Bacteriological Purification of the Finnish River Kymi

With its total drainage basin of 37 107 km2 and mean annual discharge of 307 m3 s-1, the River Kymi is one of the largest in Finland. Presently it receives treated domestic wastewaters of about 160 000 inhabitants through eight treatment plants and treated industrial effluents from four paper mills, two cardboard mills and one pulp mill. In the 1960s all the wastewaters were discharged untreated to the river. However, the construction of domestic wastewater treatment plants began in the 1970s and mechanical wastewater treatment became common in industry. By the end of the 1980s practically all the wastewaters discharged to the river were treated in activated sludge processes. The aim of this paper was to investigate the influence of wastewater purification on the bacteriological quality of the river during these three decades. The bacteriological quality of the river was evaluated on the basis of annual medians of fecal streptococci (FS) calculated for 15 sites on the basis of 4804 FS enumerations from the years 1964-1992. The results show that the bacteriological quality improved steadily as the number of treatment plants increased and wastewater treatment became more effective. In the beginning of the 1960s the annual FS medians in the central part of the river were typically 1000-1500 CFU/100 ml, whereas in the 1990s they had decreased to 30-40 CFU/100 ml (CFU = colony forming units). The results indicate that FS input to the river was mainly of domestic origin.     

Past, present, and future of MSW landfills in Japan

This article focuses on the historical development of landfill technology since the beginning of the nineteenth century in Japan. The regulations and guidelines that form a framework for the technology are reviewed, and the historical background and the current state of Japanese municipal solid waste (MSW) management are described. Through the analysis of data collected from facility leaflets, changes in the leachate treatment system are surveyed. Finally, the concept of the “sustainable bioreactor landfill with low organics” is proposed.     

Indicators of Biodiversity and Conservational Wildlife Quality on Danish Organic Farms for Use in Farm Management: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Indicator Development and Testing

Organic farming is expected to contribute to conserving national biodiversity on farms, especially remnant, old, and undisturbed small biotopes, forests, and permanent grassland. This objective cannot rely on the legislation of organic farming solely, and to succeed, farmers need to understand the goals behind it. A set of indicators with the purpose of facilitating dialogues between expert and farmer on wildlife quality has been developed and tested on eight organic farms. “Weed cover in cereal fields,” was used as an indicator of floral and faunal biodiversity in the cultivated land, and “uncultivated biotope area” on the farm was used as a general measure of wildlife habitats. Functional grouping of herbaceous plants (discriminating between “high conservation value” plant species and “competitive”/“ruderal” species) and low mobility butterflies were used as indicators of conservation value, especially focusing on the few sites left with considerable remnant conservation value. The dialog processes revealed that the organic farmers’ ideas and goals of conservation of wildlife quality were not necessarily the same as for biologists; the farmers expressed very different opinions on the biological rooted idea, that wildlife quality is related to the absence of agricultural impact. However, farmers also stated that the information given by the indicators and especially the dialogue with the biologist had influenced their perception and awareness of wildlife. We conclude that, combined with a dialogue process, using these indicators when mapping wildlife quality could be an important key component of a farm wildlife management advisory tool at farm level.     

A Disturbance Index for Karst Environments

Karst environments, unique from other environments, require their own disturbance index. Karst resources are increasingly disturbed by a variety of processes related to social, physical, and economic factors. Recent studies have begun to qualify and quantify these disturbances, yet their focus has been limited to one or two factors such as biotic, geomorphic, or economic impacts. A more holistic approach, addressing economic, scientific, and cultural factors, is needed, to effectively assess the threats to karst areas. Currently, there is no efficient method to measure, compare, and contrast the disturbance of karst environments. We propose a hierarchal and standardized environmental disturbance index as a tool to measure regional impacts and highlight the areas of the karst system that require more protection or study. Addressed categories of disturbance include cultural, biotic, atmospheric, hydrological, and geomorphologic impacts.     

