Environmental Management Problems Research Articles

System-Modelle und Simulations-Programme im Umweltmanagement – Eine kritische Analyse zum Stand der Technik

Environmental management has become a popular notion to describe the sum of strategies and of control measures of an organizational entity (a private enterprise or a public organization) to reach a state of activities which can be qualified as “compatible with the environment”. Within the last two decades a growing number of methods have been developed to be applied in the evaluation of the environmental management. They all focus on quality goals for certain aspects of the environment. In all cases more or less scientific concepts and models are used to quality and quantify the metabolic processes generated by man. In addition an exponentially growing number of computer programs are offered on the market to support the process of environmental management. These programs can be divided into two main groups. One group is restricted to data simulation. The other focuses on system simulation. In this context environmental management asks for a scientifically well founded understanding of anthropogenic systems, connected to geogenic systems. It is explained why very sophisticated data simulation programs cannot contribute to a better system understanding. However they serve as essential complementary tools to the systems models. It is shown, exemplified with the material flux analysis, how the system approach can be applied in a very broad spectra of environmental management problems.

Managing ecosystems for integrity: Theoretical considerations for resource and environmental managers

Approaches to resource and environmental management based on outdated notions about nature and the development of complex systems must be updated by new approaches that mix leading‐edge ecosystem science and management. New approaches should be endowed with an appropriate mix of ecological theory, data, creativity, and flexibility in an overall framework that emphasizes adaptability and experimentation. Guided by societal goals of achieving (or maintaining) ecological integrity and natural resource sustainability, a management framework based on clinical ecology—a prescriptive scientific management regime informed by theory and empirical generalization—may represent the type of approach needed to proceed in an orderly fashion toward resolving many resource and environmental management problems.

The roles of insurance and well-specified standards in dealing with environmental risks

The present liability system for managing environmental risks has had huge transaction costs through the courts with limited funds actually utilized for compensation (except to the lawyers) and cleanup of wastes. This paper discusses the use of insurance coupled with well-specified standards as an alternative to the current system. It illustrates the potential for the use of these policy tools in the context of two environmental risk management problems: providing liability protection to contractors involved in asbestos removal and protecting commercial property lenders and owners from liabilities associated with environmental contamination.

Editors Introduction

Editors Introduction

International Water Management in the Aral Sea Basin

ABSTRACT The collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991 has created five new states in the Aral Sea basin in Central Asia. In addition to the turmoil resulting from this political change, this section of the Aral Sea basin suffers from serious environmental degradation, including the desiccation of the Aral Sea itself This situation has arisen from the Soviet government's decision to develop the region as a center for cotton production from the early 1960s onward, a policy requiring heavy applications of agricultural chemicals and enormous irrigation diversions from the basin's two main rivers. the Amu and Syr Darya. Consequently the jive new states in the region have inherited a complex environmental and water management problem from a time when this part of the basin was managed by a singlegovernment. Any attempts to ameliorate the serious environmental degradation found in some parts of the basin now requires cooperation between the new states. This article reports on the measures taken by the new states and their likelihood of success. Overall, it appears that while the new states have enshrined valuable concepts of cooperation in their international water treaties, these concepts do not, as yet, appear to be supported either with adequate funding or with sufficient legislation at the national level.

Model uncertainty and model aggregation in environmental management

This paper presents dynamic programming formulations for addressing model and parameter uncertainty in environmental management problems. To address the inherent uncertainty surrounding the mathematical modelling of a physical system, we present ways to aggregate information from multiple simulation models into a dynamic programming framework. Aggregation methods are based on minimizing the extent or frequency of standard level violation, as predicted by the simulation models. Different formulations aggregate information from the multiple simulation models through extreme value, summation, risk averse and risk seeking approaches. A second basic type of uncertainty, parameter value uncertainty, is addressed by considering selected input parameters as random variables. Monte Carlo simulations are then performed to generate one-step Markov transition matrices for use in stochastic versions of the optimization models. In developing the optimization models, two types of problem feasibility are identified: nominal or first stage feasibility and secondary feasibility. Variants on the basic multiple model methodologies highlight subtleties in the definition of feasibility in multiple model cases. The methodologies are demonstrated in a water quality management example for the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania.

The impact on natural resources of activity tourism: a case study of diving in Egypt

The impact of leisure scuba diving on coral reefs is described for the resort of Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea. It is established that significant damage is caused by this activity and presents a serious problem in environmental management. Sources of damage are investigated; the main problem is shown to be connected with the use of cameras. Some immediate control measures are discussed but it is recognised that total control may be difficult given the economic importance of the activity to the resort.

