Future Environmental Impact Assessment Research Articles

An integrated study of Atopobathynella (Parabathynellidae, Bathynellacea) species reveals restricted distributions in a complex hydrogeological setting: two new species from the Pilbara (Australia)

Abstract The Pilbara bioregion (Western Australia) has become a hotspot for subterranean fauna as a consequence of many surveys conducted to comply with Western Australian environmental regulation requirements. In this bioregion, mining developments can have major implications for subterranean fauna and their conservation. However the diversity and species distributions of most taxa are still poorly known, including the crustacean family Parabathynellidae. Recent studies on a widespread genus of this family (Atopobathynella) from the Pilbara highlighted several undescribed taxa with interesting patterns of distribution. In the Gudai Darri locality, the northern flank of the Hamersley Range occurs as a stepped escarpment intersected by dykes and gullies, with groundwater occurring within fractured rocks abutting the Fortescue River valley, where a separate regional aquifer occurs. This investigation aimed to observe whether stygofauna species distributions (1) reflected the separation between the two major aquifers within the Hamersley Range and the Fortescue Valley; and (2) were influenced by the presence of dykes. We examined the Atopobathynella species occurring in the study area using morphological and molecular data. The results reflected the hydrogeological complexity of the study area with six new lineages of Atopobathynella, recorded mainly in different gullies, that do not share a most recent common ancestor. Two species are described here A. pagetae sp. nov. and A. lythei sp. nov., and four additional species are delineated through preliminary morphological analyses and molecular data. This study will improve future environmental impact assessments and the understanding of Parabathynellidae taxa distribution in hydrogeological complex areas.

An enhanced framework for data-based environmental impact assessment in reflection of public input

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a globally recognized tool for proactively managing dynamic development projects by identifying, predicting, and analyzing their environmental impact and proposing preventative measures. However, public participation in EIA often remains one-directional and limited to procedural hearings. To address this, a technology-driven framework enhances public involvement in EIA procedures. EIA-related newspaper articles from 1990 to 2022 were systematically collected and reviewed via web crawling. This resulted in a comprehensive list of novel data demands for future project assessments, confirmed through a meticulous examination of regulatory amendments since inception. This innovative framework transcends traditional public engagement, connecting past, present, and future EIA stakeholders. Advocacy is made for integrating these complaint-derived data demands into the national EIA database, elevating both qualitative and quantitative project assessments, and curtailing environmental impacts and social disputes. While focusing on South Korea, the framework’s principles hold global potential to enhance EIA practices.

MEASURING TOURISTS’ VISUAL PERCEPTION OF GARDENS AROUND TAIHU LAKE RIM AREA BASED ON MULTI-SOURCE DATA

Tourists’ visual preferences are of paramount importance for the local garden environment assessment. However, the diversity of garden elements presents challenges in achieving uniform assessments. This study focuses on 65 modern gardens around Taihu Lake (太湖), utilizing image semantic segmentation and the Semantic Differential (SD) method to evaluate tourists’ visual perceptions, identifying 16 perceptual indicators associated with garden elements. The research findings indicate the following: (1) Modern gardens in different cities (Wuxi, Suzhou, Huzhou) offer distinct visual experiences to tourists. (2) Through quantitative analysis of garden elements and tourists’ visual perceptions, it is revealed that middle and high-rise vegetation, hydrology, architecture, and sketch elements enhance visual aesthetics, while main road and low-rise vegetation elements result in less pronounced perceptions. This study quantitatively explores the complexities in evaluating garden aesthetics and serves as a bridge between qualitative and quantitative aspects for future garden environmental impact assessments.

