Subjective sustainability criteria applied to a renewable energy installation

Subjective judgments are integral parts of any Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). To promote sustainability, an instrument for recording them should be developed. This paper uses the Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix to evaluate a Civil Engineering work. It analyses and presents in a structured, friendly and transparent environment the numerous parameters and alternatives of an EIA. It considers all 4 components of sustainability: physical / chemical, biological / ecological, social / cultural, economic / operational. These are then evaluated using qualitative criteria common to all impact considerations. This Matrix was applied to the EIA of the future Vale de Madeira Hydroelectric Installation that will be situated on the River Côa of the Douro River Basin in the Municipalities of Pinhel and Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, North of Portugal. It will be shown that such a project will be positive economically but negative otherwise

Water resources and climate change in Angola / Southern Africa

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal”. (IPCCa, 2007) Climate change is gaining momentum and is (becoming) the most important issue for the governments and peoples of the world. In relation to Angola* (IPCC, 2007), the following points (with focus on water) show the great risks ahead: • “Droughts have mainly affected the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and southern Africa, particularly since the end of the 1960s” • “Eastern and southern African countries are also characterised by water stress brought about by climate variability and wider governance issues “ • For southern Africa and with the A2 emissions scenario, it was “found for the 2080s a 3.7°C increase in summer (December to February) mean surface air temperature and a 4°C increase in winter (June to August).” (the actual values are less than 1/3) • “… winter (June to August) rainfall will very probably decrease in much of southern Africa, especially in the extreme west (up to 40%)…” (Figure 1) • “… almost all countries except South Africa will probably experience a significant reduction in stream flow.” • “Northern and southern Africa, however, are expected to have [agricultural] losses of 0.4 to 1.3%

Sustainable efficiency (sefficiency) of water use systems amidst environmental impacts

Water use systems (WUSs), such as, urban areas and irrigated agriculture, are under increasing pressure due to various uncertain drivers, such as, global warming and population increase. Because of these phenomena, water scarcity and pollution are increasing causing severe economic, environmental and social damages. Consequently, water management and design (WMD) must focus on comprehensive performance of WUSs by integrating three pillars: water quantity, quality and benefits. These are the foundations of a new framework called Sefficiency, which incorporates the three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, economic and social. Sefficiency indicators have three levels Macro, Meso and Micro (3ME, in %), which make the trade-offs between pillars, dimensions and levels transparent. The crucial distinction between water use and water consumption produces both IN / OUT Sefficiency indicators, crucial for comprehensive and systemic analyses. The logical proof of Sefficiency is objective based on the water balance principle for any WUS under analysis. This universal law guarantees the robustness of the results of 3ME by defining nine Water Flow path Types (WFT). The fact that they are fixed and hydrologically unambiguous promotes a powerful and explicit enabler for active and effective involvement of various types of stakeholders. Usefulness Criterion for each WFT and/or Water Flow Paths is the multiplicative impact of both water quality and beneficial weights. Hence, Sefficiency is the ratio of useful outflow to its corresponding total useful flow, which can reveal the complexities and non-linearities in WMD. For this paper, after presenting a summary of Sefficiency, a simple agricultural example is explained, showing some of the possibilities of Sefficiency. For example, the use of technology as a positive change agent may, under some circumstances, prove to be harmful. This is particularly so if the system has more than one objective, such as, food production and groundwater recharge or pollution control. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Assessing the impacts of population growth and climate change on performance of water use systems and water allocation in Kano River Basin, Nigeria

Improving the performance of water use systems (WUSs) is essential for addressing the pressure on water resources for sustainability. Despite the potential impacts of population growth and global warming especially in semi-arid regions, the knowledge and understanding of WUSs and impacts of those main drivers of change on their performance are not available in the Kano River basin (KRB). This paper assesses these impacts on the performance of KRB, using the new and innovative Sefficiency (sustainable efficiency) framework, which incorporates quantity, quality, and beneficial aspects of water use in a comprehensive and systemic manner. We found that performance of the WUSs is sensitive to population growth and global warming under the scenarios considered. Kano River is relatively less sensitive to global warming impacts, while high population growth is dominant. Moreover, their combined effect will result in a reduction of downstream water by 70% and potential demands will far exceed the available supply by 2050. It is recommended that efficient management of water regarding the qualitative as well as quantitative aspects is very critical in KRB. This study can be regarded as the first step, and future studies may adopt the described methodology and can benefit from smart technologies, e.g., sensors and remote sensing.FCT -Fuel Cell Technologies Program (UID/ECI/04047/2013)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Water scarcity and drought : setting the stage

Apresentação efectuada no "Douro River Basin UNESCO IHP-HELP – International HELP Symposium on River Basin Level Responses to Water Scarcity and Drought under Uncertain Climate Futures”, em Mirandela, Portugal, 2010Douro River Basin is under pressure because of various external drivers, such as climate change. Its water resources is much stressed, particularly in the Tras-os-Montes, near Spain and the Spanish part of the DRB. Consequently, this UNESCO-HELP basin is under great uncertainty and need sustainable responses. International UNESCO-HELP Douro River Basin Symposium was organised to bring attention to this problem. This was one of the presentations of the Opening Ceremony of the Symposium

Sefficiency (Sustainable efficiency): a systemic framework for advancing water security

Apresentação efetuada no "International Symposium of Ecohydrology and Water Security", Wuhan and Yichang, Hubei, China, 2013Chinese Academy of Science

Os recursos rurais de Esposende: avaliação baseada em indicadores de sustentabilidade na Zona Vulnerável 1

Considerando que o concelho de Esposende está incluído numa Zona Vulnerável (ZV1), desenvolveu-se este trabalho nas freguesias cuja economia está dependente do sector agrícola, tendo como principais objectivos a identificação e a quantificação das fontes de poluição difusa associadas à actividade agrícola no domínio dos recursos hídricos, a utilização de indicadores de sustentabilidade e de uma proposta de uma estratégia de desenvolvimento local. Foi possível apurar, através da análise dos indicadores, que a qualidade das águas subterrâneas e de alguns cursos de água superficial da zona de estudo está longe do que a Directiva Quadro da Água (DQA) considera como um “Bom estado”, sendo factores responsáveis o elevado consumo de fertilizantes azotados, a elevada produção de efluentes pecuários e o aumento do encabeçamento pecuário. Achou-se pertinente, assim, elaborar uma proposta de estratégia de desenvolvimento local, em que se delineou três grandes objectivos: a competitividade do sector agrícola baseada num crescimento sustentado, a melhoria do ambiente e da paisagem rural e a melhoria da qualidade de vida das zonas rurais. Para cada um deles definiram-se as prioridades e os vectores estratégicos, e as respectivas metas, as quais indicam, em grandes traços, a direcção final da estratégia de desenvolvimento local

Ambiente e sustentabilidade: a água, um bem primordial

Apresentação efectuada em "Ambiente, Água e Vida (AmAV)", Escola Secundária Martins Sarmento, Guimarães, Portugal, 29 Março 2006

Sefficiency (sustainable efficiency) and reallocation of watre using agricultura and urban scenarios

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio