Download or read book Measures of Environmental Performance and Ecosystem Condition written by National Academy of Engineering and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1999-05-19 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Cleveland's Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969, no environmental measurements were necessary to know the seriousness of the problem. Incidents like the Cuyahoga fire raise an important question: Can catastrophes-in-the-making be detected early enough to be prevented? For those in industry, such disasters point to the need for measures that can improve the environmental performance of processes, products, business practices, and linked industrial systems. In Measures of Environmental Performance and Ecosystem Condition, experts share their insights on environmental metrics. The volume explores the most productive relationship between measures of environmental performance and measures of ecosystem conditions. It reviews current approaches, evaluates structures for business decisionmaking, and includes a matrix for determining the environmental performance of industrial facilities. Case studies include: Development and application of a water-quality rating scheme for streams and reservoirs in the Tennessee Valley. Three years of successful experience with waste metrics at 3M. The book covers the range of environmental performance and condition metrics, from the use of material flow data to monitor environmental performance at the national level to the use of bioassays to measure the toxicity of industrial effluents. This book offers something for everyoneâ€"policymakers, executives, engineers, managers, and advocatesâ€"with a stake in the measurement of environmental performance and ecological conditions.
Download or read book Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics written by National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1999-08-24 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics is a corporate-focused analysis that brings clarity and practicality to the complex issues of environmental metrics in industry. The book examines the metrics implications to businesses as their responsibilities expand beyond the factory gateâ€"upstream to suppliers and downstream to products and services. It examines implications that arise from greater demand for comparability of metrics among businesses by the investment community and environmental interest groups. The controversy over what sustainable development means for businesses is also addressed. Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics identifies the most useful metrics based on case studies from four industriesâ€"automotive, chemical, electronics, and pulp and paperâ€"and includes specific corporate examples. It contains goals and recommendations for public and private sector players interested in encouraging the broader use of metrics to improve industrial environmental performance and those interested in addressing the tough issues of prioritization, weighting of metrics for meaningful comparability, and the longer term metrics needs presented by sustainable development.
Download or read book Assessing and Measuring Environmental Impact and Sustainability written by Jiří Jaromír Klemeš and published by Butterworth-Heinemann. This book was released on 2015-01-20 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assessing and Measuring Environmental Impact and Sustainability answers the question “what are the available methodologies to assess the environmental sustainability of a product, system or process?” Multiple well-known authors share their expertise in order to give a broad perspective of this issue from a chemical and environmental engineering perspective. This mathematical, quantitative book includes many case studies to assist with the practical application of environmental and sustainability methods. Readers learn how to efficiently assess and use these methods. This book summarizes all relevant environmental methodologies to assess the sustainability of a product and tools, in order to develop more green products or processes. With life cycle assessment as its main methodology, this book speaks to engineers interested in environmental impact and sustainability. Helps engineers to assess, evaluate, and measure sustainability in industry Provides workable approaches to environmental and sustainability assessment Readers learn tools to assess the sustainability of a process or product and to design it in an environmentally friendly way
Download or read book Evaluation Guidelines for Ecological Indicators written by Laura E. Jackson and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Monitoring Ecological Condition at Regional Scales written by Shabeg S. Sandhu and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program was created by EPA to develop the capability for tracking the changing conditions of our natural resources and to give environmental policy the advantages ofa sound scientific understanding of trends. Former EPA Administrators recognized early that contemporary monitoring programs could not even quantify simple unknowns like the number of lakes suffering from acid rain, let along determine if national control policies were benefiting these lakes. Today, adding to acidification impacts are truly complex problems such as determining the effects of climate change, of increases in ultraviolet light, toxic chemicals, eutrophication and critical habitat loss. Also today, the Government Performance and Results Act seeks to have agencies develop performance standards based on results rather than simply on levels of programmatic activities. The charge to EMAP of ecosystems is, therefore, the same today as it was a with respect to measuring the condition decade ago. We welcome the increasing urgency for sound scientific monitoring methods and data by efforts to protect and improve the environment. Systematic nationwide monitoring of natural resources is more than anyone program can accomplish, however. In an era of declining budgets, it is crucial that monitoring programs at all levels of government coordinate and share environmental data. EMAP resources are dwarfed by the more than $500 million spent on federal monitoring activities each year.
