Generating sustainable towns from Chinese villages: a system modeling approach

The great majority of China's developing towns will be extensions of already existing villages. With the prospect of hundreds of millions of Chinese farmers projected to leave their villages to become industrial workers in new and expanded towns within the next few years, new challenges will be faced. As expansion and modernization progress, this development moves from the traditional village model that operates not far from resource sustainability to increasingly unsustainable patterns of commerce, urban development, and modern life. With such an unprecedented mass migration and transformation, how can Chinese culture survive? What is to become of the existing million plus agricultural villages? How can these massively unsustainable new industrial towns survive? In the European Commission sponsored research program SUCCESS, researchers worked from the scale of the Chinese village to find viable answers to these questions.     

Outsourcing sustainability: a game-theoretic modeling approach

As a response to stakeholders’ interest in sustainable products and services, an organization may change its approach to sustainability issues, from isolated social and environmental projects to corporate sustainability strategies and practices that are part of their core business. However, many of the efforts associated with these sustainability strategies cannot be directly exerted by focal organizations. We consider the situation in which a focal organization (sustainability buyer) outsources sustainability efforts to another organization (sustainability seller). While buyers cannot directly exert sustainability efforts, they can provide economic or technical support to their sellers in order to incentivize these efforts. We investigate how the effort and support decisions change according to characteristics of stakeholders, buyers, and sellers. Additionally, the presence of sustainability-minded stakeholders may lead to buyers’ competition on the sustainability effort exerted by their sellers. Therefore, we extend our analysis of sustainability efforts and incentives to the case of two competing buyers, and we determine conditions under which sharing a seller is preferred by the buyers to having a separate seller for each buyer.     

A conceptual approach to selection of a control measure for residual chlorine discharge in Kuwait bay

It is estimated that some 17 metric tons of residual oxidants (chlorine) are discharged into the enclosed coastal seawater of Kuwait on a daily basis from power-desalination plants alone. Alarmed by the unlimited number of reported cases of damage to marine aquatic systems due to chlorine discharge around the world, several alternatives were proposed to control such a massive discharge of residual oxidant into seawaters. Most of the proposed alternatives lacked the basic criteria necessary for their evaluation, justification, and then selection. The objective of this article is to provide a conceptual approach that can be used to select a control measure for residual oxidant discharge in Kuwait coastal seawaters. This approach is based on state-of-the-art knowledge and the unique operational and environmental factors involved. A matrix system was designed whereby the cost of residual chlorine control alternative, its effectiveness, and environmental and public health impact, performance, and reliability in Kuwait can be compared and evaluated. The selection approach considered currently operating power plants in terms of their engineering design and material (cast iron or steel condensers), current operational conditions, operator's perception, acceptability, and projected problems associated with the environmental management of proposed modifications. The proposed approach revealed that in Kuwait, conventinal chlorination was marginally superseded only by chlorination/dechlorination using SO₂ and operation alteration using process optimization. The overall cost-effective assessment matrix classified other alternatives as worse than chlorination by various degrees. Ozone and UV were found to be the worst and the least desirable alternatives for biofouling control of seawater in Kuwait. In light of the available information on the consequences of the Gulf War on the marine environment, and the potential formation of additional halogenated organic compounds through the reaction of residual chlorine with the released petroleum hydrocarbons, it is essential to control residual chlorine discharged into the nearshore environment of Kuwait.     

Environmental sustainability in an agricultural development project: a system dynamics approach

Regional agricultural projects based on water resource development have many potential impacts on social and natural environments. In this research, potential long-term environmental problems of the Southeastern Anatolian Project (GAP) related to water resources, land use, land degradation, agricultural pollution and demography are analysed from a systems perspective. The analysis focuses on the totality of environmental, social and economic issues. For this purpose, a system dynamics simulation model (GAPSIM) has been developed as an experimental platform for policy analysis. GAPSIM was validated, first 'structurally', using the tests suggested by the literature and then the model 'behaviour' was tested and calibrated with respect to available data. The reference behaviour of GAPSIM reveals that, as the irrigated lands are developed, GAP faces significant water scarcity because of the increased intensity of cotton, the crop with the highest demands for water. Simulation results also indicate that two key environmental factors, pesticide and fertilizer consumption may reach undesirable levels. Alternative irrigation water release strategies, development rates of irrigated fields and farm rotation practices appear as important policy tools in achieving long-term environmental sustainability. GAPSIM promises to be not only a useful laboratory for policy makers of GAP, but also a useful generic structure applicable to other similar regional development projects.     

