Integrated Wastewater Management Reporting at Tourist Areas for Recycling Purposes, Including the Case Study of Hersonissos, Greece

Wastewater treatment facilities in tourist areas, in comparison to other municipal facilities, require specific configurations and additional management actions in order to achieve a reliable and cost-effective treatment. For example, the same facility operates during winter with minimum flows and in summer with peak flows. Moreover, careful effluent management is required to minimize environmental impact and health effects on tourists. In this study, effluent management data, including quantitative and qualitative effluent characteristics, reuse, and economic aspects of the Hersonissos Wastewater Treatment Plant (WTP) in Greece, are discussed. It has been designed to treat both municipal wastewater from the Hersonissos Municipality and septage from the wider area. Analysis of effluent quantitative data showed two flow peaks in the summer period and only one in winter. The WTP was found to provide a reliable level of treatment in terms of biochemical oxygen demand (95.9%), total suspended solids (97.2%), and total nitrogen (87.7%) removal, but increased numbers of fecal coliforms were measured at some peak flow periods, suggesting the need for additional management strategies. Effluent is reused mainly for agricultural irrigation; secondary uses include fire protection and landscape irrigation. Economic analysis showed that for each cubic meter treated, the total annual economic cost for treatment, filtration, and reuse infrastructure was 1.07 €, 0.05 €, and 0.08 €, respectively.     

关于“质量”问题的几点思考

关于“质量”的内涵 ,在物理学、哲学和经济学等方面有其不同解释。而生产的产品“质量”不仅包括其特殊功能指标 ,还包括其安全性、可靠性、使用寿命。它涉及生产者、使用者或消费者的生命安全与健康 ,甚至影响市场竞争与繁荣、社会稳定与文明、国民经济建设与可持续发展。因此 ,质量的安全问题在安全科学领域 ,在安全科技界 ,在市场流通和消费领域 ,一直为人们所关注。优质的物质产品必然是以人为本的、安全的、无害的 ,也必然是安全科技、环保科技含量很高的产品。笔者对以上领域关于“质量”的问题进行了研究 ,对经济学方面的质量与效益的内涵 ;质量与经济效益的关系、提高质量的途径和方法等问题进行探讨 ,阐述了自己的观点和看法。     

Lake management techniques in Florida,USA: Costs and water quality effects

Economic evaluations of restored or enhanced lakes in Florida indicated gravity drawdown was the least expensive action, whereas effluent diversion was 10,000 times more costly on a per hectare basis, with the other lake treatment costs occurring in the following order: gravity drawdown < grass carp introduction < mechanical drawdown < aeration < stormwater control = drawdown-dredging < effluent diversion. Within a particular treatment category, the costs spanned approximately one and one half orders of magnitude. Contrary to the abundant cost data, which permitted an economic analysis, inappropriate statistical design and lack of commitment toward sampling Florida's restored lakes undermines attempts to understand long-term water quality responses to various enhancement techniques. Using Lake Tohopekaliga as a case study, ordinary statistical tests produced contradictory and unreliable interpretations on the effectiveness of drawdown and phosphorus removal at sewage treatment plants in improving the trophic state index. This emphasizes the need for more robust statistical approaches and more detailed data collection in evaluating lake restoration activities It is unfortunate for Florida's lake restoration program that quantitative conclusions based on inferential statistics, replete with tests of assumptions, is limited to very few lakes     

灾害间接经济损失的计量

本文研究了三种灾害间接经济损失的计量，即间接停减产损失、中间投入积压增加损失和投资溢价损失。利用了城市投入──产出表所表达的产业关联关系估计了由于生产的联锁性造成灾害的进一步损失。并用上海市的实际数据对地震的间接经济损失作了预测计量。     

Economic comparison of recycling over-ordered fresh concrete: A case study approach

Recycling of construction material helps save the limited landfill space. Among various types of materials, concrete waste accounts of about 50% of the total waste generation. Current off-site practices for ready mixed concrete batching plant generate a significant quantity of fresh concrete waste through over-order from construction sites. The use of concrete reclaimer is one of the methods to reclaim these concrete wastes, which separates coarse aggregate, sand and cement from fresh concrete. Although there are some concrete producers in Hong Kong providing concrete reclaimers in their plants, they are only used to flush and dilute the cement slurry from the concrete, which will still be ultimately send all to dumping areas. The reluctance of most concrete producers in reclaiming aggregate from the concrete waste is due to its high cost of treatment and lack of space around the plant. Therefore, this paper puts forth a scheme of economical considerations in recycling over-ordered concrete by concrete reclaimer. A comparative study on costs and benefits between the current practices and the proposed recycling plan is examined. The study shows that the costs of the current practices in dumping over-ordered fresh concrete waste to landfill areas are double that of the proposed aggregate recycling plan. Therefore, the adoption of concrete reclaimer in recycling the over-ordered fresh concrete can provide a cost-effective method for the construction industry and help saving the environment.     

