Environmental benefit

This paper considers features underlying conservation-effective agricultural systems' impacts, because they can explain present successes, suggest guidelines for future initiatives, and indicate criteria for judging their effectiveness. Once farmers have made the transition in awareness, thinking and practice of Conservation Agriculture (CA), positive benefits which attract farmers include savings in time, labour, energy and expenditure, with increased productivity and profit

Ensuring acceptance of dedicated biomass feedstocks by landowners, agricultural communities, environmental and public interest groups, requires that the environmental benefits, concerns, and risks associated with their production be quantified. Establishment and management measures to benefit soil and water quality are being identified by ongoing research. Field studies are showing that nutrients are retained within the rooting zone of dedicated feedstocks, subsurface herbicide transport does not occur, and off-site chemical transport is minimal compared with traditional agricultural crops. The amounts and timing of fertilizer application were critical to minimizing off- site transport of nutrients. Maintaining soil cover decreased runoff, sediment losses, and nutrient transport compared with traditional agricultural crops. Conversion of traditional croplands to biomass and no-till crop production improved soil quality and soil carbon storage. Subsurface nutrient losses were less fr...

The Edwards Dam, located on the Kennebec River of Maine, in the state’s capitol city, was removed in 1999 to restore fisheries such as alewives, striped bass, American shad, and endangered short-nosed sturgeon. The dam removal was ordered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the express purpose of restoring fisheries, the first time ever this was done in American history. This article examines the local environmental advocacy for river and fisheries restoration and the process resulting in dam removal and fisheries restoration. It argues that the Edwards Dam removal was critical in proving the environmental benefits of river restoration through removal as well as some economic benefits. This contributed to other U.S. efforts to remove dams to restore fisheries and assisted the expansion of this stage of American environmentalism. The article uses a number of primary sources including local newspapers, environmental group materials, and a number of interviews collected by the author.

In agriculture, there is growing interest in determining field spatial variability for implementing differential management practices, which should generate economic and environmental benefits. To date, the majority of studies involving remote sensing and differential management have focused on optical sensor systems. Less attention has been paid to synthetic aperture radar (SAR), despite the advantages of "all-weather" acquisition enabling information to

A high-resolution numerical model is used to estimate the microclimatic effect of introducing vegetation at street and/or rooftop level. Results are presented to show the effect on a hot afternoon at a location in the inner suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The study shows that the addition of vegetation reduces temperatures and wind speeds, thereby improving climatic amenity for pedestrians. Other

Sustainability has become an increasingly used term, but what does it mean in terms of practice. This research will look at the harvesting of captured stormwater for the irrigation of urban playing fields and what the implications are for catchment hydrology, local community, and local council. This research aims to identify, understand and determine the catchment conditions that may hinder the stormwater quality and quantity for capture and reuse, as well as determining whether the stormwater harvesting will be sustainable. Research methods for this project will include systemic analysis in order to further investigate the assumptions being made in the study. Manly Golf Club has relied on groundwater extraction supplemented by potable supplies for irrigation, however potable supplies are no longer available. It has been proposed to provide irrigation supplies from stormwater via onsite storage and groundwater recharge. Monitored stormwater entering the Golf Course from the adjacent Cemetery Creek sub-catchment for pollutants, have indicated that it may be suitable for irrigation with treatment and may reduce problems generated by overuse of groundwater. The proposal will provide environmental benefit through reduced pollution loads being discharged directly to receiving waters and cessation of use of potable supplies by the Club. Social and economic benefits are expected to be gained and will be monitored as part of an ongoing research program.

Background, aim, and scope The interest in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling is quite recent, but it has been growing steadily over the past few years. In this context, the aim of this paper is to assess the eco-profile, the energy savings and the environmental benefits of the use of recycled raw materials to manufacture products for thermal insulation of buildings in Italy (i.e., PET bottles post-consumer). Materials and methods The life cycle analysis is developed according to ISO 14040/44. In this paper, based on the LCA, the main types of environmental impact of a thermal insulation product have been outlined. This study is specifically focused on polyester nonwovens, produced by a company located in Italy. The cradle-to-gate life cycle inventory is performed for the mass of product needed to give a thermal resistance R of 1 (m2 K/W). The calculation of the impacts is done with SimaPro software. With an environmental product declaration-oriented approach, a set of impact categories is used for the classification and characterisation of the life cycle impact assessment. Results The results of the impact assessment for 1m2 K/W of thermal insulation panels made with recycled PET are then compared with similar products made with virgin PET. The lower impact associated with the recycled PET for each category is underlined: the percentage reduction is around 46% in the GWP category. In the production process, the fiber-spinning phase results as the most relevant in terms of energy consumption. In addition, the energy saved when applying the thermal insulation in a building is estimated at 87 MJ/m2 per unit area per year in Rome. All the energy used during the production of a thermal insulation panel is recovered in about 2 years. Conclusions The product shows significantly low environmental impacts thanks to the use of non-virgin PET, thus maintaining high mechanical and physical properties. If the recovery of PET from separate waste collection in Italy increases, this would reduce the share of waste PET purchased from foreign countries and would therefore reduce further the impact of transports for the production of the thermal insulation panel under investigation.