A research report submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Resource Conservation Biology (Coursework and Research Report) Johannesburg, February 2016 / Environmental perceptions have been researched in a wide range of communities globally. However, the environmental perceptions of rural people in the developing world, as well as their determinants, remain understudied. Investigating rural inhabitants’ environmental perceptions and what shapes them can produce useful information that could be incorporated into decision-making process that help resolve environmental issues. This study aimed to investigate dominant environmental perceptions and their determinants at individual, household and village levels, with a focus on environmental resource use, resource availability, and resource governance and management, among rural inhabitants of Bushbuckridge region in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. This study used unanalysed pre-existing data for 300 rural households across five villages, collected via a questionnaire in 2006. Of the twelve local resources considered, fuelwood, edible wild herbs, grass and twigs for brooms, reed mats and wooden carvings were the most widely used resources. Building poles, thatch for roofs, and bushmeat were the least widely used resources. On the frequency of use of consumable resources, most households consumed fuelwood every day while edible wild herbs, wild fruits and edible insects were mostly consumed 1-3 times/week. The majority of user households used traditional medicine and bushmeat less than once a month. The majority of respondents perceived local availability of edible wild herbs, traditional medicine, edible insects, and wild fruits to be adequate. By contrast, less than a third of respondents indicated sufficient local supply of building poles, bushmeat and fuelwood. However, it was dominantly perceived that it is not necessary to get harvesting permits for most resources, except in the case of traditional medicines. The chief was repeatedly perceived to be the ultimate authority in issuing harvesting permits and regulating access to natural resources. Individual and household level characteristics, as well as village resided in, were found to shape a range of individuals’ environmental perceptions with regards to resource availability and resource governance and management, but their influence was not consistent across resource or governance issues. For instance, at the individual level, age significantly shaped individuals perceptions of resource governance and management regarding who controls access to natural resources. The youth and middle aged compared to elderly were less likely to perceive that the chief controls access to resources and were also more likely to perceive that the government controls access to resources than elderly. Household-level characteristics were found to have no influence on perceptions of who controls access to resources. Village resided in shaped perceptions of resource availability, for every resource, and most aspects of resource governance issues. Village resided in had a stronger influence on range of individuals’ environmental perceptions than individual and household level factors. Households which depended highly on natural resources were more likely to perceive shortages of resources and an increase in household resource use, the likelihoods of individuals perceiving community development forum and the community itself regulating access to the natural resources increased. It is clear that environmental perceptions vary within and between communities, and are shaped by the characteristics and circumstances of the individual, their households and the community they live in. Furthermore, the strength of influence of these determinants varies according to the particular resource and environmental governance issue concerned. The understanding and identification of factors that shapes individuals’ environmental perceptions will be helpful for policy makers, as it could establish solutions that are grounded in rural communities’ realities and their environmental perceptions.

Barragens pode ser considerando como risco potencial, o conhecimento da forma provável que se comportaria uma onda de cheia (escoamento crítico), provocado pelo rompimento de barragem é muito importante para as populações que residem à jusante do barramento, como acontece em São José do Jacuípe. Isto por que em caso de rompimento torna-se necessário existir plano de evacuação para área afetada a jusante. Neste sentido destaca-se a utilização de modelos ambientais aliados ao SIG como eficaz ferramenta que possibilita mapear áreas com susceptibilidade a inundação em caso de rompimento. O HEC-RAS surge como poderoso modelo hidrológico capaz de efetuar o modelo para rompimento de barragem em integração com o Sistema de Informação Geográfica. E para classificar o grau de risco da população a jusante é fundamental a adoção de metodologia que contemple as variáveis inerentes à importância deste empreendimento, por tanto será utilizado à metodologia de Menescal (2001) por abarcar todas as facetas importantes de segurança de barragem. / Dams can be considering as a potential risk, knowledge of probable way to behave a flood wave (critical flow) caused by dam break is very important for people living on the bus downstream, as in São José do Jacuípe. This is because in case of breakage becomes necessary to have the evacuation plan for the downstream affected area. In this sense there is the use of environmental models combined with GIS as an effective tool that makes it possible to map areas with susceptibility to flooding in the event of disruption. The HEC-RAS comes as powerful hydrological model able to make the model for dam breaking in integration with Geographic Information System. And to classify the degree of risk of downstream population is essential to adopt methodology that considers the variables inherent importance of this project for both will be used to Menescal methodology (2001) to cover all the important facets of dam safety.

