Air Quality Monitoring and Management in Lisbon

The environmental decision-making process is related with the interpretation of data both in spatial and temporal dimensions. This paper presents a methodology that integrates the time-space framework of air quality data to infer the temporal pattern and spatial variability that could be interpreted for environmental decision purposes. Variograms that accommodate time and space lags were used for the analysis and proved to be effective. Its environmental meaning, in particular its relationship with traffic patterns is discussed. Data from air quality monitoring stations located in the central part of Lisbon were used in this study. It describes a strategy to identify the type of vehicles responsible for certain pollutant levels, particularly for nitrogen oxides, and discusses the application of new air quality European legislation to the city of Lisbon, Portugal.     

环境监测站人事制度改革的实践与思考

介绍了镇江市环境监测中心站人事制度改革的主要内容、做法及取得的成效。指出人事制度改革尤其是全额拨款事业单位的人事制度改革是政策性很强、涉及每个职工切身利益及触动诸多方面关系的一项复杂工程 ,为保证这项工程的顺利进行 ,应广泛宣传发动 ,统一思想认识 ,上下反复酝酿 ,制定工作方案 ,预见敏感问题 ,提出解决预案 ,主动沟通 ,争取上级支持 ,精心安排 ,快速稳妥实施 ,狠抓落实 ,深化改革成果。     

Multi-Criteria and Multi-Perspective Analysis of Contaminated Land Management Methods

Errors in environmental resource management over the years have created pollution problems in some areas which are difficult to handle, regardless of the development of knowledge and technologies. This is particularly true in the case of soil pollution. The negative effects of persistent pollutants have been observed for a long time. For instance, lead and cadmium remain in the soil for centuries, during which time they are absorbed by plants and simultaneously cause secondary air pollution. The authors made an attempt to describe and assess the possible options of dealing with the problem of contaminated land in Katowice District. Considering the necessity of a multilateral approach, a pairwise comparison technique has been chosen as the most suitable to show the complexity of the problem. The different variants of actions aimed at preventing the pollutants from getting into the food chain were analyzed against a set of criteria, consisting of the following issues: time, cost, effectiveness, social acceptance, feasibility. The relative importance of actions were judged by the team of experts using the Saaty method. Also, a two-perspective assessment (the two different stakeholders), which involves considering the perspective of an owner of a piece of contaminated land and an ecologist has been performed. The results of comparative, multicriteria and multi-perspective assessment indicate the following:- the best method for contaminated agricultural land management is willful and controlled cultivation,- other recommended actions are deep ploughing and phytoremediation,- there is not much acceptance for the other methods.     

Development and Use of Integrated Air Quality Management Tools in Urban Areas with the Aid of Environmental Telematics

Contemporary urban air quality management requires the use of appropriate systems which include air quality models, a Geographical Information System (GIS) and a combination of expert systems and decision support tools, while at the same time possessing the capability to receive information from in situ measurements. Until recently, the relation between Information Technology capabilities and the system's design and architecture were poorly addressed, mainly due to technological limitations posed. Moreover, air quality management scenario design issues were partially considered, because of the difficulty in aggregating complex, air quality related issues, in a comprehensive and effective manner, from the end users point of view. In the present paper the use of Environmental Telematics is discussed as a framework for the development of urban air quality management systems, while a comprehensive approach for the application and evaluation of relevant scenarios is presented.     

Finding threatened forest areas in the central volcanic mountain range conservation area in Costa Rica

The degree at which tropical forests are exposed to human pressure is spatially dependent. Population density, proximity to roads, terrain slope, logging activities and land distribution projects are well known factors inducing deforestation and forest degradation in Latin America. Using expert knowledge to weight these threat factors and a Geographical Information System for spatial modeling, a multi-criteria analysis procedure is presented, that allows stratifying a study region in categories of deforestation threat. The procedure was implemented in the Central Volcanic Mountain Range Conservation Area (CVMRCA) in Costa Rica with the purpose of finding areas with a combination of physical and socioeconomic characteristics that is particularly predisposing to a high probability of deforestation. To validate the map, the CVMRCA was stratified in categories of deforestation risk, and the result was superposed to historical deforestation data of the period 1986–1996. The good correlation between risk category and historical deforestation (r = 0.91, p < 0.001) indicates that the map can be used as a decision support tool for defining priority areas for conservation action.     

