scholarly journals Implementing the 3E assessment model of sustainable devel-opment to investigate coastal pollution management: using PET recycling (bottle-to-fiber) as a case study

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hung Shu-Hui ◽  
Wang Yi-Ting
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 2208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie E. Filer ◽  
Justin D. Delorit ◽  
Andrew J. Hoisington ◽  
Steven J. Schuldt

Remote communities such as rural villages, post-disaster housing camps, and military forward operating bases are often located in remote and hostile areas with limited or no access to established infrastructure grids. Operating these communities with conventional assets requires constant resupply, which yields a significant logistical burden, creates negative environmental impacts, and increases costs. For example, a 2000-member isolated village in northern Canada relying on diesel generators required 8.6 million USD of fuel per year and emitted 8500 tons of carbon dioxide. Remote community planners can mitigate these negative impacts by selecting sustainable technologies that minimize resource consumption and emissions. However, the alternatives often come at a higher procurement cost and mobilization requirement. To assist planners with this challenging task, this paper presents the development of a novel infrastructure sustainability assessment model capable of generating optimal tradeoffs between minimizing environmental impacts and minimizing life-cycle costs over the community’s anticipated lifespan. Model performance was evaluated using a case study of a hypothetical 500-person remote military base with 864 feasible infrastructure portfolios and 48 procedural portfolios. The case study results demonstrated the model’s novel capability to assist planners in identifying optimal combinations of infrastructure alternatives that minimize negative sustainability impacts, leading to remote communities that are more self-sufficient with reduced emissions and costs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 5103
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Gallelli ◽  
Giusi Perri ◽  
Rosolino Vaiana

The European Union policy strategies on the sustainability of the transport system pursue the goals of maximizing safety and environmental benefits and reducing the severity and frequency of crashes, congestion, and pollutant emission rates. A common issue is the planning of the most effective solution for operational and safety management at intersections. In this study, an egg turbo roundabout is proposed as the alternative solution to a conventional roundabout in Southern Italy which suffers from traffic congestion. A comparative analysis is carried out using microsimulation techniques to investigate the safety effects and operational improvements of converting a traditional priority intersection into standard roundabout or turbo roundabout layout. In particular, the VISSIM software is used to explore the most relevant operational performance measures: queue length, travel times and delays. The lowest values of these measurements are recorded for the simulated turbo roundabout, thus making this scheme more appropriate in terms of operational performances. With regard to safety analysis, the Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM) is used to collect information on the predicted number of conflicts, the probability, and severity of the potential collisions. The results suggest that, for the specific case study, the safety levels of the standard roundabout and the turbo roundabout are approximately comparable.


Minerals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 582
Author(s):  
Magner Turner-Carrión ◽  
Paúl Carrión-Mero ◽  
Israel Turner-Salamea ◽  
Fernando Morante-Carballo ◽  
Maribel Aguilar-Aguilar ◽  
...  

The Zaruma-Portovelo mining district in Ecuador, and in particular, Portovelo City, is home to the oldest mining museum in the country. This museum, named Museo Mineralógico Magner Turner (MMMT in Spanish), is a centre that reflects, through its collections, the history and culture of this territory. This work aimed to evaluate the MMMT as a possible geosite by analysing its contributions to the geomining heritage of the Zaruma-Portovelo district, and thus, to enhance it and promote its collections as a geotouristic attraction. The work involved three phases: (i) describing the museum and its surroundings; (ii) a semiquantitative evaluation of the museum using the Brilha method and a geosites assessment model (GAM); and (iii) a qualitative evaluation using the Delphi and SWOT methodologies to define strategies and proposals for museum development. The results obtained by the semiquantitative evaluation of the geosite with the Brilha method reflect high scientific (330/400), educational (380/400) and touristic (365/400) appeal. The applied GAM shows the museum as a geosite with high principal and additional value, placing it in the Z33 field of the global valuation matrix. In addition, the semiquantitative and qualitative evaluation made it possible to describe the importance of the museum and its collections in the development of the area. The study carried out qualified the museum as a mining site with an appropriate valuation, an example of ex-situ geological heritage conservation and a basis for geotourism development.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abigail C. Snyder ◽  
Robert P. Link ◽  
Katherine V. Calvin

