INVOLVING WATERSHED STAKEHOLDERS: AN ISSUE ATTRIBUTE APPROACH TO DETERMINE WILLINGNESS AND NEED1

ABSTRACT: The development of effective solutions for addressing nonpoint source pollution on a watershed basis often involves watershed stakeholders. However, success in engaging stakeholders in collaborative decision making processes varies, as watershed managers are faced with the challenges inherent to finding the right process for the decisions needed and in successfully engaging stakeholders in that process. Two characteristics that may provide guidance for determining the appropriateness of applying a collaborative process to a watershed problem are the need to collaborate and the willingness of stakeholders to engage in a collaborative decision making process. By examining seven attributes of the issues confronted by stakeholders in a collaborative process, the consequences of these attributes on the need for collaboration and stakeholders' willingness to engage can be estimated. The issue attributes include: level of uncertainty, balance of information, risk, time horizon of effects, urgency of decision, distribution of effects, and clarity of problem. The issue attribute model was applied to two collaborative decision making processes conducted by the same watershed stakeholder group in a North Carolina coastal watershed. Need and willingness to engage did not coincide for either issue; that is, stakeholders were more willing to engage on the issue that required less need for their involvement.     

PZⅡ型炮泥制作机的研制及应用

PZ-Ⅱ型炮泥机的成功研制，解决了过去传统手工捏制炮泥的许多不足，叙述了PZ-Ⅱ型炮泥制作机的结构、工作原理、主要参数、制作及现场应用情况。     

Implementing climate variability adaptation at the community level in the Amazon floodplain

The need to design measures for adapting to climate change is increasingly recognized as important and has encouraged research on the role of local ecological knowledge (LEK) in supporting adaptation. Studies of how LEK can help adapt to increasing climate variability remain limited. This article develops an approach through which the process of adaptation can be tracked at a community level. We describe how community residents in the Amazon floodplains incorporate natural hydrologic and ecological processes into their management systems to optimize ecosystem functioning.We describe two case studies where LEK is used as a resource by small-scale fisher-farmers in the Amazon floodplains to adapt to the increasing impacts on their livelihoods generated by changing climate patterns. This article draws on local histories and seeks to identify the critical factors that either facilitate or impede household ability to reduce their vulnerability. We found that the LEK of small fisher-farmers has facilitated the adaptation of a resource management system to optimize production across a broad range of floodplain habitats and conditions. There are, however, significant challenges to operationalizing these approaches, including an absence of systematically collected data on adaptation strategies and outcomes. In addition, local people must be integrated into policymaking processes so their knowledge can contribute to the design of locally appropriate policies for adapting to the impacts of climate related events.     

Impediments to refractory recycling decision-making

This paper focuses on organizational impediments to the successful implementation of industrial recycling programs. Even if a technologically viable and mutually beneficial solution were to exist, there are a number of organizational impediments that make it unlikely to succeed unless the benefits are very large and apparent. These impediments stem from the difficulty in identifying potential partners and involving the appropriate individuals within the firms that understand the technical requirements, value the strategic benefits and are receptive towards establishing the industrial recycling relationship. This dilemma applies to many industrial recycling opportunities, but solutions do exist. One way to avoid some of these obstacles is to use a middleman, or broker, who can play several crucial roles to establish the relationship. This paper describes the impediments and key broker roles, and provides a case study dealing with refractory recycling. It provides a case study that documents a recycling relationship between an aluminum-manufacturing firm that produces a large volume of spent refractories and a regional portland cement producer that is using the spent refractories as an alternative raw material source. This paper also provides a thorough literature search in the area of refractory recycling. Finally, the case study provides an opportunity for analysis and reflection on the implications of these findings to industrial firms, industrial societies and governmental agencies that seek to encourage successful recycling operations.     

SCIENCE AND POLICY IN INTEGRATED WATERSHED MANAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY1

ABSTRACT: Policy and management plans can be enhanced through effective communication between researchers and decision makers. Differences in understanding can come from differences in professional cultures. Scientists deal with facts, proof and incremental progress whereas the decision makers are often faced with perceptions, emotions and deadlines. A case study is presented illustrating the interaction between the political system and science on a water management issue. Irrigation projects in the western San Joaquin Valley of California lead to a situation requiring subsurface drainage and disposal of the drainage water. The original plan was to discharge the drainage water in the Suisun Bay east of the San Francisco Bay. Severe damage to birds associated with selenium in the water led to a reevaluation of irrigation and drainage management options. Federal and state agencies cooperated to establish a San Joaquin Valley Drainage Program (SJVDP) which was to develop plans for solving the problem. Discharge to the Bay was politically eliminated as an option for evaluation, an action criticized by a National Research Council Committee as not being scientifically based. The SJVDP published a Management Plan in 1990 which contained proposals viewed by the scientific community as not necessarily incorrect but not completely justified based on the scientific knowledge at the time. A segment of the Citizens Advisory Committee that was part of the SJVDP consisting of representatives from the interest groups viewed the Management Plan as a negotiated agreement between the environmental and agricultural interests. Presently, an Activity Plan exists, consisting of technical committees to evaluate the current technical and economic evaluation of the management options proposed in the Management Plan. This case study illustrates that factors other than scientific facts have bearing on decisions. Successful management plans must be technically sound, economically viable and socially acceptable. The scientific community needs to evaluate its role in the policy making arena and to focus research on questions of greatest value to decision makers, as well as to scientific peers.     

