Integration and integrated approaches to assessment: what do they mean for the environment?

Integration and integrated approaches are increasingly presented as new and superior ways to consider the environment in policy- and decision-making. If used in an uncritical way, this assertion could become a hindrance to good practice and could undermine efforts to defend or improve environmental quality. The aim of this paper is to provide the missing critical perspective through an investigation of the meanings of integration found in recent literature on assessment. This literature represents a broad survey of European (particularly UK) and US critiques of assessment practices, and proposals for better and usually ‘more integrated’ approaches. These critiques and proposals relate to a range of assessment contexts, from relatively technical issues of data handling, to questions of the design, choice and implementation of policy options. This paper also surveys, and contributes to, literature that questions the central goals and assumptions informing assessment practice and environmental governance more widely. Fourteen meanings of ‘integration’ are presented, with a discussion of the potential synergies and conflicts among them, and with environmental objectives. Integration is argued to be a matter of value judgements concerning assessment design in specific historical and social contexts. Far from providing a panacea, integration would appear to create as many challenges as it might resolve in seeking to achieve more sustainable development. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

长江流域水电站施工区生活垃圾特性及处理处置决策模型研究

随着中国长江流域水电开发进入高峰期,大量的建设人员进入水电站施工营地,导致施工区的生活垃圾处理处置问题日益凸显。通过对金沙江HPS1水电站、雅砻江HPS2水电站和HPS3水电站、大渡河HPS4水电站施工区生活垃圾状况的调查表明,水电站施工生活区生活垃圾人均产量平均值约为0.68kg/d;以厨余、渣土、纸类塑料和橡胶为主,电池等危险废物含量甚微;容重、低位热值、生物可降解物质量分数的平均值分别为358kg/m3、5 234kJ/kg、43.22%。结合施工区所处的环境条件和周围的市政设施现状,采用层次分析法和最小成本法,构建了长江流域水电站施工区生活垃圾处理处置决策模型,可为大型水电站开发过程中施工区生活垃圾全过程管理提供指导。根据决策模型计算得出,HPS1、HPS2、HPS4水电站施工区生活垃圾最优处理处置技术为卫生填埋,HPS3水电站以外运综合处理最优。     

Integrating affective values to sustainable behaviour focused on Kansei engineering

Due to the changes and complications of emerging society, designers are required not only to know about their design values, but also understand the link between their design and the impacts on the users. This paper aims to show a Kansei focused proposition for sustainable behaviour. By investigating the relationship between Subjective Preference (Like-Dislike) and product evaluation, it shows how affective values, which are used in Kansei engineering researches, influence user’s preferences. In this study, it was considering (1) various factors of product (e.g. the view variation and blackness of products), and (2) Reality Sets (Uninominal–Binominal). Car-front-face, car-side, car-multi-aspect (as Uninominal Reality Sets) and combinations of car front and side (as Binominal Reality Sets) were used as stimuli. The experiment consists of item screening and product evaluation. Subjects were participated in both. The aim of item screening was at selecting subjectively preferred/non-preferred images. Images, which were screened through item screening, were reconciliated per subject. The aim of product evaluation was at investigating if Subjective Preference has related to product evaluation. Semantic Differential method was used as product evaluation method. Evaluation values were preference, aesthetic and pleasure. The findings shows: (1) Subjective Preference is related to product evaluation independently in Uninominal Reality Sets, whereas Subjective Preference is related to product evaluation dependently in Binominal Reality Sets (2) partial preferred images influence product evaluation in Uninominal Reality Sets, whereas Binominal Reality Sets do not influence it.     

