Southern California's marine monitoring system ten years after the National Research Council evaluation

In 1990, the National Research Council (NRC) published two in-depth assessments of marine environmental monitoring effectiveness. The first of these, Managing Troubled Waters: The Role of Marine Environmental Monitoring, provided a national perspective and the second, Monitoring Southern California's Coastal Waters, examined the specifics of monitoring design and implementation in a densely populated, highly urbanized coastal region. The reports include explicit recommendations about the need for greater regionalization of monitoring efforts, supported by greater standardization of field, laboratory, and data analysis methods. They also identified the need for centralized data management and for greater flexibility in the language of standard discharge permits, flexibility that would permit discharge agencies to more readily participate in regional monitoring and research programs. Other recommendations identified a need for EPA and NOAA to focus on creating a national monitoring program structured as a network of coordinated local and regional efforts. Finally, the NRC emphasized the need for better reporting and for periodic review of monitoring's relevance to management concerns. In this paper, we use southern California as a test case to assess progress made in implementing the NRC's recommendations. We review progress made on each recommendation and discuss the features of the regulatory and management climate that contributed to or impeded this progress. We also consider whether, and to what extent, the NRC's recommendations remain relevant in the present context.     

Environmental assessment of agriculture at a regional scale in the Pampas of Argentina

Governments need good information to design policies. However, inthe Argentine Pampas there are neither sufficient knowledge on environmental issues, nor clear perception of environmental alterations across space and time. The general objective of this work was to provide decision makers with a scientifically sound set of indicators aiming at the assessment of current status andfuture trends in the rural environment of this sensitiveregion. As driving criteria to select indicators, weassumed that they had to be sound, simple to calculate,easy to understand, and easily applicable by decision makers. They are related closely to significantecological structures and functions. Twelve basicindicators were identified: (1) land use, (2) fossil energyuse, (3) fossil energy use efficiency, (4) nitrogen (N)balance, (5) phosphorus (P) balance, (6) nitrogencontamination risk, (7) phosphorus contamination risk, (8) pesticide contamination, (9) soil erosion risk, (10) habitatintervention, (11) changes in soil carbon stock, and (12) balance of greenhouse gases. Indicators were geographicallyreferenced using a geographic information system (GIS). Thestrength of this study is not in the absolute value ofenvironmental indicators, but rather in theconceptualization of indicator and the identification ofchanging patterns, gradients and trends in space and time.According to our results, we can not definitely say thatagriculture in the Pampas, as a whole, tends to besustainable or not. While some indicators tend to improve,others keep stable, and the rest worsen. The relative importance among indicators must also be considered. The indicators that showed a negative net change are key to the identification of critical problems that will require special attention in the close future.     

Using Temporal Coherence to Determine the Response to Climate Change in Boreal Shield Lakes

Climate change is expected to have important impacts on aquatic ecosystems. On the Boreal Shield, mean annual air temperatures are expected to increase 2 to 4°C over the next 50 years. An important challenge is to predict how changes in climate and climate variability will impact natural systems so that sustainable management policies can be implemented. To predict responses to complex ecosystem changes associated with climate change, we used long-term biotic databases to evaluate how important elements of the biota in Boreal Shield lakes have responded to past fluctuations in climate. Our long-term records span a two decade period where there have been unusually cold years and unusually warm years. We used coherence analyses to test for regionally operating controls on climate, water temperature, pH, and plankton richness and abundance in three regions across Ontario: the Experimental Lakes Area, Sudbury, and Dorset. Inter-annual variation in air temperature was similar among regions, but there was a weak relationship among regions for precipitation. While air temperature was closely related to lake surface temperatures in each of the regions, there were weak relationships between lake surface temperature and richness or abundance of the plankton. However, inter-annual changes in lake chemistry (i.e., pH) were correlated with some biotic variables. In some lakes in Sudbury and Dorset, pH was dependent on extreme events. For example, El Nino related droughts resulted in acidification pulses in some lakes that influenced phytoplankton and zooplankton richness. These results suggest that there can be strong heterogeneity in lake ecosystem responses within and across regions.     

The use of material flow analysis and the ecological footprint in regional policy-making: application and insights from Northern Ireland

This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on the use of resource accounting tools in regional policy-making. The Northern Limits project applied material flow analysis (MFA) and ecological footprinting (EF) to regional policy-making in Northern Ireland over a number of years. The early phase of the research informed the regions first sustainable development strategy which was published in 2006 with key targets relating to the EF and improving the resource efficiency of the economy. Phase II identified the next steps required to address data availability and quality and the use of MFA and EF in providing a measurement and monitoring framework for the strategy and the development of the strategy implementation plan. The use of MFA and EF in sustainable regional policy-making and the monitoring of its implementation is an ongoing process which has raised a number of research issues which can inform the ongoing application and development of these and other resource accounting tools to within Northern Ireland, provide insights for their use in other regions, and help set out the priorities for research to support this important policy area.     

