Operational decisions in response to a performance-based regulation to reduce organic waste impacts near Atlantic salmon farms in British Columbia,Canada

Nutrient enrichment of the seafloor (benthos) has been a primary subject of investigation since the beginning of commercial salmon farming. Waste feed and feces passing through the containment nets can create zones of organic enrichment to the benthos in the vicinity of the pen cages. Early studies of salmon farming in British Columbia Canada (500–1200 metric ton production farms) showed that these effects varied greatly and were reduced where conditions of adequate water depth and strong tidal currents were present. More recent studies of farms producing in excess of 2000 tons of fish have documented measurable organic benthic impacts.The implementation of a performance-based waste regulation in British Columbia in 2002 has caused operational changes to achieve and maintain compliance. This paper describes field monitoring data for four representative farm operations including the waste impact levels prior to the implementation of regulatory standards and the effect of adaptive management actions taken to reduce organic enrichment such as modified feed delivery, relatively small position changes to the cages or reducing site production to achieve continuing compliance.Monitoring over several full production cycles at selected farms indicated that sediment impacts at maximum production levels have decreased while maintaining, and in some cases increasing overall production of salmon.     

Quantifying the effect of buffer zones,crop areas and spatial aggregation on the externalities of genetically modified crops at landscape level

The development of genetically modified (GM) crops has led the European Union (EU) to put forward the concept of ‘coexistence’ to give farmers the freedom to plant both conventional and GM varieties. Should a premium for non-GM varieties emerge in the market, ‘contamination’ by GM pollen would generate a negative externality to conventional growers. It is therefore important to assess the effect of different ‘policy variables’ on the magnitude of the externality to identify suitable policies to manage coexistence. In this paper, taking GM herbicide tolerant oilseed rape as a model crop, we start from the model developed in Ceddia et al. [Ceddia, M.G., Bartlett, M., Perrings, C., 2007. Landscape gene flow, coexistence and threshold effect: the case of genetically modified herbicide tolerant oilseed rape (Brassica napus). Ecol. Modell. 205, pp. 169–180] use a Monte Carlo experiment to generate data and then estimate the effect of the number of GM and conventional fields, width of buffer areas and the degree of spatial aggregation (i.e. the ‘policy variables’) on the magnitude of the externality at the landscape level. To represent realistic conditions in agricultural production, we assume that detection of GM material in conventional produce might occur at the field level (no grain mixing occurs) or at the silos level (where grain mixing from different fields in the landscape occurs). In the former case, the magnitude of the externality will depend on the number of conventional fields with average transgenic presence above a certain threshold. In the latter case, the magnitude of the externality will depend on whether the average transgenic presence across all conventional fields exceeds the threshold. In order to quantify the effect of the relevant ‘policy variables’, we compute the marginal effects and the elasticities. Our results show that when relying on marginal effects to assess the impact of the different ‘policy variables’, spatial aggregation is far more important when transgenic material is detected at field level, corroborating previous research. However, when elasticity is used, the effectiveness of spatial aggregation in reducing the externality is almost identical whether detection occurs at field level or at silos level. Our results show also that the area planted with GM is the most important ‘policy variable’ in affecting the externality to conventional growers and that buffer areas on conventional fields are more effective than those on GM fields. The implications of the results for the coexistence policies in the EU are discussed.     

