The human element in environmental protection

The shipping industry accounts for only a small portion of the overall pollution of the seas and the industry has substantially reduced accidental and operational discharges. Efforts are continuing to achieve further improvements. The most cost-efficient way to further enhance safety and environmental protection is to focus on the human element through education, motivation and training, particularly for those entering the profession. The implementation of the International Safety Management Code will be an important vehicle in improving operational standards with the objective of enhancing environmental protection.     

千岛湖水环境质量调查与保护对策

1992年7～8月,对大口鲇幼鱼进行了不同饲料喂养和驯化试验,对其摄食、生长进行了研究。试验表明,大口鲇生长迅速,尤其投喂适口的活鱼,其生长速度极快,21天增重2.67～4.60倍,比投喂鱼肉组的体重增长快37.9％～84.3％。具有早晚摄食的习性,平均每克体重日摄食活鱼量为0.1～0.2g,摄食鱼肉量为0.18～0.29g,其饲料系数前者为2.32～3.12,后者为4.15～7.86。试验还表明,大口鲇幼鱼亦摄食人工混合饲料,5cm左右便可用人工饲料进行驯化,但驯化过程要逐渐过渡,驯化期间生长速度受到影响,饲料系数亦较高。     

地震监测环境保护法律制度探讨

虽然我国已颁布了一系列法律、法规和政府规章,对地震监测环境保护做出规范,但是地震监测设施和观测环境遭到破坏的情况仍然时有发生,地震监测工作和服务地方经济建设之间存在的矛盾日益增多。现行地震监测环境保护制度有需要探讨和改进的地方。将国家和省市现行的保护制度作纵向比较,并与气象观测环境保护制度作横向比较,探讨其需要进一步改进和完善的地方。      

Market transfers of water for environmental protection in the western United States

Buying and leasing water rights for environmental protection is becoming an important method for protecting river and stream flows in the western United States. The region has experienced an increasing number of market transfers of water to protect water quality and fish and wildlife habitat. From 1990 to 1997, more than US$37 million was spent to lease 2 million acre-feet of water and US$23.8 was spent to purchase 132,000 acre-feet of water for environmental protection. State and federal agencies are responsible for most of these market transfers, but there is increasing activity on the part of private organizations to acquire water for instream needs. This paper examines recent developments of instream flow marketing in the western United States. The paper reviews recent transfers and acquisitions programs and discusses the growing entrepreneurial efforts by private organizations to acquire water rights for instream use. Market information including price and quantity of water traded was collected from market participants. The average purchase and lease prices for the region are US$397 and US$30 per acre-foot, respectively.     

Regulations concerning risk analysis and their application in environmental safety protection in Norway

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), together with the State Pollution Control Authorities, administers the regulations concerning the implementation and use of risk analyses in petroleum activities.

This paper presents the main requirements contained in the Norwegian regulations concerning risk analyses, and focuses on their interaction with the legislation concerning safety for people, the environment, assets and financial interests.

In this context the NPD emphasizes the authorities' expectations with regard to the use of risk analyses in the management of risks to the environment, especially when conducting petroleum activities in environmentally vulnerable areas on the Norwegian continental shelf.     

Honduras: Caribbean Coast

The coast of Honduras, Central America, represents the southern end of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, although its marine resources are less extensive and studied than nearby Belize and Mexico. However, the coastal zone contains mainland reef formations, mangroves, wetlands, seagrass beds and extensive fringing reefs around its offshore islands, and has a key role in the economy of the country. Like most tropical areas, this complex of benthic habitats experiences limited annual variation in climatic and oceanographic conditions but seasonal and occasional conditions, particularly coral bleaching and hurricanes, are important influences. The effects of stochastic factors on the country's coral reefs were clearly demonstrated during 1998 when Honduras experienced a major hurricane and bleaching event. Any natural or anthropogenic impacts on reef health will inevitably affect other countries in Latin America, and vice versa, since the marine resources are linked via currents and the functioning of the system transcends political boundaries. Much further work on, for example, movement of larvae and transfer of pollutants is required to delineate the full extent of these links.

Anthropogenic impacts, largely driven by the increasing population and proportion of people living in coastal areas, are numerous and include key factors such as agricultural run-off, over-fishing, urban and industrial pollution (particularly sewage) and infrastructure development. Many of these threats act synergistically and, for example, poor watershed management via shifting cultivation, increases sedimentation and pesticide run-off onto coral reefs, which increases stress to corals already affected by decreasing water quality and coral bleaching. Threats from agriculture and fishing are particularly significant because of the size of both industries. The desire to generate urgently required revenue within Honduras has also led to increased tourism which provides an over-arching stress to marine resources since most tourists spend time in the coastal zone. Hence the last decade has seen a dramatic increase in coastal development, a greater requirement for sewage treatment and more demand for freshwater, particularly in the Bay Islands.

Although coastal zone management is relatively recent in Honduras, it is gaining momentum from both large-scale initiatives, such as the Ministry of Tourism's ‘Bay Islands Environmental Management Project', and national and international NGO projects. For example, a series of marine protected areas and legislative regulations have been established, but management capacity, enforcement and monitoring are limited by funding, expertise and training. Existing and future initiatives, supported by increased political will and environmental awareness of stakeholders, are vital for the long-term economic development of the country.     

