CIV 4204: ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Course outline
o INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITIONS
o Environmental policies and guidelines (water and effluent discharge standards)
o Environmental impact analysis
o Environmental monitoring of construction works
o Water pollution control
o Waste load allocations
o Air pollution control
o Noise pollution
o Wetlands protection
o Control of land/soil pollution

1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 ECOSYSTEMS - LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS IN THE ENVIRONMENT

Throughout the world there are a great variety of economic and social societies - from hunters
and gatherers through agriculturists to urban dwellers - each adapted to a huge range of natural
and managed environments.

We live in, and are an integral part of, the organic world. This world or biosphere is that part of
the Earth that contains living organisms – the biologically inhabited soil, air and water. The
biosphere is a relatively thin layer at the interface of the solid rock of the earth (the lithosphere)
and the gaseous envelope that surrounds it (the atmosphere). It reaches its greatest depth in the
oceans (the hydrosphere), extends no more than two or three metres below the land surface and
occupies mainly the bottom hundred metres or so of the atmosphere.

1.1.1 The biosphere

All life exists in the biosphere and it is into this environment that all pollutants are discharged.
The biosphere includes land and soil, the atmosphere, seas, rivers and lakes, and deep ocean beds
and sediments. All organisms, plants and animals, live in a variety of physical environments
within the biosphere. The organisms (biota), together with their particular physical environments
(habitats) and the interactions between them, form an ecosystem.

All ecosystems (including human ones) function in the same way, with all component parts or
elements of the ecosystem relating to one another as a series of:

Energy flows;

Cycles; and

Regulatory mechanisms

1.1.2 Energy flow in the ecosystem

Ultimately nearly all the energy used or expended by organisms comes from sunlight. Green
plants occupy a key role in 'fixing' the radiant energy from the sun. They do so through their
unique ability to use light to manufacture complex organic substances, such as carbohydrates,
from carbon, hydrogen and oxygen by the process of photosynthesis.

Carbohydrates provide the building blocks from which other foodstuffs such as proteins and fats
are produced. Of the sunlight reaching a plant, approximately one sixth powers the process itself,
the remainder is converted into potential chemical energy bound into the plant tissues. This
potential energy provides the energy necessary for the growth, survival and reproduction of the
plant concerned. It is this chemical energy that is used by grazing animals (herbivores) ingesting

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and digesting plant tissue. So green plants form the starting point of nearly every ecosystem.

While plants derive their energy directly from sunlight and inorganic raw materials, animals do
so from the organic food material that is initially produced by green plants. This is a fundamental
difference between plants and animals. When a plant dies the energy-rich organic matter
provides food for decomposer organisms (including insects, bacteria and fungi) that break it
down, releasing heat. Alternatively if the plant is eaten by a herbivore then some of the energy
(and raw materials) is incorporated into the animal tissues, while some energy is again lost as
heat in the movement, respiration and reproduction of the animal. In turn, when the animal dies
the energy and materials incorporated into the herbivore may eventually be either broken down
by decomposer organisms or become food for carnivores.

So energy flow is like a chain. At each stage energy is lost as dispersed heat, which is eventually
radiated back to space and plays no further role in sustaining life. While the next organism up the
chain may be more complex in structure, it can only be so at the expense of a greater expenditure
of energy per individual organism. So, the further we travel along the chain of energy
transmission (the food chain) the lower the total mass of organisms that can be supported for a
given initial mass of plant matter. The practical consequence of this is that the total amount of
available energy (i.e. that capable of doing work) within the system decreases over time. Each
stage in this conversion process is called a feeding or trophic level.

1.2 NATURAL CYCLES

In addition to energy, matter also flows through the ecosystem from organism to organism. In
contrast to energy, however, chemical elements are constant in form and finite in amount. Hence
they must be constantly reused or cycled through the system. You should remember that energy
flows while matter cycles. A cycle begins with the take-up of non-living materials by plants.
These mineral nutrients are incorporated into living tissue through biochemical reactions driven
by photosynthesis. The chemical substances so acquired are passed on to higher trophic levels.
These eventually return to a non-living state by the actions of decomposer organisms. The routes
by which chemical elements move through the environment are known as biogeochemical
cycles.

