Guizhen He

Managing major chemical accidents in China: Towards effective risk information

Chemical industries, from their very inception, have been controversial due to the high risks they impose on safety of human beings and the environment. Recent decades have witnessed increasing impacts of the accelerating expansion of chemical industries and chemical accidents have become a major contributor to environmental and health risks in China. This calls for the establishment of an effective chemical risk management system, which requires reliable, accurate and comprehensive data in the first place. However, the current chemical accident-related data system is highly fragmented and incomplete, as different responsible authorities adopt different data collection standards and procedures for different purposes. In building a more comprehensive, integrated and effective information system, this article: (i) reviews and assesses the existing data sources and data management, (ii) analyzes data on 976 recorded major hazardous chemical accidents in China over the last 40 years, and (iii) identifies the improvements required for developing integrated risk management in China.

Revising China's Environmental Law

The law must affirm basic principles, strengthen assessment, improve enforcement, and enhance governance. Chinas Environmental Protection Law (EPL) is the main national environmental legislative framework. Yet the environmental legal system is incomplete, and implementation and enforcement of environmental laws have shown major shortcomings (1–3). A controversial attempt to revise the EPL could have far-reaching impacts on Chinas economic development and environmental protection, which may have global implications (4, 5). Increasing pressures to strengthen the rule of law in China raise the stakes (6). We discuss the need for a sound legal and scientific basis for revising the EPL.

Exploration of relationships between phytoplankton biomass and related environmental variables using multivariate statistic analysis in a eutrophic shallow lake: A 5-year study

Understanding the process of the changing phytoplankton patterns can be particularly useful in water quality improvement and management decisions. However, it is generally not easy to illustrate the interactions between phytoplankton biomass and related environmental variables given their high spatial and temporal heterogeneity. To elucidate relationships between them, in a eutrophic shallow lake, Taihu Lake, relative long-term data set of biotic and abiotic parameters of water quality in the lake were conducted using multivariate statistical analysis within seasonal periodicity. The results indicate that water temperature and total phosphorus (TP) played governing roles in phytoplankton dynamics in most seasons (i.e. temperature in winter, spring and summer; TP in spring, summer and autumn); COD (chemical oxygen demand) and BOD (biological oxygen demand) presented significant positive relationships with phytoplankton biomass in spring, summer and autumn. However, a complex interplay was found between phytoplankton biomass and nitrogen considering significant positive relationships occurring between them in spring and autumn, and conversely negative ones in summer. As the predatory factor, zooplankton presented significant grazing-pressure on phytoplankton biomass during summer in view of negative relationship between them in the season. Significant feedback effects of phytoplankton development were identified in summer and autumn in view that significant relationships were observed between phytoplankton biomass and pH, Trans (transparency of water) and DO. The results indicate that interactions between phytoplankton biomass and related environmental variables are highly sensitive to seasonal periodicity, which improves understanding of different roles of biotic and abiotic variables upon phytoplankton variability, and hence, advances management methods for eutrophic lakes.

Nuclear power in China after Fukushima: understanding public knowledge, attitudes, and trust

To meet the increasing demand for energy, the past decade has seen the revitalization of nuclear power technologies and many countries adopting nuclear power as a priority strategy in their energy policy. However, Japan’s Fukushima nuclear crisis, following the tsunami on 11 March 2011, challenged perceptions of much of the world’s nuclear power industry – but not in China. To explain how the future of nuclear power is decided in China, this study aims to understand the role of the public in the decision-making through exploring the current public knowledge of and trust in nuclear power, about which there is limited research compared to other environmental issues. Based on a questionnaire survey in Shandong province, this study concluded that, compared to many other countries with nuclear power, China had a different landscape of nuclear power information, knowledge, and trust. This paper helps to explain why the Chinese government is able to continue the development of nuclear power, without much public debate and participation.

