• Title/Summary/Keyword: Environmental Impacts

Search Result 1,772, Processing Time 0.027 seconds

Introduction Scheme of Health Impact Assessment in Korea (한국에서의 건강영향평가 도입 방안)

  • Kim, Im-Soon;Han, Young-Han;Han, Sang-Wook
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
    • /
    • v.16 no.6
    • /
    • pp.511-524
    • /
    • 2007
  • Korea has 30 years of experiences in environmental impact assessment (EIA). Although EIA includes sanitation-public health factor, considering health impacts, among 74 unit projects of 17 sections, health impacts haven't been properly considered or have been ignored in many cases. The increasing awareness on the importance of health impacts has triggered this study to seek an optimal introduction scheme of health impact assessment (HIA). The processes of EIA already include screening, scoping, analysis, impact assessment, consultation, document review, decision making and monitoring, in which they would be the essential parts of HIA. In this context, integrating HIA into the existing EIA process could be the most effective way to use the benefits in both legal and procedural processes existed and to avoid the confusion and overlapping since the close relationships between environment and health impacts might be. Furthermore, it is desirable that the existing sanitation-public health factor should be substituted by and extended to environment-health factor with sufficient determinants to properly consider health impacts. When considering the first step of HIA, the prospective and qualitative approach is suitable more than the retrospective and quantitative one due to the lack of database accumulated. Similarly, an approach based on epidemiology and toxicology could analyze the limited evidences and impacts related to human disease, whereas one based on socio-science and psychology could provide the effective means available for predicting how the people and community will act by the change of surroundings. Checklist approach with various and comprehensive health determinants focused on prospective and qualitative methods will be very useful for more convenient and progressive dissemination of HIA. Various checklist approaches of toolkits could be found from HIA documents elsewhere, for example Westminster Toolkit, and they would be helpful to figure out how to develop common procedures and health determinants for checklist, in which the unique characteristics on korean cultural and political context compared to abroad should be carefully considered since checklist would be the most basic and essential part of HIA. After the establishment of checklist and procedural processes, the pilot projects should be conducted. Main purpose of pilot projects is to apparently prove the effectiveness and profitability of HIA. Pilot projects should be implemented to decide the effectiveness and suitability of HIA for future projects, programs and policies, and should be provided as the positive cases that can be achieved through the proper implementation and progress.

Assessment of Environmental Impacts and $CO_2$ Emissions from Soil Remediation Technologies using Life Cycle Assessment - Case Studies on SVE and Biopile Systems - (전과정평가(LCA)에 의한 토양오염 정화공정의 환경영향분석 및 $CO_2$ 배출량 산정 - SVE 및 Biopile 시스템 중심으로 -)

  • Jeong, Seung-Woo;Suh, Sang-Won
    • Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
    • /
    • v.33 no.4
    • /
    • pp.267-274
    • /
    • 2011
  • The environmental impacts of 95% remediation of a total petroleum hydrocarbon-contaminated soil were evaluated using life cycle assessment (LCA). LCA of two remediation systems, soil vapor extraction (SVE) and biopile, were conducted by using imput materials and energy listed in a remedial system standardization report. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results showed that the environmental impacts of SVE were all higher than those of biopile. Prominent four environmental impacts, human toxicity via soil, aquatic ecotoxicity, human toxicity via surface water and human toxicity via air, were apparently found from the LCIA results of the both remedial systems. Human toxicity via soil was the prominent impact of SVE, while aquatic ecotoxicity was the prominent impact of biopile. This study also showed that the operation stage and the activated carbon replacement stage contributed 60% and 36% of the environmental impacts of SVE system, respectively. The major input affecting the environmental impact of SVE was electricity. The operation stage of biopile resulted in the highest contribution to the entire environmental impact. The key input affecting the environmental impact of biopile was also electricity. This study suggested that electricity reduction strategies would be tried in the contaminated-soil remediation sites for archieving less environmental impacts. Remediation of contaminated soil normally takes long time and thus requires a great deal of material and energy. More extensive life cycle researches on remedial systems are required to meet recent national challenges toward carbon dioxide reduction and green growth. Furthermore, systematic information on electricity use of remedial systems should be collected for the reliable assessment of environmental impacts and carbon dioxide emissions during soil remediation.

