Policy implementation of the Republic Act (RA) No. 9003 in the Philippines: A case study of Cebu city

Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) is considered to be one of the most serious environmental issues in the Philippines. The annual waste generation was estimated at 10.6 million tonnes in 2012 and this is expected to double in 2025. The Republic Act (RA) No. 9003, widely known as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, provides the required policy framework, institutional mechanisms and mandate to the Local Government Units (LGUs) to achieve 25% waste reduction target through establishing an integrated solid waste management plan based on the 3Rs (reduce, reuse and recycling). Although the initial impact of the LGUs is still very limited in implementing the national mandate, this article highlights the successful experiences of Cebu, the second largest city in the Philippines, in reducing its MSW generation by more than 30% in the past three years. This study also explores the implementation process, innovative actions taken by the Cebu City Government in implementing the national mandate at local level and identifies the factors that influence the policy implementation. The findings suggest that the impacts of the national mandate can be achieved if the LGUs have the high degree of political commitment, planning and development of effective local strategies in a collaborative manner to meet with local conditions, partnership building with other stakeholders, capacity development, adequate financing and incentives, and in the close monitoring and evaluation of performance.     

Deficit analysis: service capacity assessment and planning in developing countries – case study in the Philippines

Current demand analysis methods do not formally cover the case of chronic deficits in quantity or quality of water and sanitation services. These services include drinking water supply (DWS), wastewater and sewage treatment (WST), and municipal solid waste management (MSW). Formal analysis of this case would, at minimum, define the deficit state and evaluate appropriate options for reducing it. This paper proposes for a formal analytical model for municipal sanitation systems (MSS) that operate with deficits in at least one of the constituent services of DWS, WST, or MSW. The model introduces definitions and notation for describing the deficit state for conducting demand analysis on municipal sanitation systems. This model of demand analysis for systems with chronic deficits will hereinafter be referred to as deficit analysis. A case study for Bacoor, Philippines is presented as an example.     

干旱地区水污染控制系统初探

应用数学规划方法,科学地组织污染物的排放或科学地协调各个治理环节,以乌鲁木齐市水磨河流域水污染控制系统为例,对干旱地区水污染控制系统进行了初步探索,从而得出干旱地区污水处理费用的合理负担,并得出污染物排放的数量,质量受自然地理条件制约的结论。     

The Impact of Urbanization and Protection of Water Resources in Owerri and Environs SE, Nigeria

Untreated sewage and agriculture are the most important sources of contamination. The study was carried out by conducting a short-term surface water and groundwater pollution survey of the Owerri Urban area and its environs, in order to establish the current levels of pollution. An attempt has been made to show the relationships between pollution levels, population density, industrial and agricultural activities. The spatial distribution of pollutants due to a poor land use system and to human activities was investigated. This emphasises integrated planned development as a preventive measure for arresting pollution levels in fast growing urban centres. The total groundwater stored in the area amounts to 7.87 × 10⁹ m³. Twenty five percent of this is released as base flow into the adjacent rivers (Otamiri and Nworie). The annual groundwater recharge is 3.4 × 10⁹ m³. The enormous volume of groundwater stored and the comparatively low cost of development makes groundwater an excellent alternative supply source for the area (Uma et al., 1984).     

矿产资源总体规划对四川省甘孜州资源-环境承载力影响分析研究

本文根据矿区资源环境承载力的内涵,构建了"目标层-准则层-因子层-指标层"资源环境承载力评价体系,并在此基础上通过专家咨询打分的方式,采用层次分析法(AHP法)计算得出甘孜州矿产资源总体规划实施现状年、近景年、远景年3个时间段资源-环境承载力综合指数,为四川省甘孜州矿产资源总体规划环评影响影响评价提供了技术支撑和科学根...     

