High Environmental Costs Research Articles

Women and Men With Care Responsibilities in the Austrian Alps: Activity and Mobility Patterns of a Diverse Group

Accessibility in rural Austrian areas is more restricted than in urban regions. Limited accessibility leads to social exclusion. Therefore, mobility should be inclusive, allowing everyone to satisfy mobility needs and reach destinations. Mobility should also be environmentally friendly. Use of a private car offers opportunities for comprehensive mobility but is related with high individual, social, and environmental costs. We studied the interplay between employment, care, and mobility variables among people in the foothills of the European Alps in Lower Austria who are employed and have care responsibilities, assuming them to be a group with complex mobility needs and high vulnerability. The aim was to derive policy recommendations to decrease their car dependency and ensure accessibility. Adopting a mixed methods approach, we conducted a tailored quantitative and qualitative survey, using cluster analysis to derive relevant patterns. Within the group under analysis, 5 subgroups were identified: persons in 2 clusters worked more and cared less, with significant differences in commuting distances. Persons of 2 further clusters cared more and worked less, with one group caring for very young children, and the other working and caring a lot. Persons in the fifth cluster cared for elderly people, had low caring duties, and almost no pickup/drop-off trips; almost all had full-time jobs. Significant gender differences existed in the identified activity patterns. Results showed that responsibility for care is still mainly with women, even if they are increasingly seeking employment. Recommendations in 3 major fields of action were derived, comprising: measures to support the mobility of persons responsible for care, measures to support the autonomy of cared persons' mobility, and measures to reduce the mobility needs of both groups. Even if respondents are satisfied with how they manage their care tasks and employment by car, higher shares of walking, cycling, and public transport seem to be necessary and feasible.

Partitioning United States' feed consumption among livestock categories for improved environmental cost assessments

SUMMARYThe high environmental costs of raising livestock are now widely appreciated, yet consumption of animal-based food items continues and is expanding throughout the world. Consumers' ability to distinguish among, and rank, various interchangeable animal-based items is crucial to reducing environmental costs of diets. However, the individual environmental burdens exerted by the five dominant livestock categories – beef, dairy, poultry, pork and eggs – are not fully known. Quantifying those burdens requires splitting livestock‘s relatively well-known total environmental costs (e.g. land and fertilizer use for feed production) into partial categorical costs. Because such partitioning quantifies the relative environmental desirability of various animal-based food items, it is essential for environmental impact minimization efforts to be made. Yet to date, no such partitioning method exists. The present paper presents such a partitioning method for feed production-related environmental burdens. This approach treated each of the main feed classes individually – concentrates (grain, soy, by-products; supporting production of all livestock), processed roughage (mostly hay and silage) and pasture – which is key given these classes' widely disparate environmental costs. It was found that for the current US food system and national diet, concentrates are partitioned as follows: beef 0·21±0·112, poultry 0·27±0·046, dairy 0·24±0·041, pork 0·23±0·093 and eggs 0·04±0·018. Pasture and processed roughage, consumed only by cattle, are 0·92±0·034 and 0·87±0·031 due to beef, with the remainder due to dairy. In a follow-up paper, the devised methodology will be employed to partition total land, irrigated water, greenhouse gases and reactive nitrogen burdens incurred by feed production among the five edible livestock categories.

A Curse of Coal? Exploring Unintended Regional Consequences of Coal Energy in The Czech Republic

Abstract Focusing on coal energy from a geographical perspective, the unintended regional consequences of coal mining and combustion in the Czech Republic are discussed and analysed in terms of the environmental injustice and resource curse theories. The explorative case study attempts to identify significant associations between the spatially uneven distribution of coal power plants and the environmental and socioeconomic characteristics and development trends of affected areas. The findings indicate that the coal industries have contributed to slightly above average incomes and pensions, and have provided households with some technical services such as district heating. However, these positive effects have come at high environmental and health costs paid by the local populations. Above average rates of unemployment, homelessness and crime indicate that the benefits have been unevenly distributed economically. A higher proportion of uneducated people and ethnic minorities in affected districts suggest that coal energy is environmentally unjust.

