PROFILE: Integrating Sustainability and Environmental Impact Assessment

/ Environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been identified as an important instrument for facilitating sustainability. However, to do so requires the integration of sustainability into EIA theory and practice. The sustainability concept is a valid and important environmental management perspective. However, many issues and obstacles need to be addressed further if the concept is to be translated into practical strategies. Sustainability can potentially infuse EIA with a clearer sense of direction, an ethical foundation, a mechanism for establishing priorities and assessing choices, and a means of linking EIA to other environmental management instruments. Conceptually, EIA and sustainability can be integrated, but frameworks should be refined, adpated to context, and linked to related initiatives. Sustainability should be explicitly incorporated into EIA legislation, guidelines, and institutional arrangements. An experimental approach to testing, assessing, and sharing experiences is suggested.A framework is first presented that defines and characterizes the sustainability concept. A further framework is then described for integrating sustainability into EIA at the conceptual level. The integration of sustainability and EIA at the regulatory level is next addressed through an overview of sustainability initiatives in EIA requirements in Canada. The Canadian examples include many promising initiatives but these and other experiences will need to be monitored, shared, and integrated into comprehensive environmental management strategies. Finally, means of incorporating sustainability into each activity in the EIA planning process are identified.KEY WORDS: Sustainability; Environmental impact assessment     

鸡东县防山洪项目工程环境影响及对策

通过对鸡东防山洪项目工程概况介绍,对所在地区周围环境概况进行调查和分析,确定本项目开发建设活动的特征、污染源及污染程度,提出有针对性的污染防治措施,并从技术、经济等方面论证该措施的可行性,预测该项目建设期和服务期可能对周围环境产生的影响,并作出相应的分析和评价。     

湖南省洪涝灾害脆弱性评估和减灾对策研究

自然灾害灾情受到灾害系统脆弱性和致灾因子风险性的共同作用，而脆弱性是自然环境变化和人为影响因素在一定的时空条件下耦合的产物。同一致灾强度下，灾情随脆弱性的增强而加重，降低灾害脆弱性可减轻灾害造成的经济损失，因此灾害脆弱性的研究对防灾抗灾具有重要的意义。洪涝灾害是湖南省最严重的自然灾害之一。根据长时间序列的气象资料和经济统计数据，选取7项指标，应用数学模型来综合评估湖南省洪涝灾害的脆弱性．揭示洪涝灾害脆弱性的基本特征。结果表明湖南省洪涝灾害脆弱性总体水平较高，并且具有明显的空间分异规律。通过相关分析，表明这种分异规律与实际洪涝灾害情况具有一致性，说明本研究对该区防洪抗涝决策有一定的借鉴和指导作用。最后针对影响洪涝灾害脆弱性的因素和成灾机制，提出一系列可持续的生态减灾工程体系的建设思路。     

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF TAILINGS DISPERSAL FROM A URANIUM MINE USING TOXICITY TESTING PROTOCOLS1

ABSTRACT: Toxicity testing is a means of establishing the environmental risk of a uranium tailings release. It is valuable in designing tailings containment structures because it assists in setting acceptable levels of risk for the design. This paper presents details of toxicity tests of the tailings from Ranger Uranium Mine, Northern Territory, Australia. The results suggest that the non-radiological toxicity of the tailings is low. The environmental risk of a tailings release is more likely to be related to the physical impacts of the tailings, including infilling of billabongs and changes in the sedimentology of riparian ecosystems rather than their biogeochemical impact. Two major results were: (1) water from treatment with washed tailing fines were not toxic to Hydra viridissima, and (2) mixtures of washed tailings fines and natural floodplain sediment (overlying water or elutriates) were not toxic to Hydra viridissima or Moinodaphnia macleayi.     

