Supporting Diverse Data Providers in the Open Water Data Initiative: Communicating Water Data Quality and Fitness of Use

Shared, trusted, timely data are essential elements for the cooperation needed to optimize economic, ecologic, and public safety concerns related to water. The Open Water Data Initiative (OWDI) will provide a fully scalable platform that can support a wide variety of data from many diverse providers. Many of these will be larger, well‐established, and trusted agencies with a history of providing well‐documented, standardized, and archive‐ready products. However, some potential partners may be smaller, distributed, and relatively unknown or untested as data providers. The data these partners will provide are valuable and can be used to fill in many data gaps, but can also be variable in quality or supplied in nonstandardized formats. They may also reflect the smaller partners' variable budgets and missions, be intermittent, or of unknown provenance. A challenge for the OWDI will be to convey the quality and the contextual “fitness” of data from providers other than the most trusted brands. This article reviews past and current methods for documenting data quality. Three case studies are provided that describe processes and pathways for effective data‐sharing and publication initiatives. They also illustrate how partners may work together to find a metadata reporting threshold that encourages participation while maintaining high data integrity. And lastly, potential governance is proposed that may assist smaller partners with short‐ and long‐term participation in the OWDI.     

Improving Pro-environmental Behaviours in Spain. The Role of Attitudes and Socio-demographic and Political Factors

Over the last 30 years, Spain has witnessed great economic growth. Nevertheless, in spite of an increasing degree of environmental concern, environmentally friendly attitudes and behaviours are still clearly below the European average. In this context, this paper analyses the impact of personal control and attitudes, and of certain socio-demographic, economic and political variables in the development of two environmentally friendly behaviours in Spain: consumption and purchase. The data were provided by a survey carried out in 2007 by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (Centre for Sociological Research) in Spain. The results show the importance of personal control, level of environmental information, political ideology, age and educational level variables to explaining the development of pro-environmental-related consumption behaviours. Personal attitudes, work situation, female gender and level of environmental information influence pro-environmental purchase behaviour in a positive way. Taking into account that personal attitudes are more determining of pro-environmental purchase than consumption behaviour, policy measures such as informal education, tax measures, social and individual norms and interpersonal and institutional trust are discussed to increase the development of pro-environmental behaviours in Spain.     

Quality Control for Environmental Policy Appraisal Tools: An Empirical Investigation of Relations Between Quality,Quality Control and Effectiveness

The spectre of regulatory reform carried out in a range of Western countries has generated concern amongst parts of the environmental policy community. Quality and effectiveness are said to be at stake, but empirically there is a dearth of data on the relationship between provisions for quality control and the effects on quality and effectiveness. This research addresses this lacuna by analysing the effects of different quality control provisions in the Netherlands and Denmark for a globally institutionalized environmental appraisal tool—Environmental Assessment (EA). Extensive technical provisions for quality control in the Netherlands have led to it being described as the ‘Rolls Royce’ of EA systems, while in Denmark the polity is expected to take charge of quality control. The effects of quality control are investigated through surveys and in-depth interviews with actors centrally engaged with EA implementation. The results show that quality control provisions are poorly related to the perceived quality and effectiveness of EA. Only the appropriateness of the scope of EA reports is perceived to be strongly related to quality control provisions. The findings are relevant for environmental policy communities concerned with quality control systems and effectiveness of policy appraisal tools and policy-makers contemplating regulatory reforms.     

环境管理战略转型研究综述

由于经济社会的发展伴随的环境问题越来越复杂,资源相对不足、环境容量有限越来越突出,环境管理转型问题引起越来越多的国内外学者关注。所谓环境管理转型,是指环境管理思维、策略和方式的转变,是以环境质量为目标导向,从被动应对向主动防控的转变。本文通过文献梳理的方法,综述了国内外学术界对于环境管理战略进行的多角度探讨。通过综述发现,国外学者主要注重环境管理理论研究,如环境管理的模型研究和不同环境管理战略的研究,且国外学者在研究不同环境管理战略时,研究对象多为微观层面的企业组织;而我国学者的研究则主要集中在宏观层面,即从国家的角度来探讨环境管理战略如何完成转型,从而促进我国经济社会的良性发展。现有的国内外研究是环境管理战略相关理论发展和实践推行的重要基础,在环境管理战略研究领域,本文认为还有一些问题需要进一步研究:一是环境管理的转型不仅需要宏观层面的统筹、微观方面的变革,也需要从中观层面来推进,所以中观层面的环境管理研究同样具有重要的现实意义。二是环境管理的转型不仅需要法律手段的支撑、经济手段的配置,也需要公民环保意识的觉醒,所以关于公民环保意识层面的研究也需要加强。     

