One of the major tools for assisting in the implementation of sustainable development is environmental assessment (EA). This thesis has sought to develop a model and associated techniques required to provide an effective and efficient EA of projects in the water environment. The challenge has been to integrate a number of disparate elements into a cohesive model that provides workable procedures and outputs. The conceptual elements of the EA process have included the needs of environmental ethics and values; the political decision-making processes; current legislation and policy; the communication of infonnation for a range internal and external stakeholders and decisionmakers; the links with technical and economic issues; and The Environmental Agency's project management systems.

In predicting environmental hazards or estimating the impact of human activities on the marine ecosystem, scientists have multiplied the need for sample analysis. The classical microscopic approach is time consuming and wastes the talent and intellectual abilities of trained specialists. Therefore, scientists developed an automated optical tool, called a Flow Cytometer (FC), to analyse samples quickly and in large quantities. The flow cytometer has successfully been applied to real phytoplankton studies. However, analysis of the data extracted from samples is still required. Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are one of the tools applied to FC data analysis. Despite several successful applications, ANNs have not been widely adopted by the marine biologist community, as they can not possible to change the number of species in the classification problem without retraining of the full system from scratch. Training is time consuming and requires expertise in ANNs. Moreover, most ANN paradigms cannot cope effectively with unknown data, such as data coming from new phytoplankton species or from species outside the scope of the studies. This project developed a new ANN technique based on a modular architecture that removes the need for retraining and allows unknowns to be detected and rejected. Furthermore, the Support Vector Machine architecture is applied in this domain for the first time and compared against another ANN paradigm called Radial Basis Function Networks. The results show that the modular architecture is able to effectively deal with new data which can be incorporated into the ANN architecture without fully retraining the system.

No description available.

Ongoing deforestation is a pressing, global environmental issue with direct impacts on climate change, carbon emissions, and biodiversity. There is an intuitive link between economic development and overexploitation of natural resources including forests, but this relationship has proven difficult to establish empirically due to both inadequate data and convoluting geo-climactic factors. In this analysis, we use satellite data on forest cover along national borders in order to study the determinants of deforestation differences across countries. Controlling for trans-border geo-climactic differences, we find that income per capita is the most robust determinant of differences in cross-border forest cover. We show that the marginal effect of per capita income growth on forest cover is strongest at the earliest stages of economic development, and weakens in more advanced economies, presenting some of the strongest evidence to date for the existence of at least half of an environmental Kuznets curve for deforestation.

Summary in English. / The purpose of this report is to present an impact assessment of two possible access routes to the Mohale Dam in Lesotho, namely the Western Access Road and the Least Cost Alternative Route. It is an academic work to demonstrate an adequate grasp of principles, methods and techniques appropriate to the assessment, termed LHDA 1000. The water resources of Lesotho are being exploited to augment the current supply to the PWV industrial area of the Republic of South Africa, in terms of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. This project is being implemented in phases. Phase lA, currently being constructed, involves the damming of the Malibamatso River at Katse in the Maluti Mountains (Figure1), a transfer tunnel through the mountains, a hydroelectric power station at 'Muela in Lesotho, and a delivery tunnel under the Caledon River to the Ash River (a tributary of the Vaal River which feeds the primary PW impoundment, the Vaal Dam) in the South Africa.

