Environmental Protection Issues Research Articles

Mining Industry in Canada (Opportunities and Threats)

The article contains a case study focusing on the safety procedures related to the mining industry in Canada. The purpose of the study was to identify the best mining practices in Canada. The paper contains an overview of the laws and procedures regulating the mining industry in Canada as well as the procedures for enforcing environmental and safety regulations. The procedures for changing and constantly updating the safety regulations are also being discussed. This was also done for the purpose of identifying the best practices. The article also addresses the procedure for investigating mining accidents in Canada. The article emphasizes the importance of a three-way partnership (management of the mining company, labor union, and the Ministry of Labor). That three-way partnership is important from the perspective of revising and modifying the mining safety regulations as well as enforcing those regulations. Participation of the labor union as well as the management of the mining company in updating safety regulations makes them more practical and reflective of real safety issues. Unpractical and obsolete mine safety regulations are being eliminated. The labor union and mine management feel the ownership of the mining safety regulations. This fact makes it easier to enforce new regulations. The article also focuses on environmental protection procedures. Environmental risk evaluation is conducted before a mining permit is issued. This is being done by the provincial government. During the mining operation, the Ministry of Labor is handling the environmental protection issues. The Ministry of Labor is constantly checking the compliance with the safety as well as the environmental and sustainability guidelines. Using artificial intelligence and Industry 4.0 technology is also being mentioned.

Efficient Removal of Methylene Blue by Bio-Based Sodium Alginate/Lignin Composite Hydrogel Beads.

Dye pollution is a serious issue in current environment protection, and bio-based adsorbents have been receiving much attention in wastewater treatment, due to their low cost, renewable, and environmentally friendly characteristics. Bio-based sodium alginate/lignin composite (SA/Lig) hydrogel beads were fabricated by a facile cross-linking with calcium ion and used for the removal of methylene blue (MB). The obtained SA/Lig microbeads were characterized with SEM, FTIR, and TG, and the effect of lignin content, pH, and temperature on the MB adsorption was investigated. The results indicated that the introduction of aromatic lignin can not only enhance thermal stability but also can improve the adsorption performance. Under optimal conditions, the maximum adsorption capacity (254.3 mg/g) was obtained for the SA/Lig-20% beads, with a removal efficiency of 84.8%. The adsorption process for MB is endothermic, and the rate-limiting step is chemical adsorption. The removal efficiency is higher than 90% after five cycles, revealing that the prepared beads show good regeneration ability.

Impact of continuous electrochemical degradation of eucalyptus alkaline peroxide mechanical pulping wastewater

Levels of pollutants in pulp and papermaking wastewater are an important issue for environmental protection. High concentrations of contaminants can seriously affect the environment if they are not processed. Therefore, treating paper wastewater is a necessary option for governments to select appropriate treatment methods to remove the multi-component pollutants. In this study, the impact of continuous electro-degradation of eucalyptus alkaline peroxide mechanical pulping wastewater was studied. An electrolytic treatment method performed at a low voltage was used. Through the electrolysis method, the wastewater chemical oxygen demand was decreased by 98%, and color-generating groups were nearly all destroyed. During the electrolysis process, the pH value of wastewater continuously decreased and finally reached 2.5. Lowering the pH of the waste solution will help increase the electrolysis efficiency of the wastewater. A total of 5.8 g of alkali was obtained. The wastewater precipitation before and after electrolysis was analyzed by X-ray photoelectron, Fourier transform infrared, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopies.

Strategy Analysis of Green Enterprises Based on SWOT under COVID-19 – A Case Study of Planet Super League

With the continuous deterioration of the environment, the issues of global environment protection continue prevailing and drawing more attention. Many green enterprises have emerged and taken the responsibilities. This paper uses SWOT analysis to analyze the development of Planet Super League from four aspects and put forward relevant strategic suggestions for a more sustainable development including making full use and advantage of social media, expanding business and enhancing multilateral cooperation.

