Le secteur du bâtiment contribue grandement aux impacts environnementaux occasionnés par les activités anthropiques. Pour tenter de réduire ces impacts, divers systèmes de certification pour le bâtiment ont été développés. Toutefois, ces certifications ont tendance à se concentrer principalement sur la consommation énergétique durant la phase d’exploitation du bâtiment. Par conséquent, leur application pour un bâtiment qui consomme de l’énergie occasionnant de faibles impacts sur l’environnement peut parfois mener à des effets indésirables sur les impacts environnementaux des bâtiments. Tandis que certaines certifications ne se concentrent que sur quelques aspects du bâtiment, comme Passive House qui est axé principalement sur la consommation énergétique, d’autres, comme LEED v4, qui est la plus présente en Amérique du Nord, ont une portée plus large. Néanmoins, LEED v4 accorde une plus grande importance à la consommation énergétique qu’à la sélection de matériaux. Basé sur une étude d’un bâtiment à bureaux situé au Québec (Canada), l’objectif de ce projet de recherche est de comparer les effets des matériaux sur les impacts environnementaux du cycle de vie d’un bâtiment en fonction de la considération de ces matériaux dans LEED v4. Ici, le terme matériaux est utilisé à des fins de simplification et signifie matériaux de construction utilisés pour construire le bâtiment. Les effets des matériaux sont évalués en analysant la contribution de ces derniers aux impacts environnementaux du bâtiment à l’étude ainsi qu’en déterminant leur potentiel de faire varier ces impacts par le changement de certaines configurations de matériaux de ce bâtiment. Les impacts environnementaux sont évalués par une analyse du cycle de vie (ACV) attributionnelle à l’aide du logiciel SimaPro 8.2, la base de données ecoinvent 3.1 et la méthode d’évaluation des impacts du cycle de vie (EICV) IMPACT 2002+. Les résultats montrent que les matériaux contribuent de façon importante aux impacts environnementaux du bâtiment (> 50 %) et que la sélection de différentes configurations alternatives de matériaux peut faire varier considérablement ces impacts (de 0 % à plus de 50 %). Par ces résultats, il est montré que LEED v4 ne semble pas bien capturer ces effets des matériaux sur les impacts environnementaux sur le cycle de vie des bâtiments par son système de pointage dans le cas où le bâtiment consomme exclusivement de l’énergie provenant du réseau électrique du Québec (où l’électricité produite est principalement de source hydraulique). Effectivement, le pointage accordé aux matériaux dans LEED v4 est de 13 points (ou 30 %) en comparaison à la consommation énergétique, qui est de 33 points (ou 70 %). Les résultats de ce projet de recherche permettent donc d’amener les diverses parties prenantes du secteur de la construction vers une réflexion plus éclairée sur le rôle à jouer de la sélection des matériaux et des certifications dans l’amélioration environnementale des bâtiments dans le cas où l’énergie consommée par les bâtiments occasionne de faibles impacts sur l’environnement, ainsi que sur la complémentarité de l’ACV avec les certifications. / Abstract : Buildings being one of the highest contributors to environmental impacts globally, various Green Building Rating Systems (GBRS) have been proposed in support to reduce their impacts. Primarily oriented towards energy consumption from use stage, their application in low impact energy contexts can result in some undesirable side effects. While some GBRS focus only on few aspects of the building, like Passive House, others like LEED v4, the most present in North America, have a broader scope. However, this GBRS grants more importance to energy consumption than material selection. Based on a office building case study in Quebec (Canada), the aim of this study is to compare the material effects on building LCA impacts and their considerations in LEED v4. Here, the term material is used, for simplicity purpose, to mean construction material used to build the building. Thus, the material effects can be reflected by the material contribution on building LCA impact and their potential to vary these impacts from the adoption of different material configurations. The environmental impacts are evaluated using the attributional LCA approach with SimaPro 8.2 software, ecoinvent 3.1 database and IMPACT 