Stakeholder perceptions of Environmental Management Plans as an environmental protection tool for major developments in the UK

Insufficient implementation and the lack of legislative requirements for follow-up measures following the approval of projects are consistently highlighted as major shortcomings of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Although adopted over 15 years ago by the World Bank, Environmental Management Plans (EMPs) were only semi-formalised in the UK in 2008 and arguably provide a continuous link or ‘bridge’ between the EIA process pre-consent and an Environmental Management System (EMS) post-consent. Drawing on twenty-one semi-structured interviews with stakeholders and thematic analysis of their responses, and a broad-scale practitioner survey, this study aimed to assess the effectiveness of EMPs as an environmental protection tool across the project lifecycle for major developments. The findings revealed a mixed picture of EMP effectiveness in practice, with EMPs only partially fulfilling a bridging role between EIA and EMS. There is no ‘gold standard’ terminology for EMPs, all having slightly different uses, thus presenting different focuses to different stakeholders and further enhancing variation in practice. For many stakeholders, the effectiveness was simply not known, due to the lack of communication and follow-up that still exists. EMP–EMS linkages were shown to be effective from the developer's perspective when a single organisation has involvement across all project phases, though weaknesses occur when multiple parties are involved. Among other stakeholders, knowledge varied significantly; whilst some were in agreement that the linkages worked, many were unaware of the connections and thought of them as two quite separate tools. Stakeholders advocated for the need to make EMPs a legal requirement; for improved communication between stakeholders during EMP implementation and increased documentation of project outcomes; and for EMPs to be consistently written by environmental professionals. Furthermore, weak links in the current process may be improved by providing detailed guidance for organisations on the potential for EMP–EMS linkages, with the additional aim of encouraging stakeholders to broaden their current specialist knowledge on environmental protection tools.     

Internationalization of EIA in a new marine biodiversity agreement under the Law of the Sea Convention: A proposal for a tiered approach to review and decision-making

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is one of the four main elements of the package being negotiated in the Intergovernmental Conference to develop an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ agreement). “Internationalization” of EIA under the agreement, which partly relates to the international community's role in oversight and outcome of the process, remains a contentious issue that requires continued consideration. Less controversial aspects of internationalization in the EIA process are internationalization of consultation and dissemination of information. They are shown to be critical to achieving quality outcomes and encouraging transparency and accountability. This paper addresses a third dimension of internationalization, relating to review and decision-making, which is proving to be the most divisive in the negotiations to date. This aspect of internationalization is fundamental to allowing decisions taken on proposed activities to be seen as legitimate but concerns exist about the bureaucracy and costs that the process may entail, as well as potential interference with sovereign rights of States Parties under UNCLOS. This paper advances a proposal for internationalization of review and decision-making under the BBNJ agreement that attempts to bridge the divide evident going into the 4th session of the Inter-governmental Conference in 2021.     

Application of a checklist for quality assistance in environmental modelling to an energy model

Large, complex energy models present considerable challenges to develop and test. Uncertainty assessments of such models provide only partial guidance on the quality of the results. We have developed a model quality assistance checklist to aid in this purpose. The model checklist provides diagnostic output in the form of a set of pitfalls for the model application. The checklist is applied here to an energy model for the problem of assessing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Use of the checklist suggests that results on this issue are contingent on a number of assumptions that are highly value-laden. When these assumptions are held fixed, the model is deemed capable of producing moderately robust results of relevance to climate policy over the longer term. Checklist responses also indicate that a number of details critical to policy choices or outcomes on this issue are not captured in the model, and model results should therefore be supplemented with alternative analyses.     

