Sources of air pollution due to coal mining and their impacts in Jharia coalfield

Indian coal consumption is about 5.5% of the world and the share of coal as energy went up to 66%. The increasing trend of opencast coal mining lead to release of dust and gaseous pollutants. The Indian reserve of coking coal is mainly located in Jharia coalfield and having reserves upto a depth of 1219m are 19339 Mt. The coalfield is subjected to intensive mining activities and accounts for 30% of the total Indian coal production. Coal mining in Jharia coalfield and the sources of air pollution along with the production of air pollutants have been described. The dust particles act as centres of catalysis for many of the chemical reactions taking place in the atmosphere. Characteristics and effects of the pollutants have been discussed. An estimate of the dust generated and discharged into the atmosphere can be made by using emission factor or prediction type equations. It is disirable that this exercise is to be undertaken in planning stage so that adequate and appropriate mitigating measures can be incorporated into the project at least cost.     

煤炭资源开采环境污染物影子价格的估计——基于安徽煤炭企业的调查数据

环境污染物的影子价格体现了污染物的边际减排成本,是政府制定公共环境政策的重要依据。本文在环境技术的基础上,扩展了传统的产出方向性距离函数方法,进而构建了能够将多种环境污染物的影子价格进行综合估测新的影子价格模型。采用这种新的模型方法和安徽煤炭开采和洗选企业的样本数据,对煤炭资源开采利用过程中排放的三种主要环境污染物——废水、废气和固体废物的影子价格进行了估计。结果发现,2009年,安徽煤炭开采和洗选企业所排放的废水、废气和固体废物的平均影子价格分别为0.021 6万元/t、0.031 37万元/t和0.178 48万元/t。这三种环境污染物的影子价格存在差异,反映出安徽煤炭开采企业处理不同环境污染物所面临的环境成本是不同的。环境行为监管者在做出环境规制决策前要充分考虑到这个前提。     

Environmental health, development and economic empowerment of rural women in Nigeria

Sustainable development is a process that has social, cultural, economic and ecological dimensions. The necessity of improving the quality of life of rural women in terms of socio-economic aspects in developing countries like Nigeria is the aim of this study. The study was carried out in four villages of Tonkere district (Okeake, Abagboro, Elefon and Akiri), situated on expansive university land at Ile-Ife and typical of rural settings in Nigeria. Data were generated from group meetings, local government and individual interviews and surveys. In rural Nigeria, women’s essential contributions to overall environmental health, development and economy are negatively influenced by domestic tasks such as gathering of fuel woods and biomass for cooking. In reality, wood burning, kerosene stoves, and open fireplaces emit significant quantities of known health-damaging pollutants. The significant emissions of health-damaging pollutants per unit activity, combined with daily use in close proximity to rural human populations mean household biomass fuel use exposes total population to important pollutants resulting in ill-health and premature dead. Application of solar energy collectors and hosts of solar devices is an alternative energy sources in rural areas that could best improve women’s health, socially and economically, and positively add to ecological dimensions. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

‘Eco-city’ to ‘disaster-resilient eco-community’: a concerted approach in the coastal city of Puri, India

The need for environmental and urban planning reached a critical point in the year 2007, when one-half of the world's population could be defined as living in cities. Urbanisation in India is also increasing at a fast rate. Urban chaos in India, emanating from the continuous ignorance of fragile ecosystems, calls for the reshaping of existing cities as ‘eco-cities’. The ‘eco-city’—a well-known concept in the western world—is new to the Indian context. While western connotations of eco-cities should not be discarded outright in the context of India, core concerns vary significantly for obvious reasons. Recognising two facts—firstly, eco-city development is altogether a fresh approach to human settlement development in India, and, secondly, the manifold increase in the vulnerability of cities—this paper discusses documented good practice, reinforcing evolution towards the eco-city vision. Lessons drawn from the examples cited are further deconstructed in the light of their contribution to urban risk reduction, which provides direction to appreciating the ‘disaster-resilient eco-community’ concept in Puri, a coastal city in India. Further, this paper attempts to unravel existing community-based practices in Puri, which are boon to the local environment and invariably reduce disaster risk. These seemingly modest neighbourhood initiatives symbolise immense societal wealth, which can be calibrated appropriately for reducing urban environmental risk as well. This paper also illustrates how a ‘disaster resilient eco-community’ approach is inevitable in the present and future contexts not only to preserve sustainable development gains but also to secure human well-being.     

