Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-96).

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.

<p> The increased consumption of finite resources threatens the preservation of the environment. Environmental pioneers George Perkins Marsh, Gifford Pinchot, and Aldo Leopold were the first to address this concern in the United States. With this background, environmental sustainability in the United States has become a common consideration for public, private, and government organizations. Many organizations have implemented environmental management systems to handle environmental issues. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore what environmental sustainability programs manufacturing firms in West Michigan pursue and their motivation for doing so. Leaders from 13 West Michigan manufacturing companies were interviewed. Research questions addressed the benefits administrators perceive can be gained by adopting environmental sustainability programs, disadvantages in adopting environmental sustainability programs, and what organizations are doing to pursue environmental programs. Cost savings was cited as a major reason for pursuing sustainability programs with the lack of time and resources being the greatest restraint environmental administrators encounter. Company leadership noted that sustainability programs provided their firm a competitive advantage with many Millennial employees preferring companies that manage robust environmental programs. The sustainability strategies identified in this research can be leveraged by firms seeking to implement or improve their environmental programs.</p>

<p> The Lawn to Garden Program incentivizes replacing front yard turf grass with California Friendly gardens in Long Beach, CA. The Long Beach Water Department introduced the program in 2009 as a means of water conservation and since that time 2% of the City&rsquo;s single-family homes have successfully completed the program. As of the end of 2014, 3,461 applications had been submitted, but only 1,849 Lawn to Garden projects had been completed, a success rate of 53% and withdrawal rate of 47%. This study seeks to identify some of the factors that contribute to the program&rsquo;s high withdrawal rate, exploring the resources available to participants as well as the barriers to success. Methods used include geographic analysis in the form of density mapping, analysis of survey responses submitted by participants who withdrew from the program, and my professional observations. This study considers which neighborhoods display greater rates of success and withdrawn applications as well as what resources would have most aided those who did not complete their projects. </p>

abstract: The current practice of municipal stormwater management in the United States has failed to effectively reduce the amount of pollutants discharged into surface waters. Water impairment as a result of polluted stormwater runoff from urbanized areas remains a significant concern despite federally mandated efforts to reduce the impact of these discharges. To begin addressing these shortfalls the Environmental Protection Agency contracted the National Research Council to investigate the extent of the stormwater program and to identify areas that require improvement in order to more effectively implement the program. Their findings indicated widespread, foundational flaws with the stormwater regulatory structure and proposed new permitting guidelines. The purpose of this study was to explore the specific shortcomings of stormwater management in the Maricopa County region and to suggest the establishment of a regional authority. Doing so would require an alternative permitting regime to replace the current approach of population based municipal permitting with a permit that considered the entire urbanized region. The organizational structure, legality concerns and intergovernmental partnerships needed to properly establish such a regional authority were part of this study. The effect of this approach suggested a more effective, efficient and economical model of municipal stormwater management that better addressed certain Integrated Urban Stormwater Management strategies and began to address the program weaknesses identified by the National Research Council. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S.Tech Technology 2011

abstract: The purpose of drinking water regulations is to keep our drinking water safe from contaminants. This research reviewed federal regulation including the Contaminant Candidate List (CCL) regulatory process, the public health effects of six nitrosamines in drinking water, analyzes of occurrence data from Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 2) and suggests how nitrosamines can be regulated. Currently only total trihalomethanes (THM) and haloacetic acids (HA) are regulated at the federal level. However, California has notification action levels and Massachusetts has guidelines of 10 ng/L for nitrosamine concentration. Nitrosamine data collected under the UCMR 2 were analyzed to assess the occurrence and the effect of disinfectant type and source water type. The data showed that N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) was detected in drinking water at concentrations higher than the minimum reporting level (MRL) of 2 ng/L. Four nitrosamines including N-nitroso-diethylamine (NDEA), N-nitroso-di-n-butylamine (NDBA), N-nitroso-methylethylamine (NMEA) and N-nitroso-pyrrolidine (NPYR) and very low detections. N-nitroso-di-n-propylamine (NDPA) was not detected in the sample analyses. NDMA was primarily detected in public water systems using chloramines other than chlorine. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S.Tech Technology 2012