Abstract. Hindcasting experiments (conducting a model forecast for a time period in which observational data is available) are rarely undertaken in the Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) community. When they are undertaken, the results are often evaluated using global aggregates or otherwise highly aggregated skill scores that mask deficiencies. We select a set of deviation based measures that can be applied at different spatial scales (regional versus global) to make evaluating the large number of variable-region combinations in IAMs more tractable. We also identify performance benchmarks for these measures, based on the statistics of the observational dataset, that allow a model to be evaluated in absolute terms rather than relative to the performance of other models at similar tasks. This is key in the integrated assessment community, where there often are not multiple models conducting hindcast experiments to allow for model intercomparison. The performance benchmarks serve a second purpose, providing information about the reasons a model may perform poorly on a given measure and therefore identifying opportunities for improvement. As a case study, the measures are applied to the results of a past hindcast experiment focusing on land allocation in the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) version 3.0. We find quantitative evidence that global aggregates alone are not sufficient for evaluating IAMs, such as GCAM, that require global supply to equal global demand at each time period. Additionally, the deviation measures examined in this work successfully identity parametric and structural changes that may improve land allocation decisions in GCAM. Future work will involve implementing the suggested improvements to the GCAM land allocation system identified by the measures in this work, using the measures to quantify performance improvement due to these changes, and, ideally, applying these measures to other sectors of GCAM and other land allocation models.


2010 ◽  
Vol 163-167 ◽  
pp. 2709-2714
Author(s):  
Feng Guo ◽  
Wei Ya Xu ◽  
Fei Xu

Evaluation of slope stability in the hydropower project construction is extremely important. This Cloud Model will be introduced to the matter-element extension, the extension assessment is proposed based on the sutra field division of the slope stability assessment model. This method combines the Cloud Model theory and the advantages of the extension assessment .On the one hand, the division of the sutra field by means of Cloud Model can overcome the "hard" division of the evils. On the other hand,with different values of Cloud Drops as a sutra field, the statistical results of Cloud Drops can be used as last stable assessment results. Project case study shows that compared with the conventional method, results of the method of extension are more accurate, which fully accorded with the actual state, proving optimized based on Cloud Model extension assessment of slope stability feasible and effective.


Author(s):  
Aaron Turpin ◽  
Micheal Shier ◽  
Kate Scowen

The following study sought to examine the social impact of a social enterprise mental health services model by assessing its impact on service accessibility and mental health stigma.  A novel approach to case study – a mixed methods design was developed by collecting data from service users, counsellors, and community members of a social enterprise in Toronto, Ontario, using qualitative interviews and the Mental Health Knowledge Schedule (MAKS) survey.  Findings show how the social enterprise increases service access and challenges mental health stigma by engaging in a variety of activities, including providing low--cost counselling, diversifying services, offering a positive and safe non--clinical environment, and engaging with the public directly by utilizing a storefront model. As a result of data triangulation analysis, common themes and discrepancies between respondent groups are identified and discussed. No significant relationships were found between mental health stigma and community member demographic characteristics. Insights on replication of this social impact assessment model are discussed.


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDRA CRISTINA GAGIU ◽  
ELENA MARIA PICA ◽  
CLAUDIU TANASELIA ◽  
MONICA URSU

Assessing risks related to urban soil contamination represents a key part of pollution management. The current research proposes a quantitative method that defines and highlights unacceptable risks. The applicability of the method is presented in a case study on several urban recreational areas from the city of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Concentrations of As, Cu, Cd, Zn, Pb, Hg, Co, Ni and Mg were identified in a number of 48 soil samples from 12 intensively used recreational areas in Cluj-Napoca. The proposed risk assessment method is applied, and potential risks are calculated for all locations.


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