THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF RESIDENTIAL CONSUMERS ON WATER RATES1

ABSTRACT: The regulatory process such as that for water rates can be viewed as a bargaining process between regulators, utility management, and consumers. This bargaining process involves both political and economic influences. In an attempt to empirically verify that utility rates are a product of both economic and political factors, a sample of publicly-owned water utilities was subjected to regression analysis. As expected, cost and cost-related factors were positive and significant determinants of residential water rates. Using an admittedly imperfect measure of residential user political influence, there was evidence that increased political activity results in lower water rates. Furthermore, the political influence and water rate linkage is more evident in small water utilities than in larger suppliers.     

找准经济与环境协调发展的切入点

实施可持续发展战略,就是要实现经济建设与环境保护协调发展。本文从佳木斯市实际出发,提出了环境保护职能部门如何参与经济结构调整以实现经济与环境协调发展的意见和建议。     

Planning for cooler cities: a plan quality evaluation for Urban Heat Island consideration

ABSTRACT

City strategic plans and enabling policies provide a framework for and inform future development across multiple scales. An exemplar city strategic plan will be one based on evidence, enabled by complementary policy outcomes, and built on the knowledge of the existing landscape. This study evaluated the plan quality of eighteen metropolitan strategic plans for city members in the 100 Resilient Cities initiative. A protocol was developed containing thirty-two indicators to assess plans capacity to act as a strategic planning tool to develop, analyse and implement strategies for the Urban Heat Island (UHI) and climate change mitigation and adaptation. The evaluation indicated that strategies addressing the UHI are rarely included in metropolitan plans. Strategic plans showed a lack of evidence-base to inform the potential actions. Urban warming is often linked to extreme weather events anticipated under climate change, not the UHI as a systemic and increasing phenomenon. We recommend that the pathway to addressing UHI mitigation and adaptation may lie in its nexus to aspects of climate change that concurrently can serve to support liveable and resilient cities.     

A MATHEMATICAL MODEL FOR OPTIMUM DESIGN AND CONTROL OF METROPOLITAN WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS1

ABSTRACT: A comprehensive mathematical model (Urban Wastewater Management Model) has been developed to continuously simulate time-varying wastewater flows and qualities in complex metropolitan combined sewerage systems. The model serves three functions: (1) assessment of existing or planned system performance in relation to other wastewater discharges in either a metropolitan or river basin area; (2) determination of the optium operation or automatic control of existing or planned systems during rainstorms; and (3) determination of the most economically feasible combination of design alternatives for improving or expanding existing systems to meet specified performance criteria. The model provides an efficient engineering tool for evaluating and controlling pollutant discharges from combined sewerage systems (including treatment plants) to receiving waters, while considering the time and spacial variations of rainfall and dry-weather flows and qualities as well as economic constraints.     

塑造大学精神,建设"高水平大学"

2004年教育工作将突出两大战略重点,其中大力加强高水平大学和重点学科建设,是适应全面建设小康社会的要求,促进高等教育和职业教育与经济社会发展的紧密结合.文章从实践"三个代表"的高度,提出建设"一流大学"或"高水平大学"必须特别注重塑造大学精神;并立足教书育人,结合实际工作探讨了解决问题的对策.     

Soil Phosphorus Concentrations in Dane County,Wisconsin, USA: An Evaluation of the Urban–Rural Gradient Paradigm

Understanding the magnitude and location of soil phosphorus (P) accumulation in watersheds is a critical step toward managing runoff of this pollutant to aquatic ecosystems. Here, I examine the usefulness of urban–rural gradients, an emerging experimental design in urban ecology, for predicting extractable soil P concentrations across a rapidly urbanizing agricultural watershed in southern Wisconsin. I compare several measures of an urban–rural gradient to predictors of soil P such as soil type, slope, topography, land use, land cover, and fertilizer and manure use. Most of the factors that were expected to drive differences in soil P concentrations were found to be poor predictors of Bray-1 (extractable) soil P, which ranged from 4 to 660 ppm; while there were several significant relationships, most explained only a small proportion of the variation. A multiple linear regression model captured approximately 37% of the variation in the data using the urban–rural gradient, topography, land use, land cover, manure use, and soil type as predictors. There was a significant relationship between Bray-1 P concentration and each of the urban–rural gradients, but these relationships explained only between 2.6% and 3.3% of the variation in P concentrations. Extractable P concentration in soils, unlike some other ecosystem properties, is not well predicted by urban–rural gradients.     

我国西南部喀斯特地区石漠化研究进展

我国西南部喀斯特地区的石漠化是西部生态建设中面临的十分突出的地域环境问题，也是西南喀斯特地区实现可持续发展的主要障碍之一。参考国内研究的相关文献，运用比较分析法，从喀斯特石漠化的概念、分布、评价指标、生态效应、成因分析及综合治理等六方面回顾了近年来我国喀斯特地区石漠化研究的进展情况。研究结果认为，目前研究中还存在基础理论研究落后于实践活动、定量分析不足、基础数据采集工作欠缺和现有治理模式具有较大的局限性等不足，并建议从研究重点区域、探究喀斯特石漠化演变机理、在喀斯特石漠化地区开展生态综合整治工作及建设相关的信息系统等方面开展先行研究工作。     

工程项目现场安全标志有效性评价

为改善工程项目现场作业安全状况,需要对安全标志的有效性进行评价。通过划分施工人员的认知行为阶段,从人机工程学系统优化的角度构建安全标志有效性评价指标体系,确立指标打分规则,采用网络层次分析法(ANP),运用超级决策(SD)软件确定指标权重、综合评分,并加以示例说明。结果表明:安全标志的有效性受注意阶段的显著性、识别阶段的可理解性、判断阶段的安全倾向性和行为阶段的易遵守性交互影响,其中,安全倾向性权重值最高。     

Study of urban population attitudes towards various wastewater reuse options: Israel as a case study

This paper summarizes the findings of a survey (256 participants) conducted to determine the attitude of the Israeli urban public towards various urban water reuse options. Israel is known for its long and successful agricultural water reuse scheme, but to date no large-scale urban reuse projects have been implemented. The survey included 21 reuse options, which were clustered into three reuse categories, namely: low, medium, and high contact levels. Results show that a high proportion of the participants supported medium contact reuse options such as sidewalk landscaping (95%), domestic WC flushing (85%) and firefighting (96%). Higher contact reuse options such as domestic laundry (38%), preserved food (13%), and potable aquifer recharge (11%) found much lesser support. Less than expected support was found for low contact reuse options with 86% for field crop irrigation, 62% for aquifer recharge for agricultural irrigation, and as low as 49% for orchard irrigation. This low support is surprising, since all three options have been practiced on a large scale for over three decades in Israel without any adverse effects to the public. No correlation was found between any biographical characteristic examined (education, gender, income, marital status, having young children, and age) and support for medium contact options. For the medium contact options, the results suggest that perceived financial gain (individual and/or communal) and positive public opinion enhances support, while perceived health effects negatively affects the degree of support. Technology, trust in authorities and awareness of water and environmental issues were found to not have a significant effect on support for medium contact reuse options. Analyzing the four possible reasons for support given by participants who identified themselves as supporters of wastewater reuse revealed that the most important reason for support was "water saving", followed by "minimization of importing water from abroad". These were followed by "infrastructure cost saving" together with "environmental improvement".     

山东省城市灾害与减灾对策

通过分析山东省城市化现状以及带来的城市灾害特点，总结出适合山东特点的城市减灾对策。