水质较好湖泊环境保护的理论基础及中国实践

目前,我国湖泊富营养化及蓝藻水华问题十分突出,国家高度重视湖泊的生态环境保护.自“九五”以来,国家就投入太湖、巢湖、滇池“老三湖”等重污染湖泊的治理,但成本巨大,且历经近30年才初见成效.按照湖泊污染程度,湖泊治理与保护可分为“污染治理型”“防治结合型”“生态保育型”3大类.“老三湖”的治理是典型的“先污染、后治理”的模式,水质较好湖泊主要属于生态保育型湖泊,因此,“老三湖”治理模式不适用于水质较好湖泊的保护.本文系统总结了我国水质较好湖泊优先保护理念的形成和水质较好湖泊专项实施的历程.根据水质较好湖泊的特点,及其生态系统退化与修复的一般过程,提出了水质较好湖泊保护的基本思路.从热力学角度,阐明了氮磷营养盐输入湖泊生态系统中是熵增过程,也是湖泊生态系统退化的根本原因,湖泊氮磷污染负荷源头控制是关键.湖泊流域生态安全格局是确保湖泊生态系统健康的基础,从景观生态学角度,阐明了优化湖泊流域水土资源利用、优化发展模式是减轻湖泊环境压力的重要途径.在浅水湖泊生态系统,以沉水植物占优势的“清水态”和以浮游植物占优势的“浊水态”转换过程不是沿着同一条途径,存在上临界阈值和下临界阈值,水生态修复过程表现出一种迟滞的现象.从湖泊水生态系统稳态转换理论角度,阐明了湖泊生态修复工程应在湖泊生态系统发生退化转变之前实施,才能获得较高的环境效益.通过国家财政专项对81个水质较好湖泊的支持,既能促进湖泊流域经济社会发展,又能确保湖泊水环境质量变好,湖泊水生态系统逐步改善.建议加强不同类型湖泊保护模式的总结,深入对水质较好湖泊生态系统演替理论和保护技术研究,支撑国家系统开展水质较好湖泊保护.     

Radium in the near-surface Caribbean Sea

Recent radium measurements from the near-surface Caribbean Sea are presented. The surface horizontal and vertical distributions of²²⁶Ra are essentially the same as reported by Szabo et al. (1967) for the early 1960's. The²²⁶Ra activity at the surface is relatively uniform across the Caribbean, with an average of8.2±0.4dpm/100kg. The subsurface distribution to ～200 m averages7.8±0.4dpm/100kg and increases slowly below 200 m. reaching ～9.5 dpm/100 kg at 560 m. In contrast to²²⁶Ra, the surface concentration of²²⁸Ra was much more variable in both time and space. An average increase of 33% was found between 1968 and 1976 in the western Caribbean and during both years an anomalously high²²⁸Ra activity was found in the eastern Caribbean. These data support previous hypotheses that water entering the eastern Caribbean has been enriched in²²⁸Ra prior to entry and that variable mixing of the Atlantic water masses found to the northeast and southeast of the Lesser Antilles may produce temporal variations in the near-surface²²⁸Ra activity. Scatter plots of²²⁸Ra vs. salinity and sigma-t indicate that the near-surface vertical distribution of²²⁸Ra in the Caribbean Sea is predominantly influenced by advection. Thus²²⁸Ra cannot be used to study near-surface vertical mixing rates in this region.     

Structural profile of the northwestern Caribbean

A seismic reflection and gravity profile across the continental margin of the Yucatan Peninsula, Yucatan Basin, Cayman Ridge, and Cayman Trough suggests that sediments in the Yucatan Basin consist of a thick succession of beds dominated by turbidites that overlie a thick but irregular sequence of beds, probably dominated by pelagic deposits. The so-called “Carib beds”, present elsewhere in the Caribbean, are not evident in the part of the basin crossed by this profile. The sedimentary section rests on a acoustic basement that probably represents the top of oceanic layer 2. A gravity model indicates that the crust beneath the Yucatan Basin is thin and therefore probably is oceanic in character. The crust thickens southward under the Cayman Ridge but thins again beneath the Cayman Trough. This local thickening is consistent with the suggestion that the Cayman Ridge is a rifted part of the Nicaraguan Rise.     

Tsunami Probability in the Caribbean Region

We calculated tsunami runup probability (in excess of 0.5 m) at coastal sites throughout the Caribbean region. We applied a Poissonian probability model because of the variety of uncorrelated tsunami sources in the region. Coastlines were discretized into 20 km by 20 km cells, and the mean tsunami runup rate was determined for each cell. The remarkable ~500-year empirical record compiled by O’Loughlin and Lander (2003) was used to calculate an empirical tsunami probability map, the first of three constructed for this study. However, it is unclear whether the 500-year record is complete, so we conducted a seismic moment-balance exercise using a finite-element model of the Caribbean-North American plate boundaries and the earthquake catalog, and found that moment could be balanced if the seismic coupling coefficient is c = 0.32. Modeled moment release was therefore used to generate synthetic earthquake sequences to calculate 50 tsunami runup scenarios for 500-year periods. We made a second probability map from numerically-calculated runup rates in each cell. Differences between the first two probability maps based on empirical and numerical-modeled rates suggest that each captured different aspects of tsunami generation; the empirical model may be deficient in primary plate-boundary events, whereas numerical model rates lack backarc fault and landslide sources. We thus prepared a third probability map using Bayesian likelihood functions derived from the empirical and numerical rate models and their attendant uncertainty to weight a range of rates at each 20 km by 20 km coastal cell. Our best-estimate map gives a range of 30-year runup probability from 0–30% regionally.     

State of the marine environment reports--a need to evaluate their role in marine environmental protection and conservation

This paper discusses the rationale behind the preparation of state of the marine environment (SOME) reports, and the need to evaluate their role in marine environmental protection and conservation. Many SOME reports exist, and are being planned or prepared, but are the intended audiences known, are the reports recognized for their many value-added benefits during preparation, and are they being used effectively when completed? It is proposed that a detailed evaluation is needed of SOME reporting and reports, covering audience(s), role(s), influence, and lessons learned or overall benefits.