Integration of future water scarcity and electricity supply into prospective LCA: Application to the assessment of water desalination for the steel industry

The urgency of tackling global environmental issues calls for radical technological and behavioral changes. New prospective (or ex ante) methods are needed to assess the impacts of these changes. Prospective life cycle assessment (LCA) can contribute by detailed analysis of environmental consequences. A new stream of research has taken up the challenge to create prospective life cycle inventory (LCI) databases, building on projections of integrated assessment models to describe future changes in technology use and their underlying environmental performance. The present work extends on this by addressing the research question on how to project life cycle impact assessment methods for water scarcity consistent with prospective LCI modeling. Water scarcity characterization factors are projected from 2010–2050 using the AWARE method, based on SSP-RCP scenario results of the integrated assessment model IMAGE. This work is coupled with prospective LCI databases, where electricity datasets are adapted based on the energy component of IMAGE for the same scenario. Based on this, an LCA case study of water desalination for the steel industry in Spain is presented. The resulting regional characterization factors show that some regions (i.e., the Iberian Peninsula) could experience an increase in water scarcity in the future. Results of the case study show how this can lead to trade-offs between climate change and water scarcity impacts and how disregarding such trends could lead to biased assessments. The relevance and limitations are finally discussed, highlighting further research needs, such as the temporalization of the impacts

The United States' next generation of atmospheric composition and coastal ecosystem measurements : NASA's Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEO-CAPE) Mission

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 93 (2012): 1547–1566, doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00201.1.The Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEO-CAPE) mission was recommended by the National Research Council's (NRC's) Earth Science Decadal Survey to measure tropospheric trace gases and aerosols and coastal ocean phytoplankton, water quality, and biogeochemistry from geostationary orbit, providing continuous observations within the field of view. To fulfill the mandate and address the challenge put forth by the NRC, two GEO-CAPE Science Working Groups (SWGs), representing the atmospheric composition and ocean color disciplines, have developed realistic science objectives using input drawn from several community workshops. The GEO-CAPE mission will take advantage of this revolutionary advance in temporal frequency for both of these disciplines. Multiple observations per day are required to explore the physical, chemical, and dynamical processes that determine tropospheric composition and air quality over spatial scales ranging from urban to continental, and over temporal scales ranging from diurnal to seasonal. Likewise, high-frequency satellite observations are critical to studying and quantifying biological, chemical, and physical processes within the coastal ocean. These observations are to be achieved from a vantage point near 95°–100°W, providing a complete view of North America as well as the adjacent oceans. The SWGs have also endorsed the concept of phased implementation using commercial satellites to reduce mission risk and cost. GEO-CAPE will join the global constellation of geostationary atmospheric chemistry and coastal ocean color sensors planned to be in orbit in the 2020 time frame.Funding for GEO-CAPE definition activities is provided by the Earth Science Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.2013-04-0

The glaciers climate change initiative: Methods for creating glacier area, elevation change and velocity products

Glaciers and their changes through time are increasingly obtained from a wide range of satellite sensors. Due to the often remote location of glaciers in inaccessible and high-mountain terrain, satellite observations frequently provide the only available measurements. Furthermore, satellite data provide observations of glacier character- istics that are difficult to monitor using ground-based measurements, thus complementing the latter. In the Glaciers_cci project of the European Space Agency (ESA), three of these characteristics are investigated in detail: glacier area, elevation change and surface velocity. We use (a) data from optical sensors to derive glacier outlines, (b) digital elevation models from at least two points in time, (c) repeat altimetry for determining elevation changes, and (d) data from repeat optical and microwave sensors for calculating surface velocity. For the latter, the two sensor types provide complementary information in terms of spatio-temporal coverage. While (c) and (d) can be generated mostly automatically, (a) and (b) require the intervention of an analyst. Largely based on the results of various round robin experiments (multi-analyst benchmark studies) for each of the products, we suggest and describe the most suitable algorithms for product creation and provide recommendations concerning their practical implementation and the required post-processing. For some of the products (area, velocity) post-processing can influence product quality more than the main-processing algorithm

HF Radar activity in European coastal seas: next steps toward a Pan-European HF Radar network

High Frequency Radar (HFR) is a land-based remote sensing instrument offering a unique insight to coastal ocean variability, by providing synoptic, high frequency and high resolution data at the ocean atmosphere interface. HFRs have become invaluable tools in the field of operational oceanography for measuring surface currents, waves and winds, with direct applications in different sectors and an unprecedented potential for the integrated management of the coastal zone. In Europe, the number of HFR networks has been showing a significant growth over the past 10 years, with over 50 HFRs currently deployed and a number in the planning stage. There is also a growing literature concerning the use of this technology in research and operational oceanography. A big effort is made in Europe toward a coordinated development of coastal HFR technology and its products within the framework of different European and international initiatives. One recent initiative has been to make an up-to-date inventory of the existing HFR operational systems in Europe, describing the characteristics of the systems, their operational products and applications. This paper offers a comprehensive review on the present status of European HFR network, and discusses the next steps toward the integration of HFR platforms as operational components of the European Ocean Observing System, designed to align and integrate Europe's ocean observing capacity for a truly integrated end-to-end observing system for the European coasts

Life cycle assessment of plasma-assisted ethylene production from rich-in-methane gas streams

Herein, the sustainability of plasma-assisted processes for ethylene production from rich-in-methane gas streams namely, natural and shale gas, is investigated by performing life cycle assessment (LCA).</p

Analyse du cycle de vie comparative de technologies d&apos;élimination des micropolluants en STEU

Journée Information Eaux, Poitiers, FRANCE, 06-/10/2020 - 08/10/2020L&apos;élimination des micropolluants dans les eaux résiduaires urbaines représente un défi majeur pour les stations de traitement des eaux usées, qui seront probablement amenées dans le futur à investir dans des traitements avancés. Le choix technologique (procédés d&apos;oxydation, de filtration ou d&apos;adsorption) repose en priorité sur des critères de performances technico-économiques. En raison des pressions environnementales grandissantes, le calcul d&apos;impacts environnementaux devient également primordial pour soutenir une telle décision. L&apos;utilisation de la méthodologie d&apos;Analyse du Cycle de Vie (ACV) (ISO 14040/44, 2006) permet une évaluation holistique des impacts environnementaux, grâce à la perspective cycle de vie et à la prise en compte de plusieurs critères. Dans cette étude, l&apos;ACV est appliquée à deux types de procédés, l&apos;adsorption sur charbon actif dans un lit fluidisé et l&apos;ozonation, ainsi que leur combinaison, testés à l&apos;échelle pilote dans la STEU Seine Centre opérée par le SIAAP en Région parisienne (Mailler et al., 2015 ; Mailler et al., 2016 ; Guillossou et al., 2019 ; Guillossou et al., 2020). Les résultats visent à comprendre les coûts-bénéfices de ces traitements, selon les conditions opératoires, afin d&apos;étayer la prise de décision