The Potential Economic Impact of Avian Flu Pandemic on Taiwan

This study analyzes the potential consequences of an outbreak of avian influenza (H5N1) on Taiwan¡¦s macro economy and individual industries. Both the Input-Output (IO) Analysis Model and Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model are used to simulate the possible damage brought by lowering domestic consumption, export, and labor supply. The simulation results indicates that if the disease is confined within the poultry sector, then the impact on real GDP is around -0.1%~-0.4%. Once it becomes a human-to-human pandemic, the IO analysis suggests that the potential impacts on real GDP would be as much as -4.2%~-5.9% while labor demand would decrease 4.9%~6.4%. In the CGE analysis, which allows for resource mobility and substitutions through price adjustments, the real GDP and labor demand would contract 2.0%~2.4% and 2.2%~2.4%, respectively, and bringing down consumer prices by 3%. As for the individual sector, the outbreak will not only damage the poultry sector and its upstream and downstream industries, but also affect the service sectors including wholesale, retail, trade, air transportation, restaurants, as well as healthcare services. These results can be used to support public investment in animal disease control measures.Avian Flu Pandemic, Input-output Model, Computable General Equilibrium Model, Livestock Production/Industries,

Two-stage soil infiltration treatment system for treating ammonium wastewaters of low COD/TN ratios

Soil infiltration treatment (SIT) is ineffective to treat ammonium wastewaters of total nitrogen (TN) > 100 mg l−1. This study applied a novel two-stage SIT process for effective TN removal from wastewaters of TN > 100 mg l−1 and of chemical oxygen demand (COD)/TN ratio of 3.2–8.6. The wastewater was first fed into the soil column (stage 1) at hydraulic loading rate (HLR) of 0.06 m3 m−2 d−1 for COD removal and total phosphorus (TP) immobilization. Then the effluent from stage 1 was fed individually into four soil columns (stage 2) at 0.02 m3 m−2 d−1 of HLR with different proportions of raw wastewater as additional carbon source. Over the one-year field test, balanced nitrification and denitrification in the two-stage SIT revealed excellent TN removal (>90%) from the tested wastewaters

Identification of inorganic and organic species of phosphorus and its bio-availability in nitrifying aerobic granular sludge

Phosphorus (P) recovery from sewage sludge is necessary for a sustainable development of the environment and thus the society due to gradual depletion of non-renewable P resources. Aerobic granular sludge is a promising biotechnology for wastewater treatment, which could achieve P-rich granules during simultaneous nitrification and denitrification processes. This study aimed to disclose the changes in inorganic and organic P species and their correlation with P mobility and bio-availability in aerobic granules. Two identical square reactors were used to cultivate aerobic granules, which were operated for 120 days with influent ammonia nitrogen (NH4–N) of 100 mg/L before day 60 and then increased to 200 mg/L during the subsequent 60 days (chemical oxygen demand (COD) was kept constant at 600 mg/L). The aerobic granules exhibited excellent COD removal and nitrification efficiency. Results showed that inorganic P (IP) was about 61.4–67.7% of total P (TP) and non-apatite inorganic P (NAIP) occupied 61.9–70.2% of IP in the granules. The enrichment amount of NAIP and apatite P (AP) in the granules had strongly positive relationship with the contents of metal ions, i.e. Fe and Ca, respectively accumulated in the granules. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and solution index calculation demonstrated that hydroxyapatite (Ca5(PO4)3(OH)) and iron phosphate (Fe7(PO4)6) were the major P minerals in the granules. Organic P (OP) content maintained around 7.5 mg per gram of biomass in the aerobic granules during the 120 days\u27 operation. Monoester phosphate (21.8% of TP in extract), diester phosphate (1.8%) and phosphonate (0.1%) were identified as OP species by Phosphorus-31 nuclear magnetic resonance (31P NMR). The proportion of NAIP + OP to TP was about 80% in the granules, implying high potentially mobile and bio-available P was stored in the nitrifying aerobic granules. The present results provide a new insight into the characteristics of P species in aerobic granules, which could be helpful for developing P removal and recovery techniques through biological wastewater treatment