Processes in Pollution Management: An Australian Model

/ This paper describes a model of the social and institutional processes involved in the solution of major pollution problems from the time they are first identified until they are resolved. The model is empirically demonstrated using four case studies of water and air pollution problems from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Each process of the model is quantified by the use of an indicator, e.g., number of articles in newspapers to measure the process "publicconcern," number of pages of text devoted to parliamentary debates to measure the process "political action." The case study data are presented on a time-line graph that shows the duration and magnitude of each process. The paper illustrates three aspects of the solution of major pollution problems: the long time frames involved, the importance of public opinion in initiating the solution process, and the partial nature of solutions-problems may be politically resolved but often a complete solution is not achieved. An understanding of social and institutional processes and time frames will enable planners and policy makers to communicate to the public and politicians the consequences of delay in acting to solve pollution and to direct attention to critical areas to expedite solutions.KEY WORDS: Pollution problems; Management process model; Performance indicators; Air pollution; Water pollution     

农业生态监测目标与监测指标体系选择探讨

本文扼要地阐述了农业生态监测的最终目标一农业生态可持续性的重要性，并对其定义、内涵（环境质量和生态完善性、动植物生产的高质性以及社会经济的可行性）、可持续农业的一般过程等三个方面进行了介绍；初步探讨了农业生态可持续性监测指标体系的选择原则和方法．     

Achieving sustainability by introducing alternative livelihoods

The millennium ecosystem assessment report on global assessment of desertification has highlighted its worldwide impacts on the environment—increasing dust storms, floods and global warming—as well as on societies and economies. It links sustainable management of resources, and inter alia well-being of dryland populations, to reducing societal pressures on dryland ecosystems through adoption of alternative livelihoods. This paper, in combination with a companion paper by Safriel and Adeel, presents the conceptual underpinnings of this approach as well as examples of how innovative approaches for creating livelihoods can help reduce the pressure on marginal drylands. Three case studies presented are based on activities undertaken within a joint international project called sustainable management of marginal drylands. First, introduction of chicken farming to farmers in Hunshundake Sandland in northern China has reduced the pressure on grasslands and led to a major recovery of these ecosystems. Second, development of desert-based aquaculture, with accompanied longer-term storage of water, on the margins of the Cholistan desert in Pakistan has provided a new source of income for the villagers. Third, development of a new income-generating activity based on soap production from olive oil in Dana Biosphere Reserve in Jordan has demonstrated that traditional olive farming can be linked to community-based innovation to create a new, high-demand market for goods. Working with communities to develop new, sustainable livelihoods that reduce pressure on marginal drylands can thus be used as powerful tool for overcoming and reversing desertification.     

Assessing coastal vulnerability to climate change: comparing segmentation at global and regional scales

Recent concerns about potential climate-change effects on coastal systems require the application of vulnerability assessment tools in order to define suitable adaptation strategies and improve coastal zone management effectiveness. In fact, while various research efforts were devoted to evaluate coastal vulnerability to climate change on a national to global level, fewer applications were carried out so far to develop more comprehensive and site-specific vulnerability assessments suitable to plan possible adaptation measures at the regional scale. In this respect, specific indicators are needed to address climate-change-related issues for coastal zones and to identify vulnerable areas at the regional level. Two sets of coastal vulnerability indicators were selected, one for regional and one for global studies, respectively, concerning the same features of coastal systems, including topography and slope, geomorphological characteristics, presence and distribution of wetlands and vegetation cover, density of coastal population and number of coastal inhabitants. The proposed set of indicators for the regional scale was chosen taking into account the availability of environmental and territorial data for the whole coastal area of the Veneto region and was based on site-specific datasets characterized by a spatial resolution appropriate for a regional analysis. Moreover, a GIS-based segmentation procedure was applied to divide the coastline into linear segments, homogeneous in terms of vulnerability to climate change and sea-level rise at the regional scale. This approach allowed to divide the Veneto shoreline into 140 segments with an average length of about 1 km, while the global scale approach identified four coastal segments with an average length of about 66 km. The performed comparison indicated how the more detailed approach adopted at the regional scale is essential to understand and manage the complexities of the specific study area. In fact, the 25-m DEM employed at the regional scale provided a more accurate differentiation of the coastal area's elevation and thus of coastal susceptibility to the inundation risks, compared to the 1-km DEM used at the global level. Moreover, at the regional level the use of a 1:20,000 geomorphological map allowed to differentiate the unique landform class detected at the global level (e.g., fluvial plain) in a variety of more detailed coastal typologies (e.g., open coast eroding sandy shores backed by bedrock) characterized by a different sensitivity to climate change and sea-level rise. Accordingly, the information provided by regional indicators can support decision-makers in improving the management of coastal resources by considering the potential impacts of climate change and in the definition of appropriate actions to reduce inundation risks, to avoid the potential loss of valuable wetlands and vegetation and to plan the nourishment of sandy beaches subject to erosion processes.     