以多联产为支撑点的"合成气城市"规划 --煤炭城市的可持续发展

目前,中国煤炭城市普遍面临城市产业结构迫切需要转型、城市生态环境问题严重、城市人口就业形势严重等挑战。在低价高硫煤资源丰富、石油和天然气资源缺乏、经济发展水平适中、产业结构亟待调整的典型地区实施以多联产为支撑点的“合成气城市”规划,是这类煤炭城市实现经济、社会、环境、资源相互协调的可持续发展之路。本文初步探讨了“合成气城市”规划研究的内容,并以山东省济宁市是为例分析了实施“合成气城市规划”的收益。     

Examining Environmental Kuznets Curve for river effluents in India

This study aims to determine the trade-off between river pollution and the growth of the economy in the context of India using the concept of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). According to EKC theory, environmental pressure tends to rise faster than income growth in the early stages of economic development and then declines in the later stages with further economic growth. The present study has used the cross-sectional time series data for river pollutants of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Dissolved Hydrogen Ions (PH) across various states of India for the period 1990–1991 to 2005–2006. This study shows why the conventional EKC model is not sufficient to ascertain the declining path of pollution as the economy grows in the second stage. The paper uses the modified EKC theory where the EKC curve is proposed to have 2 turning points. Our results indicated ‘tilted-S shaped’ relationship which contradicts EKC in the early stages. Most of the regions that were studied have crossed the first turning point but are still to cross the second turning point, which means that there will be an ascent in the pollution level in the future. This calls for more stringent environment policies complementing the desired growth path.     

Assessment of the radiological impacts of historical coal mining operations on the environment of Ny-Alesund, Svalbard

Mineral extraction activities, such as those conducted by oil, gas and coal industries, are widespread throughout the Arctic region. Waste products of these activities can result in significant contributions to the radioactive burden of the surrounding environment due to increased concentrations of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) to levels that would not normally be found in the environment. Coal mining operations commenced in the early 1900s on Svalbard and have been conducted at a variety of locations on the archipelago since then. Coal contains radionuclides of the uranium and thorium series as well as 40K. Extraction and processing of coal can result in releases of these radionuclides to the broader environment with subsequent impact on the human and non-human inhabitants of the area. This paper presents the results of a study on environmental radioactivity resulting from historical coal mining operations conducted at Ny-Alesund, Spitsbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago. Activity concentrations of radionuclides found in materials associated with these operations are presented as well as the results of a spatial dosimetric survey conducted over an area affected by coal mining.     

Public disclosures: using information to reduce pollution in developing countries

The failure of formal regulation and market-based approaches to control pollution has highlighted the significance of informal regulation in the form of ‘public disclosure’ and ‘rating’ for achieving environmental goals in the nineties. In developing countries where pollution information is often scarce, disclosure can make a firm’s emissions more costly. This is because it increases penalties from regulators, local communities, consumer organizations and factor markets. Public or information disclosure combines conventional environmental monitoring, self-regulation and public pressure using environmental ratings to promote better environmental management. Thus, it forms an effective tool to control pollution in developing countries like India, China or Kenya and countries-in-transition like Poland, Russia, etc. The different examples given in the paper indicate that effective public disclosure requires a credible scheme with scrutiny at different checkpoints similar to the one used for PROPER in Indonesia or GRP in India.     

能源消费与环境污染的边限协整分析

能源的使用是导致环境恶化的主要原因之一,所以研究能源消费与不同污染物之间的关系就很有必要。本文以1985-2007年的年度数据为样本,建立了自回归分布滞后—误差修正模型,并运用边限检验对我国的能源消费与环境污染之间的关系进行了实证研究。研究结果表明:长期来看能源消费总量、煤炭占能源消费总量的比重和水电、核电、风电占能源消费总量的比重对SO2的排放有重要影响,但是对工业烟尘排放量来说只有水电、核电、风电占能源消费总量的比重的影响是显著的;短期来看煤炭占能源消费总量的比重对SO2排放的影响是显著的,能源消费总量和水电、核电、风电占能源消费总量的比重对工业烟尘的排放有显著影响。由于能源消费总量和结构对不同污染物的长期和短期影响存在较大差异,所以在治理时应区别对待。     

Changing air quality in Delhi,India: determinants,trends, and policy implications

Air pollution is a major environmental problem in urban areas worldwide. Delhi, the capital city of India, is no exception to the universal pattern of deteriorating urban air quality with concentration of pollutants being well above the recommended WHO levels. The magnitude and urgency of the problem as a global environmental issue needs a systematic understanding of the potential causes of pollution and their contribution to air quality. In the present study, ambient air quality data (1987–2006) of SO₂, NO₂, SPM, and RSPM were analyzed to asses the changing air quality in the study area and to evaluate the effect of measures taken to control it. The primary data were collected from 1,583 households to examine the relationship between outdoor and indoor pollution level. Based on the data, the current study concludes that despite the implementation of different pollution-controlling measures, the pollutants, especially the particulate pollutants, were well above the standard limits set by CPCB. Integration between technological and social approach of urban planning is required to mitigate and manage urban environmental problems in sustainable manner.     