Modified accumulation of selected heavy metals in Bt transgenic rice

Safety assessment of genetically modified crops generally does not take into account the potential hazard of altered patterns of heavy metal accumulation in plants. A pot experiment was conducted under greenhouse conditions to evaluate the impact of heavy metal amendments on the accumulation of Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn in a Bt transgenic rice Ke-Ming-Dao (KMD) and its wild-type Xiushui 11 (Xs11). In control soils, significant di erence was only found in contents of Cu (p < 0.01) and Pb (p < 0.05) in straw between KMD and Xs11. At three levels of Cd amendments (5, 10, and 20 mg/kg), the Cd contents in grain and straw of KMD were significantly higher than those of Xs11, and all grain Cd contents were significantly higher than the International Criteria (0.2–0.4 mg/kg) as specified by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC). These results implied that it may be unsafe for growing Bt transgenic rice in heavily Cd-polluted areas. No significant di erence in Zn was found between the two varieties with the exception of roots at Zn amendment level of 600 mg/kg, while Pb contents in KMD were much higher in the straw at the lead amendment level of 1000 mg/kg and in the root at 250 mg Pb/kg. Data on the heavy metal accumulation patterns for the genetically modified rice may be used for the selection of growing areas as well as for plant residue management for Bt rice.     

Surplus production,compensation, and impact assessments of power plants

For over 60 years, fishery scientists have been using the argument that nature creates surplus, and that the surplus can be used as justification to impose anthropogenic sources of mortality (power plants, fishing, pollution, etc.) on fish populations; otherwise, it is wasted. Surplus production is closely tied to the concept of compensation, a form of density-dependent mortality in which the mortality rate of a cohort is directly related to abundance of that cohort. Scientific arguments have been put forth in assessments of power plant impacts that compensation can at least partially offset impacts imposed by power plants. Although we cannot dismiss the existence of surplus production outright, since in some years environmental conditions are such that a surplus in reproductive effort may occur, we should be assessing the reproductive effort of fish populations in the context of the ecosystem in which they reside. In terms of addressing the risks of power plant mortality, we may be at a point in collection and analyses of biological data, coupled with a greater flexibility in managing power plant technology, to modulate the risks of power plant mortality on fish populations on a more-or-less real-time basis by taking into account environmental influences. For these reasons, assessments of power plant impacts should include analyses of predation forgone and production forgone.     

滇池流域主要农业产品水足迹空间格局及其环境影响测度

科学合理的评估农业产品水资源消耗及其环境影响对保护区域农业生产安全和水资源合理配置具有重要意义.本文以滇池流域为例,耦合水足迹和生命周期评价方法,对流域内2005—2011年主要农业产品水足迹空间格局进行分析,并对其环境影响进行测度.结果显示:滇池流域主要农作物和动物产品年平均水足迹分别为4.88×108m3·a-1和8.97×108m3·a-1,动物产品总水资源消耗大于农作物产品.动物产品水足迹的人类健康和生态系统质量总环境影响高于农作物,但资源消耗总环境影响要低于农作物,各区县产品水足迹环境影响值最大的为猪肉、水稻和玉米.各区县主要产品水足迹及其环境影响空间差异显著,嵩明县和晋宁县的产品水足迹环境影响最高,城区则较低.本文最后提出:评价一种产品对区域水资源的可持续性影响时,不仅要考虑产品耗水量也应考虑产品对水资源产生的潜在环境影响大小,应从水资源管理和生命周期角度综合考虑.水资源量少的地区,应侧重选择水资源消耗量小的产品,水量充沛地区则应选择对人类和生态产生影响小的产品.     

Revisiting the Life Cycle Assessment of mussels from a sectorial perspective

Mussels as a commercial product involve a range of activities which can be included within four different sub-sectors: culture, dispatch centres, canning factories and, finally, cooking plants. This paper deals with the environmental evaluation of the whole mussel sector from a Life Cycle Assessment approach. The use of exhaustive inventories led to the subsequent environmental characterization of the mussel sector in terms of the contribution observed for each of the sub-sectors. In this sense, the sub-sector associated with dispatch centres presented the largest contributions to the potential environmental impacts, clearly ahead of mussel farming. Furthermore, the sub-sectors of mussel cooking plants and canning factories showed a much lower contribution to the potential environmental impacts. Several improvement potentials were identified from the characterization results, stressing the minimization of the electric energy consumption in dispatch centres. A comparative LCA was performed in order to contrast the environmental performance of the three main commercial mussel products: fresh mussels, canned mussels and frozen mussels. The analysis showed that fresh mussels have the least favourable environmental profile.     

