Vol. 2, No. 2 (2014): Regular Issue

Climate and geographical conditions have had a significant impact on the arrangement of architectural elements and physical features of building in hot and dry areas in the past. Without all our modern “science” and “economy”, the builders of the time achieved results based on traditional wisdom and knowledge of the different local conditions, which should guide us in our endeavors to build for a traditional life, to humanize the living space. The aim of this paper is to figure out the criteria of ancient urban and rural settlements in deserts and to introduce some traditional and sustainable features of arid areas in old buildings in hot and arid regions, which show us designing in harmony with nature, and how our ancestors overcame difficult conditions in deserts. In our industrial age, the natural wishes and needs of the inhabitants have been sacrificed for the sake of business. But to take these characteristics into consideration could help us to mitigate human tensions and to solve many problems of today’s life.

Climate and geographical conditions have had a significant impact on the arrangement of architectural elements and physical features of building in hot and dry areas in the past. Without all our modern “science” and “economy”, the builders of the time achieved results based on traditional wisdom and knowledge of the different local conditions, which should guide us in our endeavors to build for a traditional life, to humanize the living space. The aim of this paper is to figure out the criteria of ancient urban and rural settlements in deserts and to introduce some traditional and sustainable features of arid areas in old buildings in hot and arid regions, which show us designing in harmony with nature, and how our ancestors overcame difficult conditions in deserts. In our industrial age, the natural wishes and needs of the inhabitants have been sacrificed for the sake of business. But to take these characteristics into consideration could help us to mitigate human tensions and to solve many problems of today’s life.

With a strong absorption effect of solar radiation, black carbon is deemed as one of the important causes of climate change, and also one of the factors resulting in fog and haze, significantly affecting the quality of atmospheric environment and human health. It’s mainly produced by incomplete combustion of carbonaceous substances and has become one of the hot issues in studies of climate change and atmospheric environmental quality in recent years. It is difficult to measure black carbon aerosol emissions directly, and we usually estimate black carbon emission roughly by applying emission factors obtained in the laboratory for the real atmosphere. By using black carbon emission factors of industries published at home and abroad recently, this article estimated black carbon emissions from 2000 to 2012 in China, which was growing from 928.58Gg to 1527.56Gg. In this paper, black carbon emissions were compared in various industries, of which the amount of black carbon emissions of residential activities occupied the largest proportion, but declined gradually each year, while the emission of industry took the second place with an increasing trend every year, and the proportion of emission of transport sector grew ina fast pace from 5.65% in 2000 to 10.51% in 2012.

With a strong absorption effect of solar radiation, black carbon is deemed as one of the important causes of climate change, and also one of the factors resulting in fog and haze, significantly affecting the quality of atmospheric environment and human health. It’s mainly produced by incomplete combustion of carbonaceous substances and has become one of the hot issues in studies of climate change and atmospheric environmental quality in recent years. It is difficult to measure black carbon aerosol emissions directly, and we usually estimate black carbon emission roughly by applying emission factors obtained in the laboratory for the real atmosphere. By using black carbon emission factors of industries published at home and abroad recently, this article estimated black carbon emissions from 2000 to 2012 in China, which was growing from 928.58Gg to 1527.56Gg. In this paper, black carbon emissions were compared in various industries, of which the amount of black carbon emissions of residential activities occupied the largest proportion, but declined gradually each year, while the emission of industry took the second place with an increasing trend every year, and the proportion of emission of transport sector grew ina fast pace from 5.65% in 2000 to 10.51% in 2012.

The current study analyzed the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of chlorophyll-a(Chl-a) based on the bimonthly monitoring data in the Ulansuhai Lake from May to November in 2013. Correlation between chlorophyll-aand related factors including Total Phosphorus(TP), Total Nitrogen(TN), Ammonia Nitrogen(NH4--N), Nitrate Nitrogen (NO2--N), Total Organic Carbon(TOC), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and pH were also analyzed to find the influencing factors of chlorophyll-a. Results indicate that the concentration chlorophyll-awas reduced along with water flowing from North to South. The peak concentration and the foot concentration of chlorophyll-a occurred in July and November, respectively. Except for indicator COD, other factors present a certain correlation with chlorophyll-a. Negative correlation appeared in TOC (R = 0.650, p < 0.05) and pH (R = 0.951, p < 0.01) and positive correlation occurred in TP (R = 0.787, p < 0.01), TN (R = 0.796, p < 0.01), NH4 --N (R = 0.778, p < 0.01) and NO2--N (R = 0.656, p < 0.01). There is no primary factor that dominate the concentration of chlorophyll-a in the water. The current research may provide scientific basis for eutrophication control and management of eutrophic lakes.