Youth and Women Participation in Extractive Industries: A Cooperatives Approach to Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM)

Small scale mining largely remains an informal and unexplored economic sector. Mining is generally dominated by big players in the form of multinational corporations (MNCs) who are characterised by large scale for profit production at the expense of smaller players. In particular, the participation of youth and women in extractive industries is usually restricted to either illegal or small-scale mining. Whilst artisanal and smallscale mining (ASM) is promising and has a potential in terms of employment creation and enterprise development, this sector remains at the periphery of options and is deemed the sector of last resort for most youth and women. The sector is marked by lack of government regulation and neglect with regards to issues of safety, health and environmental protection. Observations from across the African continent and the rest of the developing world indicate that ASM is a formidable source of employment and economic development for poor communities. It could therefore be argued that for youth and women on the continent ASM proffers opportunities and thus needs to be formalised and promoted as a viable option for economic participation especially within poor communities. Using secondary data sources, this paper foregrounds the cooperatives approach, as championed across sectors in South Africa, as a tried and tested model that could be replicated across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region to complement existing policy instruments such as the SADC mining protocol and the African Union (AU) Mining Vision. This paper contends that cooperatives offer a low entrance barrier type of formalisation of ASM initiatives for youth and women whereby legal entities within the extractive industries could be established.

The Main Threats in the Practice of a Lawyer to Ensure Environmental Safety in the Context of COVID-19

The main purpose of the study is to determine the main ways to counter environmental threats, taking into account the impact of COVID-19 in the practice of a modern lawyer. To achieve this goal, we used the methodology of functional modeling and graphical display to represent the key stages and processes of counteracting the negative impact of environmental threats. Among the global problems of our time, one of the central cities occupies the issue of proper environmental protection, taking into account the peculiarities of the whole variety of its components and the impact of COVID-19. Conservation of natural resources, along with environmental well-being, is the determining factor in the comfort of human existence, ensuring the sustainability of social and economic development. The concept of harm to the environment and legal liability for such harm at the scientific level began to be developed relatively recently, which determined the relevance of the chosen issue. As a result of the study, a methodological approach was proposed to reflect the main measures to counter environmental threats on the part of practicing lawyers.

AN AUTONOMOUS BRAKING CONTROL SYSTEM FOR A 2017 YAMAHA GRIZZLY 700

Weed control is an important issue for environmental protection all around the world. Traditional hand weed control is laborious whereas chemical control is costly and a threat to the atmosphere. A chemical patch weed control system is an optimized system but lacks cheap technical equipment. This research outlines a design process and test of a braking system that can be applied during the designing of an autonomous braking system for a 2017 Yamaha Grizzly 700. The system is intended to be used as an autonomous weed chemical spraying. A bolt-on approach that did not require any manipulation of the stock, an internal braking system was followed to reduce the complexity and installation time of multiple systems. Three different types of autonomous braking system solutions were initially investigated, with the linear actuator solution being decided on through the assistance of a weighted decision matrix. The system was designed around a 30 kg hand force; however, a spare actuator of approximately 20 kg of force was repurposed and used instead. Finite element analysis concluded that all major components within the proposed system were suitable for a lifetime of at least 1,000,000 cycles with a mild steel yield stress failure criterion of 370 MPa. A stationary test for the system was conducted to determine the success of the system, which pushed the brake lever approximately 25% of its disengaged handlebar to lever length. The resulting system met the requirements of the expectation and could be used to apply the ATV’s brakes autonomously while retracting the gear interlocking mechanism enough to change gears.

COUNTRY’S GREEN BRAND: THE MAIN GAPS IN THE SCIENTIFIC TREATISES

Forming a strong brand is essential for national development. The country’s brand gives the direction for its long-term economic growth, contributes to increment in assets value and the competitive advantages, attracts more investments, tourists, etc. In the view of growing concern on climate change, environmental protection issues boost its influence on worldwide decision-making processes. In turn, the scientific community has more decisive in their statement to create a unique and robust country’s brand considering the green perspectives. However, the literature review results showed that the scholars investigate the green branding, mainly on the product or corporate level. Therefore, this study aims to assess how well the existing literature on country branding is explored from the perspective of green development. The research questions are as follows: 1) What are the main research directions in the scientific literature concerning the country’s green branding? 2) How far has the country’s green brand been investigated? 3) What research gap should be covered in the future? This study operated with the scientific documents published in the highly ranked scientific journals indexed in the Scopus database to answer the research questions. The study period covered 2000-2022 (until April 2022). The search for relevant publications was run by the keyword combinations “green brand”, “country brand”, and “nation brand” in the documents’ titles, keywords, and abstracts. The boolean operator' OR' was used to include the papers specified at least with one keyword. The obtained results revealed 545 papers on the investigated topic (225 publications on green branding and 320 publications on country/nation branding). In the frame of investigation, the authors applied Scopus analytical tools to detect the publication dynamic of a designed sample of documents, identify the most engaged authors, and assess the contributions of the affiliations and countries. To build the networks of scientific collaboration worldwide and detect the main research streams in studies on country/nation green brands, the authors used the method of the low-dimensional visualization. This study selected the keywords with the greatest total link strengths based on the calculation of the total link strengths of the co-occurrence’s links with other keywords. The counting method was full counting. The findings of bibliometric analysis confirmed that the studies on green branding mainly address the corporate level. The green brand concept is investigated mostly regarding green brand attachment, green brand attitude, green brand image, green brand love, green brand trust, green loyalty, green satisfaction, green perceived risks, value, and environmental sustainability. Therefore, it indicates the necessity to expand research on the national level. The main limitation of this study is operating with publications retrieved only from the Scopus database. However, the findings could be value-added for scholars investigating the country's green brand issues. The authors consider the obtained results to be a starting point for designing the country's green brand model and its assessment in the future.

