The importance of the will to improve: how ‘sustainability’ sidelined local livelihoods in a carbon-forestry investment in Uganda

This paper describes a ‘win–win’ discourse on local sustainable development and global climate change mitigation regarding Kachung, a Swedish–Norwegian climate forestry investment in Uganda certified under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). In many ways, this investment is a typical example of how private interests and capital accumulation are prioritised over local concerns in natural resource management under neoliberalism. This study, however, indicated that investors had genuine intentions of creating mutual benefits for the global environment and local people. Drawing on Li (2007), we show that this ‘will to improve’ was nevertheless constructed in ways that resulted in prioritisation of global climate change mitigation over local context-specific concerns.

We identify three core factors making the win–win discourse around Kachung plantation especially resilient: (i) the perceived urgency of climate change mitigation, (ii) the apolitical framing of ‘sustainability’ as an environmental issue that can be fixed through external technical interventions and (iii) the devaluation of local and context-specific knowledge. We end by suggesting that research on the neoliberalisation of nature focus more on analysing the rationales behind specific interventions. This would leave us better equipped to suggest how such interventions should be modified to produce true wins for local contexts.     

Reliability of groundwater vulnerability maps obtained through statistical methods

Statistical methods are widely used in environmental studies to evaluate natural hazards. Within groundwater vulnerability in particular, statistical methods are used to support decisions about environmental planning and management. The production of vulnerability maps obtained by statistical methods can greatly help decision making. One of the key points in all of these studies is the validation of the model outputs, which is performed through the application of various techniques to analyze the quality and reliability of the final results and to evaluate the model having the best performance. In this study, a groundwater vulnerability assessment to nitrate contamination was performed for the shallow aquifer located in the Province of Milan (Italy). The Weights of Evidence modeling technique was used to generate six model outputs, each one with a different number of input predictive factors. Considering that a vulnerability map is meaningful and useful only if it represents the study area through a limited number of classes with different degrees of vulnerability, the spatial agreement of different reclassified maps has been evaluated through the kappa statistics and a series of validation procedures has been proposed and applied to evaluate the reliability of the reclassified maps. Results show that performance is not directly related to the number of input predictor factors and that is possible to identify, among apparently similar maps, those best representing groundwater vulnerability in the study area. Thus, vulnerability maps generated using statistical modeling techniques have to be carefully handled before they are disseminated. Indeed, the results may appear to be excellent and final maps may perform quite well when, in fact, the depicted spatial distribution of vulnerability is greatly different from the actual one. For this reason, it is necessary to carefully evaluate the obtained results using multiple statistical techniques that are capable of providing quantitative insight into the analysis of the results. This evaluation should be done at least to reduce the questionability of the results and so to limit the number of potential choices.     

The International Environmental Expert Panel for Major Dam/Reservoir Projects: The Yellow River, China

The experience of the International Expert Panel on Environment for the Xiaolangdi dam/reservoir project in China (XEP) showed that the Panel meetings resulted in a marked improvement in project environmental performance by all parties participating in project implementation, with no parties exempt from the Panel's evaluations. Unfortunately the Loan Agreement authorizes use of the Panel only through the project stages of final design and construction, hence the 12th Panel meeting, which matched project construction completion, ended this series. The Panel has recommended that some meetings of the Panel be held during the project's operations stage in order to maintain continuing attention to environmental needs. The XEP experience showed that the XEP, in addition to monitoring project environmental performance, was very valuable for (i) training of Chinese staff involved in project implementation, and (ii) serving in the role as expert consultant for guiding the work of the Chinese participants. The XEP experience also showed the need for making a clear separation between evaluation, the overall resettlement program per se, and the environmental effects of the program. The Panel recommended that the Ministry of Water Resources and World Bank cooperate in sponsoring a book on The Environmental History of the Xiaolangdi Project, including both dam construction as well as resettlement problems, which would serve as a very valuable reference for guiding environmental planning for future dam projects in China (Ludwig, H.F. 1994–2000).     

Whom to Trust? Public Concerns, Late Modern Risks, and Expert Trustworthiness

This article discusses the conditions under which the use of expert knowledge may provide an adequate response to public concerns about high-tech, late modern risks. Scientific risk estimation has more than once led to expert controversies. When these controversies occur, the public at large – as a media audience – faces a paradoxical situation: on the one hand it must rely on the expertise of scientists as represented in the mass media, but on the other it is confused by competing expert claims in the absence of any clear-cut standard to judge these claims. The question then arises, what expertise can the public trust? I argue that expert controversies cannot be settled by appealing to neutral, impartial expertise, because each use of expert knowledge in applied contexts is inextricably bound up with normative and evaluative assumptions. This value-laden nature of expert contributions, however, does not necessarily force us to adopt a relativist conception of expert knowledge. Nor does it imply active involvement of ordinary citizens in scientific risk estimation – as some authors seem to suggest. The value-laden, or partisan, nature of expert statements rather requires an unbiased process of expert dispute in which experts and counter-experts can participate. Moreover, instead of being a reason for discrediting expert contributions, experts' commitment may enhance public trustworthiness because it enlarges the scope of perspectives taken into account, to include public concerns. Experts who share the same worries as (some of) the public could be expected to voice these worries at the level of expert dispute. Thus, a broadly shaped expert dispute, that is accessible to both proponents and opponents, is a prerequisite for public trust.     

