Search results for "Environmental engineering"
showing 10 items of 2674 documents
Disposal of green roofs: A contribution to identifying an “Allowed by legislation” end–of–life scenario and facilitating their environmental analysis
2022
The rapid and widespread deployment of green roofs requires the need to address their disposal and to assess the environmental impact of this phase of their life cycle to understand whether their current large-scale application may pose a problem. A review of the literature on green roofs environmental performance (particularly Life Cycle Assessment studies) has highlighted the lack of a standardized, commonly adopted, procedure for determining the treatments, recovery and/or disposal, to be assigned to waste from the removal of green roofs. In this regard, it should be mentioned that there is a lack of ad hoc legislation on the disposal of this technology (to the best of the authors’ knowl…
Treatment of heavy petroleum hydrocarbons polluted soil leachates by ultrafiltration and oxidation for surfactant recovery
2018
Abstract Surfactant technology can improve the remediation of soils polluted by semivolatile hydrophobic contaminants, like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), by enhancing their solubility in water. However, the recovery of surfactant from soil-leachates is critical for the economic feasibility of this treatment technology. To tackle this issue, ultrafiltration (UF) and its combination with permanganate, is reported for the selective recovery of surfactant from wastewater contaminated by a complex mixture of heavy hydrocarbons mainly composed of PAHs. The overall performance of the process including the successive steps of contaminant mobilization in leachates and surfactant recovery …
Current European approaches in highway runoff management: A review
2022
Highway runoff is one of the most significant non-point sources of pollution for the terrestrial and aquatic environment with biological, physical, and chemical effects. Considering local characteristics, treatment practices, and determining factors are essential for highway runoff management. The aim of this paper is to survey the review of highway runoff management in Europe with emphasis on runoff characterization, treatment, and modeling approaches and identifying possible knowledge gaps exists based on our review. The results showed that highway runoff has spatiotemporal variation, which is the main factor in the regional selection of the best management practice (BMP). Also, recent st…
Evaluating the effects of forest tree species on rill detachment capacity in a semi-arid environment
2021
Abstract The beneficial effects of plant roots in decreasing soil detachment in forest ecosystems exposed to rill erosion are well known. However, these effects vary largely between different plant species. There has been lots of research into the relationship between root-soil systems and rill erodibility with a particular focus on grass species. Conversely, fewer studies are available for tree species, especially in forests of semi-arid or arid environments. Greater knowledge is therefore needed to identify the most effective tree species against rill erosion in these ecosystems, where water availability is the limiting factor for vegetation growth and afforestation is often the only solu…
Unsteady State Water Level Analysis for Discharge Hydrograph Estimation in Rivers with Torrential Regime: The Case Study of the February 2016 Flood E…
2017
Discharge hydrograph estimation during floods, in rivers with torrential regime, is often based on the use of rating curves extrapolated from very low stage-discharge measurements. To get a more reliable estimation, a reverse flow routing problem is solved using water level data measured in two gauged stations several kilometers from each other. Validation of the previous analysis carried out on the flood event of February 2016 at the Europa Bridge and Castiglione Scalo sections of the Crati River (Cosenza, Italy) is based on the use of 'soft' discharge measurement data and the comparison of the water level data computed in the downstream gauged section by three different hydraulic models w…
Methane potential of sterilized solid slaughterhouse wastes.
2012
Abstract The aim of the current study was to determine chemical composition and methane potential of Category 2 and 3 solid slaughterhouse wastes rendering products (SSHWRP) viz. melt, decanter sludge, meat and bone meal (MBM), technical fat and flotation sludge from wastewater treatment. Chemical analyses showed that SSHWRP were high in protein and lipids with total solids (TS) content of 96–99%. Methane yields of the SSHWRP were between 390 and 978 m3 CH4/t volatile solids (VS)added. Based on batch experiments, anaerobic digestion of SSHWRP from the dry rendering process could recover 4.6 times more primary energy than the energy required for the rendering process. Estonia has technologic…
Hunting for valuables from landfills and assessing their market opportunities A case study with Kudjape landfill in Estonia
2017
Landfill mining is an alternative technology that merges the ideas of material recycling and sustainable waste management. This paper reports a case study to estimate the value of landfilled materials and their respective market opportunities, based on a full-scale landfill mining project in Estonia. During the project, a dump site (Kudjape, Estonia) was excavated with the main objectives of extracting soil-like final cover material with the function of methane degradation. In total, about 57,777 m3 of waste was processed, particularly the uppermost 10-year layer of waste. Manual sorting was performed in four test pits to determine the detailed composition of wastes. 11,610 kg of waste was…
Environmental and digital innovation in food: The role of digital food hubs in the creation of sustainable local agri-food systems.
2022
This document is based on the study of what a local digital food hub is. Topics such as the sustainability of agri-food systems, de-agrarianization and the causes related to them are covered, but also such principles as “shared value”, useful for improving the competitiveness of a company as well as the economical and social conditions within the communities in which it operates. In addition to these discussions, an excursus is created on the actual developments of the models ranging from “field to table”, with the new possibilities obtained from modern types of distribution networks, particularly focusing on Food Hubs and the first reasons for the validity of the system. Having explained t…
Modelling bulk surface resistance by MODIS data and assessment of MOD16A2 evapotranspiration product in an irrigation district of Southern Italy
2016
Abstract In this study, accurate estimates of daily actual evapotranspiration, ET a , were obtained based on the direct Penman–Monteith application, in which the bulk surface resistance term was computed by considering, as main input, daily remotely sensed Land Surface Temperature (LST). In particular, Eddy Covariance measurements of ET a , associated to LST obtained by MODIS time series (MOD11A2) characterized by 8-day resolution, allowed to calibrate a simple bulk surface resistance model, based on two-years of data observations collected in a quite homogeneous irrigation district of Sicily, where olive grove is the main crop. The model was then validated by an independent database collec…
Trigeneration and Polygeneration Configurations for Desalination and Other Beneficial Processes
2018
Abstract The integration of renewable energy sources (geothermal, biomass, and solar) and desalination systems into novel polygeneration plants is investigated. Two main arrangements are considered: geothermal (GP) and biomass (BP) polygeneration. Both systems include concentrating photovoltaic/thermal solar collectors, a multieffect distillation system for seawater desalination, a single-effect LiBr-H2O absorption chiller, storage tanks, heat exchangers, balance-of-plant devices; a biomass auxiliary heater and geothermal wells are also included, in BP and GP, respectively. The systems can provide electricity and hot water, used for space heating, cooling, domestic hot water production, and…