Public perceptions of environmental risk in China

China, as a ‘double risk’ society, is in urgent need for effective environmental risk management systems. Compared with other risks, man-made environmental risks have not been given due weight. Public awareness and perceptions of environmental risks are crucial in all phases of effective risk management. However, little is known about public perceptions of environmental risks in China. To contribute to better understanding of public perception of environmental risk, a questionnaire survey was conducted among university students in Beijing, who represent a group with high level of education and a generally high sensitivity to new information. The results show that even this group has limited knowledge about environmental risks and current risk management systems. Further studies are needed to understand the social construction of environmental risks in China and to seek ways to involve the Chinese public in emergency response and risk management.

Trust and Credibility in Governing China’s Risk Society

C modernization process is characterized by technological advancement, profit-oriented economic development, a consumer society, and global integration. But this modernization process comes together with severe environmental risks. Accompanied by an average annual GDP growth of 10% from 1978 to 2011, China has witnessed an ongoing stream of chemical spills, algal blooms, blood lead accidents, oil spills, food poisonings, flash floods, and sandstorms over the last decades. Over 33 000 environmental accidents were counted between 1991 and 2010. As such China can be characterized as a risk society, and environmental risks are very visible in China’s risk profile. Despite accelerating efforts by governmental environmental agencies at national and local levels to manage these risks, the situation has hardly improved since the mid 1990s. This perseverance of environmental risks and accidents and the widely perceived incapability of the Chinese government to effectively address these risks and accidents have contributed to an increased lack of trust and credibility in environmental authorities among the Chinese public. This lack of trust and credibility is noticeable beyond the area of environmental risks, and seems to have become a general phenomenon in contemporary Chinese society. Credibility and trust have become widely discussed among the public recently as governments are accused to have failed in coping with increasing fraud, fake products, improper academic behavior, illegal land transactions and pollutions, and disfunctioning civil services. A survey on “credibility of Chinese people” showed that the aggregate credibility index has remained stable at a low level. And many of the more than 180 000 annual “mass incidents” are related to a lack of trust and credibility in local governments and the prevailing economic system. This even reached the Chinese leaders, who identified that two major problemscredibility in economy and society and public trust in the governmentis hindering the economic and social progress of China. In October 2011 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China approved a decision to develop a nation-wide credibility system, and the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011−2015) will be used to establish it, with regulations, a credibility information system, credibility rating agencies, and promotional campaigns to enhance credibility. One of root causes behind poor environmental risk management, and the related credibility-and-trust crisis, is the rapid transition to a high-speed market-oriented development model without having credible institutions in place that counter the side-effects of such a market-oriented development model. Market institutions are not oriented to manage environmental risk, the current hierarchical command-and-control system of environmental rules and authorities fails to do so, and there are no strong civil society institutions to push for environmental risk reduction. In order to rebuild credibility and trust in environmental risks China needs to put trusted institutions in place that succeed in coping with environmental side-effects. Hence, China is currently undertaking a number of “real world experiments” to design and implement new institutions that can cope with the complex problems of high environmental risks, low trust and lack of credibility. First, within the government arena a number of new institutions are being developed to cope with problems of credibility and trust. Strengthening enforcement of environmental laws and policies, especially at the local level, is enhanced through separation of duties and responsibilities, larger resources for monitoring and legal action, incentivizing citizens to tip law enforcers, establishing environmental courts, and having binding environmental targets included in annual responsibility contracts for local officials and mayors. Through these new arrangements environmental credibility and trust is meant to improve, and environmental quality better safeguarded. Second, new market institutions are designed and implemented that aim to bring more credibility and trust by directing economic actors to more environmentally sound behavior. The (mandatory) introduction of Environmental Pollution Liability Insurance for major polluting companies will force environmentally sensitive industries to be ensured against

Why small and medium chemical companies continue to pose severe environmental risks in rural China

In China, rural chemical SMEs are often believed to still largely operate below the sustainability radar. This paper investigates to what extent and how chemical SMEs are already experiencing pressure to improve their environmental performance, using an in-depth case study in Jasmine County, Hebei province. The results show that local residents had rather low trust in the environmental improvement promises made by the enterprises and the local government, and disagreed with the proposed improvement plans. Although the power of local residents to influence decision making remained limited, the chemical SMEs started to feel increasing pressures to clean up their business, from governments, local communities and civil society, and international value chain stakeholders. Notwithstanding these mounting pressures chemical SMEs environmental behavior and performance has not changed radically for the better. The strong economic ties between local county governments and chemical SMEs continue to be a major barrier for stringent environmental regulation.

