Environmental Management in the Industrial Enterprises of the South of Spain

The eighties were notable for awareness of the need to prevent defects and for orientation towards the client to improve the competitiveness of industrial enterprises. This objective of zero defects has meant for many enterprises a management orientation to zero environmental impact. In this article we analyse the special situation of industrial enterprises in Andalusia (Spain) in the establishment of environmental management systems, proposing a matrix of strategies for their development based on the analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.     

Economic and environmental impacts of photovoltaic power with the declining subsidy rate in China

Photovoltaic (PV) power is expected to play an important role in reducing global warming and improving energy security. China promotes PV power development by implementing feed-in tariff policies. However, the economic and environmental impacts of substituting coal-fired electricity with PV power, particularly as the subsidy rate declines, are not well-known. This study estimates the economic and environmental impacts in different cases and scenarios by combining life-cycle assessment with input-output analysis. Results indicate that substituting PV power for coal-fired electricity has negative impacts on employment, household income, and tax revenue. Although this substitution can promote economic growth when PV power generation is subsidised, the impact of the substitution on GDP will gradually decline as the subsidy rate is reduced and finally becomes negative. Assuming that the levelized cost of PV power declines following the learning curve, the same results will hold even if PV power generation becomes profitable in the future. Despite its negative impacts on employment, household income and tax revenue, the substitution has huge external values. Therefore, policies are needed to internalise the external value and address the economic impacts of the substitution.     

Environmental monitoring for protected areas: Review and prospect

Monitoring activities in protected areas have a long history. Internal planning and management needs early led to ecological inventories. More recently the increasing number and awareness of external threats to parks has led to a variety of monitoring programs. Efforts to use protected areas, and especially biosphere reserves, as ecological baselines, have reinforced this trend. And as protected areas are increasingly recognized to be islands with complex internal and regional interactions, holistic, systems approaches to inventory, monitoring, and assessment of their state are being developed. This paper begins by reviewing threats to parks and the origins and importance of inventory and monitoring activities. A review of resource survey methods follows. Ecosystem science and environmental monitoring are introduced as a foundation for consideration of several newer approaches to monitoring and assessing the state of natural environments. These newer approaches are stress/response frameworks, landscape ecology, ecosystem integrity, and state of the environment reporting. A final section presents some principles for monitoring the state of protected areas. Examples are drawn from experience with Canadian national parks.     

Opportunity or threat in balancing social,economic and environmental impacts: The appearance of the Polar Silk Road

The potential of the Polar Silk Road (PSR) to accelerate the shipping trade is gaining importance because sea ice is currently melting in the Arctic region. Economic growth generates negative environmental and social impacts (TBL aspects); however, only a few studies have discussed the opportunities and threats in balancing TBL aspects. To fill this knowledge gap, this study addresses the opportunities and threats presented by the PSR. Nevertheless, information on the PSR is spread across diverse databases and is incomplete. This study utilizes a data-driven approach to handle these diverse databases and incomplete information and thereby to provide visual two- and three-dimensional impact analyses of opportunities and threats. This study contributes to the literature by (1) bridging TBL aspects of the PSR, (2) using a proposed hybrid method to address the aspect-balancing problem, and (3) providing insights on the opportunities and threats of the PSR. The results reveal negative effects of the PSR in terms of the balance between the economic and environmental aspects and that between the economic and social aspects. This study confirms that the scale and speed of development of the PSR pose a challenge to the environmental and social standards upheld by the surrounding countries and regions. Russia and the United Kingdom are ranked first and second in upholding these standards, while Germany, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands and Norway strive to achieve a balance between the economic, social and environmental aspects.     

Exploration of sustainable development by applying green economy indicators

Following the global trend of sustainable development, development of green economy is the best way of slowing the negative ecological and environmental impact. This research establishes the Taiwan's green economic indicators based on the ecological footprint and energy analysis. The results are as follows: Taiwan's ecological footprint in 2008 intensity index was at 4.364; ecological overshoot index was at 3.364, showing that Taiwan's ecological system is in overload state. Moreover, this study utilizes energy analysis model to study the sustainable development of Taiwan. Findings showed that total energy use in 2008 was 3.14 × 10(23)?sej (solar energy joule, sej), energy of renewable resources was 1.30 × 10(22)?sej, energy of nonrenewable resources was 2.26 × 10(23)?sej, energy of products from renewable resources was 1.30 × 10(22)sej, energy of currency flow was 8.02 × 10(22)?sej and energy of wastes flow was 6.55 × 10(22)?sej. Taiwan's energy per capita and the utilization rate of energy is lower while the environmental loading rate is significantly higher comparing to some other countries. The foregoing findings indicate that Taiwan currently belongs to an economic development pattern based on high resource consumption. The economic development is mainly established on the exploitation and utilization of nonrenewable resources. Therefore, Taiwan should change the development pattern, regulate the industrial structure, promote the utilization rate of resources, develop green pollution-free products, and enhance the sustainable development of ecological economic system.     

