Cumulative impact assessment for ecosystem-based marine spatial planning

Claims for ocean space are growing while marine ecosystems suffer from centuries of insufficient care. Human pressures from runoff, atmospheric emissions, marine pollution, fishing, shipping, military operations and other activities wear on habitats and populations. Ecosystem-based marine spatial planning (MSP) has emerged worldwide as a strategic instrument for handling conflicting spatial claims among competing sectors and the environment. The twofold objective of both boosting the blue economy and protecting the environment is challenging in practice and marine planners need decision support. Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA) was originally developed to provide an overview of the human imprint on the world\u27s ocean ecosystems. We have now added a scenario component to the CIA model and used it within Swedish ecosystem-based MSP. This has allowed us to project environmental impacts for different planning alternatives throughout the planning process, strengthening the integration of environmental considerations into strategic decision-making. Every MSP decision may entail a local shift of environmental impact, causing positive or negative consequences for ecosystem components. The results from Swedish MSP in the North Sea and Baltic Sea illustrate that MSP certainly has the potential to lower net cumulative environmental impact, both locally and across sea basins, as long as environmental values are rated high and prevailing pressures derive from activities that are part of MSP. By synthesizing innumerous data into comprehensible decision support that informs marine planners of the likely environmental consequences of different options, CIA enables ecosystem-based MSP in practice

Challenges and Opportunities for Urban Environmental Health and Sustainability: the HEALTHY-POLIS initiative.

Cities around the world face many environmental health challenges including contamination of air, water and soil, traffic congestion and noise, and poor housing conditions exacerbated by unsustainable urban development and climate change. Integrated assessment of these risks offers opportunities for holistic, low carbon solutions in the urban environment that can bring multiple benefits for public health. The Healthy-Polis consortium aims to protect and promote urban health through multi-disciplinary, policy-relevant research on urban environmental health and sustainability. We are doing this by promoting improved methods of health risk assessment, facilitating international collaboration, contributing to the training of research scientists and students, and engaging with key stakeholders in government, local authorities, international organisations, industry and academia. A major focus of the consortium is to promote and support international research projects coordinated between two or more countries. The disciplinary areas represented in the consortium are many and varied, including environmental epidemiology, modelling and exposure assessment, system dynamics, health impact assessment, multi-criteria decision analysis, and other quantitative and qualitative approaches. This Healthy-Polis special issue presents a range of case studies and reviews that illustrate the need for a systems-based understanding of the urban environment

CRISIS PLANNING AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC IN ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Abstract Public informing and participation in decision-making related to environmental protection as an important element of engaging stakeholders often excludes crisis planning. In environmental impact assessment procedures, there is often an organizational crisis involving three or four participants, normally the investor/applicant, the county office or ministry managing impact the assessment, the police overseeing the protests, and the judiciary as a result of rights given to the general and concerned public by the Aarhus Convention. Indications of a crisis appear some time before the situation threatens the organization or its partners, and consist of minor incidents that the organization has ignored or deemed insignificant for the final objectives. Unexpected crises bring uncertainty and risks – organizations cannot identify causes or consequences, all efforts are ineffective, while the threats to the entire project and the final objectives are increased. This paper analyses the differences in informing/participation of the general and concerned public in debates on decision-making in urban planning, and public debates on decision-making in environmental impact studies in the case of Lećevica Waste Management Center in Split-Dalmatia County. Methods for the collection of empirical data included problem-focused, in-depth interviews and participating observation. Grounded theory was used in analyzing the empirical material with initial, axial and selective coding. The frequency and absolute and relative cumulative value of coded responses were calculated using descriptive statistics. Results repeatedly showed shortcomings in adopting urban planning documents. Direct/indirect pressures from the politicians and the quiet administrative support or obstruction of administrative bodies are noticeable, including the changes in politics depending on the position of the ruling party/opposition at the state/local level