Understanding barriers to decision making in the UK energy-food-water nexus: The added value of interdisciplinary approaches

The nexus represents a multi-dimensional means of scientific enquiry which seeks to describe the complex and non-linear interactions between water, energy, food, with the climate, and further understand wider implications for society. These resources are fundamental for human life but are negatively affected by shocks such as climate change and characterize some of the main challenges for global sustainable development. Given the multidimensional and complex nature of the nexus, a transdisciplinary approach to knowledge development through co-production is needed to timely and effectively inform the decision making processes to build societal resilience to these shocks going beyond the sectorality of current research practice. The paper presents findings from five themed workshops (shocks and hazards, infrastructure, local economy, governance and governments, finance and insurance) with 80 stakeholders from academia, government and industry in the UK to explore the impact of climate and weather shocks across the energy-food-water nexus and barriers to related responses. The research identified key stakeholders’ concerns, opportunities and barriers to better inform decision making centred on four themes: communication and collaboration, decision making processes, social and cultural dimensions, and the nature of responses to nexus shocks. We discuss implications of these barriers and how addressing these can better facilitate constructive dialogue and more efficient decision-making in response to nexus shocks.     

环境污染应急处置技术的CBR-MADM两步筛选法模型

突发环境污染事件进行应急处置时,需要在历史案例库和处置技术库的基础上通过筛选模型筛选出最适宜的应急处置技术.其中筛选的效率和准确性是构建技术筛选模型的首要因素,目前尚无较为满意的解决方案.本文结合案例推理技术(CBR)和模糊多属性群决策模型(MADM)的优势,建立了环境污染应急处置技术的CBR-MADM两步筛选法模型:第1步,先利用基于熵权G1法的CBR推理从案例库中匹配案例,再从相似度最高的几个案例中提取应急处置技术作为备选技术;第2步,利用MADM对备选技术进行筛选和决策.CBR-MADM两步筛选法既充分利用了历史处置经验,又极大地提高了应急处置技术的筛选速度和效率.将该方法应用于2012年底山西长治浊漳河苯胺泄漏污染事件中,成功筛选出“投加混凝剂-活性炭坝拦截”技术,同实际情况吻合,验证了其适用性和可行性.     

Challenges in humanitarian information management and exchange: evidence from Haiti

There is a growing recognition of the critical role information management can play in shaping effective humanitarian response, coordination and decision‐making. Quality information, reaching more humanitarian actors, will result in better coordination and better decision‐making, thus improving the response to beneficiaries as well as accountability to donors. The humanitarian response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake marked a watershed moment for humanitarian information management. Yet the fragmented nature of the response and the use of hierarchical models of information management, along with other factors, have led some observers to label the Haiti response a failure. Using an analytical framework often found in humanitarian emergencies, this study analyses challenges to information flow in the Haiti case and the implications for effective humanitarian response. It concludes by offering possible paths for overcoming such challenges, and for restoring the value and utility of humanitarian information management and exchange in humanitarian relief settings.     

江西省上饶县农户水土保持投资行为机理与实证模型

以农户调查数据为基础,通过对农户水土保持行为机理分析,结合研究区域实际,确定区域经济发展水平、农户兼业经济行为、农业经营规模、劳动力状况等4大类因素为影响农户进行水土保持投入的主要因素,并进一步细化成9项具体指标。通过SPSS软件对各项指标与水土保持投入行为进行相关性分析,建立多元线性回归模型,发现农户兼业经济行为、农业经营规模是影响农户进行水土保持投入的主要限制因子。由于兼业和规模经营对农业收入的依赖程度较低,且防范农业风险的能力较强,农户往往不愿意进行水土保持投资。家庭收入主要来源于农业,以及农业人口比重较高的农户,往往会在水土保持上投入较多的时间和资金。针对农业劳动力不足、农业经营规模小等现状提出如何激励农户水土保持投资行为,以进一步促进水土流失治理的相关建议。     

Ethics and fundamental principles of risk acceptance criteria

Ethics are concerned with distinguishing between what actions are “right” and “wrong” and what values are “good” and “bad”, etc. and there is a long academic tradition in discussing ethics and ethical theories. Risk acceptance criteria, on the other hand, distinguish between levels of risks that are acceptable and levels that are intolerable. In some sense, one may say that risk acceptance criteria distinguishes between “good” and “bad” systems and activities with regards to the risk they expose the society or elements of a society to and there is thus an obvious link between ethics and risk acceptance criteria or to risk management at large. However, there are few references in the literature that explores this link, and in this paper, the ethical foundation of fundamental principles of risk acceptance criteria will be elaborated upon.This paper considers some important principles for establishing risk acceptance criteria for safety critical systems and activities. The various principles and the philosophies behind them might at first sight seem contradictory and exclusive, but it is demonstrated how they may coexist in one and the same regulatory regime; They may complement each other in order to achieve the overall safety objectives of society. Then, some brief considerations of the ethical foundations for the principles will be given and some relevant examples of actual risk acceptance criteria will be given from the maritime industries. However, it is believed that the principles and discussions are of general interest and apply to all areas of technical risk and to safety regulations in a broader perspective.