Environmentally benign technology for efficient warm-white light emission.

Nowadays efficient down conversion for white light emission is mainly based on rare-earth doped phosphors or cadmium-containing quantum dots. Although they exhibit high luminescence efficiency, the rare-earth mining and cadmium pollution have so far led to extremely high environmental cost, which conflicts the original purpose of pursuing efficient lighting. Here, we explore a new strategy to achieve efficient luminescence conversion based on polymer-decorated nanoparticles. The ZnO and Mn2+ doped ZnS nanoparticles are encapsulated by poly(9,9-di-n- hexylfluorenyl-2,7-diyl). The resultant core-shell nanocomposites then encompass three UV-to-visible luminescence conversion routes for photon emissions at blue, green, and orange colors, respectively. As a result, the color temperature is widely tunable (2100 K ~ 6000 K), so candle light or pure white light can be generated. The quantum yield up to 91% could also be achieved. Such rare-earth-element free nanocomposites give the bright perspectives for energy-saving, healthy, and environmentally benign lighting.

Modelling environmental and socio‐economic trade‐offs associated with land‐sparing and land‐sharing approaches to oil palm expansion

Summary The effectiveness of land‐sharing and land‐sparing approaches has been widely debated. Yet, few studies quantify the environmental and socio‐economic outcomes of these approaches within a real‐world landscape. Indonesia's plans to increase its palm oil production present an opportunity to investigate the potential environmental and socio‐economic implications of the land‐sharing and sparing approaches. We developed a computer model to simulate the expansion of oil palm agriculture in Sumatra, Indonesia, under four different scenarios distinguishable by the dominance of scheme smallholders or industrial estates: business‐as‐usual, BAU (25 : 75, scheme smallholders:industrial estates); high‐yielding industry dominated, ESTATE (10 : 90); low‐yielding smallholder dominated, SMALLHOLDER (40 : 60), high‐yielding smallholder dominated, HYBRID (40 : 60; but with improved smallholder yields). Our results reveal several trade‐offs associated with varying the proportion of scheme smallholders and productivity of oil palm plantations. The ESTATE scenario (reflecting land‐sparing) resulted in lowest environmental costs in terms of forest conversion, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity losses and nitrogen fertilizer usage. Additionally, infrastructural development and tax revenues were highest under the land‐sparing approach, though fewer jobs were created. The SMALLHOLDER scenario (indicating land‐sharing) resulted in highest environmental costs in terms of forest conversion, carbon dioxide emissions and biodiversity losses but involved more households in oil palm agriculture and thus created more employment opportunities. The HYBRID scenario ranked second best in terms of both minimizing forest loss and job creation. However, the drawbacks of this approach included high nitrogen fertilizer consumption, lower infrastructural development and lower tax revenues. Synthesis and applications. From an environmental perspective, it is far more important to implement spatial restrictions on oil palm expansion over forests since increasing the productivity of smallholdings and industrial estates among the four scenarios examined show minimal differences to biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions. The hybrid approach shows that increasing the proportion of scheme smallholders need not come at a great environmental cost for achieving Indonesia's palm oil production target. From a policy perspective, this hybrid approach requires a change in legislation to increase the minimum land area an industrial estate owner must allocate to scheme smallholders (40%), as well as increased support to improve productivity in oil palm smallholdings.

