No description available.

No description available.

New Zealand is both an Annex I Party to the UNFCCC, and an Annex B country of the Kyoto Protocol. By ratifying the latter, NZ has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emission to 1990 levels. The country should take domestic actions and can also use any of the Kyoto Protocol flexible mechanisms. Afforestation and reforestation on low carbon density land has been recognised as a carbon sink and hence a possible mitigation option for climate change. The current situation for New Zealand is that at least over the first commitment period (2008-2012) the country is in deficit, because emissions have continued to grow over the 1990 level, there is an increase in the deforestation rate and lower rates of new planting. The objective of this study is to analyse the potential of the New Zealand forest sector as an integrated system to mitigate climate change. It also analyses the impact of different mechanisms on potential area of new land planting, management of stands, and the supply, allocation, and demand of wood, and wood products. The New Zealand forest industry carbon balance (i.e net atmospheric exchange minus emissions) is modelled for different national estate scenarios, log allocation of harvested volume and residues used for bioenergy. The net present value of these scenarios is estimated and the economic viability assessed. The level of incentives needed to increase the returns to an economically viable level is estimated in term of carbon unit value ($/tC). Moreover the land use economics at a project level (land market value vs land expectation value) is assessed. Incentives needed in monetary terms and carbon value are also estimated. The implications of discounting carbon benefits are discussed. It was found that the carbon balance of the whole industry should be analysed for policy development on climate change mitigation options. New planting, longer rotation ages, avoiding deforestation, and allocating additional harvested volume to sawmills showed positive impact to the atmosphere. New planting appeared to be not economically viable, thus incentives are needed. It is acknowledged that, there are emissions from the sector that were not included, and that data and models used need further research to improve the accuracy of the results. Moreover, assumptions on the economic issues and an analysis of simultaneous implementation of more than one mitigation option would also improve the results.

Bridges with orthotropic steel decks have been built across the world over the past 60 years because they provide high strength and stiffness at a relatively low cost. However, a number of these bridges have sustained fatigue fractures. The investigation described in this thesis was carried out in order to identify cost-effective fatigue crack mitigation techniques by using the deck surfacing to reduce the stresses in the steel deck. Epoxy asphalt with an expanded metal mesh was investigated with small- and large-scale laboratory tests. Finite element analyses were also performed. The small scale tests conducted at different temperatures and loading frequencies showed that asphalt stiffness increased with decreasing temperature and faster loading. The expanded metal mesh in the epoxy asphalt layer noticeably increased asphalt stiffness. In the large scale tests and finite element analyses, critical loading positions to cause stress concentrations at the fatigue prone rib-to-deck welded connections were determined with different tyre configurations. The stress reduction due to the deck surfacing was estimated for the critical loading positions. The full scale test specimen was subjected to actual truck tyres. With the effectiveness of mitigation techniques for fatigue cracks on orthotropic steel bridge decks known, a probability-based fatigue lifetime evaluation methodology using Monte Carlo simulation was developed. The deck surfacing effects with seasonal and hourly temperature variations were considered. The fatigue lifetime extension using the epoxy asphalt was quantified. For a particular bridge, cost-effective maintenance scenarios were investigated. A simple calculation method for fatigue lifetime was introduced for engineers or bridge owners to assist understanding of decision support tool concepts.

This dissertation investigates the human dimensions of environmental transformations spurred by international climate change mitigation agreements—such as the Kyoto Protocol—that encourage lowering greenhouse gas emissions with ‘green’ market strategies like biofuel and ecological services development projects. It is methodologically grounded in “collaborative activist geographical methods” and theoretically based at the nexus of development, political ecologies, neoliberalization of Nature, and geographies of hope literatures. It examines the contradictory and complex ways that state “climate change mitigation development” projects surround and infiltrate the Indigenous and Afro-ecuadorian ancestral territories of the canton of San Lorenzo (Esmeraldas Province), located in the “Northwest Pacific Fronter Territory-region of Ecuador”. This research asks to what degree the Ecuadorian state’s support and investment in oil palm plantation expansion—designed to meet biofuel crop demands—in the coastal rainforest regions results in the rearrangement, and often times, devastation of Indigenous Awá and Chachi and Afro-ecuadorian communities’ natural and human geographies. It also inquires into the Ecuadorian government’s recently approved (October 2008) state level conservation incentives project called Socio-Bosque (Forest Partners) developed to do the following: protect the rainforests and its ecological services, alleviate poverty in rural areas, and position the country as an ‘environmental world leader’ for taking concrete actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from avoided deforestation. Socio Bosque claims to be progressive and even revolutionary, but may enact new forms of exploitation and governance in Indigenous and Afro-ecuadorian territories that are specific to time and place, but are enduringly colonial. Nevertheless, this research also highlights geographies of hope by demonstrating that, contrary to the surrounding sea of monoculture oil palm plantations and the CO2lonial air of contradictory laws in relation to biofuel and ecological services development, Awá, Chachi, and Afro-ecuadorian communities maintain sustainable practices and enhance agricultural diversity within their territories. Additionally, it emphasizes the emergent place-based social movements in relation to defense of their territories and identities; Indigenous and Afro-ecuadorian communities avoid conflict pressures by creating interethnic networks. By casting social nets between their territories, their communities stay connected and, together, defend their rights to territorial self-determination and “Living Well” and the rights of Nature.

