Sweet for the sour: Incentives in environmental mediation

The siting of facilities with undesirable environmental characteristics often leads to public conflict. Efforts to resolve the conflict and make siting decisions frequently exacerbate the problem. Environmental mediation, the process of negotiating an agreeable settlement, is an accepted approach to resolving conflict. This paper explores the use of incentive systems as a means of achieving equity in environmental mediation. Obnoxious and noxious characteristics of facilities are discussed as the basis of conflicts. Four types of incentives—mitigation, compensation, reward, and participation—are discussed. The paper concludes with a discussion of the utility and application of incentives for solving environmental conflicts.     

Who should prepare environmental impact assessments?

The practice of EIA preparation in a number of states and countries is reviewed in the light of the need to avoid bias, integrate the EIA with project design, and make the proponent pay. It is concluded that the best arrangement may be to make the proponent responsible for EIA preparation and to advise a number of constraints designed to improve the quality of the studies and reduce bias. First, the proponent should be required to select a consultant from a register of those known to be honest, unbiased, technically competent, and capable of working with a design team. Second, two steering committees should be established to identify key issues, specify data collection and modeling programs and methods, and ensure that the study stays on course.     

Assessing national sustainable development strategies: Strengthening the links to operational policy

At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, it was agreed that all countries should develop a national sustainable develop‐ment strategy (NSDS) as a key component of implementing the goals of Agenda 21. Progress has been limited. Few countries have established a formal strategy, and many of the strategies that exist have been only partially implemented. This article proposes an approach that addresses the need to improve existing strategic planning mechanisms. The approach is based on a periodic assessment of existing systems, to evaluate the extent to which they incorporate NSDS principles, and identify areas to be strengthened. The article describes an assessment methodology, presents examples of its use, and discusses ways in which current approaches to NSDS may be complemented by continual review and improvement of existing planning processes.     

What's wrong with virtual trees? Restoring from stress in a mediated environment

Restorative environments are environments that can help restore depleted attention resources or reduce emotional and psychophysiological stress. These effects have been demonstrated not only in real environments, but also in mediated (projected, broadcasted, etc.) environments. However, the importance of simulation qualities to restoration outcomes has not been systematically studied. The present experiment investigates the importance of immersion in a mediated environment in relation to restoration. Is a projected natural environment more restorative when one is more immersed in it, and hence feels more present in it? The hypothesis was that a more immersive projection would show stronger stress-reducing effects of a mediated restorative environment. After performing a stress-inducing task, participants watched a nature film on either a high or low immersive screen. Physiological measurements (heart period and skin conductance level) were taken throughout the experiment. In addition, we measured self-reported affect and presence using the ITC-Sense of Presence Questionnaire. Significant effects of the screen size manipulation appeared on physiological measures, but not on self-reported affect. The data showed an interaction between screen size and restorative phase on heart period and skin conductance level, indicating stronger restoration for the immersive screen condition over time. We therefore conclude that immersion enhances restorative potential of a mediated natural environment. Self-reported affect did correlate significantly with experienced presence, illustrating the relevance of this experiential counterpart of immersion, although a mediating effect of presence has not yet been established.     

COMPARISON OF PROCESS‐BASED AND ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK APPROACHES FOR STREAMFLOW MODELING IN AN AGRICULTURAL WATERSHED1

ABSTRACT: The performance of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and artificial neural network (ANN) models in simulating hydrologic response was assessed in an agricultural watershed in southeastern Pennsylvania. All of the performance evaluation measures including Nash‐Sutcliffe coefficient of efficiency (E) and coefficient of determination (R²) suggest that the ANN monthly predictions were closer to the observed flows than the monthly predictions from the SWAT model. More specifically, monthly streamflow E and R² were 0.54 and 0.57, respectively, for the SWAT model calibration period, and 0.71 and 0.75, respectively, for the ANN model training period. For the validation period, these values were ?0.17 and 0.34 for the SWAT and 0.43 and 0.45 for the ANN model. SWAT model performance was affected by snowmelt events during winter months and by the model's inability to adequately simulate base flows. Even though this and other studies using ANN models suggest that these models provide a viable alternative approach for hydrologic and water quality modeling, ANN models in their current form are not spatially distributed watershed modeling systems. However, considering the promising performance of the simple ANN model, this study suggests that the ANN approach warrants further development to explicitly address the spatial distribution of hydrologic/water quality processes within watersheds.     

