Designing of an environmental assessment algorithm for surface mining projects

This paper depicts the method used to quantify the environmental impact of mining activities in surface mine projects. The affected environment was broken down into thirteen components, such as Human health and immunity, Surface water, Air quality, etc. The effect of twenty impacting factors from the mining and milling activities was then calculated for each Environmental Component. Environmental assessments are often performed by using matrix methods in which one dimension of the matrix is the “Impacting Factor” and the other one is the “Environmental Components”. For the presented matrix method, each Impacting Factor was first given a magnitude between −10 and 10. These factors are used to set up a matrix named Impacting Factor Matrix, whose elements represent the Impacting Factor values. The effects of each Impacting Factor on each Environmental Component were then quantified by multiplying the Impacting Factor Matrix by Weighting Factor Matrix. The elements of the weighting factors matrix reflect the effects of each Impacting Factor on each Environmental Component. The outlined method was originally developed for a mining and milling operation in Iran, but it can successfully be used for mining ventures and more general industrial activities in other countries in accordance to their environmental regulations and laws.     

A bottom-up approach towards the assessment of ecological footprints and biocapacity

The concept of ecological footprint (EF) assessment embeds into the broader concept of sustainable development, relating directly to quality of life and maintaining the natural constraints of the global ecosystem. EFs relate to the balance between the Earth's biocapacity and consumption, measured as land equivalence in global hectares per capita. The majority of studies relating to EF assessments have adopted a top-down methodology in order to assess national and regional EFs. Furthermore, these studies are mainly based upon national accounts of input, output and trade; information which is readily available for most countries, and the EFs usually require an assessment of equivalent land area per capita to maintain the current levels of consumption. Since its inception in the mid-1990s, the EF methodology has been refined and has been widely adopted by many countries and governments as a tool to measure biocapacity, or, the consumption of resources. In this paper, we present a bottom-up methodology to measure the EF of a rural region (near Chennai) in southern India. Advantages and limitations of this approach are then discussed through comparisons with regional and national assessments.     

Environmental problems and environmental regulations in Western Europe, 1980–1989

Environmental problems are a function of the process of economic development and the ability to mitigate the problems through regulation. An historical analysis helps to show how the problems have been solved thus far. The objective of this investigation is to present an overview of environmental problems and the corresponding regulations in Western Europe during the 1980s. Environmental problems for 18 Western European countries were identified from abstracts from a data base on environmental literature. The 1977 findings were systematized on the basis of 20 key words according to source and impact, and a new data base was established. The data showed that the main environmental problems in Western Europe were: energy production/acid rain, nuclear power/waste, air pollution/climate, heavy metals, pesticides, water pollution, solid waste, and unforeseen accidents. Many environmental problems are common to most European countries. Regulatory measures differ significantly. In some countries environmental regulations are largely limited to the implementation of European Economic Community (EEC) directives. We have supplemented the national analyses with an examination of existing and proposed EEC regulations along with interviews with civil servants in the EEC Commission. In the 1980s, EEC environmental regulations were similar to environmental regulations in some member states. It is expected that future EEC regulations will be less reflective of those of individual member states.     

How good is GLASOD?

The Global Assessment of Soil Degradation (GLASOD) has been the most influential global appraisal of land quality in terms of environmental policy. However, its expert judgments were never tested for their consistency and could not be reproduced at unvisited sites, while the relationship between the GLASOD assessments of land degradation and the social and economic impact of that degradation remains unclear. Yet, other methodologies that could respond to urgent calls for an updated assessment of the global environmental quality are not operational or, at best, in progress. Therefore, we evaluate the reliability and social relevance of the GLASOD approach and assess its candidacy for new global environmental assessments. The study concentrates on the African continent, capitalizing on new GIS data to delineate and define the characteristics of GLASOD map units. Consistency is tested by comparing expert judgments on soil degradation hazard for similar combinations of biophysical conditions and land use. Reproducibility is evaluated by estimating an ordered logit model that relates the qualitative land degradation classes to easily available information on explanatory variables, the results of which can be used to assess the land degradation at unvisited sites. Finally, a cross-sectional analysis investigates the relation between GLASOD assessments and crop production data at sub-national scale and its association with the prevalence of malnutrition. The GLASOD assessments prove to be only moderately consistent and hardly reproducible, while the counter-intuitive trend with crop production reveals the complexity of the production-degradation relationship. It appears that increasing prevalence of malnutrition coincides with poor agro-productive conditions and highly degraded land. The GLASOD approach can be improved by resolving the differences in conceptualization among experts and by defining the boundaries of the ordered classes in the same units as independent, quantitative land degradation data.     