CRISIS PLANNING AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC IN ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Abstract Public informing and participation in decision-making related to environmental protection as an important element of engaging stakeholders often excludes crisis planning. In environmental impact assessment procedures, there is often an organizational crisis involving three or four participants, normally the investor/applicant, the county office or ministry managing impact the assessment, the police overseeing the protests, and the judiciary as a result of rights given to the general and concerned public by the Aarhus Convention. Indications of a crisis appear some time before the situation threatens the organization or its partners, and consist of minor incidents that the organization has ignored or deemed insignificant for the final objectives. Unexpected crises bring uncertainty and risks – organizations cannot identify causes or consequences, all efforts are ineffective, while the threats to the entire project and the final objectives are increased. This paper analyses the differences in informing/participation of the general and concerned public in debates on decision-making in urban planning, and public debates on decision-making in environmental impact studies in the case of Lećevica Waste Management Center in Split-Dalmatia County. Methods for the collection of empirical data included problem-focused, in-depth interviews and participating observation. Grounded theory was used in analyzing the empirical material with initial, axial and selective coding. The frequency and absolute and relative cumulative value of coded responses were calculated using descriptive statistics. Results repeatedly showed shortcomings in adopting urban planning documents. Direct/indirect pressures from the politicians and the quiet administrative support or obstruction of administrative bodies are noticeable, including the changes in politics depending on the position of the ruling party/opposition at the state/local level

How Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) Help Us to Select the Public Health Policies Most Likely to Maximise Health Gain, on the Basis of Best Public Health Science

Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a decision support tool intended to present timely, evidence–based recommendations to decision makers in all sections of society in order to accentuate potential positive health and well-being impacts (and mitigate potential negative impacts) of policies, plans (including local and neighbourhood plans), programmes and projects (including infrastructure and local development proposals), in order to reduce health inequalities/disparities. HIA is a well established and proven means of linking research evidence from public health and the environmental sciences with equitable decision making processes at all levels, from local to global. It may also provide a platform for examination of research proposals to strengthen the impact statement therein, identifying potential for future public benefit. This paper highlights some of the main drivers for a timely re-emphasis on the use of best scientific evidence and systematic HIA to inform decision making for future public benefit, citing the example of air pollution

Dynamic visualisation and modelling to support sustainable phosphate management

Under the WFD the UK water companies are responsible for providing effective treatment methods which will reduce the level of phosphate, a key nutrient in river eutrophication, in their respective waterways. The selection of effective treatment methods poses a sustainability problem as there are a number of economic and social aspects which must be balanced with the environmental standards set down by the WFD. This choice becomes even more complex as all of the stakeholders involved, the companies, the local government, local industry and the general public must be engaged in the decision-making process if they are to fully support whatever solution is chosen. This paper describes a sustainability assessment and visualisation toolkit, PhiZ, which has been designed to allow the assessment and communication of the sustainability of phosphate management scenarios. The PhiZ system takes the approach of combining a number of computational models covering the economic, social and environmental aspects of the scenarios with a unique visualisation based on 3D rendering techniques derived from the computer games industry, through which the results of the models can be communicated. This unique visualisation not only allows the ecological state of the river to be assessed over time but also allows a non-expert user to interactively investigate the impact of different management techniques on sustainability of the river catchment. PhiZ does not define sustainability but does provide a method for all the stakeholders involved to compare the relative sustainability of a number of management scenarios

Conceptual models of urban environmental information systems - toward improved information provision