Global Environmental Impacts Assessment of Power Generation Technologies with LCA Method (LCA를 통한 국내 발전기술의 글로벌 환경성 평가)

  • Chung Whan-Sam;Kim Seong-Ho;Kim Tae-Woon
    • Journal of Energy Engineering
    • /
    • v.14 no.2 s.42
    • /
    • pp.140-146
    • /
    • 2005
  • In this study, a quantitative environmental impacts assessment was performed for various power technologies with a lift cycle assessment (LCA) method. The LCA is regarded as a useful tool far analyzing diverse environmental impacts at a local, regional, and global aspect. The investigated power plants such as nuclear, coal, and LNC power systems were selected because they took share over $90\%$ of domestic elec-tricity supply in Korea. Furthermore, a wind power technology was included as a representative energy source out of Korean renewable energy systems. According to the three geological aspects, environmental impacts had been categorized into eight types. For these impact categories, characterization had been carried out for comparing environmental burdens of power systems under consideration. Then, normalization had been done in order to gain a better understanding of the relative size among impact categories.

Improvement for Marine Environmental Impact Assessment on the Development of Offshore Wind Power (해상풍력개발사업의 바다환경영향평가 개선방안)

  • Kim, Gui-Young;Lee, Dae-In;Jeon, Kyeong-Am;Eom, Ki-Hyuk;Yu, Jun
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
    • /
    • v.21 no.1
    • /
    • pp.1-13
    • /
    • 2012
  • We diagnosed on status and problems of environmental assessment regarding development of offshore wind power, and also on reasonable core assessment items. Most of the coastal wind power are located on the western coastline of Korea and Jeju Island. In the selections of the site for the offshore wind farms, a previous investigations should be conducted with regard to distances from the land, stabilities from external forces (tide, wave, etc.) and topographical changes, and characteristics of the surroundings (distributions of protected area, fishing ground, artificial seagrasses, and shipping traffic). It is needed to assess dispersion of suspended solids, changes of the sea bottom, and impacts on fisheries resources and fishing activities under construction of offshore wind power. Furthermore, the responses of marine organisms to noise and vibration, impacts by electromagnetic fields, impacts on sea birds, hindrances to sea lane routes, and damaged scenery and marine protection areas are thoroughly assessed during operation processes. The consultation criteria in case of development of offshore wind farm is adjusted by focusing marine environmental impact assessment.

A Study on Range of Environmental Impact Assessment for Cumulative Effect Assessement - A Review on Living Environment Sector - (누적영향평가를 위한 평가범위 산정에 대한 연구 - 생활환경분야를 중심으로 -)

  • Kim, Youngha;Lee, Onkil;Lee, Youngsoo
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
    • /
    • v.17 no.5
    • /
    • pp.299-309
    • /
    • 2008
  • Cumulative effects can be defined as impacts on environment which results from incremental impacts of a proposed project, which covers other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions. The necessity of Cumulative Effect Assessment is that, when there are several projects near the project area, environmental effects of individual project can be larger or smaller than those of individual project without having projects nearby because of synergy, ascending and descending effects. This study was intended to help Environmental Impact Assessment practitioners identify spatial and temporal boundaries during the scoping stage. To do this, literature review of domestic and foreign legislations, guidelines, textbooks and papers related to Environmental Impact Assessment and Cumulative Effect Assessment was accomplished. This study suggests that continuous research be needed in order to identify spatial boundaries for other assessment fields and to develop methodologies for cumulative effect assessment.

Harmonized EIA-Guidelines for German Railways Projects (독일에서의 철도사업 환경영향평가 지침)

  • Ch. Ufer, J. Koppel
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
    • /
    • v.2 no.2
    • /
    • pp.55-58
    • /
    • 1993
  • After establishing the EIA(Environmental Impact Assessment) act in the Federal Republic of Germany there still remain methodical and substantial deficits. So nearly every environmental impact study went to be a matter of experiments. The requirement for standardization of data sampling and evaluation has permanently been increasing. This is meant to ensure quality standards for the assessment of environmental impacts as well as to maintain reliability required by the projecting company. Such a harmonization is of special importance because of the strongly accelerated expansion of traffic infrastructure caused by the reunification of Germany. That is why the guideline "EIA carried out" for the German Railways company is in process of development This guideline, focussing on practical demands, comprises impacts of railways, adequate sets of indicators, feasible tools for the prognosis and evaluation of environmental reactions. "EIA carried out" will be introduced not only as a manual but also through workshops and pilot studies.