Analysis of environmental impact assessment (EIA) system in Turkey

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) System, which embodies the ??prevention principle?? of the environmental law, is an important tool for environmental protection. This tool has a private importance for Turkey since it is a developing country, and it entered the Turkish law in 1983 with the Environmental Law. Besides, the EIA Regulation, which shows the application principles, became effective in 1993. Because Turkey is a candidate for European Union (EU), the EIA Regulation has been changed due to the EU compliance procedure, and its latest version became valid in 2008. This study aims to emphasize The EIA system in Turkey to supervise the efficiency of this procedure and point the success level. In the introduction part, general EIA concept, its importance, and some notations are mentioned. Following that, the legislation, which builds the EIA system, has been analyzed starting from the 1982 Turkish Constitution. Then, the legislation rules are explained due to the basic steps of the EIA procedure. In order to shed light upon the application, the EIA final decisions given until today, the results, and their distributions to the industries are assessed. In the final part of the study, a SWOT analysis is made to mention the weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and threats of the EIA system in Turkey.     

Drought Hazard and Desertification Management in the Drylands of Southern Africa

Droughts have been occurring persistently in southern African dryland regions for over a century. The impacts of droughts on people, their domesticated animals, wildlife, rangelands and cropped lands have been shown to be astronomical. If left alone the rangelands often recover after the calamity, however human occupation has led to irreversible damage. Even though some communities have evolved viable and sustainable coping mechanisms, recent times have seen weakened coping strategies leading to loss of life in most of the 10 countries in southern Africa. While land degradation has many inter-related causes and effects, drought-related effects have proven most difficult to manage and/or overcome. Drought-related land degradation or desertification poses a huge threat to sustainable land and resource management in the region. The paper examines appropriate drought mitigating initiatives, linking them to land tenure and land management practices. Numerous interventions targeted at reducing poverty and improvement in resource management have failed to achieve desired effects due to rigidity and imposition, and failure of the external interveners to recognise and incorporate indigenous peoples’ preferences and coping strategies. Non-governmental organisations and authorities’ willingness to institute drought and desertification combating measures are reviewed, highlighting the role that community action plays in reducing adverse effects in the region. Linkages to trade patterns that perpetuate poverty and unwise use of resources are discussed. Adopting ‘people centred’ mitigating measures is emphasised. Success rests with both the people in the ‘south’ and those in the ‘north’. What is required is an informed global action.     

Revealing the pattern and evolution of global green development between different income groups: A global meta-frontier by-production technology approach

A clear understanding of the overall pattern of global green development and the green development discrepancies among countries has a bearing on how each country participates in global environmental governance, which is more conducive to promoting the process of global green development in the future. This study constructed a global meta-frontier by-production technology model to evaluate the green total-factor productivity (GTFP), and studied the discrepancies of green development process and their growth sources for a sample of 163 countries (or regions) during the period 1990–2017. The results indicate that global GTFP witnessed remarkable growth before financial crisis occurred in 2007, but showed a slow growth trend after a decline during the financial crisis. The performance of GTFP exhibits significant regional disparity and dynamic change disparity. GTFP was the highest in high-income group, while lower than 0.55 in the upper middle-income and lower middle-income group in all years. Technological gap between regions was the principal factor leading to this result. Dynamically, among all countries covered in this study, there are twenty-five countries (or regions) experienced GTFP decline. Technological gap enlargement was the most important factor causing their GTFP decline, followed by the resource allocation inefficiency.     

