A novel planning approach for the water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) sector: the use of object-oriented bayesian networks

Conventional approaches to design and plan water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) interventions are not suitable for capturing the increasing complexity of the context in which these services are delivered. Multidimensional tools are needed to unravel the links between access to basic services and the socio-economic drivers of poverty. This paper applies an object-oriented Bayesian network to reflect the main issues that determine access to WaSH services. A national Program in Kenya has been analyzed as initial case study. The main findings suggest that the proposed approach is able to accommodate local conditions and to represent an accurate reflection of the complexities of WaSH issues, incorporating the uncertainty intrinsic to service delivery processes. Results indicate those areas in which policy makers should prioritize efforts and resources. Similarly, the study shows the effects of sector interventions, as well as the foreseen impact of various scenarios related to the national Program.Preprin

Decentralized or centralized production : impacts to the environment, industry, and the economy

Since product take-back is mandated in Europe, and has effects for producers worldwide including the U.S., designing efficient forward and reverse supply chain networks is becoming essential for business viability. Centralizing production facilities may reduce costs but perhaps not environmental impacts. Decentralizing a supply chain may reduce transportation environmental impacts but increase capital costs. Facility location strategies of centralization or decentralization are tested for companies with supply chains that both take back and manufacture products. Decentralized and centralized production systems have different effects on the environment, industry and the economy. Decentralized production systems cluster suppliers within the geographical market region that the system serves. Centralized production systems have many suppliers spread out that meet all market demand. The point of this research is to help further the understanding of company decision-makers about impacts to the environment and costs when choosing a decentralized or centralized supply chain organizational strategy. This research explores; what degree of centralization for a supply chain makes the most financial and environmental sense for siting facilities; and which factories are in the best location to handle the financial and environmental impacts of particular processing steps needed for product manufacture. This research considered two examples of facility location for supply chains when products are taken back; the theoretical case involved shoe resoling and a real world case study considered the location of operations for a company that reclaims multiple products for use as material inputs. For the theoretical example a centralized strategy to facility location was optimal: whereas for the case study a decentralized strategy to facility location was best. In conclusion, it is not possible to say that a centralized or decentralized strategy to facility location is in general best for a company that takes back products. Each company’s specific concerns, needs, and supply chain details will determine which degree of centralization creates the optimal strategy for siting their facilities

Economic and Environmental Optimization in the Supply of Switchgrass in Tennessee

The low efficiency of collection, storage and transportation in the switchgrass supply chain has hindered the commercialization of a switchgrass-based biofuel industry, even given its ecological and environmental advantages in carbon sequestrate, soil quality, water use, and pollution pressure. Thus, designing a switchgrass-based supply chain balancing both environmental and economic performance is important to expedite the development of the cellulosic biofuel industry to meet the national energy plan. The objectives of this study are to 1) determine economic cost and multiple environmental outcomes in feedstock supply chains and 2) identify the relation between the economic and environmental performances. The first paper considers three objectives: minimization of economic cost, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and soil erosions. The second paper focuses on the relation between economic cost and abated greywater footprint for industrialized supply of cellulosic biofuel in west Tennessee. The improved augmented epsilon method and compromise solution method were applied to high-resolution spatial data to determine the optimal placement of the feedstock supply chains. Results in the first paper indicated that land change into switchgrass production is crucial to both plant-gate cost and environmental impact of feedstock supply. Converting croplands to switchgrass incurred higher opportunity cost from land use change but stored more soil carbon and generated less soil erosion. Tradeoffs in higher feedstock costs with lower GHG emissions and lower soil erosion on the frontier were captured. Soil erosion was found more cost effective criterion than GHG emission in general. The compromise solution location for the conversion facility generated at 63% increase in feedstock cost but improved the environmental impact in lowering 27 % GHG emission and decreasing soil erosion by 70 times lower in the feedstock supply chain compared with cost minimization location. Results in the second paper showed that tradeoff between feedstock costs and greywater footprint was mainly associated with the changes of land use, while ambient water quality condition was also influential to the selection of feedstock production area. The average imputed cost of lowering grey water footprint in the most preferred feedstock supply chain in west Tennessee was $0.94 m-3 [per cubic meter]

The water footprint assessment manual: setting the global standard

This book contains the global standard for \u27water footprint assessment\u27 as developed and maintained by the Water Footprint Network (WFN). It covers a comprehensive set of definitions and methods for water footprint accounting. It shows how water footprints are calculated for individual processes and products, as well as for consumers, nations and businesses. It also includes methods for water footprint sustainability assessment and a library of water footprint response options. A shared standard on definitions and calculation methods is crucial given the rapidly growing interest in companies and governments to use water footprint accounts as a basis for formulating sustainable water strategies and policies