Community action for environmental restoration: a case study on collective social capital in India

In southern India, tens of thousands of village-level irrigation systems (‘tanks’ and feeder channels) are in disrepair. This paper analyses the results of a local NGO effort that focused on awareness-raising and advice to bring about self-sustained community action for irrigation system restoration. After designing a model structure that contains both motivational and capacity (social capital) factors, it is found that (pre-existing) collective social capital, as measured through five simple indicators, strongly correlates with success of the NGO strategy. The intensity of the NGO’s effort shows a negative correlation with success, however. The discussion focuses on issues of social capital definition and measurement and the practical implications of the concept for environmental action, especially the difference between using existing social capital for environmental management versus the construction of social capital as a basis for later self-sustained environmental work. Readers should send their comments on this paper to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

An industrial hygiene characterization of exposure to diesel emissions in an underground coal mine

Problems exist in the United States' effort to achieve energy self-sufficiency. Increasing coal production to assure energy self-sufficiency is a prime problem for the rest of the century and beyond. The use of diesels in underground coal mines has been suggested as a mining method to aid in this needed, increased production. Many questions exist about the effects on humans in such environments. NIOSH Division of Respiratory Disease Studies has undertaken a research effort to characterize the environments of existing diesel coal mines. The results of one of the studies will be presented. Preliminary assessments of carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, C₁-C₅ aldehydes and organic acids, aliphatic hydrocarbons, sulfates, total and respirable dust, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are presented. Nitrogen dioxide and total aldehydes are suggested as possible species to quantify diesel exposure.     

论我国"二元化"环境责任保险制度构建

随着我国市场经济的进一步发展和工业化进程的加快，环境污染和生态破坏日益成为影响经济发展的社会问题。对于因环境污染所产生的环境侵权，通过保险制度来解决因环境污染所导致的损害，日益成为众多环境法学者关注的问题。环境责任保险制度是建立在侵权法和责任保险理论之上，成为解决环境侵权的有效途径之一。对于环境侵权责任保险问题，国家应根据具体情况对环境责任保险予以干预，根据实际需要选择环境侵权责任保险的模式。我国应构建商业保险和强制保险并存的“二元化”的环境侵权责任保险制度。     

Radium removal from mine waters in underground treatment installations

The underground mining of hard coal is widespread in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (southern Poland). In deep mines, inflows of highly mineralised waters containing radium isotopes are numerous. These waters cause severe damage to the natural environment due to the salinity, but additionally radioactive pollution occurs. The region is densely populated, therefore mitigation methods are very important. The method of radium removal has been applied in full technical scale in two coal mines with very good results - in one of the mines radium-bearing waters are treated at the rate of approximately 0.1m(3)s(-1), while in another mine salty waters are purified at the rate of 0.1m(3)s(-1). The purification takes place in special underground galleries without any contact of the mining crew with the radioactive deposits produced during the process. As a result, release of radium is significantly lower, more than 200MBq of (226)Ra and (228)Ra remains underground each day.     

Indicator based approach for monitoring natural resources of village ecosystems: findings from select ecosystems of southern India

Indian village ecosystems are diverse with respect to population pressures, agricultural activities and production, livestock composition, energy sources, economics and infrastructural capabilities. Natural resource degradation is a major global concern and the factors and processes leading to degradation are regional and scale up from the micro levels such as village ecosystems. There is need for integrated multidisciplinary approaches for monitoring the resource status and environmental issues at the decentralized level. This paper presents an approach to assess village ecosystems using a set of key indicators developed and tested across fourteen diverse village ecosystems of the Southern India. The concept of ecosystem services associated with village ecosystems of India has been described and adopted to identify indicators and assess issues and trends. Comparison across villages has been demonstrated and the indicators successfully reflected the key environmental issues at each village level as well as differences across villages. We also report unique cases of stabilized land use and ‘desakota-like’ trends from village ecosystem studied.     

