Environmental laws around the world require some version of an environmental‐impact assessment surrounding construction projects and other discrete instances of human development. Information ...requirements for these assessments vary by jurisdiction, but nearly all require an analysis of the biological elements of ecosystems. Amplicon‐sequencing—also called metabarcoding—of environmental DNA (eDNA) has made it possible to sample and amplify the genetic material of many species present in those environments, providing a tractable, powerful, and increasingly common way of doing environmental‐impact analysis for development projects. Here, we analyze an 18‐month time series of water samples taken before, during, and after two culvert removals in a salmonid‐bearing freshwater stream. We also sampled multiple control streams to develop a robust background expectation against which to evaluate the impact of this discrete environmental intervention in the treatment stream. We generate calibrated, quantitative metabarcoding data from amplifying the 12s MiFish mtDNA locus and complementary species‐specific quantitative PCR data to yield multispecies estimates of absolute eDNA concentrations across time, creeks, and sampling stations. We then use a linear mixed effects model to reveal patterns of eDNA concentrations over time, and to estimate the effects of the culvert removal on salmonids in the treatment creek. We focus our analysis on four common salmonid species: cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii), coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), and sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka). We find that one culvert in the treatment creek seemed to have no impact while the second culvert had a large impact on fish passage. The construction itself seemed to have only transient effects on salmonid species during the two construction events. In the context of billions of dollars of court‐mandated road culvert replacements taking place in Washington State, USA, our results suggest that culvert replacement can be conducted with only minimal impact of construction to key species of management concern. Furthermore, eDNA methods can be an effective and efficient approach for monitoring hundreds of culverts to prioritize culverts that are required to be replaced. More broadly, we demonstrate a rigorous, quantitative method for environmental‐impact reporting using eDNA that is widely applicable in environments worldwide.
•A new method for environmental impact assessment is proposed.•The proposed method is more effective by considering various types of uncertainty.•A new representation of uncertain information, called ...D numbers, is presented.•This paper provides a new framework for the environmental impact assessment.
Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a complex problem influenced by many aspects, such as environmental, social, economic, etc. Due to the involvement of human judgment, various uncertainties are introduced in the EIA process. One critical issue of EIA is the representation and handling of uncertain information. Many different theories are available to deal with uncertainty, however, deficiencies exist in these theories. In this paper, based on a more effective representation of uncertainty, called D numbers, a new method is proposed for the EIA problem. In the proposed method, the assessment results of environmental impacts are expressed and modeled by D numbers. An illustrative case is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Buildings play a significant role in global carbon emissions, and offer substantial potential for energy savings and emission reduction. This research delves into the Emission Factor Discrepancy ...(EFD)—the variance in CO2 emission reduction projections obtained by employing either annual or hourly average Emission Factor (EF) for electricity generation. Through two detailed case studies in the Netherlands and incorporating emission data from the Netherlands, Sweden, and France, the study uncovers the potential magnitude and country-specific variability of the EFD.
By demonstrating how the energy mix of a country influences the EFD, the research offers valuable insights into the accuracy of emission calculations for different circumstances, particularly in the context of transitioning to renewable energy sources. We have found that countries with energy sources having low load-following capability and low EFs exhibit a large EFD. Whereas, countries with high EFs and large deployment of Photovoltaics (PV) show a notably large EFD on emission reduction related to PV production. This highlights the importance of carefully selecting EFs when evaluating building retrofits in the context of smart city initiatives.
This research highlights the need for establishing a uniform framework for calculating carbon emissions associated with retrofitting in buildings in conjunction with the granularity of data and the specific energy mix of a country.
•Common practice of using annual emission factors in smart city projects is questioned.•This work underscores criticality of data granularity in smart city projects.•The energy mix of a country affects requirements for data granularity.•Calculations of energy related CO2 emissions in buildings vary significantly.•Uniform and comprehensive approach for environmental impact of energy technologies.
