Collaborative Modeling to Evaluate Water Management Scenarios in the Rio Grande Basin

This article describes the collaborative modeling process and the resulting water resources planning model developed to evaluate water management scenarios in the transboundary Rio Grande basin. The Rio Grande is a severely water stressed basin that faces numerous management challenges as it crosses numerous jurisdictional boundaries. A collaborative process was undertaken to identify and model water management scenarios to improve water supply for stakeholders, the environment, and international obligations of water delivery from Mexico to the United States. A transparent and open process of data collection, model building, and scenario development was completed by a project steering committee composed of university, nongovernmental, and governmental experts from both countries. The outcome of the process was a planning model described in this article, with data and operations that were agreed on by water planning officials in each country. Water management scenarios were created from stakeholder input and were modeled and evaluated for effectiveness with the planning model.     

Development of a standardized in vitro approach to evaluate microphysical, chemical, and toxicological properties of combustion-derived fine and ultrafine particles

Ultrafine particles represent a growing concern in the public health community but their precise role in many illnesses is still unknown. This lack of knowledge is related to the experimental difficulty in linking their biological effects to their multiple properties, which are important determinants of toxicity. Our aim is to propose an interdisciplinary approach to study fine(FP) and ultrafine(UFP) particles, generated in a controlled manner using a mini CAST(Combustion Aerosol Standard) soot ...     

Integration of techniques for early fault detection and diagnosis for improving process safety: Application to a Fluid Catalytic Cracking refinery process

In this paper we show the integration of techniques for early fault detection and diagnosis of operational faults in industrial processes, and we show an application example in a Fluid Catalytic Cracking refinery process. The early fault detection and diagnosis allow the operators in an industrial process to take the best actions during the real state of the process, avoiding incipient faults to scale to critical situations where there is risk of human lives and economical lost.     

Preferences for dealing with environmental problems: an empirical study of managers in three mainland Chinese cities

This study examines managerial preferences for various policy mechanisms commonly used to address environmental problems using a sample of 653 Chinese managers from firms in Beijing, Dalian and Guangzhou. Overall, these managers appeared to favor regulatory instruments, placing somewhat less faith in market and communicative instruments. However, all measures appear to have ample support within each subgroup. In addition, the influence of two situational factors on these preferences was investigated--the immediacy of environmental impact and diffusion of responsibility. The results of the study indicate that these two factors interact in explaining managerial preferences, but only for the use of market mechanisms.     

The Effect of UV-B Irradiation on the Biodegradability of Poly-β-Hydroxybutyrate (PHB) and Poly-ɛ-Caprolactone (PCL)

The biodegradability of poly--hydroxybutyrate and poly--caprolactone in soil compostage before and after irradiation of the polymers for 192, 425, and 600 h in a Weather-Ometer was examined. The biodegradability tests were done in soil compostage at pH 7.0, 9.0, and 11.0 to assess the influence of this parameter on degradation. The rate of degradation was directly proportional to the soil alkalinity. Poly--hydroxybutyrate showed the greatest weight loss and aging in a Weather-Ometer did not significantly increase the biodegradation, except when the polymer was aged for 425 h and buried in soil compostage of pH 11.0.     

Sustainability of forest management plans: a discrete goal programming approach

Let us consider i = 1, 2,...n alternative forest plans to be evaluated according to j = 1, 2,...m indicators of sustainability. An expert or panel of experts suggests a set of targets or desirable levels of achievement for the m indicators of sustainability considered. Within this context, an important problem is to determine the system with a higher level of achievement with respect to the targets attached by the expert to the m indicators. A natural extension of this problem involves determining a ranking of the n systems considered. A general procedure based on discrete goal programming is proposed to address these problems. The methodology is applied in a case study of a Spanish forest.     

Sources, distribution and behaviour of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) in the Tamar Estuary, UK

Negligible information is currently available concerning levels of the fuel additive methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) in European estuaries or coastal environments. MTBE was measured at selected potentially contaminated harbours and marinas, and throughout an axial transect of the Tamar Estuary, UK. Headspace solid-phase microextraction was used in combination with GC-MS for its determination. MTBE was detected in water samples from all stations at concentrations ranging from a few ng/l to a maximum of 194 ng/l (in a semi-enclosed harbour). Elevated levels were generally associated with motor vehicle and boating activities. The Tamar road and rail bridges provided a major input to the lower estuary, downstream of which conservative mixing appeared depressed, probably through volatilisation and possibly through salting-out. The selected analytical system (using a Carboxen/PDMS fiber) proved both rapid and highly sensitive (with a detection limit of 6 ng/l). During method development, salinity was shown to have a major influence in controlling the extraction efficiency and it was found necessary to adjust salinity in all samples (to 75% saturation) prior to extraction. From these tests, we (for the first time) estimated the Setschenow ("salting-out") constant of MTBE to be 0.11 l/mol.     

Eucalyptus ESTs related to genes for oxidative stress

Oxidative stress generating active oxygen species has been proved to be one of the underlying agents causing tissue injury after the exposure of Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus spp.) plants to a wide variety of stress conditions. The objective of this study was to perform data mining to identify favorable genes and alleles associated with the enzyme systems superoxide dismutase, catalase, peroxidases, and glutathione S-transferase that are related to tolerance for environmental stresses and damage caused by pests, diseases, herbicides, and by weeds themselves. This was undertaken by using the eucalyptus expressed-sequence database (https//forests.esalq.usp.br). The alignment results between amino acid and nucleotide sequences indicated that the studied enzymes were adequately represented in the ESTs database of the FORESTs project.     

Corporate Environmental Policy Statements in Mainland China: To What Extent Do They Conform to ISO 14000 Documentation?

For decades, industry has been the main source of pollution in China. Determined to make changes, the mainland Chinese authorities have decided to promote mechanisms that incorporate environmental concerns into the internal management of enterprises. This is manifested in the rapid adoption of the ISO14000 standards, including a significant increase in ISO14001 registrations in China. Thus, this study examined the environmental policy statements of 106 certified facilities in mainland China against a strict interpretation of the mandatory requirements of the ISO 14001:1996 standard and the nonmandatory ISO14004 requirements in order to shed some light on the implementation of environmental management systems in an emerging economic giant. It was decided to analyze the environmental policy statement because such a statement is a core element in the ISO system of environmental management of each facility and there are relatively clear and specific requirements on what an environmental policy statement shall include. An analysis of the contents of the environmental policy statements shows that conformance to the relevant requirements of both the mandatory ISO14001 standard and the nonmandatory ISO14004 standard is far from impressive and that the facilities in our sample seldom went beyond the minimum requirements. By using ISO14001 and ISO14004 conformance scores as the dependent variables, we found that conformity to ISO14001 and overall conformance to ISO14000 series can be explained to some extent by the degree of top management commitment, the experience with informal environmental management systems, and the form of ownership of the facilities.