Book reviews and notices

The aim of sustainable development is to balance social, economic, and environmental needs. In order to justify the decisions they make, stakeholders must quantify the different impacts found in the operations and developments of companies and/or projects throughout their life cycle. However, as some areas are subjective in nature, the quantification process of the different impacts and the assessment of sustainable development performance become arduous tasks of development, validation, and application of scientific and empirical methods with the intrinsic objective of finding an agreement among the involved parties (i.e., stakeholders). Several environmental and sustainability assessment tools, instruments, processes, and methodologies have been developed; rating systems stand out and have gained attention and credibility, as demonstrated by the vast number of certified projects around the world and the widely-known usefulness and advantages of their application. The Wa-Pa-Su project sustainability rating system presents an integrated approach to sustainability assessment by integrating three distinctive areas of knowledge: (1) sustainable development theory and fundamentals supports the ultimate goal of the rating system, which is to contribute to sustainability, with the aim of finding a path to balance social, economic, and environmental needs; (2) continual performance improvement becomes essential due to the duration of the projects, as it is critical to allow organizations or projects to improve performance over time; and (3) multi-criteria decision analysis assists with the assessment process through stakeholder engagement and participation, and the design and implementation of a criteria weighting system.     

Meeting report

SUMMARY

In many developing countries, the determination of a ranking of investments designed to improve and extend the road system is a commonplace prerequisite of planning for the transport sector as a whole and the road sub-sector within it. A major objective of determining investment priorities is to secure the greatest efficiency in the use of resources allocated to the sector and, for this reason, any system of assigning priorities must rely upon conventional investment appraisal techniques producing quantifiable measures of worth. Exercises of this kind, in which road investments are identified and ranked, are usually undertaken to produce a road sector investment plan. The implementation of such plans is, however, often compromised because of perceived deficiencies with a methodology which places undue reliance on investment appraisal and fails to properly address the issue of public interest and sustainability. This paper attempts to produce a pragmatic set of ground rules which, while mindful of the need to promote economic efficiency, allow for other factors to be embraced in a more holistic methodology.     

When is a soil remediated? Comparison of biopiled and windrowed soils contaminated with bunker-fuel in a full-scale trial

A six month field scale study was carried out to compare windrow turning and biopile techniques for the remediation of soil contaminated with bunker C fuel oil. End-point clean-up targets were defined by human risk assessment and ecotoxicological hazard assessment approaches. Replicate windrows and biopiles were amended with either nutrients and inocula, nutrients alone or no amendment. In addition to fractionated hydrocarbon analysis, culturable microbial characterisation and soil ecotoxicological assays were performed. This particular soil, heavy in texture and historically contaminated with bunker fuel was more effectively remediated by windrowing, but coarser textures may be more amendable to biopiling. This trial reveals the benefit of developing risk and hazard based approaches in defining end-point bioremediation of heavy hydrocarbons when engineered biopile or windrow are proposed as treatment option.     

Better estimates of soil carbon from geographical data: a revised global approach

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change - Soils hold the largest pool of organic carbon (C) on Earth; yet, soil organic carbon (SOC) reservoirs are not well represented in climate...     

Variation in PAH inputs and microbial community in surface sediments of Hamilton Harbour: implications to remediation and monitoring

Variations in concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and microbial community indicators were investigated in representative highly contaminated and less contaminated surface sediment sites of Hamilton Harbour. Inputs of PAH to the upper 3cm of sediments up to four times the average upper sediment concentrations were observed. Associated PAH fingerprint profiles indicated that the source was consistent with the PAH source to the industrial region of the harbour. Increased PAH loadings were associated with decreased bacterial populations as indicated by phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) concentrations. However, relatively minor impacts on overall community composition were indicated. Porewater methane concentrations and isotopic data indicated a difference in the occurrence of methane oxidation between the two sites. This study confirms temporally limited transport of contaminants from highly impacted regions as a vector for contaminants within the harbour and the impact on microbial carbon cycling and bed stability.     

化学危险品管理(Infosafe概念)

澳大利亚安工有限公司是在1987年由叶恩柯维先生(Mr.lan Cowie)创立。该公司以提供化工安全软件为主。这次中国第一届企业安全与健康管理高峰年会上,柯维先生主持第二天工作会议,并向中国工业安全专家详细讲解了他对工业安全的经验。     

Does Soil Carbon Loss in Biomass Production Systems Negate the Greenhouse Benefits of Bioenergy?

