Environmental cost of using poor decision metrics to prioritize environmental projects

Conservation decision makers commonly use project‐scoring metrics that are inconsistent with theory on optimal ranking of projects. As a result, there may often be a loss of environmental benefits. We estimated the magnitudes of these losses for various metrics that deviate from theory in ways that are common in practice. These metrics included cases where relevant variables were omitted from the benefits metric, project costs were omitted, and benefits were calculated using a faulty functional form. We estimated distributions of parameters from 129 environmental projects from Australia, New Zealand, and Italy for which detailed analyses had been completed previously. The cost of using poor prioritization metrics (in terms of lost environmental values) was often high—up to 80% in the scenarios we examined. The cost in percentage terms was greater when the budget was smaller. The most costly errors were omitting information about environmental values (up to 31% loss of environmental values), omitting project costs (up to 35% loss), omitting the effectiveness of management actions (up to 9% loss), and using a weighted‐additive decision metric for variables that should be multiplied (up to 23% loss). The latter 3 are errors that occur commonly in real‐world decision metrics, in combination often reducing potential benefits from conservation investments by 30–50%. Uncertainty about parameter values also reduced the benefits from investments in conservation projects but often not by as much as faulty prioritization metrics.     

How certain are we about the certainty-equivalent long term social discount rate?

Theoretical arguments for using a term structure of social discount rates (SDR) that declines with the time horizon have influenced government guidelines in the US and Europe. The certainty equivalent discount rate that often underpins this guidance embodies uncertainty in the primitives of the SDR, such as growth. For distant time horizons the probability distributions of these primitives are ambiguous and the certainty equivalent itself is uncertain. Yet, if a limited set of characteristics of the unknown probability distributions can be agreed upon, ‘sharp’ upper and lower bounds can be defined for the certainty-equivalent SDR. Unfortunately, even with considerable agreement on these features, these bounds are widely spread for horizons beyond 75 years. So while estimates of the present value of intergenerational impacts, including the social cost of carbon, can be bounded in the presence of this ambiguity, they typically remain so imprecise as to provide little practical guidance.     

Fine‐resolution conservation planning with limited climate‐change information

Climate‐change induced uncertainties in future spatial patterns of conservation‐related outcomes make it difficult to implement standard conservation‐planning paradigms. A recent study translates Markowitz's risk‐diversification strategy from finance to conservation settings, enabling conservation agents to use this diversification strategy for allocating conservation and restoration investments across space to minimize the risk associated with such uncertainty. However, this method is information intensive and requires a large number of forecasts of ecological outcomes associated with possible climate‐change scenarios for carrying out fine‐resolution conservation planning. We developed a technique for iterative, spatial portfolio analysis that can be used to allocate scarce conservation resources across a desired level of subregions in a planning landscape in the absence of a sufficient number of ecological forecasts. We applied our technique to the Prairie Pothole Region in central North America. A lack of sufficient future climate information prevented attainment of the most efficient risk‐return conservation outcomes in the Prairie Pothole Region. The difference in expected conservation returns between conservation planning with limited climate‐change information and full climate‐change information was as large as 30% for the Prairie Pothole Region even when the most efficient iterative approach was used. However, our iterative approach allowed finer resolution portfolio allocation with limited climate‐change forecasts such that the best possible risk‐return combinations were obtained. With our most efficient iterative approach, the expected loss in conservation outcomes owing to limited climate‐change information could be reduced by 17% relative to other iterative approaches.     

30MHz-1000MHz显示器辐射骚扰测试及其不确定度评定

本文以显示器辐射骚扰测试为例对10米半电波暗室的辐射骚扰试验进行不确定度评定。并与相应标准进行比较，确认该辐射测试系统的测量结果是可信的。     

适应性环境管理模式在大型赛事筹备中的应用（上）——管理模式构建

针对我国环境保护行政管理存在的直线式管理、缺乏弹性等问题,将适应性管理的理论和方法引入环境管理领域,提出适应性环境管理的概念和管理模式,通过构建基于AHP（层次分析法）的适应性环境管理绩效评估体系,在环境管理中对各项任务进行跟踪管理和绩效评估,反馈于阶段性目标的制定,从而灵活调整工作方案,最大限度地降低环境管理中的不确定性,保证环境管理总目标的达成.     

浅谈可燃气体报警器检定装置计量标准的建立

从计量标准的相关概念出发．强调了建立可燃气体报警器计量检定装置（计量标准）的目的和重要性。从计量标准的工作原理、计量标准器及配套设备构成、计量标准的测量范围、重复性、稳定性、不确定度等计量技术角度对可燃气体报警器检定装置的建立进行了阐述。     

液相色谱法测定底泥中阿特拉津的不确定度评定

摘要：文章采用实验室内部的非标准方法《底泥中阿特拉津残留量的液相色谱测定方法》测定底泥中的阿特拉津残留量。通过对影响测定结果的不确定度分量的分析和量化,求出被测量的标准不确定度,给出各分量对测定结果不确定度的相对贡献,对测定结果进行了表述。对实际河道底泥样品中的阿特拉津残留量进行了测定,得到阿特拉津农药残留量的拓展不确定度为0．23ug/g,k=2。     

地震海啸危险性分析研究进展

本文追溯地震海啸危险性分析研究的兴起与发展,介绍地震海啸危险性分析的原理和方法,综述地震海啸危险性分析的常用工具———地震海啸数值模式的研究进展,讨论目前地震海啸危险性分析研究中存在的主要困难和问题。指出建立地震海啸危险性分析不确定性的定性分析和定量评估方法,进行地震海啸危险性分析的不确定性评估,应是今后的一个重要研究方向。     

原子荧光光谱仪测定底泥中砷含量的不确定度评定

介绍了原子荧光光谱仪测定底泥中砷含量的不确定度评定方法,分析和识别测量过程中不确定度的来源,较为全面地评定了测量不确定度。根据最小二乘法拟合计算工作曲线的标准不确定度,采用极差法评定测量次数较少时引起的标准不确定度。     

基于不确定性分析的健康环境风险评价

基于对水源地石油污染等现场调查数据为基础,选取典型污染物苯,利用可传递参数差异的蒙特卡罗技术方法,分析了乙烯厂不同分区苯污染经过呼吸和饮水暴露途径造成人体健康风险的不确定性,量化不确定性因素影响的A地区人体健康风险水平.结果表明,裂解装置区是苯污染影响人体健康风险水平的主要来源,产生的健康风险水平均值为1.17×10^-4,而其他3个分区的影响较小;所有分区苯污染对A地区产生的人体健康总风险均值为1.18×10^-4,大于美国环保局人体健康风险建议值10^-6,对人体健康已产生影响;受不确定性因素影响,根据不同的人体健康可以承受的风险水平限值,污染对人体健康产生影响的概率存在差异.因此量化不确定性对风险水平的影响,可为污染场地的风险管理和修复行动提供科学依据.