Interaction Between the Environment and Animals in Urban Settings: Integrated and Participatory Planning

In urban ecosystems, the ecological system has become completely unbalanced; this, in turn, has led to an increase in well-known problems such as air pollution, ground pollution, and water pollution. This imbalance has also led to the growth and spread of pathogens harmful to man, animals, and plants. Urban sustainability indicators, both global and local, also “indicate” the percentage of population, but these refer only to the human population, not the animal population. Cities need good waste, water, and air management, effective traffic planning, and good zoning of businesses, crafts, and services; over and above these activities, cities also need for planning to take into account the existence of pets (dogs, cats, and etc.) and nonpet animals (insects, birds, mice, etc.). Cities tend to be designed around humans and “on a human scale,” without taking into account the fact that a huge animal population is living side by side with people. That explains why overcrowding tends to go hand in hand with urbanization; all these populations, including humans, need to adapt to new spaces and often need to drastically change their behavior. This is a fact that must be included when drafting sustainable city plans. The supposed strategy is that of “integrated-participatory” control of the interactions between the environment and animals in the cities. Strategy will focus on the development of integrated approaches and tools for environment and animal management in the context of urban settings. This will require such specific methods as ecological balance sheets and ecoplans for the planning, management, and control of the interrelation among environment, animal, and public health. The objective is to develop a better understanding of urban biodiversity and of urban ecosystem functioning, in order to understand and minimize the negative impacts of human activities on them. The research will focus on assessing and forecasting changes in urban biodiversity, structure, function, and dynamics of urban ecosystems, with relationships among society, economy, biodiversity, and habitats.     

TUGAI: An Integrated Simulation Tool for Ecological Assessment of Alternative Water Management Strategies in a Degraded River Delta

The development of ecologically sound water allocation strategies that account for the needs of riverine ecosystems is a pressing issue, especially in semiarid river basins. In the Aral Sea Basin, a search for strategies to mitigate ecological and socioeconomic deterioration has been in process since the early 1990s. The Geographic Information System–based simulation tool TUGAI has been developed to support the policy determination process by providing a simple, problem-oriented method to assess ecological effects of alternative water management strategies for the Amudarya River. It combines a multiobjective water allocation model with simple, spatially explicit statistical and rule-based models of landscape dynamics. Changes in environmental conditions are evaluated by a fuzzy habitat suitability index for Populus euphratica, which is the dominant species of the characteristic riverine Tugai forests. Water management scenarios can be developed by altering spatiotemporal water distribution in the delta area or the amount of water inflow into the delta. Outcomes of scenario analysis are qualitative comparisons of the ecological effects of different options for a time period of up to 28 years. The given approach utilizes different types of knowledge, from quantitative hydrological data to qualitative local expert knowledge. The main purpose of the tool is to integrate the knowledge in a comprehensive way to make it available for discussions on alternative policies in moderated workshops with stakeholders. In this article, the modules of the tool, their integration, and three hypothetical scenarios are presented. Based on the experience gained when developing the TUGAI tool, we propose that the general framework can be transferred to other areas where tradeoffs in water allocation between the environment and other water users are of major concern. The potential for a simulation tool to structure and inform a complex resource management situation by involving local experts and stakeholders in the development of possible future scenarios will become increasingly valuable for transparent and participatory resource management.     

Assessing Impacts of Typhoons and the Chi-Chi Earthquake on Chenyulan Watershed Landscape Pattern in Central Taiwan Using Landscape Metrics

The Chi-Chi earthquake (M_L = 7.3) occurred in the central part of Taiwan on September 21, 1999. After the earthquake, typhoons Xangsane and Toraji produced heavy rainfall that fell across the eastern and central parts of Taiwan on November 2000 and July 2001. This study uses remote sensing data, landscape metrics, multivariate statistical analysis, and spatial autocorrelation to assess how earthquake and typhoons affect landscape patterns. It addresses variations of the Chenyulan watershed in Nantou County, near the earthquake’s epicenter and crossed by Typhoon Toraji. The subsequent disturbances have gradually changed landscape of the Chenyulan watershed. Disturbances of various types, sizes, and intensities, following various tracks, have various effects on the landscape patterns and variations of the Chenyulan watershed. The landscape metrics that are obtained by multivariate statistical analyses showed that the disturbances produced variously fragmented patches, interspersed with other patches and isolated from patches of the same type across the entire Chenyulan watershed. The disturbances also affected the isolation, size, and shape-complexity of patches at the landscape and class levels. The disturbances at the class level more strongly affected spatial variations in the landscape as well as patterns of grasslands and bare land, than variations in the watershed farmland and forest. Moreover, the earthquake with high magnitude was a starter to create these landscape variations in space in the Chenyulan watershed. The cumulative impacts of the disturbances on the watershed landscape pattern had existed, especially landslides and grassland in the study area, but were not always evident in space and time in landscape and other class levels.     

