A study regarding the environmental impact analysis of the building materials production process (in Turkey)

Because of the negative impact of buildings on the environment, building materials and, particularly, their production process are important factors. However, this impact differs from country to country and according to ecological applications in place at the production plants. Depending on the success rate of these applications, impact on environment during production of building materials is reduced. Turkey plays a major role in production of building materials, and consequently, the impacts of the global environmental problems are also experienced in this country. Therefore, reducing the environmental impact of any kind is a prominent issue, regionally and globally.     

Building houses with local materials: means to drastically reduce the environmental impact of construction

This paper describes the process of materials selection, design and construction used for a series of small residential buildings in Southern France. Whenever possible, materials were resourced in situ in order to minimise the environmental impact of the new buildings. In particular, the process of materials selection, stone masonry with stabilised in situ soil mortar, and the form of construction are outlined. Guidance for a more generalised adoption of the design process is also provided. The energy consumed in the building of one house is compared to a typical concrete house. By adopting local materials the amount of energy used in building decreased by up to 215% and the impact of transportation by 453%. However, adoption of local materials in developed countries can be hindered by the loss of traditional building crafts and a lack of appropriate building standards. These problems are also discussed in this paper.     

Monitoring trends of urban development and environmental impact of Beijing, 1999-2006

The high rates of environmental change and accelerated species loss in the urban development process should be quantified to rebalance the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. In this study, an emergy-based environmental impact assessment model is designed according to the framework of the Eco-Indicator 99 for monitoring the negative effects on human well-being and ecosystem integrity in the urban development system of Beijing from 1999 to 2006. The environmental impact assessment model is based on the sustainability promotion perspective, and emphasizes the determinants of human health and ecosystem integrity in the urban development process. It is vital that the links among human health, ecosystem integrity and urban sustainability are therefore considered especially from the perspective of a supply-side environmental cost evaluation (including ecological service supply, ecological and economic losses and investment for treatment). Results suggest that: (1) out of all the pollutants, ecological services were mainly used to dilute sulfur dioxide and NH₃-N; (2) nitrogen dioxide and greenhouse gases released by the urban system contribute heavily to both ecological and economic losses evaluated in emergy terms; and (3) emissions impact, mainly from airborne pollutants, with small contribution from waterborne emissions, generally increases from 1999 to 2006, undermining the sustainability of Beijing. The emergy synthesis proves to be very appropriate to account for large-scale and indirect costs generated by pollution as side effects of economic activity. Such knowledge is a necessary pre-requisite to perform a reliable cost-benefit evaluation of urban sustainability strategies, and provide guidance for policy decision making to maximize benefits and minimize negative impacts.     

Quality versus impact: Comparing the environmental efficiency of building properties using the EcoEffect tool

There are tools that are developed for the assessment of the environmental impact of buildings (e.g. ATHENA). Other tools dealing with the indoor and outdoor environmental quality of building properties (referred to as real estates in other literature) are also available (e.g. GBTool). A platform where both the aspects of quality and impact are presented in an integrated fashion are few.     

Assessing the environmental impact of the environmentally sensitive areas scheme: a case for using farmers' environmental knowledge?

This study analyses the environmental impact of the Cambrian Mountains ESA scheme (1A northern part) through a 100% census survey of farmers in the area. It is argued that farmers' knowledge of ecological change on their farms provides useful information about ecological change induced by agri-environmental schemes, and that this important source of information has been neglected by researchers in the past. The results suggest that while the ESA has been successful at halting the further decline of threatened habitats in the area at the landscape level (i.e. quantity of habitat), it has done little to improve the quality of these ecosystems. Further, the ESA scheme has done little to change farmers' commitment toward environmentally sensitive farming, and more environmental education of farmers (as stipulated in EU Regulation 2078/92/EEC, for example) is needed to make the ESA scheme environmentally sustainable in the long term.     

贯流风机的试验研究

研究了各种不同的贯流风机外壳对风机气动性能的影响，讨论了与风机性能有关的几个主要几何参数。     

安徽地区典型移动通信基站电磁辐射环境影响分析

以安徽地区典型移动通信基站工程为案例,确定了移动通信基站的电磁辐射环境影响的评价因子、评价范围,并结合典型地区移动通信基站工程基站收发信机型号、标称功率、天线、天线塔架、工作频率等主要工程参数,对移动通信基站电磁辐射的理论预测方法进行了重点分析,并通过该方法得出了值得参考的结论。     

基于支付意愿法的建筑物化环境影响量化研究

以建筑的物化环境影响分析为出发点,对该过程所消耗的资源、能源及有毒物质所造成的环境影响进行定量研究。论文界定了建筑物化环境影响内涵,根据国际环境毒理和化学学会环境评价体系确定12种环境影响要素,依据BEES(Building for Environment and Economic Sustainability)软件计算出建筑全生命周期的环境影响清单,基于支付意愿理论构建了建筑物化环境影响量化模型,并确定江苏地区各环境影响要素的货币值。最后,计算出江苏省某住宅建筑单位面积上环境影响货币值。     