Population growth, increasing affluence, and greater access to medicines have led to an increase in active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) entering sewerage networks. Wastewater in lower and lower middle-income countries use that use wastewater for irrigation may use untreated or poorly treated wastewater resulting in the potential for greater concentrations of APIs to enter soils in this way. Wastewater re-used for irrigation is currently not included in environmental risk assessments for APIs in soils. The addition of wastewater to soils changes the organic content and can increase the pH of soils, which will have an impact on the fate of any ionisable APIs introduced during the irrigation process. As the input of APIs to soil from wastewater irrigation is not currently included in the risk assessments, this is an area that requires increased attention. A study was undertaken using a modified sorption-desorption batch equilibrium method (OECD 106) to simulate the addition of synthetic wastewater (SWW) to soils compared to a normal OECD 106 study. The APIs studied were ofloxacin, propranolol, naproxen and nevirapine, and represent a range of API physico-chemical properties. These experiments showed that the changes to soil properties (pH and dissolved organic carbon (DOC)) caused by irrigation with SWW can change the fate of APIs in soils. The ionisation state of the API at the altered pH was more important for the positively charged propranolol than it was for the negatively charged naproxen and neutral nevirapine. The Kd and Log Koc increased during the sorption experiment in some cases with SWW. This has implications on the current terrestrial risk assessment where the trigger value for a more detailed soil risk assessment in at Log Koc >4. If the experiment is only performed in 10 mM CaCl2 as is currently required this may lead to unknown risks of APIs in wastewater irrigated soils not being taken into account. Three soil sterilisation or microbial enzyme suppression methods were investigated to identify how successful they were and if there was any impact on the soil physical chemical structure. Gamma irradiation, autoclaving and the addition of 0.2 g L-1 sodium azide were studied. None of the methods successfully sterilised the soils and some changes in soils were identified post-treatment. Autoclaving destroyed the soil structure, turning it into a fine powder and significantly increasing DOC. Sodium azide changed the pH of the loam soil but not the sandy loam soil. Literature suggested that gamma irradiation was the most likely to sterilise the soils with the least amount of disturbance to its physico-chemical properties but increases in DOC were identified in the current study. The changes to soils after sterilisation varied depending on the individual soil properties, indicating that soils should be studied on a case-by-case basis. Irrigation with wastewater provides continuous inputs of chemicals into soils throughout the growing season so it is vital that more work is done to understand the ultimate fate of pollutants in soil as a result. Wastewater has the potential to change the fate of chemicals in soils meaning that current risk assessments may not thoroughly assess all risks involved.

Colorectal cancer is the third most diagnosed cancer and second leading cause of cancer related deaths in Canada. As Ontario has the largest population in Canada, it also has great disparities in colorectal cancer incidence. The region of Timiskaming has the highest incidence for colorectal cancer, while the region of Peel has the lowest incidence for colorectal cancer in Ontario. The purpose of this study is to identify the dominant non-nutritional modifiable environmental risk factors in the region of Timiskaming compared to the region of Peel that may be associated with diverging colorectal cancer incidence rates. The three objectives of the study included performing a systematic review on available published literature, creating an assessment questionnaire tool regarding environmental exposures, and utilizing the questionnaire assessment tool within a pilot study group while expanding it into the communities of interest. Findings indicate that there are dominant non-nutritional modifiable environmental risk factors in the regions of Timiskaming and Peel that may be associated with colorectal cancer. The dominant factors identified are tobacco/smoking, alcohol use, pesticides/organochlorines, and metal toxins. Following this study, it is imperative that recommendations are directed at a community level and relate to the assessment of potential non-nutritional modifiable environmental risk factors. Future research should accompany a larger sample size, multiple participant communities, and catering of the questionnaire tool towards the communities of interest. / UOIT

