We present three models of the role of asymmetric information in environmental protection. Chapter one considers the market for a green credence good - a good whose environmental characteristics are not observed by the consumer, even ex post - in the presence of environmentally-conscious consumers. Producers may choose to advertise their products. However, if communication is not regulated it can degenerate into "cheap talk". We explore the scope for credible transmission of environmental information by green producers, and the limits on it. In Chapter two we develop some similar themes in an experimental setting, with the focus again on consumer reactions to producer-provided information on the environmental attributes of goods, and the potential role of government to improve social welfare by manipulating the use of certification. In Chapter three the focus is somewhat different, whilst maintaining the theme of the role of information asymmetries in an environmental policy setting. In the model here a regulator has to decide whether or not to regulate a polluting activity with imperfect information regarding the net benefits of so doing. In making her decision, the regulator can listen to an adviser, who may or may not be biased. We look at how the decision maker can exploit the advisories incentive to build reputation to achieve better decisions. As a whole the thesis further underscores and illustrates the critical role that availability and distribution of information plays in policy making aimed at environmental protection.

This research study addresses a problem of water pollution caused by heavy and toxic metals Cd, Cr, Cu and Pb. The thesis proposes the use of the technique of phytoremediation using Phragmites australis (PA) plants that have the capacity to absorb and to accumulate such metals in their roots and leaves. The metal uptake and their location of accumulation in the PA plants were determined using flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (FAAS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) respectively. Leachates from contaminated plant biomass were mixed with silver nitrate to assess the manufacture of metal nanoparticles as an added value step in the process from remediation to biomass disposal. Silver nanoparticles were readily manufactured by the leachates without, with the exception of copper, any incorporation of the pollutant metal. The presence of copper in the manufactured silver nanoparticles may be of some commercial use. The results obtained show that PA plants will accumulate toxic metals when in hydroponic culture and that the majority of the accumulated metals are sequestered in the roots and do not enter the aerial parts of the plants in significant amounts. Silver nanoparticles were manufactured from the biomass using a low energy route with no additional chemicals, apart from silver nitrate thus reducing the environmental load that would otherwise be present if a chemical means of nanoparticle production was used.

Energy consumption and Green House Gas (GHG) emissions from the UK built environment are reflective of the wider situation across Europe, where according to the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive (EPBD) "buildings account for 40% of total energy consumption in the Union" (European Commission, 2010). In December 2006 the UK Government announced a rapid transition to 'zero carbon' new buildings, as a key step forward in reducing GHG emissions from the domestic and non-domestic sectors (DCLG, 2006a; Weaver, 2007). The Passivhaus standard is the fastest growing energy performance standard in the world and in a growing number of regions across Europe it has been implemented as a mandatory minimum standard for all new buildings (iPHA, 2013). This thesis investigates the applicability of this low energy standard to the UK context, in comparison to conventional alternatives, by examining four inter-related themes: (i) in relation to climate change policy and the UK Government's plan for all new homes to be zero carbon from 2016; (ii) by addressing the limitations of the climate data currently used to design Passivhaus buildings, and developing a new methodology for creating higher resolution probabilistic climate data; (iii) by exploring the uncertainty about the future performance of Passivhaus dwellings in relation to future overheating risk and thereby proposing methods to improve whole life design optimization; (iv) by investigating the hygrothermal implications for new build and retrofit Passivhaus projects and highlighting areas where current risk assessment methods are inadequate. This thesis has argued that the transfer of the Passivhaus standard, or any advanced energy performance standard, from one country or region to another should be accompanied by an extensive programme of context specific research and application testing. The findings of this research have shown that the implementation of the Passivhaus standard, in its present format, in the UK is not without risk and uncertainty. This thesis concludes that that the majority of such risks can be substantially mitigated, through the incorporation of high resolution probabilistic climatic data, transient hygrothermal assessments and global sensitivity analysis techniques. The energy saving and thermal comfort potential of the Passivhaus approach have been shown to be substantial and therefore merit the challenges involved in addressing its successful implementation.

