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Proposed Project (proposed + project)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	50%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	50%

Selected Abstracts

Documenting Accountability: Environmental Impact Assessment in a Peruvian Mining Project

POLAR: POLITICAL AND LEGAL ANTHROPOLOGY REVIEW, Issue 2 2009
Fabiana Li
Over the past two decades, practices of accountability have acquired a new presence in neoliberal governance and resource extraction in Peru. In the context of mining activity, accountability generally refers to public mechanisms of evaluation and record-keeping through which citizens can make corporations and governments answerable to them. However, I argue that these practices often prioritize mining interests by enabling corporations to define and ultimately enforce standards of performance. This article focuses on a key process in the making of social and environmental accountability in mining projects: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). I show that the form of the documents produced for the EIA (i.e., their required components, as established in legal frameworks) and the process of making them public (participatory meetings and public forums) can take precedence over their content. I examine two aspects of the EIA that make this possible. First, the risks that are identified in the EIA are those that a company deems to be technically manageable based on the solutions and interventions that it has to offer. Second, the participatory process of the EIA creates collaborative relationships among state agents, corporations, NGOs, and communities that strengthen the EIA's claims of accountability while circumscribing the spaces for opposition to a proposed project. [source]

Community cooperation with natural flood management: a case study in the Scottish Borders

AREA, Issue 3 2009
Olivia Ruth Howgate
The cooperation of communities and landowners in the upper catchment is vital for the successful implementation of natural flood management (NFM) projects as few incentives are in place to reward them to host such projects. The aim of this paper is to initiate an exploration of the issues that affect a community's decision to cooperate. The results of a case study in Scotland show that willingness to cooperate is affected by concern about alternative flood management techniques, a sense of responsibility to help connected communities at risk of flooding and the expectation of beneficial impacts from the project. Indeed, these issues appeared to over-ride the hostility generated towards the project as a result of poor communication and engagement with the community from organisations associated with the proposed project. The results of the research suggest that if NFM projects are to proliferate, close attention must be paid to community attitudes towards flood management and related communities at risk, and that NFM projects must be developed and implemented according to well-established principles of public participation. [source]

Quantifying uncertainty using robustness analysis in the application of ORESTE to sewer rehabilitation projects prioritization,Brussels case study

JOURNAL OF MULTI CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS, Issue 3-4 2009
Eliseo Ana Jr
Abstract Sewer systems are considered extremely important components of the urban water infrastructure due to their function and capital-intensive nature. These systems, however, have been undergoing aging and deterioration, thus needing repair or rehabilitation. Historically, the budgets for sewer rehabilitation are often scarce and too limited to address the requirements, requiring utility managers to prioritize the competing projects. In this paper, the application of ORESTE to the prioritization of sewer rehabilitation projects for the Brussels, Belgium network was demonstrated. The 43 proposed projects were ranked based on a set of 16 criteria. In addition, a methodology was introduced to investigate the robustness of the ORESTE solution. The inclusion of the robustness analysis into the technique allowed for the quantification of the uncertainties associated with the priority rankings. This type of information is very important in developing confidence among decision makers as to their decision on the priority ranking of sewer rehabilitation projects. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Optimisation and the selection of conservation contracts*

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2007
Stefan Hajkowicz
This paper explores alternative techniques for the selection of conservation contracts under competitive tendering programs. Under these programs, purchasing decisions are often based on the benefits score and cost for proposed projects. The optimisation problem is to maximise the aggregate benefits without exceeding the budget. Because the budget rarely permits all projects to be funded, there is a binary choice problem, known in the operations research published work as a knapsack problem. The decision-maker must choose which projects are funded and which are not. Under some circumstances, the knapsack problem can be unsolvable because computational complexity increases exponentially with the number of projects. This paper explores the use of several decision rules for solving the optimisation problem including the use of advanced meta-heuristics. It is shown that commonly applied techniques for project selection may not be providing the optimal solution. Improved algorithms can increase the environmental programs benefits and staying within budget. The comparison of algorithms is based on real data from the Western Australian Conservation Auction. [source]