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US imports of wood and paper products from countries with emerging economies such as China and Brazil have dramatically increased in recent decades, partially displacing US domestic production. Such displacements may have reduced the direct production costs of these products, yet generated indirect economic and environmental impacts that are not well understood or taken into account. This study uses general equilibrium modeling to assess and compare the economy-wide impacts and greenhouse gas (GHG) consequences between US domestic production and imports from China and Brazil. Both the United States and China will benefit from enhancing US production of wood and paper products. In addition, strengthening the US wood products industries can help reduce GHG emissions and conserve tropical natural forests as China and Brazil import or use more tropical logs to produce wood products than the United States. These findings reveal the economic and environmental advantages of increasing US production of forest products, particularly wood products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the environmental impact of printing and publishing industry in the U.S. It mentions that the paper industry emits the fourth-highest level of carbon dioxide among manufacturing industries, according to the New York Times Co. It is suggested that the paper industry is the world's 5th largest industrial consumer of energy. It highlights the result of research and analysis conducted by the U.S. government which reveals that the paper industry has low carbon to energy ratio compared to petroleum, chemicals, and primary metals industry.

Summary This study presents the carbon footprint of a paperback book for which the cover and inside papers were produced in the United States and printed in Canada. The choice of paper mills for both cover and page papers was based on criteria such as percentage of recycled content in the pulp mix, transport distances (pulp mill to paper mill, paper mill to print), and technologies. The cradle-to-gate assessment of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions follows recognized guidelines for carbon footprint assessment. The results show that the production of 400,000 books, mainly distributed in North America, would generate 1,084 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq), or 2.71 kilograms (kg) CO2-eq per book. The impact of using deinked market pulp (DMP) is shown here to be detrimental, accounting for 54% of total GHG emissions and being 32% higher than reference virgin Kraft pulp. This supports findings that DMP mill GHG emissions strongly correlate with the carbon intensity of the power grid supplying the pulp mill and that virgin Kraft mills that reuse wood residue and black liquor to produce heat and electricity can achieve lower GHG emissions per tonne of pulp produced. Although contrary to common thinking, this is consistent with the Paper Task Force 2002 conclusion for office paper (the closest paper grade to writing paper or fine paper) (EDF 2002a). To get a cradle-to-grave perspective, three different end-of-life (EOL) scenarios were analyzed, all of which included a harvested wood product (HWP) carbon storage benefit for 25 years. The GHG offset concept within the context of the book editor's 'carbon-neutral' paper claims is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the controversial concern of using virgin fibers in hygiene tissue products, mostly Bleached Eucalyptus Kraft (BEK) and Northern Bleached Softwood Kraft (NBSK), consumers are responding by purchasing selflabeled sustainable products. As of today, there are no established sustainability reported results to inform consumers about the carbon footprint of hygiene tissue. To fill this gap, this study used Life Cycle Assessment to evaluate the environmental impacts across the supply chain (cradle to gate) to produce Premium and Ultra grades of bath tissue, including the production of feedstock, pulp production, and tissue production stages, with focus on Global Warming Potential (GWP). The results showed that one air-dried metric ton (ADmt) of BEK pulp had an associated GWP of 388 kgCO2eq, whereas one ADmt of NBSK pulp presented values ranging between 448 and 596 kgCO2eq, depending on the emissions allocation methodology used. It was estimated that the GWP of one finished metric ton of tissue weighted average could range from 1,392 to 3,075 kgCO2eq depending on mill location, electricity source, and machine technology. These results provide an understanding of the factors affecting the environmental impact of hygiene tissue products, which could guide manufacturers and consumers on decisions that impact their carbon footprint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper purports to outline the prospects and issues in systemizing ecological defense planning and to assess the progress in the ROK. While the defense sectors in the United States and a number of European states have taken steps toward systemizing ecological measures in recent years, progress in the ROK has been slow. Problems point to not only technical challenges in systemizing ecological measures, but also to the lack of political and bureaucratic facilitation. To examine the problem in question, the paper is divided into four sections. First, the paper will outline the environmental impact of military institutions and their actions. Second, the progress in systemizing