城市老工业区整体搬迁规划环评的关键问题

城市老工业区搬迁规划环评具有层次多、涉及面广的特点。评价首先要分清规划的层次,理清3个层面规划内容,分析所涉及到的主要环境问题,按照规划、区域和项目环评3个层次分别开展评价工作。在规划层面上应重点解决好产业发展政策的符合性和选址合理性论证;区域环评层面重点进行区域布局、结构、基础设施的支撑能力和环境的承载力评价;项目层次重点弄清污染特征、污染源和污染控制措施,评价其环境影响。     

Measurement and assessment of carrying capacity of the environment in Ningbo, China

Carrying Capacity of the Environment (CCE) provides a useful measure of the sustainable development of a region. Approaches that use integrated assessment instead of measurement can lead to misinterpretation of sustainable development because of confusion between Environmental Stress (ES) indexes and CCE indexes, and the selection of over-simple linear plus models. The present paper proposes a comprehensive measurement system for CCE which comprises models of natural resources capacity, environmental assimilative capacity, ecosystem services capacity, and society supporting capacity. The corresponding measurable indexes are designed to assess CCE using a carrying capacity surplus ratio model and a vector of surplus ratio of carrying capacity model. The former aims at direct comparison of ES and CCE based on the values of basic indexes, and the latter uses a Euclidean vector to assess CCE states. The measurement and assessment approaches are applicable to Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and environmental planning and management. A case study is presented for Ningbo, China, whereby all the basic indexes of ECC are measured and the CCE states assessed for 2005 and 2010.     

An analytical platform for cumulative impact assessment based on multiple futures: the impact of petroleum drilling and forest harvesting on moose (Alces alces) and marten (Martes americana) habitats in northeastern British Columbia

The combined influence on the environment of all projects occurring in a single area is evaluated through cumulative impact assessments (CIA), which consider the consequences of multiple projects, each insignificant on its own, yet important when evaluated collectively. Traditionally, future human activities are included in CIA using an analytical platform, commonly based on complex models that supply precise predictions but with reduced accuracy. To compensate for the lack of accuracy in current CIA approaches, we propose a shift in the paradigm governing CIA. The paradigm shift involves a change in the focus of CIA investigations from the detailed analysis of one unlikely future to the identification of the patterns describing multiple potential future changes in the environment. To illustrate the approach, a set of 144 possible and equally likely futures were developed that aimed to identify the potential impacts of forest harvesting and petroleum drilling on the habitat suitability of moose and marten in northeast British Columbia, Canada. The evolution of two measures of habitat suitability (average habitat suitability index and surface of the stands with habitat suitability index >0.5) revealed that the human activities could induce cycles in the habitat dynamics of moose and marten. The planning period of 100 years was separated into three distinct periods following a sinusoidal pattern (i.e., increase - constant - decrease in the habitat suitability measures). The attributes that could induce significant changes in the assessment of environment are the choice of harvesting age and species.     

Identifying priority areas for ecosystem service management in South African grasslands

Grasslands provide many ecosystem services required to support human well-being and are home to a diverse fauna and flora. Degradation of grasslands due to agriculture and other forms of land use threaten biodiversity and ecosystem services. Various efforts are underway around the world to stem these declines. The Grassland Programme in South Africa is one such initiative and is aimed at safeguarding both biodiversity and ecosystem services. As part of this developing programme, we identified spatial priority areas for ecosystem services, tested the effect of different target levels of ecosystem services used to identify priority areas, and evaluated whether biodiversity priority areas can be aligned with those for ecosystem services. We mapped five ecosystem services (below ground carbon storage, surface water supply, water flow regulation, soil accumulation and soil retention) and identified priority areas for individual ecosystem services and for all five services at the scale of quaternary catchments. Planning for individual ecosystem services showed that, depending on the ecosystem service of interest, between 4% and 13% of the grassland biome was required to conserve at least 40% of the soil and water services. Thirty-four percent of the biome was needed to conserve 40% of the carbon service in the grassland. Priority areas identified for five ecosystem services under three target levels (20%, 40%, 60% of the total amount) showed that between 17% and 56% of the grassland biome was needed to conserve these ecosystem services. There was moderate to high overlap between priority areas selected for ecosystem services and already-identified terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity priority areas. This level of overlap coupled with low irreplaceability values obtained when planning for individual ecosystem services makes it possible to combine biodiversity and ecosystem services in one plan using systematic conservation planning.     

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.