Impediments to Integrated Urban Stormwater Management: The Need for Institutional Reform

It is now well established that the traditional practice of urban stormwater management contributes to the degradation of receiving waterways, and this practice was more recently critiqued for facilitating the wastage of a valuable water resource. However, despite significant advances in alternative “integrated urban stormwater management” techniques and processes over the last 20 years, wide-scale implementation has been limited. This problem is indicative of broader institutional impediments that are beyond current concerns of strengthening technological and planning process expertise. Presented here is an analysis of the institutionalization of urban stormwater management across Sydney with the objective of scoping institutional impediments to more sustainable management approaches. The analysis reveals that the inertia with the public administration of urban stormwater inherently privileges and perpetuates traditional stormwater management practices at implementation. This inertia is characterized by historically entrained forms of technocratic institutional power and expertise, values and leadership, and structure and jurisdiction posing significant impediments to change and the realization of integrated urban stormwater management. These insights strongly point to the need for institutional change specifically directed at fostering horizontal integration of the various functions of the existing administrative regime. This would need to be underpinned with capacity-building interventions targeted at enabling a learning culture that values integration and participatory decision making. These insights also provide guideposts for assessing the institutional and capacity development needs for improving urban water management practices in other contexts.     

计算机在城建档案管理中的应用

由于城市建设的不断加快,城建案卷成倍增加,传统的手工操作已不能适应档案文献增长的速度.随着现代化科学技术的发展,新的科学技术,如光盘技术、缩微技术、声像技术也在冲击着城建档案工作的领域,成为城建档案工作中不可缺少的组成部分.所有这一切,都对城建档案的管理提出了更高的要求.计算机是现代化科学技术发展的重要标志,正以它独特的高效率统占着各个领域.利用计算机管理档案是城建档案管理现代化的核心.     

太原城市滨水区建设治理的综合效益 --改善生态环境,增强灾害防御能力

对太原市城市滨水区的建设治理工程在改善城市生态环境和增强城市灾害防御能力方面的重要作用进行了论述.提出在人口集中的城市滨水区进行大面积的生态建设,是社会进步、经济发展的必然要求,也是提高环境质量、推动城市可持续发展的必然趋势.     

吉林省城市干旱缺水风险评价体系与模型研究

以吉林省地级城市为研究对象,从造成城市干旱缺水的致灾因子危险性,承灾体的暴露性、脆弱性和防旱抗旱能力四个方面着手,利用自然灾害指数法、加权综合评价法和层次分析法,建立了城市干旱缺水风险评价模型,引用城市干旱缺水风险指数(UDRI),对城市干旱缺水风险程度进行了评价,并借助GIS技术绘制了吉林省城市干旱缺水风险分布图,以期为实现吉林省水资源可持续利用、保障区域经济可持续发展和老工业基地改造战略实施提供科学依据.     

重庆城市可持续发展能力的综合评价

城市是否可持续发展已成为人们关注的焦点,但如何测度和评价城市发展的可持续性尚无统一认识.从系统功能角度设计了城市可持续发展的指标体系,运用改进的熵值法对重庆市可持续发展能力进行了定量分析,结合递阶多层次综合评价模型得到相应的变化曲线,并评价了重庆市1994～2003年这10年间的可持续发展能力.     

The Relative Influences of Primary and Secondary Particulates to Urban Air Quality in the United Kingdom

This study uses a combination of data from U.K. monitoringstations and from modelling undertaken with the U.K.Meteorological Office's NAME Model to investigate therelative influences of primary and secondary particulateson total PM₁₀ levels at sites in the United Kingdom. Co-located PM₁₀ and sulphate aerosol measurementsindicate that sulphate has a disproportionately largeinfluence on the variation of PM₁₀ levels incomparison to its contribution to their total mass.Comparisons of measured PM₁₀ at urban centre, roadsideand rural sites suggest that local primary sources havevery little influence on daily mean levels. NAME has beenused to model both primary particles and sulphate aerosolfrom sources across the whole of Europe. The discrepanciesbetween modelled and observed PM₁₀ suggest that coarseparticles, such as windblown dust and resuspended roaddust,may comprise a very large, if not dominant, proportion ofobserved PM₁₀ levels. The apparently minor role ofprimary particles (especially locally-sourced ones) raisesa number of issues regarding the suitability of current U.K.and European legislation to addressing the particle problem.     

Improvements in Air Quality Modelling by Using Surface Boundary Layer Parameters derived from Satellite Land Cover Data

Many atmospheric dispersion models include only simpletreatment of surface features to estimate the wind profilesand stability parameters. Detailed characterisation of theland cover, particularly in large and complex urbanconurbations, is especially important, as the surfacefeatures can vary significantly over the area. This paperdiscusses the use of satellite land cover data to derivespatially resolved surface boundary layer (SBL) parameters.These parameters have been used in an air quality model,PEARL (Prediction Air Quality in Urban and RegionalLocations) for estimating monthly and annual COconcentrations. Land cover data, derived from LANDSATThematic Mapper Imagery, has been used to estimate SBLparameters (surface roughness length, albeedo, Bowen ratioand anthropogenic heat flux) for a study area of 10000km² encompassing Greater London and the surroundingcounties. The SBL parameters have been assigned according tomajor land cover types for the whole area at a spatialresolution of 1 × 1 km. Predictions from two versions of the PEARL model (one with land cover data and one without)have been compared with each other and with measured data forannual and monthly CO concentrations from seven London airquality monitoring sites. This comparison shows thatdifferences between predicted and observed values can bereduced by up to a factor of three. The use of SBLparameters derived from land cover data also yields moredetailed predicted annual CO spatial patterns especially inand around suburban areas. The performance of both versionsof the model for monthly CO concentrations has been comparedwith a range of statistical measures. This comparisonconfirms that improved agreement is observed betweenmodelled and measured monthly CO concentrations when use ismade of spatially resolved SBL parameters.     

DUAL URBAN AND RURAL HYDROGRAPH SIGNALS IN THREE SMALL WATERSHEDS1

ABSTRACT: Many studies can be found in the literature pertaining to the effects of urbanization on surface runoff in small watersheds and the hydrologic response of undeveloped watersheds. However, an extensive literature review yielded few published studies that illustrate differing hydrologic responses from multiple source areas within a watershed. The concepts discussed here are not new, but the methods used provide a unique, basic procedure for investigating stormwater hydrology in topographically diverse basins. Six storm hydrographs from three small central Pennsylvania watersheds were analyzed for this paper; five are presented. Two important conclusions are deduced from this investigation. First, in all cases we found two distinct peaks in stream discharge, each representing different contributing areas to direct discharge with greatly differing curve numbers and lags representative of urban and rural source regions. Second, the direct discharge represents only a small fraction of the total drainage area with the urban peak becoming increasingly important with respect to the rural peak with the amount of urbanization and as the magnitude of the rain event decreases.     

青岛"城市数字化工程"研究

随着数字时代的到来，传统的城市规划、建设、管理与服务方式暴露出许多问题。在分析青岛城市系统信息化建设的基础上，提出了青岛“城市数字化工程”建设的目标、总体逻辑结构、数据库设计及其应用系统的开发研究等一系列问题，以期为青岛“城市数字化工程”建设提供决策支持。