The current study analyzed the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of chlorophyll-a(Chl-a) based on the bimonthly monitoring data in the Ulansuhai Lake from May to November in 2013. Correlation between chlorophyll-aand related factors including Total Phosphorus(TP), Total Nitrogen(TN), Ammonia Nitrogen(NH4--N), Nitrate Nitrogen (NO2--N), Total Organic Carbon(TOC), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and pH were also analyzed to find the influencing factors of chlorophyll-a. Results indicate that the concentration chlorophyll-awas reduced along with water flowing from North to South. The peak concentration and the foot concentration of chlorophyll-a occurred in July and November, respectively. Except for indicator COD, other factors present a certain correlation with chlorophyll-a. Negative correlation appeared in TOC (R = 0.650, p < 0.05) and pH (R = 0.951, p < 0.01) and positive correlation occurred in TP (R = 0.787, p < 0.01), TN (R = 0.796, p < 0.01), NH4 --N (R = 0.778, p < 0.01) and NO2--N (R = 0.656, p < 0.01). There is no primary factor that dominate the concentration of chlorophyll-a in the water. The current research may provide scientific basis for eutrophication control and management of eutrophic lakes.

With the surging carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions worldwide and the huge energy demand, Chinese government has adopted manystrategies to ensure energy security and to slash CO2emissions, including renewable energy and CCS (carbon capture and storage) technology. A comparative work on CCS and renewable energy technology is conducted in terms of technology, administrative environment, financial support，knowledge diffusion, and market development. Based on the specific situation and available resources, as well as accumulated experiences in renewable energy deployment in China and CCS development in developed countries, recommendations about the choices faced with China for CCS deployment can be summarized as follows: implementing more demonstration projects and collaborating with foreign nations that possess advanced technologies to improve technology maturity, to accumulate engineering experience, to drive down costs and to ensure safety; enforcing a legally binding global climate agreement that may act as a solid force to drive CCS development; building clear financing mechanisms that canincrease public sector financing as well as attract private sector investment; and allowing industrial involvement in policymaking that could help develop a mutual-trust and -benefit relationship between the CCS industries.

With the surging carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions worldwide and the huge energy demand, Chinese government has adopted manystrategies to ensure energy security and to slash CO2emissions, including renewable energy and CCS (carbon capture and storage) technology. A comparative work on CCS and renewable energy technology is conducted in terms of technology, administrative environment, financial support，knowledge diffusion, and market development. Based on the specific situation and available resources, as well as accumulated experiences in renewable energy deployment in China and CCS development in developed countries, recommendations about the choices faced with China for CCS deployment can be summarized as follows: implementing more demonstration projects and collaborating with foreign nations that possess advanced technologies to improve technology maturity, to accumulate engineering experience, to drive down costs and to ensure safety; enforcing a legally binding global climate agreement that may act as a solid force to drive CCS development; building clear financing mechanisms that canincrease public sector financing as well as attract private sector investment; and allowing industrial involvement in policymaking that could help develop a mutual-trust and -benefit relationship between the CCS industries.

Landfills are still among the most common patterns of waste disposal in the world, in spite of the spreading awareness of their environmental impacts. Besides being one of the main sources of greenhouse gases emission (GHG) in the waste management sector, they are also responsible for human and ecosystem toxicity, eutrophication, photochemical oxydation, not to talk of landscape visual degradation, competition for land use and bad smell. In this paper, an empirical model is used to estimate CO2and other gaseous and liquid emissions from landfilling of mixed MSW. By means of an LCA framework, the business-as-usual scenario (landfilling) of San Miguel city (Buenos Aires) is analyzed as a benchmark case and compared to alternative waste management scenarios (40% waste reduction and 50% pre-sorting). Impact potentials are estimated with reference to 1 kg of wet mixed MSW disposed off in a sanitary landfill with bottom liner, leachate collection and treatment, and gas collection. A Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) of the landfill was performed based on emissions released over a 100 years time interval after disposal. A special focus was placed on Global Warming Potential of landfilled waste (GWP, kg CO2eq), in order to shed light on the different impacts resulting from inclusion or subtraction of biogenic CO2, most often assumed as global warming neutral in published studies. Our results show that: (1) waste composition plays a critical role on waste LCIA; (2) the default exclusion of biogenic CO2emissions can lead to an underestimate of the environmental load of the landfill as far as climate change impact is concerned; (3) global warming, eutrophication, human toxicity and photochemical oxidation are the main impacts of landfilling practices; (4) alternative, waste-prevention and pre-sorting scenarios are likely to decrease such impacts by 20-30% compared to business-as-usual, depending on the investigatedimpact category.