Ambitious development on fragile foundations: Criticalities of current large dam construction in Afghanistan

High social, environmental and financial costs of dam construction during the past century provide valuable lessons for improving large infrastructure governance and enhancing dam safety. The Italian Vajont dam tragedy in 1963, for example, where the urgency to boost post-war economic development overruled cautionary site selection and reservoir filling, led to improved safety regulations. Today, Afghanistan is facing similar pressure to spur economic development. Revisiting Afghanistan’s own dam history may inform decision-making over large scale dam development. For this, we refer to dam development in Afghanistan during the Cold War institutional constellation, which combined with the discourse on the role of dams in state formation, modernisation and development, profoundly shaped Afghanistan’s landscape. Current dam development shows little evidence that any historic reflection is taking place; instead the discourse of infrastructure-as-prerequisite-for-development is consistently repeated. We argue that four factors compromise dam development in Afghanistan today: (1) lack of security; (2) an institutional context under transition; (3) absence of transboundary dialogue and agreements and (4) uncertain and fragmented aid provision. The complexity of dam development and operation is exacerbated by the extended temporal and spatial scale of their impact, thus placing a heavy burden on management- and planning capacity. Given these conditions, these dam development plans are built on fragile institutional foundations. To address their feasibility under such circumstances this paper links lessons from the past with the criticalities in future Afghan dam development.

Fermentation process and physicochemical treatment applied to dairy industry: an approach for waste management (production and use) and new perspectives in the transformation of these residues in value-added products


 Pesquisas apontam várias iniciativas para reduzir a carga poluidora de resíduos da indústria láctea, os quais podem levar a uma maior sustentabilidade, diminuição dos impactos ambientais, bem como redução dos custos de tratamento. Este revisão fornece um compilado de recentes estratégias, baseadas em tratamentos físicoquímicos e processos fermentativos, para a produção de compostos de valor agregado tais como proteínas bioativas, ribonucleotídeos, plásticos biodegradáveis, biogás, hidrogênio, ácidos orgânicos e etanol. Este estudo também examinará aspectos gerais dos processos fermentativos, bem como uma análise de custos ambientais e aspectos de produção dos resíduos lácteos. O potencial poluidor, bem como os altos custos ambientais de resíduos produzidos pela indústria láctea, pode ser reduzido pelo manejo destes resíduos lácteos.

Environmental and Health Impact of Solid Mineral Exploration and Exploitation in South-Northern Nigeria: A Case Study of Igarra in Edo State

The act of quarrying/mining and the subsequent processing and transporting of these raw materials are greatly hampered by high environmental and health costs. This is observable at the quarry sites, processing factories and the surrounding environments. It is important to state that the environment of the northern part of Edo State has suffered in many areas where exploitation of earth resources by quarrying method and the subsequent processing are carried out. This was revealed from the fieldwork. The importance of these minerals to the nation’s economy cannot be undermined. There is no wisdom therefore to suggest that mining activities be eliminated in order to sustain the quality of the environment. What should be done is for the government, industrial prospectors and environmentalists to take precautionary and remedial measures that can minimize the ill-effects of mineral development. Emphasis should shift to sustainable exploitation of the resources, while the enforcement agency should ensure that quarrying and mining of rocks by the industrial prospectors are in line with the Quarry Act of Nigeria 1979.

Urban Water Management: Best Practice Cases

Current water resources management practices in most developing countries result in unnecessarily high economic and environmental costs. The magnitude and consequences of such costs have spurred the emergence of a global consensus on principles for improving water resource management. India will face an acute scarcity of water by 2025, more than most nations in the developing world. There is compelling evidence that improved water resources policies can have major impacts. In a number of cases in developed and developing countries pricing and tariff combined with regulations have produced savings of 20% to 30% and more. Improving water management will require that developing countries address the major constraints that currently undermine the allocation and efficient use of their water resources. Experiences in both developing and developed countries, as presented in this article, showed that improved policies for conservation and reallocation can have major benefits. The concerned authorities should look for various alternatives such as rainwater harvesting, recycling of wastewater, reducing un-accounted water and other options. Rainwater harvesting should be made compulsory; wastewater reuse has to be made with dual water supply system for new layouts. As the suburbs in the city are increasing day by day, rainwater harvesting would be able to serve the city for much longer time.

