Robust Prioritization of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies Using the VIKOR Method with Objective Weights

This study proposes a robust prioritization framework for climate change adaptation strategies under uncertain climate change scenarios, using the VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) method, a multi‐criteria decision‐making approach, together with the Shannon entropy‐based weights. The VIKOR method allows us to find a compromise solution between two decision strategies of maximizing group utility and minimizing individual regret, and the Shannon entropy is used to determine objective weights among multiple climate change scenarios. The proposed methodology was applied to the problem of selecting locations of subwatersheds for reusing treated wastewater (TWW) in a Korean urban watershed. Selected based on the sustainability concept, hydro‐environmental and socioeconomic indicators were used to evaluate the sustainability of TWW reuse under multiple climate change scenarios, using the hydrologic simulation model results and statistical data. Finally, sustainability scores under multiple scenarios were aggregated using the VIKOR together with the Shannon entropy‐based weights for the robust prioritization of adaptation strategies. According to the different levels of regret aversion or affinity, our results for water quality showed different sets of adaptation strategies as the best options, suggesting that our framework would help stakeholders seeking the robust options considering both the utility and regret.     

Risk assessment in support to land-use planning in Europe: Towards more consistent decisions?

Recognising the importance of establishing appropriate separation distances between hazardous installations and vulnerable residential areas for mitigating the effects of industrial accidents, the European legislation for the control of major accident hazards - the so-called Seveso II Directive - calls for procedures ensuring that technical advice is taken systematically into account for land-use planning (LUP) purposes. Due to historical, administrative, cultural and other reasons, these European Union’s Member States which have consolidated procedures for addressing this issue, have employed different approaches, methods and criteria, with a potential for great divergence in the resulting land-use planning decisions. In order to address this situation and to increase consistency and ‘defendability’ of land-use planning decisions in the EU, a European Working Group has been established and is operating under the coordination of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). This Group, consisting of experts from the EU Member States, the industry and the academia, is trying to understand the different approaches and their implications to LUP decision-making, to develop guidelines in support to these decisions and to examine data sources and tools for consistent application of risk assessment in support to LUP. This paper presents the activities of the Group, reviews the situation with respect to LUP in Europe and discusses whether a direction towards more consistent LUP decisions is being followed in Europe.     

Class-2 hazmat transportation consequence assessment on surrounding population

The transportation of hazardous materials by road is an utmost necessity of the world for the societal benefits, but at the same time the activity is inherently dangerous. Incidents involving hazardous material (hazmat) cargo particularly the class-2 materials can lead to severe consequences in terms of fatalities, injuries, evacuation, property damage and environmental degradation. The rationale behind considering class-2 hazmats is that they pose the greatest danger to the people and property along the transport route because of their storage condition on the transport vessel. They are stored either in pressurized vessels or in cryogenic containers. Any external impact due to collision may cause catastrophic failure of transport vessels, known as BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion) with devastating consequences. Further, any continuous release from containment may cause what is known as ‘Unconfined Vapour Cloud Explosion’ (UVCE). Historically frequency of BLEVE occurrence is of the order of 1 × 10⁻⁶ per year or less, but other release scenarios e.g. a large vapour or liquid leaks are more probable and could also have devastating effects on the surrounding population. As such, the paper discussed various event scenarios and the consequences taking examples of a class-2.1 material (1,3 butadiene) and another class-2.3 (ammonia) hazmat. Comparative analysis suggests that per ton basis a rupture of ammonia tanker gives rise to larger impact areas and poses larger lethality risks compared to 1,3 butadiene as far as toxic effects are concerned. Besides, from fireball fatality on similar basis propylene causes higher consequence distance than LPG followed by ethylene oxide and 1,3 butadiene. The impact zone study results may be utilized as inputs for identifying the potential vulnerable area on a GIS enabled map, along a designated State highway route passing through an important industrial corridor in western India.     

资源型城市复杂因素耦合的系统动力学分析

针对煤炭型资源城市转型及其如何可持续发展问题,建立了资源型城市系统动力学模型,该模型主要由人口、经济、资源以及环境4部分耦合组成,通过调整煤炭回采率等9个控制变量,进而预测了城市的4种发展情景;最后,以抚顺市为例,验证了模型的真实性。研究表明,资源型城市是人口、经济、资源和环境等因素耦合的复杂系统;该资源型城市系统动力学模型的平均相对误差在8%以内;综合分析各种发展情景,情景Ⅳ在人口、经济、资源和环境方面均具有较好的综合表现;预计到2015年该情景下,抚顺市人口总量、工业和服务业增加值、耕地面积、原煤资源总量、废气污染量分别将达到219.536万人、1103.310亿元、788.813亿元、89 579 hm²、1926亿t以及8.321×102、1926亿t以及8.321×10⁷万Nm7万Nm³。     

New energy policy and low-carbon society in Japan after the Great East Japan Earthquake

The Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 devastated the eastern region of Japan.Due to the resulting nuclear accident,Japanese Cabinet decided to revise its energy policies.The Energy and Environment Council in National Policy Unit published options on the nation’s scenarios for energy and economy in 2030.We estimated the economic impacts of the options to national economy and households in 2030.Finally,we clarified significant factors to establish a secure,affluent and low-carbon society based on the energy scenarios.     

