Optimal charges on river effluent from lumped and distributed sources

We propose a modelling framework for the design of a Pigouvian effluent tax, in an environmental management problem implicating several economic agents located in a river basin. The proposed charging system allows for the agents' geographical position relative to the river's sections, at which environmental standards are to be enforced, and takes into account the possible different market structures within which the agents are operating. In particular, we consider industrial agents competing on an oligopolistic market, and a set of farmers acting as price takers on a large market. A regional authority's goal is to induce agents to some sort of cooperation which would result in the satisfaction of the common environmental constraints. The economic process on one side, and the pollution transport and accumulation on the other, constitute two dynamic processes in two different time scales. As the economic process is much slower than the other process we can neglect the latter's transients and concentrate on the time invariant steady state solutions to the transportation equation. The model thus constructed has some noncooperative game and optimal control problem's features with space being the ‘running’ variable. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

21世纪中国环境法制建设的理性回归

本文从近几年我国环境法制建设状况的统计入手，详细地分析了近年我国环境问题的特点和环境法制建设的特点。但是，环境问题在我国仍然非常严峻，我国的环境法制建设仍然有诸多的缺陷，而且新世纪我国社会经济发展呈现出了新的特点。基于此，文章从六个方面对新世纪我国的环境法制建设进行了冷静地分析与思考，并因此得出相应的结论。     

环保企业应收账款和信用管理浅析

针对环境保护企业财务管理中的应收账款和信用管理现状,重点分析了环保企业应收账款的管理方式,通过对模型流程的建立,采用数据挖掘处理技术来有效解决环保企业应收账款信用的分析判断,提高环保企业应收账款财务的整体管理水平。对于提高环保行业的整体良性发展具有借鉴意义。     

考虑不同合作模式和多方奖惩的绿色信贷风险优化控制研究

绿色信贷风险的优化控制,有利于推动绿色信贷的稳定、可持续发展,实现环境效益、经济效益和社会效益的共赢。本研究将政府部门、环保部门、金融机构和企业的行为纳入同一个理论体系中,充分考虑影响参与主体最优努力水平和绿色信贷风险最优轨迹的环境因素、经济因素和社会因素。在此基础上,构建不同合作模式下的绿色信贷风险优化控制模型,分析不同情境下参与主体的努力水平,比较绿色信贷风险的最优轨迹,找出绿色信贷风险优化控制存在的问题及原因。研究结果表明：第一,四方合作模式对绿色信贷风险的优化控制具有明显的优势。第二,政府的参与能够有效带动其余合作者的积极性。第三,金融机构和企业之间,存在明显的利益共存和投入互动关系。第四,补贴和惩罚措施在合作过程中能够产生激励和约束作用,但在非合作模式下发挥的作用比较有限。第五,参与主体的协同水平越高,越有利于绿色信贷风险的优化控制。因此,需要灵活运用行政、经济或法律等多种干预手段,并对补贴用途进行考评和增强舆论监督,防止金融机构和企业将绿色补贴挪作他用。同时,建立符合国内绿色信贷发展特点的风险标准,统一绿色信贷风险的评判和管控依据。     

流域水权市场中的节水激励

流域水权制度是否具有内在的节水激励是能否纾缓一个国家或地区水资源危机的关键.水权再分配机制是水权制度的重要组成部分,而水权市场则是水权再分配机制的方式之一.该文通过构建节水投资收益净现值(NPV)模型,分析水权市场对节水激励的作用,讨论各因素对不同层次用水户进行节水投资决策的不同影响,并且应用节水投资收益净现值模型对黄河流域进行了案例分析.分析表明:有效的流域水权市场能够激励用水者进行节水投资,获得水权交易收益,同时缓解水资源供需矛盾,实现流域水资源的优化配置;跨地区跨行业的水权交易由于规模大,需要的投资金额多,交易成本较高,只能由较高级别的水资源管理机构或取水工程完成,但需要采取适当的节水设施管理方式;地区内行业内的水权交易规模小,需要的投资金额少,交易成本低.对于微观用水户具有激励作用,但需要政府提供相应的信贷支持.     

