Education for sustainable development – an inter‐disciplinary pilot module for undergraduate engineers and scientists

The coming together of a number of initiatives provided a springboard for an innovative pilot programme in education for sustainable development. For some time problem‐based learning has gathered momentum as an approach to educating professionals. More recently, there has been a burgeoning interest in inter‐disciplinary approaches to the complex societal and environmental issues that face the world as a whole. At the same time, professional engineering institutions have been reflecting on appropriate approaches to the education and development of future engineers. Building on work already undertaken by some of the authors, the Royal Academy of Engineering sponsored an inter‐disciplinary pilot programme in sustainable development for undergraduate engineers and scientists in the University of Manchester. The pilot was innovative not only in its inter‐disciplinary approach to sustainable development but also in its approach to the development of the curriculum. Inter‐disciplinary exercises were designed that enabled a contextual, active, collaborative and cumulative approach to learning. The assessment was also designed to align to the learning approach. Evaluation of the pilot programme suggests that it was well received by the students, and the post‐doctoral researchers who acted as facilitators, and also that there were gains in both understanding of the issues and also in approaches to learning.     

A sustainability approach for selecting maintenance strategy

Appropriate maintenance can prolong the life of an asset and prevent costly breakdowns that may result in lost production, failed shipping schedules and a decline in customer satisfaction. The goal of this study was to present a comprehensive framework that utilises sustainability metrics based on social, environmental and economic criteria to select an appropriate maintenance strategy among a variety of maintenance strategy alternatives, such as preventive, failure-based, reliability-centred, condition-based and total productive maintenance strategies, for a manufacturing company. The sustainability-based approach may significantly influence the personnel, energy, material and the overall costs in a company. In the first step of this paper, a sustainability-based decision-making structure is proposed for the maintenance strategy selection problem applying the concept of factor analysis to determine the leading factors in each of the sustainability pillars. In the next step, a fuzzy VIKOR framework is used to select the most appropriate maintenance strategy. The provided approach is illustrated using a manufacturing industry case study.     

The Three Gorges Project in Figures

Abstact

Ecological city is the advanced mode of harmonious development of city. Constant improvement is being made in the development of ecological city. However, building ecological city is an enormous project that calls for a huge amount of capital. The government fund is far from adequate. This paper probes into the fund issue and discusses in detail the mechanism of investment and financing in building ecological city from various aspects such as diversification of the investment subjects and the modes of financing.     

中国城市用地增长极限规模测算

快速城市化出现的城市建设用地扩张问题,受到人们广泛关注,借鉴发达国家经验,我国需要测算一个极限区间值进行自上而下的总量控制,以促进最严格耕地保护制度和节约用地制度的落实.但是如何测算这个极限规模一直没有得到很好解决.本文提出了一个常规方法组合和关键指标相结合的技术思路来尝试解决这个问题.研究首先对城市用地扩展规模的影响因子进行了分析,讨论了城市人口数量和GDP分别与建成区面积相关性,确定了城市人口数量对建成区面积影响更大;在此基础上,采用逻辑斯蒂模型,依据我国1950-2010年经济数据,对城市化水平进行预测;用自回归分布滞后模型,依据1951-2010年全国人口数据对未来人口规模进行预测,并分为三个方案对结果进行了讨论;最后按照城市用地分类与规划建设用地标准,以节约集约用地为原则,将人均城市用地规模取值控制在65.0-115.0 m2,计算城市用地扩展极限规模.结果表明,到2045年,中国的城市化预测水平为79.99％,在中国人口增长控制较好的情况下,人口规模将达到14.97亿人,城市用地扩展规模为77 857.38-137 747.70 km1;若中国人口达到有关研究的预测峰值16亿人,中国城市化水平稳定在80％,城市用地扩展极限规模将会是83 200.00-147 200.00 km2.综合以上分析,未来我国的城市建设用地总量应在7.8万km2到14.7万km2之间.     

国际城市CO2排放清单研究进展及评述

综述和分析了国际城市CO2排放清单研究进展,及国际组织/机构建立的城市清单标准和协议.将城市清单方法划分为直接排放法、碳足迹法和直接-间接排放混合法,并比较分析了各种方法的特点和优劣势.探讨了城市清单中范围3的内容和计算深度及城市交通排放分配问题.早期城市排放清单基本沿用国家清单方法,但当城市作为消费者的特色愈加明显,其清单方法学受城市物质循环思想的影响,已经不同于国家清单方法并逐渐成熟.在准确性、公平性和效率性原则下,直接-间接排放混合法成为城市清单的主流方法,当前排放主要包括范围1+范围2,但未来范围1+范围2+范围3(重点产品和服务)将成为主流趋势.城市清单中范围3的标准化和可操作性问题,及城市交通分配方法的统一和规范是近期城市清单研究的重点和难点.城市CO2排放监测将会成为城市清单的重要支撑,其作为独立数据源将在城市清单的可测量、可报告、可核查中会发挥重要作用.     