欧美经验对我国“十三五”大气污染防治战略的启示

当前,我国大气污染形势严峻,复合型污染特征突出。新修订的《中华人民共和国环境保护法》、《中华人民共和国大气污染防治法》、《环境空气质量标准》以及《大气污染防治行动计划》的发布和实施,对我国大气污染防治工作提出了更高要求。"十三五"时期是我国环境保护负重前行困难期和大有作为关键期,也是我国改善大气环境质量的攻坚期,需要系统谋划大气污染防治战略。欧盟和美国在制定大气污染防治战略时,以改善空气质量为核心,构建了涵盖一次污染物和二次污染物的多污染物目标体系,规定了环境浓度、排放量、直观感受(能见度)、健康以及管理等约束性指标,并且针对大气污染防治政策分析实施的成本与收益,开发相应的模型工具,基于收益成本比进行科学决策。本文对欧美环境规划和战略中的多污染物协同控制目标体系以及大气污染防治政策成本效益评估经验进行梳理,分析我国大气污染防治战略的现状和问题,并提出相关政策建议,以期为解决"心肺之患"、实现环保"十三五"总体目标提供参考。     

洞庭湖区血吸虫病疫水人水相互作用关系及防控方案研究

研究洞庭湖区血吸虫病人水相互作用关系及传染防控,是推进湖区社会经济稳定健康发展的重要保障。从水文情势、产业发展、居民行为、城乡建设四方面探讨了洞庭湖区血吸虫病疫水人水相互作用关系,并运用系统动力学模型,设置教育优先方案、生态保护优先方案和城镇化推进方案对其防控方案进行系统仿真模拟和对比分析,研究结果表明:(1)水文等生态因素对于人水接触的影响逐步减少,而社会经济因素则显得越来越重要。(2)系统动力学模型能有效展示血吸虫病各影响因素之间的关系,是研究血吸虫病防控的有效方法之一。(3)依据仿真模拟结果,城镇化推进方案是经济增长、城乡协调、环境友好的最优血防方案。     

陕北能源化工基地某工业园区水污染物排放总量控制研究

基于水污染物总量控制思路,以陕北能源化工基地某工业园区为研究对象,分析工业园区主要水环境问题及原因,分别对园区企业和集中污水处理厂提出排水水量、水质控制要求,从工程技术措施和管理手段上提出了明确的解决方案和要求。结果表明,各项减排措施实施后,COD、氨氮、石油类物质分别削减49.4%、71.0%、72.6%,园区排水总量控制在1.18万t/d,最终保证园区水污染物总量控制目标的实现。     

北京市“十三五”大气污染物排放总量控制基本思路探讨

随着各项环保措施的深入实施,北京市大气环境质量进一步改善的难度逐渐加大。对北京市"十二五"时期的大气污染物排放总量控制工作进行了经验总结,并分析了"十三五"时期大气污染物的排放形势和减排压力。在此基础上,从6个方面提出了北京市"十三五"期间大气污染物排放总量控制的基本思路。     

浙江省工业烟粉尘总量控制研究

通过对浙江省工业烟粉尘排放总量和排放源现状进行分析,提出工业烟粉尘减排治理对策,对工业烟粉尘4个重点行业(水泥制造行业、火力发电行业、钢铁行业(包括炼钢、钢压延加工和黑色金属铸造行业)、纺织染整行业(包括棉印染精加工、化纤织物染整精加工和棉织造加工行业)排放源的烟粉尘减排途径和潜力进行分析测算,研究提出工业烟粉尘总量控制措施和建议。     

房地产开发地铁振动达标距离研究

已建和待建的多条地铁线路穿过某房地产开发地块,为了防治地铁运行对建筑造成振动环境影响,需要设定建筑靠近地铁的最小达标距离,包括采取减振措施后的距离。通过现场系统实验监测结合数值模型分析,从工程实践的角度提出了上述距离。对于实验中观察到随距离出现振动局部放大以及进口与国产仪器监测结果不同的现象,佐证了有关学者的理论与实验分析,提出:(1)现有地铁环境影响评价报告常用的60m评价范围偏小,推荐可扩大至80~100m;(2)迫切需要新的振动环境标准发布,避免有关项目的环境管理要求偏低。