Parking facilities in urban areas: air and noise impacts

Parking problems in major urban centers are typically an accumulation of the effects of several factors, including short-sighted urban planning regulations, pricing distortions, ineffective enforcement, and vague transport and parking policies. This paper evaluates the environmental impacts at a typical proposed parking facility in the greater Beirut area, where parking deficiencies have increased significantly in recent years due to development and reconstruction efforts. The assessment focuses on vehicle-induced pollutant and noise emission impacts, which are evaluated along with possible mitigation measures to reduce or eliminate potential adverse impacts. The assessment showed that the greatest potential impacts would occur during the construction phase. Increased parking capacity proved to have a more adverse effect on air quality than on noise levels. Although air quality and noise levels were not significantly affected with respect to projected baseline levels and under normal operating conditions, mitigation measures are still needed because of the urban nature of the are

Economics of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from solid waste in Lebanon

Global climate change has been one of the challenging environmental concerns facing policy makers over the past decade. The characterization of the wide range of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission sources and sinks, as well as their behavior in the atmosphere, remains a continuing activity in many countries. Solid waste is considered a source of greenhouse gas emissions owing to microbial decomposition of organic materials, which constitute the greater portion of solid waste. The extent of these emissions is highly dependent on waste management practices. In many countries, landfills remain an essential part of any waste management system and often the only economic form of municipal solid waste disposal. This paper describes solid waste management practices in Lebanon, estimates the corresponding current and future greenhouse gas emissions from this sector, and proposes mitigation alternatives to reduce these emissions. An economic assessment of these alternatives in the context of characteristics specific to the country is also presented in terms of equivalent cost of emission reduction. <br/

Economics of mitigating GHG emissions from MSW management in developing countries

Global climate change has been one of the challenging environmental concerns facing policy makers over the past decade. The characterization of the wide range of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission sources and sinks, as well as their behavior in the atmosphere, remains a continuing activity in many countries. Solid waste is considered a source of greenhouse gas emissions owing to microbial decomposition of organic materials, which constitute the greater portion of solid waste. The extent of these emissions is highly dependent on waste management practices. In many countries, landfills remain an essential part of any waste management system and often the only economic form of municipal solid waste disposal. This paper describes solid waste management practices in Lebanon, estimates the corresponding current and future greenhouse gas emissions from this sector, and proposes mitigation alternatives to reduce these emissions. An economic assessment of these alternatives in the context of characteristics specific to the country is also presented in terms of equivalent cost of emission reduction. <br/

Effect of network roadway aggregation levels on modeling traffic-induced emissions inventories

Traffic-induced emissions pose a serious threat to air quality in heavily congested urban centers. While air quality can be characterized through field measurements and continuous monitoring, forecasting future conditions depends largely on estimating vehicle-emission factors coupled with mathematical modeling. Traffic and environmental planners have relied on overall average network speed in conjunction with speed-based emission factor models to estimate traffic emissions. This paper investigates the effect of three levels of roadway network aggregation, macro-scale (overall network basis), meso-scale (roadway functional class basis) and micro-scale (link-by-link basis) on emission inventories. A traffic model and an emission factor model were integrated to determine total emissions in the future Beirut Central District area for these three modeling approache