Public Environmental Management Research Articles

Factor Assessment of the Aesthetic and Consumer Parameters of the Region

The designed aesthetic and consumer parameters of the region (coefficients of representation of objects) depend on the type of settlement, individual characteristics of the population, its psychological and physiological characteristics, features of the combination of aesthetic resources and accessibility of areas of public environmental management. Based on the results of the assessment, the existing problems of organizing the structure of land in the settlements of the region are identified and a methodology for mapping the assessment of the consumer parameter of the region is developed.

Public Goods and Environmental Management

Public Goods and Environmental Management

Factor Assessment of the Aesthetic and Consumer Parameters of Regions

Designed aesthetic and consumer parameters of the region (coefficients of representation of objects) depend on types of settlement, individual characteristics of the population, its psychological and physiological characteristics, features of the combination of aesthetic resources and accessibility of areas of public environmental management. Based on assessment results, the existing problems of organizing the land structure are identified in settlements of region and a methodology is developed for mapping the assessment of the consumer parameter of the region.

Large-scale biogeographical patterns of bacterial antibiotic resistome in the waterbodies of China

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are widespread in aquatic environments, but we know little about their biogeographical distribution and occurrence at national scales. Here we analyzed the patterns of ARGs from 42 natural waterbodies (natural lakes and reservoirs) across China using high-throughput approaches. The major ARGs were multidrug genes and the main resistance mechanism was the efflux pump. Although the absolute abundance of ARGs (gene copies/L) in the south/central waterbodies was similar to the northern waterbodies, the normalized abundance of ARGs (ARGs/16S rRNA gene copy number) was higher in the south/central waterbodies than in the north (mainly because of the aminoglycoside and multidrug resistance genes). Human activities strongly correlated with the normalized abundance of ARGs. The composition of ARGs in the waterbodies of south/central China was different from that in the north, and ARGs showed a distance-decay relationship. Anthropogenic factors had the most significant effects on this spatial distribution of ARG composition, followed by the spatial, bacterial and physicochemical factors. These indicate that the ARGs exhibited biogeographical patterns and that multiple ecological mechanisms - such as environmental selection (human activities and local physicochemical parameters) and dispersal limitation - influence distribution of ARGs in these waters. In general, our results provide a valuable ecological insight to explain the large-scale dispersal patterns in ARGs, thereby having potential applications for both public health and environmental management.

Microclimate Metrics Linked to the Use and Perception of Public Spaces: The Case of Chillán City, Chile

This paper presents research carried out in the city of Chillán, a medium size city located on the southern limit of the Chilean Mediterranean domain, at 36°36′s south latitude. Chillán provides a good representative example of warm summers in central and southern Chilean cities. Five public spaces were selected, representing different typologies and relating to different urban background conditions. Users in these public spaces were observed, counted and photographed five times a day (12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 h, local time) during a heat wave event in the summer of 2016, while meteorological parameters were measured at different points within the public space. The variables evaluated were impervious surfaces, sky view factor, H/W, azimuth, shadow, and radiation. Local public environmental management should pay attention to the complex relations between urban climate, public spaces and thermal comfort since they affect the quality of life of the most vulnerable sectors of the population. This is particularly important given the increasing episodes of elevated temperatures and intense heat waves which have occurred in the city of Chillán in recent summers, which are related to urban heat islands and climate change.

Corrupt at Its Core: How Law Failed the Victims of Waste Dumping in CCte DD Ivoire

On August 19, 2006, citizens of Cote d’ Ivoire woke to suffocating odors. Overnight, five-hundred tons of hazardous waste had been illegally dumped across the country’s largest city, Abidjan. Thousands were sickened. The incident stands as one of the most flagrant environmental crimes in recent memory. Now, more than a decade later, it is past time to examine the tragedy as an act of environmental corruption and to use the incident to draw lessons about the failures of global environmental governance. The relationship between the events in Abidjan and the international oil trade provide a particularly useful case study for exploring this issue because the Trafigura, the company involved in the incident, self-describes as being “at the heart of the global economy.” Taking the company at its word, the Abidjan dumping highlights a troubling lack of accountability at the heart of the global economy. It reveals how the system of laws that make up international trade law permit Northern trading partners to profit enormously from unlawful conduct in Southern States, while deploying formal legal structures as a shield against any responsibility for that conduct. Indeed, the incident reveals an implicit form of corruption embedded in a global trading system structured to allow plausible denials of involvement in illegal or corrupt transactions. This Article begins with an overview of how environmental corruption has typically been framed in scholarly discussions. Part 2 provides a description of the tragedy that occurred in Abidjan, situating it in the context of the public and private environmental governance and management choices that led up to it. Part 3 identifies the legal regimes that should have prevented this tragedy, and analyzes where those legal regimes fell short. This Part proposes that the contours of the global trading infrastructure in which such choices get made is itself corrupt — that drawing the boundaries of actors subject to environmental and human rights obligations to exclude transnational corporations (“TNCs”) is itself a kind of implicit corruption. Finally, this Article uses the robust literature on environmental corruption to demonstrate that this implicit form of corruption is built into the heart of the international commodities trade, and concludes by suggesting some ways forward.