Strategic Study on Integration of Port and City Development in Rizhao

Abstract

Agglomeration of the Yangtze Delta (UAYD), one of the most developed regions of China, has witnessed an increasing prevalence in building ecological cities when the ecological cities are pursued by many modern cities, and great achievements have been made in this regard. It is inevitable, however, that certain problems exist during the construction of ecological city, which include but not limited to non-harmonious development of urban complex ecosystem, and the difficulty in quantifying eco-city construction or incomplete quantification in assessing the construction of present and future eco-city. Based on the analysis on social-economic conditions and regional conditions of the UAYD, this paper attempts to set up an index system of eco-cities combining with local characteristics, and to adopt the indices of eco-city, urban harmony, and eco-city colligate to evaluate the ecological level, urban harmonious development and eco-city construction of cities within the UAYD. Results indicate that among 15 cities in UAYD, Suzhou City ranks the highest in terms of eco-city construction, whereas Nantong ranks relatively lower; sustainable eco-city construction is possible only when cities are developed in every respect of harmony.     

Environmental and resource sustainability of Chinese cities: A review of issues,policies, practices and effects

This paper synthesizes the English literature on current issues, policies and practices, and their effects on environmental and resource sustainability in China's ongoing urbanization. Aspects of urban sustainability reviewed include air, water, solid waste, energy efficiency, transportation and land use. It shows that Chinese cities have been and probably will continue to be struggling with issues such as air pollution, scarcity of clean water, solid waste and greenhouse gas emissions. But there are many opportunities for improvement. It suggests shortages of existing policies and major gaps in knowledge and practice, which can be helpful to policy makers, planners and researchers in China and other developing countries.     

Location set covering for waste resource recycling centers in Taiwan

The efficiency of Taiwan's waste management and resource recycling systems has been well recognized in recent years, but the present model used to locate recycling centers and to assign collection depots to those centers continues to show low efficiency. To address this issue, the study herein suggests implementing a new location-planning and assignment model to reduce the number of existing recycling centers. Such a reduction would reduce the use of land resources. Moreover, the total transportation distance would decrease through the efficient assignment of collection depots to recycling centers. On the basis of results from previous studies, this study proposes a 2-stage location set covering problem-P-median integrated model that obtains exact solutions using heuristic algorithms on the basis of set operations. The results of numerical analyses show that the model introduced in this study is effective in solving the problems stated above as well as in improving the layout of Taiwan's existing recycling centers.     

中国流域水资源生态补偿的法律问题与对策

随着我国经济社会的不断发展,水资源不足和水质污染引起的水危机已经成为许多地区可持续发展中的重要制约因素。在这种背景下,为了平衡环境、社会和经济多元利益,寻求先进的法律机制来调节平衡、保护流域生态环境、促进流域的可持续发展已成为一种共识。开展流域水资源生态补偿是实现流域上下游之间等相关方利益公平的关键所在。但由于我国缺乏生态补偿立法和相应的制度安排,流域水资源生态补偿目前仍面临许多问题：我国流域水资源生态补偿进展缓慢、法律制度滞后、部分法律法规彼此之间矛盾和相互冲突、流域水资源生态补偿的法律制度缺位、立法模式不适合当今流域生态环境问题解决等。本文通过对我国有关涉水法律中存在问题的分析,提出一些有关流域水资源生态补偿法律制度建设和完善的对策,以期对中国流域水资源生态补偿的推进和进一步实现水资源的可持续利用有所帮助。     

家庭作坊式“企业”安全水平的模糊综合评价研究

通过对家庭作坊式＂企业＂的现状调查以及当前的经济形势分析,可知当前家庭作坊式＂企业＂的安全问题十分突出,为了控制住家庭作坊式＂企业＂的火灾发生,对其进行适当的安全水平评价显得很有必要。本文针对家庭作坊式＂企业＂的安全问题,根据资料确定影响家庭作坊的安全指标,采用层次分析法对各安全指标进行分层次处理并建立了评价层次结构模型,由各安全指标相对重要度的比较确定了各级指标权重;再通过模糊评价将各指标权重与安全评价关联,并划分不同的安全等级,提出了安全水平的模糊综合评价模型;最后采用模糊中值法把安全评价结果数量化并得出所处的安全等级。本文还通过对某家庭作坊式＂企业＂的安全水平评价实例,证明了该方法具有一定的可行性。