1.2.1 Biogeochemical Cycles

As the name implies, biogeochemistry is a specialization involving three branches of natural,
physical and earth science - biology, geology and chemistry. It is concerned with living
organisms and other substances, which are available to them, such as nutrients. Materials
circulate over vast time periods. Weathering and erosion of rocks moves materials between the
land and the atmosphere, into the oceans by way of streams and rivers, from the atmosphere to
biota, to continents by uplift and so on. Each element has pathways that it follows through these
natural systems, and these pathways or cycles are determined by the physical and chemical
properties of the elements and their compounds. We interfere with these cycles when adding to
the material flows, disrupting cycles or introducing synthetic compounds that have no natural
cycles.

A biogeochemical cycle involves interactions and biological and physical exchanges of

bioelements. These bioelements are the components of a biogeochemical cycle that reside in
compartments or defined spaces in nature and cycle through living organisms. A compartment
contains a certain quantity, or pool, of bioelements, but compartments exchange bioelements.
The rate of movement of bioelements between two compartments is known as the flux or flux
rate. It is essentially the rate of flow across a defined area. The flux rate and pools of bioelements
together define the nutrient cycle in an ecosystem. The average length of time a bio-element
remains in a compartment is known as the mean residence time.

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Ecosystems are not isolated from one another, and bioelements come into an ecosystem through
meteorological, geological, or biological transport mechanisms. As a result, biogeochemical
cycles can be local or global in scale. The global biogeochemical cycle of an element or a
compound refers to the transport of that substance among the principal global reservoirs
(atmosphere, oceans, land and biosphere), the amounts contained in the different reservoirs, and
the rate of exchange among them. Not all reservoirs can be tapped by biological organisms. For
instance, although the largest carbon reservoir is within rocks in the Earth's crust, this source is
biologically useless since organisms do not perform reactions capable of utilizing it.

Mass balance budgets are mostly used to study how elements are gained and lost in ecosystems.
Some ecosystems are in steady state. This occurs when fluxes are balanced, and so an imbalance
in a biogeochemical cycle may have dramatic consequences on a global scale, for example, an
imbalance in green gases, etc has resulted into global warming.

1.2.2 The Hydrological Cycle

The hydrological cycle illustrates the principle of all biogeochemical cycles, namely continuous
circulation and renewal. However, it is a special case because of the particular importance of
water and because it is a fundamental part of the biosphere – 70% of the Earth's surface is
covered by water. We all need fresh water. Without it people, and most animals and plants,
would not survive.

The hydrological cycle is a conceptual model that describes the storage and movement of water
between the biosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere and the hydrosphere. Water on this planet can be
stored in the atmosphere, oceans, lakes, rivers, soils, glaciers, snowfields and groundwater.

Figure 1.1. The hydrological cycle

Water moves from one reservoir to another by way of processes like evaporation, condensation,
precipitation, deposition, run-off, infiltration, sublimation, transpiration, melting and
groundwater flow. The oceans supply most of the evaporated water found in the atmosphere.
Only 91% of this evaporated water is returned directly to the ocean basins by way of
precipitation. The remaining 9% is transported to areas over landmasses where climatological
factors induce the formation of precipitation. The resulting imbalance between rates of

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evaporation and precipitation over land and ocean is corrected by run-off and groundwater flow
to the oceans.

The hydrological cycle shows that water is a renewable resource. It is vital for public health and
the environment. Safeguarding resources and ensuring affordable supplies are essential for
sustainable development. As the economy develops, demand is likely to grow, largely due to
increased household use and the growth of single person households. New development and
urbanization increase demand and create further pollution pressures, while diffuse inputs, such as
run-off and leaching from roads, agricultural land and urban areas, and pressure on groundwater,
all present substantial challenges.

Water stress
In the developing world a big problem is the shortage of water and the lack of clean supplies.
Estimates suggest that by 2015 almost half the planet's population, mostly in Africa, the Middle
East, South Asia and northern China, will live in countries that are 'water stressed' – having
access to less than 1700 m3 of water per person per year. At the same time, nearly half the
world's land surface consists of river basins shared by more than one country, while 30 nations
get more than one third of their water from outside their borders. It takes 1000 tons of water to
grow 1 ton of grain. All of these factors suggest that water stress may be a cause of international
tension in the future.

Changed weather patterns, perhaps through climate change, also have implications for water
resources. On average water is renewed in rivers once every 16 days. Water in the atmosphere is
completely replaced once every 8 days. Slower rates of replacement occur in large lakes,
glaciers, ocean bodies and groundwater. Replacement in these reservoirs can take from hundreds
to thousands of years. Some of these resources (especially groundwater) may be being used by
humans at rates that far exceed their renewal rates. This type of resource use tends to make this
type of water effectively non-renewable.