2002+ method. Building LCA results indicate the high environmental impact contribution from materials (> 50 %) and their good potential to vary LCA impacts (0 % to more than 50 %). By comparison, the LEED v4 rating system did not seem to be as effective in capturing the effects of materials in low impact energy context like the one of Quebec (where the electricity generation is hydro-based). As a matter of fact, material selection represents 13 points (or 30%) by comparison with 33 points (or 70%) for energy consumption. Conclusions drawn from this research project will help stakeholders from the building sector in their efforts to improve building environmental profiles providing answers about the implication of material selection and GBRS to this end and the complementarity between LCA and GBRS.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

De la maternelle à la terminale, la population scolaire française fait de plus en plus usage des deux secteurs d’enseignement (public, privé) : deux élèves sur cinq effectuent au moins une année dans un établissement privé. Pourtant, les deux secteurs de scolarisation ont fait l’objet de rares études comparatives sous la focale d’enquêtes de terrain. Par une démarche ethnographique et statistique, cette recherche souhaite contribuer à la compréhension (caractérisation, ifférenciation, évaluation) des « effets de contexte » sur la scolarité des élèves de collèges publics et privés. Notre analyse de ces effets a eu pour objectif initial d’enrichir le champ de recherche sur l’efficacité des établissements sous l’angle d’une construction progressive des carrières scolaires dans les secteurs d’enseignement et des contextes différents. Pendant deux années scolaires, l’enquête est menée dans quatre collèges (deux publics et deux privés) d’un territoire rural de forte implantation du secteur privé. Les résultats obtenus montrent d’abord la nécessité de distinguer dans l’analyse du contexte d’établissement, ce qui relève des performances scolaires et ce qui concerne l’orientation des élèves. Ensuite, les effets de territoire et les effets de secteur d’enseignement ne peuvent être analysés indépendamment des effets de contexte. Ainsi, le secteur privé privilégie une mobilisation collective que l’on pourrait qualifier de communautaire et deterritorialisée, dans le sens où elle prend sa référence dans un réseau et un espace au niveau local. Du côté du secteur public, la dynamique d’établissement serait "extraterritorialisée", en s’appuyant sur un référent national. L’enjeu porte sur la formation de citoyens et l’avenir des élèves est pensé sur une plus longue échelle temporelle (orientation scolaire). Si le public et le privé conservent des spécificités, on peut se demander à la lumière de nos résultats si le secteur d’enseignement ne tend pas à s’effacer au profit des logiques d’établissement et du travail de plus en plus déterminant des acteurs. En ce sens, cette recherche participe à la réflexion sur les configurations contextuelles, leur construction et leur pertinence, et conjointement, sur les effets de l’appartenance sectorielle d’un établissement scolaire / From nursery school to high school, the French resort more and more to both educational systems – state or private schools. Indeed, two pupils out of five spend at least a year in a private school. Yet, the two systems have rarely been the targets of comparative surveys as far as their efficiency is concerned. Thanks to an ethnographic and statistical approach, this study aims to analyse the background impacts on pupils’ schooling - characterizing features, oppositions, assessment - in state and private secondary schools. Our analysis of these impacts was initially intended to enrich the field of research on the effectiveness of schools in terms of a progressive construction of school careers in different education systems and backgrounds. The survey was carried out over two years in two private and two state secondary schools, in a rural area in which private schools are the more dominant than state schools.Firstly, the outcomes of our survey have shown the need to distinguish academic results from careers guidance in the analysis of the background of a school. Secondly, the impacts of the area and education system must be jointly analysed with the background impacts. So, the private school system favours a