ecological measures in the defense sector will be examined. Third, problems in Korea's handling of environmental issues relating to the defense sector will be assessed. Then, in the fourth section, the paper will outline the key steps the ROK must take in systemizing ecological defense planning. The paper concludes that further efforts are needed in conceptualizing and systemizing ecological defense planning to not only shape new norms in the defense sector and their activities, but also to comprehensively address both traditional and non-traditional security concerns in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of substituting biofuels for fossil fuels on carbon dioxide (CO) emissions has been debated for many years. A reason for the lack of resolution is that the method widely used to address the question, lifecycle analysis (LCA), is subjective. Its results irreducibly depend on untestable assumptions, notably those pertaining to system boundaries but also those for representing market effects. The best one can do is empirically constrain estimates of net CO impact using data that characterize important aspects of the overall system. Our 2016 paper, 'Carbon balance effects of U.S. biofuel production and use,' took such an approach, using field data to estimate the direct CO exchanges for a circumscribed vehicle-fuel system over the 2005-2013 period of expanding US biofuel use. De Kleine and colleagues criticize our work because it does not follow LCA conventions, arguing in particular for the primacy of the assumption that biofuels are inherently carbon neutral. This response refutes their critique; it reminds readers why the lifecycle paradigm fails for a dynamic system involving the terrestrial carbon cycle, stresses the need to bound an analysis of key carbon exchanges, and explains why the circular logic of LCA can be so beguiling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defines an ecosystem services approach to guide stakeholders through the major steps of the Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) programme of the US Environmental Protection Agency and state environmental offices. The SEP programme is focused on implementing ‘environmentally beneficial’ projects that compensate the environment and the community for adverse effects of violations of environmental regulations. A literature review reveals that the federal programme is greatly under-used by violators despite its enormous opportunities to enhance the human-environment relationship. The SEP programme shares major commonalities with ecosystem service concepts and these can be leveraged to define a structured framework, wherein ecosystem services can play a key role for formulating, evaluating, selecting, implementing and assessing SEPs. Concepts set forth in this paper represent a first step towards mainstreaming an ecosystem services approach in the SEP programme. Further research is needed to assess the applicability of the framework to different categories of SEPs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Large-scale disasters cause considerable damage to the built environment, resulting in serious disruptions to normal human activities and billions of dollars in property damages. Such disasters reveal vulnerabilities in infrastructure design and construction and test to the limit the planning, design, and construction abilities of engineers. This paper briefly reviews the impact of several large-scale disasters on the built environment and explores what engineers can do to be better prepared to deal with future disasters. The disasters examined in this paper are Hurricane Irene (2011), the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina (2005), and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the paper by Kuzma, Najmaie, and Larson that looks at what can be learned from the experience with genetically engineered organisms for oversight of emerging technologies more generally. That paper identifies key attributes of a good oversight system: promoting innovation, ensuring safety, identifying benefits, assessing costs, and doing so all while building public confidence. In commenting on that analysis, this paper suggests that looking at “oversight” in three phases — research and development, regulatory review, and market acceptance — can help to determine when certain of these attributes should take precedence over others and how to structure remedies when an error occurs. The result is an approach that is precautionary with respect to research and development, prudent and open to public input in the regulatory review stage, and purposefully persuasive once market acceptability is at stake, with remedies that are risk-containing in the first phase, risk-managing in the second, and risk-assuaging in the third. Combining the key attributes with the idea of three phases can help attune oversight to society's needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper aims to examine the effects of the use of environmental easements and forest certification on the output of ecosystems services from private forestlands in the USA. Design/methodology/approach - The discussion of the changes in ownership and management of private forest lands in the USA is based on a review of the literature, the degree of recent activity in the innovative changes, and an assessment of the extent of ownership and management changes. Findings - The use of environmental easements, resulting from ownership