The petrochemical Industry is based upon the production of chemicals from petroleum and also deals with chemicals manufactured from the by products of petroleum refinery. At the preliminary stages of chemical plant development and design, the choice of chemical process route is the key design decision. In the past, economics were the most important criterion in choosing the chemical process route. Modified studies imply that the two of the important planning objectives for a petrochemical industry, environmental risk and the industrial safety involved in the development. For the economic evaluation of the industry, and for the proposed final chemicals products in the development, simple and clear economic indicators are needed to be able to indicate an overall economic gain in the development. Safety, as the second objective, is considered in this study as the risk of chemical plant accidents. Risk, when used as an objective function, has to have a simple quantitative form to be easily evaluated for a large number of possible plants in the petrochemical network. The simple quantitative form adopted is a safety index that enables the number of people affected by accidents resulting in chemical releases to be estimated. Environmental issues have now become important considerations due to the potential harmful impacts produced by chemical releases. In this study third objective of planning petrochemical industry was developed by involving environmental considerations and environmental risk index. Indiana Relative Chemical Hazard Score (IRCHS) was used to allow chemical industries routes to be ranked by environmental hazardous. The focus of this work is to perform early planning and decision-making for a petrochemical plants network for maximum economical gain, minimum risk to people from possible chemical accidents and minimum environmental risk. The three objectives, when combined with constraints describing the desired or the possible structure of the industry, will form an optimization model. For this study, the petrochemical planning model consists of a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to select the best routes from the basic feedstocks available in Kuwait -as a case study- to the desired final products with multiple objective functions. The economic, safety and environmental risk objectives usually have conflicting needs. The presence of several conflicting objectives is typical when planning. In many cases, where optimization techniques are utilized, the multiple objectives are simply aggregated into one single objective function. Optimization is then conducted to get one optimal result. This study, which is concerned with economic and risk objectives, leads to the identification of important factors that affecting the building-up of environmental management system for petrochemical industry. Moreover, the procedure of modelling and model solution can be used to simplify the decision-making for complex or large systems such as the petrochemical industry. It presents the use of simple multiple objective optimization tools within a petrochemical planning tool formulated as a mixed integer linear programming model. Such a tool is particularly useful when the decision-making task must be discussed and approved by officials who often have little experience with optimization theories

The petrochemical Industry is based upon the production of chemicals from petroleum and also deals with chemicals manufactured from the by products of petroleum refinery. At the preliminary stages of chemical plant development and design, the choice of chemical process route is the key design decision. In the past, economics were the most important criterion in choosing the chemical process route. Modified studies imply that the two of the important planning objectives for a petrochemical industry, environmental risk and the industrial safety involved in the development. For the economic evaluation of the industry, and for the proposed final chemicals products in the development, simple and clear economic indicators are needed to be able to indicate an overall economic gain in the development. Safety, as the second objective, is considered in this study as the risk of chemical plant accidents. Risk, when used as an objective function, has to have a simple quantitative form to be easily evaluated for a large number of possible plants in the petrochemical network. The simple quantitative form adopted is a safety index that enables the number of people affected by accidents resulting in chemical releases to be estimated. Environmental issues have now become important considerations due to the potential harmful impacts produced by chemical releases. In this study third objective of planning petrochemical industry was developed by involving environmental considerations and environmental risk index. Indiana Relative Chemical Hazard Score (IRCHS) was used to allow chemical industries routes to be ranked by environmental hazardous. The focus of this work is to perform early planning and decision-making for a petrochemical plants network for maximum economical gain, minimum risk to people from possible chemical accidents and minimum environmental risk. The three objectives, when combined with constraints describing the desired or the possible structure of the industry, will form an optimization model. For this study, the petrochemical planning model consists of a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to select the best routes from the basic feedstocks available in Kuwait -as a case study- to the desired final products with multiple objective functions. The economic, safety and environmental risk objectives usually have conflicting needs. The presence of several conflicting objectives is typical when planning. In many cases, where optimization techniques are utilized, the multiple objectives are simply aggregated into one single objective function. Optimization is then conducted to get one optimal result. This study, which is concerned with economic and risk objectives, leads to the identification of important factors that affecting the building-up of environmental management system for petrochemical industry. Moreover, the procedure of modelling and model solution can be used to simplify the decision-making for complex or large systems such as the petrochemical industry. It presents the use of simple multiple objective optimization tools within a petrochemical planning tool formulated as a mixed integer linear programming model. Such a tool is particularly useful when the decision-making task must be discussed and approved by officials who often have little experience with optimization theories