collective commitment which might be said to be community-based and territorial as it is locally based. Private schools are highly dependent on a local area. As for state schools, this collective commitment is alleged to be independent of local areas since they have a national reference. State schools allow pupils to become citizens and the offering of 'careers guidance' encourages them to make long-term plans. If state and private schools still have specifics, one can wonder, in the light of our study, if the education system does not tend to fade in favor of some school logics and an increasingly decisive work from its actors. In this sense, this study thus highlights the contextual configurations, their construction and their relevance, and together, the impacts of the sector affiliation of a secondary school

Student Number: 9601911P - MA research report - School of Arts - Faculty of Humanities / The purpose of this study was to find out the social impact of community-based tourism on host communities, using a case study of Khama Rhino Sanctuary Trust. Community-based tourism is the new buzzword for tourism development nowadays, with its proponents promoting its potential to increase local benefits and to empower local communities in economic, social, environmental and cultural terms. This research sought to address closely the benefits and problems associated with community-based tourism in one community in Botswana. The research also attempted to find out how involved the community is in decision making processes involving the running of the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, a community-based initiative which is not only involved in tourism, but also in environmental education. The research findings indicate that there is no sense of ownership amongst the community and benefits have not been forthcoming. Although job opportunities have been created, these have not been increasing since the inception of the Sanctuary. Above all, the Sanctuary still relies heavily on foreign donors. In order to address the research questions, qualitative methods of data collection and analysis were employed.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo quantificar o impacto da vegetação nos microclimas urbanos abaixo do dossel, em função das interações solo-vegetação-atmosfera. Essas interações consideram os efeitos: 1) do dossel propriamente dito, expressos pelas variáveis índice de área foliar - IAF (Leaf Area Index - LAI) e distribuição geométrica das aberturas na copa (gap fraction); 2) da cobertura do solo, expressa pela composição do solo, sua temperatura e teor de umidade, e 3) das variáveis microclimáticas locais (temperatura do ar, umidade do ar, radiação solar, temperatura radiante media, temperatura superficial, direção e velocidade dos ventos). Considerando-se que o impacto da vegetação nos microclimas urbanos é função das interações solo-vegetação-atmosfera, e tendo em vista resultados de estudos anteriores, a hipótese deste trabalho é que, para o clima de São Paulo, em função dos processos de evapotranspiração e do sombreamento, a redução na temperatura do ar abaixo do dossel em parques urbanos será de cerca de 1o C e a redução da temperatura superficial será de cerca de 20oC, ambas em relação às áreas não sombreadas pela vegetação, e que esses efeitos limitam-se à borda do parque sob condições de baixa velocidade do vento, de cerca de 1 m/s. O método é 1) indutivo, por meio de medições de campo durante o período de dias quentes e frios no Parque Tenente Siqueira Campos (Trianon), na cidade de São Paulo, para o registro de dados microclimáticos e para o levantamento das variáveis do dossel e do solo; e 2) dedutivo, com a calibração entre dados medidos e simulados pelo modelo ENVI-met 3.1 Beta 5 e a simulação de diferentes cenários, variando-se as características do dossel. Para se estimar a densidade foliar média das copas foram adotados dois métodos não-destrutivos indiretos: a medição do IAF com o equipamento LAI-2000 (LI-COR) e a análise das fotos hemisféricas, utilizando-se o aplicativo Can-Eye. De acordo com os resultados das simulações, variando-se as caraterísticas do dossel, verificou-se uma redução máxima de 1ºC na temperatura do ar e de 19°C na temperatura superficial, ao se comparar os valores obtidos abaixo de uma copa densa (forma elíptica e IAF 5m2/m2) em relação às