Integrated supplier selection framework in a resilient construction supply chain: An approach via analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and grey relational analysis (GRA)

Construction supply chain management is a unique and problematic issue within the construction industry due to its inevitable external risks and variations. The resilience capability of a supplier is of significance in supplier selection; a supplier selected in the context of a resilient construction supply chain (RCSC) is referred to in this research as a "resilient construction supplier". This paper proposes a supplier selection framework tailored to effective information integration for supply chain management. The proposed framework works by integrating building information modeling (BIM) and a geographic information system (GIS) in a RCSC. BIM and GIS together provide highly transparent construction material information, enhanced supply chain status visualization, and workable access information for supplier selection. Supplier performance is evaluated via seventeen resilient criteria under a combined methodology consisting of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and grey relational analysis (GRA); AHP and GRA weigh the criteria and rank the suppliers respectively. By varying the weightings given to each criterion, sensitivity analysis was conducted to identify the criteria of resilience which impact the selection priorities of suppliers. An illustrative example is also provided to show the overall process of the proposed framework

Produced water management - A mathematical model to trade-off economic cost and environmental impact for infrastructure utilisation

A substantial amount of wastewater, known as produced water (PW), is generated during oil and gas extraction. Given that PW can have a detrimental effect on the environment, it must be appropriately managed and treated before reuse. Globally, PW management is one of the greatest challenges in the oil and gas industry due to the costly treatment methods and large amounts involved, and there is a lack of expertise in the knowledge of PW management. Kuwait is a leading oil producer, and PW management poses a severe threat to the sustainability of Kuwait’s oil fields in terms of cost control and environmental safety. Here, life cycle and economic assessments are used to develop a mathematical framework for analysing trade-offs between the financial costs and environmental impacts of PW management operations. Specifically, a multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming framework is formulated for Kuwait Oil Company’s (KOC) PW supply chain management with different operational and regulatory constraints. A model solution for sustainable operations over the short, mid and long term that aligns with KOC’s strategic policy on PW management is presented. A global sensitivity analysis (GSA) also performed to further assess the economic and operational factors that influence KOC’s PW management. Finally, risk assessment is conducted to identify and evaluate risks associated with PW utilisation. Results indicate that treatment operations account for half of total system costs, and electricity consumption accounts for most of environmental impact, affecting the sustainability of the PW supply chain system most significantly. Moreover, KOC's PW supply chain system is impacted by a number of factors, including discount rates, electricity costs, and water treatment costs. In the case of PW utilisation, several types of risks may be posed that may negatively affect health, technology, the environment, and the economy. The findings of this study can be used to assess and guide PW supply chain management at KOC

Adapting to change: Time for climate resilience and a new adaptation strategy. EPC Issue Paper 5 March 2020

The dramatic effects of climate change are being felt across the European continent and the world. Considering how sluggish and unsuccessful the world has been in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the impacts will become long-lasting scars. Even implementing radical climate mitigation now would be insufficient in addressing the economic, societal and environmental implications of climate change, which are expected to only intensify in the years to come. This means climate mitigation must go hand in hand with the adaptation efforts recognised in the Paris Agreement. And although the damages of climate change are usually localised and adaptation measures often depend on local specificities, given the interconnections between ecosystems, people and economies in a globalised world there are strong reasons for European Union (EU) member states to join forces, pool risk and cooperate across borders. Sharing information, good practices, experiences and resources to strengthen resilience and enhance adaptive capacity makes sense economically, environmentally and socially. The European Commission’s 2013 Adaptation Strategy is the first attempt to set EU-wide adaptation and climate resilience and could be considered novel in that it tried to mainstream adaptation goals into relevant legislation, instruments and funds. It was not very proactive, however. It also lacked long-term perspective, failed to put the adaptation file high on the political agenda, was under resourced, and suffered from knowledge gaps and silo thinking. The Commission’s European Green Deal proposal, which has been presented as a major step forward to the goal of Europe becoming the world’s first climate-neutral continent, suggests that the Commission will adopt a new EU strategy on adaptation to climate within the first two years of its mandate (2020-2021). In light of the risks climate change poses to ecosystems, societies and the economy (through inter alia the vulnerability of the supply chain to climate change and its potential failure to provide services to consumers), adaptation should take a prominent role alongside mitigation in the EU’s political climate agenda. Respecting the division of treaty competences, there are important areas where EU-wide action and support could foster the continent’s resilience to climate change. The European Policy Centre (EPC) project “Building a climate-resilient Europe”, which has culminated in this Issue Paper, has identified the following: (i) the ability to convert science-based knowledge into preventive action and responsible behaviour, thus filling the information gap; (ii) the need to close the protection gap through better risk management and risk sharing; (iii) the necessity to adopt nature-based infrastructural solutions widely and tackle the grey infrastructure bias; and (iv) the need to address the funding and investment gap. This Issue Paper aims to help inform the upcoming EU Adaptation Strategy and, by extension, strengthen the EU’s resilience to climate change. To that end, the authors make a call for the EU to mainstream adaptation and shift its focus from reacting to disasters to a more proactive approach that prioritises prevention, risk reduction and resilience building. In doing so, the EU must ensure fairness and distributive justice while striving for climate change mitigation and protecting the environment and biodiversity. To succeed, the new EU Adaptation Strategy will need to address specific challenges related to the information, protection, funding and investment gaps; and the grey infrastructure bias. To tackle and address those challenges, this Paper proposes 17 solutions outlined in Table 1 (see page 6)

