Environmental Management
M.A. Peñaranda Barba; V. Alarcón Martínez; I. Gómez Lucas; J. Navarro Pedreño
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Open-pit mining is an important activity to obtain mineral resources that supply society with raw materials to improve people's quality of life. However, this extractive activity causes negative environmental impacts and, it is therefore necessary to identify and evaluate these ...
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BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Open-pit mining is an important activity to obtain mineral resources that supply society with raw materials to improve people's quality of life. However, this extractive activity causes negative environmental impacts and, it is therefore necessary to identify and evaluate these impacts in order to design preventive and control measures to reduce them and thus safeguard the environment and natural resources. In the Region of Murcia, in Spain, as well as other Mediterranean areas with similar climatic conditions, there is a great deal of mining activity linked to the building sector, in which mainly ornamental rock (marble and marble limestone) and limestone aggregates are used. All of this has given rise to numerous active and abandoned mines, where no restoration process has been carried out, generating strong impacts on the environment.METHODS: In this study, 8 environmental impact assessments studies of ornamental rock and aggregate quarries in the Region of Murcia were analysed to identify the negative impacts on the abiotic and biotic environment, landscape, socio-economic and socio-cultural environment, and infrastructures and analysing preventive and control measures. FINDINGS: According to the environmental impact assessment studies analysed, the importance of the most significant environmental impacts has been calculated, indicating whether the impacts are critical, severe, moderate or compatible, and based on it, preventive and corrective measures are proposed together in an impact mitigation management system based in flow charts that will serve to more easily apply and control these measures, in order to prevent them from causing significant or irreversible damage to the environment. Analysing these measures, it has been observed that 90% of the measures applied to control the different negative environmental factors in this type of quarry are the same.CONCLUSION: Open-pit mining extraction systems have a series of similar characteristics that allow a systematic approach to be established when analysing the impacts. With the use of flowcharts, it becomes easier to apply measures to reduce environmental impacts and in addition, these diagrams, allow at the same time the easy incorporation of updates due to changing regulations.
Environmental Management
R.J. Isaifan
Abstract
The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported from Wuhan, China, on December 31st, 2019. As the number of coronavirus infections has exceeded 100,000 with toll deaths of about 5000 worldwide as of early March, 2020, scientists and researchers are racing to investigate the nature of ...
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The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported from Wuhan, China, on December 31st, 2019. As the number of coronavirus infections has exceeded 100,000 with toll deaths of about 5000 worldwide as of early March, 2020, scientists and researchers are racing to investigate the nature of this virus and evaluate the short and long term effects of this disease. Despite its negative impacts that obliged the World Health Organization to declare COVID-19 epidemic as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the rate of mortality of this infection has not exceeded 3.4% globally. On the other hand, the mortality rate caused by ambient air pollution has contributed to 7.6% of all deaths in 2016 worldwide. The outbreak of COVID-19 has forced China to lockdown its industrial activities and hence dropped its NO2 and carbon emissions by 30 and 25%, respectively. This work reports on the first case study that compares the air quality status before and after the crisis. It sheds light on the facts related to the demographics of deaths by gender, age and health status before infection. The historical data on air quality, estimates of annual deaths and its economic burden have been presented and analyzed. The actual daily deaths due to COVID-19 have been obtained from the official records of the daily Situation Reports published by World Health Organization as of March 11th. The rate of mortality due to COVID-19 was impacted by two factors: age and health status. Results show that 75% of deaths were related to cases that had underlying present diseases with the majority aged of 80+ years. The reported figures were compared with the average daily mortality due to poor air quality which reached up to 3287 deaths due to high levels of NO2, O3 and PM. The air quality status before the crisis was compared with the current situation showing that COVID-19 forced-industrial and anthropogenic activities lockdown may have saved more lives by preventing ambient air pollution than by preventing infection.
Environmental Management
A.A. Shayesteh; O. Koohshekan; F. Khadivpour; M. Kian; R. Ghasemzadeh; M. Pazoki
Abstract
Due to the growth of population and industrialization, a great number of problems associated with producing industrial wastes have been created for both the environment and human beings. The industrial waste management in Brujen industrial park, located in the western part of Iran, has been investigated ...
