•Network design for municipal solid waste management (MSWM) systems is considered.•Impact of vehicular emissions on locational planning of MSWM systems is investigated.•A bi-objective (cost & ...emission) facility location problem is solved by an MILP model.•Proposed model is applied to the MSWM system of Ankara to locate transfer stations.•Impact of speed variations on both objectives is investigated by simulation analyses.
Proper management of municipal solid waste (MSW) has been a crucial aspect of every society due to its social, environmental, and economic impacts. Operations research techniques have frequently focused on cost minimization objectives in locational planning of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) systems. However, transportation constitutes an integral part of this system producing a considerable amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Therefore, sustainable management of this system with GHG emissions minimization considerations is necessary to preserve the resources and protect the environment. In this study, a bi-objective optimization model is proposed to minimize system cost and carbon dioxide (CO2) emission resulting from transportation activities in locational planning of MSWM systems. The proposed model is applied to MSWM system of Ankara to introduce transfer stations (TSs). Two extensions of the current system are examined, namely, the extended and hybrid systems, where MSW is only transported through TSs in the former, while direct shipments are also allowed in the latter. For both extensions, it is observed that with no or little increase in cost, considerable savings in emission can be achieved. Simulation analyses show that CO2 emission and cost are not subject to a considerable change due to speed variations of vehicles.
► Importance of renewable energy in Turkey ► Energy demand in Turkey ► Importance of small hydroelectric power plants ► Socio-economical and environmental challenges related to the hydroelectric ...powers ► Recommendations to attain sustainable water resources in Turkey.
Turkey, as a rapidly developing and industrializing country, is in need of reliable, inexpensive, and high quality energy. The main energy sources of Turkey are coal, natural gas and hydropower. However, almost all the natural gas and high quality coal is imported. Thus, hydropower is the main domestic energy source. According to the State Hydraulic Works (SHW), the primary executive state agency responsible for the planning, operation, and management of water resources, Turkey has an economically viable hydroelectric potential of 140,000GWh/year. Currently, around 35% of this potential is utilized. Increasing the share of hydropower in the energy budget of Turkey will reduce dependency on foreign energy sources. However, development of the unused hydropower potential, especially through run-of-river plants, has caused many problems in the country. Run-of-river plants are small hydropower plants (SHPPs) usually with no storage. Electricity Market Law No. 4628 which came into effect in February 2001 was a major step towards the privatization of the electricity sector. The law enabled planning and construction of SHPPs by the private sector. This created a big market for consulting firms which prepare feasibility reports, construction companies, and companies that own and operate these SHPPs. However, due to inadequate water resources management strategies, rivers are impaired; their natural flows are disturbed to generate electricity without paying necessary attention to components of the ecosystem and the needs and concerns of local residents. Thus, Turkey faces a challenging problem: Maximizing the utilization of hydropower which is the main domestic energy source while maintaining environmentally conscious and sustainable development. This study aims to explain the change in the contribution of hydropower in the energy budget of Turkey with time and current social and environmental problems associated particularly with SHPPs. Issues requiring immediate attention to facilitate sustainable development of hydropower potential are identified.
•Water Quality Modeling in semi-arid regions is a challenging task.•The effectiveness of the BMPs can be highly correlated with the climate, topography, soil and hydrological characteristics.•The ...effectiveness of the BMPs are low due to non-irrigated lands and intermittent creeks.
The arid and semi-arid regions with water scarcity are vulnerable to several stressors such as urbanization, high water demand created by agricultural and industrial activities, point and non-point pollution sources, and climate change. Hence, proactive policies and sustainable water management strategies that are based on decision support systems are crucial in arid and semi-arid regions. Because of large expenses and implementation difficulties associated with the diffuse pollution abatement plans, many authorities are hesitant to initiate, especially those that may present a financial burden on population. Lake Mogan, a shallow lake, is located in a semi-arid region dominated by dry agricultural activities and has been in eutrophic state for the past 20 years. There has been several management alternatives suggested to improve the water quality in Lake Mogan and one of the alternative is the application of BMPs that include fertilizer management, conservation/no tillage, contouring, and terracing to reduce the amount of diffuse source pollutants. In this study, Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) Model is applied to evaluate the effectiveness of agricultural best management practices (BMPs) in the Lake Mogan watershed located in a semi-arid region. The most effective BMP scenario was found as the one in which three individual BMP scenarios (30% fertilizer reduction, no tillage, and terracing) were combined. With this scenario average annual load reductions of 9.3%, 8.6%, 8.0%, and 11.1% were achieved in sediment, nitrate, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus, respectively. Even with the most effective BMP strategy, high levels of nutrient reduction will not be achieved since non-irrigated agriculture and intermittent low-flow streams accounts majority of the study area. The outcomes suggest integrated solutions should be developed to improve water quality in Lake Mogan. It is aimed that this study will aid decision makers to implement effective best management practices in watersheds showing similar characteristics (i.e. topographical, hydrologic processes, LULC (Land use land cover) characteristics, agricultural activities, meteorological etc.) with the study area.
