Behavioral pathways to private well risk mitigation: A structural equation modeling approach

Complex, multihazard risks such as private groundwater contamination necessitate multiannual risk reduction actions including seasonal, weather-based hazard evaluations. In the Republic of Ireland (ROI), high rural reliance on unregulated private wells renders behavior promotion a vital instrument toward safeguarding household health from waterborne infection. However, to date, pathways between behavioral predictors remain unknown while latent constructs such as extreme weather event (EWE) risk perception and self-efficacy (perceived behavioral competency) have yet to be sufficiently explored. Accordingly, a nationwide survey of 560 Irish private well owners was conducted, with structural equation modeling (SEM) employed to identify underlying relationships determining key supply management behaviors. The pathway analysis (SEM) approach was used to model three binary outcomes: information seeking, post-EWE action, and well testing behavior. Upon development of optimal models, perceived self-efficacy emerged as a significant direct and/or indirect driver of all three behavior types—demonstrating the greatest indirect effect (β = −0.057) on adoption of post-EWE actions and greatest direct (β = 0.222) and total effect (β = 0.245) on supply testing. Perceived self-efficacy inversely influenced EWE risk perception in all three models but positively influenced supply awareness (where present). Notably, the presence of a vulnerable (infant and/or elderly) household member negatively influenced adoption of post-EWE actions (β = −0.131, p = 0.016). Results suggest that residential and age-related factors constitute key demographic variables influencing risk mitigation and are strongly mediated by cognitive variables—particularly self-efficacy. Study findings may help contextualize predictors of private water supply management, providing a basis for future risk-based water interventions.     

太原市地面沉降防治对策

根据太原市地面沉降的制约因素,对太原市地面沉降从思想、制度和技术三个层面提出了有针对性的防治措施,包括统筹规划水资源开发与环境保护、制定水资源产权制度、加大关井压采力度和优化开采层次与布局等,为今后地下水资源的合理开发与利用、地面沉降监测网的建设以及控沉工作提供了科学的依据。     

大开发背景下“黄三角”地下水资源保护法律机制研究

"黄三角"开发势在必行,但"黄三角"淡水资源相对贫乏,尤其是地下水资源因长期超量开采使用日趋枯竭,地下水位大范围下降、水质遭到污染,并引发地面沉降、咸水入侵等环境地质问题。要在"黄三角"开发的大背景下维护地下水资源的可持续利用能力,必须完善法律机制,以形成制度保障。"黄三角"地区应应时所需,针对现行立法中地下水资源保护基本法缺乏、相关制度可操作性欠缺、惩罚力度不够等不足,以可持续发展理念为导向,加快立法步伐、完善制度设计、加大惩处力度等,以使地下水资源得到切实有效的保障。     

Total System Performance Assessment for Waste Disposal Using a Logic Tree Approach

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has sponsored the development of a model to assess the long-term, overall performance of the candidate spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste (HLW) disposal facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The model simulates the processes that lead to HLW container corrosion, HLW mobilization from the spent fuel, and transport by groundwater, and contaminated groundwater usage by future hypothetical individuals leading to radiation doses to those individuals. The model must incorporate a multitude of complex, coupled processes across a variety of technical disciplines. Furthermore, because of the very long time frames involved in the modeling effort (10⁴ years), the relative lack of directly applicable data, and many uncertainties and variabilities in those data, a probabilistic approach to model development was necessary. The developers of the model chose a logic tree approach to represent uncertainties in both conceptual models and model parameter values. The developers felt the logic tree approach was the most appropriate. This paper discusses the value and use of logic trees applied to assessing the uncertainties in HLW disposal, the components of the model, and a few of the results of that model. The paper concludes with a comparison of logic trees and Monte Carlo approaches.     

Probabilistic Risk Analysis for a High-Level Radioactive Waste Repository

A probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) for a high-level radioactive waste repository is very important since it gives an estimate of its health impacts, allowing comparisons to be made with the health impacts of competing technologies. However, it is extremely difficult to develop a credible PRA for a specific repository site because of large uncertainties in future climate, hydrology, geological processes, etc. At best, such a PRA would not be understandable to the public. An alternative proposed here is to develop a PRA for an average U.S. site, taking all properties of the site to be the U.S. average. The results are equivalent to the average results for numerous randomly selected sites. Such a PRA is presented here; it is easy to understand, and it is not susceptible to substantial uncertainty. Applying the results to a specific repository site then requires only a simple, intuitively acceptable "leap of faith" in assuming that with large expenditures of effort and money, experts can select a site that would be at least as secure as a randomly selected site.     

邯郸市地下水控制水位划定初探

地下水控制水位的确定是实施地下水开采总量控制与水位控制管理的重点和基础。此次研究以恢复地下水的原有功能为管理的最终目标,通过分析不同管理分区内代表性监测孔的地下水动态变化以及其对周边环境的影响,分析确定不同地下水控制性管理分区内的关键水位值。     

Methodology for setting risk-based concentrations of contaminants in soil and groundwater and application to a model contaminated site

In Japan, environmental standards for contaminants in groundwater and in leachate from soil are set with the assumption that they are used for drinking water over a human lifetime. Where there is neither a well nor groundwater used for drinking, the standard is thus too severe. Therefore, remediation based on these standards incurs excessive effort and cost. In contrast, the environmental-assessment procedure used in the United States and the Netherlands considers the site conditions (land use, existing wells, etc.); however, a risk assessment is required for each site. Therefore, this study proposes a new framework for judging contamination in Japan by considering the merits of the environmental standards used and a method for risk assessment. The framework involves setting risk-based concentrations that are attainable remediation goals for contaminants in soil and groundwater. The framework was then applied to a model contaminated site for risk management, and the results are discussed regarding the effectiveness and applicability of the new methodology.     

Measuring the Dynamic Efficiency Costs of Regulators' Preferences: Municipal Water Utilities in the Arid West

Evidence suggests that municipal water utility administrators in the western US price water significantly below its marginal cost and, in so doing, inefficiently exploit aquifer stocks and induce social surplus losses. This paper empirically identifies the objective function of those managers, measures the deadweight losses resulting from their price‐discounting decisions, and recovers the efficient water pricing policy function from counterfactual experiments. In doing so, the estimation uses a “continuous‐but‐constrained‐ control” version of a nested fixed‐point algorithm in order to measure the important intertemporal consequences of groundwater pricing decisions.     

灵山岛地下水资源储存特征与利用研究

探讨了灵山岛地下水资源储存特点、时空分布变化规律，计算出该区地下水资源的储量，并讨论了水资源利用现状及其合理开发途径     

地下水资源的本质属性、功能及开展水文地质学研究的意义

水资源短缺、水污染问题的加剧给人类社会经济发展及生态环境带来了一系列问题,使得人们不得不重新审视地下水资源的本质属性和功能。文章从自然科学和社会学角度对地下水资源的本质属性、功能进行研究,论述了地下水的自然、科学和社会等不同属性及其相应的物质功能、能量功能、调蓄功能和信息功能。在此基础上,提出了进一步开展水文地质学研究的意义。