An Open Architecture for Environmental Decision Support

Abstract: A class of environmental information systems, called environmental decision support systems, is defined. The requirements for such systems are elaborated, and a software architecture that supports these requirements is developed. This architecture is then illustrated through the example of the Sandia Environmental Decision Support System (SEDSS). The SEDSS is a family of workstation applications based on the architecture developed by AT&T Bell Laboratories and prototyped in collaboration with the Environmental Restoration Organization of Sandia National Laboratories. Sharing a common user interface philosophy and software architecture, the members of the SEDSS family are designed to facilitate human decision making with respect to the hydrologic aspects of hazardous waste management. In order to achieve these objectives, the SEDSS family integrates geographic information systems, hydrologic models, Monte Carlo simulation, and a highly interactive graphical user interface, into a coherent software system based on the X Window System.This architecture is currently being applied to such similar environmental management problems as well‐head protection area analysis, in addition to nongroundwater problems such as coastal fisheries management. Applied research in environmental decision support systems continues in the areas of uncertainty management, treatment of qualitative parameters, and the human factors of environmental decision making.

Ecological Research and (and Research into) Environmental Management

The interactions between ecological research and management decisions about environmental problems are complex. This paper attempts to analyze the different types of research related to environmental decision‐making so that their relationships and purposes can become clearer. There are four major types of research, which interact with one another and with management to influence the outcome of decision‐making. Category 1 is the available pool of research, the material presented to or used by management agencies when they have defined a problem and need data to use in reaching decisions about what to do to solve it. Ecologists are excessively reactive and responsive to the uses of this research rather than initiating or being proactive in the use of their findings. As a result, managers have always defined the problems and set the agendas for their solution. This causes requests from the research community for information that is chosen by managers. Our responses are therefore often confused and uncertain. Research is not properly used because researchers are not setting the agendas. Many perceived managerial problems could be reframed by better ecological input and a concomitant reduction in the uncertainty associated with inappropriate uses of ecological research. Category 2 is applied and environmental research aimed at specific tests of the results of the decisions made by managers by treating these decisions as testable hypotheses. This is rarely done. It should be a major contribution of ecology to environmental matters. Category 3 is new, basic, and strategic research to develop new theories and understanding when former managerial decisions fail (as revealed by Category 2). Ecologists have not been successful in ensuring that such programs are actively pursued as the mainstay of our ability to provide better research in the future, which will then form the available pool of understanding (as in Category 1) when called on by managerial agencies. We tend to do such research in isolation from the needs of environmental management. We are often compelled into making predictions about ecological processes and outcomes that we do not understand. We need a better understanding by managers about the sorts of research we must do to allow proper predictions. Until then, there must be much more ecological research into the outcomes of managerial decisions, as tests of the predictions and hypotheses made in the formation of the managerial policies. We need novel research programs that arise out of the failures of previous attempts to manage, control, or prevent environmental degradation or to enhance restoration. Category 4 is managerial research designed to investigate the processes of management and the procedures by which decisions are reached using the information provided under Category 1. This is normally not a scientific study and is rarely done in conjunction with ecologists. Yet ecologists should be the people best trained to analyze the procedures used in public management of environmental issues where these relate to decisions based on ecological data. Ecologists should evaluate much more extensively the validity or generality of ecological research in Category 1 for a particular defined problem of environmental management. Otherwise, inappropriate findings, models, and/or opinions become incorporated into a complex mechanism for making decisions. How the results of ecological research are used in decision‐making is a crucial area of study that must be investigated by ecologists. This paper attempts to make the strengths and purposes of the research and its limitations more obvious to research scientists, environmental managers, and the public. The ways in which ecologists deal with the management of environmental problems may thereby become increasingly effective.

What Ecology Can do for Environmental Management

Community ecology currently has no general theories having predictive power. As Woodwell ( Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 59, 136-140, 1978) claimed, it is in a state of "paradigms lost". Given the dearth of general, classical hypothetico-deductive theories, a number of prominent scholars including biologist Robert Henry Peters and environmental philosopher Mark Sagoff—have warned that ecology is of limited importance in helping to solve practical problems of environmental management. Although we agree that some of the insights of the critics of ecology are correct, we disagree with the claim that ecology is an unhealthy science unable to provide firm foundations for environmental problem solving. Our analysis falls into four categories. First, we examine Peters' six arguments for the weakness of ecology in solving problems of environmental management, and we show the degree to which each is correct or incorrect. Second, we evaluate the proposals of Sagoff who argues that we ought to ignore the ecological foundations for judgements about environmental welfare and instead to focus on uncontroversial cases of what is environmentally unhealthy. Third, we argue that, despite the difficulties associated with defining foundation ecological concepts (such as "species") and with formulating regularities about allegedly unique phenomena, statistical laws may provide some ecological explanations capable of grounding decisions about environmental management. Fourth, using insights from the recent National Academy of Sciences report, we argue that if ecological method is grounded on a "logic of case studies" rather than a traditional "logic of confirmation", then it may be able to guide conservation policy.