  • PDF

Environmental Impacts of Inland based Trout-Farms on the Water Quality of a Stream (내수면 유수식 송어양식장이 하천수의 수질에 미치는 영향)

  • 조장천;이승훈;박성주;김상종
    • Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
    • /
    • v.10 no.3
    • /
    • pp.56-66
    • /
    • 1995
  • To investigate environmental impacts of inland fish- farms on the water quality of a stream, environmental parameters including physical, chemical and biological factorswere estimated at trount- farm in 1994. Influences( F-1) were polluted as passing through fish tank( F-2) and settle pond( F-3), so organic and inorganic nutrient concentrations became very high in effluents( F-4). BOD$_{5}$, Chl. a, Nitrite and heterotrophic bacterial numbers in the junction site(5-2) of F-4 and S-1( upstream) were highest among the stream sites. BOD$_{5}$ was proved to a good parameter of organic pollution, and nitrite of Inorganic nutrients in the fishery and it's affected stream, The high concentration of BOD$_{5}$ and Chl. a in S-2 were decreased in downstream(5-3, 5-4). It seems that this results are due to dilution or sedimentation effect. This supposition requires further testing about the sediment of stream. The results of this paper demonstrate that fish farming can deteriorate water quality of a stream by changing environmental factors.

  • PDF

Development of RACE: Software for Environmental Assessment of Electric Motor Units (전동차 환경성 평가 S/W RACE의 개발)

  • Kim, Yong-Ki;Lee, Jae-Young;Lee, Cheul-Kyu;Eun, Jong-Hwan
    • Proceedings of the KSR Conference
    • /
    • 2007.11a
    • /
    • pp.1-5
    • /
    • 2007
  • An electric motor unit (EMU) is manufactured from a large number of components and parts which are made of extensive raw materials. In emits much environmental load throughout its entire life cycle, having both complicated and elaborated system and long period of life time. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the methodologies and tools to analyze the environmental performance of EMUs throughout their life cycle. RACE (Rail Assessment for Clean Environment) developed in this study is the software that can analyze the environmental impacts and eco-efficiency of EMUs, which are new concepts proposed for sustainable development. It has database for main components as well as principal materials contained in EMUs. Manufacturers and operators can use it to assess the life-cycle environmental impacts of EMU and support their decision making. RACE can also be used as a tool for environmental communication between manufacturers and operators.

  • PDF

Optimization of wastewater electrolysis using life cycle assessment and simulated annealing

  • Chun Hae Pyo;Chon Hyo-Taek;Kim Young Seok
    • 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
    • /
    • 2003.11a
    • /
    • pp.518-521
    • /
    • 2003
  • LCA (Life Cycle Assessment), that unifies the scale of various environmental impacts, and simulated annealing are applied to optimizing electrolysis of wastewater from PCB (Printed Circuit Board) production. The changes of environmental impact can be quantified with LCA and the total changes of environmental impacts can be expressed as a function of power consumed, Cu recycled, $Cl_2$, NOx and SOx discharged through restriction of feasible reactions. In a single-variate condition, the environmental optimum can be easily obtained through plotting and comparing each environmental impact value. In 8V potentiostatic electrolysis, the lowest environmental impact can be achieved after 90min. To optimize a multi-variate conditional system, simulated annealing can be applied and this can give the quick and near optimum in complex systems, where many input and output materials are involved, through experimentally measured values without a theoretical modeling.

  • PDF

Think Globally, Act Locally Environmental History as Global History in the First Global Age

  • Polonia, Amelia
    • Asian review of World Histories
    • /
    • v.3 no.1
    • /
    • pp.59-80
    • /
    • 2015
  • The paper is oriented towards a reflection on the epistemological extension of world history. This discipline is currently opening up for new subjects and new foci of interest, with environmental history being one of them. The paper debates the interaction between the global and the local as one of the main issues of world history. It analyses the impacts of the interconnectivity of diverse regions as well as different geographical and cultural complexes, during the period between 1500 and 1800. Assuming that the sea in its economic, cultural and environmental dimensions contributed actively to world history, and is, in itself, a major factor of globalization, the paper intends to highlight interdependencies which fostered connections between the local and the global. It further submits to discussion which was the impact of an on-going globalization process, based on maritime dynamics, on the environment. Through an analysis centered on the impact of European overseas expansion, some environmental impacts will be analyzed. The paper aims at questioning environmental history as an emergent theme of world history, based on the historical experience of connecting worlds developed in the First Global Age (1500-1800).