• Title/Summary/Keyword: Environmental Impacts

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Diagnosis for Status of Dredging and Ocean Disposal of Coastal Sediment in Korea (우리나라 연안준설 및 준설토 해양투기 현황 진단)

  • Eom, Ki-Hyuk;Lee, Dae-In;Park, Dal-Soo;Kim, Gui-Young
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.185-193
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    • 2009
  • This study documented and diagnosed the status and problems of coastal dredging and offshore disposal of dredged sediments in South Korea to improve assessment procedures for marine environmental impacts and develop effective management systems. A total of $729({\times}10^6)m^3$ of coastal sediment was dredged in the harbors during the period of 2001-2008. Most of dredged sediment was disposed to the land dumping sites whereas ocean disposal accounted for less than 5%. Ocean disposal areas were especially concentrated to the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the southeast of Busan, which is not only an important fishing area for fishermen, but also considered to be spawning and nursery ground for some commercial fish species. To minimize negative impacts of dredging and ocean disposal of coastal sediment on marine ecosystem and potential strife among coastal users, we suggest 1) in development projects involving ocean disposal, it should be mandatory to propose careful reuse plans in the land, and 2) guidelines of environmental assessment and consequence management programs should be developed and implemented.

A Study of Computer Models Used in Environmental Impact Assessment I : Water Quality Models (환경영향평가에 사용되는 컴퓨터 모델에 관한 연구 I : 수질 모델)

  • Park, Seok-Soon;Na, Eun-Hye
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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    • v.9 no.1
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    • pp.13-24
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    • 2000
  • This paper presents a study of water quality model applications in environmental impact statements which were submitted during recent years in Korea. Most of the applications have reported that the development projects would have significant impacts on the water quality, especially, of streams and rivers. The water quality models, however, were hardly used as an impact prediction tool. Even in the cases where models were used, calibration and verification studies were not performed and thus the predicted results would not be reliable. These poor model applications in environmental impact assessment can be attributable to the fact that there were no available model application guidelines as well as no requirements by the review agency. In addition, the expected waste loads were improperly estimated in most cases, especially in non-point sources, and the predicted parameters were not good enough to understand water quality problems expected from the proposed plans. The effects of mitigation measures were not analyzed in most cases. Again, these can be attributed to no formal guidelines available for impact predictions until now. A brief guideline is described in this paper, including model selection, calibration and verification, impact prediction, and analysis of effects of mitigation measures. The results of this study indicate that the model application should be required to overcome the current improper predictions of environmental impacts and the guidelines should be developed in detail and provided.

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Obesity : Genetic vs Environmental Factors (비만 : 유전이냐 환경이냐)

  • Lee, Soyoung Irene;Jung, Han-Yong
    • Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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    • v.10 no.1
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    • pp.45-53
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    • 2003
  • Debates relevant to the etiology of weight gain or obesity, i.e., the dichotomous understandings about whether obesity arises from the genetic predisposition or from the environmental influences, has long existed. This is an important issue because it is related to the therapists's prejudice when treating patients with obesity. In this review, the authors first discuss the environmental and the genetic factors that cause the obesity, and in the latter part, the interactions between genetic and environmental factors will be discussed. This issue is considered and described especially in a conceptual aspect for the therapists ultimately to understand how the genetic and the environmental factors interact to arise obesity. Conclusively, obesity is best understood as a complex, multifactorial, and chronic disabled state, which cause an individual with genetic predispostion to obesity under the environmental influences. In future, in favor of the accumulated knowledge about the genetic and environmental impacts and their interactions in detail, we will be able to provide a client-specific management or prevention of obesity.