Influence of amount and form of sorghum in the diet on the performance of overfed geese

SUMMARY Feeding has high economic and environmental costs in poultry production. The feeding of waterfowl for fatty liver production is largely based on the use of maize as an energy source. The aim of this trial was to study the effect of the form of presentation (whole grain or flour) and the amount (40.5, 56, or 100%, depending on the form) of sorghum in the overfeeding diet on the performance of geese. During overfeeding, a diet mainly composed of sorghum reduced the FCR of the geese and increased the weight of fatty liver, but reduced their commercial grading. The use of sorghum during geese overfeeding offers interesting prospects for a more sustainable fatty liver production system. Indeed, it could reduce the environmental effect of goose feeding while improving the flexibility of production systems, making it possible to use a cereal other than maize for overfeeding.

Value of ecosystem hydropower service and its impact on the payment for ecosystem services

Hydropower is an important service provided by ecosystems. We surveyed all the hydropower plants in the Zagunao River Basin, Southwest China. Then, we assessed the hydropower service by using the InVEST (The Integrated Value and Tradeoff of Ecosystem Service Tools) model. Finally, we discussed the impact on ecological compensation. The results showed that: 1) hydropower service value of ecosystems in the Zagunao River Basin is 216.29Euro/hm2 on the average, of which the high-value area with more than 475.65Euro/hm2 is about 750.37km2, accounting for 16.12% of the whole watershed, but it provides 53.47% of the whole watershed service value; 2) ecosystem is an ecological reservoir with a great regulation capacity. Dams cannot completely replace the reservoir water conservation function of ecosystems, and has high economic and environmental costs that must be paid as well. Compensation for water conservation services should become an important basis for ecological compensation of hydropower development. 3) In the current PES cases, the standard of compensation is generally low. Cascade development makes the value of upstream ecosystem services become more prominent, reflecting the differential rent value, and the value of ecosystem services should be based on the distribution of differentiated ecological compensation.

Seasonality and dietary requirements: will eating seasonal food contribute to health and environmental sustainability?

Eating more seasonal food is one proposal for moving towards more sustainable consumption patterns, based on the assumption that it could reduce the environmental impact of the diet. The aim of the present paper is to consider the implications of eating seasonal food on the different elements of sustainability (i.e. health, economics, society), not just the environment. Seasonality can be defined as either globally seasonal (i.e. produced in the natural production season but consumed anywhere in the world) or locally seasonal (i.e. produced in the natural production season and consumed within the same climatic zone). The environmental, health, economic and societal impact varies by the definition used. Global seasonality has the nutritional benefit of providing a more varied and consistent supply of fresh produce year round, but this increases demand for foods that in turn can have a high environmental cost in the country of production (e.g. water stress, land use change with loss of biodiversity). Greenhouse gas emissions of globally seasonal food are not necessarily higher than food produced locally as it depends more on the production system used than transportation. Eating more seasonal food, however, is only one element of a sustainable diet and should not overshadow some of the potentially more difficult dietary behaviours to change that could have greater environmental and health benefits (e.g. reducing overconsumption or meat consumption). For future guidelines for sustainable diets to be realistic they will need to take into account modern lifestyles, cultural and social expectations in the current food environment.

Research Articles: Rent-Seeking Obstacles to Changing Environmental Practices and Sustainable Public Procurement in China

Over the last 30 years China has enjoyed economic growth averaging about 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) per year. But this economic growth has come at a high environmental cost. In China appro...

Life cycle assessment of a ventilated facade with PCM in its air chamber

In the buildings sector, the use of ventilated double skin facades in order to reduce the energy demand and the environmental impact of the building during its operational phase has grown significantly. However, the use of this constructive system could lead to high environmental costs during the manufacturing and dismantling phase of the building. This paper presents a life cycle assessment (LCA) study based on the EcoIndicator 99 of a ventilated facade with PCM in its air chamber. Two cubicles were built in an experimental set-up located in Puigverd de Lleida (Spain), one with this ventilated facade system and the other without. The differences in the electrical energy consumption of the HVAC systems were registered and used to determine the environmental savings produced during the operational phase of each building. The results of the LCA show that considering a lifetime of 50years, the use of this particular ventilated facade reduces by 7.7% the overall environmental impact of the whole building. It also highlights that the environmental payback of this active system is significantly lower than other systems which use PCM in the building envelopes. The environmental payback of the system is 30years, which can be reduced to only 6years if instead steel wood would have been used in the structure.