Interest in bioenergy is growing across the Western world in response to mounting concerns about climate change. There is a risk of depletion of soil carbon stocks in biomass production systems, because a higher proportion of the organic matter and nutrients are removed from the site, compared with conventional agricultural and forestry systems. This paper reviews the factors that influence soil carbon dynamics in bioenergy systems, and utilises the model FullCAM to investigate the likely magnitude of soil carbon change where bioenergy systems replace conventional land uses. Environmental and management factors govern the magnitude and direction of change. Soil C losses are most likely where soil C is initially high, such as where improved pasture is converted to biomass production. Bioenergy systems are likely to enhance soil C where these replace conventional cropping, as intensively cropped soils are generally depleted in soil C. Measures that enhance soil C include maintenance of productivity through application of fertilisers, inclusion of legumes, and retention of nutrient-rich foliage on-site. Modelling results demonstrate that loss of soil carbon in bioenergy systems is associated with declines in the resistant plant matter and humified soil C pools. However, published experimental data and modelling results indicate that total soil C loss in bioenergy systems is generally small. Thus, although there may be some decline in soil carbon associated with biomass production, this is negligible in comparison with the contribution of bioenergy systems towards greenhouse mitigation through avoided fossil fuel emissions.     

Impact of laboratory-imposed physical disturbance on the abundance of four isolates of marine gymnamoebae

Four species of gymnamoebae isolated from a sandy shore were subjected to physical disturbance within sand microcosms containing either 250 or 125 μm sand. Firstly, the effect of two different strengths of physical disturbance on amoebae populations within sand was investigated. Secondly, whether the size of sand grains occupied by amoebae populations changed their response to disturbance events was assessed. Highest abundances of amoebae were recorded in control flasks containing 125 μm sand. Increasing the strength of disturbance decreased the abundance of all four species. Abundances of the two smallest isolates (Platyamoeba sp. and a limax amoeba) were least affected by increasing disturbance. The greatest decrease in abundance was observed in populations of two larger (>15 μm) Mayorella sp. and Vannella sp. The greatest impact of physical disturbance was seen on populations within 250 μm sand. This study shows that physical disturbance may be an important community structuring force within natural marine gymnamoebae communities.     

Extinction in a hyperdiverse endemic Hawaiian land snail family and implications for the underestimation of invertebrate extinction

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List includes 832 species listed as extinct since 1600, a minuscule fraction of total biodiversity. This extinction rate is of the same order of magnitude as the background rate and has been used to downplay the biodiversity crisis. Invertebrates comprise 99% of biodiversity, yet the status of a negligible number has been assessed. We assessed extinction in the Hawaiian land snail family Amastridae (325 species, IUCN lists 33 as extinct). We did not use the stringent IUCN criteria, by which most invertebrates would be considered data deficient, but a more realistic approach comparing historical collections with modern surveys and expert knowledge. Of the 325 Amastridae species, 43 were originally described as fossil or subfossil and were assumed to be extinct. Of the remaining 282, we evaluated 88 as extinct and 15 as extant and determined that 179 species had insufficient evidence of extinction (though most are probably extinct). Results of statistical assessment of extinction probabilities were consistent with our expert evaluations of levels of extinction. Modeling various extinction scenarios yielded extinction rates of 0.4‐14.0% of the amastrid fauna per decade. The true rate of amastrid extinction has not been constant; generally, it has increased over time. We estimated a realistic average extinction rate as approximately 5%/decade since the first half of the nineteenth century. In general, oceanic island biotas are especially susceptible to extinction and global rate generalizations do not reflect this. Our approach could be used for other invertebrates, especially those with restricted ranges (e.g., islands), and such an approach may be the only way to evaluate invertebrates rapidly enough to keep up with ongoing extinction.     

The decomposition of wood products in landfills in Sydney, Australia

Three landfill sites that had been closed for 19, 29 and 46 years and had been operated under different management systems were excavated in Sydney. The mean moisture content of the wood samples ranged from 41.6% to 66.8%. The wood products recovered were identified to species, and their carbon, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin concentration were determined and compared to those of matched samples of the same species. No significant loss of dry mass was measured in wood products buried for 19 and 29 years, but where refuse had been buried for 46 years, the measured loss of carbon (as a percentage of dry biomass) was 8.7% for hardwoods and 9.1% for softwoods, equating to 18% and 17% of their original carbon content, respectively. The results indicate that published decomposition factors based on laboratory research significantly overestimate the decomposition of wood products in landfill.