混凝土早期受冻试验研究

为了研究混凝土早期负温行为．本研究对普通混凝土试件、含2％LJ115液体防冻剂混凝土试件和含5％BH—D48防冻剂的混凝土试件做早期受冻试验,测定不同负温养护条件下混凝土的抗压强度。分析三种试件的抗冻临界强度及达到抗冻临界强度的时间。结果表明含2％LJ115液体防冻剂混凝土在预养7.48小时,抗冻临界强度为零时,就具有了抗冻性。     

Assessing concerns of interested parties when predicting the significance of environmental impacts related to the construction process of residential buildings

The most common challenges and obstacles encountered by construction organizations during the process of implementing and using environmental management systems are related to the inherent peculiarities of the construction sector. Several studies have shown that one of the issues involving the greatest level of uncertainty is the identification and assessment of environmental impacts. In order to improve the identification of the significance of environmental impacts of construction projects and sites, which will lead to greater efficiency and robustness in environmental management systems, this paper extends the systematic approach for identifying and assessing potential adverse environmental impacts at the pre-construction stage presented in Gangolells et al. (2009) by introducing the assessment of the concerns of interested parties. By considering concerns amongst internal and external interested parties, one can assess the significance of environmental impacts taking into account not only the severity of the impacts but also local perceptions and international challenges, thereby ensuring that the determination of the impacts’ significance is appropriate to the particular socioeconomic and biophysical environments surrounding construction sites. In order to quantitatively measure concerns among internal and external interested parties for each of the 37 environmental impacts related to a construction project, we developed corresponding indicators and assessment scales with the help of a panel of experts. A series of χ² tests conducted over 76 new-start construction projects clearly revealed that the severity of environmental impacts is not correlated with the concerns of interested parties. The development of a formal quantitative method and the subsequent definition of a threshold make it possible to obtain advance knowledge of the significance – and, therefore, the acceptability – of each potential environmental impact for a particular construction project. A total score for each construction project alternative is also obtained, so the improved methodology provides a consistent basis for comparing construction companies and construction sites. Finally, two case studies are presented in order to demonstrate the benefits of the improved methodology.     

页岩矸石砖项目环境影响评价要点探讨

结合页岩矸石砖项目环评及运行的实际情况,探讨了此类项目环评过程中需要考虑的诸多环节,提出了具有可操作性的解决方法.对采掘页岩混合矸石制砖企业的环境保护和有关项目的环境影响评价有一定的借鉴意义.     

The environmental impact of mastitis: a case study of dairy herds

Mastitis is defined as an inflammatory reaction of udder tissue to bacterial, chemical, thermal or mechanical injury, which causes heavy financial losses and milk wastage throughout the world. Until now, studies have focused on the economic aspects from which perspective mastitis can generally be considered as the most serious disease in dairy cows; however, costs are not the only negative consequence resulting from the infection. The environmental impact is also significant; milk is discarded, which means lower efficiency and hence a greater environmental impact per produced liter of milk. Less milk is produced, which leads to an increased need for calf feed, and meat production is also affected. The main aim of this paper was to quantify the environmental impact of mastitis incidence. A standard scenario (representative of present-day reality in Galicia, Spain) and an improved scenario (in which mastitis incidence rate is reduced by diverse actions) have been defined and compared using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. Among the impact categories studied, acidification, eutrophication and global warming were found to be the most significant environmental impacts. In all these categories, it was revealed that a decrease in mastitis incidence has a positive influence as the environmental impact is reduced. Even if the quantitative results cannot show a considerable decrease in the environmental burden, the impact cannot be regarded as negligible when the total consumption or total production of a region is considered. For example, the outcome of the proposed improvement measures for Spain's greenhouse gas emissions can be quantified as 0.06% of total emissions and 0.56% of emissions by the agricultural sector.     

Prediction of biological integrity based on environmental similarity--revealing the scale-dependent link between study area and top environmental predictors