浅谈安全生产标准化建设

阐述了大冶有色金属公司安全生产标准化建设内容，安全生产标准制定准则，建设体系以及建设效果，为现代企业安全生产管理积累了经验，可供借鉴。     

入世中国环境保护的挑战与机遇

本文着重分析了入世给中国环境保护事业带来的挑战和机遇。作者认为,入世在短期内将给中国的环境状况和环境保护带来沉重的压力;但从长远来看,入世将改善我国的环境状况并推动环境保护的发展。     

广东省火电厂烟气脱硫装置的经济技术分析

简要介绍了广东省7个火电厂现有的5种烟气脱硫技术装置：海水脱硫、荷电干式烟气脱硫、湿式石灰石／石膏法烟气脱硫、DCL燃煤固硫剂脱硫及烟气循环流化床脱硫技术，对它们的经济、技术性进行了分析比较。     

A Baumol–Oates approach to solid waste taxation

A national Baumol–Oates tax on waste in Denmark helped achieve a reduction of 26% in net solid waste from 1987 to 1998. The tax, which is levied per ton of waste, was particularly effective as regards the heavier waste streams such as construction waste and garden waste. When it comes to industrial and commercial waste, there are indications that the waste tax is not sufficiently significant to induce changes in behavior, and that except for very waste-intensive enterprises, companies do not seem to be very price sensitive. For household waste, the impact of the tax can be improved where tariffs for garbage collection are weight based, rather than per unit. However, the waste sector is an area in which the price signals are modified and filtered by institutionalized practices in municipal administration, and in which true-cost pricing is not easy to achieve. Hence, the rational choice assumption of environmental economics needs to be supplemented by an institutional dimension to interpret responses to environmental taxes correctly. Received: July 13, 2001 / Accepted: October 2, 2001     

Dynamics of Bacterial Abundance,Biomass, Activity,and Community Composition in the Oligotrophic Traunsee and the Traun River (Austria)

The holomictic Traunsee is the deepest and second largest lakein Austria. The special characteristic of this ecosystem isthe fact that local salt and soda industries presumably alterthe lake by the discharge of waste materials. Since thebeginning of the 20th century salt and soda works areannually releasing up to 50,000 tons of solid wastes and up to150,000 tons of chloride into Traunsee. To assess potentialeffects of these anthropogenic impacts on the bacterioplanktonthree sampling sites, influenced as well as not influenced bythe industrial discharge, were chosen for comparison andsampled monthly from November 1997 to October 1998. Bacterialabundance ranged between 0.4 to 3.0 × 10⁶ cells ml^-1 with decreasing numbers along the depth profile. Theproportion of actively respiring bacteria, i.e. INT [2-(4-iodophenyl)-3-(4-nitrophenyl)-5-phenyltetrazolium chloride]reducing cells, never exceeded 10% of DAPI (4',6'-diamidino-2-phenylindole) stained cells. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) was used to examine the seasonal and spatial distribution of dominant phylogenetic groups of thebacterioplankton. Up to 84% of bacteria detected with DAPIcould be detected via FISH applying the universal bacterialprobe EUB338. Percentages of alpha- and beta-Proteobacteriaand members of the Cytophaga-Flavobacterium cluster did notexceed 60% of DAPI-stained cells.Beta-Proteobacteriaappeared to be the most abundant group, not only in Traunsee butalso in two reference lakes, Attersee and Hallstättersee. No significant differences in any of the bacterial parameters couldbe detected between the three sampling sites and all measurementswere found in the range reported for oligotrophic lakes. The highdischarge of the Traun River, resulting in a lake water renewaltime of only one year, may diminish possible effects of industrial waste discharge in the pelagic zone.