changes, and forest certification have facilitated, indeed mandated, forest management that is consistent with an increase in the provision of environmental and ecosystem services from private forests. The rapid expansion of environmental easements has been accommodated by the dramatic changes in forest ownership patterns in the USA, as traditional corporate ownerships have sold off large land areas to other private ownership types. Forest certification, which provides for improved management of ecosystem services, also has expanded rapidly in recent years. Practical implications - This study suggests forest management to provide environmental and ecosystem services can be achieve through environmental easements and forest certification. These changes can occur as the result of environmental interests entering forest land markets and affixing easements to the land. This finding suggests an alternative to the approach to establishing separate markets for ecosystem services, as is often suggested, and requires no increased governmental actions or new regulations. Rather these improvements are driven by voluntary forest certification and/or environmental groups entering the private markets for forest lands. Originality/value - This study suggests an alternative to the commonly held notion that separate markets for environmental and ecosystem services are required to increased their outputs. Rather, environmental easements and voluntary certification, in the face of changing ownership can provide the incentives for management changes that increase the outputs of environment and ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to construction of a bridge or highway, the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) requires an evaluation of the effect of the project on the human environment. The purpose of NEPA is to require the head of the federal agency that is committing funds to the project to consider its actions before deciding to proceed with the project. This paper will analyze the general provisions of NEPA to remove some of the mystery related to the environmental concerns raised by bridge or highway projects and to emphasize to transportation planners that these concerns must be addressed prior to beginning a major bridge or highway project. The intent of this paper is to provide some guidance to transportation planners in light of these statutes as they begin the planning stages for highway and bridge projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to beginning a major highway or bridge project, the transportation planner must address requirements set out in the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). NEPA requires a specific evaluation of the effect a major highway or bridge project will have on the environment. This evaluation must include consideration of the effect the project may have on the habitat of an endangered species, which implicates provisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and on historical properties in the vicinity of the project, which implicates provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). This paper presents requisites of NEPA that integrate the requirements of ESA and NHPA into the initial evaluation of the impact on the human environment of a major highway or bridge project. The intent of this paper is to provide guidance to transportation planners in light of NEPA, ESA, and NHPA statutes as they begin the planning stages for highway and bridge projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the firm-level relationship among productivity, decision to export, and environmental performance. The emerging theoretical and empirical literature suggests that trade has an important role in determining firms' heterogeneity: increased openness to trade induces a reallocation effect that increases within-industry efficiency, thereby linking firms' decisions to export and adopt newer (and cleaner) technology. We argue that this framework provides the following empirically-relevant predictions: there is an inverse relationship between firm productivity and pollution emissions per unit output; exporting firms have lower emissions per unit output; and larger firms have a lower emission intensity. To examine these implications empirically, we have assembled a uniquely detailed dataset of the U.S. manufacturing industry for the years 2002, 2005, and 2008 by matching facility-level air emission data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with the facility's economic characteristics contained in the National Establishment Time Series database. The strategy is to first estimate a facility-level total factor productivity parameter as a plant-specific fixed effect. We then investigate how this estimated productivity parameter correlates with emission intensity on a pollutant-by-pollutant basis. Our empirical findings support the hypotheses suggested by the conceptual model. For each criteria air pollutant considered, we find a significant negative correlation between estimated facility productivity and emission intensity. Conditional on a facility's estimated productivity and other controls, exporting facilities have significantly lower emissions per value of sales than non-exporting facilities in the same industry. We also find that plant size is negatively and significantly related to emission intensity for all pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind power is a rapidly growing technology, with an estimated 