运用经济制度推进污染减排的探索

随着经济规模的不断扩大,我国污染减排的压力持续加大,在充分运用必要的行政和法律手段的同时,应注重运用污染减排的税收制度、排污权交易制度、与金融部门共享环境信息等经济制度或手段调控社会环境行为,将环境成本内部化,增加企业直接排污成本,降低企业内部治理成本,调动减排积极性,促进污染减排计划的顺利实施。     

城市污水处理厂能耗优化数学模型研究

随着城市污水生物处理技术的不断完善,好氧生物处理技术逐渐成为城市污水处理的主导技术。好氧生物处理需要提供足够的氧气以满足微生物的正常生长,而维持供氧设备的正常运行需要消耗大量的电力,电量消耗已成为影响城市污水处理厂费用的主要因素。本文总结了现有的污水处理厂运行费用数学模型,通过实际运行费用和处理效率数据,建立了以处理量Q,BOD5削减量,NH3-N削减量为变量的运行费用数学模型,并分析了影响污水处理厂能耗的主要因素,服务污染物去除效率不断提高的城市污水节能减排目标、需求不断增大的城镇污水减排目标。     

Investigation on removal of p-nitrophenol using a hybridized photo-thermal activated persulfate process: Central composite design modeling

The aim of this work is the study of p-nitrophenol (PNP) removal, as a nitroaromatic compound, using a hybridized photo-thermally activated potassium persulfate (KPS) in a fully recycled batch reactor. Response surface method was used for modeling the process. Reaction temperature, KPS initial dosage and initial pH of the solution were selected as variables, besides PNP degradation efficiency was selected as the response. ANOVA analysis reveals that a second order polynomial model with F-value of 41.7, p-value of 0.0001 and regression coefficient of 0.95 is able to predict the response. Based on the model, the process optimum conditions were introduced as initial pH of 4.5, [KPS]₀ = 1452 mg/L and T = 66 °C. Also experiments showed that using thermolysis and photolysis of the persulfate simultaneously, the role of thermolysis is not considerable. A pseudo first order kinetic model was established to describe the degradation reaction. Operational cost, as a vital industrial criterion, was estimated so that the condition of initial pH of 4.5, [KPS]₀ = 1452 mg/L and T = 25 °C showed the highest cost effective case. Under the preferred mild condition, the process will reach to 84% and 89% of degradation and mineralization efficiencies, after 60 and 120 min, respectively.     

Valuation of Ecological Resources and Functions

/ Ecological resources are natural resources that provide certain necessary but overlooked system maintenance functions within ecosystems. Environmental economics is in search of an appropriate analysis framework to determine economic values of such resources. This paper presents a framework that estimates and compiles the components of value for a natural ecosystem. The framework begins with the ecological processes involved, which provide functions within the ecosystem and services valued by humans. We discuss the additive or competive nature of these values, and estimate these values through conventional and unconventional techniques. We apply the framework to ecological resources in a shrub-steppe dryland habitat being displaced by development. We first determine which functions and services are mutually exclusive (e.g., farming vs soil stabilization) and which are complementary or products of joint production (e.g., soil stabilization and maintenance of species). We then apply benefit transfer principles with contingent valuation methodology (CVM), travel cost methodology (TCM), and hedonic damage pricing (HDP). Finally, we derive upper-limit values for more difficult-to-value functions through the use of human analogs, which we argue are the most appropriate method of valuation under some circumstances. The highest values of natural shrub-steppe habitat appear to be derived from soil stabilization.KEY WORDS: Natural resource economics; Ecological economics; Ecological resources; Shrub-steppe; Environmental valuation; Cost; Benefit; Value     

Influence of carbon sources on nutrient removal in A/O-MBRs: Availability assessment of internal carbon source

Both internal carbon source and some external carbon sources were used to improve the nutrient removal in Anaerobic-Anoxic-Oxic-Membrane Bioreactor (A²/O-MBRs), and their technical and cost analysis was investigated. The experimental results showed that the nutrient removals were improved by all the carbon source additions. The total nitrogen and phosphorus removal efficiency were higher in the experiments with external carbon source additions than that with internal carbon source addition. It was found that pathways of nitrogen and phosphorus transform were different dependent on different carbon source additions by the mass balance analysis. With external carbon source addition, the simultaneous nitrification and denitrification occurred in aerobic zone, and the P-uptake in aerobic phase was evident. Therefore, with addition of C-MHP (internal carbon source produced from sludge pretreatment by microwave-H₂O₂ process), the denitrification and phosphorus-uptake in anoxic zone was notable. Cost analysis showed that the unit nitrogen removal costs were 57.13 CNY/kg N of C-acetate addition and 54.48 CNY/kgN of C-MHP addition, respectively. The results indicated that the C-MHP has a good technical and economic feasibility to substitute external carbon sources partially for nutrient removal.