Search results for "Environmental resource management"
showing 10 items of 459 documents
The way forward : Can connectivity be useful to design better measuring and modelling schemes for water and sediment dynamics?
2018
For many years, scientists have tried to understand, describe and quantify water and sediment fluxes, with associated substances like pollutants, at multiple scales. In the past two decades, a new concept called connectivity has been used by Earth Scientists as a means to describe and quantify the influences on the fluxes of water and sediment on different scales: aggregate, pedon, location on the slope, slope, watershed, and basin. A better understanding of connectivity can enhance our comprehension of landscape processes and provide a basis for the development of better measurement and modelling approaches, further leading to a better potential for implementing this concept as a managemen…
Current state of water management in Japan
2014
Financial sustainability of water utilities is essential to guarantee the provision of high quality services. The aims of this paper are to review the current state of water management in Japan and to identify the main difficulties which confront Japanese water utilities. As the facilities built when the country expanded water utilities rapidly are drawing near the renewal period concurrently, water operators must quickly accelerate facility renewal work. The statistical data from the Japan Water Works Association illustrate that one of the most significant challenges facing Japanese water utilities is to finance investments to renew facilities and to prepare them for earthquakes. Difficult…
Estimation of urban structural flood damages: the case study of Palermo
2000
Abstract The estimation of flood damage is a fundamental step in the economic analysis of a flood control projects. In particular, frequency–damage functions, derived from the hydrologic, hydraulic and damage relationships, are one of the fundamental pieces of information upon which expenditure decisions are based. The aim of this study has been to develop an empirical frequency–damage relationship, obtained by means of detailed local studies, which could be a judgement tool for flood mitigation measures in strongly urbanised drainage areas. Monuments and other estates having a cultural or artistic significance have been specifically taken into account. The analysis has been carried out for…
Assessment of water shortage in urban areas
2007
Recent history has demonstrated that extreme hydrological events such as floods and droughts can create additional stress on water supplies essential for human and ecosystem health. As stated several times by European Environmental Agency, the prudent and efficient use of water is thus an important issue in Europe and a number of policies and mechanisms have been used or have been formulated to ensure sustainable use of water in the long term. Urban uses are responsible of almost the 17% of the total European fresh water consumption and they are rapidly growing depending on the extension of urban areas and concentration of population in cities. The present chapter will discuss the phases in…
Soil biodiversity monitoring in Europe : ongoing activities and challenges
2009
International audience; The increasing interest in soil biodiversity and its protection includes both the biodiversity conservation issues and the mostly unknown economic and ecological values of services provided by soil biodiversity. Inventory and monitoring are necessary tools for the achievement of an adequate level of knowledge regarding soil biodiversity status and for the detection of biodiversity hot spots as well as areas where current levels of biodiversity are under threat of decline. In this paper the main tools and methodological approaches for soil biodiversity measurement are presented. Technical aspects related to the inventory and monitoring activities at a large spatial sc…
Near zero energy islands in the Mediterranean: Supporting policies and local obstacles
2014
Abstract Based on a recent technical–economical analysis on the island of Pantelleria, a policy feasibility study for a complete upgrading of the energy system of this Mediterranean Island is carried out. Pantelleria, situated between Sicily and Africa, owns a large potential in terms of renewable energy resources, although there are some obstacles in turning it into a Near Zero Energy system. Starting from a deep energy system audit, the study proposes the project for a near zero energy island, through the efficient transformation of the different existing natural energy resources into electrical energy and heat: the solar, the wind-based and the geothermal systems. In this way, the island…
Economic Adaptation to Risky Environment in the Late Middle Ages: The Case of the "Accrues" of the Doubs in Chaussin (Jura, France) from c. 1370 to c…
2017
Located along the meanders of the Doubs, the people of Chaussin had to deal with the particular impact of the river on their environment. Due to the impact of the Little Ice Age on water levels in the area, the Doubs sometimes had special floods, which frequently changed its course from the end of the fourteenth century. As a result, some lands were absorbed, and others emerged, which were called the “accrues.” From 1377 the first observation of lost lands appears in the accounts of the castellan, in a petition from landowners who did not want to pay taxes on these fields. More than twenty years later, in the first decade of the fifteenth century, the duke of Burgundy, facing the same situa…
Municipal Climate Change Adaptation GOVERNANCE in Latvia: ApproachING Cross-sectorial and Multi–instrumental understanding
2021
Climate change adaptation being one of today’s main challenges on global agenda do affect people worldwide, but even though most decisions regarding climate change governance are made at the international or national level, the implementation of these decisions in most cases takes place at the local level. Municipal climate change adaptation research project in Latvia was carried out with special emphases on main stakeholder understanding, preparedness and communication factors using several complementary research methods – case study research in Salacgriva coastal municipality, sociological surveys with both Salacgriva town households / inhabitants (home visits / questionnaires) and also n…
Analysis of Hydrological and Landslide Hazards at Castellammare Del Golfo (Northern Sicily)
2014
Catastrophic floods or mass movements occur all too often owing to small streams overflowing their banks or to slope instabilities whose evolution has a more or less tragic impact on people and property; these events are the consequence of a poor understanding of the dynamics of geomorphological processes and of the laws governing them. This paper is focused on the case study of Castellammare del Golfo, a town in the province of Trapani. The study analysed the geological risk due to the geomorphology of the area and to the urban sprawl that it has experienced in the past decades. Geomorphological processes have a strategic role to play in spatial planning and management instruments and in t…
Forest planning across Europe: the spatial scale, tools, and inter-sectoral integration in land-use planning
2014
New approaches to forest planning are needed to support the transition of European forests to sustainable management. The aim of this study is to review forest planning systems already in place throughout Europe by exploring a set of case-study countries reflecting the main silvicultural schools of Western Europe, including Belgium, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, and Slovenia. A literature review and case-study data were used to assess the scale factors (vertical logic) as well as the relationships between forest planning and other environmental6 land-use planning sectors (horizontal logic). The influence of EU policy on the development of forest planning is also discussed. As assessed u…