Environmental Impact Assessment United States of India Using GRA Method

An environmental impact assessment examines a project's potential effects on the environment while taking into consideration natural, social, and economic factors. More than half of the nations in the world require EIA in some capacity. EIAs had much less of an impact than their initial supporters anticipated. This study institutionalizes the difference, offers methodological justifications, and suggests approaches for future EIA use that will be more successful. Extensive knowledge of environmental impact assessments (EIA) as a tool for management of the ecosystem in the future Its goals and level of success have sparked a lot of discussion. It is evaluated based on the "Performance" of EIA. In particular, the debate shifts away from issues of actual implementation and toward the most crucial EIA objectives and their placement in broader decision-making contexts. EIA's implementation of planning choices is generally weak. Empirical research has supported the effect. The goal of this paper is to address Scale weights concern COPRAS interval-valued integers. The COPRAS method is extended to MCDM issues with unknowable knowledge. It essentially establishes some optimization models based on the traditional COPRAS method's fundamental concept, the determination of scale weights. This alternative in this method has been adopted by Delhi, Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Andaman and Nicobar, Chandigarh, Lakshadweep, and the assessment criteria are Terrestrial, Aquatic, Economic, Social, and Cultural, as well as Air, Water, Soil, Noise, and Solid Waste pollution. As a result of this research Principles of the GRA technique uses the short-range and negative-best solutions to calculate the long-range answer, but the comparison of these distances is not thought to be important. Delhi has therefore been given the top ranking; Ladakh has received a poor ranking. This study demonstrates Delhi's elevated levels of air pollution.

Analyzing the effectiveness of environmental impact assessment in Paraná, Brazil and California, United States with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis and the analytical hierarchy process.

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) has become one of the most widespread environmental management instruments. Despite this, EIA is routinely criticized for being ineffective at impacting decision-making. This study compared the EIA systems of Paraná, Brazil and California, United States using the effectiveness dimensions from the EIA literature. This study formats the cases into contextual conditions using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify the necessary or sufficient conditions that cause effective outcomes. These effectiveness outcomes are then ranked by EIA stakeholders via the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to identify stakeholder priorities and to improve stakeholder management. The results show that in Paraná stakeholders identified normative effectiveness as the most important dimension, while stakeholders in California identified this dimension as the second-most important following substantive effectiveness. Public participation was found to be a necessary condition for both substantive and normative effectiveness to occur. Early project definition was found to be sufficient for substantive effectiveness and necessary for normative effectiveness, for which stakeholder coordination was a sufficient condition. This suggests that in order for EIA to influence decision-making and foster sustainable development, greater care needs to be taken to actively engage stakeholders in public participation, with clear roles and project design communicated early on, and a clear role for regulatory authority to promote stakeholder coordination for acceptable outcomes. These findings suggest that some effectiveness dimensions are caused by similar conditions, which could help focus stakeholder management efforts and point to new avenues for future EIA effectiveness research.

Environmental persistence, bioaccumulation, and hazards of chemicals in e-cigarette e-liquids: short-listing chemicals for risk assessments

Background/MethodsIncreased use and sales of e-cigarettes raises concerns about the potential environmental impacts throughout their life-cycle. However, few available research studies focus on the environmental impacts and ecotoxicity of e-cigarettes....

Aquatic environment impacts of floating photovoltaic and implications for climate change challenges

With the aggravation of global warming and the increasing demand for energy, the development of renewable energy is imminent. Floating photovoltaic (FPV) is a new form of renewable energy generation. However, the impact of FPV on the aquatic environment is still unclear. By long-term empirical monitoring and data analysis, this paper reveals the shading effect of large-scale FPV power station on aquatic environment for the first time. The results show that: (1) Compared with the non-photovoltaic (NP) zone, FPV only significantly reduces the concentration of dissolved oxygen in the photovoltaic (P) zone. (2) The concentration of chlorophyll a, nitrate nitrogen and total phosphorus increase, while pH and ammonia nitrogen decrease. FPV only causes an effect of the same order of magnitude as the initial concentration, and has no significant adverse effects on the nutritional status of the water body at a coverage ratio less than 50%. (3) FPV has a cooling effect on the water body during the daytime and a thermal insulation effect at night, with the most pronounced impact on peak water temperature (Tw). The heating and cooling process of Tw in P zone usually lags behind the NP zone by 1–3 h. The diurnal fluctuation and vertical difference of Tw as well as the stability of water body are reduced under the shading of FPV, alleviating the influence of climate change on Tw and water body stratification. (4) If 10% of the water area larger than 1 km2 in China are used to develop FPV, more than 900 million tons of CO2 emissions can be reduced, and about 5 billion m3 water can be saved, which is significant in the context of climate change. In general, this paper provides a reference for the future aquatic environmental impact assessment of FPV and the formulation of related policies.