35% of national end-use electricity demand to be met from wind by 2050 in the US. With such a projected rapid growth, it is necessary to improve and innovate relevant technological areas with due considerations of possible impacts of wind energy harnessing through wind turbines. This paper presents a systematic review of current literature on the issues of noise and vibration of wind turbines and their impact on human health and wild life. The paper reviews the literature on the issues of noise and vibration in wind turbines, the generation mechanisms, the propagation, the impact on human health and wild life. The current status of technology and future developments to mitigate the health and environmental impacts of wind turbine noise and vibration are also reviewed. The paper includes a review of current standards on measurement of acoustic noise of wind turbines and data analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Fuel economy and emissions of heavy-duty trucks greatly vary based on vehicular/environmental conditions. Large-scale infrastructure construction projects require a large amount of material/equipment transportation. Single-parameter generic hauling models may not be the best option for an accurate estimation of hauling contribution in life cycle assessment (LCA) involving construction projects; therefore, more precise data and parameterized models are required to represent this contribution. This paper discusses key environmental/operational variables and their impact on transportation of materials and equipment; a variable-impact transportation (VIT) model accounting for these variables was developed to predict environmental impacts of hauling. Methods: The VIT model in the form of multi-nonlinear regression equations was developed based on simulations using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES) to compute all the impact categories in EPA's TRACI 2.1 and energy consumption of transportation. Considering actual driving cycles of hauling trucks recorded during a pavement rehabilitation project, the corresponding environmental impacts were calculated, and sensitivity analyses were performed. In addition, an LCA case study based on historical pavement reconstruction projects in Illinois was conducted to analyze the contribution of transportation and variability of its impacts during the pavements' life cycle. Results and discussion: The importance of vehicle driving cycles was realized from simulation results. The case study results showed that considering driving cycles using the VIT model could increase the contribution of hauling in total life cycle Global Warming Potential (GWP) and total life cycle GWP itself by 2–4 and 3–5%, respectively. In addition to GWP, ranges of other hauling-related impact categories including Smog, Ozone Depletion, Acidification, and Primary Energy Demand from fuel were presented based on the case study. Ozone Depletion ranged from 9 to 45%, and Smog ranged from 11 to 48% of the total relevant life cycle impacts. The GWP contribution of hauling in pavement LCA ranged between 5 and 32%. The results indicate that the contribution of hauling transportation can be significant in pavement LCA. Conclusions: For large-scale roadway infrastructure construction projects that need a massive amount of material transportation, high fidelity models and data should be used especially for comparative LCAs that can be used as part of decision making between alternatives. The VIT model provides a simple analytical platform to include the critical vehicular/operational variables without any dependence on an external software; the model can also be incorporated in those studies where some of the transportation activity data are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a multivariate measure useful for integrated environmental assessments. It is a weighted distance measure applied to metric data but based on nonparametric statistical procedures. The proposed measure allows all environmental indicators to be used directly without any reduction in dimension (e.g. as in principal component analysis) nor losing variance while being able to tolerate possible non-normality of the indicators, as well as non-linear relationships among them. Results of the hypothetical example and the Mid-Atlantic case study show that the proposed measure is suitable and valuable for integrating multiple indicators into a single index, an important task in integrated environmental assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores questions concerning knowledge coproduction as applied to the extractive sector through an ex‐post evaluation of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) process for a proposed copper and gold mine in Panama. Theoretical underpinnings of knowledge are highlighted, and barriers or enablers to knowledge coproduction are explored, including syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic boundaries and trust building. Reflection is based on the authors' participation as EIA practitioners on the project. Knowledge sharing between the EIA project team and stakeholders are placed in the context of knowledge coproduction theory and application. Different types of knowledge—fast and slow, tacit and explicit, and traditional and expert—are integrated into an adapted version of Nonaka's knowledge spiral model, illustrating the progression of knowledge coproduction through various activities and actors in EIA. Findings support