Fate of biosolids trace metals in a dryland wheat agroecosystem

Biosolids land application for beneficial reuse applies varying amounts of trace metals to soils. Measuring plant-available or total soil metals is typically performed to ensure environmental protection, but these techniques do not quantify which soil phases play important roles in terms of metal release or attenuation. This study assessed the distribution of Cd, Cr, Cu, Mo, Ni, Pb, and Zn associated with soluble/exchangeable, specifically adsorbed/carbonate-bound, amorphous Mn hydroxyoxide-bound, amorphous Fe hydroxyoxide-bound, organically complexed, and residual inorganic phases. Biosolids were applied every 2 yr from 1982 to 2002 (except in 1998) at rates of 0, 6.7, 13.4, 26.8, and 40.3 dry Mg biosolids ha(-)(1) to 3.6- by 17.1-m plots. In 2003, 0- to 20-cm and 20- to 60-cm soil depths were collected and subjected to 4 mol L(-1) HNO(3) digestion and sequential extraction. Trace metals were concentrated in the 0- to 20-cm depth, with no significant observable downward movement using 4 mol L(-1) HNO(3) or sequential extraction. The sequential extraction showed nearly all measurable Cd present in relatively mobile forms and Cr, Cu, Mo, Ni, Pb, and Zn present in more resistant phases. Biosolids application did not affect Cd or Cr fractionation but did increase relatively immobile Cu, Mo, and Zn phases and relatively mobile Cu, Ni, and Pb pools. The mobile phases have not contributed to significant downward metal movement. Long-term, repeated biosolids applications at rates considered several times greater than agronomic levels should not significantly contribute to downward metal transport and ground water contamination for soils under similar climatic conditions, agronomic practices, and histories.     

Application of a system dynamics approach for assessment and mitigation of CO2 emissions from the cement industry

A system dynamics model based on the dynamic interactions among a number of system components is developed to estimate CO(2) emissions from the cement industry in India. The CO(2) emissions are projected to reach 396.89 million tonnes by the year 2020 if the existing cement making technological options are followed. Policy options of population growth stabilisation, energy conservation and structural management in cement manufacturing processes are incorporated for developing the CO(2) mitigation scenarios. A 42% reduction in the CO(2) emissions can be achieved in the year 2020 based on an integrated mitigation scenario. Indirect CO(2) emissions from the transport of raw materials to the cement plants and finished product to market are also estimated.     

An integrated fuzzy-stochastic modeling approach for risk assessment of groundwater contamination

An integrated fuzzy-stochastic risk assessment (IFSRA) approach was developed in this study to systematically quantify both probabilistic and fuzzy uncertainties associated with site conditions, environmental guidelines, and health impact criteria. The contaminant concentrations in groundwater predicted from a numerical model were associated with probabilistic uncertainties due to the randomness in modeling input parameters, while the consequences of contaminant concentrations violating relevant environmental quality guidelines and health evaluation criteria were linked with fuzzy uncertainties. The contaminant of interest in this study was xylene. The environmental quality guideline was divided into three different strictness categories: "loose", "medium" and "strict". The environmental-guideline-based risk (ER) and health risk (HR) due to xylene ingestion were systematically examined to obtain the general risk levels through a fuzzy rule base. The ER and HR risk levels were divided into five categories of "low", "low-to-medium", "medium", "medium-to-high" and "high", respectively. The general risk levels included six categories ranging from "low" to "very high". The fuzzy membership functions of the related fuzzy events and the fuzzy rule base were established based on a questionnaire survey. Thus the IFSRA integrated fuzzy logic, expert involvement, and stochastic simulation within a general framework. The robustness of the modeling processes was enhanced through the effective reflection of the two types of uncertainties as compared with the conventional risk assessment approaches. The developed IFSRA was applied to a petroleum-contaminated groundwater system in western Canada. Three scenarios with different environmental quality guidelines were analyzed, and reasonable results were obtained. The risk assessment approach developed in this study offers a unique tool for systematically quantifying various uncertainties in contaminated site management, and it also provides more realistic support for remediation-related decisions.     