The 21st century has witnessed a resurgence of hydropower projects across the globe, with the energy source an integral part of contemporary sustainable energy transitions. Yet, the environmentalist ...credentials of hydropower remain contested by anti-dam movements. This paper details the cases of the Belo Monte and São Luiz do Tapajós dams in the Brazilian Amazon to explore how the development, submission and acceptance of an Environmental Impact Assessment provides a key site in the contestation of hydroelectric projects. Whilst the provision of this document – and the wider environmental licensing process – represents a key component in the asserted ‘green-ness’ of hydropower, opposition groups extend the scope of analysis to include indirect and cumulative impacts that remain understudied in official assessments. This paper analyses interviews and questionnaires with and documents provided by national and international civil society organisations to trace this process of challenge and critique. It details how civil society actors forward alternative assessments of the impacts of the projects studied, uncovering and illuminating overlooked and understudied externalities of hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon. An analysis of this process not only demonstrates that the ‘green’ credentials of hydropower remain far from assured but also highlights how anti-dam actors advance new ‘sustainabilities’ to discredit the terrain upon which such credentials are set.
Increasing emphasis has been placed in recent years on transitioning strategic environmental assessment (SEA) away from its environmental impact assessment (EIA) roots. Scholars have argued the need ...to conceptualize SEA as a process designed to facilitate strategic thinking, thus enabling transitions toward sustainability. The practice of SEA, however, remains deeply rooted in the EIA tradition and scholars and practitioners often appear divided on the nature and purpose of SEA. This paper revisits the strategic principles of SEA and conceptualizes SEA as a multi-faceted and multi-dimensional assessment process. It is suggested that SEA can be conceptualized as series of approaches operating along a spectrum from less to more strategic – from impact assessment-based to strategy-based – with each approach to SEA differentiated by the specific objectives of SEA application and the extent to which strategic principles are reflected in its design and implementation. Advancing the effectiveness of SEA requires a continued research agenda focused on improving the traditional SEA approach, as a tool to assess the impacts of policies, plans and programs (PPPs). Realizing the full potential of SEA, however, requires a new research agenda — one focused on the development and testing of a deliberative governance approach to SEA that can facilitate strategic innovations in PPP formulation and drive transitions in short-term policy and initiatives based on longer-term thinking.
•SEA facilitates strategic thinking, enabling transitions toward sustainability.•SEA is conceptualized as a spectrum of approaches, from IA-based to strategy-based.•Each approach variably emphasizes strategic principles in its design and practice.•There is no one conceptualization of SEA that is best, SEA is fit for PPP purpose.•Research is needed to advance SEA to facilitate strategic PPP transformations.
•Photovoltaic waste acknowledges recycling as a crucial and significant area.•Recycling and avoided burden analyses of c-Si and CdTe, two market leaders, have been studied.•Recycling recovered ...products have a lower environmental impact than mining and refining the same component from original sources.•Key recommendations to policymakers to promote the recycling of PV waste include green certificates, optimization of PV module design, innovation in business methods, reuse of substandard modules, etc.
The rapid global adoption of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules created the issue of recycling and disposal at their end of life. Several PV modules installed in the late 1980s or early 1990s have reached the end of their 30-year useful life and are now being removed as PV trash. This enormous amount of PV trash acknowledges recycling as a crucial and significant area in the value chain of PV industries. Hence, this study uses an end-of-life perspective to discuss the life cycle evaluation of two market-dominant PV technologies— c-Si and CdTe. This method examines recycling and avoided burden due to recovered material independently in order to determine the overall environmental benefit. The study concludes that recycling glass, metals like copper and aluminium, and semiconductor material from both c-Si and CdTe PV modules has a lower environmental effect than mining, providing, and refining the same components from original sources.
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The tumultuous political situation in Brazil carries risks for the environment in the most biologically diverse country in the world, home to the world's largest tropical forests and rivers. Among ...the threats is a proposed one-sentence constitutional amendment (PEC-65) that would revoke 40 years of progress in building a licensing system to evaluate and mitigate environmental impacts of development projects (1). Under PEC-65, the mere submission of an environmental impact assessment (EIA), regardless of its content, would allow any project to go unstoppably forward to completion. The scientific community contributed greatly to Brazil's environmental licensing system and now must redouble its efforts to communicate its importance.
