Environmental impact assessments of the Three Gorges Project in China: issues and interventions

The paper takes China's authoritative Environmental Impact Statement for the Yangzi (Yangtze) Three Gorges Project (TGP) in 1992 as a benchmark against which to evaluate emerging major environmental outcomes since the initial impoundment of the Three Gorges reservoir in 2003. The paper particularly examines five crucial environmental aspects and associated causal factors. The five domains include human resettlement and the carrying capacity of local environments (especially land), water quality, reservoir sedimentation and downstream riverbed erosion, soil erosion, and seismic activity and geological hazards. Lessons from the environmental impact assessments of the TGP are: (1) hydro project planning needs to take place at a broader scale, and a strategic environmental assessment at a broader scale is necessary in advance of individual environmental impact assessments; (2) national policy and planning adjustments need to react quickly to the impact changes of large projects; (3) long-term environmental monitoring systems and joint operations with other large projects in the upstream areas of a river basin should be established, and the cross-impacts of climate change on projects and possible impacts of projects on regional or local climate considered. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.Xibao Xu, Yan Tan, Guishan Yan

Toward Integration: Managing the Divergence Between National Climate Change Interventions and Urban Planning in Ghana

Climate change issues have progressively been integrated into national development and policy frameworks in Ghana. The National Development Planning Commission, using guidelines for preparing medium-term development plans, encourages district, municipal, and metropolitan assemblies to give special considerations to climate change issues in their plan preparation processes. Consequently, this chapter explores the extent to which climate change issues have been integrated into urban development plans in Ghana. Using the Kumasi metropolis, the chapter compares national development documents with four urban development plans for the metropolis to establish convergence or divergence in climate change issues and interventions

Regional policies targeting residential solid fuel and agricultural emissions can improve air quality and public health in the Greater Bay Area and across China

Air pollution exposure is a leading public health problem in China. The majority of the total air pollution disease burden is from fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure, with smaller contributions from ozone (O3) exposure. Recent emission reductions have reduced PM2.5 exposure. However, levels of exposure and the associated risk remain high, some pollutant emissions have increased, and some sectors lack effective emission control measures. We quantified the potential impacts of relevant policy scenarios on ambient air quality and public health across China. We show that PM2.5 exposure inside the Greater Bay Area (GBA) is strongly controlled by emissions outside the GBA. We find that reductions in residential solid fuel use and agricultural fertilizer emissions result in the greatest reductions in PM2.5 exposure and the largest health benefits. A 50% transition from residential solid fuel use to liquefied petroleum gas outside the GBA reduced PM2.5 exposure by 15% in China and 3% within the GBA, and avoided 191,400 premature deaths each year across China. Reducing agricultural fertilizer emissions of ammonia by 30% outside the GBA reduced PM2.5 exposure by 4% in China and 3% in the GBA, avoiding 56,500 annual premature deaths across China. Our simulations suggest that reducing residential solid fuel or industrial emissions will reduce both PM2.5 and O3 exposure, whereas other policies may increase O3 exposure. Improving particulate air quality inside the GBA will require consideration of residential solid fuel and agricultural sectors, which currently lack targeted policies, and regional cooperation both inside and outside the GBA