Improving contaminated land data communication through the developing of an environmental indicator (original) (raw)
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Integrating decision tools for the sustainable management of land contamination
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT, 2004
The approach to taking decisions on the management of land contamination has changed 15 markedly over 30 years. We have moved from a cost-centred approach in the mid-1970s, 16 through the technologies of the mid-1980s, on to the risk-based approaches of the mid-1990s 17 and into a new millennium where environmental decisions must be "socially-robust" and 18 sustainable. It has been a rollercoaster ride with policy makers and regulators, practitioners and researchers having to keep pace with new technologies, assessment criteria and 20 diagnostic methods for their measurement, techniques for risk analysis and the frameworks 21 that support decision-makers in their efforts to regenerate historically contaminated land. Having worked our way from simple hazard assessment through to the need for 23 "sustainability appraisal" we might now consider piecing together the experience of 24 decision-making for managing land contamination. Here, we reflect critically on recent 25 developments with a view to considering how better decisions can be made by integrating 26 the decision tools available. 27 28
An ecologically oriented database to guide remediation and reuse of contaminated sites
Remediation Journal, 2003
This article presents a database developed to determine the potential reuse of contaminated sites for primarily ecologically and culturally based activities. The database consists of 172 quantitative and qualitative measures of on-site land suitability, ecological, cultural, and recreational value, and off-site suitability, economic, and demographic information. Using sites owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as a case study, the article evaluates the quality of available data and suggests ways of using it for planning ecologically sensitive remediation activities and future land use. This type of database can be developed and used by anyone who needs to select, review, or evaluate site remediation and future land use options. Also discussed are the challenges associated with compiling and using data that has been generated by many sources over several years.
2010
Cities are complex and dynamic entities which are the main habitat of mankind. Nowadays cities are facing various challenges that threaten their quality and consequently that of urban residential areas. Developing relevant indicators is a vital step toward assessing these environments' quality and can led to better decision making. The aim of this paper is to develop a tool comprising relevant indicators and to assess their relative importance for measuring the environmental quality of dwellings and urban neighborhoods. Impetus for the research was a need to inform planning and policy decisions in the Tehran metropolitan area. Residents of two Tehran neighborhoods participated in this study. During interviews, respondents were presented with five tasks: an inventory task, an importance selection task, a grouping task, a ranking and rating task for groups of attributes, and finally, a ranking and rating task for attributes within each group. After acquiring the needed data, attri...
WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, 2000
GeoEnviron is a database system designed for mapping of potential contaminated sites. This system was used for mapping of sites in two selected pilot areas in Slovakia in a Slovak-Danish pilot project. The pilot areas were chosen to meet criteria that ensure typical potential pollutant sources for Slovakia to be represented as well as different type of geology, hydrogeology and surface water concerns. Data were collected from various authorities, owners of the sites and site visits. Data on 385 sites are gathered in the GeoEnviron database including chemical plants, oil storage, waste deposits etc. Every site is described with address, potential pollution sources, ground water vulnerability, distance to houses and surface water, geographic coordinates , scanned maps etc. A preliminary risk assessment including a ranking of potential risk to land use, ground water and surface water is prepared in the two pilot areas. The ranking is prepared according to a slightly modified Danish method for prioritisation of polluted point sources. The ranking is based on the data within the GeoEnviron database as well as prepared maps related to surface water and ground water management and the most hazardous chemical from each site. The main objective of the project have been to provide a good overview of potential contaminated sites; a tool for prioritisation of clean up projects and sustainable development of land use as well as water resource management.
