The Environmental Merit Perspective

 

The rationale behind the Environmental Merit Perspective is that clean-up operations determine environmental costs and benefits beyond those encompassed by the risk assessment. A clean-up operation may result into the use of scarce resources, such as energy, transfer the pollution to other compartments, such as emissions to surface water during operations, and to secondary effects, like the emission of greenhouse gases due to combustion of fossil fuels. These consequences cannot be grasped by neither the risk analysis, nor by the traditional financial assessment carried out before remediation. This cost assessment usually does not include valuation of environmental goods, and thus internalization of the values of environmental resources.

The evaluation of clean-up operations in terms of environmental merit is based on an Environmental Merit Index (EMI). This index is constructed by rating the performances of clean-up options against a list of measurable aspects and by aggregating these performances with a weighting scheme.

The environmental merit perspective aims at quantifying the performances of candidate cleaning-up options along these evaluation criteria. These results of environmental performances are based on the comparison of alternatives. Since these criteria largely represent independent concerns for the cleaning-up operations, the approach through additive value functions can be applied.

The overall environmental quality of a remedial option is a weighted combination of the different performances. Intuitively, weights represent the relative importance of one attribute compared to another. The higher the weight attached to an aspect, the more the aspect drives the evaluation. Weights are assessed through interviews. Precise question answer protocols are used to ensure that the respondent provides weights which are a true representation of his/her decision strategy.

There are fundamental questions raised by this approach to environmental merit:

1.Does the current practice of soil remediation lead to a positive balance for the environment?

2. Who and how many experts should be interviewed?

3.Are the differences in option across experts significant for the evaluation?

The use of an environmental merit index shows that the environmental balance of soil cleaning-up cannot be assumed to be positive in all cases. Instead, it should be considered as an objective of the cleaning-up operations to be achieved by carefully designing remedial activities.

 

 

CONTENTS

 

ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ

UNIT 1. LAND USE PLANNING…………………………………4

Lesson 1. common understanding of land use planning………4

Text 1A. The individual and society …………………………...6

Text 1B. Main directions of land use planning……………….10

Tex t 1C. Principles of land use planning…………………….11

Text 1D. A comprehensive planning and major steps………..13

Lesson 2. Concepts and theory of land use planning ………..15

Text 2A. Rural and agricultural land use planning …………..17

Text 2B. Methods of land use planning ……………………...21

Text 2C. Bottom-up and top-down land use planning………..22

Text 2D. Implementing land use planning in

development co-operation……………………...……23

Lesson 3. The essence of land use planning ………………….25

Text 3A. Land use planning activity………………………….26

Text 3B. Two types of land use planning……………………..30

Text 3C. Documentation of land use planning ……………….32

Text 3D. Land suitability mapping …………………………...33

Lesson 4. Central idea of land use planning ……………….35

Text 4A. Land use planning as an instrument

of the technical co-operation ………………………..37

Text 4B. Different views……………………………………...41

Text 4C. Core of land use planning…………………………...42

Text 4D. Matching land use requirements with land qualities..43

 

UNIT 2. LAND CADASTRE……………………………………..45

Lesson 5. Statement on land cadastre………………………...45

Text 5A. What is land cadastre ………………………………46

Text 5B. Different cadastral issues …………………………..51

Text 5C. Role of the government in land cadastre ……………52

Text 5D. Problem of automating land records ………………..53

Lesson 6. Existing cadastral systems ………………………….55

Text 6A. Basic elements of cadastral system …………………56

Text 6B. Purposes served by the cadastre …………………….61

Text 6C. General trends ………………………………………62

Text 6D. Entity of land records ……………………………….63

Lesson 7. Russian cadastral surveys before and

after Peter the Great ………………………………………….65

Техt 7А. Review of Russian medieval cadastre ……………..66

Text 7B. Changes in Russian cadastre………………………..71

Text 7C. Peter's reform ………………………………………73

Text 7D. Forest cadastre ……………………………………..74

Lesson 8. Cadastral and land registration

systems in Europe ……………………………………………..77

Text 8A. The UK Cadastre …………………………………...79

Text 8B. Cadastre in West Europe ……………………………84

Text 8C. Cadastre of Northern, Southern and

Eastern Europe ………………………………………86

Text 8D. Some European experience …………………………88

UNIT 3. URBAN CADASTRES…………………………………..90

Lesson 9. Urban cadastres as multipurpose

tool to improve city revenue and Management……………….90

Text 9A. What is an urban cadastre …………………………..91

Text 9B. The main benefits of an urban cadastre …………….96

Text 9C. The key success factor when

implementing an urban cadastre …………………….97

Text 9D. The main lessons from a technical

comparison of European cadastral systems ………..99

Lesson 10. The state role in urban land development ……..100

Text 10A. Vacant property ………………………………….102

Text 10B. Necessity of an official definition ………………..106

Text 10C. Property-Specific approaches …………………….107

Text 10D. Eminent Domain Powers …………………………109

Lesson 11. Urban development ………………………………111

Text 11A. Town planning …………………………………...113

Text 11B. The configuration and undulation of the town

site and directions of main radial and

circumferenial avenues and boulevards…………..117

Text 11C. The layout and construction

of avenues and boulevards………………………..118

Text 11D. Open spaces, parks and recreation grounds ……..119

Lesson 12. Laws on urban development.

Russian and international experience…………..121

Text 12A. How is the planning described in the laws ………122

Text 12B. Urban development in the USA …………………127

Text 12C. Urban development in Western countries………..128

Text 12D. Comparison of the laws of the

Russian Federation ………………………………130