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

Activities, conducted in the logistics sector, contribute to pollute the world. Especially, road transportation contaminates the environment with the release of exhaust emissions. Transport volumes as well as the proportion of the road sector are constantly rising, which intensifies its environmental impacts. In order to determine the main culprits of pollution, Environmental Impact Analysis (EIA) are used. These concepts are mostly ambiguous, fuzzy and hard to present in a comprehensive way. The main purpose of the present thesis is to develop an analysis in order to investigate the environmental impacts of road transportation along a certain supply chain. An academic resource was used as database, in order to develop and test an exhauste mission calculation in cooperation with a case company. Besides CO2, this assessment also focuses on the measurement of other exhauste missions like Nox, PM or CO. Furthermore, economic factors like, costs caused per transport are calculated. Aspects, like capacity utilization, the use of environmentally friendly tires or eco-friendly driving styles, are included in the analysis. These factors influence fuel consumption and thus the final production of exhaust emissions. A detailed description of each factor and calculation step is illustrated in this thesis. Due to a high complexity of transportation, this analysis is limited to road transportation. The fundament of the analysis builds the categorization of crafts due to the Euro standards. Hence, just transports conducted with crafts, manufactured within the European Union, can be evaluated. A validation test and in-depth interviews were conducted in order to approve the practicability of the developed assessment. During this process, strengths and weaknesses of the analysis were identified. Finally, the analysis is critically examined by showing its application constraints as well as prospective development opportunities. An enlargement, to include other transport modes, material handling activities in order to measure impacts during intermodal transportation along a whole transportation chain, is a prospect outlook.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a process that seeks to reduce the negative environmental consequences of listed development activities, which could have a detrimental effect on the environment, in the advance of their implementation, and a requirement of legislation in South Africa. An important element of the systematic EIA process is the submission of an environmental impact or scoping report or an environmental impact report (EIR) to the relevant governmental department, interested and affected parties and/or specialist for review to determine the report's adequacy before a project can be authorised or if further information is required. The information made available in reports to decision-makers with regard to developments with the potential of affecting explosive projects, plays a significant role in the authorisation of the project after the authority review process, which is dependent on the quality of the report. In order to contribute more effectively to sustainable development, more attention must be placed on assessing the quality of ElA's as part of determining how effectively EIA has been functioning in South Africa; hence this study is aimed at assessing the quality of EIA assessment reports of four projects with the potential of impacting on explosive industry projects. The objectives of the study included the review by independent reviewers of the quality of four-selected impact reports using a checklist, analysis of the review process results and provision of recommendations to improve the quality of environmental impact reports for-explosive projects. Based on the review results it is concluded that the quality of the four reports for-explosive projects. Based on the review results it is concluded that the quality of the four reports were of an acceptable standard, although certain areas were found poorly performed i.e. improvement with regard to identification of key impacts and considerations of alternatives and mitigation as well as the control and treatment of waste. Otherwise the review method is fairly robust and consistent and therefore can be seen as a reliable indication of EIR quality. The following was recommended to improve the quality of the reports for explosive projects: The use of a quality review checklist for explosive projects by EIA practitioners and authorities to be used as an additional tool to the EIA regulations (DEAT 2002) and the Integrated Environmental Management series (DEAT 2002) can further improve the quality of the El reports for explosive projects. • The use by EIA practitioners of an explosive review checklist will assist in ensuring that all key aspects are addressed before submission to relevant authorities, i.e. the report contains all pertinent information and is technically sound, the report is set-up clearly and coherently organized and presented so that it can be understood and that it has addressed all the key issues to make a decision about the proposed development. This will further assist in fast-tracking the approval process often delayed by the request of additional information from the applicant as a result of inadequate reports. • Regular use of the review checklist by EIA practitioners and authorities for ascertaining the quality of the environmental impact reports will contribute to a baseline of EIR quality for evaluating EIA practice for explosive projects under the new regulations promulgated in June 2006. / Thesis (M. Environmental Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a process that seeks to reduce the negative environmental consequences of listed development activities, which could have a detrimental effect on the environment, in the advance of their implementation, and a requirement of legislation in South Africa. An important element of the systematic EIA process is the submission of an environmental impact or scoping report or an environmental impact report (EIR) to the relevant governmental department, interested and affected parties and/or specialist for review to determine the report's adequacy before a project can be authorised or if further information is required. The information made available in reports to decision-makers with regard to developments with the potential of affecting explosive projects, plays a significant role in the authorisation of the project after the authority review process, which is dependent on the quality of the report. In order to contribute more effectively to sustainable development, more attention must be placed on assessing the quality of ElA's as part of determining how effectively EIA has been functioning in South Africa; hence this study is aimed at assessing the quality of EIA assessment reports of four projects with the potential of impacting on explosive industry projects. The objectives of the study included the review by independent reviewers of the quality of four-selected impact reports using a checklist, analysis of the review process results and provision of recommendations to improve the quality of environmental impact reports for-explosive projects. Based on the review results it is concluded that the quality of the four reports for-explosive projects. Based on the review results it is concluded that the quality of the four reports were of an acceptable standard, although certain areas were found poorly performed i.e. improvement with regard to identification of key impacts and considerations of alternatives and mitigation as well as the control and treatment of waste. Otherwise the review method is fairly robust and consistent and therefore can be seen as a reliable indication of EIR quality. The following was recommended to improve the quality of the reports for explosive projects: The use of a quality review checklist for explosive projects by EIA practitioners and authorities to be used as an additional tool to the EIA regulations (DEAT 2002) and the Integrated Environmental Management series (DEAT 2002) can further improve the quality of the El reports for explosive projects. • The use by EIA practitioners of an explosive review checklist will assist in ensuring that all key aspects are addressed before submission to relevant authorities, i.e. the report contains all pertinent information and is technically sound, the report is set-up clearly and coherently organized and presented so that it can be understood and that it has addressed all the key issues to make a decision about the proposed development. This will further assist in fast-tracking the approval process often delayed by the request of additional information from the applicant as a result of inadequate reports. • Regular use of the review checklist by EIA practitioners and authorities for ascertaining the quality of the environmental impact reports will contribute to a baseline of EIR quality for evaluating EIA practice for explosive projects under the new regulations promulgated in June 2006. / Thesis (M. Environmental Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

Thesis (M. PLAN.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Architecture, 1994? / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-129).