PARENT SESSION
Special Session 7: Social capacity development for environmental management: International cooperation and ecological solution
Organized by: S HONG and N NAKAGOSHI
Monday, August 8, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Exhibit Hall 210a-e, Level 2, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Benchmarking social capacity for environmental management for China, Japan and the Untied States.

Kabir, Jobaid^*,1, ¹ Lower Colorado River Authority, Austin, Texas, USA

ABSTRACT- Today the United States is doing a fairly decent job of protecting its environment, due to its high social capacity for environmental management. It took several decades to build the social capacity Untied States enjoys today. Since the passage of Clean Air Act in 1963 by the Congress, it took over a decade for citizens to fully realize the importance of adequate care of the environment for a sustainable development. Although the regulatory framework had a late start, in recent years social capacity of Japan exceeded that of the Untied States. China on the other hand started to industrialize only a couple of decades ago. But due to high population pressure with double digit industrial growth rate, demand on environment is high in China. As a result, environment has taken a toll and stress on the environment exceeded its sustainable capacity. In order to cope with the situation, during the past several years Chinese government has aggressively addressed environmental protection. Also environmental awareness of the population is also increasing steadily. As a result social capacity of China has increased dramatically during the past ten years. China also took lessons from the mistakes United States and Japan made in the past for environmental protection. As a result the rate of increase of social capacity of China during the past decade has far exceeded those of Japan and the United States. Purpose of this paper is to benchmark social capacity of these three countries for environmental management.

Key words: Becnhmark, Capacity, Environment, Management