雨侵蚀力的时空变化特征。结果表明：秦巴山区年均降雨侵蚀力为3 696 MJ·mm/(hm²·h·a),年内变化呈单峰型,7月最大,占全年的26.6%;四季中,夏季最大,冬季最小。代际间,20世纪80年代的降雨侵蚀力最大,90年代最小。年际间,年降雨侵蚀力存在明显的阶段性,但未表现出显著的趋势性和突变性特征。秦巴山区多年平均降雨侵蚀力呈南高北低的分布格局,不同地区年均降雨侵蚀力变化于787~8 858 MJ·mm/(hm²·h·a)之间;整体而言,年降雨侵蚀力随纬度增加而减小,随海拔升高而减小。     

基于资源环境承载力与开发建设适宜性的国土开发强度研究——以江苏省为例

以江苏省为研究区域,运用特尔斐法、线性拟合预测、Kaya分解模型和多要素空间叠置分析等方法,测算未来各地市基于资源环境承载力与开发建设适宜性的可承载国土开发强度,进而识别影响区域建设用地扩张的限制性因素。结果表明：（1）不同资源环境要素对江苏省建设用地扩张的约束作用呈现显著差异,水资源对国土开发的承载水平总体稍高于环境承载水平,而碳峰值承载水平为三者最低;（2）“不适宜”开发区主要分布在湖泊湿地和沿海滩涂地区,“适宜”开发区则以苏锡常环太湖一线、宁镇扬盐沿长江一线和滨海沿线为轴带集聚分布;（3）各地市未来可承载国土开发强度呈现地域性、时间性和结构性差异,苏南地区主要面临环境和碳排放的双重约束,苏中和苏北则受水、环境和碳排放的交替约束。国土开发强度承载水平预测可为制定区域差异化的用地规模调控与生态保护政策提供理论与数据支撑。