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Sensor network research is an area which has experienced rapid growth in the last decade. One area in which it is proving particularly popular is that of environmental monitoring. Areas which have benefited from environmental monitoring include; volcanoes, crops, wildlife and, the test bed used for this thesis: glaciers. One of the main challenges faced by these networks is that of power management. This becomes even more important when energy harvesting techniques are used, as the availability of energy cannot be reliably predicted. In order to address this issue, an algorithm has been developed which allows a sensor node to adapt its schedule based on the available energy. This is achieved by using the average battery voltage to approximate energy reserves, then scaling the scheduled sensing tasks accordingly. This algorithm has been designed to work with differential GPS sensors which require multiple nodes to record in synchronisation. This means that a co-ordination system has been implemented to allow synchronisation between multiple systems with no direct communication methods. This thesis makes three main contributions to sensor network research: the development of a flexible platform for gateway nodes, the development and analysis of an energy aware adaptive scheduling algorithm, and algorithms for the use of alternate communication links to provide resilience in communications. Each of these contributions has been tested in Iceland as part of a real deployment to asses how they actually perform. During this deployment it has been possible to gather more data about the Skalafellsjokull glacier than has previously been achievable.

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This research aims to understand environmental conflicts generated by large investment projects. Theoretically, this research locates itself within the historical political ecology perspective. It seeks to understand environmental conflicts as a clash of historical representations over the environment that can be traced from the process of dispossession by colonialism and the consolidation of the national state. It is argued that certain places have been constructed as specific socio-natural entities for the reproduction of power relations over nature and people through environmental transformations by discourses and frameworks about environment and society, the establishment of material practices, and the collapsing of biophysical features within political-economy. The case under analysis is the construction of dams in Chilean Patagonia through the HidroAysén project. This project belongs to the transnational company ENDESA and the Chilean private company Colbún. HidroAysén aims to build five dams across two rivers located in the Aysén region in Western Patagonia, a region that has been a scene for the territorialisation of the colonial and postcolonial state over the last four hundred years. The research questions to understand this environmental conflict are: How has Chilean Patagonia been socially constructed in the past? What political economic conditions and discourses enable dams to be built in Chilean Patagonia? Which discourses are in conflict regarding the HidroAysén Project? This research follows a qualitative approach focused on Foucauldian genealogy to understand discourses and representations about the environment. Data have been collected through secondary sources about the history of Patagonia, including accounts from explorations, government reports, scholarly articles, information from the HidroAysén company, and information from the anti-dam campaign Patagonia without Dams. I have also used fifty interviews conducted in Patagonia with people who live in the places that could be affected by the construction of dams. Data have been analysed through the constructionist approach of grounded theory and critical discourse analysis. The main findings are that environmental conflicts have historical and cultural content. Patagonia is a cultural landscape created through the territorialisation of the colonial and postcolonial state, and at the same time, through a process of counter-territorialisation spontaneously performed by settlers. Elites have used Patagonia to increase their power in a material and symbolic way through the mobilization of pre-existing discourses. Therefore, Patagonia does not pre-exist its construction: there is nothing natural about Patagonia but a revisited history of otherness and dispossession. Consequently, environmental conflict over HidroAysén is not only about the hydroelectricity project, but about how territories are constructed and socially and environmentally transformed through the mobilization of representations. The conclusion is that the environmental transformations are one of the most severe forms of inequality.

The world is facing a 'perfect storm' of socio-ecological crises: adverse climate change, natural resource depletion, water conflict, to name but a few. With many of these future pressures looming, it is essential to learn how to shift from traditional command-and-control strategies to more adaptive ones. Adaptive governance is an approach from institutional theory that combines ecological systems theory, natural resource management and the study of self-governing institutions to manage common pool resources. The Dark Peak of the Peak District National Park is one of the UK’s largest carbon stores, fraught with a history of frequent change in policies and land management activities, conflicting knowledges and interests, convoluted property rights regimes, and carbon emissions. The recent development of a carbon agenda made it an excellent example to explore how this restructures the Dark Peak social network, how its key stakeholders adopt and respond to it, and finally how an adaptive framework can facilitate in mitigating carbon emissions. This thesis offers the first analysis of the Dark Peak’s social network managing for a carbon agenda, and also provides a critical reflection on the possibilities and limitations of using an adaptive framework in this particular context. This has been achieved by combining social network analysis, with stakeholder mapping, observation, and semi-structured interviews to identify the key stakeholders steering the Dark Peak’s carbon agenda.

