Identification of environmentally vulnerable areas with priority for prevention and management of pipeline crude oil spills

The oil industry is one of the main productive activities in Mexico and has a huge infrastructure, including a wide pipeline network that crosses urban, industrial, agricultural and natural areas. The threat of crude oil spills is greatest in those regions with a high concentration of oil extraction and refining activities, as in the case of the Coatzacoalcos and Tonalá Rivers Low Basin. This study ranked the geosystems of the basin in terms of vulnerability to pipeline crude oil spills. Very high vulnerability (level I) was assigned to the water bodies (lakes and rivers) and their margins of influence, including surfaces that flood during normal hydraulic load. High vulnerability areas (level II) comprised surfaces that can flood during extraordinary hydraulic load related with extreme hydrometeorological events. The remaining three vulnerability levels were defined for areas with low or negligible flooding potential, these were ranked according to physical (slope, relief and permeability), biological (richness, singularity and integrity) and socio-economic (social marginalization index and economic activities index) conditions. These results are presented on a map for better visualization and interpretation. This study will be useful to establish preventive and effective emergency management actions in order to reduce remediation costs and adverse effects on wild species. It also can help local and national authorities, oil industry and civil protection corps to better protect ecosystems, natural resources and human activities and goods.     

Landfill diversion in a decentralized setting: A dynamic assessment of landfill taxes

We analyze the process of landfill diversion and its main determinants, by embedding the dynamics in a frame where economic, geographical and policy variables come into play. In addition to structural and economic drivers, we primarily investigate whether the Italian tax has been effective in supporting landfill diversion. Although the Italian landfill tax dates back to 1996, the oldest in the EU, its effectiveness in terms of landfill diversion has not been assessed yet. The complexity primarily derives from the decentralized regional implementation and the absence of a full coherent dataset covering all regions. We merge this new and original data on taxes to an integrated dataset which includes economic, waste and policy variables at regional level over the period 1999–2008. Panel regressions show that the effect of tax is significant, even when taking into account for its possible endogeneity. Regions that have increased such taxes have improved waste disposal performances over time. Landfill taxes are surely not the only instrument policy makers might introduce, but they seem to play a relevant role in the evolution of Italian waste disposal performances.     

河南省灾害区域背景及减灾对策研究

从灾害史料中，可以看出河南灾害的严重性，进而论述了河南省灾害区域成灾背景，最后针对河南省灾害现状，提出了减灾对策建议。     

Safety evaluation of major hazard installations based on regional disaster system theory

Major accidents have catastrophic effects on humans and all of society. To prevent the occurrence of major accidents, it is essential to strengthen the management of major hazard installations. Generally, effective identification and reasonable evaluation of major hazard installations are the basic steps in safety management. At present, the evaluation methods for major hazard installations mainly focus on consequence analysis and probabilistic analysis without considering the vulnerability of hazard-affected bodies. Therefore, the proposed method will introduce regional disaster system theory and comprehensively analyze hazard-formative factors, the hazard-formative environment and hazard-affected bodies to achieve a more complete and effective assessment of major hazard installations. Hazard-formative factors are evaluated based on the rapid ranking method, hazard-formative environments are evaluated based on Bayesian networks, and hazard-affected bodies are evaluated based on the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method. A tank group and a chemical industrial park are used to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the new method.     

Development of regional climate mitigation baseline for a dominant agro-ecological zone of Karnataka,India

Setting a baseline for carbon stock changes in forest and land use sector mitigation projects is an essential step for assessing additionality of the project. There are two approaches for setting baselines namely, project-specific and regional baseline. This paper presents the methodology adopted for estimating the land available for mitigation, for developing a regional baseline, transaction cost involved and a comparison of project-specific and regional baseline. The study showed that it is possible to estimate the potential land and its suitability for afforestation and reforestation mitigation projects, using existing maps and data, in the dry zone of Karnataka, southern India. The study adopted a three-step approach for developing a regional baseline, namely: (i) identification of likely baseline options for land use, (ii) estimation of baseline rates of land-use change, and (iii) quantification of baseline carbon profile over time. The analysis showed that carbon stock estimates made for wastelands and fallow lands for project-specific as well as the regional baseline are comparable. The ratio of wasteland Carbon stocks of a project to regional baseline is 1.02, and that of fallow lands in the project to regional baseline is 0.97. The cost of conducting field studies for determination of regional baseline is about a quarter of the cost of developing a project-specific baseline on a per hectare basis. The study has shown the reliability, feasibility and cost-effectiveness of adopting regional baseline for forestry sector mitigation projects.

