MEETING THE CHALLENGE OF POLICY-RELEVANT SCIENCE: LESSONS FROM A WATER RESOURCE PROJECT1

ABSTRACT: Water resource scientists face complex tasks in evaluating aspects of water projects, but relatively few assessment procedures have been applied and accepted as standard applications. Decision-makers often rely on environmental assessments to evaluate the value and operation of projects. There is often confusion about scientists' role in policy decisions. The scientist can affect policy-making as an expert withess, an advocate or a surrogate. By understanding the policy process, scientists can make their work more “policy relevant.” Using the Terror Lake hydro project in Alaska as a guide, three lessons are discussed: (1) not all problems are able to be solved with technology; (2) policy-relevant technology is rarely imposed on a problem; and (3) the scientist need not just react to the policy process, but can have an impact on how that process unfolds.     

WATER POLICIES FOR ENERGY DEVELOPMENT1

ABSTRACF: Examination of a series of studies of the economically efficient water allocations in the Upper Colorado River, Yellowstone River, and Great Basins indicate that water is not a serious general physical constraint on the development of energy resources, so long as public institutions do not hinder the exchange of water rights in markets. Energy development will cause limited impacts on other water-using sectors, principally agriculture. There appears to be little reason to develop large-scale water storage facilities, even during periods of reduced water production. Water storage developments appear to be necessary only when institutional constraints severely restrict water rights markets and transfers.     

O&M SPENDING LEVELS IN THIRD WORLD IRRIGATION SYSTEMS: EXPLORING ECONOMIC ALTERNATIVES1

ABSTRACT: Third World irrigation and drainage systems have experienced major declines recently in both capability and performance. This is due initially to working them well beyond their design capaci-capacities; scouring, sedimentation, and overtopping result. Chronic O&M underfunding then adds heavily to this worsening malaise. International donors have assisted irrigation departments with rehabilitation projects and programs to improve O&M effectiveness on a grand (billions of dollars) scale. Despite their historical propensity to examine, almost fastidiously, program economic justifications (B/C, IRR, etc), the donors apparently have glossed over two basic analytic elements for (a) more spending on O&M as distinct from an equivalent spending on other means to provide farmers with an m³ of water; and (b) different levels of O&M spending on canals and drains. Surely those different levels provide differing benefits, in total, and at the margin. Which level is most economic? This paper identifies these latter analytical issues, posits methodologies key to an O&M spending level analysis, and discusses the information base. Particular attention is paid to identifying relevant costs and benefits, and to suggesting supplementary criteria for O&M spending level selection. The paper is an exercise in delineation of an imminently practical area of irrigation engineering economics.     

论区域环境规划与区域开发环境影响评价在区域开发环境管理中的作用和地位

回顾了国内外区域开发环境管理的发展历程，简要论述了区域环境规划与区域开发环境影响评价在区域开发环境管理中的作用和地位以及两者的相互关系。     

水平衡测试在降低钻井生产耗水量中的应用

针对石油天然气勘探钻井过程中存在的不合理用水问题，运用水平衡测试方法进行对比、分析，提出了节约用水措施，健全了用水管理制度，使钻井生产耗水量降低到合理值，有效地控制了废水的产生量。     

山东省生物多样性及其保护与开发利用

山东省自然条件优越，生态环境多样，因而具有极其丰富的生物多样性，本文初步研究了山东省生物多样性现状，保护与经济协调发展对策。     

The grassroot development planning process: the role of physical planning in the rural environment

The concern of this paper is with the spatial consequences of development in a given rural setting and the way in which physical planning fits into the revival of a dying rural area, particularly in Third World Countries. It is based on experience derived from Dekinal in Benue State, Nigeria and endeavours to define a rural area by briefly discussing its characteristics and highlighting its problems. It proposes a comprehensive development planning process to induce development based on available resources.     

ECONOMIC RESOURCE MULTIPLIERS FOR REGIONAL IMPACT ANALYSIS1

ABSTRACT: Tradeoffs between regional economic development and resource use is a question often confronting local decisionmakers. A resource-interindustry model can be used to depict the interrelationships between regional economic sectors as to household income and/or employment and resource use. A resource-interindustry model was developed for Humboldt and Lander Counties in Nevada which shows the tradeoffs between regional household income (wages, salaries, profits, and rents) and/or employment and water usage. Water income and water employment multipliers can be ranked, enabling decisionmakers to realize sectors which require greatest regional water usage to regional household income and/or employment.     

A dynamic model for intertemporal allocation of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest

Across the globe, continued policy debates regarding the management of old-growth forests center around the difficult task of balancing economic and ecological considerations. Though the forests of the Pacific Northwest United States are among the most studied old-growth ecosystems, ecological and economic analyses have yielded public land management directives that remain controversial. Specifically, the recently adopted Northwest Forest Plan lacks explicit goals for maintaining intergenerational equity for the use of forest resources and the diversity of old-growth ecosystems. Unlike previous studies which rely on monetary quantification of costs and benefits, this study develops and applies a conceptual framework for evaluating socially optimal Pacific Northwest old-growth forest utilization strategies. Conditions for the optimal management of old-growth forests are derived using dynamic programming. The objective function synthesizes relevant biological and economic attributes of the old-growth allocation problem. Results in the form of extraction paths are compared given social pressure for consumptive and non-consumptive benefits, as well as different planning horizons, rates of social time preference, and environmental variance. Lengthening the planning horizon results in a vast divergence of optimal policies in the absence of discounting. Extraction rates appear to approach zero as the planning horizon approaches infinity. While higher rates of social time preference increase the rate of extraction, forest stocks remaining at the terminal time period equal levels remaining with a lower discount rate. Increasing environmental variance results in a higher level of stock remaining at the terminal time period. This analysis, while specific to the old-growth controversy of the Pacific Northwest, does provide general guidelines for addressing similar problems of multiple uses of natural areas, particularly where such uses are mutually incompatible, or where one use may be irreversibly destructive to another.     

普栉(鰕)虎鱼生物学研究及其资源开发对策

通过对普栉鰕虎鱼的生物学研究和资源现状分析，从做好资源评估，完善管理制度；加强水质监测，保护生态环境；改善繁殖场所，实现人工增殖；加强放流研究，实行规模生产等环节对其资源开发提出了可行性的对策，这对维护生物多样性，将地方特色资源优势持续、有效地转变为经济优势具有重要意义。