Derivation of a GIS-based watershed-scale conceptual model for the St. Jones River Delaware from habitat-scale conceptual models

Conceptual modeling is a useful tool for identifying pathways between drivers, stressors, Valued Ecosystem Components (VECs), and services that are central to understanding how an ecosystem operates. The St. Jones River watershed, DE is a complex ecosystem, and because management decisions must include ecological, social, political, and economic considerations, a conceptual model is a good tool for accommodating the full range of inputs. In 2002, a Four-Component, Level 1 conceptual model was formed for the key habitats of the St. Jones River watershed, but since the habitat level of resolution is too fine for some important watershed-scale issues we developed a functional watershed-scale model using the existing narrowed habitat-scale models. The narrowed habitat-scale conceptual models and associated matrices developed by Reiter et al. (2006) were combined with data from the 2002 land use/land cover (LULC) GIS-based maps of Kent County in Delaware to assemble a diagrammatic and numerical watershed-scale conceptual model incorporating the calculated weight of each habitat within the watershed. The numerical component of the assembled watershed model was subsequently subjected to the same Monte Carlo narrowing methodology used for the habitat versions to refine the diagrammatic component of the watershed-scale model. The narrowed numerical representation of the model was used to generate forecasts for changes in the parameters “Agriculture” and “Forest”, showing that land use changes in these habitats propagated through the results of the model by the weighting factor. Also, the narrowed watershed-scale conceptual model identified some key parameters upon which to focus research attention and management decisions at the watershed scale. The forecast and simulation results seemed to indicate that the watershed-scale conceptual model does lead to different conclusions than the habitat-scale conceptual models for some issues at the larger watershed scale.     

An imprecise fuzzy risk approach for water quality management of a river system

Uncertainty plays an important role in water quality management problems. The major sources of uncertainty in a water quality management problem are the random nature of hydrologic variables and imprecision (fuzziness) associated with goals of the dischargers and pollution control agencies (PCA). Many Waste Load Allocation (WLA) problems are solved by considering these two sources of uncertainty. Apart from randomness and fuzziness, missing data in the time series of a hydrologic variable may result in additional uncertainty due to partial ignorance. These uncertainties render the input parameters as imprecise parameters in water quality decision making. In this paper an Imprecise Fuzzy Waste Load Allocation Model (IFWLAM) is developed for water quality management of a river system subject to uncertainty arising from partial ignorance. In a WLA problem, both randomness and imprecision can be addressed simultaneously by fuzzy risk of low water quality. A methodology is developed for the computation of imprecise fuzzy risk of low water quality, when the parameters are characterized by uncertainty due to partial ignorance. A Monte-Carlo simulation is performed to evaluate the imprecise fuzzy risk of low water quality by considering the input variables as imprecise. Fuzzy multiobjective optimization is used to formulate the multiobjective model. The model developed is based on a fuzzy multiobjective optimization problem with max–min as the operator. This usually does not result in a unique solution but gives multiple solutions. Two optimization models are developed to capture all the decision alternatives or multiple solutions. The objective of the two optimization models is to obtain a range of fractional removal levels for the dischargers, such that the resultant fuzzy risk will be within acceptable limits. Specification of a range for fractional removal levels enhances flexibility in decision making. The methodology is demonstrated with a case study of the Tunga–Bhadra river system in India.     