The Impacts of WTO Accession on Taiwan's Regional Agricultural Labor Employment

[[abstract]]本文以Translog成本函數聯結原始投入與具備區域間勞動移動與區域間貿易流量之多區域CGE整合模型，以軟聯結方式結合多國GTAP模型整合評估加入WTO對我國四區域農業勞動釋出與部門間移轉之效果。研究結果發現，加入WTO將造成總農業勞動釋出量46,064人，其中將有27,740人轉業成功，亦即將造成18,664人失業，因此因貿易自由化提高之農業失業率為2.49%，其中以農業與漁業勞動失業最高，對於林業與畜牧業影響較小。與其他文獻相較，本文之模擬結果介於相關文獻研究結果之間，模擬結果相當合理。區域農業勞動失業影響方面，以中區影響最大，釋出19,243人，其中轉業11,503人，失業7,740人，北區釋出11,555人，轉業人6,908，失業4,647人，南區釋出13,573人，轉業8,114人，失業5,459人，東區釋出2,033人次之，轉業1,215人，失業818人。本文亦探討台灣四區域農畜林漁轉各業別之人數概況。本文提供之方法可供日後相關政策模擬其他部門之勞動移轉效果。[[abstract]]This paper investigates the impacts of WTO accession on Taiwan's agricultural labor employment using an integrated multinational and multiregional computable general equilibrium model by soft link method. Our results reveal that WTO accession will cause 46,064 people release from agriculture sector, 27,740 people can take another job and 18,664 people will turn into unemployment, also means the rate of agricultural unemployment is 2.49%. The major impact is on agriculture and fishery, and major negative impact is on central region of Taiwan, north, south and east region is next

Sludge Management

© 2014 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Sludge accumulates as a residue in all wastewater treatments. Sludge contains the solids and colloids separated fromwastewater, as well as substances from biological and chemical operation units. Sludge contains all of the impurities gathered from water or wastewater treatment processes, and thus has a variable nature and must be treated accordingly. This chapter summarizes all aspects of sludge management in practice

An Economy-wide Analysis of Impacts of Avian Flu Pandemic on Taiwan

This study analyzes the potential consequences of an outbreak of avian influenza (H5N1) on Taiwan’s macro economy and individual industries. Both the Input-Output (IO) Analysis Model and Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model are used to simulate the possible damage brought by lowering domestic consumption, export, and labor supply. The simulation results indicates that if the disease is confined within the poultry sector, then the impact on real GDP is around -0.01%~-0.14%. Once it becomes a human-to-human pandemic, the IO analysis suggests that the potential impacts on real GDP would be as much as -3.69%~-5.97% while labor demand would decrease 4.05%~5.73%. In the CGE analysis, which allows for resource mobility and substitutions through price adjustments, the real GDP and labor demand would contract 2.39%~3.83% and 1.25%~1.49%, respectively, and bringing down consumer prices by 2.52%~4.55%. As for the individual sector, the outbreak will not only damage the poultry sector and its upstream and downstream industries, but also affect the service sectors including wholesale, retail, trade, air transportation, hotels, restaurants, as well as healthcare services. These results can be used to support public investment in animal disease control programs and strengthen the international cooperation and surveillance in reducing the spread of the disease

An Economy-wide Analysis of Increasing Bio-Ethanol Production in Taiwan

This article figures out the economic impacts on macroeconomy, industrial output, new energies and environment when the advantageous bioethanol and its feedstock production increase and replace the usage of gasoline in the future. A CGE model, called ¡§Taiwan General Equilibrium Model-Energy, (TAIGEM-E), was a linear/dynamic, linearized percentage change simulation tool used especially in the economic evaluation of environment policies. Results indicated that macroeconomic and environmental variables will all benefit with scenarios. Government should instantly encourage the production of bioethanol (and biodiesel) and it¡¦s producing resource because it truly can reduce the pressure of CO2 emission mitigation, and also can active agricultural fallow lands. It is an important long term issue