Genetics as a novel tool in mining impact assessment and biomonitoring of critically endangered western chimpanzees in the Nimba Mountains, Guinea

AbstractWestern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) are Critically Endangered and Guinea is a key stronghold for this subspecies. However, Guinea is also rich in minerals with some of the highest‐grade iron‐ore deposits in the world. Specifically, the Nimba Mountains, home to western chimpanzees, is one of the sites under consideration for mining activities. To assess the impact of mining activities in the area, we used non‐invasive genetic sampling to estimate chimpanzee population size, sex ratio, community composition, and range boundaries on the western flank of the massif. The level of genetic diversity and affinity between communities was estimated and recommendations for future genetic censusing provided. Between 2003 and 2018, we collected 999 fecal samples of which 663 were analyzed using a panel of 26 microsatellites. We identified a minimum of 136 chimpanzees in four communities, with evidence of migratory events, a high level of shared ancestry and genetic diversity. We assessed sampling intensities and capture rates for each community. Saturation was reached in two communities with sampling between 3.2 and 4.3 times the estimated number of chimpanzees. Our findings highlight the utility of genetic censusing for temporal monitoring of ape abundance, as well as capturing migratory events and gauging genetic diversity and population viability over time. We recommend genetic sampling, combined with camera trapping, for use in future Environmental and Social Impact Assessments, as these methods can yield robust baselines for implementing the mitigation hierarchy, future biomonitoring and conservation management.

Functional trait responses to different anthropogenic pressures

There is an increasing awareness that knowledge of the functional diversity of a community is key to understand how the community responds to environmental and anthropogenic pressures. The Belgian Part of the North Sea (BPNS) represents a highly dynamic area that is subject to a variety of human activities. The main objective of this study is to investigate the usefulness of functional diversity indices and fuzzy correspondence analysis (FCA) to evaluate their applicability in assessing changes in benthic functional properties in the frame of environmental impact assessments (EIAs) for dredge disposal, sand extraction and offshore wind energy exploitation. Ten traits were selected, subdivided in 47 modalities, including both response- and effect traits. Functional diversity was quantified through different functional indices while shifts in trait composition due to anthropogenic pressure were determined by FCA. The analyses were based on a benthic dataset of 1262 samples.Results revealed that under chronic pressure of high disposal or sand extraction, the functional diversity indices – especially functional richness - showed a clear response. However, considerable variation (decrease/increase) was found for the index values between the impacted sites. Within the offshore wind farms, findings for the functional diversity indices were less pronounced. The FCA graphs revealed a shift in trait composition in all cases except for Macoma balthica and Nephtys cirrosa habitat in the dredge disposal case.The BPNS - with different types of pressure and levels of impact - provided the ideal platform to assess the potential of biological trait-based indicators. While responses are complex and dependent on several aspects such as local habitat, pressure type or level of impact, our results proved that functional trait analyses are a necessary and complementary tool in future environmental impact assessments.