How Participatory Should Environmental Governance Be? Testing the Applicability of the Vroom-Yetton-Jago Model in Public Environmental Decision-Making.

Public participation is potentially useful to improve public environmental decision-making and management processes. In corporate management, the Vroom-Yetton-Jago normative decision-making model has served as a tool to help managers choose appropriate degrees of subordinate participation for effective decision-making given varying decision-making contexts. But does the model recommend participatory mechanisms that would actually benefit environmental management? This study empirically tests the improved Vroom-Jago version of the model in the public environmental decision-making context. To this end, the key variables of the Vroom-Jago model are operationalized and adapted to a public environmental governance context. The model is tested using data from a meta-analysis of 241 published cases of public environmental decision-making, yielding three main sets of findings: (1) The Vroom-Jago model proves limited in its applicability to public environmental governance due to limited variance in its recommendations. We show that adjustments to key model equations make it more likely to produce meaningful recommendations. (2) We find that in most of the studied cases, public environmental managers (implicitly) employ levels of participation close to those that would have been recommended by the model. (3) An ANOVA revealed that such cases, which conform to model recommendations, generally perform better on stakeholder acceptance and environmental standards of outputs than those that diverge from the model. Public environmental management thus benefits from carefully selected and context-sensitive modes of participation.

Study on Public Flood Risk Cognition and Behavioral Response Based on IEC Strategy

In order to disseminate knowledge and information on flood risks in flood-prone areas, raise public awareness of flood risks and reduce possible damage to the public, a questionnaire survey was coducted among 260 residents of nine selected communities in Jiaozhou City to learn the public awareness and behavioral response to flood risks at different early warning levels. IEC key information of flood risk awareness was modified and formulated through group discussions, in-depth individual interviews and on-site observation. The awareness of residents in the project area was enhanced through the public participation, environmental management and flood management training, which plays a very important role in reducing flood losses.

Instituciones públicas y relaciones de género en el manejo forestal sustentable, Cintalapa, Chiapas

En esta investigación se analizan las relaciones de género en dos comunidades rurales del municipio de Cintalapa, Chiapas, al interior de la Reserva de la Biosfera La Sepultura y la influencia de las instituciones públicas relacionadas con el manejo forestal sustentable. El manejo forestal se basa en aspectos tecno- científicos que priorizan recursos de valor en el mercado a costa de la biodiversidad y de los recursos relevantes para las mujeres; constituye una estrategia de manejo reduccionista que percibe el bosque de manera parcial. El sistema de gestión ambiental público, por un lado, faculta a las instituciones públicas ambientales para administrar y regular los recursos forestales considerados técnicamente aptas para el aprovechamiento; por otro, promueve la conservación de la biodiversidad mediante las áreas naturales protegidas, por lo que debería atender la transversalidad de la perspectiva de género en todos los programas. La obtención de datos en la investigación de campo realizada en 2014 fue mediante: ocho entrevistas semiestructuradas a actores clave, dos entrevistas grupales diferenciadas por sexo, cuatro talleres participativos diferenciados y se aplicó una encuesta a 33 mujeres y 28 hombres. Se encontró que las instituciones públicas acentúan las brechas de género a través de los programas públicos dirigidos a mujeres sin perspectiva de género, por el desconocimiento del tema; de manera que se refuerza la división tradicional del trabajo basado únicamente en la diferencia por sexo.