The number of people suffering from natural disasters, and the economic impact of those disasters, continue to increase as the years go by. Better preparation and risk management strategies can help lessen the impacts of these disasters. One important aspect of risk management is risk assessment, which can be accomplished with a hazard map. One application of hazard maps is to forecast volcanic ashfall following an eruption to help people and organisations prepare themselves for, and mitigate the detrimental impacts of, volcanic ashfall. This research evaluated the key elements of a hazard map and how to make a hazard map most effective through the study of short-term ashfall forecast maps in New Zealand. A mixed-methods approach was taken for this research. Interviews were conducted with scientists at GNS and stakeholders who use the ashfall forecast maps. After the data from the interviews was analysed, an internet-based survey was created and sent out to anyone interested in participating. The survey served as a low-resolution verification of the high-resolution data gathered in the interviews. After each stage of information gathering, the ashfall forecast map design was updated. This research found that there are seven basic elements which should be considered when creating a hazard map. These elements are: simplicity of the map, base map, map scale, the use of colour, geographical information, the inclusion of uncertainty, and time. This research also found key lessons which can be applied to any hazard map creation process. These lessons are: established practices should be revaluated periodically, communication between the information provider and the enduser is critical, the information provider must decide between satisfying the individual or the group, education and outreach are important, audience feedback is necessary for an effective map, and that hazard maps are just one step in the risk mitigation process.

Animal agriculture plays a vital role in the provision of food for the world population; however, in the wake of global warming and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the industry has been under scrutiny as one of the net emitters causing global warming. The same scrutiny applies to beef production in western Canada. The objective of this study is to evaluate the economic impact of GHG mitigation practices (GHGMP) for beef operations, and in the process identify economic and environmental sustainable scenarios. This study was an extension to a study by Beauchemin et al (2011) who studied the mitigation of GHG emissions from beef production in western Canada A beef simulation model was developed to measure the impacts of adopting GHGMPs on the profitability of a mixed farm in Vulcan County, Southern Alberta. Feed for the herd was produced on the farm, and calves were born and finished on the farm. Whole farm gross margin was used as a profitability measure of the farm over a period of 9 years, which is a full beef production cycle. Eleven GHGMPs were examined and compared to the baseline scenario. These scenarios were adopted from Beauchemin et al (2011), and included dietary modifications (change in use of forages, use of canola seed, and corn distillers grains, and improvement in quality of forage), and improvement in animal husbandry (increased weaning rates, and increased longevity of breeding stock). Simulation results showed a discounted whole farm gross margin of $11.38 per acre for the baseline scenario. Feed costs accounted for 47.1 percent of total costs of beef production. The change in whole farm gross margin per acre from implementation of different GHGMPs ranged from an increase of 4 percent to a decrease of 5 percent. Six scenarios were identified as ‘win-win’ scenarios as they improved both environment and economics of the farm. The profit of these scenarios ranged from $238.11 to $30.31 per tonne of GHG reductions expressed in carbon dioxide equivalent). The loss from the other scenarios capable of reducing GHG emissions range from $92.06 to $582.46 per tonne GHG reduced. Based on these results, it was concluded that western Canadian beef producers can adopt sustainable GHGMPs without substantial changing the structure of their operations. Scenarios that improved both the environment and the economics of the farm were: Scenario 7: use of corn distillers dried grain (CDDG) in finishing ration; Scenario 4: use of canola seed in finishing ration; Scenario 8: use of CDDG in breeding stock ration; Scenario 10: increased calve weaning rate (85% to 90%); Scenario 5: use of canola seed in breeding stock ration; and Scenario 9 : improved hay for breeding stock.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is an old technology matrix with new concept to mitigate climate change while utilizing fossil fuels by advancing the technology. The various level of advancement in technology has been successfully demonstrated in some part of the world. However the technology has inherent uncertainty of not having commercial CCS plant. Efforts to make CCS commercially viable unfold uncertainties in numerous aspects of CCS technology. Beside the uncertainties in technology many barriers restrain CCS to become a successful climate mitigation technology. However the growing energy demand and urgent need to mitigate climate change through emission reduction favours CSS as transition to clean energy production. FutureGen 2.0 is the only large commercial scale CCS project, initiated in 2003 to test the commercial viability of the technology and to meet the U.S energy demands besides emission reductions target. The project resurrection in 2010 as FutureGen 2.0 after FutureGen termination in 2008 provides an opportunity to understand and analyse numerous uncertainties. However through document analysis only major three uncertainties i.e. policy and regulatory, economic and financial and public acceptance uncertainties are identified and analysed. The interlinkages between these uncertainties are also analysed. The study results show that above uncertainties constrained the project engendering new uncertainties i.e. timeframe uncertainties. This study also provides an insight about the sustainability implication of CCS by evaluating economic, environmental and social impact of CCS technology. It is still early to term the CCS as Sustainable technological innovation however for many years CCS would upset and restrain investment in other clean energy technologies like Renewable technology system. This study gives an input in sustainability of CCS and technological assessment study. This study is helpful in managing uncertainties and planning new CCS projects.

