Yes / Air pollution has been integrated into global challenges over the last few years due to its negative impact on the health of human beings, increasing socio-economic risks and its contribution to climate change. This study attempts to evaluate the current status of Iran's air pollution with regard to the sources of emissions, control policies, as well as the health and climate consequences that have resulted through available data from monitoring stations reported in the literature, official documents and previous published papers. Many large cities in Iran surpass the permissible concentration of air pollutants, particularly particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, black carbon and ozone. Although regulations and policies are in place and enormous efforts are being made to address air pollution issues in the country, implementation and enforcement are not as effective as they could be. The significant challenges may be regarded as the inefficiency of regulation and supervision systems, the lack of air quality monitoring systems and technology, particularly in industrial cities rather than Tehran as well as the lack of continual feedback and investigations on the efficiency of regulation. Providing such an up-to-date report can bring opportunities for international collaboration, which is essential in addressing the air pollution worldwide. We suggest that a way forward could be more focused on conducting systematic reviews using scientometric methods to show an accurate picture and trend in air pollution and its association in Iran, implementing an integrated approach for both climate change and air pollution issues, collaborating with international counterparts to share knowledge, tools, and techniques.

This case study documents the entire indoor air quality (IAQ) problem experienced by the students, faculty and staff of Cowgill Hall on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University from August 1987 to August 1988, recommends a general IAQ solution process and makes several specific suggestions to prevent the reoccurrence of the problem in Cowgill Hall. Background information on Cowgill Hall and the indoor air quality issue are also provided. This document is addressed to students of architecture, engineering and related disciplines. It emphasizes the growing importance and possible repercussions of their design decisions on the total environment; both in and out of doors. / Master of Science

Management of the air quality surrounding Petroleum Refineries deserves attention because the industry contributes almost five percent of the total emissions from all anthropogenic sources. A document containing a complete set of guidelines for use in the refining industry which satisfies the current and anticipated air quality legislations and regulations in the U.S. is necessary. In the past, several documents have been prepared, but have not included a complete coverage of the air quality management as currently needed. Furthermore, due to the continuing revisions of the Clean Air Act, a document with current, updated regulations and air quality management principles is necessary. This study dealt with a broad range of topics including characteristics of emissions, control technology applied, regulations and legislative issues, monitoring and modeling practices, and issues of the 1980s together with future projections and implications. Air quality regulations and standards are periodically revised and are becoming more stringent with time. Issues like acid rain may lead to even more stringent emission standards if investigations carried out currently reveal that the refineries are significant contributors. Great measures are taken to control emissions from the refineries either by using good control equipment or using other alternative control strategies. Small operating refineries are closing down due to changing conditions. An agglomeration and or expansion of the existing refining capacity is occuring. The air quality trends associated with this transition in the industry are discussed. / Master of Science

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

In 1970, the United States Congress and President Richard Nixon created a federal regulatory regime to meet public demands for improved environmental quality. As it happened, the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the enactment of the first national environmental standards coincided with the disruption of the postwar prosperity that had helped fuel the environmental movement. Valuing the Air provides the first sustained historical study of policy making at EPA during the formative period between 1970 and 1990, when the embattled agency preserved its original mission to protect Americans’ right to clean air. To justify strong regulations in an era of rising inflation and unemployment, EPA officials turned to the new field of environmental economics, funding pioneering research that concluded that the benefits of environmental protection outweighed the costs. Such pecuniary evidence allowed EPA to shield its regulatory interventions from business lobbying and to rebut rhetorical campaigns in which corporate executives threatened communities across the country with the loss of industrial jobs if they supported strong environmental health regulations. While this dollars and cents valuation proved persuasive to policy makers, it ran contrary to environmentalist notions of priceless nature and environmental advocates fought doggedly to prevent EPA from fully adopting a cost/benefit approach to policymaking. As environmentalists recognized, EPA’s embrace of economic measurement elevated the stature of economists at the agency, raising the possibility that recently established natural rights to clean air and water might be undercut by a dehumanized pricing of externalities. Regulatory reforms enacted by the Carter administration, such as emissions trading and the bubble policy, signaled a new willingness among liberals to use economic incentives and markets approaches in place of direct regulations – a development that environmentalists regarded warily. In 1981, the Reagan administration upset a bipartisan consensus for market based reforms with the announcement of drastic budget and staffing cuts at EPA. Reagan’s attack on EPA marked the ascent of a new conservative ideology that held unrestrained free enterprise to be the greatest social good, irrespective of the actual economics of regulatory interventions. Finding environmental economics to be a powerful, if imperfect, ally against such assaults, many environmental organizations softened their critiques of economic valuation and began to borrow the language and logic of economics to make their case. With this growing support from environmental organizations, EPA ushered in the commodification of pollution rights in the era of cap and trade. The inflection of contemporary environmental advocacy with economic measurement and value demonstrates the political utility of economics while also underscoring the foreclosure of an earlier environmentalism’s more radical questioning of the desirability of an unbounded market economy. At the same time, EPA continues to resist economists’ efforts to derive public preferences from market exchange, insisting that fundamental choices about underlying environmental value be made through the democratic process.