Research Of Location Selection And Social Impact Of NIMBY Facilities

NIMBY facilities, though pose some threat of pollution, are an important of city public facilities. In recent years, with China’s rapid economic development and the rapid expansion of the overall economic scale, a number of regions are faced with more and more serious ecological destruction and environmental pollution and the contradictions caused by NIMBY facilities have become a common and open phenomenon. Therefore, it is an important task to reduce the negative externality of NIMBY facilities, realize cost-benefit equivalence and find ways to ease the contradictions so as to realize the sustainable development of society. Landfills are indispensable in modern human society as they bury unusable garbage after resource recovery, clean people’s living environment and prevent the breeding and diffusion of viruses and bacteria. But as they "make trouble" and are a nuisance, they bring environmental risks to the surrounding areas, they are typical of NIMBY facilities causing social problems.Taking Jiang Cun Gou Landfill in Xi’an City as the case, this thesis studies the mechanism of changing NIMBY facilities from "NIMBY" to "YIMBY" by analyzing the location selection of garbage disposal facilities with public participation. Through research and case analysis of Xi’an City, this thesis attempts to give a systematic research to NIMBY facilities representative of landfills as their social influence so as to provide not only theoretical support to location selection of NIMBY facilities but also policy suggestions and reference to achieve the unity of environmental, social and economic benefits for the construction of NIMBY facilities.The thesis analyzes the location choice and social influence of NIMBY facilities based on humanistic economic geography, an integrated use of literature review, expert consultation, a structured questionnaire, interview-fashioned key investigation, site reconnaissance and the GIS method by taking the landfill of Xi’an city as an example. First, influential factors of landfills are listed to clarify the dominant factors and influential mechanism landfill location choice; Second, a reasonable procedure of landfill location choice is established through three selections among sites meeting legal and physical conditions and comparison of alternate areas of landfills; Third, main existing problems are pointed out in the construction of landfills based on the overall situation of waste treatment in Xi’an City, combined with the characteristics of garbage producing and processing as well as the construction of landfills in Xi’an city; The Fourth part offers the environmental risks and social impact of waste treatment facilities and analyzes the effect of social and economic benefit in the location choice of garbage disposal fields. And then, through the establishment of public "allowable rate" model of landfill location choice, the relationship between the disgust of residents and experts and the distance of landfills is pointed out; The fifth part reviews the process of Jiang Cun Gou Landfill of Xi’an City being selected as the location, applies landfill location selection methods and procedures proposed in this paper to back assess the location selection of landfills n Xi’an City and discusses landfill location selection from the perspective of regional harmony; Finally, the thesis proposes countermeasures and suggestions towards landfill location selection in legal construction, location selection procedures, compensation mechanism, smooth information channels, public participation in EIA and other aspects. The main research methods include literature retrieval, expert consultation method, GIS method, interview and structured questionnaire and interview-fashioned key investigation. The main conclusions are as follows:(1) It must be clarified that the dominant factors and influential mechanism are the primary conditions in the location selection of NIMBY facilities representative of landfills. The dominant factors include three aspects in environment, society and economy. The environmental factors include hydrology, geology, topography, climate and biodiversity (animals and plants, the ecosystem); social factors include risk perception and disgust of residents and communication with them; economic factors include the garbage transport distance, cost of site acquisition and the relocation of residents and the construction cost of landfills.(2) To dispel doubts and worries from the public and to realize the joint profits of environment, economy and society, the choice of a landfill’s location is crucial. The process of choosing the site of a landfill is to sift through potential areas three times according to the law, physical conditions and NIMBY in order to give priority of the most appropriate alternative areas. Based on the results, we should assess the risk of groundwater pollution of these areas. Finally, AHP is adopted to decide the best alternative area.(3) Anti-evaluation of the location selection of landfills is applied to location selection in Xi’an. After three rounds of location selection and risk assessment of groundwater pollution, AHP is used to evaluate the appropriate alternative areas in Xi’an, namely, Jiangcun Gou, Xiao Gou and Yue Deng Ge.(4) The condition of reaching a consensus with the public is to convey and share the accurate information and provide an opportunity for better communication. Public participation is an effective way in the process of location selection. Public participation involves participants and the degree of participating. It’s important to hold explanation sessions and announce related information in time. To deliver the accurate information, achieve better commutation and provide an opportunity for the public to express their opinions, we should open some expert columns as well as Q&A columns on the Internet and other publications.(5) Waste disposal facilities lead to environmental risks and social influence. In terms of risk awareness of disposal facilities, the risk awareness of landfill from the public plays the most important part in selecting the location of alternative areas. In terms of social influence of landfills, changes in land utilization and assets value are the two factors which influence society. Therefore, the construction of welfare facilities around the site and financial compensation are the effective ways to reach an agreement with the residents when it comes to choose the location of a landfill.(6) It is useful to describe quantitatively the distance of waste disposal and the approval rate of residents in terms of balancing interests and defining compensation objects. Through making research, we have found out the allowable distance of waste disposal facilities between the residents and experts in Xi’an. Due to the unawareness of the function of the waste disposal facilities as well as collection, transportation and other project construction costs, some residents may have judgments on the distance of waste disposal facilities. However, professionals believe that beside NIMBY effect, there are environmental factors, like pollution and economical factor, like transportation cost. Everyone hopes that these waste disposal facilities were not constructed in his or her back yard. Experts will take technology, economy and environment into consideration. Their viewpoints are more sensible and feasible.This thesis is a cross-disciplinary research. It tries to make some new points by integrating multi-disciplinary theories and methods. Innovation is mainly reflected in:a. Based on the analysis of previous researches, this thesis proposes a new strategy in terms of selecting the location of landfills. For the first time, it takes environmental risk and public participation into consideration.b. It uses reasonable location selection process to anti-evaluate construction projects in Xi’an.c. This thesis adopts a whole new research on the relationship between the antipathy from the residents and the distance of a landfill.