Interference is a key limiting factor in modern communication systems. In a wireless cellular network, the performance of cell-edge users is severely limited by the intercell interference. This thesis studies the use of interference-channel and relay-channel techniques to mitigate intercell interference and to improve the throughput and coverage of cellular networks. The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate the benefit of the proposed interference mitigation schemes through both information theoretical studies and applications in the cellular network. There are three mains results in this thesis: First, it is shown that for the $K$-user cyclic Gaussian interference channel, where the $k$th user interferes with only the ($k -1$)th user (mod $K$) in the network, the Etkin-Tse Wang power splitting strategy achieves the capacity region to within 2 bits in the weak interference regime. For the special 3-user case, this gap can be sharpened to $1\frac{1}{2}$ bits by the time-sharing technique. Second, it is shown that for a two-user Gaussian interference channel with an in-band-reception and out-of-band transmission relay, generalized hash-and-forward together with Han-Kobayashi information splitting can achieve the capacity region of this channel to within a constant number of bits in a certain weak-relay regime. A generalized-degrees-of-freedom analysis in the high signal-to-noise ratio regime reveals that in the symmetric channel setting, each common relay bit improves the sum rate up to two bits. The third part of this thesis studies an uplink multicell joint processing model in which the base stations are connected to a centralized processing server via rate-limited digital backhaul links. This thesis proposes a suboptimal achievability scheme employing the Wyner-Ziv compress-and-forward relaying technique and successive-interference-cancellation decoding. The main advantage of the proposed approach is that it results in achievable rate regions that are easily computable, in contrast to previous schemes in which the rate regions can only be characterized by exponential number of rate constraints.

Component obsolescence in the "high-tech" electronics industry has become a problem that cannot be ignored. Although recent attention has been given to component obsolescence, in general this issue is still dealt with reactively. This often results in sustainment of a long-life system such as ships, airplanes, power plant, and space based programs to be extremely costly. In addition, delayed schedules, extended downtimes, and technology lags are common occurrences in approaches that deal with obsolescence as it occurs. In wake of the rapid pace of technology innovation, turbulent markets and growing globalization, developing proactive approaches for dealing with obsolescence is a necessity for companies to remain competitive in the marketplace. Thus this dissertation focuses on three fundamental objectives that highlight the importance, provide new insight, and offer solutions to the problem of component obsolescence. The first objective concentrates on the importance of prediction models in determining the life cycle of a component. Obsolescence prediction is key in identifying the items most vulnerable and allows the company to effectively hedge against future uncertainty long before the problem arises. The second objective concentrates on proactive management approaches. This is accomplished through a case study with an industry partner. The purpose of an obsolescence management strategy is to ensure that, issues of obsolescence are anticipated, identified, analyzed, mitigated, reported, and dealt with in a cost effective and timely manner. In addition, it provides life cycle "support and guidance" to the management team. Dealing intelligently with flexibility and uncertainty is characteristic of the Real Options Pricing approach. Thus, the third objective concentrates on options pricing as a decision making tool for mitigating the effects of obsolescence. Making strategic decisions about when to invest, what technology to invest in, waiting until a future point in time when a new technology may be available, are all complex questions to answer. Real options pricing offers a novel approach to addressing issues of obsolescence in sustainment based technologies. Thus this dissertation demonstrates that obsolescence prediction, proactive management and mitigation and the use of real options is key in determining optimal decisions and staying competitive in the "high-tech" electronics industry.