“We can keep the fire burning”: building action competence through environmental justice education in Uganda and Germany

The global dimensions of climate change necessitate a response that takes national differences – social, economic, geographic, and cultural – into account. Action-oriented education has a key role to play in advancing citizen engagement in a culture of sustainability. This paper describes research conducted with one such education programme, Youth Leading Environmental Change (YLEC), which operates in six countries and engages university-aged youth in discussion and practice related to global sustainability, systems thinking, and environmental justice. YLEC aims to advance four key competencies; this paper focuses on the goal of action competence, which involves acquiring knowledge, reflecting on experience in the context of one’s values, envisioning alternative futures, and acting individually and collectively to advance those alternatives. The present article examines the impacts of YLEC on environmental action competence in two of the countries involved in this research: Uganda and Germany. In-depth interviews were conducted with participants in both countries to examine the development of action competence during and after the programme. Findings suggest that outcomes differed in each country, reflective of participants’ different lived experiences. YLEC effectively built on the conditions faced in each country to accompany youth to a higher level of awareness and action. These findings have implications for environmental education programmes striving to work with multiple nations and diverse participants.     

Government policy and environmental protection in the developing world: The example of Nigeria

Environmental protection is a topical and controversial issue of contemporary Third World development. As a result of the growing crisis of environment and development as well as issues of global environmental balance, divergent views and proposals have been put forward by external governments, international agencies, and environmental groups in resolving the environmental degradation problems of the developing world. However, very little appraisal has been made of the efforts by indigenous Third World governments in facing up to their environmental conservation issues. This article examines the role of past and recent government environmental control policies and programs in Nigeria. The article analyzes three aspects of environmental protection: (1) the theoretical economic bases of environmental protection and the Nigerian approach to environmental protection, including traditional values and modern institutional control measures, the latter embracing nature conservation efforts; (2) environmental considerations in national development plans; and (3) the evolution of a federal environmental protection agency and a national policy on environment. Finally, the article discusses the future challenges and directions for environmental policy.     

The object of environmental ethics

Since the term environmental ethics began to be used a generation ago, it has covered many different kinds of environmental notions, problems, ethical systems, and forms of behavior. A variety of cases are presented and examined under two terms,environmental ethics andecological morality, in an effort to illustrate different kinds of ethical objectives. In order to understand the connections between various strands of environmental ethics, personal and social values and subcultural norms of environmental ethics are examined under Christopher Stone's concept of moral pluralism. G. J. Warnock's notion of the general object of morality is proposed to integrate the variegated purposes of environmental ethics.     

Mission impossible?: Adopting a CSR-based business model for extractive industries in developing countries

Corporations in the extractive industries often state their commitment to “corporate social responsibility” principles, but their actual implementation of these principles, particularly in developing countries, is questionable. This contradiction between rhetoric and reality is attributable to the fact that these companies have not fully integrated CSR into their business models. This can been seen in assessments of projects' costs and benefits, project and technology selection, respect for community consent, and performance incentive structures. The Marlin gold mine in Guatemala provides a concrete example of these sharp contradictions between stated CSR commitments and actual performance.     

Sustainable development strategies: Tools for policy coherence

Many different approaches for national sustainable development strategies (NSDS) have been proposed since 1992, with some components common to all. A country's national strategy should be designed to help mainstream environmental concerns into policy. More broadly, it should coordinate local policy with global concerns, as well as integrate scientific knowledge into policy and development planning. The peer review mechanism for national strategies was piloted by France, and also involved representatives of countries from the North and the South as well as stakeholders. The peer review process allows countries to share their experience and information, and can assist them in identifying their own path to sustainable development. The business community can also contribute to sustainable development through provision of local and global public goods. Another input to sustainable development could come from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and its Guidance Standard on Social Responsibility (ISO 26000), as a coordinating mechanism between voluntary initiatives and binding obligations (such as international conventions). ISO standards and guidelines should therefore be integrated with national sustainable development strategies and local Agenda 21 frameworks.     