Application of an environmental impact assessment methodology to a site discharging low levels of radioactivity to a freshwater environment in Norway

Significant shifts in opinion regarding environmental protection from ionising radiation have resulted in the development and availability of bespoke approaches for the assessment of impacts on wildlife from radioactive contaminants. The application of such assessment methodologies to actual situations, however, remains relatively limited. This paper describes the implementation of the ERICA Integrated Approach and associated tools within the context of routine discharges of radioactive materials to a freshwater environment. The article follows the implementation through its relevant stages and discusses strengths and weaknesses of the approach in relation to the case study. For current discharge levels, ¹³⁷Cs and ⁶⁰Co constitute the main dose contributors to the majority of reference organisms studied, although ²⁴¹Am and ³H are the main contributors for the phyto- and zooplankton categories. Patterns are observed depending on whether the reference organism is sediment-associated or not. At current discharge levels, none of the reference organisms exceeded or approached the selected screening level, and impacts on biota could be regarded as negligible.     

Molecular characterization of antibiotic resistance in enterococci recovered from seagulls (Larus cachinnans) representing an environmental health problem

Antimicrobial resistance and the mechanisms implicated were studied in 54 enterococci recovered from 57 seagull fecal samples. Almost 78% of the recovered enterococci showed resistance against one or more antibiotics and these isolates were identified to the species level. E. faecium was the most prevalent species (52.4%). High percentages of erythromycin and tetracycline resistances were found among our isolates (95.2%), and lower percentages were identified to other antibiotics. Most of the tetracycline-resistant strains carried the tet(M) and/or tet(L) genes. Genes associated with Tn916/Tn1545 and/or Tn5397 transposons were detected in 45% of tetracycline-resistant isolates. The erm(B) gene was detected in 65% of erythromycin-resistant isolates. The vat(D) and vat(E) genes were present in 5.9% and 11.8% of quinupristin/dalfopristin-resistant isolates, respectively. The ant(6)-Ia gene was identified in 57.1% of streptomycin-resistant isolates. All nine kanamycin-resistant isolates carried the aph(3)'-IIIa gene. The cat(A) gene was found in two chloramphenicol-resistant isolates. Seagulls should be considered a risk species for spreading in the environment antimicrobial resistant enterococci and can serve as a sentinel for antibiotic pressure from the surrounding farm and urban setting.     

Theory and practice to integrating health in environmental assessment: Synthesis of an experience with stakeholders to deliver a national HIA guideline

Private or public developers, including local authorities and government agencies, have limited operational guidance to include case-relevant health information in environmental reports. In Italy, the absence of technical indications prompted the Ministry of Health to construct a new model of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) for health integration in Environmental Assessment (EA) processes. A coordinating committee set within an inter-institutional working group was assisted by public and private key stakeholders to deliver guidance on HIA. The three research stages of framing, production and delivery were carried out to: (1) frame the context for HIA guidance implementation; (2) produce the operational guideline and tools; (3) train and disclose the guideline to final users. The guideline and the operational procedures were informed by core criteria to achieve a health standard in environmental reporting. The procedures guide the user to carry out a comprehensive assessment of the population health based on the broad determinants. The environmental reporting integrates health through functional components, divided into levels and supported by related flowcharts and checklists. HIA knowledge and skills were provided to facilitate the guideline utilization within the health departments. The guideline embedded the existing EA national legacy, normative and technical. The entire decisional cycle, from strategic planning to project development was covered in the guideline including the screen of proposals. The experience triggered the definition of an environmental health collaborative platform under the Ministry of Health coordination to fill gaps in competence building, sector operational tools development, methodologies harmonization on the national territory.     

Remote sensing in environmental police investigations: aerial platforms and an innovative application of thermography to detect several illegal activities

Being able to identify the environmental crimes and the guilty parties is central to police investigations, and new technologies enable the authorities to do this faster and more accurately than ever before. In recent years, our research team has introduced the use of a range of aerial platforms and an innovative application of thermography to detect several illegal activities; for example, illegal sanitary sewer and storm-drain connections, illicit wastewater discharges, and other “anomalies” on surface waters can be easily identified using their thermal infrared signatures. It can also be used to detect illegal solid/liquid waste dumps or illicit air discharges. This paper introduces first results of a Thermal Pattern and Thermal Tracking approach that can be used to identify different phenomena and several pollutants. The aims of this paper were to introduce a fingerprint paradigm for environmental police investigations, defining several specific signatures (patterns) that permit the identification of an illicit/anomalous activity, and establish a procedure to use this information to find the correlation (tracking) between the crime and the culprit or the source and the target.     

