水-粮食贸易:虚拟水研究进展

虚拟水思想强调的是水资源贡献，量化计算是其深入研究的基本，而是否选择虚拟水作为战略政策，应该考虑由不同国家的资源贡献和生产技术决定的比较利益。社会调适能力要求社会针对资源的第一性缺乏做相应调适并谋求解决手段，以提高资源管理能力。为此，需要结合我国的水和粮食安全问题，提出用虚拟水贸易解决我国水资源和粮食问题，提高我国对水资源缺乏的调适能力。     

西安市大气和水污染对人群健康损害的经济价值损失研究

环境污染对人群健康造成损害的经济价值评价一直是学术界讨论的热点．采用不同的价值评估方法-VPLL潜在寿命损失年法、VSL统计生命价值法、WTP支付意愿法对西安市1996—2003年的大气和水污染对人群健康造成的经济损失进行评价。结果表明：1996—2003年。西安市大气和水污染健康损失年平均为228792万-434237万元，占GDP的3．69％-7％。对居民健康有显着影响。     

四湖流域水环境污染现状空间分布和污染源分析

四湖流域水环境恶化已影响到当地生产和群众生活,亟待对四湖流域的水环境污染现状进行调查与评估。于2010年春季在四湖流域的主要湖泊以及四湖总干渠进行了水质现场监测和水样采集,共采集了84个样点,每个样点测定了12项水质指标,并对测定结果中四湖流域总氮、总磷、高锰酸钾指数等水质指标的空间分布进行了分析。分析结果表明:四湖流域的两个主要湖泊,长湖和洪湖均受到不同程度的污染,长湖为重度污染,洪湖为轻度污染,从长湖流入总干渠中的水质多为中性或略偏碱性,总磷、总氮含量超标几倍到几十倍,在靠近长湖的总干渠上游段为重度污染,靠近洪湖的总干渠下游段为轻度污染。各水质指标浓度总体趋势上,长湖的要大于总干渠,总干渠的大于西干渠,西干渠的大于洪湖。     

我国水污染防治立法理念、机制和制度的创新

面对日益突出的水污染问题,我国现行《水污染防治法》难以适应水污染防治的要求,《水污染防治法》的修订及相关立法问题在国家立法机构、行政部门和环境法学界因而备受关注。对当前我国环境法理论界和实践部门关于水污染防治立法的观点和主张以及相关研究进展和成果进行了系统分析和整理,从为完善我国《水污染防治法》提供立法参考的目的出发,运用概括、分类和归纳的方法,对我国水污染防治立法理念、机制和制度创新进行了分析和归纳,并提出了具体的立法建议。     

基于BP神经网络的鄱阳湖水位模拟

考虑到鄱阳湖水位受流域五河与长江来水等多因素的共同作用而表现出高度非线性响应,采用典型的三层BPNN神经网络模型来模拟鄱阳湖水位与其主控因子之间的响应关系。分别将湖口、星子、都昌、棠荫和康山水位作为目标变量进行BPNN模型构建和适用性评估。结果显示：综合考虑流域五河及长江来水（汉口或九江）的BPNN水位模型,空间站点水位模拟精度（R2和Ens）可达090以上,各站点的均方根误差（RMSE）变化范围约050～10 m,若忽略长江来水的影响作用,仅将流域五河来水作为湖泊水位的主控影响因子,模型训练期与测试期的纳希效率系数（Ens）和确定性系数（R2）显著降低,且低于050,均方根误差（RMSE）也明显增大（124～288 m）,意味着综合考虑流域五河与长江来水是获取结构合理、精度保证的鄱阳湖水位模型的重要前提。同时建议针对鄱阳湖湖盆变化对水位的影响,尽可能选择一致性较好的长序列数据集来训练和测试BPNN模型。所构建的BPNN神经网络模型可进一步结合流域水文模型,用来预测气候变化与人类活动下流域径流变化对湖泊水位的潜在影响,也可作为一种有效的模型工具来回答当前鄱阳湖一些备受关注的热点问题,如定量区分流域五河与长江来水对湖泊洪枯水位的贡献分量,为湖泊洪涝灾害的防治和对策制定提供科学依据     

Thinking inside the basin: scale in transboundary water management

While transboundary waters are widely advocated to be best managed at the basin level, practical experience in transboundary waters at the basin vis‐à‐vis other scales has not been systematically examined. To understand past experiences in transboundary water management at alternate scales, this paper: (i) determines the relative abundance of water treaties at different scales and (ii) elucidates how transboundary water law varies according to the scale to which it applies. The paper developed a scale typology with six groups, and systematically applied it to stratify transboundary water treaties. Treaty contents were then compared across scales according to the following set of parameters: primary issue area, temporal development, and important water management attributes. Results of this work reveal: (i) treaties tend to focus on hydropower and flood control at smaller scales, and organizations and policies at larger scales; (ii) a temporal trend toward treaties concluded at larger scales; and (iii) a higher proportion of treaties is at larger scales in Africa and Asia than in Europe and the Americas. These findings suggest that smaller scale cooperation may constitute a more constructive scale in which to achieve development‐oriented cooperation. Further, scope may exist to complement basin scale cooperation with cooperation at smaller scales, in order to optimize transboundary water management. In the context of basin‐wide management frameworks, Africa and Asia may benefit from greater emphasis on small‐scale transboundary water cooperation.     

