Wetland Mitigation Compliance in the Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan

The Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) is generally responsible for the implementation of federal Clean Water Act wetland regulations. It therefore plays an important role in the protection of wetlands within the United States. Unfortunately, past evaluators of ACEs implementation of these regulations found low rates of regulatory compliance. However, the fact that two states have taken responsibility for the implementation of these regulations within their boundaries provided the opportunity to assess whether one of these states might be doing a better job of enforcement. This paper reports on compliance with some of these regulations within one Michigan region. We evaluated permittee compliance with paperwork filing requirements related to wetland mitigation projects. Sixty-seven percent of county road commission permittees were out of compliance with at least one filing requirement. Forty percent of private and non-county government permittees were out of compliance. Our results therefore suggest that serious problems exist with Michigans implementation of wetland regulations. They do not suggest that compliance in this state is significantly better than in states under ACE administration. We believe that increased agency monitoring and enforcement would improve compliance.     

1951-2010年珠江流域洪水极值序列平稳性特征研究

水文序列的平稳性假设是传统水文统计学方法在水文序列分析研究中的基本假设,随着气候变化与人类活动对地表水文过程的影响,这种假设往往存在问题,使水文分析得出误导性结论。以珠江流域28个测站1951—2010年年最大洪峰流量序列为例,用Pettitt方法结合Loess参考函数检验序列中均值和方差变异,用Mann-Kendall(MK)和Spearman法检测时间趋势性,用广义可加模型(GAMLSS)和长期持续效应等具体分析序列的平稳性。研究结果表明:1均值/方差变异主要集中在西江和东江流域,变异时间分别集中在1990年左右和1968—1987年间;2变异点的存在与否对序列趋势检验结果有重要影响,在考虑变异点前提下,珠江流域年最大洪峰流量序列基本无显著趋势性;3在GAMLSS模型中,对于不具有和具有突变点序列,Gamma分布均为选择次数最多的最优极值分布,不具有突变点序列分布参数θ1或θ2非平稳模型与平稳模型差距较小,具有突变点序列则相反;4统计上检测出具有突变点或者显著时间趋势性的测站,同样检测出高Hurst系数,反之亦然。Hurst系数估计因样本容量较小具有较大不确定性。东江流域受流域内水利工程的剧烈影响,尽管检测出高Hurst系数,但仍认定为非平稳序列;西江干流主要受支流汇流和气候变化影响,高Hurst系数表明其水文过程可能是长期稳定过程中局部波动的结果。