Book reviews 315

The global 2U~ report to the President. A Report Prepared by the Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of State. London: Penguin, 1982. 751 pp. E7.95 paperback; g14.95 hardback (Allen Lane).

Global 2000 was originally published in March 1980 along with two other important studies of the state of the world’s environment, the World Conseruation Strategy (WCS) (IUCN 1980) and the Brandt Report (1980). Each of these documents accepts that the room for manoeuvre is very small indeed and that any kind of economic growth must be fully aware of the determinants of environmental and resource constraints. And each book looks at the problem in different ways. WCS provides the blueprint for a conservation- development strategy, Brandt is a heady neo-Keynesian statement of faith, while Global 2000 provides a very detailed factual picture. Penguin have obviously taken a chance in publishing a book that has been available for two years, but have presumably taken heart at the fact that some 100 000 copies have already been sold in northern Europe (dough published by another company).

Global 2000 is neither pleasant nor easy reading. It is a detailed factual assessment of a whole host of resource depletion and environmental pollution statistics coupled with endless graphs of computer-modelled forecasts and scenarios. Its major claim to fame is its encyclopaedic coverage and hence its ready source of material for lectures and review articles. Its coverage includes population, economic development income, food, land, water, soil, forests, minerals, air and water pollution, species extinction and energy. Although the coverage is impressive and thorough, it should be emphasized that the reason for its production was the realization that US departments of State had no clue as to the interconnections (and inconsistencies) of their actions, and hence the real danger that their hard-fought-for budgets were possibly working at cross-purposes.

The document does not reveal this dilemma: indeed, apart from detailing all the best information available, it does not address the central issue of what should be done about global environmental destruction. For there is little doubt that the trends described in this report could well lead to a serious deprivation of food and materials availability in many Third World nations within the next two generations. The developed world will survive (just) only because of its capability of exporting environmental destruction to the Third World, but even then economic recession, widespread unemployment and global political destabilization will not leave the rich 18 per cent of the world’s population free from danger. We are a truly global community and the sooner we realize it the better.

Brandt, W. (chairman) (1980) North-south: a programmefor survival. London: Pan. International Union for the Conservation of Nature (1980) World Conservation Strategy. Geneva:

IUCN.

Tim O’Riordan School of Environmental Sciences, university of East Anglia

Hudson, J. F., Lake, E. E. and Grossman, D. S. Pollution pricing: industrial response to wastewater charges. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books/D.C. Heath, 1981. 212 pp.

Economists have argued that pricing the use of assimilative capacity in the environment will result in improved environmental quality. Hudson (civil engineer-systems analyst), Lake (economist) and Grossman (civil engineer-systems analyst) note that there is considerable literature on the theoretical use of economic incentives for pollution control as well as on the aggregate response to economic incentives of large numbers of industrial

316 Book reviews

plants. However, they suggest that few researchers have examined the way in which decisions are made in individual plants regarding alternative waste management responses to incentives, nor the institutional arrangements of the public agencies which administer charge systems. In Pollution pricing they present their findings from the analysis of five urban wastewater charging systems and 101 industrial plants in the United States.

Pollution charging systems were examined in Atlanta, Georgia, Chicago, Illinois, Dallas, Texas, Salem, Oregon, and South San Franciso, California. For each system, interviews were conducted at the public agencies to determine the specific objectives of their wastewater charging programme, as well as the nature of the systems and charges, with particular interest in monitoring, billing and enforcement practices. Attention was also directed towards the ‘context’ or mix of variables which constrain potential responses. At the industrial plants, managers, engineers and financial officers were interviewed to determine the nature of the industrial process and the range of responses both considered and implemented.

Hudson, Lake and Grossman present their material in 17 chapters divided into three sections. Section I (four chapters) provides the major findings regarding the five cities, the industrial firms. and incentives in general. Section II (five chapters) presents information about experience in each of the five cities. Section III (eight chapters) gives details about responses to wastewater charges at eight of the 101 case-study plants in the five cities. The eight case-study examples include tortilla manufacturing, fruit and vegetable canning, industrial laundry, meat packing, ice-cream manufacturing, poultry processing, plating job shop and paint manufacturing. As a result of this organization, the reader can focus upon Section I (5 1 pp.) for the main findings and conclusions. The material in Sections II and III provides elaboration on and documentation for the discussion in Section I.