长江流域可持续发展综合分析与评价

本文分析了长江流域经济社会发展的基本态势以及存在的问题 ,研究了流域可持续发展中的资源环境因素 ,并且提出了进行流域可持续发展评价的指标体系以及评价方法 ,对近年来长江流域各地区可持续发展状况分别进行了评价 ,并在此基础上 ,提出了促进长江流域可持续发展的主要对策措施     

An Assessment of the Valuation Methods Used to Calculate the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), and Sustainable Net Benefit Index (SNBI)

For some time now, ecological economists have been putting forward a ‘threshold hypothesis’ – the notion that when macroeconomic systems expand beyond a certain size, the additional cost of growth exceeds the flow of additional benefits. In order to support their belief, ecological economists have developed a number of similar indexes to measure and compare the benefits and costs of growth (e.g., the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare and the Genuine Progress Indicator). In virtually every instance where an index of this type has been calculated for a particular country, the movement of the index appears to reinforce the existence of the threshold hypothesis. Of late, a number of observers have expressed concerns about whether these alternative indexes reflect concrete reality or the prejudices of ecological economists. In view of these concerns, this paper closely examines the valuation methods used in the calculation the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, the Genuine Progress Indicator, and the Sustainable Net Benefit Index. It is argued that a consistent and more robust set of valuation techniques is required in order for these alternative indexes to gain broad acceptability.*Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

农业贸易政策环境影响评价的案例研究

随着国际贸易自由化程度的提高,贸易与环境问题越来越引起人们的重视。对贸易政策进行环境影响评价。指导贸易政策的制定。是解决贸易所带来的环境问题的重要途径。了解中国入世后一系列的农业政策调整会在多大程度上影响环境。对于新的政策决策具有指导意义。本文在总结贸易政策环境影响评价研究步骤和方法的基础上。对农业贸易政策环境影响评价的特点进行讨论,并以河北省迁安市小麦种植业为例,进行农业贸易政策环境影响评价的案例研究。由于农业贸易政策直接作用于农业生产经营活动。再通过农业生产经营等活动间接地影响环境质量状况。本文借助转移矩阵方法进行分析评价。     

我国小康生活水平的测量尺度与标准

本文在分析我国经济、社会发展规划、目标和现代化进程的基础上,借鉴国际上的通用标准,并结合我国国情,提出了我国小康生活水平的测量标准,建立了由20个指标构成的小康生活水平指标体系。     

Extinction risk of the endemic vascular flora of Kauai,Hawaii, based on IUCN assessments

The International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN Red List) is the world's most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of species. Governmental agencies and conservation organizations increasingly rely on IUCN Red List assessments to develop conservation policies and priorities. Funding agencies use the assessments as evaluation criteria, and researchers use meta-analysis of red-list data to address fundamental and applied conservation science questions. However, the circa 143,000 IUCN assessments represent a fraction of the world's biodiversity and are biased in regional and organismal coverage. These biases may affect conservation priorities, funding, and uses of these data to understand global patterns. Isolated oceanic islands are characterized by high endemicity, but the unique biodiversity of many islands is experiencing high extinction rates. The archipelago of Hawaii has one of the highest levels of endemism of any floristic region; 90% of its 1367 native vascular plant taxa are classified as endemic. We used the IUCN's assessment of the complete single-island endemic (SIE) vascular plant flora of Kauai, Hawaii, to assess the proportion and drivers of decline of threatened plants in an oceanic island setting. We compared the IUCN assessments with federal, state, and other local assessments of Kauai species or taxa of conservation concern. Finally, we conducted a preliminary assessment for all 1044 native vascular plants of Hawaii based on IUCN criterion B by estimating area of occupancy, extent of occurrence, and number of locations to determine whether the pattern found for the SIE vascular flora of Kauai is comparable to the native vascular flora of the Hawaiian Islands. We compared our results with patterns observed for assessments of other floras. According to IUCN, 256 SIE vascular plant taxa are threatened with extinction and 5% are already extinct. This is the highest extinction risk reported for any flora to date. The preliminary assessment of the native vascular flora of Hawaii showed that 72% (753 taxa) is threatened. The flora of Hawaii may be one of the world's most threatened; thus, increased and novel conservation measures in the state and on other remote oceanic islands are urgently needed.     

公路网规划环境影响评价中的困难和不确定性分析

首先分析了公路网规划环境影响评价中的困难,即评价方法的不成熟和获取资料的困难;然后重点分析了评价中的公路网规划方案的不确定、环境信息的不确定、空间信息的不确定和环境影响程度的不确定;最后提出了 4种解决困难和降低不确定的方法,即制定公路网规划环境影响评价技术导则,使用基于情景分析的预测方法,广泛开展公众参与以及通过多方协作的方式开展环境影响评价工作.