What laws, processes, and institutions exist to protect the American environment? To what degree do they succeed, and where do they fall short? This important new book concisely describes and evaluates America's pollution control system. It concludes, "For all its accomplishments... the pollution control regulatory system is deeply and fundamentally flawed." The authors, analysts with RFF's Center for Risk Management, examine the fragmented tangle of statutes, regulatory bodies, and programs designed to control environmental degradation in the United States. CRM Director Davies and Mazurek employ carefully chosen criteria such as pollution reduction, economic efficiency, and responsiveness to social values in order to judge the effectiveness of the various instruments -- and the system as a whole -- in protecting the environment. Their description of the system is concise and clear, and their selection of criteria is an important contribution to program evaluation. The book also compares U.S. performance with that of other countries. The authors' goal is a critical understanding of pollution regulation in the United States, thus laying the groundwork for improving it. Regulating Pollution emerges from a major research project undertaken by RFF's Center for Risk Management with support from the Andrew W. Mellon and Smith Richardson foundations. The three-year project constitutes the first in-depth, systematic evaluation of U.S. pollution control efforts.

The state of India's environment has been deteriorating steadily over the past two decades. Ambient standards of air, water and soil pollution are routinely exceeded with potentially disastrous consequences. Recognising the seriousness of the problem, the Indian government has recently introduced a series of measures which concentrate on practical aspects of implementation. | However, there are few studies available which can guide the formulation of policies in terms of the most appropriate choice of instruments which can contain pollution and protect India's environment. | That is the central purpose of this pioneering study - namely, to assess the efficacy of alternative instruments for pollution abatement based both on theoretical explorations and real-life case studies. The authors begin by reviewing the existing policy regime and analysing its impact on the quality of air and water in India's cities and rivers respectively. They then proceed to assess the choice of instruments for pollution control by linking economic and environmental systems.

The influence of alkaline dust pollution (pH of water solution of dust 12.3–12.7) from a cement plant (Kunda town, Estonia) on chlorophylls and carotenoids of the needles of 60–80 year old Norway spruce was studied on sample plots established at different distances from the emission source. The highest sensitivity to dust impact was measured in the content of Chl a, Chl b, carotenoids and elements regulating or participating in the biosynthesis of pigments (Mg, Fe, N, Mn).

The development of relationships for predicting the impact of highway stormwater runoff is described. The predictive relationships are regression-based equations reflecting variations in the magnitude of the constituents of interest. The objective is to identify a subset of constituents that can be used as surrogates for the remaining constituents as a means of decreasing the costs of collection and measurement of highway stormwater runoff quality data.The Minnesota highway stormwater quality database complied in the late 1970's and early 1980's is employed in identifying the set of surrogate parameters. The findings indicate that total suspended solids, total dissolved solids, total volatile solids, and total organic carbon are effective surrogate parameters for numerous metals, ionic species, and nutrients. The findings also indicated that the developed ionic species constituent relationships are portable, while the metal and nutrient constituent relationships were limited to urban sites with similar environmental conditions. The development of these relationships represents a step towards remediating and preventing the problem of nonpoint source highway pollution.

In summer 1994, stream water, moss and humus samples were collected for sulphur isotopic analysis from eight catchments located in the western Kola Peninsula region, where several industrial centres emit high loads of SO₂ and other elements to the atmosphere. Three potential sources of sulphur and their isotopic signatures were identified: (1) marine (δ ³⁴S+20 to +21‰ CDT), (2) anthropogenic emissions (<+10‰), and (3) geogenic (variableδ ³⁴S, mostly <+10‰). Averaged per catchment, the sulphur isotopic composition varies between +6.0 and +16.3‰ for stream water sulphate, +6.0 and +8.4‰ for moss sulphur, and +5.2 and +12.2‰ for humus sulphur. Theδ ³⁴S composition of stream water from the more remote catchments is quite variable, reflecting several natural (geogenic) sources, but it becomes restricted to the range +8 to +10‰ near the pollution sources. A plot ofδ ³⁴S vs. 1:SO₄ in stream water suggests that sulphate originating from the smelters has aδ ³⁴S value ≈+9.5‰, and is a dominant source. Sulphur isotope values for moss and humus are consistent with the deduced composition for the emitted sulphur, though for humus a component of geogenic sulphur incorporated via vegetation uptake may play a role. Further isotopic characterisation of atmospheric emissions, together with environmental samples, is needed to better understand sulphur sources and sinks in the area.

The concentrations of As, Br and I were measured in needles, in the material deposited on the needle surface and in the soil. Results from 8 unpolluted and one polluted continental sites and from one maritime site are reported. The mass of al13 elements on the needle surface is similar to that in the needles. Needle concentrations increase linearly with the needle age class, but net accumulation during the first year is larger than during later years. There are significant correlations between the material on the needle surface and the needle concentrations for As and Br, but not between the soil and the needle concentrations. Bromine values are much higher at the polluted and at the maritime site than at the unpolluted sites.

In the tradition of the study of materials flows through society, the Substance Flow Analysis (SFA) method is presented. SFA aims at providing the relevant information for a country’s overall management strategy regarding single substances or coherent groups of substances. This article is dedicated to the presentation of a threestep general framework for SFA-type studies, and elaborates on its first step the systems definition. Attention is given to the definition of the external and internal system boundaries, the categorization of the system’s elements, aspects of materials choice, time, and space, and how these depend on the aim of the conducted study. Moreover, a broader discussion is started on the need for standardization of materials flow studies in general.In the tradition of the study of materials flows through society, the Substance Flow Analysis (SFA) method and its software tool SFINX are presented. SFA aims at providing the relevant information for a country’s overall management strategy regarding single substances or coherent groups of substances. Three modelling techniques and their possibilities and limitations are discussed: Bookkeeping, static modelling, and dynamic modelling. The computer program SFINX can be used for varoius purposes: (1) to obtain an overview of stocks and flows of a substance in, out and through a nation’s economy and environment for a specific year, (2) to trace the origins of specific pollution problems, and (3) to estimate the effectiveness of certain abatement measures. Each application has its own requirements with regard to data and modelling.