Landfills are still among the most common patterns of waste disposal in the world, in spite of the spreading awareness of their environmental impacts. Besides being one of the main sources of greenhouse gases emission (GHG) in the waste management sector, they are also responsible for human and ecosystem toxicity, eutrophication, photochemical oxydation, not to talk of landscape visual degradation, competition for land use and bad smell. In this paper, an empirical model is used to estimate CO2and other gaseous and liquid emissions from landfilling of mixed MSW. By means of an LCA framework, the business-as-usual scenario (landfilling) of San Miguel city (Buenos Aires) is analyzed as a benchmark case and compared to alternative waste management scenarios (40% waste reduction and 50% pre-sorting). Impact potentials are estimated with reference to 1 kg of wet mixed MSW disposed off in a sanitary landfill with bottom liner, leachate collection and treatment, and gas collection. A Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) of the landfill was performed based on emissions released over a 100 years time interval after disposal. A special focus was placed on Global Warming Potential of landfilled waste (GWP, kg CO2eq), in order to shed light on the different impacts resulting from inclusion or subtraction of biogenic CO2, most often assumed as global warming neutral in published studies. Our results show that: (1) waste composition plays a critical role on waste LCIA; (2) the default exclusion of biogenic CO2emissions can lead to an underestimate of the environmental load of the landfill as far as climate change impact is concerned; (3) global warming, eutrophication, human toxicity and photochemical oxidation are the main impacts of landfilling practices; (4) alternative, waste-prevention and pre-sorting scenarios are likely to decrease such impacts by 20-30% compared to business-as-usual, depending on the investigatedimpact category.

Production and consumption processes in national and local economies are supported by free renewable environmental resources as well as by nonrenewable minerals and fuels. Economies measure the values of these resources in money terms. It is not always clear that money does not pay nature for providing resources, but only pays humans for extracting, processing and delivering them within markets. Emergy Accounting (EMA) is an environmental accounting method based on the recognition of the work done by nature in generating mineral and energy resources. The work of nature is accounted for in terms of solar equivalent energy supporting natural capital formation and the supply of ecosystem services. Human labor and services are also supported by solar emergy flows and contribute energy and information to economic processes. This paper discusses the role of labor in production processes and designs appropriate accounting schemes based on the emergy approach. The Life Cycle Assessment method (LCA) as well as other resource assessment schemes do not include labor and services in their accounting framework. By keeping track of environmental resources supporting labor and services, emergy provides an important and much needed contribution to a more comprehensive assessment of economic and societal dynamics.

Production and consumption processes in national and local economies are supported by free renewable environmental resources as well as by nonrenewable minerals and fuels. Economies measure the values of these resources in money terms. It is not always clear that money does not pay nature for providing resources, but only pays humans for extracting, processing and delivering them within markets. Emergy Accounting (EMA) is an environmental accounting method based on the recognition of the work done by nature in generating mineral and energy resources. The work of nature is accounted for in terms of solar equivalent energy supporting natural capital formation and the supply of ecosystem services. Human labor and services are also supported by solar emergy flows and contribute energy and information to economic processes. This paper discusses the role of labor in production processes and designs appropriate accounting schemes based on the emergy approach. The Life Cycle Assessment method (LCA) as well as other resource assessment schemes do not include labor and services in their accounting framework. By keeping track of environmental resources supporting labor and services, emergy provides an important and much needed contribution to a more comprehensive assessment of economic and societal dynamics.

