福建省环境监测质量信息监控系统的建设

使用浏览器/服务器型数据库技术,开发福建省环境监测质量信息监控系统.利用档案库内的数据,进行综合、区域、项目等全方位、多功能查询,实现环境监测质量管理规范化、标准化、定量化.     

基于关系数据库的环境监测知识库的建立

“环境监测专家系统”可有效监控环境污染状况 ,对环境污染作分析、评价、分级、预警等 ,促进环境的管理和改善。环境监测知识库是该专家系统的核心 ,通过知识库 ,专家系统可以自我学习 ,自我诊断 ,自我发展。本文通过对知识库和数据库的分析比较 ,指出在关系数据库平台上建立环境监测知识库的可行性 ,给出了在关系数据库系统中建立环境监测知识库的方法 ,即如何在关系数据库环境中实现环境监测知识获取、表示和管理     

What can the trove of CSB incident investigations teach us? A detailed analysis of information characteristics among chemical process incidents investigated by the CSB

Understanding the commonalities among previous chemical process incidents can help mitigate recurring incidents in the chemical process industry and will be useful background knowledge for designers intending to foster inherent safety. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) reports provide detailed and vital incident information that can be used to identify possible commonalities. This study aims to develop a systematic approach for extracting data from the CSB reports with the objective of establishing these commonalities. Data were extracted based on three categories: attributed incident causes, scenarios, and consequences. Seventeen causal factors were classified as chemical indicators or process indicators. Twelve chemical indicators are associated with the hazards of the chemicals involved in the incidents, whereas five process indicators account for the hazards presented by process conditions at the time of the incident. Seven scenario factors represent incident sequences, equipment types, operating modes, process units, domino effects, detonation likelihood for explosion incidents, and population densities. Finally, three consequence factors were selected based on types of chemical incidents, casualties, population densities, and economic losses. Data from 87 CSB reports covering 94 incidents were extracted and analyzed according to the proposed approach. Based on these findings, the study proposes guidelines for future collection of information to provide valuable resources for prediction and risk reduction of future incidents.     

Adaptive social impact management for conservation and environmental management

Concerns about the social consequences of conservation have spurred increased attention the monitoring and evaluation of the social impacts of conservation projects. This has resulted in a growing body of research that demonstrates how conservation can produce both positive and negative social, economic, cultural, health, and governance consequences for local communities. Yet, the results of social monitoring efforts are seldom applied to adaptively manage conservation projects. Greater attention is needed to incorporating the results of social impact assessments in long‐term conservation management to minimize negative social consequences and maximize social benefits. We bring together insights from social impact assessment, adaptive management, social learning, knowledge coproduction, cross‐scale governance, and environmental planning to propose a definition and framework for adaptive social impact management (ASIM). We define ASIM as the cyclical process of monitoring and adaptively managing social impacts over the life‐span of an initiative through the 4 stages of profiling, learning, planning, and implementing. We outline 14 steps associated with the 4 stages of the ASIM cycle and provide guidance and potential methods for social‐indicator development, predictive assessments of social impacts, monitoring and evaluation, communication of results, and identification and prioritization of management responses. Successful ASIM will be aided by engaging with best practices – including local engagement and collaboration in the process, transparent communication of results to stakeholders, collective deliberation on and choice of interventions, documentation of shared learning at the site level, and the scaling up of insights to inform higher‐level conservation policies‐to increase accountability, trust, and perceived legitimacy among stakeholders. The ASIM process is broadly applicable to conservation, environmental management, and development initiatives at various scales and in different contexts.     

Untapped potential of collective intelligence in conservation and environmental decision making

Environmental decisions are often deferred to groups of experts, committees, or panels to develop climate policy, plan protected areas, or negotiate trade-offs for biodiversity conservation. There is, however, surprisingly little empirical research on the performance of group decision making related to the environment. We examined examples from a range of different disciplines, demonstrating the emergence of collective intelligence (CI) in the elicitation of quantitative estimates, crowdsourcing applications, and small-group problem solving. We explored the extent to which similar tools are used in environmental decision making. This revealed important gaps (e.g., a lack of integration of fundamental research in decision-making practice, absence of systematic evaluation frameworks) that obstruct mainstreaming of CI. By making judicious use of interdisciplinary learning opportunities, CI can be harnessed effectively to improve decision making in conservation and environmental management. To elicit reliable quantitative estimates an understanding of cognitive psychology and to optimize crowdsourcing artificial intelligence tools may need to be incorporated. The business literature offers insights into the importance of soft skills and diversity in team effectiveness. Environmental problems set a challenging and rich testing ground for collective-intelligence tools and frameworks. We argue this creates an opportunity for significant advancement in decision-making research and practice.     