MAPPING OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION IN URBAN AREAS WITH GIS
Environmental pollution in urban areas has resulted in the design of monitoring and decision-making systems. These systems are supported by the information systems that can manage spatial dynamics of pollution processes. Due to a wide range of data, which are necessary for modeling of spatio-temporal phenomena, new methods of data collection and management have to be created. This paper describes terrain mapping and data collection concerned on environmental pollution. Mapping is realized by the integration of GIS, GPS and remote sensing technology in the frame of a mobile GIS's station. Spatial data are captured by the GPS together with their attributes that are formed by descriptions of samples, direct terrain measurements (mobile sensors of air, water and soil pollution; noise assessment) and terrain observations (landscape classifications; mapping of fauna and flora and waste production). The mobile GIS station can carry out a number of estimates based on terrain data and shared data through the remote network connection. The GIS functions support decision-making on a few levels (administration of data and basic environmental analyses; sharing of other data and analyses through the network; modeling of spatio-temporal phenomena by dynamic models). A case study demonstrates mapping of sources of pollution and measurements of water quality complemented by other terrain observations. The attached dynamic models demonstrate dynamic modeling of contamination from point and non-point sources of pollution. Introduction Protection of urban areas requires measurements and observations of a wide range of parameters that can characterize levels of environmental pollution. Mostly, the measurements are focused on air pollution, pollution of surface water and groundwater, soil contamination, noise assessment, waste management and landscape protection. Within these fields, monitoring of environmental pollution is created to estimate short and long term changes, to carry out risk assessment analysis, to develop models for prediction and optimization, and finally, to print maps for the support of decision-making processes. In the past, only heavy industrial areas and large cities were monitored and mapped in the local scale. At present, observations in a global scale are carried out to protect all the environment of our planet. A wide variety of techniques in order to determine individual factors of pollution and stress are used for decision-making processes. A number of automatic and manual-operated stations, chemical analyses in laboratories, satellite technology, risk assessment analyses and modeling systems is applied to improve our knowledge about behavior of various types of pollution and its influence on living organisms. Mapping of pollution together with their sources and the living environment helps to illustrate all the phenomena more transparently. Increasingly more powerful desktop and especially mobile computing systems with their graphic capabilities represent a new possibility for digital mapping. In addition to mapping, advanced analyses can be solved by digital computing systems, which can be represented by the Geographic Information Systems-GIS. There are a number of GISs in the market. Their capabilities are mainly focused on spatial data management that includes a wide range of extensions for spatial analyses, development of three-dimensional map objects, network optimization, image processing, etc. New data inputs represent satellite and aerial images processed by remote sensing, and geopositional systems-GPS. Integration of digital tools for mapping of environmental pollution together with standard monitoring systems and environmental measurements illustrates figure 1.
Urban Environment Quality in the Italian Spatial Data Infrastructure
Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications
Public access to environmental information is granted by international law. The European Community has established an Infrastructure for Spatial Information (INSPIRE) in order to provide data and information to effected environmental policies. ISPRA coordinates the Italian Environmental Information and Monitoring System (SINA) and represents the national Inspire coordination structure. Moreover, ISPRA disseminates environmental information through reports, on-line services, and WebGis. Recently, a new WebGis has been developed to provide public access to environmental indicators data contained in the annual report on urban environment quality. Soil, water and air quality, waste, industrial risk, transport and mobility, acoustic and electromagnetic pollution, nature and biodiversity, tourism, and energy were analysed in 34 urban areas. The WebGis provides simple and powerful tools to analyze environmental dynamics of urban areas promoting participatory planning. It was designed to ea...
We present a methodology to estimate the uncertainty associated with the determination of contaminated areas requisite for the assessment and application of soil remediation techniques. This methodology uses geostatistical techniques to develop uncertainty models of contaminant concentrations. The advantage of this method is that it accounts for the ubiquitous natural uncertainty in the concentration level of a hazardous substance in the soil and it directly incorporates this uncertainty into the decision process. The method is developed in the context of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), using new routines to couple Geostatistical packages with the GIS.
Environmental Pollution Management
The Missouri Review, 2000
Environmental pollution control is one of the most important goals in nowadays pollution risk assessment. In this sense modern and exact tools that allow scientists to evaluate, quantify and predict air pollution are of particular interest. In this paper we give a modern approach within this context analyzing data on air pollution coming from a GIS-based system and present the corresponding results.
Sustainable Cities: A Proposed Environmental Integrity Index (EII) for Decision Making
Urban population has been increasing at an unprecedented rate accommodating more than half of the world population in cities. Massive human intervention in the tropical region contributes to loss of environmental integrity amplifying challenges like air pollution, deforestation, water scarcity, local extinction, and destruction of natural landscapes. To shape the international community's attitude toward economic, social, and environmental development regarding environmental integrity different methods-Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), Clean Development Mechanism (CMD)—are introduced. However, these methods have some limitations along with opportunities. This paper reviewed and analyzed existing methods in order to promote environmental integrity in the rapidly growing urban settings. Based on the drawbacks of current methods a new Environmental Integrity Index (EII) is proposed where indicators are selected while considering social, economic, and environmental aspects. The index aims to combine data from field surveys, GIS and remote sensing, and economic and social analysis. We anticipate that this proposed index can support planning for sustainable cities by promoting environmental integrity and balancing biological and ecological components in a highly intricate urban system.