Environmental management in Yap, Caroline islands: Can the dream be realized?

Fifty years ago the small developing island states throughout Oceania entertained dreams of achieving economic self-sufficiency and social development. These island states are now beginning to realize the magnitude of their natural resource and environmental management problems and today these dreams seem further from realization than they were at the start. There are many explanations for this, however the causes are not verifiable with scientific methods. Most of these island states have small, fragmented populations leading to dis-economies of scale; and the resources they must manage are, for the most part, wide ranging and diverse and beyond the power of any small political entity to control. The State of Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia is used as an example to explore these problems and some of the mechanisms that are being considered to rectify them. The population of Yap is small but growing; its oceanic waters are still relatively pristine; there is some indication of pollution in Colonia Harbour (surrounding the main shipping port and fisheries complex); education levels of the community are poor and little effort is being made to educate future leaders capable of managing the environment and the marine resources. The chain of responsibility and decision-making within government is hampered by a top-heavy legislative and executive government underlain by a constitutionally enshrined power of veto vested in councils of traditional chiefs. This system lacks the flexibility and education resources needed to respond to the rapidly changing demands now being placed on both the society and the environment. Concern is being expressed in Yap as future sources of foreign aid become less secure. Nevertheless, some efforts are being made to adapt and improve the economic base with emphasis on exploitation of the country's offshore fisheries potential, as well as hopes for aquaculture and small-scale fisheries projects, and the development of agriculture and tourism. The Government recently commissioned a marine resources and coastal management plan which has now been completed. This plan discusses the significant environmental and resource management issues underlying Yap's development objectives, identifies appropriate Government agencies to take responsibility, indicates manpower and training needs and outlines certain legislative changes that may be required. One can, with hindsight, question the application of much foreign aid in the past, as foreign aid without appropriate implementation is wasteful of resources which are in short supply. The need and desirability for continuing foreign aid is without doubt, but responsibility transfer must also accompany technology transfer if it is to truly meet the objectives of aiding the developing nations in the Third World.

Environmental Standards versus Structural Changes as Sustainability Alternatives: An Empirical Evaluation of Nitrate Pollution Control

The debate on the appropriate criteria for environmental sustainability encompasses a variety of approaches, ranging from conventional environmental standards through to complete system changes. In this paper, the relevance of the sustainability debate to practical decisionmaking is tested in an empirical context of nitrate pollution control in eastern England. Five alternative criteria (no control, aggregate and uniform standards, low and zero nitrogen-input systems) are specified for examination. These are assessed and compared by using a linear programming model. Conventional environmental standards are seen as more cost-effective than low and zero input systems. It appears that various approaches can be consistent with sustainability objectives and are relevant to environmental management problems. The choice of approaches has significant environmental and economic implications in practice. However, all the control alternatives have their own strengths and each may be preferable in some specific circumstances.

Environmental Responses of a Tropical Coastal Lagoon System to Hydrological Variability: Mundaú-Manguaba, Brazil

The Mundaú-Manguaba complex in north-eastern Brazil is a 79 km 2 shallow tropical coastal lagoon system, consisting of two interconnected waterbodies and a channel system linked to the ocean. Mundaú-Manguaba is similar to many tropical lagoon systems in Latin America. The system is characterized by semidiurnal tides, which are reduced in amplitude by more than 88% as compared to the coastal ocean. The lagoons experience a distinct rainy (winter) and dry (summer) season. Anthropogenic inputs from sugar-cane processing and urban growth pose environmental management problems. During the dry season, urban and industrial pollution frequently produce eutrophic conditions in both lagoons. During flood discharge, sudden salinity drops occur in Lagoa Mundaú, causing mass mortality of the abundant estuarine mussel ( Mytella falcata) every few years. River discharge controls the oceanward transport of salts and pollutants and produces low salinity in Lagoa Manguaba during the entire year. This is true in Lagoa Mundaú during the rainy season, while currents and salt dispersion in Lagoa Mundaú are tidally driven during the dry season. The tide advects ocean water into the system, mixes the water column, and produces strong currents in the channels. Winds modify the magnitude of currents in Lagoa Manguaba.