Identifying and Analyzing the Prevalent Regions of a Co-Location Pattern Using Polygons Clustering Approach

Given a co-location pattern consisting of spatial features, the prevalent region mining process identifies local areas in which these features are co-located with a high probability. Many approaches have been proposed for co-location mining due to its key role in public safety, social-economic development and environmental management. However, traditionally, most of the solutions focus on itemsets mining and results outputting in a textual format, which fail to adequately treat all the spatial nature of the underlying entities and processes. In this paper, we propose a new co-location analysis approach to find the prevalent regions of a pattern. The approach combines kernel density estimation and polygons clustering techniques to specifically consider the correlation, heterogeneity and contextual information existing within complex spatial interactions. A kernel density estimation surface is created for each feature and subsequently the generated multiple surfaces are combined into a final surface with cell attribute representing the pattern prevalence measure value. Polygons consisting of cells are then extracted according to the predefined threshold. Through adding appended environmental data to the polygons, an outcome of similar groups is achieved using polygons clustering approach. The effectiveness of our approach is evaluated using Points-of-Interest datasets in Shenzhen, China.

THE LEGAL BASIS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN THE INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE AS A REQUIREMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The paper focuses on the global environmental governance and features of public participation as an integral element of sustainable development. Recently, sustainable development and environmental governance have become interrelated elements of social development. The requirements to strengthen the role of civil society, especially representatives of the public, under the new or reformed system of international environmental governance are important issue of the article. The civil society should play a major role in five key areas: collection and dissemination; policy development consultation; implementation of environmental policy; monitoring and evaluation; promotion of environmental justice. The author defines the features of powers’ separation between the actors in international environmental governance, enlightens the question of the public environmental management and its role in environmental decision-making. Thus, determination of the usefulness of the international environmental governance model for the national systems of law is up to date. The research of the peculiarities of the realization of public participation in the international environmental governance is consider to be of the highest relevance, and the development of public environmental management as a distinct element of environmental governance is the issue for the further investigations. Keywords: public, public environmental governance, international environmental governance, sustainable development, public participation.

ООН – 70: ПРОБЛЕМЫ РЕФОРМИРОВАНИЯ

The article deals with problems and results of the United Nations reform between its two anniversaries of 2005 and 2015. It has been 10 years since the jubilee events dedicated to the UN 60 th anniversary, and the reform process continues, but its results leave much to be desired. The author focuses on the questions of the United Nations internal administrative reform and on the complexity of the Security Council reorganization. The approaches of Russia and the United States to this reform are also considered. Attention is paid to problems in relations between the West and the “Group of 77” within the UN. The crisis of the United Nations’ capacity that has been talked over so much consists in the desire of the Member States to use the Organization exclusively in their national interests, to achieve geopolitical goals and to influence the opponents. The reasons are also differences in views between the North and the South on major international issues, including the UN reform. Developing countries are trying to counter the “power of the purse” of developed countries, and those, in turn, object the “majority rule” in the United Nations General Assembly. Given the existing contradictions and the “tug of war” between the Security Council and the General Assembly, the United Nations reform and the solution of pressing international problems will be difficult. The author believes that success in building a more secure and equitable World Order as well as the UN system reform lies in an ideological and moral sphere. A higher level of consciousness and morality, non-violence and rejection of consumerism, transition to other models of public relations and environmental management are required. The United Nations Organization is made up of the member states and can be effective as much as they wish. Fruitful cooperation of its Member States can only be based on respect for each other, equal partnership, taking into account of mutual interests, and the absence of double standards. There is no alternative to this approach considering the increasing number and scale of today’s challenges and threats.&nbsp

Mercury bioaccumulation in an estuarine predator: Biotic factors, abiotic factors, and assessments of fish health

Estuarine wetlands are major contributors to mercury (Hg) transformation into its more toxic form, methylmercury (MeHg). Although these complex habitats are important, estuarine Hg bioaccumulation is not well understood. The longnose gar Lepisosteus osseus (L. 1758), an estuarine predator in the eastern United States, was selected to examine Hg processes due to its abundance, estuarine residence, and top predator status. This study examined variability in Hg concentrations within longnose gar muscle tissue spatially and temporally, the influence of biological factors, potential maternal transfer, and potential negative health effects on these fish. Smaller, immature fish had the highest Hg concentrations and were predominantly located in low salinity waters. Sex and diet were also important factors and Hg levels peaked in the spring. Although maternal transfer occurred in small amounts, the potential negative health effects to young gar remain unknown. Fish health as measured by fecundity and growth rate appeared to be relatively unaffected by Hg at concentrations in the present study (less than 1.3 ppm wet weight). The analysis of biotic and abiotic factors relative to tissue Hg concentrations in a single estuarine fish species provided valuable insight in Hg bioaccumulation, biomagnification, and elimination. Insights such as these can improve public health policy and environmental management decisions related to Hg pollution.

