Search results for "Impact assessment"
showing 10 items of 211 documents
Analysis of the process of environmental impact assessment for seawater desalination plants in Spain
2014
Desalination generates drinking water and enhances the economic, social, and environmental development of many areas with few water resources, such as parts of the Middle East, North Africa, and southern Europe (such as Spain and Cyprus). Desalination plants may cause environmental impacts in coastal areas and so it is necessary to submit plans for new plants to a process of environmental impact assessment (EIA) in order to achieve more environmentally viable projects, meaning: optimal locations; appropriately used systems and technologies; effective preventive, compensatory, and corrective measures; and social and environmental acceptance. This article contains a study of the process of en…
Life cycle assessment of solar communities
2020
Abstract This study presents the comparison of the life cycle performance of two different urban energy systems, applied to a large mixed-use community, in Calgary (Canada). The two systems investigated consist of an energy efficient conventional system, using heat pumps for heating, cooling and domestic hot water; the second design widely deploys solar thermal panels coupled to district heating infrastructure and a borehole seasonal thermal storage. The analysis is based on the Life Cycle Assessment methodology and includes the stages of raw materials and energy supply, system manufacturing, use stage of the systems, generation and use of energy on-site, maintenance and components’ substit…
Locating a Waste Treatment Facility by Multicriteria Analysis
1997
We describe an application of multicriteria decision aid to the location of a waste treatment facility in eastern Finland. In Finland, the Act on Environmental Impact Assessment Procedure requires that when the amount of waste to be dealt with in a facility exceeds 20,000 tons per year, the process of environmental impact assessment (EIA) must be performed. In addition, the opinions of citizens and different interest groups need to be heard. Generally, EIA requires many different factors to be dealt with. Therefore the use of some multicriteria decision aid may be helpful to preserve the information obtained through the EIA in the decision-making process. The alternative locations for the f…
Application of DPSIR framework to analyze the groundwater pollution threats of municipal solid waste: Case study Médiouna Landfill, Morocco
2021
This study addresses the issue of groundwater resources quality affected by solid waste disposed of in the Médiouna dumping site. In this order, we applied the Driving forcePressureStateImpact Response model (DPSIR) model combined with external factors of SWOT analysis (Opportunities and Threats) to assess the environmental impact of waste from Médiouna landfill on groundwater. The analysis study revealed that the continuous demographic expansion and economic growth made solid waste a complex problem. The study highlights the urgent need for implementing new strategies and redesigning more effective, operational and realizable management projects to rehabilitate the Médiouna landfill. In ad…
Catalytic processes activated by light
2010
Light-driven catalytic strategies are of great interest for the synthesis of useful products causing minimal environmental impact. Nature provides many examples of systems working in processes activated by light, and understanding them has been and, in the future, will be useful in the design of artificial catalysts.
Tumor biology in older breast cancer patients – What is the impact on survival stratified for guideline adherence? A retrospective multi-centre cohor…
2015
Abstract Purpose The tumor biology of older breast cancer patients (oBCP) is usually less aggressive, however applied adjuvant treatment is often less potent resulting in an impaired disease free survival and overall survival in this group. This study tries to answer the following questions for the biological subtypes of oBCP (70+ y): (1) Is there a significant difference in the distribution of the biological subtypes of oBCP vs younger breast cancer patients (yBCP; 50–69 y)? (2) Which biological subtype has the highest rate of non-guideline-adherent-treatment (GL−) among oBCP? (3) Is a single GL− (i.e. radiotherapy/surgery/endocrine-therapy/chemotherapy) significantly associated with the s…
Matching Economical, Energetic and Environmental Benefits: An Analysis for Hybrid CHCP-Heat Pumps Systems
2006
Abstract The optimization of design and operation of combined heat, cooling and power systems usually leads to select different plant lay-outs and size of components, depending on the adopted optimization criterion (maximum profit or energy saving or minimum environmental impact). This occurs when the current energy prices and the normative provisions supporting cogeneration are not able to coincide with the specific customer’s interest and the overall “social interest” for a reduction in energy consumption and in pollutants’ emissions. At EU level, polygeneration is considered to have a large potential for residential and commercial buildings district network, for the tertiary sector and f…
Paysage & [et] infrastructures de transport : modélisation des impacts des infrastructures sur les réseaux écologiques
2013
The development of linear infrastructures leads to the fragmentation and the artificialisation of the landscape across scales. Landscape fragmentation is a spatial process that is accompanied by a progressive decrease of the connectivity between the elements needed to conduct ecological processes. Thus, maintaining a good level of connectivity between natural habitats, compatible with human activities, has become a major issue for the preservation of biodiversity.By mobilizing methods from graph theory and landscape ecology, the thesis seeks to demonstrate the value of landscape graphs to model ecological networks and analyze impacts of transportation infrastructures at regional scale.The m…
Marble quarrying: an energy and waste intensive activity in the production of building materials
2008
Marble represents an important component of Italian buildings, where it is often utilized as a covering for bottom surfaces, despite its relatively high price. Moreover, it characterizes several public buildings, for which it is by far the most important decorative material, also because of its structural features and its long durability. Unfortunately, marble quarrying is an energy intensive activity that requires relevant amounts of electric and thermal energy sources; in addition, the extraction of the marble blocks from the mountain sides does involve a noticeable quantity of explosives, particularly in sites where traditional working methods are utilized. Another important feature of t…
Prospects for combining chemical and biological methods for integrated environmental assessment
2009
Abstract Inherently interdisciplinary, environmental assessment applied to contamination is evolving rapidly, despite associated uncertainties in methodologies and data limitations. Mixtures of known and unknown pollutants can cause toxic effects in the environment. Besides deploying a chemicals-driven strategy for the ecological risk assessment of the pollutants, it is necessary to apply and to explore biological strategies. Consequently, bioassays, biosensors and effect-directed analysis (EDA) to identify pollutants responsible of particular effects have become increasingly important. We give a broad overview of how to assess biological monitoring of ecosystems and chemical monitoring of …