Environmental Health and Protection Commons^™

The Role Of Environmental Filtering In Structuring Appalachian Tree Communities: Topographic Influences On Functional Diversity Are Mediated Through Soil Characteristics, Julia I. Chapman, Ryan W. Mcewan

Ryan McEwan

Identifying the drivers of community assembly has long been a central goal in ecology, and the development of functional diversity indices has provided a new way of detecting the influence of environmental gradients on biotic communities. For an old-growth Appalachian forest, we used path analysis to understand how patterns of tree functional diversity relate to topography and soil gradients and to determine whether topographic effects are mediated through soil chemistry. All of our path models supported the idea of environmental filtering: stressful areas (high elevation, low soil moisture, low soil nutrients) were occupied by communities of low functional diversity, which …

Chapter One: Overview Of The Limpopo Basin, Stanley Mubako

Stanley Mubako

No abstract provided.

Global Fossil Energy Markets And Climate Change Mitigation: An Analysis With Remind, Nico Bauer, Ioanna Mouratiadou, Gunnar Luderer, Lavinia Baumstark, Robert Brecha, Ottmar Edenhofer, Elmar Kriegler

Robert J. Brecha

We analyze the dynamics of global fossil resource markets under different assumptions for the supply of fossil fuel resources, development pathways for energy demand, and climate policy settings. Resource markets, in particular the oil market, are characterized by a large discrepancy between costs of resource extraction and commodity prices on international markets. We explain this observation in terms of (a) the intertemporal scarcity rent, (b) regional price differentials arising from trade and transport costs, (c) heterogeneity and inertia in the extraction sector. These effects are captured by the REMIND model. We use the model to explore economic effects of changes …

Logistic Curves, Extraction Costs And Peak Oil, Robert Brecha

Robert J. Brecha

Debates about the possibility of a near-term maximum in world oil production have become increasingly prominent over the past decade, with the focus often being on the quantification of geologically available and technologically recoverable amounts of oil in the ground. Economically, the important parameter is not a physical limit to resources in the ground, but whether market price signals and costs of extraction will indicate the efficiency of extracting conventional or nonconventional resources as opposed to making substitutions over time for other fuels and technologies. We present a hybrid approach to the peak-oil question with two models in which the …

Development Without Energy? Assessing Future Scenarios Of Energy Consumption In Developing Countries, Jan Steckel, Robert Brecha, Michael Jakob, Jessica Strefler, Gunnar Luderer

Robert J. Brecha

We analyze the relationship between economic development and energy consumption in the context of greenhouse gas mitigation. The main contribution of this work is to compare estimates of energy thresholds in the form of minimum energy requirements to reach high levels of development with output projections of per capita final energy supply from a group of integrated assessment models (IAMs). Scenarios project that reductions of carbon emissions in developing countries will be achieved not only by means of decreasing the carbon intensity, but also by making a significant break with the historically observed relationship between energy use and economic growth. …

Sixth Edition, Global Environment Outlook (Geo-6) Regional Assessment For Africa, Stanley Mubako

Stanley Mubako

No abstract provided.

Ambient Air Concentrations Exceeded Health Based Standards For Fine Particulate Matter And Benzene During The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Earthea Nance, Denae King, Beverly Wright, Robert D. Bullard

Earthea Nance, PhD (Stanford University, 2004)

Deadly Waiting Game: An Environmental Justice Framework For Examining Natural And Man-Made Disasters Beyond Hurricane Katrina [Abstract], Robert D. Bullard

Robert D Bullard

Presenter: Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Clark Atlanta University 1 page.

Variable Renewable Energy In Modeling Climate Change Mitigation Scenarios, Falko Ueckerdt, Robert J. Brecha, Gunnar Luderer, Patrick Sullivan, Eva Schmid, Nico Bauer, Diana Böttger

Robert J. Brecha

This paper addresses the issue of how to account for short‐term temporal variability of renewable energy sources and power demand in long‐term climate change mitigation scenarios in energy‐economic models. An approach that captures in a stylized way the major challenges to the integration of variable renewable energy sources into power systems has been developed. As a first application this approach has been introduced to REMIND‐D, a hybrid energy‐economy model of Germany. An approximation of the residual load duration curve is implemented. The approximating function endogenously changes depending on the penetration and mix of variable renewable power. The approach can thus …