The economics of green transition strategies for cities: Can low carbon,energy efficient development approaches be adapted to demand side urban water efficiency?

Cities are major contributors to global emissions, producers of waste and consumers of resources such as energy, water and food: implementing green development strategies is hence a core challenge of modern city-planning. The attention of research has been focusing on the development of energy efficient, low carbon strategies, yet city decision-makers need truly integrated approaches, as the one proposed by the water-energy-food Nexus. The purpose of our paper is to investigate whether it is possible to take one step in this direction by extending existing approaches to energy efficiency strategies to progressively include other priority resources, in particular water. To test this hypothesis we have taken a robust and well accepted methodology, the ELCC (Economics of Low Carbon development strategies for Cities) developed by SEI and CCCEP, and we have extended it to the case of demand side water efficiency strategies for cities. We have then applied the adapted ELCC framework to the case study of the domestic sector of the city of Bologna (Italy), identifying and prioritizing several efficiency measures. Measures were evaluated through their capital investment, annual values of savings, payback period and reduction in consumption, and then aggregated in different scenarios in order to highlight potential urban investments and to showcase a possible approach to the prioritization of demand side water efficiency measures. The results show that, with an upfront investment of € 17 million, a feasible subset of Bologna’s households could be equipped with five selected cost-effective measures, generating annual savings of € 10.2 million and reducing the total domestic water consumption of 34% by 2020 compared to the 2012 initial value. With additional € 28.5 million, households could be equipped with more costly appliances reaching an overall water reduction of 37% by 2020. Our findings confirm that it is possible to successfully extend current approaches to urban energy efficiency strategies to include demand side water efficiency, adding an important building block to the construction of an integrated Nexus-based approach to green development strategies at the city-level. We encourage further tests to confirm the robustness of the methodology.     

Neighbourhood perceptions among inner-city adolescents: Relationships with their individual characteristics and with independently assessed neighbourhood conditions

We investigated relationships between adolescents’ perceptions of their neighbourhood, their mental health and independently assessed indicators of conditions in their residential neighbourhood. The Research with East London Adolescents Community Health Survey (RELACHS) provided information for 2370 adolescents on area perceptions (specifically alienation from/attachment to the area and satisfaction/dissatisfaction with local amenities and services), and on individual and family attributes including mental distress (measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire). These were combined for this study with independently assessed small area geographical indicators proposed by government to measure local deprivation in England. A Bayesian regression analysis using Gibbs sampling investigated associations between the predictor variables and neighbourhood perception. Alienation from neighbourhood and dissatisfaction with local amenities was greater for girls than for boys and for the older adolescents sampled. Those of ‘Asian’ or ‘Black’ ethnicity, from relatively harmonious families, or with higher levels of social support were less likely to express negative area perceptions. While previously published research found no significant direct association between mental health and small area indicators, this analysis suggests that those with relatively high levels of distress did have worse area perceptions. Also, certain independently assessed area indicators were associated with adolescents’ views of their neighbourhood.