한국과 유럽의 신선식품용 EPS박스에 대한 전과정 환경영향평가

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is the most commonly used fresh food refrigeration insulation in Korea and Europe. Moreover, as the use of disposable packaging materials has increased significantly along with non-face-to-face delivery services since the COVID-19 crisis, social issues related to waste disposal are also being raised. Therefore, in this study, the life cycle of EPS boxes for fresh food is focused on the factors that have a large difference between incineration and landfill including recycling in Europe and Korea in the disposal process after use, and raw materials and energy in the manufacturing process, which account for a large portion of the environmental impact value. We tried to compare the environmental impact of evaluation. Overall, the raw material production stage, box manufacturing stage, and packaging stage have similar processes in Europe and Korea, but unlike Europe, Korea, which lacks landfills and incineration facilities, has focused on expanding the recycling rate. It was necessary to do an environmental impact assessment. Data affecting the environment were derived based on 2019 and 2020 data for Korea and 2017 and 2020 data for Europe. In order to predict the future environmental impact assessment, assumptions about the disposal rate in 2025 and 2030 were introduced and evaluated. As a result of this study, it was found that the raw material production stage of EPS boxes, which have similar processes in both Korea and Europe, has the greatest effect on the global warming effect of Korean EPS boxes. However, Korea, which has a relatively high recycling rate in the disposal process compared to incineration and landfill, showed better environmental performance than Europe in most impact indicators except freshwater eutrophication. In particular, Korea has increased the overall recycling rate compared to Europe by replacing various recyclable materials such as building materials and sundries with XPS (extruded polystyrene) recycled materials. In conclusion, it was found that increasing the recycling rate rather than incinerating and landfilling EPS boxes for fresh food in the domestic EPS industry has relatively less environmental load compared to Europe.

Wildlife health in environmental impact assessments: are we missing a key metric?

Environmental impact assessments (EIAs) aim to assess the predicted effects of future projects on the environment, human health, and the economic potential of a region. They are an instrumental tool for sustainable development and to reduce the impact of large-scale industrial projects on biodiversity. The accurate assessment of the effects of projects on wildlife populations has a variety of ecological, cultural, and economic implications. However, assessments are commonly done using indirect indicators such as the predicted impact of changes in the quantity and quality of wildlife habitat and (or) predicted changes in nonspecific wildlife population metrics (e.g., relative abundance). In recent decades, the interpretation of wildlife health has moved from the classical dichotomous state of “disease presence/absence” to a broader concept that integrates the interaction of biological, social, and environmental health determinants. We sought to determine how wildlife health metrics are used in EIA processes and propose a framework to characterize, quantify, and monitor wildlife health in future EIAs. First, we performed a targeted review of EIA documents from three jurisdictions in Canada to characterize the relevance and use of “wildlife health” in these documents. Then, we reviewed case studies and research examples to understand wildlife health in different contexts associated with conservation biology to propose a framework to incorporate wildlife health into baseline monitoring and mitigation processes in EIAs. Our targeted review illustrates that while wildlife health and related terminology is often invoked in the main and specific objectives of EIAs, it is rarely tracked and quantified in EIAs and related processes. We identified approaches that can be used to effectively incorporate wildlife health in EIAs, including context-specific wildlife health metrics, participatory epidemiology, community-based sampling, and local ecological knowledge. We illustrate case studies where wildlife health can facilitate the inclusion of communities, Indigenous governments, and local ecological knowledge into the evaluation process of projects and developments and into comanagement practices of wildlife. Our work highlights the critical need to move towards incorporating wildlife health into EIA processes to provide a more direct and holistic perspective on the potential environmental impacts and improve the opportunities for early implementation of mitigation measurements.

Is crushed concrete carbonation significant enough to be considered as a carbon mitigation strategy?

When addressing concrete carbonation as a carbon mitigation option, studies leave out the effect that a temporal difference between the CO2 emissions and uptake happening throughout concrete’s life cycle have on climate change. In this study, the role played by carbonation on concrete’s carbon mitigation potential is investigated through a dynamic life cycle assessment, to properly position CO2 uptake and release. The carbon balance in concrete structures built and demolished from 2018 to 2050 is modelled as a case study. The potential uptake due to crushed concrete carbonation is over 9% of the cumulative global warming effect of concrete manufacturing. It is comparable to the reduction potential of the most promising strategy, namely replacing clinker, totaling 12%. If stimulated in a wide scale, crushed concrete carbonation can push the industry towards meeting carbon mitigation targets faster. Future environmental impact assessments should rely on dynamic models to increasingly consider this phenomenon.