Environmental impacts of building materials and building services components for commercial buildings in Hong Kong

The growing concerns over the environmental impacts of buildings have led to increasing demands for more environmental friendly buildings and building materials. Hitherto, there are not any comprehensive studies that show the overall environmental impact profiles of building materials and building services components for buildings. This paper intends to bridge this gap by reporting overall lifecycle environmental profiles of buildings as well as the ranking orders of environmental impacts of all the building materials and building services materials and components for commercial buildings. Twenty-five commercial buildings in Hong Kong, which include three Grade A office buildings, four Grade B office buildings, one Grade C office buildings, four retail centers and three hotels, have been selected for our study. Based upon these collected samples, no statistical differences were found in the average lifecycle environmental impacts for different building types despite some minor variations were detected. Subsequently, 10 types of building materials and 10 types of building services components have been identified for their significant lifecycle environmental impacts on commercial buildings. Among all, concrete, reinforcement bar, copper power cables, and copper busbars were ranked to be the four most significant materials or components to the total lifecycle environmental impacts. These should form the major targets for improvements in environmental performance of commercial buildings.     

Feeding livestock food residue and the consequences for the environmental impact of meat

The environmental impact of meat is high mainly due to the feed required by livestock in combination with the impacts of cultivating, transporting and processing of feed crops such as tapioca and grains. Like regular feed crops, livestock also feed on residue from the food industry, such as pulp, scrap and peels. Both types of raw material have different environmental impacts. Feeding food residue to livestock is an efficient way to upgrade a low quality material into high quality foods. In the Netherlands, food residue represents the majority of the feedstock for feed. Distinguishing crops from food residue has consequences for the ascribed environmental impact of meat. This paper separates these two streams using volume, environmental impact and their relevance in meat production. An assessment is made of three food industries (sugar beet industry, vegetable oil industry and potato product industry) that produce the largest stream of food residue, and of the pork industry, as an example of meat production. The environmental impact of food residue-based feed is allocated in three different ways: mass ratio, economic basis, and no assigned burden. We found that the amount of pork produced from food residue is substantial. The environmental impact of food residue-based feed is also significantly lower than grain-based feed. We discuss changes in vegetable and in animal product consumption that influence the environmental impact of pork. It is concluded that the use of current food residue keeps the environmental impact of livestock foods relatively low. However, a further increase in meat consumption would require more feed grains with a correspondingly larger environmental impact because food residues are used up.     

海水鱼类网箱养殖的环境效应及多营养层次的综合养殖

海水鱼类网箱养殖是世界主要渔业国家(如挪威、日本等)广泛开展的一种高密度、集约化的养鱼方式,这种养殖方式在给广大从业者带来巨大经济、社会效益的同时,对环境也造成了不可忽视的负面影响。开展多营养层次的综合养殖(IMTA)是缓解这一环境压力的有效途径,鱼类养殖过程中释放出的二氧化碳、氮、磷等物质,由无机提取单元(大型藻类)来吸收,粪便和残饵等微小颗粒则成为有机提取单元(滤食性贝类)的饵料,较大的颗粒物质沉到海底后,可以为腐食性单元(海参等)提供食物,通过这种养殖模式,最大限度地实现系统内营养物质的高效利用,在减轻养殖对环境压力的同时,使系统具有较高的容纳量和食物产出能力。     

种植转基因大豆对地产大豆的环境安全分析与对策研究

转基因生物技术在给人类带来巨大经济利益的同时，也带来了不容忽视的生物安全问题，特别是由于转基因作物所产生的基因污染，严重威胁着非转基因作物的野生种质资源，如何保护作物的野生植物种质资源免受基因污染，已成为人类的必然选择。本文阐述了转基因作物在我省种埴将会对地产大豆的环境安全造成严重影响及其对策研究。     

