scholarly journals Wpływ emisji energii z terenów zurbanizowanych i szlaków komunikacyjnych na zmiany w rozwoju ekosystemów w ich otoczeniu

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-85
Author(s):  
Urszula Kaźmierczak ◽  
Andrzej Kulczycki

This article aims to draw attention to the hitherto unexplored and scarcely noticed the problem of the effects of the consumption of increasing amounts of energy to human health and ecosystems exposed to emissions processed in the phase of energy consumption. Ever-increasing amounts of energy are consumed in relatively small urban areas, in communication routes, and in airport areas. As far as Poland is concerned, these areas represent less than 10% of the country. For such a small area the energy consumed is converted to other forms of energy, much of which is emitted into the environment. These emissions primarily include heat and various forms of mechanical energy, mainly that of acoustic waves. It studies the effect of noise on the health of people living in the vicinity of highways, as well as studies of ecosystems in the surrounding routes. There is still no explanation for the reasons for this phenomenon, as research in this area has been mainly carried out at the level of statistical analysis. The article has pointed out the possible causes of this phenomenon. The new theory of catalysis demonstrates the effect of mechanical energy input on the direction and rate of chemical reactions. This effect can also be significant in the case of biochemical reactions. Finally, the paper points out the need and direction of research, conducted at various levels, to determine and explain the environmental effects of increasing energy consumption, other than the greenhouse one.

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
Urszula Kaźmierczak ◽  
Andrzej Kulczycki

This article aims to draw attention to the hitherto unexplored and scarcely noticed the problem of the effects of the consumption of increasing amounts of energy to human health and ecosystems exposed to emissions processed in the phase of energy consumption. Ever-increasing amounts of energy are consumed in relatively small areas of highways. Reference is made to the results of pioneering research on the impact of emitted sound energy by transport routes and by industrial noise on human health (Borzyszkowski 2010). This was clearly found to increase in people exposed to prolonged acoustic wave energy. The results of the effect of noise on human health clearly indicate the need for further research in this field. It should be emphasized that although the research and evaluation conducted by the Institute for Environmental Protection and Proeko CDM Ltd., which have been presented in this article, are pioneering and include an analysis of the cause-and-effect phenomenon, they do not, however, indicate the mechanism of the effect of noise on human health. The category rating of disease symptoms caused by the noise indicates that the key to clarifying the influence of the energy supplied to the organisms of people on the way of acoustic waves on their health may be forced supplied energy changes of biochemical reactions occurring in humans.


Author(s):  
Brian R. Umberger ◽  
Alexis D. Gidley

In the context of human movement, efficiency is defined as the ratio of mechanical energy output (work) to metabolic energy input [1,2]. It is straightforward to determine whole-body efficiency in a task such as pedaling a bicycle ergometer. In this case, work is computed from the ergometer load and pedaling cadence, and metabolic energy is determined from pulmonary gas exchange. It is also relatively straightforward to determine the efficiency of contraction in isolated muscle preparations, where the work done is easily measured, and energy input can be inferred from heat production or oxygen consumption. However, our understanding of the efficiency of muscle function during locomotion, and how this contributes to organismal efficiency, is incomplete [1]. The ability to determine efficiency of individual muscles as they perform work in vivo would greatly enhance our understating in this area. Experimental measurement of both work and metabolic energy consumption in muscles during dynamic activities is currently limited to isolated applications in non-human animals [3]. Similar data could be obtained using computational modeling and simulation techniques, provided that estimates could be obtained for both muscle work and muscle metabolic energy consumption. This non-invasive approach would open the door to investigations in humans as well as other species. Therefore, the primary purpose of this study was to determine efficiency at both the organismal and muscular levels for bicycle pedaling, using a musculoskeletal modeling approach. A secondary purpose was to identify factors that account for between-muscle differences in efficiency.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Arif Budiyanto ◽  
Muhammad Hanzalah Huzaifi ◽  
Simon Juanda Sirait ◽  
Putu Hangga Nan Prayoga

AbstractSustainable development of container terminals is based on energy efficiency and reduction in CO2 emissions. This study estimated the energy consumption and CO2 emissions in container terminals according to their layouts. Energy consumption was calculated based on utility data as well as fuel and electricity consumptions for each container-handling equipment in the container terminal. CO2 emissions were estimated using movement modality based on the number of movements of and distance travelled by each container-handling equipment. A case study involving two types of container terminal layouts i.e. parallel and perpendicular layouts, was conducted. The contributions of each container-handling equipment to the energy consumption and CO2 emissions were estimated and evaluated using statistical analysis. The results of the case study indicated that on the CO2 emissions in parallel and perpendicular layouts were relatively similar (within the range of 16–19 kg/TEUs). These results indicate that both parallel and perpendicular layouts are suitable for future ports based on sustainable development. The results can also be used for future planning of operating patterns and layout selection in container terminals.


Author(s):  
T. Rodríguez-Espinosa ◽  
J. Navarro-Pedreño ◽  
I. Gómez-Lucas ◽  
M. M. Jordán-Vidal ◽  
J. Bech-Borras ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2015 ◽  
Vol 227 ◽  
pp. 221-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norhamimi Mohd Hanafiah ◽  
Libriati Zardasti ◽  
Yahaya Nordin ◽  
Norhazilan Md Noor ◽  
Ahmad A. Safuan

Consequence assessment is an integral part of the risk assessment process. There are many types of consequences loss due to pipeline failure such as asset loss, environmental loss, production loss, and human health and safety loss (HHSL). This paper studies the comparison of HHSL between rural and urban areas due to pipeline failure subject to corrosion. The damage area of the explosion was calculated using Aloha software by considering the details of the selected sites such as atmospheric and topographical conditions. The HHSL was calculated using a mathematical equation of quantitative risk assessment in terms of the number of fatalities or injuries or both. The results of the assessments from rural and urban areas were then compared with one another to identify any significant dissimilarity. This study shows that there was a possibility to improve the decisive value of risk by implementing the proposed approach in consequence assessment in Malaysia.


