Environmental planning and permitting for transportation projects is often seen as one of the top reasons for project delay. On design-build projects, this process is often treated as the critical path to advertising the project and on all transportation projects many critical phases of the project such as right of way acquisition, final design, and construction cannot begin until the environmental planning process is complete. The objective of this research is to identify challenges to the environmental planning and permitting process and opportunities for managing those challenges. To identify these challenges and opportunities, a synthesis of transportation and design-build research was done along with interviews with agencies leaders at seven State Departments of Transportation (DOTs). Once these challenges and opportunities were identified, example environmental planning documents and requests for proposals were reviewed from various State DOTs to document their usage. Additionally follow up interviews were conducted with environmental planning experts with experience on design-build projects from six of the State DOTs that were previously interviewed. This research contributes to the state of knowledge through providing comprehensive information on environmental planning and permitting challenges that must be managed on design-build transportation projects and opportunities for managing these challenges. Managing the identified challenges by utilizing these opportunities provides transportation agencies with opportunities to make the environmental planning and permitting process on design-build projects more efficient. This research contributes to the state of practice of transportation agencies through providing opportunities for streamlining environmental analysis and permitting that is vital to transportation agencies who strive to accelerate the delivery of design-build projects.

A política agrária brasileira, motivada pelos anseios de reforma e justiça social, vem sendo pautada nos projetos de assentamento familiar, cujo modelo restou também consolidado em território amazônico e repercutindo graves incidentes ambientais. O estudo de caso do Projeto de Assentamento Dirigido Anauá, fincado no sul do Estado de Roraima, traz à tona toda essa complexa problemática, agravada sobremaneira pelo diagnóstico de desflorestamento não autorizado, procedimento de licenciamento ambiental sequer iniciado e responsabilidade a ser apurada dentro dos organismos oficiais de controle. / The Brazilian agrarian policy, motivated by the desire for reform and social justice, has been based on projects of family settlement, the model also remained consolidated in Amazonian territory and resulting serious environmental incidents. The case study of the Draft Settlement Managed Anauá, established in southern state of Roraima, brings to light all those complex problems, particularly exacerbated by the diagnosis of unauthorized deforestation, environmental permitting procedure even started and responsibility to be found within the bodies official control.

A política agrária brasileira, motivada pelos anseios de reforma e justiça social, vem sendo pautada nos projetos de assentamento familiar, cujo modelo restou também consolidado em território amazônico e repercutindo graves incidentes ambientais. O estudo de caso do Projeto de Assentamento Dirigido Anauá, fincado no sul do Estado de Roraima, traz à tona toda essa complexa problemática, agravada sobremaneira pelo diagnóstico de desflorestamento não autorizado, procedimento de licenciamento ambiental sequer iniciado e responsabilidade a ser apurada dentro dos organismos oficiais de controle. / The Brazilian agrarian policy, motivated by the desire for reform and social justice, has been based on projects of family settlement, the model also remained consolidated in Amazonian territory and resulting serious environmental incidents. The case study of the Draft Settlement Managed Anauá, established in southern state of Roraima, brings to light all those complex problems, particularly exacerbated by the diagnosis of unauthorized deforestation, environmental permitting procedure even started and responsibility to be found within the bodies official control.

5 Public participation on the decision-making procedure regarding the environment protection is a very important aspect within the building-permitting process. In this thesis, I focus particularly on the public participation in the form of associations through the entire permitting procedure of the structures. The desired goal of this thesis is to analyse the current Czech legislation including with a preview to the international legislation regarding the two fundamental rights: right to information and right to participation. I analyse the actual state of the association participation within the procedure using the relevant case-law. Above all, I aim to the comparison of the current need of such extensive rights to participation against the preservation of the interest of the environment protection and public monitoring function which is definitely important within any procedure. Finally, I am reaching the opinion that the structure-permitting procedure is unnecessarily complicated which can't be a benefit for the public nor the investors. In my opinion, the entire procedure should greatly simplify and the cooperation between the public and the investors should be carried out in a different manner.

A política agrária brasileira, motivada pelos anseios de reforma e justiça social, vem sendo pautada nos projetos de assentamento familiar, cujo modelo restou também consolidado em território amazônico e repercutindo graves incidentes ambientais. O estudo de caso do Projeto de Assentamento Dirigido Anauá, fincado no sul do Estado de Roraima, traz à tona toda essa complexa problemática, agravada sobremaneira pelo diagnóstico de desflorestamento não autorizado, procedimento de licenciamento ambiental sequer iniciado e responsabilidade a ser apurada dentro dos organismos oficiais de controle. / The Brazilian agrarian policy, motivated by the desire for reform and social justice, has been based on projects of family settlement, the model also remained consolidated in Amazonian territory and resulting serious environmental incidents. The case study of the Draft Settlement Managed Anauá, established in southern state of Roraima, brings to light all those complex problems, particularly exacerbated by the diagnosis of unauthorized deforestation, environmental permitting procedure even started and responsibility to be found within the bodies official control.