Download or read book Annual Report written by United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ecological Integrity written by David Pimentel and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-04-22 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global Integrity Project has brought together leading scientists and thinkers from around the world to examine the combined problems of threatened and unequal human well-being, degradation of the ecosphere, and unsustainable economies. Based on the proposition that healthy, functioning ecosystems are a necessary prerequisite for both economic security and social justice, the project is built around the concept of ecological integrity and its practical implications for policy and management.Ecological Integrity presents a synthesis and findings of the project. Contributors -- including Robert Goodland, James Karr, Orie Loucks, Jack Manno, William Rees, Mark Sagoff, Robert Ulanowicz, Philippe Crabbe, Laura Westra, David Pimentel, Reed Noss, and others -- examine the key elements of ecological integrity and consider what happens when integrity is lost or compromised. The book: examines historical and philosophical foundations of the concept of ecological integrity explores how integrity can be measured examines the relationships among ecological integrity, human health, and food production looks at economic and ethical issues that need to be considered in protecting ecological integrity offers concrete recommendations for reversing ecological degradation while promoting social and economic justice and welfare .Contributors argue that there is an urgent need for rapid and fundamental change in the ecologically destructive patterns of collective human behavior if society is to survive and thrive in coming decades.Ecological Integrity is a groundbreaking book that integrates environmental science, economics, law, and ethics in problem analysis, synthesis, and solution, and is a vital contribution for anyone concerned with interactions between human and planetary health.
Download or read book OECD Environmental Performance Reviews Belgium 2021 written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-31 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Belgium has made progress in decoupling several environmental pressures from economic growth, in improving wastewater treatment and in expanding protected areas. Regions have achieved high levels of recovery and recycling, and have pioneered circular economy policies. However, further efforts are needed to progress towards carbon neutrality, reduce air and water pollution, reverse biodiversity loss and consolidate results of circular economy initiatives.
Download or read book The Ecology of Industry written by National Academy of Engineering and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1998-09-03 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides insights into the environmental practices of five industry sectors: materials processing, manufacturing, electric utilities, and pulp and paper. The ecology of industry is presented in terms of systems of production and consumption, taking into account the flows of material, energy, capital, and information. The book examines ways to improve the environmental performance of these industries (and others, such as the service sector) and shows how decisions made by industry managers can leverage systemic environmental improvements elsewhere in the economy.
Download or read book Handbook of Ecological Indicators for Assessment of Ecosystem Health written by Sven E. Jorgensen and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2005-01-27 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of ecosystem health explores the interactions between natural systems, human health, and social organization. As decision makers require a sound, modular approach to environmental management and sustainable development, ecosystem health assessment indicators are increasingly used across any number of applications. The Handbook of Ecologic
Download or read book Ecological Indicators for the Nation written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2000-05-12 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental indicators, such as global temperatures and pollutant concentrations, attract scientists' attention and often make the headlines. Equally important to policymaking are indicators of the ecological processes and conditions that yield food, fiber, building materials and ecological "services" such as water purification and recreation. This book identifies ecological indicators that can support U.S. policymaking and also be adapted to decisions at the regional and local levels. The committee describes indicators of land cover and productivity, species diversity, and other key ecological processesâ€"explaining why each indicator is useful, what models support the indicator, what the measured values will mean, how the relevant data are gathered, how data collection might be improved, and what effects emerging technologies are likely to have on the measurements. The committee reviews how it arrived at its recommendations and explores how the indicators can contribute to policymaking. Also included are interesting details on paleoecology, satellite imagery, species diversity, and other aspects of ecological assessment. Federal, state, and local decision-makers, as well as environmental scientists and practitioners, will be especially interested in this new book.