Rose: Roadmaps Towards Sustainable Energy Futures And Climate Protection: A Synthesis Of Results From The Rose Project, Elmar Kriegler, Ioanna Mouratiadou, Gunnar Luderer, Nico Bauer, Katherine Calvin, Enrica Decian, Robert J. Brecha, Wenying Chen, Aleh Cherp, Jae Edmonds, Kejun Jiang, Shonali Pachauri, Fabio Sferra, Massimo Tavoni, Ottmar Edenhofer

Robert J. Brecha

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Exploring energy demand and supply uncertainty: An exploration of uncertainty on drivers of energy demand and supply is indispensable for better understanding the prospects of long-tern climate stabilization. The RoSE study is the first of its kind to systematically explore the impact of economic growth, population and fossil fuel scarcity, in scenarios with and without climate policy, using a model ensemble. A feature of RoSE is the participation of five established integrated assessment modelling teams from three important regions in international climate policy negotiations: the EU, the USA and China. Economic growth: Neither slow nor rapid economic growth …

Economics Of Nuclear Power And Climate Change Mitigation Policies, Nico Bauer, Robert Brecha, Gunnar Luderer

Robert J. Brecha

The events of March 2011 at the nuclear power complex in Fukushima, Japan, raised questions about the safe operation of nuclear power plants, with early retirement of existing nuclear power plants being debated in the policy arena and considered by regulators. Also, the future of building new nuclear power plants is highly uncertain. Should nuclear power policies become more restrictive, one potential option for climate change mitigation will be less available. However, a systematic analysis of nuclear power policies, including early retirement, has been missing in the climate change mitigation literature. We apply an energy economy model framework to derive …

Renewable Energy In The Context Of Sustainable Development, Jayant Sathaye, Oswaldo Lucon, Atiq Rahman, John Christensen, Fatima Denton, Junichi Fujino, Garvin Heath, Monirul Mirza, Hugh Rudnick, August Schlaepfer, Andrey Shmakin, Gerhard Angerer, Christian Bauer, Morgan Bazilian, Robert J. Brecha, Peter Burgherr, Leon Clarke, Felix Creutzig, James Edmonds, Christian Hagelüken, Gerrit Hansen, Nathan Hultman, Michael Jakob, Susanne Kadner, Manfred Lenzen, Jordan Macknick, Eric Masanet, Yu Nagai, Anne Olhoff, Karen Olsen, Michael Pahle, Ari Rabl, Richard Richels, Joyashree Roy, Tormod Schei, Christoph Von Stechow, Jan Christoph Steckel, Ethan Warner, Tom Wilbanks, Yimin Zhang

Robert J. Brecha

Historically, economic development has been strongly correlated with increasing energy use and growth of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Renewable energy (RE) can help decouple that correlation, contributing to sustainable development (SD). In addition, RE offers the opportunity to improve access to modern energy services for the poorest members of society, which is crucial for the achievement of any single of the eight Millennium Development Goals. Theoretical concepts of SD can provide useful frameworks to assess the interactions between SD and RE. SD addresses concerns about relationships between human society and nature. Traditionally, SD has been framed in the three-pillar model—Economy, …

Ten Reasons To Take Peak Oil Seriously, Robert Brecha

Robert J. Brecha

Forty years ago, the results of modeling, as presented in The Limits to Growth, reinvigorated a discussion about exponentially growing consumption of natural resources, ranging from metals to fossil fuels to atmospheric capacity, and how such consumption could not continue far into the future. Fifteen years earlier, M. King Hubbert had made the projection that petroleum production in the continental United States would likely reach a maximum around 1970, followed by a world production maximum a few decades later. The debate about “peak oil," as it has come to be called, is accompanied by some of the same vociferous denials, …

Attitudes And Perspectives Of Front-Line Workers In Environmental Policy: A Case Study Of Ohio Epa And Wisconsin Dnr, Sara Rinfret, Michelle Pautz

Michelle Pautz

This research is an effort to focus on frontline regulators with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. An online survey was conducted of frontline regulators in these agencies to explore their knowledge, attitudes, and perspectives on policy implementation. More specifically, we endeavor to answer how frontline workers implement environmental policy. To analyze these data, we use two categorizations of factors (knowledge and attitudes, and contextual factors) offered by May and Winter (2009) to examine what influences the decision making of frontline regulators in their regulatory interactions. We find that despite common presumptions of adversarialism in …

Video Feature — Banned Books And The Stuart Rose Collection, Robert Brecha, Una Cadegan, John Inglis, Paul Morman

Robert J. Brecha

A faculty panel discussion in two sessions:

Session 1:
The Index: Una Cadegan (history) looks at the current scholarship on the Index of Forbidden Books.
Galileo: Robert Brecha (physics) highlights the banning of Galileo and observational science.