the contention that explicitly designing and implementing knowledge coproduction into EIA practice can help improve environmental governance in the extractive sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outdoor educators are adapting practices to respond to the priorities of education for sustainability. New practices are emerging or adopted from elsewhere. In Europe, the American recreational movement of Leave No Trace (LNT) has influenced environmental education programs. LNT has been criticized for encouraging a reduction in environmental impact in wilderness areas while ignoring the more significant impacts of equipment purchase, travel, and modern lifestyles. This paper extends the critiques of LNT, suggesting that it encourages attitudes of a separation from nature. It suggests that the LNT concept is unrealistic and unhelpful in Europe, where most landscapes have experienced the impact of humans for millennia. Inspired by European approaches of human-nature relations, and at a time of need for significant environmental changes, I suggest that educational programs seeking to connect people with nature encourage people to "leave more trace" or, perhaps, to "consider their trace" instead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In multilateral comparisons of environmental performance over time, energy intensity measures, especially Breal^ energy intensity computed either by index decomposition approach or structural decomposition approach, are the most commonly used measures. Recently, researchers also resort to productiontheoretical approach, which relies on data envelopment analysis techniques, to decompose energy intensity changes over time into their subcomponents.While their intuitiveness and computational ease make these indices attractive, their time series properties create considerable challenges in performing informative and fair comparisons among the energy efficiency levels of units considered. Furthermore, the resultant measure of energy intensity in these studies is still the inverse of a partial factor productivity (PFP) measure, i.e., energy productivity, that does not take into consideration compositional differences between inputs of the units being compared (which are also subject to change over time) and that ignores the type of substitution among inputs and, hence, makes it a measure that disguises rather than illuminates. The theoretical part of this paper shows how one can overcome the shortcomings of the energy intensity measure by constructing a new energy index using directional technology distance functions. The new index constructed in this study not only overcomes the shortcomings of the energy intensity measures but also satisfies the axiomatic properties of index numbers that are laid down by Fisher. An empirical application on U.S state-level agricultural sectors further complements existing studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing the life-cycle energy and environmental impacts of emerging technologies is critical to promote sustainable chemical production because such assessment can provide policy makers with useful insights for future investment and technology deployment; it also provides manufacturers and researchers with quantitative understandings of technology potential, possible bottlenecks, and future Research, Development, and Deployment directions. However, this is a challenging task for emerging technologies due to the lack of inventory data. In this paper, a general and flexible modeling framework was developed to generate the inventory data for new technologies in the chemical industry from a life cycle perspective. The modeling framework is applied to an emerging technology in the U.S. ethylene industry, ethane oxidative dehydrogenation, for demonstration. Broadly, the work described in this paper provides a decision-support method that can be further used by researchers, environment/energy analysts, and policy makers to evaluate the net benefits of innovative technologies, guide early-stage technology development and investment decisions, and conduct strategic planning for meeting energy and emissions reduction goals of the U.S. chemical industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

recent study on the environmental impact of automatic fire sprinklers is documented in a two part series. The current paper provides a background on residential sprinkler technology from its inception until the present, and analyzes the contribution of risk factors, such as fire, on the total lifecycle carbon emissions of one- and two-family dwellings and the reduction to that contribution achieved via the use of automatic fire sprinklers. The analysis shows that the risk of fire increases the carbon emissions of a building over its' lifecycle. The results illustrate that sound risk management is necessary to achieving sustainability and avoiding unintended consequences. These findings are especially important as society seeks to design and build more energy- and resource-efficient, environmentally sustainable buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a preliminary insight into the status of the diffusion and maturity of 'Green IT' as well as some of the driving and inhibiting factors that influence it. The paper is largely descriptive and is based on a survey of 143 organisations from Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Overall, the findings indicate that organisations are developing the 'right