Download or read book The State of the Nation s Ecosystems written by H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-09-09 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We all rely on a familiar set of indicators - interest rates, unemployment, inflation, the Dow Jones index, and GDP, for example - to gauge the performance of national economies. No such measures are currently available to describe the environment. This book lays out a blueprint for periodic reporting on the condition and use of ecosystems in the United States. Developed by experts from businesses, environmental organizations, universities, and federal, state, and local government agencies, it is designed to provide policymakers and the general public with a succinct and comprehensive - yet scientifically sound and non-partisan - view of 'how we are doing'. This book should prove invaluable for decision makers in natural resource management and environmental policy in government and environmental organizations, businesses, and trade associations; academics with a research or teaching interest in environmental issues; and the general public interested in the continued well-being of American ecosystems.
Download or read book Sustainability Indicators written by Tomás Hák and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-09-26 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the concept of sustainability has been widely embraced, it has been only vaguely defined and is exceedingly difficult to measure. Sustainability indicators are critical to making the broad concept of sustainability operational by providing specific measures by which decision makers and the public can judge progress. Sustainability Indicators defines the present state of the art in indicator development. It presents a comprehensive assessment of the science behind various indicators, while placing special emphasis on their use as communications tools. The contributors draw on their experience as academics and practitioners to describe the conceptual challenges to measuring something as complex as sustainability at local, regional, national, and global scales. The book also reviews existing indicators to assess how they could be better employed, considering which indicators are overused and which have been underutilized. Sustainability Indicators will help planners and policy makers find indicators that are ready for application and relevant to their needs, and will help researchers identify the unresolved issues where progress is most urgently needed. All readers will find advice as to the most effective ways to use indicators to support decision making.
Download or read book An Ecosystem Services Approach to Assessing the Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-12-20 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the Gulf of Mexico recovers from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, natural resource managers face the challenge of understanding the impacts of the spill and setting priorities for restoration work. The full value of losses resulting from the spill cannot be captured, however, without consideration of changes in ecosystem services-the benefits delivered to society through natural processes. An Ecosystem Services Approach to Assessing the Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico discusses the benefits and challenges associated with using an ecosystem services approach to damage assessment, describing potential impacts of response technologies, exploring the role of resilience, and offering suggestions for areas of future research. This report illustrates how this approach might be applied to coastal wetlands, fisheries, marine mammals, and the deep sea-each of which provide key ecosystem services in the Gulf-and identifies substantial differences among these case studies. The report also discusses the suite of technologies used in the spill response, including burning, skimming, and chemical dispersants, and their possible long-term impacts on ecosystem services.
Download or read book OECD Environmental Performance Reviews Norway 2022 written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2022-04-22 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the fourth Environmental Performance Review of Norway. It provides an independent, evidence-based evaluation of the country’s environmental performance over the past decade.
Download or read book OECD Environmental Performance Reviews Australia 2019 written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-30 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Australia has managed to decouple economic growth from the main environmental pressures and has made impressive progress in expanding protected areas. However, it is one of the most resource- and carbon-intensive OECD countries, and the state of its biodiversity is poor and worsening. Advancing ...
Download or read book Engineering Within Ecological Constraints written by National Academy of Engineering and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1996-03-22 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engineering within Ecological Constraints presents a rare dialogue between engineers and environmental scientists as they consider the many technical as well as social and legal challenges of ecologically sensitive engineering. The volume looks at the concepts of scale, resilience, and chaos as they apply to the points where the ecological life support system of nature interacts with the technological life support system created by humankind. Among the questions addressed are: What are the implications of differences between ecological and engineering concepts of efficiency and stability? How can engineering solutions to immediate problems be made compatible with long-term ecological concerns? How can we transfer ecological principles to economic systems? The book also includes important case studies on such topics as water management in southern Florida and California and oil exploration in rain forests. From its conceptual discussions to the practical experience reflected in case studies, this volume will be important to policymakers, practitioners, researchers, educators, and students in the fields of engineering, environmental science, and environmental policy.