Perceptions of emission reduction potential in air transport: a structural equation modeling approach

This study employs a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to identify the key perceptions that influence greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction potential (ERP) in air transport. It explores the correlation relationships between various perceptions and air transport GHG emission reduction potential. Personal approach and self-administered surveys were used to collect data from 249 aviation experts. The results of the SEM showed aircraft technology and design, aviation operations and infrastructure, socioeconomic and political measures, and alternative fuels and fuel properties are the key influencing perceptions for reducing GHG emissions. Aircraft technology and design had the strongest ERP, followed by aviation operations and infrastructure with a strong correlation between them. The structural model proved reliable and in agreement to identify the perceptions of the ERP. The outputs can be used to measure the level of knowledge and understanding about the ERP of air transport and can provide airlines with valuable information for designing appropriate air transport policies for emission reduction.     

A rotational groups system approach for interdisciplinary research

Environmental research is characterized in each of its successive phases by a strong interdisciplinarity. A rotational groups system (RGS) method is proposed as an instrument to encourage interaction among researchers from fields that are traditionally far apart. Meetings conducted with the RGS procedure involve all the researchers, who, in repeated and topical encounters, are able to exchange information on a wide variety of environmental subjects. These meetings can be arranged according to a special calendar, through a series of phases treating different aspects of the same subjects to be discussed, and above all, referring to specific themes and working guidelines organized on the basis of criteria designed to favor an exchange of ideas and constructive discussion. At the end, the plenary assembly edits an overall resume of the proceedings, and votes on the final resolution, which brings together all the conclusive opinions regarding the themes discussed.     

Understanding farmer intentions to connect to a modernised delivery system in an Australian irrigation district: a reasoned action approach

Australian governments have sought to invest in irrigation infrastructure to improve the efficiency of water delivery to rural properties and improve water supply and on-farm efficiency. A programme of rationalising irrigation infrastructure has attracted criticism and doubts about its likely success. Attitude theory in the form of the Reasoned Action Model was applied to understand the intentions of landowners to connect to a ‘modernised’ irrigation system. Attitudes towards connecting to the system, social norms and perceptions of control over the behaviour provided an explanation of intentions to connect. Actual financial capability and other variables were important in discriminating a group of landowners who had already connected to the modernised system from farmers who had not.     

An integrated approach to modeling resource utilization for rural communities in developing countries

Resource consumption in developing countries has been the focus of a considerable amount of research. What has been understudied however, has been the feedback affects of resource consumption on resource availability to both households and communities. Heavy reliance on natural resources and intensive smallholder agriculture common to many rural communities in developing countries has forced people to fulfill short-term needs to the detriment of long-term ecological and livelihood sustainability. This paper introduces a conceptual framework to examine how individuals and households fulfill daily caloric needs and the aggregate effects on resource availability and consumption. Data were collected from a large number of published case studies of rural land-use dynamics, growth and yield models, and human livelihoods were reviewed from scientific journals, reports published by NGOs, and government reports. Using inputs defined by the user, the model tracks annual fuelwood and agricultural land use based on meeting individual energy demands. A case-study-based analysis was patterned after smallholder agriculturalists at the family and community level. Three scenarios are presented in this paper using data from Uganda to illustrate the application of this model.     

The decline of environmental degradation by renewable energy consumption in the MERCOSUR countries: an approach with ARDL modeling

The impact of consumption of renewable energy on CO₂ emissions was investigated, in five MERCOSUR’s countries from 1980 to 2014. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) in the form of Unrestricted Error Correction Model to decompose the total effect of variables into it is the short- and long-run components. The results of preliminary tests showed the presence of cross-sectional dependence between the variables, the stationarity of all variables in the first differences, and the homogeneity in panel data. Moreover, the specification tests pointed to the presence of cross-sectional dependence, non-correlation between the crosses, serial correlation in the panel data model, and the existence of heteroskedasticity. The results of semi-elasticities (short run) and elasticities (long run) of ARDL model pointed that the economic growth and consumption of fossil fuels increase the CO₂ emissions in the short and long run, while the consumption of renewable energy reduces them. Despite the consumption of renewable energy reducing the environmental degradation in the MERCOSUR countries, its impact is small. Finally, this study proved that the consumption of renewable energy is able to reduce the CO₂ emissions, which is responsible for the environmental degradation in the MERCOSUR countries, and that the economic growth of these same countries increases the CO₂ emissions, along with the fact that all MERCOSUR countries are highly dependent of fossil fuels.     