Biofuel use assessments in Africa: Implications for greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation strategies

The energy balances of most African countries suggest that biofuels (woodfuel, crop and wood residues, and dung) constitute the largest share of total energy consumption (up to 97% in some sub-Saharan Africa countries). There is, however, an increasing scarcity of woodfuel (fuelwood and charcoal), the major biofuel, and a feared increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with biofuel combustion. The extent of GHG emissions is estimated from biofuel consumption levels that are in turn based on methodologies that might be inaccurate. A questionnaire, supplemented by informal interviews, are used to collect data, yielding information regarding end-uses, technologies used, scale of consumption, determinants of fuel consumption, and interfuel substitution (among other parameters). The survey revealed that cooking is the major end-use, with other common uses, such as space and water heating. Improved stoves that provide better combustion efficiency and, thus, reduce woodfuel consumption have not been widely disseminated and are associated with higher methane emissions than open fires. More than 90% of the households in Africa use open fires. Consumption is presented as per capita for households and as products and quantity of fuel in the small scale industries, commercial, and public sectors. Among the determinants for biofuel consumption are affordability, availability of the fuel, and interfuel substitutions. Flaws in estimating biofuel consumption yield large uncertainties in GHG emissions, with implications for the development of policies on energy planning and environmental protection. However, the application of scenarios can guide policy formulation.     

Four conceptual issues to consider in integrating social and environmental factors in risk and impact assessments

In the last twenty years, both the increase in academic production and the expansion of professional involvement in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Social Impact Assessment (SIA) have evidenced growing scientific and business interest in risk and impact analysis. However, this growth has not brought with it parallel progress in addressing the main shortcomings of EIA/SIA, i.e. insufficient integration of environmental and social factors into development project analyses and, in cases where the social aspects are considered, technical-methodological failings in their analysis and assessment. It is clear that these weaknesses carry with them substantial threats to the sustainability (social, environmental and economic) of projects which impact on the environment, and consequently to the local contexts where they are carried out and to the delicate balance of the global ecosystem. This paper argues that, in a sociological context of complexity and dynamism, four conceptual elements should underpin approaches to socio-environmental risk and impact assessment in development projects: a theoretical base in actor–network theory; an ethical grounding in values which are internationally recognized (though not always fulfilled in practice); a (new) epistemological-scientific base; and a methodological foundation in social participation.     

A comparative evaluation of the environmental impact assessment legislation of South Africa and Zambia

This study evaluates the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) legislation of South Africa and Zambia against the modified criteria developed by Wood (1995) to determine the extent to which they follow “good practices” and incorporate emerging environmental issues into EIA. We modified the criteria of Wood due to new environmental issues that have emerged since their formulation. Some of these issues are in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). National Environmental Acts and EIA Regulations for the two countries were reviewed to evaluate the current legislation. We also used telephone interviews to gather additional information that was not in the documents. As a fundamental component of the EIA system, the legislation needs to be clear, concise and inclusive of all the major environmental issues that affect the performance of the EIA system. Literature reveals that the performance of the Zambian EIA system is generally low compared with that of some African countries such as South Africa and Ghana; especially in terms of the quality of EIA reports and substantive environmental protection. Therefore, we hypothesised that the Zambian legislation does not follow the good practice hence the low EIA system performance. Results, however, showed that the two countries are almost on a par in terms of meeting the criteria used in this study. Hence there is more to be done to improve the quality of both countries' EIA legislation. Nevertheless, compared with the previous evaluations by Wood (1999) and Harrison (2005), the results show that there is considerable improvement in the quality of the South African EIA legislation following a series of amendments.     

An environmental impact assessment of fossil fuel subsidies in emerging and developing economies

The impact of fossil fuel subsidies on environmental degradation has not been adequately examined in the existing literature. However, environmental degradation is often suggested as one of the causes of climate change. This paper examines the factors driving environmental degradation, emphasising the role of fossil fuels, in 35 emerging and developing countries. The ecological footprint is used as a proxy for environmental degradation. Using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), the results show that an increase in fossil fuel subsidies leads to an increase in ecological footprint. Specifically, a 10% increase in fossil fuel subsidies will increase the ecological footprint by between 0.3% and 1.5%. The results further suggest that variables such as population size, real GDP per capita, urbanisation and the non-dependent population also boost environmental degradation. It is also shown that primary energy supply per capita, industry share, resource rent and globalisation have a positive effect on environmental degradation. However, the global oil price and human capital development do not have a significant impact on environmental degradation. The implications of these empirical findings are analysed in the paper.     