mind-set', taking a number of 'softer actions', and investing in new technologies to use IT as part of the solution to pursue both eco-efficiency and eco-sustainability objectives. Nevertheless, the state of Green IT among the surveyed organisations can be considered at the early stage of maturity. In particular, the results indicate that the disposal of IT in an environmentally friendly manner is the most relevant organisational concern about Green IT. It is therefore not surprising that there is significantly more attention paid to the policy and practice in the end-of-IT-life management aspect of Green IT. On the other hand, attention to Green IT sourcing is the least adopted. The need for greater IT efficiency and the pursuit of tangible cost savings from IT operations are the primary drivers for adopting Green IT which have to be articulated in the strategy of an organisation. Likewise, the cost of greening IT and unclear business values from greening IT top the list of the factors that inhibit Green IT adoption. Limitation of the small sample size withstanding, the findings of this study hint at differences in Green IT initiatives among US, New Zealand and Australian organisations. In Australia and New Zealand, environmental consideration is the primary concern. In US the primary concern appears to be energy efficiency and cost reduction. Thus, while Australian and New Zealand organisations are leading the 'softer' side of Green IT policies and practices to reduce the environmental impact of IT, US organisations are far more advanced in the adoption of technologies and practices that reduce energy consumption and improve efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose a target efficiency DEA model that allows for the inclusion of environmental variables in a one stage model while maintaining a high degree of discrimination power. The model estimates the impact of managerial and environmental factors on efficiency simultaneously. A decomposition of the overall technical efficiency into two components, target efficiency and environmental efficiency, is derived. Estimation of target efficiency scores requires the solution of a single large non-linear optimization problem and provides both a joint estimation of target efficiency scores from all DMUs and an estimation of a common scalar expressing the environmental impact on efficiency for each environmental factor. We argue that if the indices on environmental conditions are constructed as the percentage of output with certain attributes present, then it is reasonable to let all reference DMUs characterized by a composed fraction lower than the fraction of output possessing the attribute of the evaluated DMU enter as potential dominators. It is shown that this requirement transforms the cone-ratio constraints on intensity variables in the BM-model (Banker and Morey 1986) into endogenous handicap functions on outputs. Furthermore, a priori information or general agreements on allowable handicap values can be incorporated into the model along the same lines as specifications of assurance regions in standard DEA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents research paper which seeks to investigate sources of renewable energy into the everyday operation of federally owned facilities. It presents a comparative study of existing US federal buildings and analyzes the savings and methodologies for acceptance of each project for the use of building and project managers within the US federal government or other researchers interested in similar analysis. It discusses how projects move forward based on additional motivations such as reduced environmental impact, government policy, and in an effort to increase leadership, awareness, and image. Findings of this technical paper supports the need for inclusion of soft factors, along with economic considerations for project success.

This paper elucidates the data sources and data preparation procedures used in developing the sectoral environmental data of the US. The database described in this paper interlinks (1) Input–Output Table (IOT), (2) environmental emission and resources use statistics, and (3) characterization factors from Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) that quantify environmental impacts. Each of these three modules was designed to describe (1) the economic process that generates environmental interventions, (2) the quantity of the environmental intervention generated and (3) the process through which these environmental interventions realize environmental impacts, respectively. The resulting database encompasses 1344 different types of environmental interventions generated by 480 commodities of the US input–output table, linked to 86 commonly used LCIA models. This paper aims to share the experiences of and to elucidate the procedures and the data sources used for developing the sectoral environmental database in the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP). In the early 1990s, EMAP began testing statistically robust approaches for regional and national scale assessment of aquatic resources of the United States. EMAP's research on streams, lakes and coastal zones advanced the use of probability-based survey designs to yield statistically valid statements of the ecological conditions of these resources. The ability to infer conditions for the entire population of a resource sets the EMAP approach apart from site-specific approaches of other assessment programs.