This thesis investigates innovative effluent point-source permitting approaches from an integrated urban wastewater system (UWWS) perspective, and demonstrates that three proposed permitting approaches based on optimal operational or control strategies of the wastewater system are effective in delivering multiple and balanced environmental benefits (water quality, GHG emissions) in a cost-efficient manner. Traditional permitting policy and current flexible permitting practices are first reviewed, and opportunities for permitting from an integrated UWWS perspective are identified. An operational strategy-based permitting approach is first developed by a four-step permitting framework. Based on integrated UWWS modelling, operational strategies are optimised with objectives including minimisation of operational cost, variability of treatment efficiency and environmental risk, subject to compliance of environmental water quality standards. As trade-offs exist between the three objectives, the optimal solutions are screened according to the decision-makers’ preference and permits are derived based on the selected solutions. The advantages of this permitting approach over the traditional regulatory method are: a) cost-effectiveness is considered in decision-making, and b) permitting based on operational strategies is more reliable in delivering desirable environmental outcomes. In the studied case, the selected operational strategies achieve over 78% lower environmental risk with at least 7% lower operational cost than the baseline scenario; in comparison, the traditional end-of-pipe limits can lead to expensive solutions with no better environmental water quality. The developed permitting framework facilitates the derivation of sustainable solutions as: a) stakeholders are involved at all points of the decision-making process, so that various impacts of the operation of the UWWS can be considered, and b) multi-objective optimisation algorithm and visual analytics tool are employed to efficiently optimise and select high performance operational solutions. The second proposed permitting approach is based on optimal integrated real time control (RTC) strategies. Permits are developed by a three-step decision-making analysis framework similar to the first approach. An off-line model-based predictive aeration control strategy is investigated for the case study, and further benefits (9% lower environmental risk and 0.6% less cost) are achieved by an optimal RTC strategy exploiting the dynamic assimilation capacity of the environment. A similar permitting approach, but simpler than the first two methods, is developed to derive operational/control strategy-based permits by an integrated cost-risk analysis framework. Less comprehensive modelling and optimisation skills are needed as it couples a dynamic wastewater system model and a stochastic permitting model and uses sensitivity analysis and scenario analysis to optimise operational/control strategies, hence this approach can be a good option to develop risk-based cost-effective permits without intensive resources. Finally, roadmaps for the implementation of the three innovative permitting approaches are discussed. Current performance-based regulations and self-monitoring schemes are used as examples to visualise the new way of permitting. The viability of the proposed methods as alternative regulation approaches are evaluated against the core competencies of modern policy-making.

This paper uses an environmental justice framework which is expanded through decolonial theory to analyse whether the mine permitting process used by the Swedish state does justice to local people’s opinions, perspectives and cultural histories. The specific case of Gállok is chosen as it is widely known in national and international circles and therefore has potential to make long-term impact. Research analysing the Swedish permitting process and its implications is severely lacking, thus this paper aims to act as an important stepping stone for future research into the subject. To answer the question, yarning was used to capture local perspectives in Jokkmokk. The conversations were later transcribed and coded using the expanded forms of justice as main coding topics. The results show that the inclusion of local communities in the consultation process is mostly symbolic and that they have no say or power over project details. The conversations also revealed that there is an overwhelming belief that the benefits to the local community are greatly exaggerated, while costs are understated. The analysis shows that the local communities, especially the Sámi sub-group, would have to bare the largest part of ecological and social damages, while overall benefits would be minimal. Finally, the paper argues that the Indigenous community members in northern Sweden cannot live according to their own ways, as land alterations from industrial developments force them to adapt, in order to be able to continue herding reindeer. This study fills a gap in research looking at the permitting process in the Swedish context as a potential source of oppression from a local community’s perspective. It emphasises the importance of understanding and addressing a larger system’s subsystems in order to cause an eventual transition towards more equitable functioning.

Sweden wants to produce 100% of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2040 and achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. While wind power is key to this transition, the permit process for large onshore wind power projects is one of the major challenges the country is currently facing, specifically the provision on municipal approval in the Environmental Code, the so-called municipal veto. To facilitate the expansion of wind projects in Sweden, the double testing of wind power applications was abolished in 2009, and the municipal veto was introduced to preserve the municipalities’ planning influence. However, the municipal veto contributed to a less predictable and legally secure permit process and became the main reason behind the rejections of wind power applications. Today, in 2021, the Swedish Government assigned a special investigator to examine and propose possible changes to the municipal veto provision. Though the municipalities believe that the veto is essential for their self-government and planning monopoly, the Swedish Energy Agency and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency argue that the municipal authority should be exercised through the municipal general planning documents. Therefore, this thesis aims to verify the authorities’ argument by examining the relationship between the municipalities’ planning conditions for wind power and the permit decisions. The study is performed in collaboration with Westander Klimat och Energi and is based on 206 large onshore wind power applications between 2014 and 2020. The main research methods consist of a document analysis and of statistical analyses, namely simple percentages, and the chi-square test of independence, along with Cramer’s V calculation. The projects are categorized mainly based on the municipal planning conditions, and the permit decisions are analyzed accordingly. Essentially, it is shown that, even if not legally binding, the municipal general spatial planning documents constitute a valuable tool for the planning of onshore wind power projects in Sweden. Furthermore, the municipal planning conditions and permit decisions are not independent, however, their strength of association is weak. Nonetheless, the statistics indicate that in areas designated as suitable, more cases are likely to receive an approval than expected, and in areas not designated as suitable, the applications are more likely to be revoked than one would expect. In conclusion, it is important to invest resources into the strategic wind power planning at the local level. Also, the municipal plans must be kept updated to consistently reflect the municipalities’ intentions towards the use of their land and water areas.