Indices of Biological integrity (IBI) are considered valid indicators of the overall health of a water body because the biological community is an endpoint within natural systems. However, prediction of biological integrity using information from multi-parameter environmental observations is a challenging problem due to the hierarchical organization of the natural environment, the existence of nonlinear inter-dependencies among variables as well as natural stochasticity and measurement noise. We present a method for predicting the Fish Index of Biological Integrity (IBI) using multiple environmental observations at the state-scale in Ohio. Instream (chemical and physical quality) and offstream parameters (regional and local upstream land uses, stream fragmentation, and point source density and intensity) are used for this purpose. The IBI predictions are obtained using the environmental site-similarity concept and following a simple to implement leave-one-out cross validation approach. An IBI prediction for a sampling site is calculated by averaging the observed IBI scores of observations clustered in the most similar branch of a dendrogram -a hierarchical clustering tree of environmental observations- built using the rest of the observations. The standardized Euclidean distance is used to assess dissimilarity between observations.The constructed predictive model was able to explain 61% of the IBI variability statewide. Stream fragmentation and regional land use explained 60% of the variability; the remaining 1% was explained by instream habitat quality. Metrics related to local land use, water quality, and point source density and intensity did not improve the predictive model at the state-scale. The impact of local environmental conditions was evaluated by comparing local characteristics between well- and mispredicted sites. Significant differences in local land use patterns and upstream fragmentation density explained some of the model’s over-predictions. Local land use conditions explained some of the model’s IBI under-predictions at the state-scale since none of the variables within this group were included in the best final predictive model. Under-predicted sites also had higher levels of downstream fragmentation.The proposed variables ranking and predictive modeling methodology is very well suited for the analysis of hierarchical environments, such as natural fresh water systems, with many cross-correlated environmental variables. It is computationally efficient, can be fully automated, does not make any pre-conceived assumptions on the variables interdependency structure (such as linearity), and it is able to rank variables in a database and generate IBI predictions using only non-parametric easy to implement hierarchical clustering.     

Life cycle assessment study of a Chinese desktop personal computer

Associated with the tremendous prosperity in world electronic information and telecommunication industry, there continues to be an increasing awareness of the environmental impacts related to the accelerating mass production, electricity use, and waste management of electronic and electric products (e-products). China's importance as both a consumer and supplier of e-products has grown at an unprecedented pace in recent decade. Hence, this paper aims to describe the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) to investigate the environmental performance of Chinese e-products from a global level. A desktop personal computer system has been selected to carry out a detailed and modular LCA which follows the ISO 14040 series. The LCA is constructed by SimaPro software version 7.0 and expressed with the Eco-indicator'99 life cycle impact assessment method. For a sensitivity analysis of the overall LCA results, the so-called CML method is used in order to estimate the influence of the choice of the assessment method on the result. Life cycle inventory information is complied by ecoinvent 1.3 databases, combined with literature and field investigations on the present Chinese situation. The established LCA study shows that that the manufacturing and the use of such devices are of the highest environmental importance. In the manufacturing of such devices, the integrated circuits (ICs) and the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) are those parts contributing most to the impact. As no other aspects are taken into account during the use phase, the impact is due to the way how the electricity is produced. The final process steps - i.e. the end of life phase - lead to a clear environmental benefit if a formal and modern, up-to-date technical system is assumed, like here in this study.     

FBG传感器监测高性能混凝土早期特性的试验研究

高性能混凝土(HPC)内其较低的水胶比(水灰比)和矿物掺合料的使用,水化反应剧烈,在混凝土浇筑早期,将引起较大的自生收缩和温度变形.这将导致高性能混凝土早期裂缝的产生,继而影响其耐久性.因此HPC早期特性在建筑工程领域界备受关注.运用埋设型FBG光纤应变传感器研究高性能混凝土早期特性,该传感器克服了传统传感器只能在HPC硬化后采集数据的缺点,可在混凝土浇筑后立即采集数据,且数据采集连续,稳定.HPC早期性能的研究对HPC长期的耐久性,抗渗性的研究有重要意义.     

The environmental impact of stock market capitalization and energy transition: Natural resource dynamics and international trade

This paper examines the effect of stock market capitalization and energy transition on the environment between 1994 and 2020, considering the roles of economic growth, natural resources, and international trade in Asian countries. The results indicate that stock market capitalization, energy transition, and natural resources reduce CO₂ emissions. International trade and economic growth are positively associated with CO₂ emissions. There is a suggestion that the government should encourage companies to determine the material business risks they face. Aside from traditional risks related to operations, technology, and the market, climate change-related risks should likewise be considered significant.     

An ecological study of physical environmental risk factors for elderly falls in an urban setting of Hong Kong

Elderly fall has become an issue of great public health concern and typically important to the aging population in Hong Kong because it carries a great burden to the individuals and the society. More accurate information about environmental risk factors to falls among the elderly could alleviate if not overcome the situation. Conventional approaches to elderly falls were mainly conducted using statistical methods and clinical tests on falls. This study employs ecological and associative analysis using the geographic information systems (GIS) technology to visualize spatial association of falls and environmental factors. The study identified eleven hot spots of elderly falls with unique environmental characteristics. Amongst various environmental attributes, busy streets and junctions, outdoor markets, and refuse collection points, exhibit a strong spatial relationship with the hot spots. The results have demonstrated that GIS can offer an excellent synergic platform to explore the role of space and pattern in fall occurrences.     

Environmental news in Greece: evaluation of the way newspapers deal with environmental issues

This article examines the question of newspaper journalists’ education in environmental matters, the role of the newspapers as an informal means of environmental education, and the approach of provincial and national newspapers in Greece, noting deficiencies. The minor contribution of scientists to newspaper articles is highlighted.