高速公路安全改善项目方案决策研究

针对我国高速公路运营安全特点,在对事故资料、道路设计资料的收集与分析的基础上,将事故黑点和事故多发路段类型划分为撞固定物、追尾及其组合不同类型。结合现场交通运行环境与运行状态调查,分析事故黑点和事故多发路段的成因,提出安全改善对策研究的基本原则,并有针对性地进行了安全改善对策研究,建立高速公路事故黑点和事故多发路段安全改善工程对策集。在决策方法研究中,总结常用安全改善对策的可能效果,提出高速公路安全改善项目方案决策的原则,研究了安全改善对策选择的效用决策方法,并进行了案例分析。     

基于GIS的城市生活垃圾规划管理智能决策方法

对城市生活垃圾治理系统进行规划管理是克服治理过程中混乱不协调所带来的问题、提高治理决策有效性的根本方法.提出了基于GIS的城市生活垃圾规划管理智能决策方法.将"城市生活垃圾治理系统"的决策划分为3个层次,在此基础上构建总体规划方案,并将人工智能技术和GIS与总体规划中的模型相集成,给出了该方法的一般性决策模型,对该方法的决策过程和主要创新也进行了详细描述,为构建基于GIS的城市生活垃圾规划管理智能决策系统提供了依据.     

Web中文文本分类在防震减灾辅助决策中的应用

在信息技术飞速发展的今天,地震预报智能决策系统和地震信息系统迫切需要新技术的融入。Web挖掘是目前信息技术中的研究热点,它是现代科学技术相互渗透融合的必然结果。文章首先介绍了Web挖掘的含义,重点讨论了Web文本分类技术,并提出了其在防震减灾辅助决策中的应用模型。     

The ethics of Google Earth: crossing thresholds from spatial data to landscape visualisation

‘Virtual globe’ software systems such as Google Earth are growing rapidly in popularity as a way to visualise and share 3D environmental data. Scientists and environmental professionals, many of whom are new to 3D modeling and visual communications, are beginning routinely to use such techniques in their work. While the appeal of these techniques is evident, with unprecedented opportunities for public access to data and collaborative engagement over the web, are there nonetheless risks in their widespread usage when applied in areas of the public interest such as planning and policy-making?     

化工园区环境风险监管与事故应急决策支持系统的构建

针对化工园区危险化学品品种繁多、日常储运量大且集中、事故发生频繁、危害较大的情况,通过建立危险化学品原料、产品、排放及其特性数据库,辨识重大危险源,并利用GIS等先进技术,进行园区废水、废气的日常排放监管,综合统计、预测、评价环境影响程度,结合案例库和救援处置体系,进而构建一个面向园区的污染物排放动态监管与环境污染事故应急决策支持系统。     

Evaluating Environmental Sustainability: An Integration of Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making and Fuzzy Logic

While pursuing economic development, countries around the world have become aware of the importance of environmental sustainability; therefore, the evaluation of environmental sustainability has become a significant issue. Traditionally, multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) was widely used as a way of evaluating environmental sustainability, Recently, several researchers have attempted to implement this evaluation with fuzzy logic since they recognized the assessment of environmental sustainability as a subjective judgment Intuition. This paper outlines a new evaluation-framework of environmental sustainability, which integrates fuzzy logic into MCDM. This evaluation-framework consists of 36 structured and 5 unstructured decision-points, wherein MCDM is used to handle the former and fuzzy logic serves for the latter, With the integrated evaluation-framework, the evaluations of environmental sustainability in 146 countries are calculated, ranked and clustered, and the evaluation results are very helpful to these countries, as they identify their obstacles towards environmental sustainability.     

Characteristics of pilots who report deliberate versus inadvertent visual flight into Instrument Meteorological Conditions

Aircraft accidents and incidents associated with visual flight into instrument weather conditions continue to account for a significant proportion of fatalities involving general aviation aircraft. The aim of this study was to examine pilot recounts of flights involving inadvertent or deliberate flight into Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC). Of the 251 responses that were examined, 145 pilots indicated that they had entered IMC inadvertently during a visual flight, while 93 had done so deliberately. Amongst non-instrument-rated pilots, two cohorts were identified whereby pilots who deliberately entered instrument conditions tended to have experienced the conditions previously, possess a comparatively greater tolerance of risk, experienced less anxiety during the event recounted, and perceive the risks associated with the transition into instrument conditions as relatively lower than those pilots whose entry into instrument conditions was inadvertent. These results are interpreted as confirmation of the need to address the problem of visual flight into instrument conditions from a number of different perspectives, taking into account experience and individual differences in risk tolerance.