The major conclusion is that charge systems work from the perspective of the public agencies responsible for the programmes, the plant managers who pay the charges, and outside evaluators such as the investigators. The charges were noticed by the firms, and almost all plants responded. While responses often were modest, the charges were modest as well, making the authors believe that the almost universal attempts to respond to the charges were surprising. They argued that much larger charges would be required to realize reductions in wastewater discharges at the best available technology level. Unfortunately, there was little evidence in their study to indicate what charge levels would have to be imposed.

Several other major conclusions were drawn. The context-from plant characteristics, regulations, structure and operation of charges. to management structure of the firm-was extremely influential in how a plant responded. However, the context also represented a major research dilemma, since it was difficult to isolate the impact of the charges from other contextual variables associated with wastewater management. Hudson, Lake and Grossman handled this problem by defining changes as ‘responses to charges’ when evidence indicated an intent to reduce charges through the change even if other goals were involved. This issue of the role of contextual variables in resource management is a significant one and deserves more attention by investigators who wish to assess system performance or effectiveness.

While other conservation efforts usually complemented waste-reduction efforts, regulations on other forms of pollution, product quality and safety often increased watewater discharges. In addition, infrequent monitoring schedules and delays in analysis frequently meant that monitoring data could not be used in plant operations. This inability to use monitoring data was viewed as a significant lost opportunity to reduce wastewater from industrial plants.

While their findings suggest that relatively simple charging systems can perform well 7, -%hout excessive administrative costs, the authors also think that improvements can be

Book reviews 317

made. In addition to improving monitoring programmes, they question whether rates reflect marginal or even average costs and whether information flow between systems and customers is effective.

In a wellorganized and clearly written book, they have identified a significant research problem, have assembled pertinent evidence, and have considered alternative strategies to resolve difficult resource management problems. This book should be of interest and use to practitioners and academics.

Bruce Mitchell University of Waterloo, Ontario

This volume is based on the Proceedings of the rnternatio~a1 Conference on Soil Conservation which was held at the National College of Agricultural Engineering, Silsoe, Bedford, UK in July 1980, and which was attended by 135 specialists from more than 35 countries. The emphasis of the conference was on soil conservation in developing countries and in the tropics, as well as Europe and North America.

The publishers make the justified claim that Soil conservation provides an up-to-date assessment of soil conservation measures, stressing the problems of applying these measures in practice and the possible solutions. This book complements the two other Wiley publications for i980: Assessment of erosion, edited by M. De Boodt and D. Gabriels, and Soif erosion, edited by M. J. Kirby and R. P. C. Morgan, and they represent a valuable trio of source material on soil erosion and soil conservation.

Soif ~o~~e~~t~o~ is subdivided into four main themes which reflect the main sessions of the conference_ The theme of session I considers the use of erosion risk assessments and land classification on soil conservation design. The second session is devoted to empiricai studies of soil conservation measures and in session 3 the inclusion of conservation practices in erosion models is discussed. The final session examines the economic, social and legal aspects of conservation. In selecting these themes, the organizing committee of the conference wished to provide an opportunity for further reviewing ideas discussed in depth at the Ghent workshop in 1978, whilst at the same time considering problems involved in the application of soil erosion research to soil conservation practice.

A Keynote address, together with Rapporteur’s comments, precedes the submitted papers in each session. The opening address (session 1) by Dr R. Dudal, Director of the Land and Water Division of FAO, deals with an evaluation of ~onserva~on needs, stressing the increasing threat posed by land degradation to future food supplies and the importance of government intervention to ensure adequate maintenance of land and soil resources. The main body of knowledge on soil conservation techniques and design procedures comes from empirical studies which are the subject of the second Keynote address by Modenhauer and Foster (session 2). They review work on natural run-off plots in the USA, rainfall simulation, soil loss from different conservation practices and the role of empirical studies, L. D. Meyer emphasizes in his address on modelling conservation practices (session 3) the potential that models have to identify gaps in knowledge, and that researchers can make major contributions towards effective programmes in conservation practice research by utilizing this potential. In the fourth address (session 41, N. W. Hudson advances the hypothesis that although there are gaps in the available technical knowledge, the more important constraints on soil conservation are political, social and economic, which together are more significant than deficiencies in techniques.