金佛山地区地下水硝态氮污染时空变异性研究

根据1976～1977年、2004～2006年和2009年金佛山地区23处地下水排泄点水中硝态氮的质量浓度,采用地球化学、统计学与GIS相结合的方法确定了区内地下水中硝态氮的地球化学背景值,分析了硝态氮污染的时空变异特征.结果表明,区内地下水中硝态氮的地球化学背景值为0.72～2.00 mg.L-1,正异常下限为3.20 mg.L-1;2004～2006年和2009年金佛山自然保护区内地下水硝态氮平均质量浓度为：2.08、2.67、2.59和3.92 mg.L-1;保护区外为：39.08、25.46、17.99和13.73mg.L-1;平均超标率（标准规定NO 3--N≤10 mg.L-1）为：451.64%、478.61%、331.85%和145.67%;最高浓度为：157.58、118.04、63.82和46.18 mg.L-1;最大超标率为：1 475.81%、1 080.39%、538.20%和361.78%.插值分析结果显示,区内地下水中硝态氮高值中心随时间而变化,低值区沿金佛山自然保护区分布.当地合理的环境保护政策和产业结构调整,对环境保护工作起到了积极作用.     

农村面源污染治理的政策与管理服务体系优化——以上海郊区农村为例

农村面源污染控制不仅是技术问题,也是管理体制与机制问题,探讨并完善农村面源污染治理的政策、管理与服务体系已成为当前研究的热点与难点。以上海郊区农村为例,梳理总结农村面源污染及其控制现状;在肯定当前治理效果的同时,识别其局限性,指出农业政策与环境保护政策的不协调、农村发展模式转变下制度与服务体系的相对滞后是根本原因;针对当前农村面源污染重要的贡献者——化肥、农药、畜禽粪便以及农村生活污水,分别从改革农业补贴制度、重构实现农村多重价值的制度以及完善农业生产服务体系等方面给出了治理的对策与建议。     

气候政策研究中的数学模型评述

按照成本分析和综合分析2个层次，分别介绍了投入产出模型、可计算一般均衡模型、宏观计量经济模型、工程经济模型、动态能源优化模型、能源系统模拟模型、综合评估模型等不同模型方法的特点及其在气候政策分析中的应用。指出可计算一般均衡模型是应用得最为广泛的方法之一。概括了气候政策模型研究的4个发展趋势，包括加强综合评估模型的应用、扩展成本与效益的内涵、注重不同模型之间的比较、强调不确定性分析。结果中国研究现状，分析了当前面昨的问题，认为国内气候政策模型研究与中国在国际气候变化领域的地位仍不相称，强度要进一步加强研究队伍建设、扩展研究领域、跟踪国际研究前沿问题，以便为国家的气候谈判政策提供更有效的科学依据和决策支持。     

Robust technology policy against emission leakage: The case of upstream subsidies

Asymmetric regulation of a global pollutant between countries can alter the competitiveness of industries and lead to emissions leakage, which hampers countries’ welfare. In order to limit leakage, governments consider supporting domestic trade-exposed firms by subsidizing their investments in abatement technology. The suppliers of such technologies tend to be less than perfectly competitive, particularly when both emissions regulations and advanced technologies are new. In this context of twin market failures, we consider the relative effects and desirability of subsidies for abatement technology. We find a more robust recommendation for upstream subsidies than for downstream subsidies. Downstream subsidies tend to increase global abatement technology prices, reduce pollution abatement abroad and increase emission leakage. On the contrary, upstream subsidies reduce abatement technology prices, and hence also emissions leakage.     