西藏农村能源消费及环境影响研究

西藏农村人口现有220多万,占全区总人口80％以上,农村经济落后,城乡差距很大。西藏农村能源资源主要有水力、地热、太阳能、风力、林木和畜粪等,煤炭、石油、天然气等高热值的优质能源很少。在这种经济发展水平及能源资源基础条件下,农村能源消费中高热值的现代能源比重很低,主要以生物质能如薪柴、牛粪、草皮等为主。这种低水平的能源消费结构已经对西藏脆弱的生态环境造成了巨大的破坏,西藏未来的能源发展战略迫切需要改变农村目前的消费结构,应发展太阳能、风能、农村小水电及输入高热值的化石能源替代目前生物质能的消费,减少因能源消费对西藏生态环境的破坏。     

Bottom up and top down: analysis of participatory processes for sustainability indicator identification as a pathway to community empowerment and sustainable environmental management

The modern environmental management literature stresses the need for community involvement to identify indicators to monitor progress towards sustainable development and environmental management goals. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of participatory processes on sustainability indicator identification and environmental management in three disparate case studies. The first is a process of developing partnerships between First Nations communities, environmental groups, and forestry companies to resolve conflicts over forest management in Western Canada. The second describes a situation in Botswana where local pastoral communities worked with development researchers to reduce desertification. The third case study details an on-going government led process of developing sustainability indicators in Guernsey, UK, that was designed to monitor the environmental, social, and economic impacts of changes in the economy. The comparative assessment between case studies allows us to draw three primary conclusions. (1) The identification and collection of sustainability indicators not only provide valuable databases for making management decisions, but the process of engaging people to select indicators also provides an opportunity for community empowerment that conventional development approaches have failed to provide. (2) Multi-stakeholder processes must formally feed into decision-making forums or they risk being viewed as irrelevant by policy-makers and stakeholders. (3) Since ecological boundaries rarely meet up with political jurisdictions, it is necessary to be flexible when choosing the scale at which monitoring and decision-making occurs. This requires an awareness of major environmental pathways that run through landscapes to understand how seemingly remote areas may be connected in ways that are not immediately apparent.     

上海城区交通干道黑碳污染调查

采用设置在上海市中心城区交通主干道旁空气质量自动监测站2018年1—12月的观测数据,分析黑碳气溶胶(BC)污染特征及其与PM_(2.5)、SO_2、NO_x、CO、O_3、苯、甲苯、乙苯、二甲苯和气象参数的相关性。结果表明,观测期间内,BC小时均值为(3 038±22) ng/m~3,ρ(BC)在ρ(PM_(2. 5))中占比为(11. 48±0. 12)%。日内ρ(BC)变化呈双峰型,各月份之间ρ(BC)变化不大。ρ(BC)与风速呈负相关,与PM_(2. 5)、NO_x、CO、苯、甲苯、乙苯和二甲苯呈正相关。     

规划环境影响评价项目实施有效性的评估

从管理程序、技术方法、内容设置、评价结论及规划实施的保障措施等方面,建立了评估规划环境影响评价实施有效性的指标体系,包括“早期介入、公众参与的有效性、评审制度的严格性、工作程序的合理性、评价方法的实用性、技术手段的先进性、指标体系的全面性和合理性、环境质量评价标准的有效性、累积影响评价、替代方案、评价结论的明确性、规划评价结论的有效采纳、缓解和跟踪措施”等13项指标,并在对9个规划环境影响评价案例实施有效性评估的基础上,分析了当前该领域普遍存在的问题,包括规划环境影响评价介入时机晚、替代方案较少、公众参与普遍流于形式和对累积影响考虑不够等.      

天津市湿地资源开发的累积环境影响评价初探

历史上天津市自然湿地资源十分丰富,几十年来湿地大面积萎缩和生态功能急剧退化。天津湿地生态系统存在的主要问题是湿地生态系统如何恢复、重建和功能修复。文章在对天津市湿地生态环境建设的现状与湿地景观变化发展主要问题进行分析的基础上,探讨了湿地生态建设的目标、任务和对策,论述了湿地资源开发利用过程中累积影响评价(CIA)在政策、规划、计划及项目的各个层次都应得到充分考虑,建议明确将累积影响评价纳入到资源开发利用的体系,推动环境影响评价实践的进一步深入开展。     

填埋垃圾腐殖质组成在填埋场稳定度表征中的应用

通过对上海老港生活垃圾填埋场1991-2004年封场单元填埋垃圾腐殖质组成的分析,考察了填埋垃圾中腐殖质组成随填埋龄的变化规律.研究结果表明,填埋垃圾腐殖质的总可提取率和胡敏酸(HA)与富里酸(FA)比值(HA/FA)分别随填埋龄呈线性下降和上升趋势.因此,填埋垃圾总可提取率和HA/FA可用来有效表征填埋场和填埋垃圾稳定度.     

环境影响后评价的最新进展与建议

结合《中华人民共和国环境影响评价法》的有关条款,探讨了环境影响后评价的概念、分类、适用对象、意义和内容,提出了环境影响后评价的管理和实施程序.结合多年的实践,分析了目前环境影响后评价工作在理论、方法和管理上存在的问题,提出了改进和完善的建议.案例实践表明,开展环境影响后评价有助于提高环境影响评价制度的有效性.