condições do entorno, fora do parque. Esse efeito se estende por, no máximo, 5m de distância a partir dos limites do parque, com velocidade do ar de 1m/s e umidade de 40% na camada superficial do solo (0-20cm). Foi feita a aplicação do TEP - Temperatura Equivalente Percebida e verificou-se que a redução de 1°C na temperatura do ar pode representar de 3°C a 5°C no conforto térmico das pessoas. Esses resultados comprovam a hipótese inicial e mostram não apenas a importância do tipo de vegetação escolhida (formato da copa, IAF e distribuição geométrica das aberturas na copa) como as características do meio em que ela está inserida (condições microclimáticas locais e de solo). Os resultados podem contribuir para a formulação de políticas públicas visando à mitigação dos efeitos de aquecimento urbano, particularmente diurnos, em climas tropicais. / The objective of this work is to quantify the impact of vegetation on urban microclimates, under the canopy, due to soil-vegetation-atmosphere interactions. It considers the following effects: 1) the canopy itself, expressed by the variable leaf area index - LAI and the geometric openness distribution in the canopy (gap fraction); 2) the soil coverage, expressed by soil composition, soil temperature and soil humidity, and 3) the local microclimatic variables (air temperature, humidity, solar radiation, mean radiant temperature, surface temperature, wind direction and wind speed). Considering the impact of vegetation on urban microclimates as a function of soil-vegetation-atmosphere, and based on the outcomes of preview studies, this work starts from the hypothesis that for São Paulo climate and as a result of evapotranspiration and shadowing process, the reduction of air temperature under the canopy will be between 1°C to 2°C and for surface temperature, it will be around 20°C, both in relation to an area without tree shadowing. These effects are restricted to the borders of the park, especially under the conditions of low wind speed, approximately 1m/s. The methods are: 1) inductive, based on field measurements in summer and winter at Tenente Siqueira Campos Park (Trianon Park), in the city of São Paulo, registering microclimatic data and collecting information for canopy and soil; and 2) deductive, with the calibration of measured and simulated data by ENVI-met 3.1 Beta 5 and the simulation for different scenarios varying the canopy characteristics. To estimate the average leaf density for trees canopy two no-destructive indirect methods were applied: measurement of LAI using the equipment LAI-2000 (LI-COR) and the analysis of hemispheric photographs, using a software application Can-Eye. According to the simulation results, for different characteristics for canopy, it could be verified a maximum reduction of 1ºC in air temperature and 19°C for surface temperature, when comparing the obtained value under a dense canopy (elliptical form and LAI of 5m2/m2) to the conditions on the street. The maximum extension of these effects were up to 5m from the limits of the park, considering 1m/s for wind speed and 40% for soil humidity in the upper layer (0-20cm). The thermal index TEP calculated and it could be seen that the reduction of 1°C for air temperature can represent from 3°C to 5°C in terms of thermal comfort of people. By these results, the initial hypothesis has proven to be correct and showed not only the importance of the type of vegetation selected (canopy form, LAI values and geometric distribution of canopy openness) but also the characteristics of the surrounding environment (microclimatic and soil conditions). Furthermore, it will contribute to formulate public politics aiming to mitigate urban warming effect, mainly during daytime, in tropical cities.

Impactos no Meio Físico decorrentes da construção de barragens e enchimento de reservatórios e as possíveis soluções aplicáveis com vistas a eliminá-los ou mitigá-los. Apresentados também os programas de monitoramento dos aspectos físicos afetados, com freqüência e duração das observações. / This Dissertation aims the presentation of a general analysis of the environmental physical impacts arised from the construction of dams and the creation of reservoirs. Presents also the suggestion of a series of measures to be implemented in order to avoid or to mitigate those impacts and the subjects that would be monitored.