Heat as emergency,heat as chronic stress: policy and institutional responses to vulnerability to extreme heat

Increasingly commonplace in cities, extreme heat events introduce multi-stress vulnerability, affecting people’s health and well-being, financial situation, mobility, social relations, and access to basic services. Planning to reduce heat vulnerability has become part of government business and to some extent community-level responses, cutting across a number of sectors including public health, emergency management, social services, critical infrastructure, and housing. This planning is often framed around heat as an emergency, focusing on preventing loss of life and severe health impacts, yet a vulnerability perspective also draws attention to the chronic and persistent impacts of heat. Our research, based on interviews and desktop research in Melbourne, Australia, found tensions between addressing heat as an emergency and heat as a source of chronic stress, with emergency responses taking precedence over responses addressing the chronic dimensions of heat. Each approach results in different but nonetheless related programmatic priorities for reducing vulnerability. In complex institutional settings, improving relations between policy and programme managers, non-government organisations, and vulnerable people themselves would enable the multiple stresses associated with extreme heat to be more effectively addressed. Policy and institutional responses that better appreciate the interconnections between the emergency and chronic aspects of heat would likely reduce vulnerability and contribute to more just approaches to urban sustainability.     

Parks versus PES: Evaluating direct and incentive-based land conservation in Mexico

Protected areas (PAs) and payments for ecosystem services (PES) are the top two mechanisms available for countries to achieve international REDD agreements, yet there are few empirical comparisons of their effects. We estimate the impacts of PAs and PES on forest conservation, poverty reduction, and population change at the locality level in Mexico in the 2000s. Both policies conserved forest, generating an approximately 20–25% reduction in expected forest cover loss. PES created statistically significant but small poverty alleviation while PAs had overall neutral impacts on livelihoods. Estimates by individual policy type for the same level of deforestation risk indicate that biosphere reserves and PES balanced conservation and livelihood goals better than strict protected areas or mixed-use areas. This suggests that both direct and incentive-based instruments can be effective, and that policies combining sustainable financing, flexible zoning, and recognition of local economic goals are more likely to achieve conservation without harming livelihoods.     

Return to the River: Environmental Flow Policy in the United States and Canada1

Abstract: This paper provides an overview and summary of United States and Canadian federal, state, and provincial laws that offer some form of legal protection for environmental flows. Special attention is given to the new “second generation” law established in Texas and to ways western states are beginning to encourage transactions that help restore dewatered streams. Progress in the eastern states and some Canadian provinces to provide environmental flow protection is addressed. Based on this review, this paper presents recommended elements of a “model” environmental flow policy.     

Vertical fiscal externalities and the environment

We show that imposition of a state-level environmental tax in a federation crowds out pre-existing federal taxes. We explain how this vertical fiscal externality can lead unilateral state-level environmental policy to generate a welfare gain in the implementing state, at the expense of other states, even absent any environmental benefits. Using a computable general equilibrium model of the Canadian federation, we show that vertical fiscal externalities can be the major determinant of the welfare change following environmental policy implementation by a state government. Our numerical simulations indicate that – as a consequence of vertical fiscal externalities – state governments can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 20 percent without any net cost to themselves.     

Credibility and advocacy in conservation science

Conservation policy sits at the nexus of natural science and politics. On the one hand, conservation scientists strive to maintain scientific credibility by emphasizing that their research findings are the result of disinterested observations of reality. On the other hand, conservation scientists are committed to conservation even if they do not advocate a particular policy. The professional conservation literature offers guidance on negotiating the relationship between scientific objectivity and political advocacy without damaging conservation science's credibility. The value of this guidance, however, may be restricted by limited recognition of credibility's multidimensionality and emergent nature: it emerges through perceptions of expertise, goodwill, and trustworthiness. We used content analysis of the literature to determine how credibility is framed in conservation science as it relates to apparent contradictions between science and advocacy. Credibility typically was framed as a static entity lacking dimensionality. Authors identified expertise or trustworthiness as important, but rarely mentioned goodwill. They usually did not identify expertise, goodwill, or trustworthiness as dimensions of credibility or recognize interactions among these 3 dimensions of credibility. This oversimplification may limit the ability of conservation scientists to contribute to biodiversity conservation. Accounting for the emergent quality and multidimensionality of credibility should enable conservation scientists to advance biodiversity conservation more effectively.