2018 ◽  
Vol 913 ◽  
pp. 1018-1026
Author(s):  
Yan Qiong Sun ◽  
Yu Liu ◽  
Su Ping Cui

In this paper, a variety of blocks were grouped into the autoclaved blocks and fired blocks as far as the productive technology is concerned. In order to compare the life cycle impacts of the two kinds of the blocks, a life cycle assessment of two products on the functional unit 1m3 was carried out through the exploitation of mineral stage, transportation stage and the production of the blocks stage on the considering of the resource and energy consumption and the pollutant discharges. The results demonstrated that the fired blocks appeared to have less impact than autoclaved concrete blocks on human health, marine ecotoxicity toxicity and terrestrial ecotoxicity toxicity nearly 30%. The raw coal led to the serious impacts on the fossil depletion through the cement production stage of the autoclaved concrete blocks accounting for 45.86% and the gangue exploitation stage of the fired blocks accounting for 42.5%. Assessment of the data quality that the data was of pretty high or within the permission. The sensitivity analysis and contribution analysis assessment showed that the conclusion were robust.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4886
Author(s):  
Katia Perini ◽  
Fabio Magrassi ◽  
Andrea Giachetta ◽  
Luca Moreschi ◽  
Michela Gallo ◽  
...  

Urban greening provides a wide range of ecosystem services to address the main challenges of urban areas, e.g., carbon sequestration, evapotranspiration and shade, thermal insulation, and pollution control. This study evaluates the environmental sustainability of a vertical greening system (VGS) built in 2014 in Italy, for which extensive monitoring activities were implemented. The life-cycle assessment methodology was applied to quantify the water–energy–climate nexus of the VGS for 1 m2 of the building’s wall surface. Six different scenarios were modelled according to three different end-of-life scenarios and two different useful lifetime scenarios (10 and 25 years). The environmental impact of global-warming potential and generated energy consumption during the use phase in the VGS scenarios were reduced by 56% in relation to the baseline scenario (wall without VGS), and showed improved environmental performance throughout the complete life cycle. However, the water-scarcity index (WSI) of the VGS scenarios increased by 42%. This study confirms that the installation of VGSs offers a relevant environmental benefit in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions and energy consumption; however, increased water consumption in the use phase may limit the large-scale application of VGSs.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Gama ◽  
Alexandra Monteiro ◽  
Myriam Lopes ◽  
Ana Isabel Miranda

<p>Tropospheric ozone (O<sub>3</sub>) is a critical pollutant over the Mediterranean countries, including Portugal, due to systematic exceedances to the thresholds for the protection of human health. Due to the location of Portugal, on the Atlantic coast at the south-west point of Europe, the observed O<sub>3</sub> concentrations are very much influenced not only by local and regional production but also by northern mid-latitudes background concentrations. Ozone trends in the Iberian Peninsula were previously analysed by Monteiro et al. (2012), based on 10-years of O<sub>3</sub> observations. Nevertheless, only two of the eleven background monitoring stations analysed in that study are located in Portugal and these two stations are located in Porto and Lisbon urban areas. Although during pollution events O<sub>3</sub> levels in urban areas may be high enough to affect human health, the highest concentrations are found in rural locations downwind from the urban and industrialized areas, rather than in cities. This happens because close to the sources (e.g., in urban areas) freshly emitted NO locally scavenges O<sub>3</sub>. A long-term study of the spatial and temporal variability and trends of the ozone concentrations over Portugal is missing, aiming to answer the following questions:</p><p>-           What is the temporal variability of ozone concentrations?</p><p>-           Which trends can we find in observations?</p><p>-           How were the ozone spring maxima concentrations affected by the COVID-19 lockdown during spring 2020?</p><p>In this presentation, these questions will be answered based on the statistical analysis of O<sub>3</sub> concentrations recorded within the national air quality monitoring network between 2005 and 2020 (16 years). The variability of the surface ozone concentrations over Portugal, on the timescales from diurnal to annual, will be presented and discussed, taking into account the physical and chemical processes that control that variability. Using the TheilSen function from the OpenAir package for R (Carslaw and Ropkins 2012), which quantifies monotonic trends and calculates the associated p-value through bootstrap simulations, O<sub>3</sub> concentration long-term trends will be estimated for the different regions and environments (e.g., rural, urban).  Moreover, taking advantage of the unique situation provided by the COVID-19 lockdown during spring 2020, when the government imposed mandatory confinement and citizens movement restriction, leading to a reduction in traffic-related atmospheric emissions, the role of these emissions on ozone levels during the spring period will be studied and presented.</p><p> </p><p>Carslaw and Ropkins, 2012. Openair—an R package for air quality data analysis. Environ. Model. Softw. 27-28,52-61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2011.09.008</p><p>Monteiro et al., 2012. Trends in ozone concentrations in the Iberian Peninsula by quantile regression and clustering. Atmos. Environ. 56, 184-193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2012.03.069</p>


2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-40
Author(s):  
S. Štefunková

Characteristics of asphalt mixes with FT additiveThis article is focused on low-temperature asphalt mixture technologies using FT additive and RAP. The modern production and use of asphalt mixture technologies with reduced temperatures has many advantages. These advantages mainly help to save energy and the environment. Lower temperatures enable a reduction in energy consumption, a more acceptable working environment for workers, a reduction in negative environmental effects, such as greenhouse gas emissions, and an improvement in the workability of mixtures and a prolongation of their duration. This technology is currently becoming popular in many countries.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document