Fuzzy risk-based allocation of pollution load using extended trading-ratio system

Abstract Today, one of the most important aspects of urban planning and management is the issue of environmental protection. It is necessary to consider the effects of urban development on the environment in urban planning to achieve sustainable economic and industrial development. In this paper, an optimal planning structure has been developed to reduce the pollution load of Khorramabad River, Lorestan Province, Iran. The developed fuzzy trading-ratio system was programmed based on risk-based fuzzy analysis for nine dischargers of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) as a water quality index and optimized using a genetic algorithm. The calibrated and verified model was utilized to simulate the BOD5 concentration at checkpoints of the river using four data sets of water quality collected from 2018 to 2021 in August (2018, 2019 and 2020 for calibration and 2021 for verification). The results showed that BOD5 exchange in the downstream stations is in critical condition. Optimization to reduce the cost of wastewater treatment showed that the proposed model could be economically improved by about 11%. The feasible domain of risk changes was assessed at three levels of 30, 60 and 90%, with the maximum value of the objective function calculated for the alcohol factory and the minimum value obtained for the flour factory.

Natural Environmental Protection Issues in Agroecology and Tourism Development

Natural Environmental Protection Issues in Agroecology and Tourism Development

Activities of the Procuratorial Bodies of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China to Ensure Legality in the Environmental Sphere

The article is devoted to topical issues of the activities of the prosecution authorities of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China to ensure the rule of law in the environmental sphere. At the same time, the approaches of the two states to ensure legality in the environmental sphere at the constitutional level, which are regulated by the Constitutions of the Russian Federation and the PRC, were studied. The achievements of the prosecutor’s office for the protection of human and civil rights in the Russian Federation for a favorable natural environment, for improving the ecological environment for people and the general ecological situation were consecrated; prevention of pollution and other dangerous phenomena for society; protection of water bodies and forests. The author analyzes the environmental legislation of China, the main laws regulating the issues of environmental protection both in the Russian Federation and in the People’s Republic of China. The existing successes in this matter are canceled and the factors that reduce the effectiveness of environmental protection activities of both the authorities of these states and the regulatory and supervisory authorities in them are indicated.

A new groundwater depth prediction model based on EMD-LSTM

Abstract Groundwater resources play an important role in life, but the lack of effective management of groundwater resources has led to a regional decline in groundwater levels. How to curb the over-exploitation of groundwater and realize the sustainable use of groundwater resources has become an important issue for ecological environmental protection. Therefore, accurate prediction of groundwater depth is an important foundation for the rational use of groundwater resources. Based on the significant advantages of empirical model decomposition (EMD) in dealing with non-smooth and nonlinear data and the long-term memory function of long and short-term memory (LSTM) network, a coupled EMD-LSTM-based groundwater prediction model is constructed and apply to groundwater depth prediction of three professional observation wells. The results show that the maximum relative error of the prediction results of the EMD-LSTM model for the three professional observation wells is 5.00% and the minimum is 0.07%. The prediction passing rate is 100% and the prediction accuracy of the coupled model for groundwater depth is higher than that of the single LSTM model and back-propagation (BP) model. In conclusion, the model has high prediction accuracy and provides an effective method for the prediction of groundwater depth. HIGHLIGHTS Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is a relatively novel data preprocessing method that can effectively reduce the non-smoothness of time series. LSTM is considered to be superior in terms of learning rate and generalization ability. The EMD-LSTM coupled model has better nonlinear and complex process learning ability in groundwater forecasting.