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•Estimation of unit loads are important for watershed management for wet periods.•Estimated unit loads can be used for the semi-arid regions for wet periods.•Deterministic model ...coupled with optimization method produces reliable results.
Diffuse pollution abatement has been a challenge for decision-makers because of the intermittent nature and difficulty of identifying impacts of non-point sources. Depending on the degree of complexity of the system processes and constraints related to time, budget and human resources, variety of tools are used in diffuse pollution management. Decision-makers prefer to use rough estimates that require limited time and budget, in the preliminary assessment of diffuse pollution. The unit pollution load method which is based on the pollution generation rate per unit area and time for a given land use can aid decision-makers in the preliminary assessment of diffuse pollution. In this study, a deterministic distributed watershed model, SWAT is used together with nonlinear optimization models to estimate unit nutrient pollution loads during wet periods for different land use classes for the semi-arid Lake Mogan watershed that is dominated by agricultural activities. Extensive data sets including in-stream water quality and flowrate measurements, meteorological data, land use/land cover (LULC) map developed using remote sensing algorithms, information about agricultural activities, and soil data are used to calibrate and verify the hydraulic and water quality components of SWAT model. Results show that the unit total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) loads (0.46kgTN/ha/yr and 0.07kgTP/ha/yr) generated from the watershed during wet periods are very close to the minimum values of the loads specified in the literature and highly depend on the variations in rainfall. Estimated unit nutrient loads both at watershed scale and for different land use classes can be used to assess diffuse pollution control measures for similar regions with semi-arid conditions and heavy agricultural activity.
Climate change impacts on social and economic assets and activities are expected to be devastating. What is as important as the analysis of climate change triggered events is the analysis of a ...combination of climate change related events and other natural hazards not related to climate change. Given this observation, the purpose of this study is to present a coastal risk analysis for potential earthquake triggered tsunamis (ETTs) coupled with the sea level rise (SLR) in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. For this purpose, extensive stochastic analysis of ETTs, which are not related to climate change, are conducted considering the effects of climate change related SLR projections for this century. For the combined analysis, economic and social risks are evaluated for two regions in the Eastern Mediterranean Coastline, namely the Fethiye City Center at the Turkish Coastline and the Cairo Agricultural Area near Egypt. It is observed that ignoring SLR will hinder realistic evaluation of ETT risks in the region. Moreover, spatial evaluations of economic and social risks are necessary since topography and proximity to the earthquake zones affect inundation levels due to ETTs in the presence of SLR.
Fate and transport models are powerful tools that aid authorities in making unbiased decisions for developing sustainable management strategies. Application of pollution fate and transport models in ...semi-arid regions has been challenging because of unique hydrological characteristics and limited data availability. Significant temporal and spatial variability in rainfall events, complex interactions between soil, vegetation and topography, and limited water quality and hydrological data due to insufficient monitoring network make it a difficult task to develop reliable models in semi-arid regions. The performances of these models govern the final use of the outcomes such as policy implementation, screening, economical analysis, etc. In this study, a deterministic distributed fate and transport model, SWAT, is applied in Lake Mogan Watershed, a semi-arid region dominated by dry agricultural practices, to estimate nutrient loads and to develop the water budget of the watershed. To minimize the discrepancy due to limited availability of historical water quality data extensive efforts were placed in collecting site-specific data for model inputs such as soil properties, agricultural practice information and land use. Moreover, calibration parameter ranges suggested in the literature are utilized during calibration in order to obtain more realistic representation of Lake Mogan Watershed in the model. Model performance is evaluated using comparisons of the measured data with 95%CI for the simulated data and comparison of unit pollution load estimations with those provided in the literature for similar catchments, in addition to commonly used evaluation criteria such as Nash-Sutcliffe simulation efficiency, coefficient of determination and percent bias. These evaluations demonstrated that even though the model prediction power is not high according to the commonly used model performance criteria, the calibrated model may provide useful information in the comparison of the effects of different management practices on diffuse pollution and water quality in Lake Mogan Watershed.
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•Even with limited input data, SWAT model provides useful results for specific applications.•Large portion of the precipitation may be lost to evaporation: 50–75% at Lake Mogan Watershed.•Unit pollution load estimates can be used as model performance evaluation criteria.
The objectives of this study are to monitor the heavy metal concentrations in sludge samples collected from the Ankara Central Wastewater Treatment Plant (ACWWTP) in Turkey, check if these ...concentrations comply with the Turkish Regulation (Regulation Regarding the Use of Domestic and Urban Sludges on Soil), and evaluate possible health risks of heavy metals in sludge due to ingestion of sludge by a child. Monthly sludge samples were collected from the ACWWTP during 2012 and analyzed for seven heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, and Zn). According to the results from the study, heavy metal concentrations showed no common seasonal trend. All heavy metal concentrations, except for one sample in which Zn was found to be at the limit value, are below the Turkish Regulation limits. In addition, health risks calculations for the “child ingesting biosolids” pathway, which is one of the most critical pathways identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) for land application, were carried out. Among the seven heavy metals, Pb contributed the most to the cumulative non-cancer health risks throughout 2012. Nevertheless, the results showed that cumulative non-cancer health risks associated with this pathway are within the acceptable non-cancer health risk level suggested by USEPA.