Optimal Expansion Strategy for a Sewer System under Uncertainty

Because of fast urban sprawl, land use competition, and the gap in available funds and needed funds, municipal decision makers and planners are looking for more cost-effective and sustainable ways to improve their sewer infrastructure systems. The dominant approaches have turned to planning the sanitary sewer systems within a regional context, while the decentralized and on-site/cluster wastewater systems have not overcome the application barriers. But regionalization policy confers uncertainties and risks upon cities while planning for future events. Following the philosophy of smart growth, this paper presents several optimal expansion schemes for a fast-growing city in the US/Mexico borderlands—the city of Pharr in Texas under uncertainty. The waste stream generated in Pharr is divided into three distinct sewer sheds within the city limit, including south region, central region, and north region. The options available include routing the wastewater to a neighboring municipality (i.e., McAllen) for treatment and reuse, expanding the existing wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in the south sewer shed, and constructing a new WWTP in the north sewer shed. Traditional deterministic least-cost optimization applied in the first stage can provide a cost-effective and technology-based decision without respect to associated uncertainties system wide. As the model is primarily driven by the fees charged for wastewater transfer, sensitivity analysis was emphasized by the inclusion of varying flat-rate fees for adjustable transfer schemes before contracting process that may support the assessment of fiscal benefits to all parties involved. Yet uncertainties might arise from wastewater generation, wastewater reuse, and cost increase in constructing and operating the new wastewater treatment plant simultaneously. When dealing with multiple sources of uncertainty, the grey mixed integer programming (GIP) model, formulated in the second stage, can further allow all sources of uncertainties to propagate throughout the optimization context, simultaneously leading to determine a wealth of optimal decisions within a reasonable range. Both models ran for three 5-year periods beginning in 2005 and ending in 2020. The dynamic outputs of this analysis reflect the systematic concerns about integrative uncertainties within this decision analysis, which enable decision makers and stakeholders to make all-inclusive decisions for sanitary sewer system expansion in an economically growing region.     

1976-2005年唐山地区降水变化规律及干旱预测

利用唐山市1976-2005年各县年降水序列,分析了该市降水的空间分布规律和时间变化特点。采用灰色系统的灾变预测方法,对各县分别建立了GM（1,1）模型,进行未来25年唐山市各站的干旱年预测。利用残差检验、后验差检验和关联度检验对各模型分别进行了精度检验。结果表明,预测模型精度较高,可以对唐山市各县未来的干旱年进行预测,从而为科学决策提供依据。     

IFTCIP: An Integrated Optimization Model for Environmental Management under Uncertainty

In this study, an interval-fuzzy two-stage chance-constrained integer programming (IFTCIP) method is developed for supporting environmental management under uncertainty. The IFTCIP improves upon the existing interval, fuzzy, and two-stage programming approaches by allowing uncertainties expressed as probability distributions, fuzzy sets, and discrete intervals to be directly incorporated within a general mixed integer linear programming framework. It has advantages in uncertainty reflection, policy investigation, risk assessment, and capacity-expansion analysis in comparison to the other optimization methods. Moreover, it can help examine the risk of violating system constraints and the associated consequences. The developed method is applied to the planning for facility expansion and waste-flow allocation within a municipal solid waste management system. Violations of capacity constraints are allowed under a range of significance levels, which reflects tradeoffs between the system cost and the constraint-violation risk. The results indicate that reasonable solutions for both binary and continuous variables have been generated under different risk levels. They are useful for generating desired decision alternatives with minimized system cost and constraint-violation risk under various environmental, economic, and system-reliability conditions. Generally, willingness to take a higher risk of constraint violation will guarantee a lower system cost; a strong desire to acquire a lower risk will run into a higher system cost.     

Integrity of Tailings Infrastructure and Information Management: A GIS-Based Conceptual Model

Managing the integrity of tailings infrastructure is an important aspect of handling mine tailings. Unfortunately, little research is directed towards its efficient modeling. This paper presents salient aspects of tailings management. It proposes an integrated geographic information systems (GIS)-based conceptual model for efficient handling of these aspects. The paper also discusses the various integrated modules and comments on the systematic implementation of the model to achieve desired results. The modules include: structural integrity management (SIM), release impact assessment (RIA), and hazardous risk assessment and control (HRAC).     

基于集对分析的尾矿库安全评价研究

为更好地对尾矿库的安全状况进行综合评价,针对尾矿库的特点建立了指标体系,并采用层次分析法确定各指标权重.将集对分析理论用于尾矿库的安全评价,并通过实例证明该理论适合于尾矿库的安全评价.集对分析中差异度I取1和-1.研究表明,当I=1时,指标体系中所有处于"一般安全"状态的指标项经过整改后能处于"安全"状态,此时联系度μ=0.736,尾矿库处于"安全"状态; 当I=-1时,指标体系中所有处于"一般安全"状态的指标项,在安全管理水平下降的情况下全部转为"不安全"状态,此时μ=0.114,尾矿库处于"不安全"状态.I的不同取值可反映尾矿库的具体安全状态,同时也反映尾矿库的安全管理水平,并充分体现了安全管理的重要性.研究为尾矿库的安全评价提供了一条新途径.