中国区域低碳发展的情景分析——以江苏省为例

本文以江苏省为例,旨在对我国地方层面的低碳经济发展(目标年为2020年)进行探讨,并通过设定基准情景(BAU),低碳经济政策情景(LES),以及进一步推进低碳发展的国际合作与技术转移情景(ICS)三种政策情景对江苏省未来中长期能源需求与二氧化碳排放强度进行分析,提出我国地方层面实现2020年二氧化碳减排目标所需要的发展路径与对策.研究表明,在地方和区域层面上实现2020年二氧化碳排放强度在2005年的基础上降低40%-45%的目标是有可能的,通过采取发展低碳经济的相关措施,到2020年,江苏省的能源需求将比基准情景减少28%,二氧化碳排放强度将在2007年的基础上削减50%,而通过积极参与国际合作和国际间的技术转移,将有可能将二氧化碳排放强度在2007年的基础上削减52%左右.     

FLOOD MANAGEMENT IN THE LOWER INCOMATI RIVER BASIN,MOZAMBIQUE: TWO ALTERNATIVES1

ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to compare two views of flood management and thus add to the present thinking of living with floods as opposed to the traditional approach of flood control. The traditional pathway has widely been adopted in developed countries and aims to control floodwaters by means of dams and dikes. The alternative pathway tends towards a policy whereby society lives with the floods by being prepared and having the right damage reduction measures in place. In this paper two pathways are tentatively compared for the Lower Incomati Basin, Mozambique. In the design cultural theory is considered, as is how the design of each path may look according to different management perspectives. The Lower Incomati Basin provides an interesting case study as it is in a relatively undeveloped state. Hence, it is an ideal area for conducting research into the application of alternative flood management strategies. The preliminary results suggest that both pathways are feasible. However, considering recent hydrological extremes such as the 2000 floods, the resilient pathway may ultimately be a more appealing flood management strategy.     

Climate Impact Response Functions for Terrestrial Ecosystems

We introduce climate impact response functions as a means for summarizing and visualizing the responses of climate-sensitive sectors to changes in fundamental drivers of global climate change. In an inverse application, they allow the translation of thresholds for climate change impacts (‘impact guard-rails’) into constraints for climate and atmospheric composition parameters (‘climate windows’). It thus becomes feasible to specify long-term objectives for climate protection with respect to the impacts of climate change instead of crude proxy variables, like the change in global mean temperature. We apply the method to assess impacts on terrestrial ecosystems, using the threat to protected areas as the central impact indicator. Future climate states are characterized by geographically and seasonally explicit climate change patterns for temperature, precipitation and cloud cover, and by their atmospheric CO₂ concentration. The patterns are based on the results of coupled general circulation models. We study the sensitivity of the impact indicators and the corresponding climate windows to the spatial coverage of the analysis and to different climate change projections. This enables us to identify the most sensitive biomes and regions, and to determine those factors which significantly influence the results of the impact assessment. Based on the analysis, we conclude that climate impact response functions are a valuable means for the representation of climate change impacts across a wide range of plausible futures. They are particularly useful in integrated assessment models of climate change based on optimizing or inverse approaches where the on-line simulation of climate impacts by sophisticated impact models is infeasible due to their high computational demand. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

石羊河流域多情景土地利用优化及碳储量评估

研究碳储量与土地利用变化的响应关系及空间分布特征,预测未来土地利用类型变化所导致的碳储量变化趋势,可为流域政策制定、土地利用结构调整和“双碳”目标的实现提供一定的借鉴. 基于2000年、2010年和2020年三期土地利用数据,运用InVEST模型和PLUS模型,开展石羊河流域2000~2020年间和2030年自然发展、城镇发展和生态保护这3种情景下土地利用变化及其对碳储量的影响研究. 研究发现：①2000~2020年石羊河流域主要土地利用类型是耕地、草地和未利用地,且耕地、水域和建设用地的面积呈增加趋势,其中建设用地面积增幅最大. ②较2020年,2030年自然发展情景下,耕地、水域和建设用地面积均有所增加,分别增加6.15%、9.56%和29.9%;在城镇发展情景下,建设用地面积增加最多;相比其他两种情景,在生态保护情景下林地和草地面积出现了增加. ③石羊河流域2000~2020年碳储量呈平稳增加的趋势,20年间增加了0.035×10⁸ t,主要源于耕地面积的增加. ④2030年自然发展、城镇发展和生态保护3种情景下石羊河流域的碳储量分别为5.65×10⁸、5.64×10⁸和5.73×10⁸ t,较2020年均有增加,其中生态保护情景下碳储量增加最多,主要是源于草地和林地面积的增加. 研究结果表明建设用地的扩张是造成碳储量流失的主要原因,若采取有效的生态保护措施将有助提高流域碳储量,可以解决由于经济发展而导致的碳储量流失问题.     

基于 MIMAH 的工业事故场景辨识

介绍了事故场景概念,并根据欧盟ARAMIS项目框架下提出的MIMAH（辨识重要事故危险方法）,即从危险设备的角度来辨识与设备相关的关键事件,并利用事故树（ FTA ）、事件树（ ETA）,建立一个以关键事件为中心的蝴蝶结结构图来描述事故场景。通过运用这种方法,能够对事故场景的辨识更加具有系统性、针对性。最后,以液氨储罐装置作为示例进行说明。