APPLICATION OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC MODELING SYSTEM FOR WATERSHED ASSESSMENTS1

ABSTRACT: A National Pilot Project (NPP) on Livestock and the Environment was initiated in 1992 to help provide solutions to environmental problems associated with livestock production. A major development of the NPP was the Comprehensive Economic and Environmental Optimization Tool‐Livestock and Poultry (CEEOT‐LP), an integrated modeling system designed to produce economic and environmental indicators for alternative policy scenarios applied to intensive livestock production watersheds. The system consists of a farm‐level economic model (FEM) and two environmental models: the field‐scale APEX model and the watershed‐level SWAT model. To date, CEEOT‐LP has been applied to two watersheds in Texas and one in Iowa. Predicted reductions in P losses for two P‐based manure application rate scenarios, relative to baseline conditions, ranged from ?4 to ?54 percent across the three watersheds; however, N loss impacts ranged from a decrease of 34 percent to an increase of 79 percent. For five other alternative scenarios that were simulated for only one watershed, N and P loss impacts ranged between a reduction of 78 percent to an increase of 20 percent. Aggregate watershed‐level economic impacts of the seven scenarios spanned a spectrum of a 27 percent decrease to a 25 percent increase in profit, relative to the baseline.     

HEAVY RAINSTORMS IN CHICAGO: INCREASING FREQUENCY,ALTERED IMPACTS,AND FUTURE IMPLICATIONS1

ABSTRACT: Operations of a dense raingage network in the Chicago area since 1989 provided data to assess the temporal and spatial distributions of heavy rainstorms. The 12‐year average was 4.4 storms per year, 40 percent more than in the 1948 to 1980 period, reflecting an ongoing Midwestern increase in heavy rains. The total rainfall from the 53 heavy rainstorms maximized over the city, reflecting previous observations that the influence of the city and Lake Michigan on the atmosphere causes an increase in heavy rains. Impacts from the record high number of eight storms in 2001 revealed that efforts to control flooding including the Deep Tunnel system, had reduced street and basement flooding in the moderate intensity storms, but the two most intense storms, each with 100‐year rainfall values, led to excessive flooding and a need to release flood waters into Lake Michigan. Results suggest continuing increases in the number of heavy rainstorms in future years, which has major implications for water managers in Chicago and elsewhere.     

ADJUSTMENT OF STREAM CHANNEL CAPACITY FOLLOWING DAM CLOSURE,YEGUA CREEK,TEXAS1

ABSTRACT: In Yegua Creek, a principal tributary of the Brazos River in Texas, surveys of a 19 km channel reach downstream of Somerville Dam show that channel capacity decreased by an average of 65 percent in a 34 year period following dam closure. The decrease corresponds with an approximately 85 percent reduction in annual flood peaks. Channel depth has changed the most, decreasing by an average of 61 percent. Channel width remained stable with an average decrease of only 9 percent, reflecting cohesive bank materials along with the growth of riparian vegetation resulting from increased low flows during dry summer months. Although large changes in stream channel geometry are not uncommon downstream of dams, such pronounced reductions in channel capacity could have long‐term implications for sediment delivery through the system.     

INTEGRATING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TO SUPPORT STREAM NATURALIZATION NEAR CHICAGO,ILLINOIS1

ABSTRACT: Many urban and suburban communities in the Midwest are seeking to establish sustainable, morphologically and hydraulically varied, yet dynamically stable fluvial systems that are capable of supporting healthy, biologically diverse aquatic ecosystems — a process known as stream naturalization. This paper describes an integrated research program that seeks to develop a scientific and technological framework to support two stream naturalization projects near Chicago, Illinois. The research program integrates theory and methods in fluvial geomorphology, aquatic ecology, hydraulic engineering and social theory. Both the conceptual and the practical challenges of that integration are discussed. Scientific and technical support emphasize the development of predictive tools to evaluate the performance of possible naturalization designs at scales most appropriate to community based projects. Social analysis focuses on place based evaluations of how communities formulate an environmental vision and then, through decision making, translate this vision into specific stream naturalization strategies. Integration of scientific and technical with social components occurs in the context of community based decision making as the predictive tools are employed by project scientists to help local communities translate their environmental visions into concrete environmental designs. Social analysis of this decision making process reveals how the interplay between the community's vision of what they want the watershed to become, and the scientific perspective on what the watershed can become to achieve the community's environmental goals, leads to the implementation of specific stream naturalization practices.     