When water is very scarce the same source of water may have to be used for drinking and
cooking, as a place to wash, a place to wash clothing and utensils, and as a place for farm
animals to drink. Such multiple uses increase the risk of the water becoming ever more polluted.

1.2.3 Elemental Cycles

Many individual chemical elements are essential for living organisms. In fact all elements that
pass through food chains from one level to another display natural cycles and lend their names to
the relevant cycle. While the cycles for each element are often described as a single entity, there
are in fact many levels of interaction between cycles. For example, carbon dioxide links the
carbon cycle and the oxygen cycle.

(i) The nitrogen cycle

The atmosphere contains 79% nitrogen by volume, but most living organisms cannot use it
directly. So how is nitrogen made available to plants? The answer is via the nitrogen cycle. The
nitrogen cycle shows the flow of nitrogen in nature. Nitrates in the soil may be used by plants,
washed out through leaching by rainwater or possibly reduced to free nitrogen again and released
to the atmosphere. This latter process of denitrification is again the result of bacterial action. The
denitrifying bacteria are anaerobic so this process only occurs where there is no oxygen, for
example in waterlogged soils.

Notice that nitrification is an oxidation reaction and will only occur in well-aerated conditions.
Denitrification is a reduction process and is inhibited by the presence of oxygen. Both of these
facts are relevant to sewage treatment processes, where nitrification is encouraged and

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denitrification is a potential nuisance. It can allow nitrogen gas to form and the bubbles of
nitrogen can make sludge rise to the surface rather than fall to the bottom of settlement tanks.
Water pollution control will go into more detail on these issues.

Figure 1.2. The nitrogen cycle

Denitrification can be beneficial or harmful, e.g. 'blue baby syndrome'. The gut of human infants
is not sufficiently acidic to exclude the growth of certain organisms, including those that reduce
nitrate to nitrite. Nitrite is hazardous because it oxidizes iron (II) haemoglobin to iron (III)
haemoglobin, the latter being unable to bind oxygen. Thus, if nitrate is present in drinking water,
it can essentially cause suffocation in infants after its conversion to nitrite by some bacteria in
the gut.

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However, denitrification is desirable in sewage treatment and remediation using micro-
organisms (bioremediation). Denitrifiers aid in converting organic nitrogen to clean nitrogen gas
that escapes to the atmosphere. This method allows for clean disposal of nitrogenous pollutants.

As a basic building block of plant and animal proteins, nitrogen is a nutrient essential to all
forms of life, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Until recently, the supply of
nitrogen available to plants - and ultimately to animals - was quite limited. Despite being the
most abundant element in the atmosphere, plants cannot use nitrogen from the air until it is
chemically transformed, or fixed, into ammonium or nitrate compounds that plants can
metabolize. All that has changed in the past half-century. Driven by a massive increase in the use
of fertilizer, the burning of fossil fuels, and an upsurge in land clearing and deforestation, the
amount of nitrogen available for uptake at any given time has more than doubled since the
1940s. Human activities now contribute more to the global supply of fixed nitrogen each year
than do natural processes. Human-generated nitrogen totals about 210 million tons per year,
while natural processes contribute about 140 million tons.

This influx of extra nitrogen has caused serious distortions of the natural nutrient cycle,
especially where intensive agriculture and high fossil fuel use coincide. The effects of this surfeit
of nutrients touch every environmental domain, threatening air and water quality and disrupting
the health of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Natural systems may be able to absorb a limited
amount of additional nitrogen by producing more plant mass, just as your garden vegetables do
when you give them fertilizer. However, there is a limit to the amount of nitrogen that natural
systems can take up; above this level, serious harm can follow. In terrestrial ecosystems, nitrogen
saturation can disrupt soil chemistry, leading to loss of other soil nutrients such as calcium,
magnesium and potassium, and ultimately to a decline in fertility. Excess nitrogen can also
wreak havoc with the structure of ecosystems, affecting the number and kind of species found.

Aquatic ecosystems in lakes, rivers and coastal estuaries have probably suffered the most so far.
They ultimately receive much of the nutrient overload, which tends to accumulate in run-off or
be delivered directly in the form of raw or treated sewage. Sewage is very high in nitrogen from
protein in the human diet. In aquatic systems, excess nitrogen often greatly stimulates the growth
of algae and other aquatic plants. When this extra plant matter dies and decays, it can rob the
water of its dissolved oxygen, suffocating many aquatic organisms. This process, called
nitrophication, is one of the most serious threats to aquatic environments today, particularly in
coastal estuaries and inshore waters where most commercial fish and shellfish species breed.
Another aspect of this nutrient attack on aquatic systems has been a rise in certain algal
populations creating so-called 'blooms'. Some algal blooms can be toxic; the toxins produced
when the algae decay at night, due to their increased oxygen demand, can take a heavy toll on
fish, seabirds and marine animals.

