Legal Construction Of Urban Soil Environmental Management System And Local Practice In Shanghai

In the context of comprehensively promoting the construction of ecological civilization, most cities in China are in a new stage of industrial transformation and upgrading, and urban development is facing such real difficulties as the risk of contaminated sites. In addition, the urban soil environmental problems are made to be more and more serious by both the great changes in the life style of urban residents and the gradual increase in the development and utilization strength of land resources. However, there has been no special legislation, whether national or local, on soil environmental protection yet, and the urban soil environmental administration system has not been effectively established or played its due role. As one of the key elements of the future local legislation on soil environmental protection, the construction of efficient administration system with distinct subject and clear responsibilities may not only effectively improve the urban government’s ability to control the soil environment, but also become more conducive to promote the development of soil environmental protection works. Focusing on the soil pollution of central urban area and taking the local legislation practice in Shanghai as an example, this paper mainly discusses and explores to construct the urban soil environmental administration system in accordance with Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on Soil Environmental Protection, in which system the "line management by environmental protection departments" and "urban grid management" are combined and the multi-governance concept is reflected, so as to provide useful inspiration for Shanghai and even most cities in China. This paper is composed of five chapters:In Chapter 1, on the basis of analyzing the development trend of urbanization, the problems of urban soil environment and its risks, the connotation of urban soil environmental administration system is proposed. It is believed by combing the existing legal provisions in China that the urban soil environmental administration system which "combines unified administration with administration at various levels and by various departments" has been established preliminarily.In Chapter 2, on basis of analyzing the legislation background, development condition and administration system of urban soil environmental protection in such countries as the United States, Canada and Japan, the foreign experiences and lessons are summarized.In Chapter 3, three major foundations are pointed out for the construction of urban soil environmental administration system:both the natural and social natures of soil shall be considered to make the ecological protection and pollution control unified; the relations between the government, market and society shall be coordinated, as well as the relationship between the unified management and the specialized division of labor; basic principles shall be mastered for the construction of urban soil environmental administration system.In Chapter 4, the basic situation is introduced of the urbanization and soil environment in Shanghai, and the legislation practices are reviewed of soil environmental protection in Shanghai. In addition, the status quo of soil environmental administration system in Shanghai is analyzed, especially in the environmental protection departments. Furthermore, it is pointed out that the major legal difficulties in Shanghai shall include the defect legal systems, the authority conflict of the management departments and the poor public participation.In Chapter 5, the legal approaches are explored for the construction of soil environmental administration system in Shanghai. It is proposed to accelerate the introduction of Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on Soil Environmental Protection, and to promote the construction of soil environmental standards; with respect to the contents of management system, it is proposed to implement a management system in which line management by environmental protection departments and urban grid management are combined, to conduct the power list system to define the duty boundaries of government departments, and to establish a special coordination institution; with respect to the improvement of operation mechanism, it is advised to reinforce the environmental responsibility of local governments, to improve the public participation mechanism, and to enhance the effectiveness of soil environmental management with the "big data" concept.