GRAPHICALLY MODELING STAKEHOLDER VALUES1

ABSTRACT: This study was designed to give insight into the values considered in environmental policy and illustrate the respondents' personal constructions related to creating policy through the development of a graphic tool. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, this study anonymously captured the intensity of values currently held by decision makers and tracked changes in values over time. Data were acquired through observations of and interviews with stakeholders in a five‐year wetland mitigation bank permitting process at the Galveston District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The study included public and private sector respondents in both governmental and nongovernmental roles. The resulting representations of professional and personal stakeholders' values can be used as a tool for improving information exchange in policy negotiation and provides insight into the complexity of individual and corporate perceptions of a policy issue.     

调整环境政策 发展环保产业

本文介绍了中国的环境政策,论述了开放竞争的条件对中国现存环境政策和环保产业的影响,并对未来中国环境政策提出了改革建议。     

EFFECTS OF WATERSHED BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ON HABITAT AND FISH IN WISCONSIN STREAMS1

ABSTRACT: We evaluated the effectiveness of watershed‐scale implementations of best‐management practices (BMPs) for improving habitat and fish attributes in two coldwater stream systems in Wisconsin. We sampled physical habitat, water temperature, and fish communities in multiple paired treatment and reference streams before and after upland (barnyard runoff controls, manure storage, contour plowing, reduced tillage) and riparian (stream bank fencing, sloping, limited rip‐rapping) BMP installation in the treatment subwatersheds. In Spring Creek, BMPs significantly improved overall stream habitat quality, bank stability, instream cover for fish, abundance of cool‐ and coldwater fishes, and abundance of all fishes. Improvements were most pronounced at sites with riparian BMPs. Water temperatures were consistently cold enough to support coldwater fishes such as trout (Salmonidae) and sculpins (Cottidae) even before BMP installation. We observed the first‐time occurrence of naturally reproduced brown trout (Salmo trutta) in Spring Creek, indicating that the stream condition had been improved to be able to partially sustain a trout population. In Eagle Creek and its tributary Joos Creek, limited riparian BMPs led to localized gains in overall habitat quality, bank stability, and water depth. However, because few upland BMPs were installed in the subwatershed there were no improvements in water temperature or the quality of the fish community. Temperatures remained marginal for coldwater fish throughout the study. Our results demonstrate that riparian BMPs can improve habitat conditions in Wisconsin streams, but cannot restore coldwater fish communities if there is insufficient upland BMP implementation. Our approach of studying multiple paired treatment and reference streams before and after BMP implementation proved effective in detecting the response of stream ecosystems to watershed management activities.     

Water supply and sanitation services for all: global progress during the 1990s

The Earth may be largely covered with water, but over one billion people are estimated to be without safe drinking water and almost 2.5 billion (40% of the world's population) without adequate sanitation at the outset of the new millennium. The provision of safe water and sanitation for all poses several serious institutional and economic challenges at international, national and local levels. Despite the various political commitments made from the late 1970s onwards, these commitments have remained largely unfulfilled. Even though some efforts to expand coverage have been made over the past two decades, much of those efforts have been undermined by socioeconomic problems and growing population, particularly in the urban areas of developing countries. The water supply and sanitation sector is actually in acute need of new investments for expansion and maintenance of facilities. Nonetheless, some positive trends can be discerned, such as, for example, the increasing recognition of integrated water resources management, environmental sanitation, public-private partnerships and women as a key for improvement and expansion of services.     

洞庭湖区域环境整治规划及措施

随着工、农业的发展,洞庭湖区域的环境污染日趋严重。本文较详细地研究了洞庭湖区域的环境整治规划,在各环境要素的规划方面进行了探讨。     

An approach to integrate impact scoping with environmental impact assessment

Impact scoping is the process of identifying important issues of a proposal and focusing the environmental impact assessment (EIA) on the high-priority issues. Although impact scoping in one form or another has been inherent to EIA for some time, documentation of its development and discussion of refinements to impact scoping processes have not been forthcoming. This article traces the development of impact scoping through time and highlights the need for such processes in EIA. A focused environmental assessment (FEA) approach to impact scoping that is suitable for implementation in an EIA is presented here and advantages of its use are delineated. FEA is a three-staged process that encourages impact scoping through progressive steps including impact identification, assessment and management planning. FEA combines a suite of EIA methods including: issues matrices, impact hypotheses, valued ecosystem components, and stakeholder participation sessions to effectively integrate impact scoping with EIA.