A process integration approach to industrial water conservation: a case study for a Chinese steel plant

A systematic approach to optimizing water network has traditionally been utilized to exam and plan water conservation in industrial processes. In the present case study, water-pinch technology was used to analyze and optimize the water network of a steel plant near China's Zhangjiakou city. A system design was developed and a limiting constraint (Cl(-) concentration) was identified based on investigations of water quality then the minimum freshwater and wastewater targets were determined without considering water losses. The analysis was then extended by calculating the additional input of freshwater required to balance the actual water losses. A nearest-neighbor algorithm (NNA) was used to distribute the freshwater and recycled water among each of the plant's operations. The results showed that with some reconstruction of the water network, the flow rates of freshwater and wastewater could be decreased by 57.5% and 81.9%, respectively.     

Vetoing the future: political constraints and renewable energy

Despite the increased importance of and attention to renewable energy, its share in the overall energy mix has varied significantly across countries and over time. There are many determinants of clean energy transitions; this study focuses on political constraints. Here it is argued that political systems that have fewer political constraints have fewer access points through which powerful status quo veto players can slow the progress of clean energy reforms. To test the theory, a hierarchical model is applied on a dataset of 125 countries over four decades. The results provide significant support for the theory. Furthermore, the effects for political constraints hold even when we distinguish between hydro and non-hydro renewable sources and control for regime type. This study builds on research that recognizes the importance of politics in understanding the challenges and opportunities of clean energy reform.     

How to Constrain Multi‐Objective Calibrations of the SWAT Model Using Water Balance Components

Accurate discharge simulation is one of the most common objectives of hydrological modeling studies. However, a good simulation of discharge is not necessarily the result of a realistic simulation of hydrological processes within the catchment. We propose an evaluation framework that considers both discharge and water balance components as evaluation criteria for calibration of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). In this study, we integrated average annual values of surface runoff, groundwater flow, and evapotranspiration in the model evaluation procedure to constrain the selection of good model runs for the Little River Experimental Watershed in Georgia, United States. For evaluating water balance and discharge dynamics, the Nash‐Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) and percent bias (PBIAS) were used. In addition, the ratio of root mean square error and standard deviation of measured data (RSR) was calculated for individual segments of the flow duration curve to identify the best model runs in terms of discharge magnitude. Our results indicate that good statistics for discharge do not guarantee realistic simulations of individual water balance components. Therefore, we recommend constraining the ranges of water balance components to achieve a more realistic simulation of the entire hydrological system, even if tradeoffs between good statistics for discharge simulations and reasonable amounts of the water balance components are unavoidable. Editor's note : This paper is part of the featured series on SWAT Applications for Emerging Hydrologic and Water Quality Challenges. See the February 2017 issue for the introduction and background to the series.     

环保型中小企业借贷环境分析

在经济多元发展的新历史阶段,环保型中小型企业作为正在蓬勃发展和活跃市场的重要经济个体,可以优化产业经济结构,推动循环经济发展.本文从软信息与关系型借贷研究入手,针对目前环保型中小企业财务信息不甚清晰、抵抗外界经济冲击能力有限和融资渠道特殊等特点,建立博弈模型,深入分析完全信息和不完全信息条件下,小额贷款公司与环保型中小企业客户之间的借贷关系.通过整体构建基于软信息特征的制度化信用风险控制准则,最终达到合理满足环保型中小企业激增的特殊融资需求.研究结果表明:以关系型借贷理论为依托,为满足各自的市场需求和利益保障,需要充分考虑环保型中小企业贷款客户的各类软信息,建立符合软信息时效性的信贷流程,决策权相对集中的组织结构和面向软信息收集的正向激励机制,从而实现对环保型中小企业客户贷款信用风险的有效控制,最终达到完善区域信用环境、支持中小企业发展和活跃社会主义市场经济的多重目标.     

中国银行业环境风险控制体系构建现状分析

银行投资行为导致的环境破坏问题可能给银行带来环境风险。环境风险控制是实现我国金融可持续发展的必然选择。我国银行业环境风险控制体系由四部分组成,其中环境信息收集和传递是环境风险控制的基础,环境风险管理部门建设是环境风险控制业务的保障,环境风险动态评估和管理是环境风险控制的关键,借鉴国际经验和加入国际准则是提升环境风险控制水平的有效途径。本文通过对我国全国性商业银行在环境风险控制领域的举措进行分析,总结我国银行业环境风险控制体系构建的现状和问题。