Limitation of fuels reserves and contribution of fossil fuels to the greenhouse effect leads to develop a new, clean and sustainable energy. Among the various options, biohydrogen appears as a promising alternative energy source. The fermentative hydrogen production process holds a great promise for commercial processes. Hydrogen production by fermentative bacteria is a very complex and greatly influenced by pH. This paper presents biohydrogen production by bacterial strain Clostridium sp. Tr2. Operational pH strongly affected its hyrogen production. Its gas production rate as well as obtained gas product were roughly increase twice under controlled pH at 6 than non-controlled condition. Dark fermentation for hydrogen production of strain Tr2 was performed under bottle as well as automatic fermenter scale under optimal nutritional and environmental conditions at 30oC, initial pH at 6.5, then pH was controlled at 6 for bioreactor scale (BioFlo 110). Bioreactor scale was much better for hydrogen production of strain Tr2. Clostridium sp. Tr2 produced 0.74 L hydro (L medium)-1 occupying 72.6 % of total gas under bottle scale while it produced 2.94 L hydro (L medium)-1 occupying 95.82 % of total gas under fermenter scale. Its maximum obtained hydrogen yield of Clostridium sp. Tr2 under bioreactor scale Bioflo 110 in optimal medium with controlled pH 6 was 2.31 mol hydro (mol glucose)-1. / Dự trữ nhiên liệu có giới hạn và việc sử dụng nhiên liêu hoá thạch góp phần không nhỏ gây hiệu ứng nhà kính dẫn đến cần phải phát triển năng lượng mới, sạch và bền vững. Trong số các giải pháp, hydro sinh học xuất hiện như một nguồn năng lượng thay thế đầy hứa hẹn. Quá trình lên men sản xuất hydro có tiềm năng lớn để áp dụng trong sản xuất thương mại. Tuy nhiên qúa trình này rất phức tạp và chịu ảnh hưởng lớn bởi pH. Nghiên cứu này trình bày sản xuất hydro sinh học do chủng vi khuẩn Clostridium sp. Tr2. Quá trình sản xuất hydro của chủng này bị ảnh hưởng mạnh mẽ bởi pH thay đổi trong quá trình lên men. Tốc độ tạo khí cũng như lượng khí thu được của chủng này tăng gần gấp đôi trong môi trường có duy trì pH ở pH 6 so với môi trường không kiểm soát pH. Quá trình lên men tối sản xuất hydro của chủng Tr2 được thực hiện ở quy mô bình thí nghiệm cũng như bình lên men tự động trong điều kiện môi trường tối ưu ở 30oC, pH ban đầu 6.5, ở qui mô bình lên men tự động (BioFlo 110), pH môi trường sau đó được duy trì ổn định ở pH 6. Lên men sản xuất hdyro của chủng Tr2 trong bình lên men tự động tốt hơn rất nhiều so với lên men trong bình thí nghiệm. Clostridium sp. Tr2 chỉ tạo ra được 0,74 L hydro (L medium)-1 chiếm 72,6 % tổng thể tích khí thu được ở điều kiện lên men bình thí nghiệm trong khi chủng này sản xuất được 2,94 L hydro (L medium)-1 chiếm 95,82 % tổng thể tích khí ở điều kiện lên men tự động. Sản lượng hydro thu được lớn nhất của chủng này trong bình lên men tự động BioFlo 110 trong trong môi trường tối ưu có kiểm soát pH tại pH 6 là 2,31 mol hydro (mol glucose)-1.