Research On Environmental Monitoring And Early Warning System

The formation and practice of environmental monitoring and early warning systems miniature the great leap of environmental pollution control in China.Environmental monitoring and early warning had not become an independent legal system before the amendment of the Environmental Protection Law in 2014 but partly been integrated in the process of early warning of natural disasters,accident disasters,public health events,and social security incidents and appeared in a non-normal form of public management.With increasingly normal and complex environmental risks,disasters and emergencies,environmental monitoring and early warning systems have widely been applied as emergency measures in environmental governance,which have a short history but develop rapidly in China.At present,the system framework at the regulatory level has been initially formed,and the system practice has been fully applied in some areas of environmental pollution control,so environmental monitoring and early warning systems have become normal environmental pollution control measures.Normal development and system practice provide ideal research samples of environmental monitoring and early warning systems.Theoretically,environmental monitoring and early warning systems are series of standardized systems developed and implemented by social organizations in line with certain procedures with a view to early warning monitoring and evaluation of potential environmental problems as well as avoidance,treatment,and mitigation of environmental risks,disasters,emergencies and crises,which mainly include environmental monitoring and early warning standard system,environmental monitoring system,environmental monitoring and early warning evaluation,environmental monitoring and early warning information disclosure,and environmental risk regulatory measures in the early warning state.Practically,China has gradually formed its environmental monitoring and early warning systems with Chinese characteristics,which can be classified into comprehensive environmental emergency management systems and overall environmental monitoring and early warning systems according to the internal and external structures.The strategic structure of environmental emergency management systems consists of emergency system,monitoring and early warning,information reporting,emergency response,and emergency security.These basic systems constituting the internal structure are the basic types of Chinese environmental monitoring and early warning systems,including monitoring and early warning systems for agricultural pollution sources,resource and environment carrying capacity,environmental pollution,environmental emergencies,water quality of Yangtze River Basin,and natural disasters.If the effects of an environmental monitoring and early warning system depends mainly upon the development of monitoring and early warning technology and the completeness of the system,its overall effectiveness relies not only on the above two but also on the external and internal structures,namely its synergy in the entire environmental emergency management cycle structure and the synergy between different environmental monitoring and early warning systems.For the external structure,due to the broken structure of the external operating mechanism of Chinese environmental emergency management system,there is no substantial correlation between outward external monitoring and early warning systems and inward emergency response mechanisms.For the internal structure,the legislative concepts of different environmental monitoring and early warning systems obviously lack of in-depth consideration and rational layout so that there are overlaps between the internal standards of Chinese environmental monitoring and early warning systems,which means repeatedly allocated rights(powers),obligations and legal responsibilities.For the basic elements of system operation,Chinese environmental monitoring and early warning systems have problems such as incomplete standard systems,defective information release modes,impeded consultation and evaluation mechanisms,incomplete regulation and monitoring mechanisms,irrational decentralized governance mechanisms in the early warning state,and non-open access for social forces.It is precisely the constraints of internal and external structures of Chinese environmental monitoring and early warning systems and the defects of basic elements of their operation that lead to the overall functional deviation,that is,the structural constrains of Chinese environmental monitoring and early warning systems and the defects of elements lead to the possibility of infringing upon individual and economic freedom or system failure during their operation.In addition,due to the ambiguous boundary of basic rights in environmental risk regulation as well as the multilayered environmental early warning behavior,many power restriction theories of traditional public laws cannot effectively regulate the behavior infringing on individual and economic freedom in the state of system failure.Therefore,according to the analysis of the structures and functions of environmental monitoring and early warning systems and their defects of operating elements as well as the overall review of traditional public law theories on environmental early warning systems,it is particularly important to reintegrate environmental monitoring and early warning systems into rule of law through amendment and correction and effectively play their positive functions.Based on the causal explanation of system failure,the first problem to solve for environmental monitoring and early warning systems is structural optimization.First,the external structure should be adjusted longitudinally.Legislation should specify the operation structure of environmental monitoring and early warning systems from monitoring and early warning to information reporting and to risk regulation measures and strengthen the “corresponding structure” between early warning level and risk regulation measure.Second,the external structure should be smoothened horizontally and independently.Environmental monitoring and early warning systems are classified into three types,namely environmental pollution monitoring and early warning,environmental resource carrying capacity monitoring and early warning,and natural disaster monitoring and early warning.Therefore,clear classification of internal structures and stable external operating mechanism lay the foundation for solving the“aphasia and recklessness” of power in the early warning state.Through adjustment of external structure and smoothening of internal structure,Chinese environmental monitoring and early warning systems obtain stable operating mechanisms and orderly operation modes,which also provide the foundation and prerequisite for environmental monitoring and early warning systems to dialogue with existing public law theories.From the theoretical perspective of objective interests protected by the constitution,the tension of administrative power in the state of environmental early warning is essentially derived from the mutual measurement of objective interests protected,namely the measurement of ecological interests and economic interests.Then,the problems of “selective aphasia” and “moving recklessness” of environmental administrative power are transformed into the problem of absent standardization and systematism of interests protected by the environmental administrative power in the early warning state.Therefore,in order to solve this problem,it is necessary to establish a basic consensus on interests with environmental early warning standards as the core under the premise of system standardization and legalization and meanwhile improve the appropriate procedure to measure interests.First,the environmental contingency plan should be developed standardly for the“carrier”,including formally improved standard level and development of environmental contingency plan with changes in form and level.Second,the “fore-end”environmental early warning standard classification principle should be established based on the combination of three elements,namely pollution degree,time length,and space size.Third,the review mechanism for “rear-end” emergency measures should be improved.In terms of external “power control”,the judiciary organs should play effective functions of legal supervision.For the “compulsory” model of environmental early warning,the “collateral review” is an effective way to achieve power constraints;for the “restrictive” model of environmental early warning,private subjects should be given the rights of administrative litigation with “externalized”legal effectiveness directly specific to the early warning state to expand the channels for private subjects in terms of rights relief.The optimized system and complete formal elements provide a stable operation model and legalized guarantee for Chinese environmental monitoring and early warning systems.It is sure that only the changes in external conditions and environment are not enough to ensure the positive functions of environmental monitoring and early warning systems,for the fundamental core of systems depends on that the constituent elements of system mechanism can support the update and development of science and technology.Therefore,it is particularly important to supplement and correct the elements of Chinese environmental monitoring and early warning systems.In this regard,it is necessary to establish a complete monitoring and early warning standard system and related procedural regulations and implement the information release model combining regular comprehensive items and dynamic single item.In addition,it is necessary to establish open and clear consultation and evaluation mechanisms,dynamic and coordinated monitoring and regulation mechanisms,and flexible and orderly“decentralized governance” mechanisms and expand the channels and capabilities for the engagement of social forces.