Air Quality Management: Participatory Ranking of Control Measures and Conflict Analysis

The ranking of air quality control measures according to a number of evaluation criteria and with the participation of a large number of interested publics is demonstrated. A pilot study for the South Coast Air Quality Management District of California serves as the reference point. Several methodological considerations are addressed, such as: (a) the enhancement of criterion priorities to account for the variability among the performance of the control measures when incommensurable impact levels are applied: (b) the derivation of alternative rankings according to the priorities of potential coalitions; (c) the assessment of the potential acceptability of a collective ranking given the degree of solidarity among participants with similar interest affiliations; and (b) the assessment of the extent to which the performance of specific control measures may override priority differences and lead to insignificant ranking differences.     

Environmental radioactivity surveillance in Germany

The environmental radioactivity surveillance program of the Federal Republic of Germany is briefly described. Some results of intercomparative measurements carried out by the Federal Milk Research Institute are presented.     

RESEARCH METHODS IN LAND-USE HYDROLOGY

Land use changes which affect the hydrological cycle encompass a broad field of agricultural, forestry, and engineering activity. A variety of research methods, ranging from the very simple to the very complex, have been used in attempting to evaluate the effects of such changes. Because of the complexity of the hydrological process, it is difficult to distinguish the effects of changes in land use from natural variations in quality, quantity, peak rates, and other characteristics of runoff. The use of plots, experimental catchments, barometer watersheds, representative basins, benchmark and vigil networks, and other methods for the collection of data, and methods of data analysis ranging from simple graphical correlations to multivariate analysis and mathematical catchment models are reviewed and classified. Current methods of research are mainly of an ad hoc nature and the major deficiency is in the study of fundamental physical processes.     

Exploratory techniques for the determination of potential dose-response relationships between human health and air pollution

This paper seeks to verify the usefulness of selected multivariate statistical techniques for exploring new dose-response relationships between human health and air pollution. We do so by comparing our results with those already established in the literature through hypothesis testing procedures or laboratory work. This use of multivariate techniques is pretheoretical and should be interpreted as suggesting relationships which warrant further investigation with more traditional methodologies. Our results conform very well with those existing in the literature and lend credence to the use of such pretheoretical statistical methods.