Cities are the hub of European society - for over a millennium, they are the locus of social, political and economic development. As the core of intensive and creative human activity, they are also the place where the environmental externalities that accompany rapid development are most visible. The environmental consequences of urban development have been recognised long ago, as in the case of London, where in 1388 legislation was introduced to control pollutant emissions (Lowenthal, 1990). Similar historical environmental regulations can be demonstrated for many cities in Europe. However, while for most of history those who govern the city (be it the sovereign, city elders or local government) where responsible for the control, mitigation and management of the common environment in the city, the last 30 years are a period of profound change. This is due to the trend toward improved participation in environmental decision making . a more inclusive and open approach to decisions that deal with the city commons. This change did not occurre overnight but rather gradually. For example, in the United Kingdom, it was the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 which introduced public scrutiny to changes in the urban form (Rydin, 1998), or the development of public involvement in environmental impact assessment of urban projects as developed in many countries throughout the developed world during the 1970s and 1980s (Gilpin 1995). These changes accelerate within the last three decades, and especially since the publication of .Our Common Future. (WCED and Brundtland 1987), the acceptance of the .Sustainable Development. principles and the Rio conference. A quiet (mini) revolution happened in Europe not long ago, toward the end of 1998 when the members of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) signed the .Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. - the Aarhus Convention (UN/ECE 1998). The convention is expected to come into force by the end of 2001, and calls the governments and public authorities to open up access to environmental information as a means to improve public participation in environmental decision making and awareness of environmental issues (UN/ECE, 1998). However, these declarations on the value and importance of environmental information do not match our level of understanding on the role of environmental information in decision making processes, and especially on the role of information in improving awareness and participation. Therefore, it is useful to take a step back, and to try and evaluate how environmental information and access to it and its use support public involvement in such processes. This paper is aimed to offer a framework that can assist us in the analytical process of understanding environmental information use. It focuses on public access and assumes that environmental information will be delivered to the public through the Internet. Such assumption is based on the current trend within public authorities is to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a major delivery medium and it seems that it will become more so in the near future (OECD 2000). The framework which this paper presents, is based on Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) study which unpacked some of the core issues relating to public access and use of environmental information (Haklay, 2001). Although the aim here is not to discuss the merits of SSM, but to focus on the conceptual models, some introduction to the techniques that are used here is needed. Therefore, the following section opens with introduction to SSM and its techniques. The core of the paper is dedicated to the development of conceptual models. After presenting the conceptual models, some conclusions about these models and their applications are drown

Development of a GIS-based decision support tool for environmental impact assessment and due-diligence analyses of planned agricultural floating solar systems

Text in EnglishIn recent years, there have been tremendous advances in information technology, robotics, communication technology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, resulting in the merging of physical, digital, and biological worlds that have come to be known as the "fourth industrial revolution”. In this context, the present study engages such technology in the green economy and to tackle the techno-economic environmental impact assessments challenges associated with floating solar system applications in the agricultural sector of South Africa. In response, this exploratory study aimed to examine the development of a Geographical Information System (GIS)-based support platform for Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and due-diligence analyses for future planned agricultural floating solar systems, especially with the goal to address the vast differences between the environmental impacts for land-based and water-based photovoltaic energy systems. A research gap was identified in the planning processes for implementing floating solar systems in South Africa’s agricultural sector. This inspired the development of a novel GIS-based modelling tool to assist with floating solar system type energy infrastructure planning in the renewable energy discourse. In this context, there are significant challenges and future research avenues for technical and environmental performance modelling in the new sustainable energy transformation. The present dissertation and geographical research ventured into the conceptualisation, designing and development of a software GIS-based decision support tool to assist environmental impact practitioners, project owners and landscape architects to perform environmental scoping and environmental due-diligence analysis for planned floating solar systems in the local agricultural sector. In terms of the aims and objectives of the research, this project aims at the design and development of a dedicated GIS toolset to determine the environmental feasibility around the use of floating solar systems in agricultural applications in South Africa. In this context, the research objectives of this study included the use of computational modelling and simulation techniques to theoretically determine the energy yield predictions and computing environmental impacts/offsets for future planned agricultural floating solar systems in South Africa. The toolset succeeded in determining these aspects in applications where floating solar systems would substitute Eskom grid power. The study succeeded in developing a digital GIS-based computer simulation model for floating solar systems capable of (a) predicting the anticipated energy yield, (b) calculating the environmental offsets achieved by substituting coal-fired generation by floating solar panels, (c) determining the environmental impact and land-use preservation benefits of any floating solar system, and (d) relating these metrics to water-energy-land-food (WELF) nexus parameters suitable for user project viability analysis and decision support. The research project has demonstrated how the proposed GIS toolset supports the body of geographical knowledge in the fields of Energy and Environmental Geography. The new toolset, called EIAcloudGIS, was developed to assist in solving challenges around energy and environmental sustainability analysis when planning new floating solar installations on farms in South Africa. Experiments conducted during the research showed how the geographical study in general, and the toolset in particular, succeeded in solving a real-world problem. Through the formulation and development of GIS-based computer simulation models embedded into GIS layers, this new tool practically supports the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA Act No. 107 of 1998), and in particular, associated EIA processes. The tool also simplifies and semi-automates certain aspects of environmental impact analysis processes for newly envisioned and planned floating solar installations in South Africa.GeographyM.Sc. (Geography

