Adoption and adaptation of natural resource management innovations in smallholder agriculture: reflections on key lessons and best practices

Many smallholder farmers in vulnerable areas continue to face complex challenges in adoption and adaptation of resource management and conservation strategies. Although much has been learned from diverse experiences in sustainable resource management, there is still inadequate understanding of the market, policy and institutional failures that shape and structure farmer incentives and investment decisions. The policy and institutional failures exacerbate market failures, locking smallholder resource users into a low level equilibrium that perpetuates poverty and land degradation. Improved market access that raises the returns to land and labor is often the driving force for adoption of new practices in agriculture. Market linkages, access to credit and availability of pro-poor options for beneficial conservation are critical factors in stimulating livelihood and sustainability-enhancing investments. Future interventions need to promote joint innovations that ensure farmer experimentation and adaptation of new technologies and careful consideration of market, policy and institutional factors that stimulate widespread smallholder investments. Future projects should act as ‘toolboxes’, giving essential support to farmers to devise complementary solutions based on available options. Addressing the externalities and institutional failures that prevent private and joint investments for management of agricultural landscapes will require new kinds of institutional mechanisms for empowering communities through local collective action that would ensure broad participation and equitable distributions of the gains from joint conservation investments. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

An integrated model for technology forecasting to reduce pollutant emission in China's pulp industry

The Chinese government has been implementing a strict pollutants gross control policy during the 11th Five Year Plan period. Primary pollutants reduction (COD & SO₂) is one of the major concerns of industrial environmental management. This paper constructs a technology selection model for industrial pollutants reduction by incorporating mass flow analysis of the production system, bottom-up modeling methodology, and linear programming for optimizing annualized discounted cost. A case study of COD emission control is carried out on the Chinese pulp industry, the nation's leading source of industrial COD discharge. The model is used to generate and analyze the technology prospects and COD emission situations under various scenarios for 2010, 2020 and 2030.     

有关化工石化建设项目环境风险评价技术评估的探讨

根据国家化工石化行业建设项目加强环境风险评价的主要规定,结合化工石化行业建设项目特点及环境影响技术评估,反思化工石化项目评价及评估工作,重点从环境风险评价方面,对进一步完善环境风险评价与防范的后评估,从严建设项目技术评估与环境管理等进行了初步探讨,目的是为建设项目环境影响技术评估和环境管理提供参考。     

城市污水处理BOT模式的几个关键问题

基于BOT模式系统分析,识别3大类8个关键问题:①政策方面,包括土地使用权、政府补偿、产权;②投资与建设方面,工艺前瞻性、风险、管网配套;③运营与保障方面,包括收费定价、回报率,并在此基础上探讨城市污水处理BOT模式,为我国BOT模式的开展提供决策支持。     

铸造生产企业环评重点及清洁生产分析

金属铸造企业,特别是铸铁生产企业是机械加工行业的重要组成部分之一,本文以中国北车集团沈阳机车车辆有限责任公司铸造系统技术改造为例,针对该厂对铸造系统的改造前后所用工艺及设备的不同,剖析在进行该类项目环评过程中的重点及该类项目的清洁生产工艺情况。     

O3自动监测的技术要点

通过多年在粤港空气监控系统中的O3自动监测实践,阐述了O3标准气浓度传递认证的范例性解决方案,并在O3气体样品输送、O3分析仪器性能维护及在线检查校准用标准气等方面提出了实用的技术方法。     

Dissemination of food crops with nutritional benefits: Adoption and disadoption of soybeans in Togo and Benin

To combat high rates of malnutrition in sub‐Saharan Africa, the UN Millennium Project has called for increased emphasis on technologies that explicitly link agricultural and nutritional components. While there is a large literature on the factors that influence household decisions to adopt new agricultural technologies with economic or environmental benefits, less is known about the factors that determine the uptake and continued use of agricultural technologies promoted exclusively for their health benefits. Using data from a 2004 survey in the Tamberma region of Togo and Benin, we identify factors that influence the adoption and disadoption of soybeans — a crop being promoted throughout West Africa for its high protein content. Similar to the literature on adoption of other sustainable agriculture technologies, we find that household preferences, resource endowments, and risk and uncertainty affect household decisions about soybeans. However, by analyzing decisions about initial uptake and continued cultivation separately, we uncover the importance of intrahousehold dynamics and experience with the soybean crop. To successfully address malnutrition through new agricultural technologies, researchers and rural extension agents should take a disaggregated view of technology adoption, seeking to identify and tailor their outreach to the different factors important at different stages of the dissemination process.     

EM有效微生物技术在我国的应用研究进展

EM有效微生物技术自问世以来已经在世界各国的养殖、环保、种植等领域广泛应用，本文详细介绍了EM生物技术在我国环境保护、种植业、养殖业等方面的应用。     

Firms' and states’ responses to laxer environmental standards

On June 1, 2017, President Trump announced the United States' withdrawal from the Paris agreement on climate change. Despite this decision, American firms continued investing in low-carbon technologies and some states committed to tougher environmental standards. To understand this apparent paradox, this paper studies how a weakening of environmental standards affects the behavior of profit-maximizing firms. It finds that a relaxation of emission standards (i) may increase firms’ incentives to adopt clean technologies, but not to pollute less; (ii) may negatively affect industry profitability if it is perceived as temporary; and, when this is the case, (iii) the unilateral adoption of stricter standards by large states may increase the expected profitability of every firm.     

土壤气相抽提去除土壤中汽油烃污染物柱试验研究

原位处理土壤石油污染对于土壤和地下水的有机污染控制具有极其重要的现实意义.通过砂土柱试验研究了原位物理通风的主要工艺形式及运行参数,并初步分析了汽油烃在砂土柱中的迁移和通风去除机制.结果表明,顶部真空抽提与底部注气两种通风方式相比,顶部真空抽提效果较好,砂土柱汽油烃初始质量浓度为2.937 mg/g时,经过104.5 h通风,砂土柱中汽油烃去除率达80.49%.土壤汽油烃初始浓度影响其在土壤中的迁移和去除,土壤汽油烃初始浓度越大,相同通风条件下,物理通风方法去除土壤中挥发性有机物的效率越低.通风及通风方式对砂土中的汽油烃的去除影响很大,连续通风可在砂土柱中形成稳定的负压环境,在汽油烃初始质量浓度为35.730 mg/g时,连续真空抽提264 h,砂土柱中的汽油烃平均去除率达89.29%;间歇通风在砂土柱中形成的负压环境不稳定,但也可以去除砂土柱中的汽油烃.初步分析认为,汽油烃存在负压作用下的向上挥发和重力作用下的向下迁移两个过程,其综合作用的结果导致汽油烃在砂土柱中的分布状况.