<i>Corrigendum to</i>: Cryptic diversity down under: defining species in the subterranean amphipod genus <i>Nedsia</i> Barnard & Williams, 1995 (Hadzioidea: Eriopisidae) from the Pilbara, Western Australia

Amphipod crustaceans comprise a significant and enigmatic component of Australian groundwater ecosystems, particularly in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Many amphipod species in the Pilbara, including species in the genus <i>Nedsia</i> <a href="#R1">Barnard & Williams, 1995</a>, are considered short range endemics, poorly or contentiously defined by taxonomic treatments based on morphology alone and have uncertain distributions as a consequence of this taxonomy. A modern systematic revision of <i>Nedsia</i> is presented here, utilising both molecular and morphological analyses alongside distributional data to delineate species. We describe 13 new species of <i>Nedsia</i>, confirm three existing species and synonymise eight previously described species. <i>Nedsia</i> species are confirmed to be functionally morphologically cryptic, with <i>COI</i> divergences at the 5–20% level. We present comparatively reduced taxonomic descriptions for these cryptic amphipod species in an effort to provide an accelerated pathway for future taxonomic work. The research provides the basis for future environmental impact assessments involving <i>Nedsia</i> species and ongoing monitoring of the groundwater communities these form part of in the resource-rich Pilbara region.

Pilbarana, a new subterranean amphipod genus (Hadzioidea: Eriopisidae) of environmental assessment importance from the Pilbara, Western Australia

The Pilbara and nearby regions in north-western Western Australia have an exceptionally high diversity of short-range endemic invertebrates inhabiting threatened groundwater-dependent habitats. Amphipod crustaceans, in particular, are dominant in these communities, but are poorly understood taxonomically, with many undescribed species. Recent molecular phylogenetic analyses of Pilbara eriopisid amphipods have, nonetheless, uncovered a previously unknown biodiversity. In this study, we formally establish a new genus, Pilbarana Stringer & King gen. nov., and describe two new species, P. grandis Stringer & King sp. nov. from Cane River Conservation Park and P. lowryi Stringer & King sp. nov. from the Fortescue River Basin near the Hamersley Range, using a combination of molecular and morphological data. The new genus is similar morphologically to the two additional Western Australian eriopisid genera, Nedsia Barnard & Williams, 1995 and Norcapensis Bradbury & Williams, 1997, but represents a genetically divergent, reciprocally monophyletic lineage, which can be differentiated by its vermiform body shape, the presence of an antennal sinus, and by the length and form of the antennae and uropods. This research signifies an important contribution to knowledge of Pilbara subterranean communities and has critical implications for future environmental impact assessments and conservation management.

Long-term exposure to ozone and cardiovascular mortality in China: a nationwide cohort study

The evidence for a causal relationship between long-term ozone exposure and cardiovascular mortality is inconclusive, and most published data are from high-income countries. We aimed to investigate the association between long-term exposure to ozone and cardiovascular mortality in China, the most populous middle-income country. We did a nationwide cohort study comprising Chinese adults aged 18 years and older from the 2010-11 China Chronic Disease and Risk Factors Surveillance project; participants were followed up until Dec 31, 2018, or the date of death. Data on participants' deaths were obtained through linkage to the Disease Surveillance Point system, a national death registration database. Residential ozone exposure was estimated with a previously developed random forest model. We applied stratified Cox proportional hazards models to estimate the associations of ozone with mortality due to overall cardiovascular diseases, ischaemic heart disease, and stroke. The models were stratified by age and sex and adjusted for a set of individual-level and regional covariates. Warm-season average ozone concentration for the previous 1-3 years was added as a time-varying variable. We also did subgroup analyses by age, sex, level of education, smoking status, urban or rural residence, and geographical region. Data were analysed for 96 955 participants. The warm-season average ozone concentration during the follow-up period was 89·7 μg/m3 (SD 14·4). In the fully adjusted models, we observed significant and positive associations between ozone and mortality from overall cardiovascular diseases (hazard ratio [HR] 1·093 [95% CI 1·046-1·142] per 10 μg/m3 increase in warm-season ozone concentrations), ischaemic heart disease (1·184 [1·099-1·276] per 10 μg/m3 increase in warm-season ozone concentrations), and stroke (1·063 [1·002- 1·128] per 10 μg/m3 increase in warm-season ozone concentrations). After adjusting for fine particulate matter, the associations with overall cardiovascular disease and ischaemic heart disease mortality were almost unchanged, whereas the association with stroke mortality lost statistical significance. The association of long-term ozone exposure with cardiovascular mortality was more prominent in people aged 65 years and older than in those younger than 65 years. We did not find any effect modification of sex, level of education, smoking status, urban or rural residence, and geographical region. We observed an almost linear exposure-response relationship between ozone and cardiovascular mortality. This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first nationwide cohort study to show that long-term ozone exposure contributes to elevated risks of cardiovascular mortality, particularly from ischaemic heart disease, in a middle-income setting. The exposure-response function generated from this study could potentially inform future air quality standard revisions and environmental health impact assessments. National Natural Science Foundation of China.