Development of appropriate technologies: A possible way forward for environmental protection of developing countries like China

Summary To solve environmental problems a vast amount of manpower, material and financial resources has been spent. Some people consider that this is necessary, and a reasonable price which human beings must pay for development, especially industrialisation. Maybe it is true. But can people solve the environmental problems of developing countries better when they have learned the experiences and lessons of developed countries? One possible way is proposed in this paper, which makes a special reference to the real situation in China. The fundamental idea is to develop and apply appropriate technologies in the phase of national industrialisation. This will help developing countries to achieve desired environmental effects more economically. The appropriate technologies mentioned in the paper are of two kinds: appropriate industrial production technologies and appropriate environmental technologies. The development of the former will help to reduce environmental pollution and other problems caused by industrialisation. The development of the latter will enable developing countries to keep an acceptable environmental quality within a controlled cost. In the paper the definition of appropriate technologies is clarified, and the criteria for the selection and evaluation of appropriate technologies are proposed. The possibility of a realisation of developing the economy and protecting the environment at same time is then analysed. The conclusion is that development and application of appropriate technologies is an optimal strategy when the real conditions of developing countries like China are considered. Finally, some of the initial appropriate environmental technologies which should be developed are suggested.Professor Ranjie Hou has recently been working as a Research Fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Karlsrube University, Federal Republic of Germany.     

Including past and present impacts in cumulative impact assessments

Environmental concerns such as loss of biological diversity and stratospheric ozone depletion have heightened awareness of the need to assess cumulative impacts in environmental documents. More than 20 years of experience with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) have provided analysts in the United States with opportunities for developing successful techniques to assess site-specific impacts of proposed actions. Methods for analyzing a proposed action's incremental contribution to cumulative impacts are generally less advanced than those for project-specific impacts.The President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) defines cumulative impact to include the impacts of past, present and reasonably foreseeable future actions regardless of who undertakes the action. Court decisions have helped clarify the distinction between reasonably foreseeable future actions and other possible future actions. This paper seeks to clarify how past and present impacts should be included in cumulative impact analyses.The definition of cumulative impacts implies that cumulative impact analyses should include the effects of all past and present actions on a particular resource. Including past and present impacts in cumulative impact assessments increases the likelihood of identifying significant impacts. NEPA requires agencies to give more consideration to alternatives and mitigation and to provide more opportunities for public involvement for actions that would have significant impacts than for actions that would not cause or contribute to significant impacts. For an action that would contribute to significant cumulative impacts, the additional cost and effort involved in increased consideration of alternatives and mitigation and in additional public involvement may be avoided if the action can be modified so that its contributions to significant cumulative impacts are eliminated.Managed by Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation under contract DE-AC05-84OR21400 with the US Department of Energy.     

Political benefits as barriers to assessment of environmental costs in Brazil's Amazonian development planning: The example of the Jatapu Dam in Roraima

Development projects are rapidly changing the landscape in Brazilian Amazonia. Environmental impact assessments have been required since 1986, and the regulatory system is evolving as precedents are set by each new development project. The Jatapu Dam in Roraima provides an illustration of underlying impediments to assessment of environmental costs and to due consideration being given to these assessments when decisions are made. The high priority placed on the dam by the Roraima state government is unexplainable in terms of economic returns. The place of the dam in a long-term political strategy provides the best of several possible explanations, any one of which is incompatible with a rational weighing of economic and environmental costs and benefits. A number of lessons can be drawn from the experience of Jatapu, but some of the problems have no solution. The barriers to rational decision making illustrated by Jatapu apply to development projects in many parts of the world.     