Crop Diversification: A Potential Strategy To Mitigate Food Insecurity by Smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa

As of 2010, about 239 million people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) were projected to be undernourished. With this figure expected to rise, concerted efforts to boost food production at the realm of global challenges such as climate instability and decline of nonrenewable resources are imperative. Food production in SSA presently faces the unprecedented challenge of producing sufficient and healthy food for the surging human population, while seeking to conserve the environment and reduce the use of nonrenewable resources and energy. Although over the past half century conventional agriculture has generally improved agricultural production in many parts of the world, this has come at high economic and environmental costs since intensive agriculture relies heavily on off-farm inputs. Conventional agriculture is also dependent on the use of specific crop varieties or hybrids that have been bred specifically to exploit high-input conditions. Conversely, crop varieties used in high-input systems are not often adapted to low-input farming, a key element of many smallholder farming systems. The exploitation of crop genetic diversity as a strategy to increase food production by smallholders in SSA and elsewhere in the world has not been critically examined. This aspect may provide new insights to global food insecurity since crop diversification is a fundamental tool for improving yield stability and crop resilience under changing climatic conditions.

An Analysis of Developments and Challenges in Nutrient Management in China

During the past 50 years, China has successfully realized food self-sufficiency for its rapidly growing population. Currently, it feeds 22% of the global population with 9% of the global area of arable land. However, these achievements were made at high external resource use and environmental costs. The challenge facing China is to further increase food production while drastically decreasing the environmental costs of food production. Here we review the major developments in nutrient management in China over the last 50 years. We briefly analyze the current organizational structure of the "advisory system" in agriculture, the developments in nutrient management for crop production, and the developments in nutrient management in animal production. We then discuss the nutrient management challenges for the next decades, considering nutrient management in the whole chain of crop production-animal production-food processing-food consumption by households. We argue that more coherent national policies and institutional structures are required for research extension education to be able to address the immense challenges ahead. Key actions include nutrient management in the whole food chain concomitant with a shift in objectives from food security only to food security, resource use efficiency, and environmental sustainability; improved animal waste management based on coupled animal production and crop production systems; and much greater emphasis on technology transfer from science to practice through education, training, demonstration, and extension services.

Present and future climate resources for various types of tourism in the Bay of Palma, Spain

The Bay of Palma, in Mallorca, is a leading region for beach holidays in Europe. It is based on a mass tourism model strongly modulated by seasonality and with high environmental costs. Main tourism stakeholders are currently implementing complementary activities to miti- gate seasonality, regardless of climate change. But climate is—and will remain—a key resource or even a limitation for many types of tourism. Assessing the present conditions and exploring the future evolution of climate potential for these activities have become a priority in this area. To this end, the climate index for tourism (CIT)—originally designed to rate the climate resource of beach tourism—is adapted to specifically appraise cycling, cultural tourism, football, golf, motor boating, sailing and hiking. Climate resources are derived by using observed and projected daily meteorological data. Projections have been obtained from a suite of Regional Climate Models run under the A1B emissions scenario. To properly derive CITs at such local scale, we apply a statistical adjustment. Present cli- mate potentials ratify the appropriateness of the Bay of Palma for satisfactorily practicing all the examined activ- ities. However, optimal conditions are projected to degrade during the peak visitation period while improving in spring and autumn. That is, climate change could further exac- erbate the present imbalance between the seasonal distri- butions of ideal climate potentials and high attendance levels. With this information at hand, policy makers and regional tourism stakeholders can respond more effectively to the great challenge of local adaptation to climate change.