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Due to the growth of population and industrialization, a great number of problems associated with producing industrial wastes have been created for both the environment and human beings. The industrial waste management in Brujen industrial park, located in the western part of Iran, has been investigated in this study using the environmental rapid impact assessment matrix technique. For this purpose, the effective activities and components were classified. The determination of the best scenarios with the least impact on the environment was performed by developing the scenarios for possible industrial waste disposal and making calculations by the rapid impact assessment matrix method. The components of the environment were first classified into physical/chemical, economic/operational, biological/ecological, and social/cultural items. Afterward, with respect to the criteria of the rapid impact assessment matrix method, the importance of environmental impacts was determined by standard scoring of the developed scenarios. Ultimately, the environmental score of each component for the scenarios was calculated using the rapid impact assessment matrix method, and the best scenario with the least environmental impacts was selected through a quantitative comparison. According to the results, scenario 3 (pyrolysis) and scenario 1 (recycling) were found to have the most negative impact and the most positive impact on the environment. Scenario 4 (incineration), with its severe air pollution, obtained a high negative score and was excluded from the options. As a result, two systems of recycling (scenario 1) and the sanitary landfill (scenario 2) were identified as complementary to each other and were selected as a solid waste management method.
Environmental Management
M. Akbari; M. Ownegh; H.R. Asgari; A. Sadoddin; H. Khosravi
Abstract
Risk assessment provides the possibility of planning and management to prevent and reduce the risk of desertification. The present study is aimed to assess the hazard and risk of desertification and to develop management programs in the semi-arid western regions of Golestan Province in Iran. Desertification ...
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Risk assessment provides the possibility of planning and management to prevent and reduce the risk of desertification. The present study is aimed to assess the hazard and risk of desertification and to develop management programs in the semi-arid western regions of Golestan Province in Iran. Desertification rate was obtained using the Iranian model of desertification potential assessment. Since the rating system was considered for the indicators, data analyses were carried out according to the Mann-Whitney test. The risk of desertification was calculated based on hazard, elements at risk and vulnerability assessment maps. The intensity of desertification was estimated to be medium. Among the factors affecting desertification, agriculture by the weighted average of 3.22 had the highest effect, followed by soil, vegetation, water and wind erosion criteria by weighted averages of 2.45, 2.32, 2.15 and 1.6 respectively. Desertification risk assessment results also showed that about 78% of central and northern parts of the region, with the largest population and residential centers, surface and underground water resources, agriculture and horticulture, is confronted with a high to very high degree of risk. Management plans and control measures, based on risk values were presented in four activities (with two management priorities under critical and non-critical conditions). For the management program with the largest area. Control measures and strategies such as the establishment of halophytic and xerophytic plants, drainage networks, resilient facilities and infrastructure were proposed. Reducing the risk of desertification, could play a crucial role in the sustainable development of drylands and desert ecosystems.
Environmental Management
T. Salem; Sh.S. Ahmed; M. Hamed; G.H. Abd ElAziz
Abstract
A risk assessment study was conducted to predict the expected hazardous influence on the ecosystem resulted from urbanization and industrialization activities at Helwan area, Egypt. To achieve these goals, soils, plants and water samples were collected from Helwan area, and their total concentrations ...
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A risk assessment study was conducted to predict the expected hazardous influence on the ecosystem resulted from urbanization and industrialization activities at Helwan area, Egypt. To achieve these goals, soils, plants and water samples were collected from Helwan area, and their total concentrations of inorganic contaminants (Cd, Cr, Co, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn) and organic pollutants; such as Phenol and hydrocarbons were measured. The obtained results showed that, the concentrations of organic contaminants in water streams and surrounding soils recorded high concentration values than the permissible limits, while inorganic elements were within the safe limits for irrigation. In addition, soils irrigated with the effluents of industrial units recorded high values of inorganic and organic contaminants. Consequently, the levels of these contaminants were high in plant tissues grown thereon; especially the edible parts. Risk assessment based on available Predicted No Effect Concentration values for the aquatic and terrestrial environment was performed. Inorganic elements were expected to cause serious hazard problems for both aquatic organisms and soil microorganisms. The impact of these pollutants on human health was calculated using daily metals intake of inorganic metals via consumption of edible plants. Hazard index values proved that concentrations of Cr may cause serious hazard problems for humans in this area; especially, children.
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