For regional‐scale studies on climate change and relevant impact assessment, the projections of regional climate models (RCMs) are used due to their advantage of high resolution and better ...representation of the local climate relative to the global climate models. However, direct use of RCM outputs is prone to uncertainties and biases that may significantly diminish the accuracy of results. EURO‐COordinated Regional Downscaling EXperiment (CORDEX) initiative that is a part of the global Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment Project provides high‐resolution RCM projections for the European domain and bias‐adjusted regional projections under the “CORDEX‐Adjust” Project for climate change impact assessment studies. This study aims to perform a multi‐model analysis of precipitation data using bias‐adjusted and raw/non‐bias adjusted CORDEX RCMs to obtain an evaluation of their representativeness for local climate conditions and adequacy to be used for climate change impact assessment. For this purpose, the analysis focuses on four CORDEX RCMs and their 12 bias‐adjusted versions generated with cumulative distribution function transformation, quantile mapping, and distribution‐based scaling methodologies. For the analysis in total, 16 hindcast results of raw and bias‐adjusted RCMs, and three superensembles (SEs) generated through multiple linear regression are compared for their performance regarding their goodness of fit to the ground‐based precipitation monitoring data from eight meteorological stations in the Mediterranean region in Turkey. The analysis verified that the skill of individual simulations including the bias‐adjusted outputs is significantly variable in spatial and temporal means. On the other hand, SE formed by using all 16 hindcast outputs has the highest skill for the representation of variability in precipitation in time as well as for the reproduction of annual climatology at all stations, although potential drawbacks concerning seasonality and the range of anomaly may still exist which might be significant depending on the specific aim of impact assessment.
The multi‐model analysis of bias‐adjusted and raw COordinated Regional Downscaling EXperiment RCMs for precipitation in the Mediterranean region in Turkey verifies variable skills of climate projections, particularly regarding seasonal climatology. The bias‐adjusted RCMs do not always perform better than raw RCMs depending on the location. Although Superensemble is a versatile tool reducing the uncertainty, improving correlation coefficient and root mean square error of climate projections it still has potential drawbacks concerning seasonality and the range of anomaly which is significant for climate change impact assessment studies.
The available freshwater is limited on earth. On the other hand, available water resources on earth have been depleting and being polluted due to climate change and population growth. In order to ...reduce the risk of water scarcity and water resources contamination, Integrated water resources management (IWRM) is required. IWRM is a concept to manage water resources that aims to balance economic efficiency, social equity, and environmental sustainability. When rainwater harvesting systems (RWHS), one of the techniques of IWRM, are implemented, the stress on water resources is reduced. Since the installation cost of rainwater harvesting systems significantly depends on the size of the rainwater storage tanks, in the implementation of rainwater harvesting, the selection of tank size is one of the main concerns for the feasibility of the system. This study aims to investigate the feasibility of domestic rainwater harvesting systems for a single house. In order to find the optimum storage tank size of the rainwater harvesting system, a linear programming (LP) optimization model is employed. As a case study, the LP model is applied to six regions from semi-arid Eastern Mediterranean island Northern Cyprus, where water resources are limited. The model considers thirty-seven years monthly rainfall data, the roof area of the building, the water consumption per capita, the discount rate, the cost of the rainwater storage tank, and the number of residents. The results of the selected study areas show that the implementation of the RWHS for a single house is infeasible due to the substantial installation costs and maintenance expenses. The financial losses caused by the implementation of the RWHS are found higher than the installation costs and maintenance expenses for all regions. In addition to economic analyses, environmental benefits of the RWHS should be included into the feasibility analysis.
Even though water-energy systems and ecosystems have complex relationships, regional energy policies seldom consider this connection. The current regional energy policies are developed primarily ...based on technical and socio-economical aspects and lack ecological considerations that may deteriorate the ecosystems and sustainability of these policies. Hence, considering the water-energy-ecosystem nexus in the development stage of the energy policies can aid decision-makers in initiating successful multi-dimensional energy policies. This study proposes a novel approach to develop an environmental index to support the regional energy policies that rely on Run-of-river (RoR) hydroelectric power plants (HEPPs) with a nexus approach. First, significant environmental impacts of RoR HEPPs are identified as environmental flows, impacts on ecologically valuable areas such as heritage sites, wetlands, national parks, river water quality degradation, modification of habitat, and impact on ecosystems and biodiversity loss. Then these impacts are represented through indicators and are aggregated into an overall environmental performance index through a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making approach. The proposed approach allows the integration of ecological dimensions into the evaluation of RoR HEPPs through easy-to-measure indicators, among which environmental flow is a critical component.
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•The ecological dimension is crucial in assessing regional energy policies.•Environmental flow is a critical component among ecological indicators.•Nexus approach can aid decision-makers in multi-dimensional energy policies.
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