Global Sensitivity Analysis: a tool to analyse LCA variability of energy systems

International audiencePolicy makers are nowadays debating about the future electricity mixes that should be deployed. The environmental impacts of electricity generation systems is one of the central issue for this debate. They have been widely assessed over the past decades, in particular with the LCA approach. Several literature reviews have shown the large variability associated with these results. It leads sometimes policy makers to consider LCA as an inconclusive method. Improving the understanding of the LCA results variability origins is a key issue to extend the use of LCA as a decision support tool. One approach to adress variability are sensitivity analysis (SA). However, when dealing with environmental impact assessment, most SAs remain at a local level or evaluate the variation of the input parameters one factor at a time. These approaches only partially reflect the LCA results variability, indeed, it does not consider the full range of input parameters interval and their probability distribution. To overcome these limitations, Global Sensitivity Analysis (GSA) approach has been developped in statistics. It enables apportioning the results variability of a model to its different input parameter variability, by varying all of them simultaneously according to their probability distributions. This link between result variability and parameter variability is quantitatively evaluated by the calculation of the so called Sobol indices. While it has been applied in only a few analyses in the field of environmental impact assessment, this statistical tool is yet to be embedded in LCA methodology. Thereby, this paper aims at proposing a method to implement GSA in the LCA field to adress the results variability issue related to energy pathways

The delivery system of development impact assessment using GIS-based technology: Towards sustainable urban environment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the establishment of a GIS-based technology as a reliable delivery system in predicting the development impact assessment (DIA) due to proposed development. The paper highlights about the ability of the system that could anticipate the environmental quality due to any development within certain geographical setting. The system is a customised modelling system that integrates the strength of GIS in supporting planning decision making process via prediction of development impact assessment (DIA) for various projects. It is in this respect that a prototype of GIS-based modelling that enables to anticipate development-environmental impacts at an early stage of project planning has been established. Design/methodology/approach – We propose an approach of integrating the selected various information and its series of pre-determined development impacts for the environment, social and economic dimensions. The framework of this system on predicting development impact assessment (DIA) relies on baseline data, models, spatial and statistical analyses, locating in a Planning Information Database (PID). Expert knowledge gathered in a ‘what-if’ scenario analysis is applied as it can help charting possible complex linkages between criteria in which planning database is derived by compiling data from multiple sources (Klosterman & Pettit, 2005; Swart, Raskin & Robinson, 2004) . The design principle used was the extension of the functionality of a GIS system in facilitating planning decision support making process. An integrated various sub-systems allows the analysis of environmental, social and economic dimensions to generate the results of impacts of proposed development in the form of spatial and textual data. Originality/value – This methodology puts in evidence the strengths and ability of GIS as a planning and decision-making tool when it relates with complex situation in reality world (Drummond & French, 2008; Gocmen, 2009). The system has the value of incorporating the complexity of real world into a decision-making process system whereby it offers a workable mechanism for the local government. Practical implications – The outcomes of the application of GIS-based technology facilitate local government in predicting the possible development impacts due to proposed developments. This can fasten the typical operation in regulating and controlling development changes by the local government who can now rely more on the IT advancement, i.e. via a customised development impact assessment (DIA). It is practical as it gives more information in terms of possible impacts (ranging from environment, social and economy) that would happen due to certain proposed development. This system can facilitate the government in shaping urban development sustainably. Consequently, we hope that the implication of this development impact assessment (DIA) can benefits the local government as the authority governing land matters in their jurisdiction