环境损害评估中修复方案的费用效益分析

土壤、地下水和地表水等污染治理成本通常较高,但修复后会带来众多直接和间接效益,因此,在进行修复决策和环境损害评估时应当予以综合考虑。文章对环境修复成本效益分析的定义、目的和方法进行了阐述,并结合具体案例解释了环境修复成本效益分析的具体过程。修复成本通常依据价格指南、费用估算模型/软件、类似工程经验、承包商报价等进行估算,修复效益可采用享乐价格法,根据个人意愿为环境支付的费用,进行计算。案例研究结果表明,环境修复效益及其受益方并不是单一的,在进行较大规模的环境修复决策时,应由政府进行干预,并积极寻求各利益相关方的配合,综合评估其经济可行性。在环境损害评估中,也应形成多方协调机制,科学合理地评价修复方案的费用和效益,合理确定赔偿数额。     

基于云模型的页岩气开发环境影响评价

从大气环境、噪声与土壤环境、水环境和生态、安全与可持续4个方面构建页岩气开发环境影响指标体系,并建立基于熵权法和云模型评价法的页岩气环境影响评价模型。针对四川省某国家级页岩气示范区进行实证分析,结果表明:该地区页岩气开发环境影响处于中等程度。页岩气开发对水环境影响最大,其次是对大气环境的影响,再次是对噪声与土壤环境,对生态、安全与可持续方面影响相对最小。该模型的评价结果与页岩气开发环境影响现状相符,最后根据评价结果提出相关政策建议。     

节能灯、白炽灯和卤钨灯全生命周期评估对比

采用全生命周期分析(LCA)的评估研究方法,全面、科学地对比分析了节能灯、白炽灯以及卤钨灯全生命周期过程中所造成的环境、资源影响,评估结果表明节能灯相对于白炽灯和卤钨灯显著降低了对环境的生态毒性影响,由于照明产品自身环境影响的特点,节能灯其突出的节电效果将显著降低白炽灯和卤钨灯对环境的各种影响。     

Life cycle assessment and environmental improvement of residential and drinking water supply systems in Hanoi,Vietnam

In many Asian cities the public water supply is characterised by low pressure, frequent interruptions and occasional contamination. Hence, private households have to store water and increase pressure individually to ensure an uninterrupted supply at sufficient pressure and water for drinking has to be boiled or supplied separately in bottles. In this study the present water supply system in Hanoi and a number of modification options were analysed from an environmental point of view through life cycle assessment (LCA) in order to identify the most sustainable solutions for future water supply. It was found that the boiling of water for drinking was the largest source of impacts in the present system. Impacts could be reduced significantly if the public supply network was improved and private pumping and storage could be avoided and if the water could be used directly for drinking. It was also found that impacts could be reduced if consumers used bottled water for drinking instead of boiling tap water. Finally, it was demonstrated that even if drinking water cannot be supplied directly through the public network, a reliable public water supply at high pressure is environmentally advantageous. Sensitivity analyses revealed that the conclusions of this study are likely to be applicable to other cities with similar water supply systems.     

Life cycle assessment of spray dried soluble coffee and comparison with alternatives (drip filter and capsule espresso)

This paper aims to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with spray dried soluble coffee over its entire life cycle and compare it with drip filter coffee and capsule espresso coffee. It particularly aims to identify critical environmental issues and responsibilities along the whole life cycle chain of spray dried coffee. This life cycle assessment (LCA) specifically uses foreground data obtained directly from coffee manufacturers and suppliers. Aside from energy consumption and greenhouse gases emissions, water footprint is also studied in detail, including regionalization of water impacts based on the ecological scarcity method 2006. Other impact categories are screened using the IMPACT 2002+ impact assessment method.The overall LCA results for a 1 dl cup of spray dried soluble coffee amounts approximately to 1 MJ of primary non-renewable energy consumption, to emissions of 0.07 kg of CO_2-eq, and between 3 and 10 l of non-turbined water use, depending on whether or not the coffee cultivation is irrigated and wet treated. When considering turbined water, use can be up to 400 l of water per cup. Pouch – and to a lesser extent metal can packaging alternatives – show lower environmental burdens than glass or sticks.On average, about one half of the environmental footprint occurs at a life cycle stage under the control of the coffee producer or its suppliers (i.e., during cultivation, treatment, processing, packaging up to distribution, along with advertising) and the other half at a stage controlled by the user (shopping, appliances manufacturing, use and waste disposal). Key environmental parameters of spray dried soluble coffee are the amount of extra water boiled and the efficiency of cup cleaning during use phase, whether the coffee is irrigated or not, as well as the type and amount of fertilizer used in the coffee field. The packaging contributes to 10% of the overall life cycle impacts.Compared to other coffee alternatives, spray dried soluble coffee uses less energy and has a lower environmental footprint than capsule espresso coffee or drip filter coffee, the latter having the highest environmental impacts on a per cup basis. This study shows that a broad LCA approach is needed to help industry to minimize the environmental burdens directly related to their products. Including all processes of the entire system is necessary i) to get a comprehensive environmental footprint of the product system with respect to sustainable production and consumption, ii) to share stakeholders responsibility along the entire product life cycle, and iii) to avoid problem shifting between different life cycle stages.     