Os recursos hídricos são de grande importância para a vida, já que fazem parte dos processos metabólicos dos seres vivos. No decorrer dos anos, o aumento da atividade humana e seus consequentes impactos tem acarretado maior preocupação com a conservação destes recursos. Para que haja consumo de água pelos seres humanos, há a necessidade do tratamento da mesma, retirando-se as impurezas, deixando-a potável. Assim, os efluentes provenientes das atividades humanas, especialmente dos esgotos domésticos, devem ser tratados com precaução antes de serem lançados no corpo receptor diminuindo, de tal modo, a possibilidade de impactos ambientais. Nos ecossistemas aquáticos, os macroinvertebrados aquáticos têm sido utilizados nos últimos anos como ferramenta para avaliações da qualidade ambiental. Sabendo-se da problemática ocasionada pelo despejo de efluentes domésticos em rios e córregos, este trabalho apresenta como objetivo estudar a comunidade de macroinvertebrados do Ribeirão das Cruzes nas áreas à montante e à jusante do recebimento dos efluentes do sistema de tratamento de esgoto do Município de Araraquara. Os macroinvertebrados foram coletados em duas épocas do ano em quatro pontos distintos, utilizando-se rede em \"D\" pelo método de varredura. Juntamente à coleta, foram tomadas medidas in loco do teor de oxigênio dissolvido, pH, condutividade elétrica, temperatura da água, sedimento para determinação do teor de matéria orgânica e água para análise de fósforo e nitrogênio total. Os organismos foram identificados até o nível de família exceto Chironomidae identificados até gêneros ou espécie para posterior aplicação de índices bióticos e comunitários. Os resultados apontam que houve alteração na estrutura comunitária e diminuição na riqueza de macroinvertebrados aquáticos, após a ETE (estação de tratamento de esgoto) de Araraquara. A presença exclusiva do gênero Chironomus no ponto após a ETE aponta para um elevado impacto ambiental. / The hydric resources are essential to life, since they are part of the metabolic processes in living organisms. Along the years, as human activity has increased and its consequent impacts have caused a high concern in order to preserve such resources. In order to have water consumption by humans, it needs to be treated, making it potable. Thus, effluents that originate in human activities - especially domestic sewage - must be treated before being released to the receiving water body, reducing the possibility of environmental impact. In aquatic ecosystems, macroinvertebrates are being used along the last years as a tool to evaluate environmental quality. Once known the problem caused by the release of domestic effluents in rivers and streams, the present project aims to study the macroinvertebrates community within the Cruzes stream, upstream and downstream the area of wastewater treatment effluents from Araraquara municipality. The macroinvertebrates were collected in two seasons of the year at four different points, using network \"D\" by kick sampling method. Along the collection, steps were taken in place of the dissolved oxygen content, pH, electrical conductivity, water temperature, sediment to determine the content of organic matter and water for phosphorus and total nitrogen analysis. The organisms were identified at family level except Chironomidae identified to genera or species for subsequent application of biotic and community levels. The results show that there were changes in the community structure and a decrease in the richness of aquatic macroinvertebrates after the ETE (Treatment Sewage Station) in Araraquara. The exclusive presence Chironomus genre at the point after ETE points to a high environmental impact.

The purpose of this work is to illuminate some of the non-smooth phenomena found in piecewise-smooth continuous and discrete dynamical systems, which do not occur in smooth systems. We will explain how such non-smooth phenomena arise in applications which experience impact, such as impact oscillators, and a type of rotating machine, called magnetic bearing systems. The study of their dynamics and sensitivity to parameter variation gives not just insights into the critical motion found in these applications, but also into the complexity and beauty in their own right. This work comprises two parts. The first part studies a general one-dimensional discontinuous power law map which can arise from impact oscillators with a repelling wall. Parameter variation and the influence of the exponent on the existence and stability of periodic orbits is presented. In the second part we analyse two coupled oscillators that model rotating machines colliding with a circular boundary under friction. The study of the dynamics of rigid bodies impacting with and without friction is approached in two ways. On the one hand existence and stability conditions for non-impacting and impacting invariant sets are derived using local and global methods. On the other hand the analysis of parameter variation reveals new non-smooth bifurcations. Extensive numerical studies confirm these results and reveal further phenomena not attainable otherwise.