The surfboard industry in Brazil and in the world has more than 50 years depositing toxic residues and flammablesin simple landfills without any control or environmental treatment. These residues, classified by the NBR 10004, as Class I, are considered hazardous, have high aggregated value and huge time decay. In the manufacturing process of this product, it has been identified the emerging need to perform an audit and to create an environmental management system for these units, aiming to reduce water consumption, electricity and wastes generation, apart from the recovery of the residues that cannot be eliminated. It was observed that industrial activity may be resized inorder to minimize environmental impacts and public health and also tomaximize financial resources. Since the year of 1999 researching alternatives for the recovery of residues generated in the production of surfboards, it was realized that this would be a core activity in a process of sustainability and with this; it was found the need of primarily working with the transformation of a culture of waste and consumerism, already established in this industry. For the construction of this initiative, it will benecessary to promote a system of education and of environmental awareness to the social-business level and make a diagnosis in a board factory, with the purpose of systematizing a reference model of ecological responsibility, leveraged through the promotion of forums of discussions and of formulation of a preliminary Environmental Management System for the surf industry.

The surfboard industry in Brazil and in the world has more than 50 years depositing toxic residues and flammablesin simple landfills without any control or environmental treatment. These residues, classified by the NBR 10004, as Class I, are considered hazardous, have high aggregated value and huge time decay. In the manufacturing process of this product, it has been identified the emerging need to perform an audit and to create an environmental management system for these units, aiming to reduce water consumption, electricity and wastes generation, apart from the recovery of the residues that cannot be eliminated. It was observed that industrial activity may be resized inorder to minimize environmental impacts and public health and also tomaximize financial resources. Since the year of 1999 researching alternatives for the recovery of residues generated in the production of surfboards, it was realized that this would be a core activity in a process of sustainability and with this; it was found the need of primarily working with the transformation of a culture of waste and consumerism, already established in this industry. For the construction of this initiative, it will benecessary to promote a system of education and of environmental awareness to the social-business level and make a diagnosis in a board factory, with the purpose of systematizing a reference model of ecological responsibility, leveraged through the promotion of forums of discussions and of formulation of a preliminary Environmental Management System for the surf industry.

The decline of water quality of the inflow river has direct negative impact on the ecological conditions of lake ecosystem. The design of subsurface wetlands was considered to be an effective method for improving the water quality of inflow rivers, especially reducing the excessive nutrients to alleviate eutrophication. A subsurface wetland was designed by applying the wetland model Subwet 2.0 for treating the polluted inflow river— Fu River of Baiyangdian Lake. The simulation scenarios concerning the changes of wetland area were designed to find out the treatment effect of the subsurface wetland. The variation trends of the effluent concentrations of BOD5, ammonium, total nitrogen and total phosphorus for the scenarios had been obtained. The area and volume of the wetland which are the core design parameters have been determined through comparing the reduction percentages of the main pollutants under different design scenarios. The results showed that the simulation results in scenario 2 can simultaneously satisfy the conditions that the efficiencies of removal of total nitrogen and total phosphorus should reach to 90% in the Fu River and meanwhile less time, which is considered as the optimal design scheme. The area and volume should be set as 875m2and 525m3 to make the water quality standard of Fu River change from class V to class III, which could greatly control the eutrophication of Baiyangdian Lake. The method of wetland design based on model could reduce the uncertainties of traditional wetland design method and facilitate the water quality improvement of aquatic ecosystems.

The decline of water quality of the inflow river has direct negative impact on the ecological conditions of lake ecosystem. The design of subsurface wetlands was considered to be an effective method for improving the water quality of inflow rivers, especially reducing the excessive nutrients to alleviate eutrophication. A subsurface wetland was designed by applying the wetland model Subwet 2.0 for treating the polluted inflow river— Fu River of Baiyangdian Lake. The simulation scenarios concerning the changes of wetland area were designed to find out the treatment effect of the subsurface wetland. The variation trends of the effluent concentrations of BOD5, ammonium, total nitrogen and total phosphorus for the scenarios had been obtained. The area and volume of the wetland which are the core design parameters have been determined through comparing the reduction percentages of the main pollutants under different design scenarios. The results showed that the simulation results in scenario 2 can simultaneously satisfy the conditions that the efficiencies of removal of total nitrogen and total phosphorus should reach to 90% in the Fu River and meanwhile less time, which is considered as the optimal design scheme. The area and volume should be set as 875m2and 525m3 to make the water quality standard of Fu River change from class V to class III, which could greatly control the eutrophication of Baiyangdian Lake. The method of wetland design based on model could reduce the uncertainties of traditional wetland design method and facilitate the water quality improvement of aquatic ecosystems.