Beyond the material grave: Life Cycle Impact Assessment of leaching from secondary materials in road and earth constructions

In industrialized countries, large amounts of mineral wastes are produced. They are re-used in various ways, particularly in road and earth constructions, substituting primary resources such as gravel. However, they may also contain pollutants, such as heavy metals, which may be leached to the groundwater. The toxic impacts of these emissions are so far often neglected within Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) of products or waste treatment services and thus, potentially large environmental impacts are currently missed. This study aims at closing this gap by assessing the ecotoxic impacts of heavy metal leaching from industrial mineral wastes in road and earth constructions. The flows of metals such as Sb, As, Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mo, Ni, V and Zn originating from three typical constructions to the environment are quantified, their fate in the environment is assessed and potential ecotoxic effects evaluated. For our reference country, Germany, the industrial wastes that are applied as Granular Secondary Construction Material (GSCM) carry more than 45,000 t of diverse heavy metals per year. Depending on the material quality and construction type applied, up to 150 t of heavy metals may leach to the environment within the first 100 years after construction. Heavy metal retardation in subsoil can potentially reduce the fate to groundwater by up to 100%. One major challenge of integrating leaching from constructions into macro-scale LCA frameworks is the high variability in micro-scale technical and geographical factors, such as material qualities, construction types and soil types. In our work, we consider a broad range of parameter values in the modeling of leaching and fate. This allows distinguishing between the impacts of various road constructions, as well as sites with different soil properties. The findings of this study promote the quantitative consideration of environmental impacts of long-term leaching in Life Cycle Assessment, complementing site-specific risk assessment, for the design of waste management strategies, particularly in the construction sector.     

Old endemics and new invaders: alternative strategies of passerines for living in the Australian environment

Life history parameters of ”old endemics” and ”new invaders” among the Australian passerines were compared, controlling for phylogeny by using current, phylogenetic research methods. Old endemics were found to have significantly smaller clutches and demonstrated significantly more cooperative breeding than the new invaders, whose fledging periods are significantly longer than those of the old endemics. We argue that breeding under conditions of a small annual food increment during the breeding season, as is probably the situtation in Australia, is possible only when clutch size is small, or while breeding cooperatively, or by extending the fledging period. Our data show that the old endemics use the first two options, while the new invaders employ the third. Received: 10 February 1999 / Received in revised form: 10 November 1999 / Accepted: 20 November 1999     

Fluctuating sexual dimorphism and differential hibernation by sex in a primate, the gray mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus)

The aim of this study was to investigate reproductive strategies and their consequences in gray mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus), small solitary nocturnal primates endemic to Madagascar. Previous reports of sexual dimorphism in favor of males and females, respectively, a high potential for sperm competition and pheromonal suppression of mating activity among captive males, led us to investigate mechanisms of intrasexual competition in a wild population. Based on 3 years of mark-recapture data, we demonstrate that sexual dimorphism in this species fluctuated annually as a result of independent changes in male and female body mass. Male body mass increased significantly prior to the short annual mating season. Because their testes increased by 100% in the same period and because their canines are not larger than those of females, we suggest that large male size may be advantageous in searching for estrous females and in enabling them to sustain periods of short-term torpor. In contrast to reports from captive colonies, we found no evidence for two morphologically distinct classes of males. Finally, we also show that most adult males are active throughout the cool dry season that precedes the mating season, whereas most adult females hibernate for several months. This is in contrast to other solitary hibernating mammals, where males typically emerge 1–2 weeks before females. Thus, this first extended field study of M.␣murinus clarified previous conflicting reports on sexual dimorphism and male reproductive strategies in this primitive primate by showing that their apparent deviation from predictions of sexual selection theory is brought about by specific environmental conditions which result in sex-specific life history tactics not previously described for mammals. A general conclusion is that sexual selection can operate more strongly on males without resulting in sexual dimorphism because of independent selection on the same traits in females. Received: 6 July 1997 / Accepted after revision: 28 March 1998     

Soil Zinc contamination from corrosion of galvanized structures

The present work relates to galvanized structures with several years of time life subjected to atmospheric corrosion, like galvanized high tension steel pylons. The mass and fate of zinc released is evaluated both via empirical and experimental procedures. The corrosion rate determination requested atmospheric condition characterization, especially for SO 2 concentration and experimental activities focused on soil sampling around pylons. The soil zinc content, total and exchangeable, is determinates by different analytical procedures. The zinc diffusion in environment and the zinc extension under the top soil is evaluated using 1-dimensional mathematical model for miscible species in porous soil.     

A Multi-Years Analysis of the Energy Balance,Green Gas Emissions,and Production Costs of First and Second Generation Bioethanol

Contemporary reports on the energy and environmental benefits of bioethanol have suggested that the cellulosic ethanol is significantly more efficient. To understand the development potential of energy crops in Taiwan, the present study has assessed the resources and cost inputs for the planning, harvesting, transporting, and storing procedures of the first generation energy crops during 2007–2010 with the perspective of LCA. In addition, a field investigation focusing on rice straw, the largest agricultural waste in Taiwan, has been conducted since 2010 to obtain fundamental data.This study further analyzes the first and second-generation feedstocks from the perspective of LCA based on field investigated data. Taiwan has not yet established an ethanol plant; therefore, this study established production data by simulating the production efficiency of an economical scale using parameters obtained through production trials, and proposed an evaluation model for the energy input, GHG, and production costs of bioethanol in Taiwan. The results of this study were cross-compared with foreign literature to explore the development potential of bioethanol in Taiwan. The results indicate that based on the current cellulosic ethanol technology in Taiwan, regarding the energy balance, GHG, and production costs, is less efficient than that of the first generation bioethanol.