Rural Households’ Attitude and Economic Strategies Toward the Conversion of Cropland to Forest and Grassland Program (CCFG): A Case Study in Qira, China

The Conversion of Cropland to Forest and Grassland Program (CCFG), which was initiated by the Chinese government in 1999, is a cropland retirement program with integrated objectives for ecological preservation and local development. The purpose of this article was to study the influencing factors of attitude and economic strategies in rural households toward the CCFG. Rural households’ knowledge, attitude and economic strategies toward the CCFG were investigated through a questionnaire survey in Qira, China. Influencing factors of attitude and strategies of households were analyzed using a logit model technique. The analysis indicated that household’s income level, environmental knowledge of the program, and program implementation were significant influencing factors in a household’s attitude toward the CCFG, while major influencing factors of household strategies were their regional background and availability of income generation sources. Meaningful association was not found between attitude and strategy choices. Rich households had more strategy choices, while poor households were usually confined to low input strategies with uncertain income. To sustain their livelihood, the poor need extra assistances in marketing, loan granting, employment training, information, and technical services.

Power politics in the revision of China's Environmental Protection Law

Environmental law making, like other legislative processes in China, used to take place behind closed doors. A major innovation in recent years is that it is now normal to consult the public on draft laws, although it is not yet prescribed in the Law on Legislation. It is tempting to interpret the delayed approval of the EPL revision as a double victory: an environmentally unfriendly draft was blocked, and public debate (rather than closed-door secrecy) was a main factor strengthening environmental interests. Three lessons can be drawn from this case of (high) environmental politics in contemporary China. First, notwithstanding all the environmental rhetoric in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011–2015) and the new 2012 constitution of the Communist Party, powerful individuals and organisations in the administration can still impede the building and strengthening of environmental institutions. Greening China is far from an evolutionary process (Mol and Carter 2006). Second, the controversies and political debates around environmental institution building and reform are increasingly moving into the public sphere, which makes it harder for them to be neglected by Chinas leaders. Whilst ‘authoritarian environmentalism’ (Gilley 2012) does not belong to the past, the institutional landscape of environmental politics is definitely changing and relocating. Third, the wider public and environmental NGOs still play a marginal and indirect role in these more open political debates compared to the party and state organs and scientific experts. But the growing environmental awareness and activism of civil society make Chinese leaders conscious of the significance of their environmental performance in sustaining overall trust and legitimacy (He et al. 2012)

E-participation for environmental sustainability in transitional urban China

Using information and communication technologies (ICTs), e-participation is a tool that promotes the inclusion of the public in participative and deliberative decision-making processes, thus contributing to a transformation of the interaction between government and citizens in environmental governance and sustainable development. In a number of Chinese cities, citizens increasingly draw on ICTs to promote environmental sustainability and to encourage community-based actions aimed to address various environmental concerns. The potential success of e-participation and the role of ICTs in China has, however, not been well explored. The objective of this study is to understand the role that ICTs can play in promoting public participation about environmental sustainability issues in urban China. Based on an online survey with 630 respondents, the study aims to: (1) analyze what public motivations, perception/attitudes and actions drive environmental e-participation; (2) identify barriers to e-participation, and (3) assess the different applications and functions of ICT for citizen participation in environmental sustainability. The analysis illustrates how ICTs have helped the public to obtain sensitive information about sustainability issues, to mobilize people and to gain media coverage for their actions. The central finding is that new technologies have taken citizen engagement to new heights online. More specifically, the age of ICTs has unleashed a stronger public voice on environmental governance and sustainability issues in urban China, which does not go unnoticed by the Chinese state authorities.