Phytoplankton community structure in relation to environmental factors from the New Mangalore Port waters along the southwest coast of India

Seasonal and spatial phytoplankton distribution in relation to environmental factors was investigated in New Mangalore Port, a major port along the west coast of India. A well-mixed water column characterized the non-monsoon seasons, whereas it was weakly stratified during monsoon. Water quality index (TRIX) scores indicated good water quality except during pre-monsoon (inner zone surface) and monsoon (near bottom waters). Surface abundance of tychopelagic diatoms (Paralia sulcata, Melosira nummuloides, Cylindrotheca closterium, and Nitzschia sigma) was higher during non-monsoon seasons. Certain centric diatoms, e.g., Leptocylindrus danicus, P. sulcata, and Rhizosolenia imbricata, dominated during pre-monsoon (inner zone) and positively correlated with TRIX. High Skeletonema costatum and dinoflagellate abundance during the monsoon season coincided with high nutrient concentrations. Five potential toxic and fourteen harmful/bloom forming algal species were encountered at abundances below the level that can be considered as harmful to the ecosystem. In addition to a baseline database, this study highlights the potential use of certain diatom species as indicators of hydrography and water quality for monitoring dynamic coastal marine ecosystems.     

Development of an in vitro method to estimate lung bioaccessibility of metals from atmospheric particles

The research presented here was initiated to improve the current knowledge on easily released metals from atmospheric particles. The objectives of this paper were to develop an in vitro method to estimate lung bioaccessibility and to provide quantitative data on metals bioaccessibility. A large set of metals has been investigated (Ba, Cd, Ce, Co, Cu, La, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Rb, Sb and Zn) using two distinct fluids (water and Gamble solution) on four reference materials representing different types of particle sources. Through this study, different parameters such as extraction-time, composition of the leaching solution and solid-to-liquid (S/L) ratios were investigated. The findings obtained for four SRMs suggest that the bioaccessibility is maximized after a 24 h extraction for a range of S/L ratios varying from 1/500 to 1/50,000. We clearly demonstrate that the higher bioaccessibility of metals is obtained with the Gamble solution. Moreover, our results imply that bioaccessibility is speciation and element dependent with percentages varying from 3.3% for Pb to 92.5% for Zn. An estimation of uncertainties of 11% to 30% was obtained for metals bioaccessibility in the four reference materials. In addition, the extraction procedure was validated by performing a mass balance on both soluble and insoluble fractions. This developed method may be used to evaluate the pulmonary bioaccessibility of trace elements present in the atmospheric particles without major artefacts.     

Effects of land conversion from native shrub to pistachio orchard on soil erodibility in an arid region

Land-use change through degrading natural vegetation for agricultural production adversely affects many of soil properties particularly organic carbon content of soils. The native shrub land and grassland of Gaziantep-Adiyaman plateau that is an important pistachio growing eco-region have been cleared to convert into pistachio orchard for the last 50 to 60 years. In this study, the effects of conversion of natural vegetation into agricultural uses on soil erodibility have been investigated. Soil samples were collected from surface of agricultural fields and adjacent natural vegetation areas, and samples were analyzed for some soil erodibility indices such as dispersion ratio (DR), erosion ratio (ER), structural stability index (SSI), Henin’s instability index (I _s ), and aggregate size distribution after wet sieving (AggSD). According to the statistical evaluation, these two areas were found as different from each other in terms of erosion indices except for I _s index (P < 0.001 for DR and ER or P < 0.01 for SSI). In addition, native shrub land and converted land to agriculture were found different in terms of AggSD in all aggregate size groups. As a contrary to expectations, correlation tests showed that there were no any interaction between soil organic carbon and measured erodibility indices in two areas. In addition, significant relationships were determined between measured variables and soil textural fractions as statistical. These obtaining findings were attributed to changing of textural component distribution and initial aggregate size distribution results from land-use change in the study area. Study results were explained about hierarchical aggregate formation mechanism.