La investigación de servicios ecosistémicos en Chile: una revisión sistemática

La relación de los ecosistemas con los ecosistemas-sociedad y el bienestar humano, mediante el uso del concepto de servicios ecosistémicos, ha sido abordada con mayor énfasis en los últimos años, tanto en el ámbito científico, como también en el contexto de la gestión ambiental pública y la toma de decisiones. Un gran impulso para este interés lo constituyó la publicación en el año 2005 del reporte internacional Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (Evaluación de los Ecosistemas del Mileno). No obstante, a nivel de políticas e instrumentos de gestión ambiental el vínculo entre la investigación y la aplicación de los conocimientos es un aspecto aún pendiente, especialmente en países en desarrollo. Este trabajo hace una revisión sistemática de la investigación de servicios ecosistémicos en Chile, con el fin de detectar qué y cómo se estudian los servicios ecosistémicos en el país, de manera de servir para respaldar y orientar las necesidades futuras de investigación que puedan ser aplicadas en el contexto de la conservación de la biodiversidad, la gestión ambiental y la planificación territorial. Nuestros resultados muestran un importante incremento en el desarrollo de la investigación científica a partir de 1994, concentrándose especialmente luego de 2005, reflejando la tendencia internacional de incremento de trabajos sobre servicios ecosistémicos post-publicación del reporte ya mencionado. Tras el análisis se observa que los estudios realizados en Chile han utilizado mayoritariamente herramientas de valoración económica por sobre otro tipo de herramientas y que son escasos los ejercicios de modelación y mapeo de servicios ecosistémicos. Asimismo, hay una necesidad evidente de realizar estudios en ecosistemas desérticos (especialmente en aquellos costeros y altoandinos), en ecosistemas de montaña y glaciares, en ecosistemas antropizados de la zona centro-sur, siendo éstos grandes demandantes de servicios ecosistémicos provistos por los ecosistemas naturales cercanos, y en ecosistemas marino-costeros e insulares.

Amenity and ecological management: A framework for policy and practice

SummaryAmenity is a term that has re‐emerged within both public policy and environmental management organisations in response to an increasing emphasis on the human benefits derived from ecosystems. However, practical implementation of amenity management has been difficult due to a lack of definitional clarity within operational and academic literature. This article discusses the need for definitional clarity and understanding of the component elements of amenity that are integral to ecological management and reviews the literature on the perceptions and definitions of amenity in varied contexts. This study argues that positive perceptions of amenity benefits of a place are influenced by both physical elements such as sight, sound and smell and social elements such as age, education and cultural values. These elements should be considered by management agencies in a structured manner in order for the full potential of amenity to be realised. We present a conceptual framework to provide definitional clarity to the concept of amenity and highlight the interactions among its constituent elements. For the management of human‐dominated landscapes, considering the relationship between amenity and biodiversity may improve the integration of ecological and social goals.

Desenvolvimento às avessas e depredação socioambiental por uma mineradora

ResumoEste artigo estuda a relação entre a insustentabilidade do padrão de desenvolvimento permitido pelo Brasil a uma empresa de mineração multinacional, associado à ideologia neoliberal, que resulta na agressão aos direitos sociais e ambientais, verificados com 70,54% de seus trabalhadores locais, com impactos na própria saúde, na da população à qual pertencem e do meio ambiente. Essa realidade é ocultada pela submissão de uma gestão ambiental pública alienada.