This research investigated the effects of Scientifically Estimated Environmental Risks (SEERs) and perceived risks of floods, hurricanes, and hazardous material releases, and hazard mitigation measures with other locational and neighborhood amenities on housing prices. This study also tested the relationship between demographic characteristics and SEERs as well as demographic characteristics and environmental risk perceptions. The relationships among these different types of variables were examined by means of statistical analyses such as correlational analyses, ANOVA, MANOVA, and hedonic price regression analyses. Major findings of this research are as follows: There were no statistically significant relationships between most of the demographic characteristics (age, sex, household size, marital status, tenure at the present home) and SEERs of the two natural hazards (a flood and a hurricane). By contrast, SEER of hazardous materials was correlated with all demographic characteristics. There were little differences in risk perceptions of natural and technological hazards across demographic groups. Specifically, the respondents' risk perceptions of both natural and technological hazards did not differ by age, household size, and marital status. By contrast, educational level, gender (male = 1), and median household income were negatively related to perceived risk of the natural hazards, whereas educational attainment and gender were negatively related to perceived risk of hazardous material releases. SEERs of floods and hurricanes were positively related to respondents' perception of property damage, but not related to injury or heath problems from those natural hazards. SEER of hazardous materials was related to all three categories of risk perception of a hazardous material release. Neither the SEERs of natural hazards nor risk perceptions of these hazards had impacts on housing prices. However, the SEER of hazardous material releases and risk perceptions of this hazard were significant housing price determinants. None of the variables representing household hazard mitigation measures contributed to the explanation of housing prices.

To protect the environment from contaminants, environmental risk assessment (ERA) evaluates the risk of adverse effects to populations, communities and ecosystems. Environmental management decisions rely on ERAs, which commonly are based on a few endpoints at the individual organism level. To bridge the gap between what is measured and what is intended for protection, individual-level effects can be integrated in population models, and translated to the population level. The general aim of this doctoral thesis was to extrapolate individual-level effects of harpacticoid copepods to the population level by developing and using population models. Matrix models and individual based models were developed and applied to life-history data of Nitocra spinipes and Amphiascus tenuiremis, and demographic equations were used to calculate population-level effects in low- and high-density populations. As a basis for the population models, individual-level processes were studied. Development was found to be more sensitive compared to reproduction in standard ecotoxicity tests measuring life-history data. Additional experimental animals would improve statistical power for reproductive endpoints, but at high labor and cost. Therefore, a new test-design was developed in this thesis. Exposing animals in groups included a higher number of animals without increased workload. The number of reproducing females was increased, and the statistical power of reproduction was improved. Individual-level effects were more or equally sensitive compared to population-level effects, and individual-level effects were translated to the population level to various degrees by population models of different complexities. More complex models showed stronger effects at the population level compared to the simpler models. Density dependence affected N. spinipes populations negatively so that toxicant effects were stronger at higher population densities. The tools presented here can be used to assess the toxicity of environmental contaminants at the individual and population level, improve ERA, and thereby the basis for environmental management. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Submitted. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2000. / Adviser: Stephen H. Levine. Submitted to the Dept. of Civil Engineering. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 259-277). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-131) Also available via the World Wide Web.