High-resolution mapping of water photovoltaic development in China through satellite imagery

Renewable energy is crucial to address climate change and achieve carbon neutrality. Within the existing technologies, photovoltaics is one of the most promising renewable energies. However, large-scale development of photovoltaics always needs a large amount of space, competing for land with other usages. Installing photovoltaics on water surfaces such as lakes and reservoirs is one of the major solutions to solve the contradiction between photovoltaic development and land shortage. In recent years, many countries have been actively promoting the development of water photovoltaic (WPV) to reduce carbon emission and meet increased energy demand, of which China is far ahead. Mapping the spatial distribution of WPV with satellite image time series will help reveal the spatial distribution, assess the scale and future potential of national WPV development, and understand its environmental impact. However, studies and reliable spatial data on the extent and distribution of WPV are still lacking. To address this gap, we proposed a classification algorithm based on Random Forest to extract WPV features and determine the types of the WPV from the Sentinel time series. The results show that the area of WPV in China reached 165 km2 in 2019, with an average annual growth of 43.8 km2 from 2016 to 2019. Among them, Stationary Photovoltaic (SPV) accounts for 95% of the total WPV, while Floating Photovoltaic (FPV) only accounts for 5%. Based on our WPV mapping results, we estimated the installed capacity and power generation of WPV would be approximately 6911 MW and 7.8 TWh yr−1, accounting for 3.4% and 3.5% of the total cumulative installed PV capacity and total PV power generation, respectively. This study provides an efficient and robust approach for extracting WPV at a large scale. The WPV data can be a valuable supplement to official tabulate data because it contains much finer spatial information that can assist stakeholders with future WPV planning and environmental impact assessment.

Cryptic diversity down under: defining species in the subterranean amphipod genus

Amphipod crustaceans comprise a significant and enigmatic component of Australian groundwater ecosystems, particularly in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Many amphipod species in the Pilbara, including species in the genus Nedsia Barnard & Williams, 1995, are considered short range endemics, poorly or contentiously defined by taxonomic treatments based on morphology alone and have uncertain distributions as a consequence of this taxonomy. A modern systematic revision of Nedsia is presented here, utilising both molecular and morphological analyses alongside distributional data to delineate species. We describe 13 new species of Nedsia, confirm three existing species and synonymise eight previously described species. Nedsia species are confirmed to be functionally morphologically cryptic, with COI divergences at the 5–20% level. We present comparatively reduced taxonomic descriptions for these cryptic amphipod species in an effort to provide an accelerated pathway for future taxonomic work. The research provides the basis for future environmental impact assessments involving Nedsia species and ongoing monitoring of the groundwater communities these form part of in the resource-rich Pilbara region.