Quest for communicating sustainability: Gb-Quest as a learning tool for effecting conceptual change

Abstract

The overall purpose of this study was to assess whether interaction with a regionally based computer simulation software tool, Gb-Quest, was an effective tool for learning about sustainability. A questionnaire was administered to 189 participants, before and after attending a workshop on Gb-Quest. Factor analysis was used to determine the factor structure of the three scales used in this study. Seven variables were identified and were examined for group differences (gender, age, and whether or not they were Canadian born). In particular, younger individuals and males were more likely to endorse the view that the earth is being destroyed by humans. In addition, Canadian-born individuals were more likely to endorse the consumption of environmentally friendly products, but less likely to be supportive of development and using public transportation. We also examined change for each of the variables and found that Gb-Quest had an effect on all of them. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for future research.     

A method of approach to landscape stability. Part 2: Ecooptimization of experimental territorial landscape segment in Bohemian forest

The method of anthropoecological landscape stability (AELS) has been applied experimentally to a territorial unit, forming a closed watershed with more of less precisely defined material, energy, and population flows. This article presents data-driven results of monitoring and conclusions on optimizing features derived from two object-oriented expert systems—the FORELIS, giving heuristically optimal conditions for forest compositions on the site in the prevailing immission situation, and AGRILIS—the agricultural expert system having the scope of finding suitable forms of agriculture with respect to natural conditions and suitable actual production facilities. The results of the study fully confirmed the feasibility of applying expert systems to actual conditions, and no significant errors in the results of the expert systems compared to indications by monitoring have been disclosed.     

Extrinsic modeling and simulation of helio-photovoltaic system: a case of single diode model

Simulation of helio-photovoltaic system is continuously undergoing revolution through diverse parameter modifications which closely mimic the experimental data. In retrospect, the current work has presented a nonlinear modification of equivalent circuit parameters and simulated the same for different semiconductors (crystalline and thin films); furthermore, established a mathematical relation between the coefficients of solar irradiance and module temperature (SIMT); moreover, investigated the influence of SIMT on the model parameters. The simulation upshot reveals that increment in solar irradiance (SI) intensifies the output current whereas an increase in module temperature (MT) diminishes the output voltage; the SIMT coefficients developed validated well with the manufacturers data; the influence of SI was evident on the photon current, diode current, and shunt resistance whereas the effect of MT was pronounced on the diode current, ideality factor, and shunt resistance. Thus, the provision made by this work is essential for advanced design and simulation of helio-photovoltaic systems.     

A modeling assessment of the thermal regime for an urban sport fishery

Water temperature is almost certainly a limiting factor in the maintenance of a self-sustaining rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss, formerlySalmo gairdneri) and brown trout (Salmo trutta) fishery in the lower reaches of the Cache la Poudre River near Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. Irrigation diversions dewater portions of the river, but cold reservoir releases moderate water temperatures during some periods. The US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Stream Network Temperature Model (SNTEMP) was applied to a 31-km segment of the river using readily available stream geometry and hydrological and meteorological data. The calibrated model produced satisfactory water temperature predictions (R ²=0.88,P<0.001, N=49) for a 62-day summer period. It was used to evaluate a variety of flow and nonflow alternatives to keep water temperatures below 23.3°C for the trout. Supplemental flows or reduced diversions of 3 m³/sec would be needed to maintain suitable summer temperatures throughout most of the study area. Such flows would be especially beneficial during weekends when current irrigation patterns reduce flows. The model indicated that increasing the riparian shade would result in little improvement in water temperatures but that decreasing the stream width would result in significant temperature reductions. Introduction of a more thermally tolerant redband trout (Oncorhynchus sp.), or smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieui) might prove beneficial to the fishery. Construction of deep pools for thermal refugia might also be helpful.     