Environmental implications for disaster preparedness: lessons learnt from the Indian Ocean Tsunami

The impact of disasters, whether natural or man-made, not only has human dimensions, but environmental ones as well. Environmental conditions may exacerbate the impact of a disaster, and vice versa, disasters tend to have an impact on the environment. Deforestation, forest management practices, or agriculture systems can worsen the negative environmental impacts of a storm or typhoon, leading to landslides, flooding, silting, and ground/surface water contamination. We have only now come to understand these cyclical causes and impacts and realize that taking care of our natural resources and managing them wisely not only assures that future generations will be able to live in sustainable ways, but also reduces the risks that natural and man-made hazards pose to people living today. Emphasizing and reinforcing the centrality of environmental concerns in disaster management has become a critical priority, requiring the sound management of natural resources as a tool to prevent disasters and lessen their impacts on people, their homes, and livelihoods. As the horrors of the Asian tsunami of December 2004 continue to be evaluated, and people in the region slowly attempt to build a semblance of normalcy, we have to look to the lessons learnt from the tsunami disaster as an opportunity to prepare ourselves better for future disasters. This article focuses on findings and lessons learnt on the environmental aspects of the tsunami, and its implications on disaster preparedness plans. This article essentially emphasizes the cyclical interrelations between environments and disasters, by studying the findings and assessments of the recent Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that struck on 26 December 2004. It specifically looks at four key affected countries - Maldives, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand.     

Evaluating environmental plan quality: the case of planning for sustainable development in New Zealand

This study examines the quality of local and regional environmental plans produced under New Zealand's Resource Management Act (RMA) of 1991, which sets forth a national sustainable development strategy. Plan quality characteristics are defined and used as criteria for plan evaluation. A key finding is that planning programmes have significantly advanced since passage of the RMA, but that high quality plans are not necessarily produced by simply passing mandate legislation. Implications of study findings for sustainable development initiatives in other countries and for future research are presented.     

Hope in a hopeless age: environmentalism’s crisis

In this short essay it is argued that recent criticisms portraying the activist environmental movement as overly pessimistic are valid and that the communication of this pessimism to the public at large has been largely counterproductive to the objectives of environmentalists. It is argued that, in contrast to historic assumptions of a ‘progress paradigm’ that epitomized the widely held optimism of the past, the shock tactics and pessimistic media campaigns employed by the activist environmental movement, and the media that capitalizes upon those campaigns, have contributed to the creation of a figurative hopeless age. The key characterization of the hopeless age is the widely held assumption that the future will be worse than the present and that the lives of future generations will be diminished relative to our own. It is argued that the creation of this social-psychological phenomenon is counterproductive to the aims of the environmental movement and that the restoration of a collective vision and message of hope would be far more productive. Lastly, some reasons for a hopeful outlook are suggested.

Integrating Environmental Restoration and Ecological Restoration: Long-Term Stewardship at the Department of Energy

With the ending of the Cold War, several federal agencies are reclaiming land through remediation and restoration and are considering potential future land uses that are compatible with current uses and local needs. Some sites are sufficiently contaminated that it is likely that the responsible federal agency will retain control over the land for the foreseeable future, providing them with a stewardship mission. This is particularly true of some of the larger Department of Energy (DOE) facilities contaminated during the production of nuclear weapons. The use of the term “restoration” is explored in this paper because the word means different things to the public, ecologists, and environmental managers responsible for contaminated sites, such as Superfund sites and the DOE facilities. While environmental restoration usually refers to remediation and removal of hazardous wastes, ecological restoration refers to the broader process of repairing damaged ecosystems and enhancing their productivity and/or biodiversity. The goals of the two types of restoration can be melded by considering environmental restoration as a special case of ecological restoration, one that involves risk reduction from hazardous wastes, and by broadening environmental restoration to include a more extensive problem-formulation phase (both temporal and spatial), which includes the goal of reestablishing a functioning ecosystem after remediation. Further, evaluating options for the desired post remediation result will inform managers and policy-makers concerning the feasibility and efficacy of environmental restoration itself.     