Strengthening conservation science as a crisis discipline by addressing challenges of precaution,privilege, and individualism

Conservation science deals with crises and supports policy interventions devised to mitigate highly uncertain threats that pose irreversible harm. When conventional policy tools, such as quantitative risk assessments, are insufficient, the precautionary principle provides a practical framework and range of robust heuristics. Yet, precaution is often resisted in many policy arenas, especially those involving powerful self-interests, and this resistance is compounded by structures of privilege and competitive individualism in science. We describe key drivers and effects of such resistance in conservation science. These include a loss of rigor under uncertainty, an erosion of crisis response capabilities, and a further reinforcement of privileged interests in conservation politics. We recommend open acknowledgement of the pressures exerted by power inside science; greater recognition for the value of the precautionary principle under uncertainty; deliberate measures to resist competitive individualism; support for blind review, open science, and data sharing; and a shift from hierarchical multidisciplinarity toward more egalitarian transdisciplinarity to accelerate advances in conservation science. Article impact statement: Precautionary principle, privilege structures among disciplines, and culture of individualism link to effective conservation policy making.     

Conservation geopolitics

We reviewed recent work concerning the impact of geopolitics on wildlife conservation (and vice versa) and identified future priorities in conservation geopolitics research. Geopolitics is understood as both an analytical focus on geopolitical practices (especially concerning the behavior) of countries with respect to territory and national security and a set of theories developed to explain and predict those behaviors. We developed a typology of core geopolitical practices of relevance to conservation: territorial practices of colonization and the management of migrations and borders, and security practices relating to military, economic, and environmental security. We identified research that considers how these practices affect conservation situations and outcomes, noting the recent emergence of conceptual developments such as “environmental geopolitics” and “geopolitical ecology” that draw on multiple fields within the social sciences to theorize the links between geopolitics and environmental management. We defined a "geopolitical perspective" as a focus on geopolitical practices combined with an explicit engagement with geopolitical theory and identified conservation situations where this perspective could contribute to analytical clarity. We suggest the most pressing questions in conservation research to which the geopolitical perspective might contribute are how political and economic differences between countries affect biodiversity outcomes, how geopolitical practices to address those differences facilitate or frustrate conservation efforts, how national borders and human and wildlife movements can be better managed for the benefit of both, and how the most effective conservation strategies can be best selected to suit existing (and future) geopolitical realities.     

协同创新视角下资环专业研究生科技创新能力提升途径

资源循环科学与工程专业硕士毕业生存在规模小、科技创新能力不足、能力施展受限等问题,无法满足产业对高层次人才的需求。究其原因有:(1)新兴专业,其研究生导师队伍建设不健全,人才培养质量参差不齐;(2)交叉专业,其科技创新能力培养方向尚需融合凝练;(3)综合专业,其现有科研平台还不足以支撑学科发展,科技创新能力培养模式还没有完全形成。因此,本学科研究生培养单位应树立协同创新理念,坚持行业需求导向,充分挖掘办学特色和优势,凝练培养方向、完善以科技创新能力培养核心的研究生培养方案;加强师资队伍建设,建立健全科研平台;支持鼓励科技创新实践活动,做好学科前沿追踪;加强校校交流互动,提升硕士点认可度。     

Ten years of contested enforcement of the Forest Law in Salta,Argentina. The role of land-change science and political ecology

ABSTRACT

In this study, we present a critical account of the enforcement of the Forest Law in the Province of Salta, Argentina. We discuss whether the objectives of this law were accomplished and we analyze the role that some technical tools, coupled with specific theoretical approaches, could play in its future enforcement. We illustrate our analysis with data from a case study in the Chaco region of this Province. We identified, mapped and analyzed land claims by indigenous communities and small-scale agricultural producers, and large-scale land acquisitions, and we discuss how these two variables could be used to improve the technical accuracy and the social legitimacy of the zoning map required by the Forest Law. We conclude that a balanced combination of land-change science methods and political ecology can be useful to improve the fairness of decision-making processes and the sustainability of social-environmental governance in agricultural frontiers.     

A protocol for eliciting nonmaterial values through a cultural ecosystem services frame

Stakeholders’ nonmaterial desires, needs, and values often critically influence the success of conservation projects. These considerations are challenging to articulate and characterize, resulting in their limited uptake in management and policy. We devised an interview protocol designed to enhance understanding of cultural ecosystem services (CES). The protocol begins with discussion of ecosystem‐related activities (e.g., recreation, hunting) and management and then addresses CES, prompting for values encompassing concepts identified in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) and explored in other CES research. We piloted the protocol in Hawaii and British Columbia. In each location, we interviewed 30 individuals from diverse backgrounds. We analyzed results from the 2 locations to determine the effectiveness of the interview protocol in elucidating nonmaterial values. The qualitative and spatial components of the protocol helped characterize cultural, social, and ethical values associated with ecosystems in multiple ways. Maps and situational, or vignette‐like, questions helped respondents articulate difficult‐to‐discuss values. Open‐ended prompts allowed respondents to express a diversity of ecosystem‐related values and proved sufficiently flexible for interviewees to communicate values for which the protocol did not explicitly probe. Finally, the results suggest that certain values, those mentioned frequently throughout the interview, are particularly salient for particular populations. The protocol can provide efficient, contextual, and place‐based data on the importance of particular ecosystem attributes for human well‐being. Qualitative data are complementary to quantitative and spatial assessments in the comprehensive representation of people's values pertaining to ecosystems, and this protocol may assist in incorporating values frequently overlooked in decision making processes.