In the last couple of decades, there has been an increased awareness of the effects that electricity generation has on the environment through the emission of greenhouse gases and the depletion of natural resources. This realisation, coupled with an increased drive towards ensuring the sustainability of the energy supply system, has lead many, including the United Kingdom government to investigate the options for moving away from traditional fossil fuel-burning generation methods towards “lowcarbon” generators, such as renewables and nuclear power. Specifically, wind power, the more mature systems (with the exception of hydro power) of the available renewable energy supply, and nuclear power, a technology seen as producing large amounts of electricity with very few associated greenhouse emissions, have been promoted but also pitted against each other by analysts and policy makers. This work aims to provide a balanced analysis of wind power and nuclear power with respect to their effects on the natural environment. As such, modeling has been undertaken of a Generation III+ nuclear reactor, an onshore wind farm located in southern Scotland and an offshore wind farm near the Thames estuary while environmental indicators have been created to permit the comparative assessment of these three electricity generation technologies, in a U.K. context. These indicators thus facilitate an assessment of the energy requirements, the associated greenhouse gas emissions, the natural resource requirements, as well as the displaced carbon dioxide emissions from operation of each power plant. A parametric analysis has also been conducted to show the range of likely variations in each indicator’s values. The results of this research show that all three technologies demonstrate similar performance with respect to their energetic and environmental impacts. More specifically, the wind farms demonstrate better energy gain ratios than the nuclear power plant when they are credited for not depleting non-renewable fuel sources. The wind farms also are shown to pay back their energy investments faster than the nuclear power plant. On the other hand, the nuclear power plant is found to produce slightly lower greenhouse gas emissions than either onshore or offshore wind farms. With respect to the assessment of natural resource depletion, it is estimated that both wind farms need more land per unit of electricity produced than the nuclear power plant, but all three power plants permanently sequester similar amounts of water. The wind farms and the nuclear power plant are found to have similar performance with respect to their material requirements, while the calculation of the avoided emissions factors for all technologies are of similar orders of magnitude. All results are shown to be highly sensitive to the assumptions made about the prospective lifecycles, and as such caution should be exercised when drawing conclusions about any comparative advantages. Nethertheless both technologies are clearly shown to have lower environmental impacts than traditional electricity generation technologies.

Globally, human activities are altering nutrient biogeochemical cycles. The impact of humans on silicon (Si) cycles remains largely unexplored. Understanding the cycle of Si is important because weathering of siliceous rocks is a substantial sink of atmospheric carbon. Additionally, Si is required by diatoms. Diatoms form the base of important socioeconomic food webs, responsible for ~50% of oceanic net primary production, and deliver atmospheric carbon to ocean sediments as part of the ocean’s biological pump. My dissertation aims to assess the role of anthropogenic activities in altering Si cycling across the land-ocean continuum. Chapter 2 focuses on how assimilation of biogenic silica (BSi) by trees may be impacted by projected changes in climate. Using samples collected during a multi-year, snow removal experiment, I show that increased frequency and duration of soil freezing in winter significantly decreased (-28%) BSi in sugar maple (Acer saccharum) fine roots compared to control plots. Importantly, I observed that fine roots are a previously undescribed pool of BSi within sugar maples, accounting for 29% of total sugar maple BSi while only 4% of sugar maple biomass. Chapter 3 examines the origin and fate of Si within wastewater for the City of Boston. I determined the total dissolved silica (DSi) load in wastewater influent (69,500 kmol DSi year-1), then parsed the total DSi flux between Si contributions of sewage (49%), groundwater infiltration (39%), and surface runoff inflow (12%). In Chapter 4, I study the DSi load carried by treated effluent. I determined that effluent load (67,800 kmol DSi year-1) is not statistically different from influent load, indicating that wastewater treatment does not remove DSi. In Chapter 5 I demonstrate how humans impact concentrations of DSi in urban groundwater. Groundwater DSi increases with human presence and urban areas have significantly higher concentrations of DSi compared to groundwater conditions along the Massachusetts coast. I demonstrate that historic variables defining fill techniques, fill material, and pre-fill land-use out preform geologic variables in predicting urban groundwater DSi concentrations. This dissertation highlights human alterations to biological assimilation, fate, and effects of Si in sewage, and centuries-long subsurface Si impacts that perturb the distribution and availability of a nutrient intimately tied to water quality and climate.