An expert system for the quantification of fault rates in construction fall accidents

Introduction. Expert witness reports, prepared with the aim of quantifying fault rates among parties, play an important role in a court's final decision. However, conflicting fault rates assigned by different expert witness boards lead to iterative objections raised by the related parties. This unfavorable situation mainly originates due to the subjectivity of expert judgments and unavailability of objective information about the causes of accidents. As a solution to this shortcoming, an expert system based on a rule-based system was developed for the quantification of fault rates in construction fall accidents. The aim of developing DsSafe is decreasing the subjectivity inherent in expert witness reports. Methodology. Eighty-four inspection reports prepared by the official and authorized inspectors were examined and root causes of construction fall accidents in Turkey were identified. Using this information, an evaluation form was designed and submitted to the experts. Experts were asked to evaluate the importance level of the factors that govern fall accidents and determine the fault rates under different scenarios. Based on expert judgments, a rule-based expert system was developed. The accuracy and reliability of DsSafe were tested with real data as obtained from finalized court cases. Result. DsSafe gives satisfactory results.     

重要基础设施脆弱性评价模型及其应用

将重要基础设施脆弱性定义为威胁情景、保护作用和重要性的函数,并提出一种可定量化的重要基础设施脆弱性评价模型。模型结合系统理论知识分解系统,选取威慑、延迟、检测、响应4个评价因子评估系统各环节。模型由相关领域专家确定系统各环节权重以及为评价因子赋值,应用线性加权聚集模拟技术,综合评价因子信息;依据系统状况,建立系统各环节价值函数,运行模型得到脆弱性概率密度函数,以数学期望值表示系统脆弱性总值。并将模型应用于天津市部分供水系统,不仅得到系统各环节的实际评价值,而且可得整个供水系统脆弱性评价值,为更好地改进天津市供水系统各环节的安全运行提供了科学依据。     

Using Expert Opinion Surveys to Rank Threats to Endangered Species: A Case Study with Sea Turtles

Abstract: Little is known about how specific anthropogenic hazards affect the biology of organisms. Quantifying the effect of regional hazards is particularly challenging for species such as sea turtles because they are migratory, difficult to study, long lived, and face multiple anthropogenic threats. Expert elicitation, a technique used to synthesize opinions of experts while assessing uncertainty around those views, has been in use for several decades in the social science and risk assessment sectors. We conducted an internet‐based survey to quantify expert opinion on the relative magnitude of anthropogenic hazards to sea turtle populations at the regional level. Fisheries bycatch and coastal development were most often ranked as the top hazards to sea turtle species in a geographic region. Nest predation and direct take followed as the second and third greatest threats, respectively. Survey results suggest most experts believe sea turtles are threatened by multiple factors, including substantial at‐sea threats such as fisheries bycatch. Resources invested by the sea turtle community, however, appear biased toward terrestrial‐based impacts. Results from the survey are useful for conservation planning because they provide estimates of relative impacts of hazards on sea turtles and a measure of consensus on the magnitude of those impacts among researchers and practitioners. Our survey results also revealed patterns of expert bias, which we controlled for in our analysis. Respondents with no experience with respect to a sea turtle species tended to rank hazards affecting that sea turtle species higher than respondents with experience. A more‐striking pattern was with hazard‐based expertise: the more experience a respondent had with a specific hazard, the higher the respondent scored the impact of that hazard on sea turtle populations. Bias‐controlled expert opinion surveys focused on threatened species and their hazards can help guide and expedite species recovery plans.     

地理信息系统在环境模型研究中的应用

结合国内外环境信息系统的研究现状和研究实例,首先分析了ＧＩＳ与环境模型研究结合的必要性和ＧＩＳ在环境模型研究中潜在的应用范围,然后剖析了ＧＩＳ与环境模型研究结合的三阶水平并介绍了ＧＩＳ在环境模型研究中的应用现状,最后分析了ＧＩＳ和环境模型研究结合的发展趋势并给出了ＧＩＳ、ＲＳ、ＥＳ与环境模型理想的结合框架。     

基于BP神经网络在森林防火专家系统不确定推理中的应用研究

提出将改进的BP神经网络应用于森林防火专家系统的不确定性推理中,其良好的自学习和泛化能力,可以解决基于可信度规则的知识表示在实际应用中导致的规则激增,推理速度缓慢的问题。该方法将不确定的知识用可信度区间表示,通过知识编码,设计并训练BP网络,最后用MATLAB进行仿真。实验结果表明:BP神经网络可以自动学习专家的典型经验,并且能将之准确的推广,隐含层神经元个数的确定和典型样本的选取决定了准确精度。在实际的专家系统不确定推理应用中具有应用价值。