A system dynamics approach for regional environmental planning and management: a study for the Lake Erhai Basin

In recent years, water-quality deterioration associated with rapid socio-economic development in the Lake Erhai Basin, China, has acquired more and more attention from the public and the government. An effective planning for the basin's environmental management system is desired for sustainable regional development. In this study, an environmental system dynamics model, named ErhaiSD, is developed for supporting this planning task. The ErhaiSD consists of dynamic simulation models that explicitly consider information feedback that governs interactions in the system. Such models are capable of synthesizing component-level knowledge into system behaviour simulation at an integrated level. This capability is very useful in analyzing and recommending policy decisions. For the study case, interactions among a umber of system components within a time frame of 15 years are examined dynamically. Four planning alternatives are considered. The base run is based on an assumption that the existing pattern of human activities will prevail in the entire planning horizon, and the other alternatives are based on previous planning studies. The contributions of various nonpoint pollution sources to the lake's eutrophication problems, and the effects of industrial activities and wastewater treatment processes on pollution problems in the Xier River are analyzed through the developed modeling system. The exercise draws attention to the implications of different alternatives to the system's environmental and socio-economic objectives. The modeling results are directly useful for simulating and evaluating a variety of decision actions and their dynamic consequences, and answering questions such as 'What should I do?', 'What if I do?' and 'What are the expected consequences?'.     

Application of the target fish community model to an urban river system

Several models have been developed to assess the biological integrity of aquatic systems using fish community data. One of these, the target fish community (TFC) model, has been used primarily to assess the biological integrity of larger, mainstem rivers in southern New England with basins characterized by dispersed human activities. We tested the efficacy of the TFC approach to specify the fish community in the highly urbanized Charles River watershed in eastern Massachusetts. To create a TFC for the Charles River we assembled a list of fish species that historically inhabited the Charles River watershed, identified geomorphically and zoogeographically similar reference rivers regarded as being in high quality condition, amassed fish survey data for the reference rivers, and extracted from the collections the information needed to define a TFC. We used a similarity measurement method to assess the extent to which the study river community complies with the TFC and an inference approach to summarize the manner in which the existing fish community differed from target conditions. The five most abundant species in the TFC were common shiners (34%), fallfish (17%) redbreast sunfish (11%), white suckers (8%), and American eel (7%). Three of the five species predicted to be most abundant in the TFC were scarce or absent in the existing river community. Further, the river was dominated by macrohabitat generalists (99%) while the TFC was predicted to contain 19% fluvial specialist species, 43% fluvial dependent species, and 38% macrohabitat generalist species. In addition, while the target community was dominated by fish intolerant (37%) and moderately tolerant (39%) of water quality degradation, the existing community was dominated by tolerant individuals (59%) and lacked intolerant species expected in the TFC. Similarity scores for species, habitat use specialization, and water quality degradation tolerance categories were 28%, 35% and 66%, respectively. The clear pattern of deviations from target conditions when observing fish habitat requirements strongly suggests that physical habitat change should be a priority for river enhancement in the Charles River. Comparison of our target and existing fish communities to those from a comprehensive study of Northeastern fish assemblage responses to urban intensity gradients revealed very similar results. Likewise, comparison of our TFC community and affinity scores to those of other TFCs from similar regions also yielded similar results and encouraging findings. Based on the positive results of these comparisons, the utility of the findings from the inference approach, and the widespread adoption of the TFC in the Northeast US, it appears that the TFC approach can be used effectively to identify the composition of a healthy fish community and guide river enhancements in both highly urbanized and non-urbanized streams and rivers in the Northeast US.