转Cry1Ah基因抗虫玉米HGK60对生物多样性的影响

随着转基因作物种植面积的不断扩大,其潜在的环境风险也逐渐成为关注热点.为进一步明确转基因作物种植可能带来的生态环境安全问题,以2018年11月于海南省乐东黎族自治县种植的转Cry1Ah基因抗虫玉米HGK60（简称“HGK60”）及其对照常规玉米郑58（简称“郑58”）为研究对象,采用高通量测序及田间调查的方法,重点探讨了其环境释放对田间生物多样性的影响.结果表明:①HGK60种植对根际土壤微生物的影响仅出现在某些生育期,alpha多样性、beta多样性分析均显示,仅抽穗期、完熟期HGK60与郑58差异显著（P < 0.05）,但该差异并不会在玉米的整个生长阶段持续出现,至玉米收获后差异不再显著（P>0.05）;生育期是影响根际土壤微生物的因素之一.②玉米田间节肢动物共调查到节肢动物19 835头,隶属于7目19科60种.HGK60与郑58田间除螟蛾科数量在苗期、喇叭口期、抽穗期表现为差异显著（P < 0.05）外,其他物种的差异均仅表现在某个生育期,并未在整个生育期持续出现;从整体上看,HGK60田间节肢动物各生态学指标均与郑58差异不显著（P>0.05）.③玉米田间杂草发生种类主要有8科、16种,多为一年生杂草,HGK60种植对田间杂草密度及生态学指标均无显著影响（P>0.05）.研究显示,HGK60的种植会在部分生育期对根际土壤微生物产生影响,但玉米收获后影响不显著且其种植对田间节肢动物及杂草多样性无显著影响（P>0.05）.      

利用96孔板和重组基因酵母筛选环境内分泌干扰物

重组基因酵母筛选法因其快速灵敏、廉价易行和高通量而成为较为广泛应用的内分泌干扰物筛选法之一．采用96孔培养板替代三角锥瓶对酵母筛选法进行了改进．改进后的方法更加简便，节省了大量试剂．     

生物技术在恶臭气体处理中的应用研究

讨论了生物技术在填埋场脱臭中的应用，这些防治技术对各类环境卫生设施，如垃圾收集站、中转站、焚烧场、堆肥厂及粪便处理厂的臭气治理均有借鉴意义。     

Life Cycle Assessment for biodiesel production under Greek climate conditions

The aim of this paper is to understand and to model the environmental performance of biodiesel produced by various Greek raw materials under current conditions. Three energy crops (rapeseed, sunflower and soybean) have been studied, with regard to their levels of biodiesel productivity. Throughout the entire process, current Greek climatic conditions and cultivation parameters have been taken into account. At the stage of assessment, we conclude that the environmental impacts per crop area indicate that soybean has the lowest environmental impacts. However, by assessing the results per quantity of produced biodiesel, the crop with the minimum environmental impacts is sunflower. This paper shows that environmental benefits from biodiesel have better results, compared to conventional diesel, thus leading to the conclusion that it is feasible to succeed improved environmental performance.     

An economic and environmental framework for analyzing globally sourced auto parts packaging system

Competitive forces are driving US domestic manufacturers to source parts globally, which significantly extends their supply chain and introduces new sustainability concerns. This paper addresses the situation from an operating division manager's perspective. We present an approach to packaging system assessment which considers the division manager's span of control, addresses the design of packaging and the corresponding logistics processes, and incorporates both cost and environmental impacts. A construct familiar to operations managers, the value stream map, is adapted to model material flow of both parts and packages, and an integrated material flow analysis is used as the common basis for cost analysis, a modified life cycle environmental impact analysis, and an energy consumption analysis. The framework is illustrated using a case study of a major US automaker.     