新疆电力结构调整对SO2污染物排放总量的影响

应用数学模型与预案分析相结合的方法,分别对新疆2010年电源结构调整的3个方案及污染治理水平调整(提高)的3个方案的SO2总排放量进行估算,并将其结果与2010年新疆电力行业SO2污染物总量控制目标相比较,确定"十一五"期间新疆电源结构调整及污染治理水平调整(提高)均应以中、高方案为调整首选目标,即到2010年时,火电在新疆电源结构中比例应下降为70%～65%,而水风电比例提高到30%～35%;同时提高火电行业污染治理水平,使SO2污染物排放系数约为"十五"末的55%～50%.新疆电力结构调整对实现"十一五"新疆电力行业SO2排放总量的控制目标及促进新疆社会经济、环境及电力工业的可持续发展具有重要意义.     

Climate Change Impacts and Human Settlements in Africa: Prospects for Adaptation

Climate change impacts on African human settlements arise from a number of climate change-related causes, notably sea level changes, impacts on water resources, extreme weather events, food security, increased health risks from vector home diseases, and temperature-related morbidity in urban environments.Some coastlines and river deltas of Africa have densely populated low-lying areas, which would be affected by a rise in sea level. Other coastal settlements will be subjected to increased coastal erosion. Recent flooding in East Africa highlighted the vulnerability of flood plain settlements and the need to develop adaptive strategies for extreme weather events management and mitigation. In the semi arid and arid zones many settlements are associated with inland drainage water sources. Increases in drought will enhance water supply related vulnerabilities. Inter-basin and international water transfers raise the need for adequate legal frameworks that ensure equity among participating nations.Similarly, water supply and irrigation reservoirs in seasonal river catchments might fail, leading to poor sanitation in urban areas as well as food shortage. Hydroelectric power generation could be restricted in drought periods, and where it is a major contributor to the energy budget, reduced power generation could lead to a multiplicity of other impacts. States are advised to develop other sources of renewable energy.Temperature changes will lead to altered distribution of disease vectors such as mosquitoes, making settlements currently free of vector borne diseases vulnerable. Rapid breeding of the housefly could create a menace associated with enteric disorders, especially in conditions of poor sanitation.The dry savannahs of Africa are projected as possible future food deficit areas. Recurrent crop failures would lead to transmigration into urban areas. Pastoralists are likely to undertake more trans-boundary migrations and probably come into conflict with settled communities.Adaptive measures will involve methods of coastal defences (where applicable), a critical review of the energy sector, both regionally and nationally, a rigorous adherence to city hygiene procedures, an informed agricultural industry that is capable of adapting to changing climate in terms of cropping strategies, and innovations in environment design to maximise human comfort at minimum energy expenditure. In the savannah and arid areas water resource management systems will be needed to optimise water resource use and interstate co-operation where such resources are shared.Climate change issues discussed here raise the need for state support for more research and education in impacts of climate change on human settlements in Africa.     

浅谈宁夏企业自备电厂二氧化硫减排潜力分析

企业自备电厂作为高耗能企业的一员，节能减排是重中之重。本文着重分析了宁夏自备电厂的基本情况，包括电厂类型、资源利用状况及节能减排的艰巨性，并结合当前自备电厂面临的问题对其发展提出了合理的建议。节能减排必须从内部挖掘潜力，不断努力，持之以恒，规范化管理，才能保证宁夏污染物总量减排任务的顺利完成。     

Wind energy and Turkey

The global energy requirement for sustaining economic activities, meeting social needs and social development is increasing daily. Environmentally friendly, renewable energy resources are an alternative to the primary non-renewable energy resources, which devastate ecosystems in order to meet increasing demand. Among renewable energy sources such as hydropower, biopower, geothermal power and solar power, wind power offers distinct advantages to Turkey. There is an increasing tendency toward wind globally and the European Union adjusted its legal regulations in this regard. As a potential EU Member state, Turkey is going through a similar process. The number of institutional and legal regulations concerning wind power has increased in recent years; technical infrastructure studies were completed, and some important steps were taken in this regard. This study examines the way in which Turkey has developed support for wind power, presents a SWOT analysis of the wind power sector in Turkey and a projection was made for the concrete success expected to be accomplished in the future.     