Implementing the European flood risk management plan

In response to the extreme flood events of recent decades, the European Union has released the Floods Directive (2007/60/EC), which requires the creation of flood risk management plans. These plans do not yet exist in practice, as water management agencies have until 2015 to put them into action. This contribution will discuss two questions regarding the European flood risk management plan: First, how is the new instrument integrated into the various member states, particularly with respect to the scenario approach? Second, how prepared are the institutions for the collaborative planning paradigm of the flood risk management plan, particularly with respect to the river basin districts approach? Citing examples from France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Great Britain, this paper offers both a pessimistic and an optimistic perspective on the implementation of the new flood risk management instrument.     

Result-oriented approaches to the management of drinking water catchments in agricultural landscapes

Management of water quality in drinking water catchments is of ongoing, high importance as nitrate concentrations are often still very high. We analysed the Augsburg catchment in Germany, a unique example where a result-oriented approach has been implemented. We investigated the historical evolution of the water protection programme, the result-oriented payment contracts with farmers, and farmer satisfaction with the contracts, based on interviews with the water utility and farmers as well as an analysis of the literature. Today, the water protection programme has been successfully implemented, and a significant reduction of nitrate concentration was achieved due to the following factors: (1) investment of non-negligible amounts of money for high compensation and remuneration payments, (2) different contract options, (3) farmers’ participation in the negotiation process for result-oriented payment contracts, (4) involvement of “outside” people and institutions in negotiation processes, (5) anticipation of starting a programme when nitrate levels were still far below legislative thresholds, and (6) a political and legislative framework allowing direct decisions by a water supplier.     

Supporting Diverse Data Providers in the Open Water Data Initiative: Communicating Water Data Quality and Fitness of Use

Shared, trusted, timely data are essential elements for the cooperation needed to optimize economic, ecologic, and public safety concerns related to water. The Open Water Data Initiative (OWDI) will provide a fully scalable platform that can support a wide variety of data from many diverse providers. Many of these will be larger, well‐established, and trusted agencies with a history of providing well‐documented, standardized, and archive‐ready products. However, some potential partners may be smaller, distributed, and relatively unknown or untested as data providers. The data these partners will provide are valuable and can be used to fill in many data gaps, but can also be variable in quality or supplied in nonstandardized formats. They may also reflect the smaller partners' variable budgets and missions, be intermittent, or of unknown provenance. A challenge for the OWDI will be to convey the quality and the contextual “fitness” of data from providers other than the most trusted brands. This article reviews past and current methods for documenting data quality. Three case studies are provided that describe processes and pathways for effective data‐sharing and publication initiatives. They also illustrate how partners may work together to find a metadata reporting threshold that encourages participation while maintaining high data integrity. And lastly, potential governance is proposed that may assist smaller partners with short‐ and long‐term participation in the OWDI.     

Benchmarking Optical/Thermal Satellite Imagery for Estimating Evapotranspiration and Soil Moisture in Decision Support Tools

Generally, one expects evapotranspiration (ET) maps derived from optical/thermal Landsat and MODIS satellite imagery to improve decision support tools and lead to superior decisions regarding water resources management. However, there is lack of supportive evidence to accept or reject this expectation. We “benchmark” three existing hydrologic decision support tools with the following benchmarks: annual ET for the ET Toolbox developed by the United States Bureau of Reclamation, predicted rainfall‐runoff hydrographs for the Gridded Surface/Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis model developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the average annual groundwater recharge for the Distributed Parameter Watershed Model used by Daniel B. Stephens & Associates. The conclusion of this benchmark study is that the use of NASA/USGS optical/thermal satellite imagery can considerably improve hydrologic decision support tools compared to their traditional implementations. The benefits of improved decision making, resulting from more accurate results of hydrologic support systems using optical/thermal satellite imagery, should substantially exceed the costs for acquiring such imagery and implementing the remote sensing algorithms. In fact, the value of reduced error in estimating average annual groundwater recharge in the San Gabriel Mountains, California alone, in terms of value of water, may be as large as $1 billion, more than sufficient to pay for one new Landsat satellite.