Environmental assessment of dehydrated alfalfa production in Spain

Alfalfa is the major forage crop produced in temperate regions worlwide. Although this crop is currently used mainly for producing high-value livestock feed, its application for bioenergy production is a recent focus of interest. Even though it is not mandatory, alfalfa is normally dried in order to improve the quality of the final product. In this study, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was used to quantify the environmental impacts linked to alfalfa production in the major cultivation zone in Spain (Ebro Valley), including field activities, dehydration and transport to farms for livestock feeding. In addition, the identification of the most relevant processes contributing to the environmental impact and the potential improvements actions were also defined as objectives. Inventory data were obtained mainly from interviews with farmers complemented with published literature and comments from experts.LCA results were obtained for global warming, acidification, eutrophication, photochemical oxidant formation, land use, non-renewable cumulative energy demand and human, terrestrial and aquatic ecotoxicities. Within the life cycle of alfalfa, the dehydration process, production of phosphate fertilizer, application of nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides, water consumption and final transport to the consumer (by road and ship) were identified as hot spots. Based on these, some improvement measures were proposed and evaluated: (i) reduction of the moisture content of alfalfa and the use of a higher percentage of biomass for combustion in the dehydration process, (ii) no application of nitrogen fertilizer in maintenance years and (iii) use of more efficient trucks for transport. Their implementation would produce significant reduction of eutrophication, global warming, acidification, non-renewable cumulative energy demand and, to a lesser extent, photochemical oxidation formation and human toxicity impacts.     

黔西北煤矿煤层气的开发及其环保正效益

在综述煤层气对于煤矿安全生产以及环境危害的基础上,从保护环境、缓解能源紧张、延长煤层气的产业链、减少瓦斯危害等多个角度综合分析了煤层气开发所带来的巨大效益,并以黔西北煤矿为例,叙述了煤层气的资源量现状及其地质特征等基本情况。简述了目前我国煤层气的开发现状,并提出了四条增产措施,这些措施必将对推动贵州省经济与环境的可持续发展,加快贵州省工业强省步伐起到积极作用。     

A Phenomenological Perspective on Ethical Duty in Environmental Communication

This article examines the framing of environmental risks and natural disasters in factual entertainment television programs of the early 2000s, a hybrid form combining techniques from documentary with techniques such as dramatic reconstructions and computer-generated imagery from entertainment genres. Using qualitative frame analysis, it examines a range of factual entertainment television programs' framing of environmental risk and natural disasters in terms of their attitudes, representation of human participants and visual composition. The article considers the similarities and differences in the framing of natural disasters as factual entertainment compared to the framing of natural disasters in news, documentary and fiction film. It argues that such programs offer representational frames both consonant with and distinct from other media and concludes that they problematically offer a predominantly fatalistic response to environmental risk, constructing natural disasters as voyeuristic spectacles for vicarious entertainment.     

Ambivalence and conservation behaviour: An exploratory study on the recycling of metal cans

As resource conservation is an imperative for sustainable development, it is crucial to achieve a deeper understanding of the factors involved in people's decisions to recycle. This is even more so because the level of environmental concern is usually higher than the level of ecological behaviours. In this paper we take this fact as indicating that decision-making regarding conservation behaviours happens in the context of an internal debate where contradictory ideas are weighed up and the possibility of ambivalence arises. The main aim of this paper is therefore to explore how contradiction and ambivalence impact upon the attitudes, intentions and pro-ecological behaviours of the private sphere. The paper focuses specifically on the separation and deposition of metal cans, and compares the predictive capacity of beliefs, attitudes and intentions for two groups of respondents – one with a high and another with a low level of ambivalence, as assessed with a direct measure. The role of personal identity and the influence of structural constraints are also explored. Results demonstrate a clear moderating effect of experienced ambivalence, and show how beliefs, particularly negative ones, present a higher predictive capacity of the attitude in the high-ambivalence group, and personal identity plays a relevant role in predicting behaviour in both groups. We discuss the importance of pursuing the study of ambivalence when analysing decision-making in the conservation area.     