The impact of climate change on tourism in Germany,the UK and Ireland: a simulation study

We downscale the results of a global tourism simulation model at a national resolution to a regional resolution. We use this to investigate the impact of climate change on the regions of Germany, Ireland and the UK. Because of climate change, tourists from all three countries would spend more holidays in the home country. In all three countries, climate change would first reduce the number of international arrivals—as Western European international tourist demand falls—but later increase numbers—as tourism demand from increasingly rich tropical countries grows. In Ireland and the UK, the regional pattern of demand shifts is similar to the international one: tourism shifts north. In Germany, the opposite pattern is observed as the continental interior warms faster than the coast: tourism shifts south.

重点区域环境空气质量监测方案与评价方法探讨

我国区域性大气污染问题频频发生,成为当前亟待解决的重大环境问题。区域联防联控工作需要建立相应的区域空气质量监测体系和评价方法,这对已有的监测体系提出了新的要求。在区域监测体系中需要增加臭氧、细粒子等区域性污染物及其前体物的监测,同时设立区域监控点使监测网络覆盖面由城市建成区拓展到广大近郊及农村地区。采用移动式柱浓度监测和卫星遥感监测等多样化监测手段结合超级空气站来增强区域综合监测和源解析能力。在区域内搭建监测信息共享平台和实时发布机制并建立区域空气质量预警预报系统。建立区域内统一的质量管理和质量控制方案,城市监测点质控工作由所在省市管理,区域监控点质控工作由国家统一直管。采用分区分层次的区域空气质量评价方法,评价因子包括所有六项监测指标。     

地质灾害优势面分析理论与方法

优势面理论是地质灾害研究的一个新的模式。它认为地质灾害受控于三个系统,优势断裂对地质灾害的地带性分布规律起着控制作用。本文论述了地质灾害优势面分析的主要观点:(1)优势面分析基本思路;(2)评价地质灾害的专家判断、机制分析与定量模型相结合的方法论;(3)优势面减灾防灾主要原理。     

Space view of the decadal variation for typical air pollutants in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region in China

The Pearl River Delta (PRD) is one of the most industrialized, urbanized and populated regions in China, and thus has been long suffering from severe air pollutions. Space data provide a unique perspective for investigating the atmospheric environment at a regional scale. By utilizing multiple satellite retrievals from 2005 to 2013, this study presented, for the first time, the spatial patterns and temporal trends of typical air pollutants over PRD and its vicinity. As viewed from space, aerosol optical depth (AOD), NO₂ and SO₂ all had their higher values at the central part of PRD, and showed clear descending gradients as moving to the outskirt of this region. As to the inter-annual variation, all these pollutants had decreasing trends in PRD during the study period, which generally agreed with the relevant in situ measurements. However, the satellite retrievals differed from ground measurements when addressing NO₂ and SO₂ in the vicinity of PRD. This work also provides the inter-comparison among PRD and three other metropolitan clusters in China: PRD had relatively high AOD, moderate NO₂ and low SO₂ levels, and it was the only region achieving the effective reduction of NO₂ and SO₂ during last decade. Unlike the previous three pollutants, HCHO observed by satellite showed very special patterns: it had a relatively homogeneous spatial distribution over both of PRD and its vicinity, and presented an opposite increasing trend from 2005 to 2010. Moreover, PRD had the highest HCHO level among all the metropolitan clusters, hinting a considerable contribution of biogenic origins of HCHO in PRD.

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湖南文化产业区域差异测度分析及对策研究

在选取了极值比率、加权变异系数、基尼系数、锡尔系数及偏态系数这5个相对差异指标的基地之上,通过对2006年-2011年这6年间湖南14个市州人均文化产业增加值进行计算,发现全省文化产业区域差异呈现出周期性波动,湘西和湘东地区的文化产业差异逐渐拉大,长此以往,将会影响到全省文化产业的整体增速,因此,提出采用均衡发展战略,未来湖南省文化产业的侧重点应该放在缩小湘东、湘中、湘西三个区域的差异上.图20,表9,参5.