产品废弃物管理是企业的基本职能

企业是产品废弃物的源头,产品废弃物管理理应成为企业的基本职能。项目环评、区域规划和战略环评是强制和引导企业做好废弃物管理的有效手段。     

Methodology to determine regional water demand for instream flow and its application in the Yellow River Basin

Introduction Instream flow is a generic and widely used term that refers to the water required to protect the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems at some agreed level. Other terms that are sometimes used include “environmental flow” (Arthington…     

长江三角洲海洋生态建设与区域海洋经济可持续发展

通过分析国家与地方海洋发展战略,总结我国区域海洋经济发展特点,对长江三角洲区域海洋经济发展及其对海洋生态的依赖性进行深刻剖析,并在长江三角洲两省一市共同和不同海洋生态现象的基础上,贯彻流域联动、区域联动和陆海统筹原则和以海洋生态工程解决海洋工程生态问题原则,提出长江三角洲海洋生态建设基本构架。最后,从社会效益、经济效益和生态效益三个方面系统阐述了海洋生态建设对长江三角洲区域海洋生态的积极贡献。     

我国经济增长与环境污染双向作用关系研究——基于PVAR模型的区域差异分析

采用PVAR模型,应用31个省份1985—2011年的面板数据,研究了我国经济增长与环境污染之间双向动态作用关系的时空特征.分别在东、中、西部三大区域,用计量经济学方法检验面板数据的有效性,以及变量间的协整性,基于PVAR模型研究了包含工业性和生活性污染、废水和废气污染的12项污染物排放指标与人均GDP之间的动态冲击响应特征.结果表明,不仅经济增长是污染物排放变化的重要原因,污染物排放对经济发展的反向作用也非常显著,并且这种双向作用关系存在显著的区域差异性,西部地区经济增长与环境质量之间的矛盾最为突出,中部地区次之,东部地区相对较为弱化.方差分解的结果表明,目前我国经济增长对环境污染的预测方差贡献度较大,而环境污染对经济增长反馈和约束的贡献度相对较小.     

External Contribution to Urban Air Pollution

Elevated particulate matter concentrations in urbanlocations have normally been associated with local trafficemissions. Recently it has been suggested that suchepisodes are influenced to a high degree by PM₁₀sources external to urban areas. To further corroboratethis hypothesis, linear regression was sought betweenPM₁₀ concentrations measured at eight urban sites inthe U.K., with particulate sulphate concentration measuredat two rural sites, for the years 1993–1997. Analysis ofthe slopes, intercepts and correlation coefficientsindicate a possible relationship between urban PM₁₀and rural sulphate concentrations. The influences of winddirection and of the distance of the urban from the ruralsites on the values of the three statistical parametersare also explored. The value of linear regression as ananalysis tool in such cases is discussed and it is shownthat an analysis of the sign of the rate of change of theurban PM₁₀ and rural sulphate concentrations providesa more realistic method of correlation. The resultsindicate a major influence on urban PM₁₀ concentrations from the eastern side of the UnitedKingdom. Linear correlation was also sought using PM₁₀ data from nine urban sites in London and nearby ruralRochester. Analysis of the magnitude of the gradients andintercepts together with episode correlation analysisbetween the two sites showed the effect of transportedPM₁₀ on the local London concentrations. This articlealso presents methods to estimate the influence of ruraland urban PM₁₀ sources on urban PM₁₀ concentrations and to obtain a rough estimate of thetransboundary contribution to urban air pollution from thePM₁₀ concentration data of the urban site.     

2018年11月上旬一次中韩PM2.5相互影响传输过程分析

2018年11月5—7日,韩国首尔出现了一次PM_2.5污染过程。利用拉格朗日轨迹分析(HYSPLIT)模型分析了首尔峰值浓度气团的来源,结合污染物监测和气象资料,定性分析了中国对韩国浓度高值可能的影响及其程度。利用嵌套网格空气质量预报模式(NAQPMS)及其耦合的在线污染来源追踪模块进行了污染来源解析和敏感性测试,分别计算了同一时期中韩两国相互间的PM_2.5传输贡献。结果显示:2018年11月5—7日,中国对韩国首尔污染过程的日均贡献不足10%;此次污染过程后期,首尔的污染气团对上海PM_2.5浓度峰值产生了影响。