Urban green-cover and the environmental performance of Chennai city

Chennai city the capital of Tamil Nadu is located in southeastern India. Its average population growth rate is 25% per decade, which recurrently alters the city’s land-cover particularly the receding green-cover distressed the city’s self-renewal capacity, in terms of groundwater recharge, pollution sequestration and microclimatic amelioration. This has been appraised by means of a GIS model. This model was developed using three sets of green-cover associated parameters, namely air quality amelioration, hydrological process regulation and microclimatic amelioration. The outcome confirms the difference in the city’s environmental performance between the 1997 and 2001. At some parts of the city, due to the green-cover change, the extent of modification was 38%, in terms of mean percent change in all three sets of parameters mentioned earlier. Through coefficient of correlation (r) method, relationship between green-cover change and environmental performance change are checked. It confirms positive relationship (r = 1) in all parts, except at few places.     

Estimating willingness to pay with the stochastic payment card design: further evidence from rural Cameroon

This study reports new empirical findings of the field test of the stochastic payment card (SPC) design recently proposed by Wang (Contingent valuation of environmental resources: A stochastic perspective, 1997a; Journal of Environmental Economics & Management 32:219–232, 1997b). The purpose is to see how well this new contingent valuation method (CVM) elicitation format works in different cultural contexts, and what lessons can be drawn in general regarding its usefulness in environmental valuation. The survey is designed to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) values for an intended community-based environmental project in rural Cameroon (i.e., the control of malaria using larvivorous eating fish species). In order to estimate the bid function, Heckman’s 2-step method is used to detect, and if possible, correct for sample selection bias, an issue overlooked by the 2-step modeling approach proposed by Wang (1997a). The results suggest generally that in the presence of sample selection bias, Heckman’s 2-step estimates are more efficient and reliable for the public project in question than Wang’s proposed 2-stage modeling approach.     

Application of fuzzy models to assess susceptibility to droughts from a socio-economic perspective

By combining the concepts of environmental stress, state susceptibility and environmental crisis, “Security Diagram” (SD) provides a quantitative approach to assessing environmental change and human security. The SD is a tool that clearly presents in a diagram the security situation of a population or region affected by a particular environmental crisis. Its underlying concept emphasises that the higher the level of environmental stress and socio-economic susceptibility, the higher the probability of the occurrence of crisis. Focusing on drought, this study analyses the susceptibility of case study regions in India, Portugal, and Russia from a socio-economic perspective. A conceptual framework of socio-economic susceptibility is developed based on the economic development theories of modernisation and dependency. Fuzzy set theory is used to generate susceptibility indices from a range of national and sub-national indicators, including financial resources, agricultural dependency and infrastructure development (for economic susceptibility), and health condition, educational attainment and gender inequality (for social susceptibility). Results indicate that socio-economic susceptibility over the period 1980–1995 was highest in India, followed by Russia and (since 1989) lowest in Portugal. Globalisation is likely to contribute to changes in the level of socio-economic susceptibility over time. Moreover, specific social and economic structures unique in each country (e.g., the role of women in society in India, the socialist legacy in Russia) may explain differences in susceptibility between the case study regions.

1996~2013年长江经济带工业发展过程中的大气环境污染效应

大气污染物排放及影响因素研究,是引导区域减排实现可持续发展的重要依据。利用Tapio脱钩模型测度了1996~2013年长江经济带11个省区工业经济增长与工业废气、工业二氧化硫、工业烟粉尘3个指标之间的脱钩程度,并利用LMDI分解模型对大气污染物排放变化特征进行了影响因素分解。结果表明：（1）长江经济带11个省（市）的工业废气排放量呈持续上升的趋势,且工业废气排放量的“热”点区域主要集中在东部地区,工业二氧化硫和烟粉尘两种大气污染物排放量总体呈现“先增加后减少”的趋势,状况有所改善。（2）长江经济带工业废气排放整体经历了从扩张性负脱钩到相对脱钩发展的趋势,表明经济发展的同时带来工业废气排放的污染同步增长。经济发展效应和能源效率效应是促使工业废气排放的主要因素。（3）长江经济带的工业二氧化硫和烟粉尘排放整体上经历了从相对脱钩向绝对脱钩发展的趋势,经济发展均是造成各地区两种污染物排放量增加的主要原因,技术效应和能源效率是各地区两种污染物减排的重要影响因素。未来,在大气污染物的减排控制过程中,需加强产业结构、能源结构的调整,也需坚定依靠技术进步推动能源使用效率的提高,并且注重各省市间的减排差异和防范污染产业的区域转移。关键词： 长江经济带;经济增长;大气环境;脱钩分析模型;LMDI分解模型