Sewage sludge is currently being disposed by spreading it out on fields, an action that recycles important nutrients such as phosphorus, but also leads to heavy metal contamination. With impeding regulation changes, possibly making it harder or impossible to keep current practice, waste water treatment plants are reviewing their options. One solution could be mono-incineration with phosphorus recovery. However, to make the sludge have a heating value high enough to avoid support fuel it needs to be thermally dried, which requires large amounts of heat. Moreover, large investments would have to be made, creating a more complex system than the current one. Industrial symbiosis could be the solution for making it both more economically and environmentally sustainable and possible, as it is possible to utilise waste heat for the drying, and collaborating with a waste incineration company to incinerate the sludge. Setting up an industrial symbiosis exchange is not always simple; knowing who benefits from what, and who should pay for what investment can be complicated. Moreover, it is often assumed that industrial symbiosis exchanges are environmentally sustainable, but it is not always the case. To better understand how costs should be allocated, and how exchanges should look to be both economically and environmentally sustainable, the methods life cycle analysis (LCA) and life cycle cost analysis (LCC) are suitable to use, as they allow a full view of the system, which can be broken down into different processes. The aim of this study is to see how LCA and LCC can be used on a planned symbiosis project to assess environmental and economical impacts. The results that were found was that using waste heat instead of primary produced heat was not necessarily better, both economically and environmentally in the categories acidification, eutrophication, and global warming potential. If the drying could take place solely during warmer months, through use of storage, then the heat could be produced through waste incineration, creating electricity to sell and replace marginal electricity. There was no clear cut answer to which scenario was better of the thirteen looked at in this study, as different scenarios were better in different categories, which proved the necessity of doing an LCA and a LCC, or similar methods. Moreover, the larger investments were not always the most profitable, even in the best economical scenario, showing the risk of unequal cost distribution. Similarly, the best scenario to avoid global warming potential involved using storage of dried sludge, increasing emissions for the one responsible for the storage, whilst decreasing emissions for incineration substantially. In summary, performing a LCA and a LCC on a planned symbiosis exchange can both show how different choices affect different categories, and help mitigate risks of uneven distribution of both costs and emissions.

A major component of the vegetation cover in the area chosen for this study consists of heather moorland. This provides an essential habitat for diverse populations of ground-nesting moorland birds. Common heather - Calluna vulgaris (L) Hull - is typically the dominant species of this semi-natural habitat, providing both nutrition and cover for these bird populations. Much heather-dominated vegetation is in a successional stage and management is required to prevent its progressive transformation into rough grassland and woodland scrub. Traditionally management by burning and more recently by mowing has been used to achieve this by encouraging the growth of young heather, through the removal of senescent stands of Calluna vulgaris in the degenerate phase of its life cycle. These forms of management however may also have the effect of creating conditions which favour faster growing, acidophilous grasses which may replace Calluna vulgaris over time as the dominant species. This study investigates the hypothesis that particular management treatments may have specific influences on the composition and nature of the post-management vegetation complex. Particular attention is given to the nutrient status of soils, associated with each of the management treatments chosen for investigation. The influence of this on the long-term floristic composition and vertical stratification of the Callunetum is considered. Stands of vegetation belonging to different management regimes were used as the elements of chronosequences, which were utilised to investigate vegetation change over time in relation to particular management treatments. Vegetation was described from quadrats located within this framework and quadrat-specific soil samples were taken for chemical analysis. Dendrochronology was explored as a method for determining the age of Calluna plants in each treatment category from which the efficiency of different methods of removing the Calluna canopy was assessed. Multivariate methods of classification (TWINSPAN) and indirect gradient analysis (DECORANA) were used to reveal pattern in the vegetation data, which might be attributable to the management treatments defining each of the chronosequence stages. TWINSPAN was successful in identifying homogenous groups of samples on the basis of species associations peculiar to particular treatment categories. DECORANA proved successful in suggesting environmental gradients which might be responsible for these groupings. Data obtained from the chemical analysis of soil samples was used to compare soil nutrient status in each of the treatment categories, representative of the chronosequence stages. The vegetation and soils data-sets were then combined for use in direct gradient analysis (CANOCO), to investigate the combination of management treatments and soil nutrient status as factors influencing the formation of the species associations identified at each of the chronosequence stages. Finally, management goals are discussed in the context of the results of these analyses and the role of these procedures as the basis for an extended investigation into post-management, plant/soil inter-relationships as an influence on successional trends is evaluated.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-09-19Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:14:48Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 fernandes_fm_me_rcla.pdf: 4932062 bytes, checksum: ae4d8ae1e398b703943642ceb05bc9e4 (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / As rodovias são empreendimentos de grande extensão longitudinal que atravessam diversos tipos de terrenos, que possuem condições geológicas, geomorfológicas, pedológicas e vegetacionais diferenciadas. Na gestão ambiental de rodovias foi notada a importância da utilização de Cartas Geotécnicas de Suscetibilidade, por serem documentos que inter-relacionam diversas informações do meio físico. Desta forma, esta pesquisa objetivou a elaboração deste tipo de carta e a indicação de diretrizes para a conservação da Rodovia Marechal Rondon – SP-300. Para sua elaboração foram utilizados o Mapa de Declividade, as Unidades Fisiográficas Homogêneas delimitadas, os processos da dinâmica superficial mapeados e o uso do solo. Sua elaboração evidenciou sua importância para a gestão ambiental de rodovias, tendo em vista a prevenção, o monitoramento e a correção dos processos adversos que podem ocorrer neste tipo de empreendimento. / The highways are enterprises of great longitudinal extension that cross several types of lands, that possess different geologic, geomorphologic, pedologic and vegetation conditions. In the environmental management of highways the importance of the use of Engineering Geological Maps of Susceptibility was noticed, for being documents that inter-relates several information of the environment. This way, this research objectified the elaboration of this type of map and the indication of lines of direction for the conservation of the Highway Marechal Rondon - SP-300. For its elaboration the Map of Declivity, the delimited Homogeneous Physiographic Units, the processes of the superficial dynamics mapped and the use of the ground was used. Its elaboration evidenced its importance for the environmental management of highways, in view of the prevention, the monitoring and the correction of the adverse processes that can occur in this type of enterprise.