Economic Implications of Technological and Energy Advancement on CO2 Emission Intensity in Selected Countries

In the pursuit of economic prosperity, many countries have "sacrificed" the quality of their environment to achieve higher rates of economic growth. By focusing on established industrial practices that have destroyed the environment in the long run, they have harmed their own, as well as the global ecosystem. Within this context, the main challenge for a long-term sustainable economic policy is the intertwined focus on two goals - economic growth and environmental protection. The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of the development of environmentally related technologies, renewable energy supplies, and the total primary energy supply on the intensity of CO2 emissions based on the production within five countries in the period from 1990 to 2019. The observed countries are Italy, Germany, Croatia, Brazil, and Finland. To evaluate the relationship between the observed variables a panel analysis was used, more specifically random effect models (REM) and fixed effect models (FEM). Empirical results show that the development of environmental technologies and the supply of renewable energy have a negative impact on CO2 emissions, while the total supply of primary energy has a positive impact on CO2 emissions. The results of the research suggest that environment-related technologies and renewable energy promote the issue of environmental protection, while the overall supply of primary energy actually limits the perspective of green development.

A Smart Post-Processing System for Forecasting the Climate Precipitation Based on Machine Learning Computations

Although many meteorological prediction models have been developed recently, their accuracy is still unreliable. Post-processing is a task for improving meteorological predictions. This study proposes a post-processing method for the Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSV2) model. The applicability of the proposed method is shown in Iran for observation data from 1982 to 2017. This study designs software to perform post-processing in meteorological organizations automatically. From another point of view, this study presents a decision support system (DSS) for controlling precipitation-based natural side effects such as flood disasters or drought phenomena. It goes without saying that the proposed DSS model can meet sustainable development goals (SDGs) with regards to a grantee of human health and environmental protection issues. The present study, for the first time, implemented a platform based on a graphical user interface due to the prediction of precipitation with the application of machine learning computations. The present research developed an academic idea into an industrial tool. The final finding of this paper is to introduce a set of efficient machine learning computations where the random forest (RF) algorithm has a great level of accuracy with more than a 0.87 correlation coefficient compared with other machine learning methods.

The intertwining issues of energy security, environmental protection, and societal development

The intertwining issues of energy security, environmental protection, and societal development

High-density immobilization of potassium copper hexacyanoferrate in poly(acrylic acid)/laponite hydrogel for enhanced Cs+ removal

As the risk of radioactive waste generated in large quantities is emerging, rapid and selective removal and decontamination of cesium ions (Cs+) from nuclear waste have become a significant issue for environmental protection and human health. Herein, a novel potassium copper hexacyanoferrate (KCuHCF)-embedded poly(acrylic acid)/laponite (PAAc/Lap-HCF) hydrogel has been developed by a facile and low-cost fabrication route for highly effective and selective Cs+ adsorption. The diffusion-derived KCuHCF formation in the nanocomposite hydrogel via layer-by-layer (LBL) assembly can facilitate the preservation of the 3D-interconnected hydrogel structure and the dispersion of KCuHCF particles, which contribute to high-density immobilization of stable KCuHCF (~57.73 wt%) in the matrix. The adsorbent shows enhanced Cs+ removal properties in terms of fast kinetics (>90% removal for 20 mg/L of Cs+ within 1 h), stability (>115 mg/g in wide pH value of 2–11), high adsorption capacity (146.22 mg/g) and selectivity (Kd = 1.3 ×105 mL/g, 1 mg/L Cs+ in highly competitive seawater). Such excellent characteristics with fast kinetics are mainly due to the high ion accessibility from the inherent nature of hydrogels and the highly loaded KCuHCF particles in the composites. The adsorption kinetics and isotherm obey the pseudo-second-order model and the dual-site Langmuir adsorption model, respectively. This nanocomposite hydrogel prepared in our work shows enhanced performance on removal of Cs+ in aqueous solution, which has a good application prospect in treating radioactive wastewater.