Given the superior stability, technologically developed and cost effectiveness of carbon-based perovskite solar cells over conventional metallic electrode-based architectures, this work investigates ...the environmental performance of two industrial front-runners architectures i.e., high temperature processed carbon-based perovskite solar modules (CPSMs) and low temperature processed CPSMs using cradle-to-gate Life Cycle Assessment analysis assuming a manufacturing plant in India. According to the study, most of the impacts are due to energy consumption in the annealing and screen print paste process used in ETL, perovskite, HTL and cathode layer for both the architectures. Material selection for the perovskite and other layers has a significant environmental impact on both architectures. Compared to low temperature processed architecture, high temperature processed CPSMs have a greater environmental impact. For a five-year lifetime, the global warming potential (GWP) values for high temperature and low temperature processed CPSMs are 0.180 kg CO2-eq and 0.126 kg CO2-eq, respectively, which are marginally higher than those indicated for commercially available silicon solar cells. Thus, a sensitivity analysis was performed to determine the minimum lifetime required to compete with GWP values comparable to commercial PVs. High and low temperature processed CPSM needed 16 and 11 years of lifetime, respectively, to match silicon's 25 years of lifetime. On the other hand, the study finds the human toxicity contribution by mono-silicon is extremely high compared to the two CPSM architectures because of the contribution by electricity (44.01%) and use of heavy metals such as copper (16.83%) and steel (11.52%).
•Effective offset solutions rely on our knowledge of the toolbox of techniques.•Techniques currently focus on marine keystone species and ecosystem engineers.•Equivalence principle is crucial when ...selecting marine restoration techniques.
The mitigation hierarchy is increasingly used in environmental policy as a way of reconciling economic development and biodiversity conservation. The principle of the mitigation hierarchy is to avoid, reduce and offset the environmental impacts arising from development projects by providing ecological gains through conservation or restoration measures. Most of the research on its implementation to date has focused on terrestrial ecosystems. In this study, we investigated the relevance of marine ecosystem restoration in meeting offset requirements. Stemming from a brief literature review on existing restoration techniques for marine ecosystems (e.g. coral reefs, seagrass meadows, macroalgae beds, ‘green’ marine construction, and marine sediment remediation) and our experience on Environmental Impact Assessments undertaken in mainland France and in its oversea territories, we discuss the main criteria ensuring a suitable use of ‘restoration’ practice regarding offset requirements. We then clarify the different levels of equivalence that should be met when designing offsets relying on ‘restoration’ techniques. This study aims to clarify to what extent the environmental impacts of economic activity on marine biodiversity can be offset through marine ecosystem restoration.
Uncertainty is virtually unavoidable in environmental impact assessments (EIAs). From the literature related to treating and managing uncertainty, we have identified specific techniques for coping ...with uncertainty in EIAs. Here, we have focused on basic steps in the decision-making process that take place within an EIA setting. More specifically, we have identified uncertainties involved in each decision-making step and discussed the extent to which these can be treated and managed in the context of an activity or project that may have environmental impacts. To further demonstrate the relevance of the techniques identified, we have examined the extent to which the EIA guidelines currently used in Colombia consider and provide guidance on managing the uncertainty involved in these assessments. Some points that should be considered in order to provide greater robustness in impact assessments in Colombia have been identified. These include the management of stakeholder values, the systematic generation of project options, and their associated impacts as well as the associated management actions, and the evaluation of uncertainties and assumptions. We believe that the relevant and specific techniques reported here can be a reference for future evaluations of other EIA guidelines in different countries.
•uncertainty is unavoidable in environmental impact assessments, EIAs;•we have identified some open techniques to EIAs for treating and managing uncertainty in these assessments;•points for improvement that should be considered in order to provide greater robustness in EIAs in Colombia have been identified;•the paper provides substantiated a reference for possible examinations of EIAs guidelines in other countries.