Solar energy potential atlas for planning energy system off-grid electrification in the Republic of Djibouti

Nowadays, energy supply of rural populations is one of the most important challenges in African developing countries, and more particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. With only one third of the population connected to the grid and the high economical and environmental cost of classical energy resources, the use of renewable energies within the rural energy supply pattern is a reliable alternative solution to improve human development of remote populations. Djibouti is a little poor country of Sub-Saharan Africa which perfectly symbolizes this way of life. Electrification rate is only about 30% and the important scattering of rural peoples throughout the country makes grid extension and fuel transportation unsuitable economic solutions to carry energy. The geographically diffused solar resource can therefore be an interesting mean to produce energy where it is consumed.The aim of this study was the creation of the first Djibouti’s global horizontal irradiation atlas, including assessment and improvement. To realize this atlas, a satellite-derived irradiance model was used (EUMETSAT O&SI SAF). To validate this model over Djibouti, we installed two temporary weather stations during the year 2010 in Djibouti-city and Dikhil and we compared hourly, daily and monthly irradiation estimates against ground-based measurements. Results showed a good agreement between measures and estimates, with a maximum Relative Root Mean Squared Error (RRMSE) over the hourly solar atlas of 12.43% and 15.44%, for Dikhil and Djibouti-city respectively.In order to improve geographic information and accuracy of this solar atlas, we then disaggregated irradiation maps with a 3arcsec (∼90m at the equator) Digital Elevation Model (DEM), by taking into consideration terrain-related shading effects and elevation gradient. As current software solutions do not allow downscaling of preprocessed maps, we performed this work by computing our own global model, combination of horizon, elevation correction and irradiance splitting models. The horizon model we developed was assessed and compared with other existing models by using a theodolite in mountainous areas of Corsica.Finally, according to the final computed atlas, during the year 2010, mean irradiation all over the country was around 2100kWh/m2 and about 82% of the country received over 2000kWh/m2. Furthermore, the solar radiation reaching Djibouti corresponded to 20,000 times the total yearly energy consumption of the country in 2005. The retrieved irradiation maps can be used to evaluate relevance of the solar resource over rural areas of the country, and implemented within energy models in order to size stand-alone solar systems.

Simple Metal-catalyst-free Production of Carbon Nanostructures

We report the metal-catalyst-free production of multiwalled carbon nanotubes and nanobubbles, in a chemical reduction of hexachlorobenzene by metallic sodium, giving high yields (in excess of 80 %) and at temperatures as low as 190°C for multiwalled carbon nanotubes and 100°C for nanobubble formation. The carbon nanotube samples produced under solvothermal conditions were found to consist of large bundles of nanotubes (>50 µm) consistent with a facial growth from the surface of the molten metal. Meanwhile, the nanobubbles produced under ambient pressure were found to be small (≤1 µm), polydispersed (smallest ~50 nm), and the bulk to have a large microporous area. With the regulatory complexities and high environmental and economic costs of remediating waste containing highly hazardous halogenated aromatic chemicals, necessitating high-temperature incineration under strictly controlled conditions, this low-temperature, low-cost chemical degradation of hexachlorobenzene is of great potential as a scalable and workable remediation technology.

An Investigation into the Level of Preparedness of Artisanal Small-Scale Gold Mining Operations (ASGM) in Mahdia to Transform the MercuryFree Mining Techniques

The use of mercury by artisanal small-scale gold miners has resulted in high humanhealth and environmental costs. As a result, mercury usefulness is on the decline to foster more effective and reliable environmentally-friendly alternatives. The artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) sector contributes significantly as a source of income for thousands of people and a significant source of employment in Guyana. However, extensive uncontrolled mining operations are causing significant environmental, health and socio-cultural problem. The aim of this study was to examine the preparedness of ASGM operations in Mahdia, Guyana in transforming to mercury-free mining technologies. A mixed method approach of both quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (interviews) techniques was used for the collection of data. Analysis showed that the majority of the surveyed population was largely unprepared to adopt mercury alternatives, 49% were somewhat prepared and 30% were not prepared. While artisanal small-scale gold miners have little knowledge of the dangers of mercury, most believe mercury use to be dangerous. Awareness programmes may help to address reluctance to adopt mercury-free technologies and promote preparedness to phase out mercury in this sector.