芦苇生态湿地系统处理造纸废水的探讨

根据造纸污水的特点,在科学详细地分析、评价、论证了现有造纸污水处理技术的基础上,从滨州市的实际情况出发,充分分析了应用湿地生态技术处理造纸污水的可行性,对造纸企业实现环保与经济双赢具有很好的指导作用.     

自然生态小区建设指导原则及其建设内容探讨--以筠连县大雪山自然生态小区为例

自然生态小区是构建优美生态环境区域的生态“细胞工程”。它根据当地的自然状况和社会经济状况,以较小的经济和社会代价实现一定区域生态环境优美、生态文明有序、生态系统良性循环的社会经济生态综合体。由于自然生态小区的建设是新兴事物,其建设途径还有很多问题值得探讨。在自然生态小区建设投资方面,应当明确生态环境建设投资和生产赢利建设投资,对于前者应当以政府和政策性投资为主,而后者应当是在政策法规规范下的企业投资为主;在发展模式方面,应当促进环境友好的规模化高效益产业,包括有机绿色产业、地方特色产业、民族文化产业等;在效益分配方面,必须要充分考虑整个社区居民资源共享和利益合理分配,实现整个社区生态文明建设和经济发展目标的一致。     

对排污权交易的现实思考

排污权交易作为一种制度,在我国尚未完全建立.在准市场机制调整之下的排污权交易市场具有比现行排污收费制度更合理之处.排污权交易制度的目的在于逐步减少污染排放,而非刺激排污.其具有的激励和资源配置功能,不仅能较好地控制排污总量,还能提供更丰富的控制污染的方法和途径.公众甚至可以直接参与对环境的管理.本文作者试图从经济学和竞争法的角度对排污权交易的现实问题作一浅显分析.     

塔里木河中游输水堤防外的地下水质变化分析

针对塔里木河中游输水堤防修建与生态保育的问题,结合对沙子河和阿其河两个断面地下水质的监测资料的分析,对输水堤防修建后堤防外地下水质的时空变化进行了探讨,揭示了在输水堤防影响下堤防外地下水质变化的初步规律.结果表明：沙子河断面和阿其河断面洪枯期地下水矿化度的变化规律由于堤防的修建而被改变,同样在堤防外侧,由于无地表水经过,沙子河断面地下水矿化度远高于在有生态闸定期放水的阿其河断面,因此,生态闸建设对抑制由于输水堤防影响而导致的水质修建具有积极作用.     

Improving Operational Planning and Management of National Parks in Turkey: A Case Study

The purpose this study was to improve operational planning and management of national parks in Turkey to balance conservation use and sustainable management. Souksu National Park (SNP) was chosen as the study area. The data were obtained from interviews of 182 visitor groups (in total, 819 people) and analyzed using correlation, factor, discriminant, and regression analyses. It was found that the most important factors affecting operational planning and management of SNP are (1) travel cost, (2) visitor welfare level, (3) intensity of use, (4) size of visitor group, (5) type of recreational demand. The main source of visitors to SNP is from a zone within a 0–90-km radius. This region comprised 53.85% of total visitors to the park. The capital of Turkey (Ankara) is the most important source of visitors from within this zone. The optimum activity mix in SNP is also determined. Picnicking, viewing the scenery, and nature walks or trekking comprised the main uses of the park. It is anticipated that these findings will help to improve operational planning and sustainable management of the national park and the environment.     