Session 2:
Thomas Aquinas: John Inglis (philosophy) speaks on the banning of Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica, the most important book in Catholic intellectual tradition.
Descartes and the Index of Forbidden Books: Paul Morman (history, Distinguished Service Professor) highlights the book by Descartes that he was not allowed to study while a student at UD in the 1960s.

Transportation Safety And Access: A Case Study Of The St. Claude Bridge In New Orleans, Earthea Nance

Earthea Nance, PhD (Stanford University, 2004)

The community-university collaborative model, first developed in early-1990s public health research, expands opportunities for new research partnerships and joint problem-solving. This model is ideally suited to land-grant colleges and urban research universities whose mission involves community engagement. At the University of New Orleans, this model is employed in “practicum” graduate courses offered in the Department of Planning and Urban Studies. One such practicum partnered with the Lower 9th Ward community in spring 2012 to address serious safety problems with the St. Claude Bridge. The bridge, which linked the lower and upper halves of the community and served as an essential …

Input–Output Analysis Of Virtual Water Transfers: Case Study Of California And Illinois, Stanley Mubako

Stanley Mubako

No abstract provided.

Recommendations For Integrating Environmental Justice Into The Epa's Research Enterprise

Earthea Nance, PhD (Stanford University, 2004)

Evaluating Subdivisions For Identifying Extraneous Flow In Separate Sanitary Sewer Systems, Adam Lanning, Eric Wade Peterson

Eric Wade Peterson

No abstract provided.

Africa Water Atlas, Stanley Mubako

Stanley Mubako

No abstract provided.

Palaeoecology: A Tool To Improve The Management Of Australian Estuaries, Krystyna M. Saunders, Kathryn H. Taffs

Dr Kathryn H Taffs

Addressing environmental problems in estuaries is a worldwide problem. Establishing benchmarks and targets for management is critical, whether the aim is conservation, restoration or ‘sustainable wise use’. Palaeoecological techniques have rapidly improved during the past decade, particularly with advances in methods that allow high resolution quantitative assessments of environmental change, allowing pre-impact conditions, the rate, extent and direction of change, and range of natural variability to be determined. Australian estuarine ecosystems are qualitatively different to the often more well-studied estuaries in North America and Europe, which means site-specific studies of Australian estuaries are needed to inform management. While a potentially …

Water Resource Requirements Of Corn-Based Ethanol, Stanley Mubako

Stanley Mubako

No abstract provided.

Southern Africa Environment Outlook 2008, Stanley Mubako

Stanley Mubako

No abstract provided.

Long-Range Downstream Effects Of Urban Runoff And Acid Mine Drainage In The Debed River, Armenia: Insights From Lead Isotope Modeling, Robert Kurkjian, Charles Dunlap, A. Flegal

Charles Dunlap

Lead concentrations and isotopic compositions measured along 80 km of the Debed River in the Republic of Armenia provide new insights into the geochemical and physical controls on riparian Pb transport by allowing comparison of the long-range, downstream impacts of acid mine drainage with runoff from an industrialized city. The modern background Pb concentration in Armenian surface waters is estimated to be ~0.01 lg/L, based on analyses of remote alpine rivers in Armenia. The lead concentration in the Debed River is 8 µg/L (800 times background) after passing through Vanadzor, the second largest industrial city in Armenia; it then decreases …

Lead In Residential Soil And Dust In A Mining And Smelting District In Northern Armenia: A Pilot Study, Varduhi Petrosyan, Anna Orlova, Charles E. Dunlap, Emil Babayan, Mark Farfel, Margrit Von Braun

Charles Dunlap

This pilot study of sources of lead exposure in residential settings was conducted in a mining and smelting district in northern Armenia. Samples of exterior soil and dust and interior house dust were collected in and around apartment buildings in Alaverdi where the country’s largest polymetallic smelter is located, and in nearby mining towns of Aghtala and Shamlugh. The NITON XL- 723 Multi-Element XRF analyzer was used for lead testing. Lead levels in samples from Alaverdi were higher than those in Shamlugh and Aghtala. In all three towns, the highest lead levels were found in loose exterior dust samples, and …