25 years of the UK EIA System: Strengths,weaknesses, opportunities and threats

This paper offers a review of the UK EIA system, providing insights into its evolution and reflecting on perceptions of effectiveness of the EIA system. The work adopts a similar approach used by Glasson in 1999, where he provided a review of the first 10 years of EIA in the UK, complimented by a SWOT analysis. In conducting the SWOT analysis, the authors make use of (1) a UK EIA survey which was conducted in 2011; (2) an interactive session organised at a 2013 workshop at the University of Liverpool on 25 years of the EU EIA Directive; and (3) a systematic literature review of publications since 1999. The results indicate that the internal factors (i.e. strengths and weaknesses) of the EIA system have not actually changed much in the last 15 years. Changes are more apparent for the external factors, especially with regards to opportunities. However, EIA may be suffering from a mid-life crisis at this point and a lot may be owing to perceptions towards EIA which may be influenced and inversely related to the length of experience in EIA. This opens up avenues for further research in the area.     

Large-scale renewable energy project barriers: Environmental impact assessment streamlining efforts in Japan and the EU

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures have been identified as a major barrier to renewable energy (RE) development with regards to large-scale projects (LS-RE). However EIA laws have also been neglected by many decision-makers who have been underestimating its impact on RE development and the stifling potential they possess. As a consequence, apart from acknowledging the shortcomings of the systems currently in place, few governments momentarily have concrete plans to reform their EIA laws. By looking at recent EIA streamlining efforts in two industrialized regions that underwent major transformations in their energy sectors, this paper attempts to assess how such reform efforts can act as a means to support the balancing of environmental protection and climate change mitigation with socio-economic challenges. Thereby this paper fills this intellectual void by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese EIA law by contrasting it with the recently revised EIA Directive of the European Union (EU). This enables the identification of the regulatory provisions that impact RE development the most and the determination of how structured EIA law reforms would affect domestic RE project development. The main focus lies on the evaluation of regulatory streamlining efforts in the Japanese and EU contexts through the application of a mixed-methods approach, consisting of in-depth literary and legal reviews, followed by a comparative analysis and a series of semi-structured interviews. Highlighting several legal inconsistencies in combination with the views of EIA professionals, academics and law- and policymakers, allowed for a more comprehensive assessment of what streamlining elements of the reformed EU EIA Directive and the proposed Japanese EIA framework modifications could either promote or stifle further RE deployment.     

Eco-efficiency,eco-technology innovation and eco-well-being performance to improve global sustainable development

In today's world, determining how to improve the quality of the economy, technology innovation and human well-being within resource and environmental limits is a global sustainable development goal. Thus, research on eco-efficiency (EE), eco-technology innovation (ETI) and eco-well-being performance (EWP) has great significance for improving the efficiency of converting ecological consumption into economic benefits, technological innovation and human well-being. This paper presents a two-stage Super-slack-based measure (SBM) model to examine the EE, ETI and EWP (3E) of 102 countries. The indicator system for the 3E network process is constructed by using inputs, intermediate products and outputs. The empirical results show that the highest 3E performers are Singapore, the United States and Iceland. The results also indicate that countries with high levels of economic development have much better EE, ETI and EWP levels than low-income countries. After comparing the values of the 3E in different countries with the global average, the results further show that overall global 3E performance is relatively low. These findings provide significant references to help governments generate different strategies for improving national 3E performance.     

Project risk and appeals in U.S. Forest Service planning

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires U.S. Forest Service planning processes to be conducted by interdisciplinary teams of resource specialists to analyze and disclose the likely environmental impacts of proposed natural resource management actions on Forest Service lands. Multiple challenges associated with these processes have been a source of frustration for the agency. One of these challenges involves administrative appeals through which public entities can challenge a Forest Service decision following a NEPA process. These appeals instigate an internal review process and can result in an affirmation of the Forest Service decision, a reversal of that decision, or additional work that re-initiates all or part of the NEPA process. We examine the best predictors of appeals and their outcomes on a representative sample of 489 Forest Service NEPA processes that were decided between 2007 and 2009. While certain factors associated with pre-existing social contexts (such as a history of controversy) or pre-determined elements of a proposed action (such as the extraction of forest products) predispose certain processes to a higher risk of appeals, other practices and process-related strategies within the control of the agency also appear to bear meaningful influence on the occurrence of appeals and their outcomes. Appeals and their outcomes were most strongly related to programmatic, structural (turnover of personnel in particular), and relationship risks (both internal and external) within the processes, suggesting the need for greater focus within the agency on cultivating positive internal and external relationships to manage the risk of appeals.