龙江县水环境保护基本思路

介绍了龙江县境内的江河流域、泡沼、泉沟及水利工程概况。提出了对一、二、三类河流的水环境保护,水库的改造与利用,泡沼水域的涵养和利用。并提出了相应的保障措施。     

Environmental Awareness, Economic Orientation, and Farming Practices: A Comparison of Organic and Conventional Farmers

/ This study examines similarities and differences between organic and conventional farmers. We explore the factors that underlie farmers' conservation attitudes and behaviors, including demographic and farm characteristics, awareness of and concern for environmental problems associated with agriculture, economic orientation toward farming, and self-reported conservation practices. A series of intensive personal interviews was conducted with 25 farmers in Washtenaw County, Michigan, USA, using both qualitative and quantitative survey methods. The findings indicate that both groups of farmers share a concern for the economic risks associated with farming, although the organic farmers reported a significantly greater concern for long-term sustainability and a greater willingness to incur present risk to gain future benefits. Organic farmers expressed a greater awareness of and concern for environmental problems associated with agriculture. Organic farmers also scored significantly higher on a multifaceted measure of conservation practices, although both groups had a fairly high adoption rate. Implications of these findings are discussed, relative to economic risks of farming, implications for new farmers, effectiveness of conservation education and government programs, and impact of farm size and crop diversity.KEY WORDS: Environmental attitudes; Conservation behaviors; Organic farming; Agricultural sustainability     

Influence of large-spectrum environmental contamination on the micro-meiobenthic assemblages in harbour sediments of the ligurian sea (W Mediterranean)

The concentration of a large spectrum of environmental contaminants (PCBs, PAHs, pesticides and metals) was assessed in surface sediments of two Ligurian harbours (Sanremo and Alassio, NW Mediterranean Sea, Italy) and their relative impact on micro-meiobenthic assemblages was analysed. Concentration, distribution and relative importance of the different contaminants varied considerably between harbours in relation to the different anthropic activities and contamination sources. Results from Principal Component Analysis indicated that high levels of contaminants were typically correlated with low micro-meiobenthic abundance in the sediment. Heavy metals and the organic enrichment were the main factors affecting the distribution and abundance of the bacterial and meiofaunal assemblages in Alassio harbour, whereas hydrocarbons and pesticides played a major role in Sanremo sediments. Neither the bacteria density nor the meiofauna abundance were dependent on sediment grain size, suggesting that micro-meiobenthic parameters may be under the influence of other variables. Our results suggest that high concentrations of contaminants independently from their source or typology are responsible for the impact observed on micro-meiobenthic assemblages in these harbours.     

RESEARCH: Optimizing the Mix of Strategies for Control of Vehicular Emissions

/ A number of strategies for the control of vehicular emissions are being considered by the Philippine government to address Metropolitan Manila's air quality problem. An analytical tool is needed for optimizing criteria pollutant reductions given the budgetary constraints. The simplest approach is to take costs and pollutant removals to be linear with each strategy's scale of activity, and this is readily solved as a linear programming problem. Another approach is to use a dynamic system of weights which shift with progressive improvements in pollutant emissions. The two approaches yield somewhat different results, suggesting the sensitivity of the solution to the assumed weights. The study also illustrates the importance of a sound methodology for evaluating priorities given to different air quality goals. One such methodology may involve a polling of expert panels and the public to gain insight into the relative importance given to competing emissions reduction goals. An informal polling of resource agency staff was conducted and discussed in this paper. The authors take the position that proper planning involves tracing intermediate steps to the final outcome and not just focusing on the latter.KEY WORDS: Vehicular emissions; Urban air quality; Emissions control; Optimization; Manila; Environmental systems analysis     

Environmental disasters,migration and displacement. Insights and developments from L’Aquila's case

This paper analyses the environmentally-induced migration and displacement resulting from L’Aquila's earthquake of 2009. After a general critical overview of the social science literature on this topic, the main changes in the migration system are analysed looking at the roots and trajectories of the forced human displacement that followed the earthquake, and reflecting on the challenges related to post-earthquake demographic movements and post-disaster resettlement. Through the analysis of the pre disaster (2002–2008) and recovery period (2009–2013) data, this paper offers a general model of how environmental disaster might affect migration and displacement and suggests the main challenges related to the post-disaster governance. Relying on ISTAT data on internal migration in Italy this paper argues that the post-seismic recovery period is characterized by a strong increase of out-flows from L’Aquila to other provinces, within the Abruzzo region and outside it, in particular toward the closest regions (Latium, Campania).     

贸易、外商直接投资、经济增长与环境污染

选取1990—2002年中国30个省市贸易、外商直接投资(FDI)、经济和环境相关数据，从定性和定量描述的角度探讨贸易、FDI对我国环境库兹涅茨曲线(ECK)的影响。研究表明：贸易对中国的ECK没有直接影响。但考虑到贸易对经济增长的贡献，以及它在引进先进污染防治技术和环境管理思想方法方面的积极作用，积极发展对外贸易将有助于改善我国经济增长带来的环境污染问题。另一方面。FDI与污染物排放之间呈现出显著的正相关关系。在中国接受经济全球化影响的过程中，由于部分地区急于吸引外资，加之环境管理体系的不完善，外商直接投资在某些方面对我国环境造成了一定的负面影响。