The Forestry Industry in Papua New Guinea: Issues of Development and Environmental Protection

Papua New Guinea’s rain forest is the third-largest in the world following, the Amazon in South America and those in the Republic of Congo. So as a consequence, it represents a great storehouse of sequestering greenhouse gases, which are pivotal in controlling a rise in global temperature. The activities of the forestry industry have received opposition from environmental groups and the World Bank, but this opposition has not been welcomed by the local communities desirous of the level of development that accompanies logging operations. Recently non-governmental organization publications and media outlets have alleged that Papua New Guinea’s loggers are rampantly, increasingly, and illegally destroying the indigenous forests, earning “hundreds of millions in revenue” while refusing to pay taxes. However, it is necessary to gain some perspective on the industry by focusing on the most recent developments regarding the allegations of excessive and increased logging, and the actual revenues paid to the government and other stakeholders. This article considers these issues and recent government policy, particularly underlining the progressive export tax increase from 33percent to 55percent of the free onboard value. This article evaluates the consequences of the Government’s policies and suggests alternative ways to achieve sustainable forms of logging, which may also better satisfy the demands for increased development from local communities.

Sodium Valproate Is Effective Against Botrytis cinerea Infection of Tomato by Enhancing Histone H3 Acetylation-Directed Gene Transcription and Triggering Tomato Fruit Immune Response

Botrytis cinerea causes gray mold resulting in enormous financial loss. Fungicide resistance of B. cinerea has become a serious issue in food safety and agricultural environmental protection. Sodium valproate (SV) has been used in clinical trials; thus, it is an excellent candidate for fungicide development, considering its safety. However, the antifungal activity remains unclear. SV was effective against B. cinerea by enhancing acetylation of histone H3, including H3K9ac, H3K14ac, and H3K56ac. A transcriptomics analysis revealed that the expression of 1,557 genes changed significantly in response to SV. A pathway enrichment analysis identified 16 significant GO terms, in which molecular functions were mainly involved. In addition, the expression levels of 13 genes involved in B. cinerea virulence and five genes involved in tomato immune response were altered by the SV treatment. These results indicate that SV inhibits B. cinerea by enhancing acetylation of histone H3 and modifying gene transcription. Thus, SV is an effective, safe, potential antifungal agent for control of both pre- and postharvest losses caused by B. cinerea.

Is Digital Adoption the way forward to Curb Energy Poverty?

In the recent years, several studies have investigated the technology-emission nexus, but overlooked the effect of technology penetration and digital adoption by society, businesses, and the government. This readiness to embrace the digitization of processes is the direct outcome of technological innovation and R&D investment, particularly in matters relating to the environment by changing the energy structure in the form of electricity generation. This study, therefore, investigates the role of digital adoption in coping with the broader issue of energy poverty and environmental protection. Electricity generation from fossil fuels (EG) and the digital adoption index (DAI), and its sub-indexes are the major variables that have been used in this study. In this regard, the study assesses how the level of technology adoption in an economy essentially affects electricity generation, and consequently the climate. Our results exhibit that digital adoption leads to a reduction in electricity generation, and also indicate that digital adoption can make the environment better by bringing efficiencies in the use of electricity, and by reducing the use of fossil fuels.

A novel S-scheme heterojunction in spent battery-derived ZnFe2O4/g-C3N4 photocatalyst for enhancing peroxymonosulfate activation and visible light degradation of organic pollutant

Waste resource recovery and water pollution control are two important issues in environmental protection. In this study, ZnFe2O4 prepared from spent alkaline Zn-Mn battery was combined with g-C3N4 (CN) to form ZnFe2O4/g-C3N4 (ZFO-CN) step-scheme (S-scheme) heterojunction photocatalyst to eliminate bisphenol A (BPA) in the presence of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) under visible light (Vis, λ ≥ 400 nm). Results revealed that the ZFO-CN possessed an outstanding photocatalytic performance, which was attributed to the superior visible light harvest capacity and unique S-scheme charge transfer pathway as evidenced by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and electrochemical test. Reactive species including SO4•−, •OH, •O2−, 1O2 and h+ co-existed in the system, among which the non-radicals including 1O2 and h+ were inferred to be the predominant oxidation species based on the result of chemical quenching experiments. The effects of catalyst dosage, PMS concentration, initial pH and inorganic ion (HCO3−, Cl−, H2PO4−, NO3− or NH4+) on BPA removal were investigated. At 0.3 g L−1 ZFO-CN-0.5, 0.5 mM PMS and 60 min reaction time, more than 97.7% BPA was decomposed under visible light irradiation over a wide pH range of 3.5–9.0. This work provides a promising approach of constructing spent battery-derived spinel oxides into a high-efficiency heterojunction photocatalyst to activate PMS for practical wastewater treatment.