This paper examines how demographic changes can help explain changes/differences in personal transport using both International Energy Agency country panel regressions and decompositions of U.S. household data. An environmental Kuznets curve for per capita road energy use was rejected; instead, the relationship between income and road energy was found to be monotonic. The ideas that more densely populated countries have less personal transport demands, the young drive more, and smaller households mean higher per capita driving were confirmed. The household decompositions indicated that changes in demand were more important than compositional changes; yet, during some periods the compositional change component was considerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in 1995, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), Office of Research and Development has focused much of its ecological research in the Mid-Atlantic as part of the Mid-Atlantic Integrated Assessment (MAIA). The goal of MAIA is to improve the assessability of scientific information in environmental decision-making. Following the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) whose goal is to guide monitoring that effectively reflects current ecosystem condition and trends, MAIA's second, current, phase of research under the Regional Vulnerability Assessment (ReVA) program is designed to target risk management activities using available data and models. The papers presented here are from a conference held in May 2003 that presented results of research in this second phase of MAIA. The conference was organized into the following topics: 1. Assessing Current Impacts and Vulnerabilities 2. Forecasting Environmental Condition and Vulnerabilities 3. Developing Management Strategies to Optimize the Future, and 4. Assessing and Responding to Environmental Vulnerability [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate annual environmental reports can be judged by the comprehensiveness of their coverage; this paper uses three published comprehensiveness scoring systems to judge 28 such reports (mostly dated 1998) from large US corporations. Earlier (nominally 1996) reports from the same companies were previously scored using one or two of the same systems, and the published results are compared with scores from the current round of reports. The scores of all three scoring systems are significantly correlated for the 1998 environmental reports, indicating that to some degree they are scoring the same features, but with quite a lot of scatter between the scores of one of the systems and those of the other two. There is, however, no correlation between the scores on the 1996 reports and the 1998 reports using the same systems on both. Evidently, most of the 1998 reports were not prepared with the intent of maximizing scores from any of the three scoring systems. Although the three systems achieve similar ranking of the 1998 reports for environmental comprehensiveness, the average normalized scores of one of the systems is significantly higher than those of the other two, reflecting a shorter list of topics and one more in keeping with the practices of the report writers. Because the scoring systems measure the number of topics covered and the depth of discussion rather than the quality of environmental performance, maximum scores could be obtained even with poor performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper combines an established revealed-preference method, discrete-choice hedonic analysis, and a relatively new stated-reference method, choice-based conjoint analysis, in order to estimate more accurately the aesthetic benefits generated by the presence and quality of environmental amenities associated with residential locations. It applies the combined approach to the housing market of Fairfield, Connecticut, which contains several environmental amenities and is experiencing an improvement in the quality of its coastal wetlands due to active restoration efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The forest products sector plays an important role in regional economies in the United States. Although direct economic contribution values are relatively easy to estimate and compare across states, several modeling- and data-related assumptions used in contribution analysis create variations among states that can be difficult to explain. Economic contribution analysts were surveyed to understand variations in methodologies used in conducting economic contribution analysis of the forest products sector. Survey results suggest that although analysts were generally consistent with direct effect sector selection of traditional forest industries (e.g., logging and sawmills) in the IMPLAN sector scheme, several variations were noted in decisions to include or exclude nontraditional forest industries that produce engineered wood products, among others. Likewise, there were subtle differences in opinions on which institutions to include in the social accounting matrix. Some policy-related suggestions were provided for consistent reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development steered by The United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) since 2005 ended in 2014. It looked into the integration principles, values and practices of sustainable development in all aspects of education and learning, with the intention of addressing the global social, economic, cultural and environmental issues in the 21st century. It has become an essential issue in architectural education to create awareness among future generations of architects to be more sensitive towards the environmental impact of architecture on human behavior. This encouraged every school of architecture to incorporate sustainability knowledge into its curriculum and promote ‘sustainable architectural education’, leading to the questions of: what type of structural model of integration approach being applied in promoting architectural sustainable education? The objectives of this paper are to investigate the type of structural models that have been applied