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Evaluation of monthly environmental loads from municipal wastewater treatment plants operation using life cycle assessment

  • Piao, Wenhua;Kim, Ye-jin
    • Environmental Engineering Research
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    • v.21 no.3
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    • pp.284-290
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    • 2016
  • Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology can be used to assess impacts on the environment that might be generated during treatment of wastewater and sludge treatment. In this work, LCA methodology was suggested to evaluate monthly environmental impact of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Two field scale WWTPs, A2/O process and conventional activated sludge process (CAS), were selected as target plants and the operational data were collected from those plants. As the function units, the unit volume of treated wastewater of $1m^3$ and 1 kg T-N eq. removed were selected. The environmental effect of target WWTPs operation were assessed as impact categories such as global warming potential, eutrophication potential, and so on. From monthly profiles of each index, it was shown that the environmental impact of WWTPs has seasonal patterns influenced by the influent flow rate variation causing higher impacts in winter than summer. This is due to the fact that there were no significant increase in the electricity consumption and chemical usage during the summer while the treated volume of wastewater was increased.

Life Cycle Assessment and Eco-efficiency Analysis for the Resource-circulation Network of Waste Heat Generated from Industrial Process (공정폐열의 자원순환 네트워크 구성을 위한 전과정 평가 및 생태효율성 분석)

  • Shin, Choon-Hwan;Park, Do-Hyun;Kim, Ji-Won
    • Journal of Environmental Science International
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    • v.22 no.3
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    • pp.281-289
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    • 2013
  • For the purpose of evaluating the eco-efficiency(EE) on surplus heat generated from industrial process, techniques of life cycle assessment are adopted in this study. Because it can be indicated both environmental impacts and economic benefits, EE is well known as a useful tool for symbiosis network on the sustainable development of new projects and businesses. To evaluate environmental impacts, the categories were divided into two areas of resource depletion and global warming potential. It can be seen that environmental impact increased a little but much higher economic benefit on the company, environmental performance and economic value were improved on the apartment by the district heating, respectively. In result, eco-industrial park(EIP) project on surplus heat should be found sustainable new business because the EE was in the area of fully positively eco-efficiency and, moreover resource depletion was taken place than the reduction of greenhouse gas.

A green transportation model in reverse logistics network and its comparative assessment for environmental impacts (역물류 네트워크에서의 친환경 운송 모델 개발 및 환경영향평가 비교 분석)

  • Kim, Ki Hong;Shin, Seoung-Jun;Chung, Byung Hyun
    • Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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    • v.17 no.3
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    • pp.239-246
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    • 2015
  • Enforced environmental regulations call for extending the domain of manufacturers' responsibility to the entire product life cycle. To comply with the environmental regulations, manufacturers have constructed reverse logistics networks to re-collect their leftover waste for recycling consumed resources. However, the operational activities associated with storage, loading and transportation processes within the networks inevitably impose environmental burdens. Particularly, the transportation process largely influences environmental performance due to perpetual uses of transportation vehicles. Therefore, there is a need to develop an environmentally-conscious transportation model that can efficiently manage the uses of transportation vehicles. Additionally, it is vital to analyze its significances of environmental performance to compare quantitatively it with existing models. This paper proposes a transportation model for improving environmental performance in a reverse logistics network. This paper also presents a case study to perform its comparative analysis using Life Cycle Assessment that evaluates potential environmental impacts of a product system.

Motivational Factors of Implementing Corporate Social and Environmental Reporting and Its Impact on Performance

  • INDRASARI, Arum;NUGRAHENI, Peni;HAMZAH, Noradiva;MAELAH, Ruhanita
    • The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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    • v.8 no.2
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    • pp.883-892
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    • 2021
  • The issue of environmental crisis encourages companies to develop strategies and programs which incorporate social and environmental considerations into their processes. The objectives of this study are to identify the strategies used in implementing corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) and to investigate the impact of these strategies on organization performance. This study uses as its sample companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) and engaged in environmentally sensitive business activities and applies content analysis to their annual reports. The data used in the study is secondary data in the form of annual and sustainability reports of companies, and primary data in the form of interviews. The results show that companies use both reactive and proactive strategies in reporting their social and environmental activities. The study also identifies the impacts of such reporting on both the financial and non-financial performances of the investigated companies. The study contributes to the social and environmental accounting literature by exploring the motivations and strategies of companies in their CSER. The empirical results will provide important insights into the influence of the strategies employed by companies in their corporate social and environmental reporting and the impacts of such strategies on organizational performance.