PILOT STUDY FOR DETERMINATION OF BLOOD LEAD LEVELS IN PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN

Exposure to lead can damage the nervous, hematopoietic, and renal systems and is particularly harmful to the developing nervo us systems of fetuses and child ren. Most children who have elevated blood lead levels do not have any symptoms. When symptoms, such as stomach ache, poor ap petite, and irritability appear they are often confused with other childhood illnesses. The present study was initiated as a nation al pilot study in Libya to determine the blood lead concentration in primary school children in Tripoli. A total number of 379 children (1 9 8 males and 181 females) aged 6 - 8 years were included in the study. A venous blood sample was collected from each chi ld in EDTA blood tubes and then the levels of lead in whole blood were determined spectrophotometry by graphite electro thermal atomic absorption . The results showed that 213 out of 379 tested children (56 %) of the children have a BLLs ≤ 10 µg /dl and 166 c hildren (43.79 %) have high BLLs (> 10 µg/dl); with males representing 51 % (n = 85) and females 49 % (n = 81). 61 of children (16 %) have BLLs between 10 - 14 µg/dl from which 8.4 % was infected males and 7.79 % was infected females The results also illustr ated that 48 out of total 379 children (12.66 %) have a BLLs between 20 - 44 µg/dl. Interestingly this percentage was equally divided between both gender s (6.33 % each). Finally, four out of 379 tested children have BLLs above 45 µg/dl (1.06 %). Our results drawn to the conclusion those BLLs were elevated above the safe level in about 44 % of the tested children. Such children should be evaluated and treated in accordance with CDC guidelines for follow - up care, including care coordina tion and public health, m edical and environmental management. The child will need regular medical follow - up and re - testing to see if the level of lead has lowered

Residents' behaviour as a function of cognitive appraisals and affective responses toward a petrochemical industrial complex

Environmental degradation due to polluting industrial complexes constitutes a relevant issue for local community. Most studies focus on the negative externalities, in terms of pollution, of these industrial complexes, although some research has also explored the economic benefits of these installations and the harm their closure can inflict on the local economy. In the context of a petrochemical complex located in Castellón (Spain), the present paper analyses how residents' cognitive appraisal of the economic and environmental aspects leads to their affective responses, and how both elements – cognitive and affective – jointly explain their behavioural intention. The proposed hypotheses are tested on a sample of 992 individuals. The results confirm that cognitive appraisals, directly and by means of the affective response, have a significant influence on the residents' behavioural intention towards their place of residence. The findings also show that affective response has a higher impact than cognitive response and, additionally, that environmental aspects play a more important role than economic ones. Furthermore, the relationship between affects and behavioural intention has a greater weight among citizens who live closest to the petrochemical complex. Implications for firms' and public authorities' environmental management are discussed.

An Analysis of Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks with Energy-Saving Problem

Energy saving is the nature of the optimal balance between the optimization of performance and energy consumption. Due to the node's mobility of large-scale wireless sensor networks and the depletion of electrical energy causing the failure of communication path and network segmentation mong nodes, and because energy consumption of nodes is mainly its communication, to design the routing with energy saving, low latency, extensibility and improving the fault-tolerance is particularly important. Based on the large-scale wireless sensor networks, mainly through introducing the methods of nonlinear modeling, this paper analyzes the fine-grained mapping between the system of energy consumption and software, builds and optimizes the software model of energy consumption and energy consumption-balance model of service quality, and commits to form an effective energy saving to lay a foundation for construction of low energy consumption of wireless sensor network. Research achievement has significant theoretical and application value in public safety, disaster prevention, ecological and environmental protection, urban management, smart home, intelligent transportation, medical and health care, industrial monitoring, green agriculture and other fields.

Political Economy of Environmental Regulation and Performance: Some Empirical Results from SIDS

This paper empirically examines environmental regulation politics in terms of proactive lobbying at different levels of public environmental management, namely enacting legislation and implementing policies. In the proposed models, effectiveness of environmental regulation is captured by (i) level of stringency of environmental regulations, (ii) degree of enforcement, and (iii) the achievement of various environmental performance goals. Findings from cross-country regressions support the capture theory where small size and greater availability of resources render industrial groups in SIDS powerful at the legislation level. Rent-seeking behaviour of industrial lobbies appears to be channeled via corrupt practices but is constrained by high dependence of SIDS on international trade as well as improved governance measures and better rule of law. No evidence is obtained on environmental legislative damage caused by agricultural lobbies and tourism sector. At the implementation level, both industry and agriculture are found to be pro-active in terms of non- compliance to environmental legislations causing significant damage to the environment. Weak agricultural lobbies at legislative level in SIDS may be due to extensive government support programs to agriculture, which would serve to dampen or nullify any increment in cost borne by farmers arising from stringent environmental regulations. The impact of tourism lobbies on environmental performance is inconclusive. Tourism lobbies in SIDS have interest in maintaining some level of environmental quality and do not display severe adverse impacts at the implementation phase even after controlling for their interaction with institutional variables (corruption, rule of law and government effectiveness).