The Water Footprint of Data Centers

The internet and associated Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) are diffusing at an astounding pace. As data centers (DCs) proliferate to accommodate this rising demand, their environmental impacts grow too. While the energy efficiency of DCs has been researched extensively, their water footprint (WF) has so far received little to no attention. This article conducts a preliminary WF accounting for cooling and energy consumption in DCs. The WF of DCs is estimated to be between 1047 and 151,061 m3/TJ. Outbound DC data traffic generates a WF of 1–205 liters per gigabyte (roughly equal to the WF of 1 kg of tomatos at the higher end). It is found that, typically, energy consumption constitues by far the greatest share of DC WF, but the level of uncertainty associated with the WF of different energy sources used by DCs makes a comprehensive assessment of DCs’ water use efficiency very challenging. Much better understanding of DC WF is urgently needed if a meaningful evaluation of this rapidly spreading service technology is to be gleaned and response measures are to be put into effect

Using supply chain data to monitor zero deforestation commitments: an assessment of progress in the Brazilian soy sector

Zero deforestation commitments (ZDCs) are voluntary initiatives where companies or countries pledge to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. These commitments offer much promise for sustainable commodity production, but are undermined by a lack of transparency about their coverage and impacts. Here, using state-of-the-art supply chain data, we introduce an approach to evaluate the impact of ZDCs, linking traders and international markets to commodity-associated deforestation in the sub-national jurisdictions from which they source. We focus on the Brazilian soy sector, where we find that ZDC coverage is increasing, but under-represents the Cerrado biome where most soy-associated deforestation currently takes place. Though soy-associated deforestation declined in the Amazon after the introduction of the Soy Moratorium, we observe no change in the exposure of companies or countries adopting ZDCs to soy-associated deforestation in the Cerrado. We further assess the formulation and implementation of these ZDCs and identify several systematic weaknesses that must be addressed to increase the likelihood that they achieve meaningful reductions in deforestation in future. As the 2020 deadline for several of these commitments approaches, our approach can provide independent monitoring of progress toward the goal of ending commodity-associated deforestation

Intensification of cattle ranching production systems: Socioeconomic and environmental synergies and risks in Brazil

Intensification of Brazilian cattle ranching systems has attracted both national and international attention due to its direct relation with Amazon deforestation on the one hand and increasing demand of the global population for meat on the other. Since Brazilian cattle ranching is predominantly pasture-based, we particularly focus on pasture management. We summarize the most recurrent opportunities and risks associated with pasture intensification that are brought up within scientific and political dialogues, and discuss them within the Brazilian context. We argue that sustainable intensification of pasturelands in Brazil is a viable way to increase agricultural output while simultaneously sparing land for nature. Since environmental degradation is often associated with low-yield extensive systems in Brazil, it is possible to obtain higher yields, while reversing degradation, by adopting practices like rotational grazing, incorporation of legumes and integrated crop-livestock-forestry systems. Technical assistance is however essential, particularly for small- and medium-scale farmers. Sound complementary policies and good governance must accompany these measures so that a ‘rebound effect’ does not lead to increased deforestation and other adverse social and environmental impacts. It is also important that animal welfare is not compromised. Although the discussion is presented with respect to Brazil, some aspects are relevant to other developing countries