The nitrogen overabundance also impinges on the health of the atmosphere when the nitrogen-
containing gases nitric oxide and nitrous oxide are released into the air, either from fossil fuel
burning, land clearing or agriculture-related activities. Nitric oxide, for example, is a potent
precursor of smog and acid rain, and nitrous oxide is a long-lived greenhouse gas that traps some
200 times more heat than carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide can also play a role in depleting the
stratospheric ozone layer.

(ii) The Carbon Cycle

We have seen that all life on Earth is based on a few major elements - particularly carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. The other elements essential for life are trace elements. The
energy for life to exist comes from the reaction of carbohydrates with oxygen to form carbon
dioxide and water. This reaction and the reverse reaction occur continuously and are known by

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several names: plants have both a 'respiration cycle' and a 'photosynthesis cycle'. Humans and
other mammals eat food and convert it to energy while breathing out carbon dioxide. Creatures
in the ocean build vast coral reefs out of carbonates by absorbing carbon dioxide from the
seawater. Carbon is present in the atmosphere mainly as carbon dioxide (CO2) and in small
quantities as carbon monoxide (CO). In the hydrosphere, carbon is present as bicarbonate
(HCO3-) and carbonate (C032-), the major factor in the hardness of water. In the lithosphere it is
present largely as calcium carbonate (CaC03).

In the biosphere carbon is present as the building block of the plants and animals in the form of a
variety of carbon compounds such as carbohydrates, proteins and amino acids. Carbon enters the
biological system either through a geological process - weathering of carbon-bearing minerals
such as limestone (CaC03) - or a chemical process - directly from the atmosphere (CO2) by
photosynthesis. When the organism (including plants) dies, the carbon is released back either
directly to the atmosphere as CO2 through degradation by microorganisms, or is mineralized as
coal, limestone etc., so that it is returned to the lithosphere. Thus the carbon cycle is complete.

Figure 1.3. The carbon cycle

If we are to understand environmental problems such as global climate change, we must

understand the carbon cycle and our influence on it. Most of the carbon within organisms comes
from the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air. The atmosphere is about 0.03% CO2. However, the
greatest physical reservoir of carbon is not atmospheric carbon dioxide but instead is located in
the Earth's crust and is not easily accessible to biological organisms. So while the global carbon

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cycle can be constructed in many ways, typically it is based on the atmosphere as the reservoir of
interest. Flows of carbon into and out of the atmosphere are quantified in terms of the various
chemical species: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO) and many
others.

The so-called carbon dioxide budget considers the inflows and outflows of this substance. There
are five primary fluxes:
− Photosynthesis
− Decomposition of wastes
− Ocean cycling
− Fossil fuel combustion
− Deforestation

(iii) The Sulphur Cycle

Sulphur is present in the Earth's crust at a concentration of less than 500 ppm (by mass) and in
the Earth's atmosphere at a total volume concentration of less than 1 ppm (volume). Despite
these relative proportions, sulphur-containing compounds exert a profound influence on the
chemistry of the atmosphere and on climate.

The largest physical reservoir is the Earth's crust in which sulphur is found in gypsum (CaSO4)
and pyrite (FeS2). The largest reservoir of biologically useful sulphur is found in the ocean as
sulphate anions, dissolved hydrogen sulphide gas and elemental sulphur. Other reservoirs
include: freshwater (contains sulphate, hydrogen sulphide and elemental sulphur), land (contains
sulphate), atmosphere - containing sulphur oxide (SO2) and methane sulphonic acid; volcanic
activity releases some hydrogen sulphide into the air, but primarily sulphur dioxide.

Figure 1.4. The sulphur cycle

The sulphur cycle is important because the environmental impacts are diverse and important
locally even on a human timescale. Some of the reactions that occur in the sulphur cycle open up
new environments to life. They support biological communities in unlikely places such as deep-
sea thermal vents, areas of low pH and areas of high temperature. On the other hand, certain
reactions remove essential components or produce wastes that make environments uninhabitable
to some organisms. An additional feature is that certain bacteria are chemically active in the
sulphur cycle but others are not.

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