Quantifying and Evaluating Ecosystem Health: A Case Study from Moreton Bay, Australia

As part of the program monitoring the ecosystem health of Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia, we developed a means for assessing ecosystem health that allows quantitative evaluation and spatial representations of the assessments. The management objectives for achieving ecosystem health were grouped into ecosystem objectives, water quality objectives, and human health objectives. For the first two groups, aspects of the ecosystem (e.g., trophic status) were identified, and an indicator was chosen for each aspect. Reference values for each indicator were derived from management objectives and compared with the mapped survey values. Subregions for which the indicator statistic was equal to or better than the assigned reference value are referred to as “compliant zones.” High-resolution surface maps were created from spatial predictions on a fine hexagonal grid for each of the indicators. Eight reporting subregions were established based on the depth and predicted residence times of the water. Within each reporting subregion, the proportion that was compliant was calculated. These results then were averaged to create an integrated ecosystem health index. The ratings by a team of ecosystem experts and the calculated ecosystem health indices had good correspondence, providing assurance that the approach was internally consistent, and that the management objectives covered the relevant biologic issues for the region. This method of calculating and mapping ecosystem health, relating it directly to management objectives, may have widespread applicability for ecosystem assessment.     

Information Network Topologies for Enhanced Local Adaptive Management

We examined the principal effects of different information network topologies for local adaptive management of natural resources. We used computerized agents with adaptive decision algorithms with the following three fundamental constraints: (1) Complete understanding of the processes maintaining the natural resource can never be achieved, (2) agents can only learn by experimentation and information sharing, and (3) memory is limited. The agents were given the task to manage a system that had two states: one that provided high utility returns (desired) and one that provided low returns (undesired). In addition, the threshold between the states was close to the optimal return of the desired state. We found that networks of low to moderate link densities significantly increased the resilience of the utility returns. Networks of high link densities contributed to highly synchronized behavior among the agents, which caused occasional large-scale ecological crises between periods of stable and high utility returns. A constructed network involving a small set of experimenting agents was capable of combining high utility returns with high resilience, conforming to theories underlying the concept of adaptive comanagement. We conclude that (1) the ability to manage for resilience (i.e., to stay clear of the threshold leading to the undesired state as well as the ability to re-enter the desired state following a collapse) resides in the network structure and (2) in a coupled social–ecological system, the systemwide state transition occurs not because the ecological system flips into the undesired state, but because managers lose their capacity to reorganize back to the desired state. An erratum to this article can be found at .     

Environmental Auditing and the Role of the Accountancy Profession: A Literature Review

This review of the literature on environmental auditing and the potential role of accountants distinguishes between compliance audits and audits of the environmental management system. After an extensive introduction to the concept, this review focuses on the similarities and differences between an environmental audit and a financial statement audit. The general approach to both types of audits is similar, except that environmental audits are largely unregulated. Both audits place an emphasis on the evaluation of control systems, which is an argument in favor of external auditors playing a role in environmental audits. Another argument for including external accountants is their code of ethics. However, these professionals seem to be reluctant to enter the field of environmental auditing. It is argued that this reluctance is because of a lack of generally accepted principles for conducting environmental audits. If external accountants are engaged in environmental auditing, they should be part of multidisciplinary teams that also include scientists and engineers to avoid a too strong focus on procedures. Rather than treating these audits as totally different, it is proposed that there be a move towards integrated, or even universal, audits.     

A multi-objective optimisation approach to water management

The management of river basins is complex especially when decisions about environmental flows are considered in addition to those concerning urban and agricultural water demand. The solution to these complex decision problems requires the use of mathematical techniques that are formulated to take into account conflicting objectives. Many optimization models exist for water management systems but there is a knowledge gap in linking bio-economic objectives with the optimum use of all water resources under conflicting demands. The efficient operation and management of a network of nodes comprising storages, canals, river reaches and irrigation districts under environmental flow constraints is challenging. Minimization of risks associated with agricultural production requires accounting for uncertainty involved with climate, environmental policy and markets. Markets and economic criteria determine what crops farmers would like to grow with subsequent effect on water resources and the environment. Due to conflicts between multiple goal requirements and the competing water demands of different sectors, a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework was developed to analyze production targets under physical, biological, economic and environmental constraints. This approach is described by analyzing the conflicts that may arise between profitability, variable costs of production and pumping of groundwater for a hypothetical irrigation area.