Environmental gradients in northwest freshwater wetlands

Wetland environmental characteristics are examined to determine their spatial and temporal relationships. Two very different Oregon freshwater wetlands provided a range of wetland types. Results are evaluated to determine the possible use of environmental characteristics in defining wetlands and their boundaries. Representative physical, hydrological, and edaphic properties were periodically measured in microplots along upland/wetland transects. A multivariate approach is stressed in the data analysis; correlation, cluster analysis, and principal components analyses were used. The results indicate the environmental characteristics change in a quantifiable manner both spatially and temporally. The controlling mechanism is moisture, spatially in terms of the upland/wetland transect and temporally with respect to seasonal response. These changes do not correlate well with vegetation. Several hypotheses are offered as an explanation. Correlation within environmental characteristics is variable but definite patterns are discernible. These data suggest both single and combinations of environmental characteristics that could serve as keys in wetland identification and boundary determination. However, before extensive use is made of this information additional long-term monitoring of wetland environmental characteristics will be required.     

Risk management: Time for innovative approaches

Risk management practices under the current environmental regulations is a long, complex process that considers scientific, technologic, and management factors to develop various regulatory standards and pollution control measures. Using the mandatory enforcement approach, sometimes referred to as “command-and-control”, a set of preliminary environmental goals, such as better air and water qualities, were achieved. However, the information-intensive nature of the risk management process and the lack of flexibility in conventional regulatory methods to changing economic and technologic realities of the decade has created interest among risk managers to examine some innovative management approaches. Above all, environmental problems of a global scale require novel management methods while striving to achieve the desired environmental goals. As the principal analytical tool in risk management, quantitative risk assessment exerts considerable influence on the risk management process. Therefore, advances in risk management are closely associated with scientific developments that enhance the risk assessment process, particularly those efforts aimed at improving human exposure and toxicity assessments. Market incentives, information dissemination, creative enforcement practices, and interagency and intergovernmental interactions were identified as the key elements of innovative environmental risk management practices. This paper will present an overview of the emerging innovative risk management approaches.     

Environmental assessment of different management options for individual waste fractions by means of life-cycle assessment modelling

Several alternatives exist for handling of individual waste fractions, including recycling, incineration and landfilling. From an environmental point of view, the latter is commonly considered as the least desirable option. Many studies based on life-cycle assessment (LCA) highlight the environmental benefits offered by incineration and especially by recycling. However, the landfilling option is often approached unjustly in these studies, maybe disregarding the remarkable technological improvements that landfills have undergone in the last decades in many parts of the world.This study, by means of LCA-modelling, aims at comparing the environmental performance of three major management options (landfilling, recycling and incineration or composting) for a number of individual waste fractions. The landfilling option is here approached comprehensively, accounting for all technical and environmental factors involved, including energy generation from landfill gas and storage of biogenic carbon. Leachate and gas emissions associated to each individual waste fraction have been estimated by means of a mathematical modelling. This approach towards landfilling emissions allows for a more precise quantification of the landfill impacts when comparing management options for selected waste fractions.Results from the life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) show that the environmental performance estimated for landfilling with energy recovery of the fractions “organics” and “recyclable paper” is comparable with composting (for “organics”) and incineration (for “recyclable paper”). This however requires high degree of control over gas and leachate emissions, high gas collection efficiency and extensive gas utilization at the landfill. For the other waste fractions, recycling and incineration are favourable, although specific emissions of a variety of toxic compounds (VOCs, PAHs, NO_x, heavy metals, etc.) may significantly worsen their environmental performance.     

Environmental health in the complex city: a co-evolutionary approach

While public health and urban planning were closely linked in the past, today both domains are institutionally separate. In most cases, health intersects with spatial planning processes only through obligatory evaluations, such as environmental impact assessments, or restrictive environmental legislation. This institutionalisation of health criteria in most western countries has difficulty in dealing with recent environmental health challenges, leading to continual distrust and conflict between citizens and the government. This impasse has recently been discussed by academics who acknowledge the complexity of both city and health issues. It seems, however, that the full extent of the issue has not been covered yet, leading to recommendations and frameworks that are useful but fixed and retrospective. This paper moves beyond those fixed frameworks to develop a better understanding of the complexity of the current disconnect and explores ideas for a future planning approach, grounded on new ideas of co-evolutionary and adaptive planning.