煤矿区土地复垦的优化设计——以南屯煤矿为例

在讨论矿区土地复垦的基础上，对南屯煤矿区复垦用地的平面结构和垂直结构进行了优化设计。     

'Molecular farming' of antibodies in plants

'Molecular farming' is the production of valuable recombinant proteins in transgenic organisms on an agricultural scale. While plants have long been used as a source of medicinal compounds, molecular farming represents a novel source of molecular medicines, such as plasma proteins, enzymes, growth factors, vaccines and recombinant antibodies, whose medical benefits are understood at a molecular level. Until recently, the broad use of molecular medicines was limited because of the difficulty in producing these proteins outside animals or animal cell culture. The application of molecular biology and plant biotechnology in the 1990s showed that many molecular medicines or vaccines could be synthesised in plants and this technology is termed 'molecular farming'. It results in pharmaceuticals that are safer, easier to produce and less expensive than those produced in animals or microbial culture. An advantage of molecular farming lies in the ability to perform protein production on a massive scale using hectares of cultivated plants. These plants can then be harvested and transported using the agricultural infrastructure. Thus, molecular farming allows rapid progress from genetic engineering to crop production, and new cash crops producing recombinant proteins are already being commercially exploited. We speculate that as functional genomics teaches us more about the nature of disease, molecular farming will produce many of the protein therapeutics that can remedy it.     

Assessing alternative aquaculture technologies: life cycle assessment of salmonid culture systems in Canada

This study employed life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify and compare the potential environmental impacts of culturing salmonids in a conventional marine net-pen system with those of three reportedly environmentally-friendly alternatives; a marine floating bag system; a land-based saltwater flow-through system; and a land-based freshwater recirculating system. Results of the study indicate that while the use of these closed-containment systems may reduce the local ecological impacts typically associated with net-pen salmon farming, the increase in material and energy demands associated with their use may result in significantly increased contributions to several environmental impacts of global concern, including global warming, non-renewable resource depletion, and acidification. It is recommended that these unanticipated impacts be carefully considered in further assessments of the sustainability of closed-containment systems and in ongoing efforts to develop and employ these technologies on a larger scale.     

手机回收制度：评审与建议

由于报废含有大量有价值的材料和有害物质,所以引发了人们对改进手机回收和回用的兴趣。近年来已经建立了大量的回收制度。本文的目的是就这些回收制度进行动机、组织、运作、资金提供和收集绩效进行评估和比较。我们对四种制度进行了分析,它们是：电子电气设备废弃物的定期收集制度、部门的制度、商业计划以及慈善翻修方案。比较了这些方案的收集率,结果表明对用户而言便捷和广泛的信息是成功的最关键因素。最后,特别关注了计划对回收、回用和相关环境影响的定位。     

Need for adaptation strategy against global sea level rise: an example from Saudi coast of Arabian gulf

This paper reports sea level rise (SLR) scenarios causing land loss, environmental degradation and destruction of infrastructure in the Saudi coast of the Arabian Gulf. Human development structures such as, sea ports, desalination plants, industrial establishments, commercial buildings, fish farms etc. will be impacted, leading to great economic losses. A systematic analysis on the current environmental setting of east coast of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) versus the existing infrastructure assets indicates that a 1?m sea level rise in Arabian Gulf affects approximately 650?km² land area, along the Saudi coastline of ~1,800?km in 1:50,000 scale. Three simulation scenarios were created with respect to 1?m, 2?m and 3?m rises from the present mean sea level and its impacts were assessed. Maps depicting major infrastructure assets, ecologically sensitive elements, historical locations, anthropogenic zones, and Environmental Sensitivity Indices (ESI) were used for overlaying the sea level change map, in a Geographic Information System (GIS) platform. In general, the Jubail Marine Park area will have serious impact due to SLR. The inundation of low?Clying lands will affect the mangroves species of Dawhat Ad Dafi, coral reefs, coastal salt marshes, groundwater aquifers, and fish stocks. The risk of inundation on the Abu Ali Island, given their status as marine sanctuary of international importance, is particularly high. As an adaptation strategy, it is proposed that the KSA should implement Integrated Coastal Zone Management Plan (ICZMP) for the Arabian Gulf coast without further delay for the protection of its vulnerable resources and for sustainable development.