Lead Isotope Tracking Of Atmospheric Response To Post- Industrial Conditions In Yerevan, Armenia, Charles Dunlap, Robert Kurkjian

Charles Dunlap

Temporal gradients in environmental lead concentrations and isotopic compositions trace the rapidly shifting transition from high to low industrial emissions in Yerevan, Armenia following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Shortly after the breakup, in 1995 and 1996, atmospheric lead concentrations averaged ~0.4 µg/m3 and the combustion of leaded gasoline was the primary source of industrial lead emissions in Yerevan. But by 1998, unleaded gasoline was predominant and atmospheric lead concentrations had decreased by two orders of magnitude to ≤ 0.003 µg/m3 because industrial lead emissions from stationary sources had also been radically curtailed. The increased …

New Isotopic Evidence For Chronic Lead Contamination In The San Francisco Bay Estuary System: Implications For The Persistence Of Past Industrial Lead Emissions In The Biosphere, Douglas J. Steding, Charles E. Dunlap, A. Russell Flegal

Charles Dunlap

Measurements of lead isotope compositions in unfiltered San Francisco Bay waters from 1989 to 1998 have brought new insights into the cycling of anthropogenic lead in estuaries. Isotopic com- positions of lead in the shallow (<2 m) southern reach were essentially invariant (~90% derived from 1960s–1970s leaded gasoline) during the study period because of limited hydraulic flushing and the remobilization of lead from bottom sediments. In contrast, in the northern reach freshwater flushing from the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers produced seasonal and decadal variations in lead isotope compositions. The seasonal shifts are attributed to advection of soils containing late 1980s gasoline lead into the bay during winter rains. Mass balance calculations indicate that only a small fraction (1–10%) of this leaded gasoline fallout from the late 1980s has been washed out of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers’ drainage basin by 1995. Superimposed on this seasonal cycling was a long-term systematic shift in the component of gasoline lead expressed in the river systems, with a small (~5–10%) decrease in the amount of 1960s–1970s gasoline lead in river and North Bay waters. The retention of gasoline lead in the river systems draining into the bay as well as San Francisco Bay sediments indicates that historic gasoline deposits may remain in the combined riparian/estuarine system for decades. Such a persistence is in contraindication to recent reports of rapid (annual) decreases in lead contamination in other environments, and the link between climate and contaminant transport suggests local or global climate change will have an impact on contaminant distribution and fate.

Past Leaded Gasoline Emissions As A Nonpoint Source Tracer In Riparian Systems: A Study Of River Inputs To San Francisco Bay, Charles E. Dunlap, Robin Bouse, A. Russell Flegal

Charles Dunlap

Variations in the isotopic composition of lead in 1995- 1998 river waters flowing into San Francisco Bay trace the washout of lead deposited in the drainage basin from leaded gasoline combustion. At the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers where they enter the Bay, the isotopic compositions of lead in the waters define a linear trend away from the measured historical compositions of leaded gas in California. The river waters are shifted away from leaded gasoline values and toward an isotopic composition similar to Sierra Nevadan inputs which became the predominant source of sedimentation in San Francisco Bay …

A Synthesis Of Lead Isotopes In Two Millennia Of European Air, Charles Dunlap, Eiliv Steinnes, A. Russell Flegal

Charles Dunlap

Four airborne particulate records from ombrotrophic peat bogs in southern Norway, extending back 300 years, have been measured for chronology, lead concentration, and lead isotope composition. Since southern Norway receives an airborne lead signal that accumulates emissions from the European continent, the trend in the four bog records can be used to correlate previously reported measurements from France, Switzerland, England, and Greenland that cover different ranges of time. When these are compiled, the integrated European record that emerges spans the last 2300 years of human influence on lead in the air over Europe and suggests human control of lead in …

Removal Of Phosphorus From Static Sewage Effluent By Waterhyacinth, W Harold Ornes

W. Harold Ornes

Waterhyacinth [Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms] was grown in static sewage effluent during May to July 1974 in outdoor concrete containers with a capacity of 760 liters and a surface area of 1.66 m². The plants were removed weekly from one-half of the surface area of the containers during 5-wk growth periods. Tissue phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N), plant productivity, and some parameters of water quality were measured. A maximum uptake of 5,500 µg of P/g dry weight of plant material occurred when the level of orthophosphate phosphorus (available P) in the effluent was 1.1 µg/ml. Phosphorus in the effluent was …