Environmental and carbon footprint of tourist accommodation: A comparative study of popular hotel categories in Brazil and Peru

The environmental externalities of tourist accommodation are substantial, but their scientific appraisals have been far from holistic. Existing environmental impact assessment studies focus on hotel operations and exclude indirect material inputs and outputs due to data (un)availability. Important environmental ‘hotspots’ can be ignored in the result as these are often concealed in the diversity and complexity of a hotel's products and services. This study employs the method of environmental life cycle impact assessment to appraise the environmental externalities occurring through the life cycle of four popular comfort categories of hotels (hostel, budget, upmarket and luxury) in two countries of South America (Brazil and Peru). The appraisal is facilitated by the ecoinvent database (version 3.6, Allocation cut-off by classification) and the SimaPro software (version 9.1.1). The intra-sectoral and cross-country analysis reveals correlation of the environmental and carbon footprint with hotel comfort categories. The study finds that (1) treatment of solid waste generated in hotel operations; (2) construction of the hotel building; and (3) operational energy use; generate the largest footprints across all major impact categories. The contribution of (4) consumer goods, such as furniture, electric and electronic equipment, bathroom/sanitary fixtures and carpets, is also significant. The study advocates that these operational and non-operational material inputs and outputs should be accounted for in future environmental and carbon impact assessments of hotels. The study provides the first benchmarks of major embodied, indirect environmental and carbon impacts of hotels that can be used, with appropriate adjustments, in future research.

Quantifying the effects of tidal turbine array operations on the distribution of marine mammals: Implications for collision risk

Owing to their predictability, tidal currents are an attractive source of renewable energy. However, data on the environmental impacts, especially at array scale, are lacking. We present a spatial analysis of telemetry data, identifying the effects of the presence and operations of the world's first commercial sized tidal turbine array on the movements of an acoustically sensitive marine mammal; the harbour seal (Phoca vitulina). No significant change in at sea distribution was detected between pre and post installation of the 4 turbine array. However, seals showed overt avoidance responses during turbine operations, with a significant decrease in predicted abundance (95% CIs: −11%, −49%) within ∼2 km of the array. These results provide important information for estimating collision rates between seals and tidal turbine arrays and demonstrate an analytical framework which can be used to assess the effect of arrays on other marine animal distributions. Collision risk models used to estimate collision rate between tidal turbines and marine mammals traditionally assume some non-empirical degree of avoidance, or no avoidance. The avoidance response elicited by seals to these devices could reduce the likelihood of direct collisions, with estimated avoidance rates measured here suggesting a decrease in total number of between 0.4% and 2% per annum. Further, given sustained barrier effects were not identified, avoidance may only be occurring during the potentially dangerous periods during operations thereby not restricting movement through the site at all times. However, future environmental impact assessments and spatial planning for array deployments should consider the potential for repulsion of acoustically sensitive top-predators away from ecologically important sites.

Life cycle assessment of lithium‐ion battery recycling using pyrometallurgical technologies

Among existing and emerging technologies to recycle spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) from electric vehicles, pyrometallurgical processes are commercially used. However, very little is known about their environmental and energy impacts. In this study, three pyrometallurgical technologies are analyzed and compared in terms of global warming potential (GWP) and cumulative energy demand (CED), namely: an emerging direct current (DC) plasma smelting technology (Sc-1), the same DC plasma technology but with an additional pre-treatment stage (Sc-2), and a more commercially mature ultra-high temperature (UHT) furnace (Sc-3). The net impacts for the recovered metals are calculated using both “open-loop” and “closed-loop” recycling options. Results reveal that shifting from the UHT furnace technology (Sc-3) to the DC plasma technology could reduce the GWP of the recycling process by up to a factor of 5 (when employing pre-treatment, as is the case with Sc-2). Results also vary across factors, for example, different metal recovery rates, carbon/energy intensity of the electricity grid (in Sc-1 and Sc-2), rates of aluminum recovery (in Sc-2), and sources of coke (in Sc-3). However, the sensitivity analysis showed that these factors do not change the best option which was determined before (as Sc-2) except in a few cases for CED. Overall, the research methodology and application presented by this life cycle assessment informs future energy and environmental impact assessment studies that want to assess existing recycling processes of LIB or other emerging technologies. This article met the requirements for a gold–silver JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.