This diploma thesis describes the design of new connections and modification of existing connections cover and housing of oil module for trucks. This connection must resist the effects of operating oil trucks modules. These effects include pressure pulsation, temperature fluctuations, vibrations and weather conditions. The most important is the resistance of cover to rotation and loss of tightness. The work includes research of different connections usable for this application. Other research focuses on the use of connection of other manufacturers in the market. The work included a proposal of possible solutions for the modification of cover and housing and their evaluation using specified criteria with rating matrix. The final part deals with the development of the three best evaluated proposed solution. For each solution is made as necessary calculations, drawings and next steps of implementation of individual solutions.

Les précipitations en Afrique septentrionale se produisent principalement pendant la saison des moussons. Elles résultent de l'interaction des processus atmosphériques dans une large gamme d'échelles, ce qui rend leur prévision difficile. Les mécanismes de contrôle des précipitations sont examinés au cours d'un épisode bien documentée d'émission et de transport de poussières du 9 au 14 juin 2006. La même méthode pour la détection et le suivi des nuages a été appliquée sur les observations par satellite et plusieurs simulations numériques (avec convection explicite ou paramétrée) pour étudier les systèmes précipitants. Parmi les différents types de systèmes identifiés, les systèmes convectifs de mésoéchelle (MCS) produisent la majeure partie de la précipitation totale, avec une contribution observée de 66%. Les plus grands producteurs de précipitation sont les MCS à longue durée de vie (c'est-à-dire de plus de 6 h), à l'origine de 55% des précipitations. Ces MCS deviennent plus organisés, c'est-à-dire plus grands, plus longs et plus rapides, alors qu'ils propagent vers l'ouest. Les simulations permettant la convection reproduisent la partition de pluie, mais ne reproduisent pas complètement l'organisation des MCS à longue durée de vie. La simulation avec convection paramétrée ne parvient pas à représenter correctement la partition de pluie. Cela montre la valeur ajoutée apportée par les simulations permettant la convection. L'effet radiatif des poussières est ensuite analysé en comparant deux simulations permettant la convection, avec et sans interaction poussière-rayonnement. Les effets directs sont un réchauffement de niveau moyen et un refroidissement à proximité de la surface, principalement dans les parties occidentales de l'Afrique septentrionale, qui tendent à stabiliser l'atmosphère inférieure. Un effet semi-direct est une diminution des précipitations. Cette baisse des pluies s'explique par un nombre trop faible de MCS à longue durée de vie qui, néanmoins, ont une durée de vie plus longue et sont plus efficaces en termes de production de précipitations. La diminution du nombre de MCS à longue durée de vie est due à la stabilisation de l'atmosphère qui inhibe le déclenchement de la convection. / Precipitation in northern Africa occurs mainly during the monsoon season. It arises from the interaction of atmospheric processes across a wide range of scales, making its prediction challenging. The control mechanisms on precipitation are examined during a well-documented case study of dust emission and transport on 9-14 June 2006. The same method for cloud detection and tracking was applied on satellite observations and several numerical simulations (with explicit or parameterized convection) to investigate the precipitating systems. Among the various types of systems identified, mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) yield most of the total precipitation, with an observed contribution of 66%. The greatest precipitation producers are the long-lived MCSs (i.e., that last more than 6 h), at the origin of 55% of precipitation. These MCSs become more organized, i.e., larger, longer-lived and faster, as they propagate westward. The convection-permitting simulations capture the rainfall partition, but do not fully reproduce the organization of the long-lived MCSs. The simulation with parameterized convection fails to correctly represent the rain partition. This shows the added-value provided by the convection-permitting simulations. The radiative effect of dust is then analyzed, by comparing two convection-permitting simulations, with and without dust-radiation interaction. The direct effects are a mid-level warming and a near-surface cooling mainly in the western parts of northern Africa, which tend to stabilize the lower atmosphere. One semi-direct effect is a decrease in precipitation. This rainfall drop is explained by a too low number of long-lived MCSs which, nevertheless, are longer-lived and more efficient in terms of precipitation production. The diminution in the number of long-lived MCSs is due to the stabilization of the atmosphere inhibiting the triggering of convection.