International Symposium on Physical Problems of Ecology, Environmental Management, and Resources Conservation, held on board the 4-decks' Boat ‘Fyodor Chalyapin’ in a Cruise Moscow–Kazan–Moscow along the River Volga, from 31 May to 9 June 1992

International Symposium on Physical Problems of Ecology, Environmental Management, and Resources Conservation, held on board the 4-decks' Boat ‘Fyodor Chalyapin’* in a Cruise Moscow–Kazan–Moscow along the River Volga, from 31 May to 9 June 1992 - Volume 20 Issue 1

Grands aménagements fluviaux et gestion globale des bassins hydrographiques : les enjeux / Major river development schemes and the integrated management of river basins : the issues

Knowledge of environments and of associated mechanisms of change has not advanced at the same rate as the technological ability to effect such transformations, as in many spheres of contemporary life. This has resulted in a number of catastrophic impacts as in the case of Aswan and the Aral Sea. Does this imply, therefore, that such interventions, which are a logical consequence of man's action and have important economic and geopolitical considerations, should be halted ? Problems of environmental management are none the less very real and the need to take them into account represents one of the elements of any integrated management strategy for major river basins.

THE POLICY DELPHI: PURPOSE, STRUCTURE, AND APPLICATION

This paper has two major purposes. First, it presents argument and evidence related to the suitability of using Policy Delphi in the formulation of national or federal water policy. Much of the associated discussion is organized in terms of a comparison of Delphi purpose and structure with those of other Idea Generating Strategies (IGSs). Second, it presents argument and evidence related to the value of expert opinion, and its role as an integral component of any Policy Delphi application. Associated discussion focuses on the identification and declaration of expert sampling criteria in the context of water and other policy. In addition, a recommendation is presented to consultants, managers, stategists, and others who must regularly synthesize divergent opinion and evidence and bring forth policy statements. The conclusions indicate that a Policy Delphi has no structural elements that would limit its application to water policy development or other environmental management problems that demand definition.

Urban climatology in Malaysia: An overview

The paper provides an overview of the present state of knowledge and understanding of urban climatology in Malaysia vis-á-vis the humid tropics. It highlights some of the major findings to date and discusses their implications on environmental planning and management, and building designs. Generally it is observed that although there are gaps in our knowledge and understanding of urban climate in the humid tropics, enough is known to enable us to apply some of these findings in the planning and management of the urban environment. While recognizing that there are differences between the tropics and the temperate regions where much more research on urban climate has been accomplished, many of the results from the latter could be transferred either directly to the former without much error or with some modifications to suit local conditions. In either case, the paper suggests that the question of transferability of research results from temperate regions to the tropics be given due consideration in future research.The paper also outlines some areas of focus of future research on urban climate in Malaysia. Three major areas of research have been identified and these include (1) an investigation into the components of the radiation and water balances, and their combination in the surface energy balance; (2) an examination of the variations of major climatic elements as a measure of morphological response to the energy flows and stores; and (3) an attempt to model the workings of the urban climate.Equally important are the applied aspects of urban climate particularly in planning and environmental management. Only by infusing research results into practical problems in environmental planning and management can the contribution from urban climatology be better appreciated.

International law and institutions: The oceans and beyond

Abstract This article explores the evolving roles of international law and institutions—both regional and global—in furthering sound ocean management. Its purpose is to stimulate a further exchange of views and information on this subject, with a view to considering how their development in the oceans context may contribute to an effective response to other problems of global environmental management. The author is concerned with three aspects of the functions of international law and institutions and how they may be improved: the development of scientific data and analysis, oversight and enforcement, and effective coordination.

Transferable discharge permit systems and environmental management in developing countries

This paper examines the extent to which systems of transferable discharge permits (TDPs) can be useful in addressing the environmental management problems of developing countries. The paper first considers the basic features of TDP systems, including their design and resulting economic properties. Special considerations in using TDP systems in developing countries are then examined, including the implications of technological progress, industrial growth, and the ease of implementation. The analysis suggests that the TDP concept can provide useful insights into the design of cost-efficient environmental regulations, even if limited institutional and technological infrastructures moderate the immediate direct applicability of TDPs in developing regions.

Transferring scientific knowledge to natural resource managers using artificial intelligence concepts

An expert system shell, GEM-II, has been developed specifically for classification problems in environmental management. Specialist information can be represented as production rules, mathematical models and time-independent facts held in a database. All information, i.e., the rules, models and facts, can be assigned to positions in Cartesian space. The shell has been coupled to a knowledge base containing information on fire behaviour and the effects of fire on vegetation in part of Kakadu National Park, Northern Australia. This system is now installed at the Park headquarters. The information has been derived from experiments run over ten years and from general experience of the region. The first part of the base contains a model of fire behaviour believed to be applicable throughout the Park; the second part (fire effects) is restricted to regions typified by the experimental site. The expert system will be run and assessed by Park managers over the next few years. The system is flexible and allows the managers to modify rules and change ‘facts’ as further knowledge of fire behaviour and effects becomes available and to add mathematical models of fire behaviour when these have been calibrated for northern Australia. Whilst the suitability of the system for the Park managers is yet to be fully assessed, it is already cler that expert systems can assist scientists to develop models of the processes they study.