苏丹1/2/4区紧急撤离带来的境外公共安全管理启示

近些年,境外中资企业员工遭遇武装袭击、绑架劫持事件屡有发生,如何加强境外公共安全管理,有效保障企业员工生命和设备财产安全成为了所有走向海外企业必须面对的一道严峻课题.以2012年3月26日中资公司施工队应对北南苏丹边界1/2/4油区爆发的军事冲突事件为例,详细描述了该中资公司队伍紧急避险和快速撤离的过程,对应急行动成功的经验进行了分析和总结,并进一步提出做好境外公共安全管理工作的重点.案例不但为境外中资企业应对和处置境外公共安全突发事件提供了样板,更为广大境外中资企业强化境外公共安全管理提供了借鉴和参考.     

城市公共安全风险评估——以高层建筑火灾为例

为了提高城市公共安全管理水平,必须首先对城市涉及公共安全的风险进行客观和科学评估。简要介绍一种城市公共安全风险评估的方法,并以高层建筑火灾为例,详细地对风险事件进行风险识别、分析和评价,以及提出应对措施的过程。该方法可以作为我国城市公共安全风险管理的有效工具加以推广和使用。     

我国环境影响评价公众参与工作存在的问题及解决对策

本文通过对我国环境影响评价公众参与发展历程的回顾和采用对比法分析各省市出台的相关公众参与的实施办法或条例的基础上,分析我国环评公众参与具体操作过程中存在公众参与作用边界被无限放大、参与对象缺乏代表性和形式单一等问题,从信息公开制度、公众参与对象的选择、公众参与形式、公示内容、公众反馈意见等方面提出提高公众参与有效性的对策和建议.     

我国公众参与环境保护制度存在的问题及对策

阐述了公众参与环境影响评价的重要意义和相关依据,指出了我国现行公众参与制度中存在信息公示程度不足、征求意见方式单一和公众意见重视不够等问题,并从完善法律法规体系、丰富公众参与形式和提高公众参与透明程度等方面提出了改进措施和建议。     

论新时期的环境新闻宣传工作

近年来,环境问题变得更加复杂,环境新闻宣传作为环保工作对外的窗口仍停留在固有的模式,面临着环境形势严峻、信息传播迅猛发展等诸多挑战。从新闻制度、舆论引导、宣传平台、网络舆情和环境突发事件等方面提出了新时期环境新闻宣传工作的对策建议。     

Evaluating the Outcomes of Collaborative Modeling for Decision Support

Does collaborative modeling improve water resource management outcomes? How does collaborative modeling improve these outcomes? Does it always work? Under what conditions is collaborative modeling most appropriate? With support from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Institute for Water Resources (IWR), researchers developed an evaluation framework to help address these questions. The framework links the effects of collaborative modeling on decision‐making processes with improvements in the extent to which resource management decisions, practices, and policies balance societal needs. Both practitioners' and participants' experiences suggest that under the right circumstances, collaborative modeling can generate these beneficial outcomes. Researchers developed performance measures and a survey to systematically capture these experiences and evaluate the outcomes of collaborative modeling processes. The survey can provide immediate feedback during a project to determine whether collaborative modeling is having the desired effect and whether course correction is warranted. Over the longer term, the systematic evaluation of collaborative modeling processes will help demonstrate in what ways and under what circumstances collaborative modeling is effective, inform and improve best practices, and raise awareness among water resource planners regarding the use of collaborative modeling for resource management decisions.     

Developing a New Operations Plan for the Bow River Basin Using Collaborative Modeling for Decision Support

The Bow River Basin is a cornerstone of Alberta's development. In 2010, stakeholders representing interests from agriculture, municipalities, environment, and more formed the Bow River Project Research Consortium to help determine the potential for improving the operations in the basin. At present, upstream reservoirs are operated primarily for hydropower, whereas downstream reservoirs are operated for irrigation. Through Collaborative Modeling for Decision Support the stakeholders were able to develop a new method for operating the system that would dramatically improve environmental performance. The main components of the new operating strategy called for: purchase or setting aside of a small amount of storage volume in the power reservoirs; a set of rules for releases from that storage; an agreement by the major irrigation districts with the largest water licenses to utilize their ability to shift deliveries to and from their large offstream storage reservoirs to allow for increased instream flows, and to allow junior water license holders (mainly municipal and industrial supplies) an uninterrupted water supply; limitations of reservoir fluctuations to improve inreservoir habitat for fisheries; and increased minimum flows throughout the system leading to improved environmental outcomes. Costs of this strategy were minimal, impacts on power revenue were estimated at <US$2 million/yr on average. Compensatory arrangements should be possible.     

“We're not NIMBYs!” Contrasting local protest groups with idealised conceptions of sustainable communities

Abstract

The term “NIMBY” is used prolifically in both academic literature and general public discourse to describe a locally based action group protesting against a proposed development. It is frequently used to dismiss groups as selfish or ill-informed, as is illustrated both by those who accuse opponents of possessing such characteristics and also by the attempts of many community groups to reject the label. This lies in sharp contrast to the much encouraged notions of public participation in planning and community life as proposed by the UK government's proclaimed vision of a “sustainable community”. This paper argues that this dichotomy between “good” and “bad” participation can be misleading, by drawing on research from two case studies where locally based community groups opposed a specific, detailed development. The paper contributes to a burgeoning literature that reappraises conventional understandings of such groups by analysing often overlooked facets of protest groups, concluding that the conventional conceptualisations of them as NIMBY is inadequate and unhelpful in academic debate.     

New tools in local energy planning: experimenting with scenarios,public participation and environmental assessment

This article presents a model for local energy planning and its application in a full-scale experiment in a Swedish municipality. The model is based on legal requirement, research findings and standards of good practice and includes a combination of analytical and procedural tools intended to support rational decision-making: external scenarios, a citizens’ panel, life cycle analysis and qualitative environmental assessment (EA). The application of the model indicates that the decision-support tools selected can give several new and valuable inputs to local energy planning, such as local knowledge and values through citizen dialogue and comprehensive EAs. However, the experiment also shows that there are several challenges involved in applying the tools, for example, it is difficult to get citizens and the industry to participate and that it is complicated to combine several different tools for decision-making into a single planning process. Moreover, the experiences from the application suggest that the model for local energy planning show great potential but needs to be improved before it can be used as a standard of good practice.     

Adaptive capacity for climate change in Canadian rural communities

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that promoting the long-term sustainability of rural areas requires an assessment of their capacity to handle stress from a host of external and internal factors such as resource depletion, global trading agreements, service reductions and changing demographics, to name but some. The sustainability literature includes a number of approaches for conducting capacity evaluations but is sparse regarding effective methods and empirical examples. This article provides one approach for assessing community capacity and gives results from its application to a specific Canadian rural community. The authors use general capacity variables and indicators to focus on a particular stress, namely impacts from climate change, and on one type of capacity, namely the capacity to adapt (to such climatic change). A basic framework and profiling tool (‘amoeba’) for describing the resources underlying community adaptive capacity are offered. The researchers provide a set of indicators reflecting social, human, institutional, natural and economic resources and relate them to climate change adaptation at the community level. Although the indicators cannot be replicated exactly for other rural communities, the essentials of the framework and the profiling tool can. In fact it is hoped that the ideas and example found in this article will encourage researchers to enhance and improve on the methods and results for work on community capacity.