in architectural curriculum in selected schools of architecture in both countries and evaluate the level of emphasis in incorporating sustainability knowledge in the curriculum. Therefore, this paper reviewed the approach of integration principles, values and practices of sustainable development at 10 conveniently sampled architecture schools in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA). Data was collected from their respective web sites and their concepts of integration were reviewed and the distribution of credit hours revealed to determine the level of emphasis considered. Findings showed various paths taken by the different institutions in integrating the knowledge of sustainability into their architectural curriculum. This paper concludes with recommendations for further research into gauging the effectiveness of architectural curricula with integrated sustainability knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the content analysis of newspapers as a primary research methodology, this paper examines the effects of and adjustments to a major tornado episode in Kentucky. Adjustments are classified into pre, during, and post-hazard, and into technological and social/behavioral categories. A range of possible preventive and corrective measures is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human information processing theory suggests that environmental complexity plays a significant role in determining the level at which Information is processed. Environments which are too complex or those which are too simple fail to stimulate optimal processing levels. Unfortunately, the capacity to control environmental complexity when Introducing the basic financial accounting model is hampered by the format of the traditional introductory approach. This paper Investigates the problem of controlling environmental complexity and suggests an alternate introductory approach which enhances the instructor's capacity to control the complexity factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural impact assessments (CIAs) are rare in environmental practice in the United States. This paper explores the use and integration of CIAs into environmental assessments with respect to cultural resources of communities and American Indian tribes. It notes the shortcomings of consultation under Section 106 of National Historic Preservation Act and public comment under the National Environmental Policy Act and recommends employing CIAs to fill the gaps, decrease time and costs, and possibly limit lawsuits.Environmental Practice 18: 222–226 (2016) [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Energy have been always on the forefront of every nation's priority list, more importantly, affordable energy is one of the main objectives for every country. Hence, the fracking process have dominated the last decade because of its contribution to a more affordable energy. In the meantime the fracking process proved to have several negative impacts on the environmental sustainability. Therefore, the net cost of fracking have to be identified and its benefits have to be weighed against its negative sustainability impacts as well. This paper presents an identification of the major cost centers and the impacts needs assessment for the fracking process across the phases of its Life Cycle from the exploration and acquisition to the well completion. The paper is also serving as a step forward to estimate the real value and worth of the fracking process as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulations of future climate change impacts on water resources are subject to multiple and cascading uncertainties associated with different modeling and methodological choices. A key facet of this uncertainty is the coarse spatial resolution of GCM output compared to the finer-resolution information needed by water managers. To address this issue, it is now common practice to apply spatial downscaling techniques, using either higher-resolution regional climate models or statistical approaches applied to GCM output, to develop finer-resolution information. Downscaling, however, can also introduce its own uncertainties into water resources' impact assessments. This study uses watershed simulations in five U.S. basins to quantify the sources of variability in streamflow, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loads associated with the underlying GCM compared to the choice of downscaling method (both statistically and dynamically downscaled GCM output). This study also assesses the specific, incremental effects of downscaling by comparing watershed simulations based on downscaled and nondownscaled GCM model output. Results show that the underlying GCM and the downscaling method each contribute to the variability of simulated watershed responses. The relative contribution of GCM and downscaling method to the variability of simulated responses varies by watershed and season of the year. Results illustrate the potential implications of one key methodological choice in conducting climate change impact assessments for water-the selection of downscaled climate change information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal areas are on the front lines of the impacts of climate change. The immediate impacts of temperature, precipitation and sea-level change affect rich but already threatened ecological systems and the most populated, highly developed, and economically vibrant regions of human activity on the planet. The specific vulnerabilities, impacts and adaptation options and activities vary greatly across the coastal areas of the US. The charge given to the coastal chapter team of the third US National Climate Assessment (NCA3, released in May 2014) was to discern the key vulnerabilities and most important cross-cutting concerns across the extensive coastline of the US. This paper is a reflection on what the coastal chapter team accomplished and how it was done (including author selection, staff support, technical inputs, the chapter development process, within- and cross-chapter integration, the review process, the delivery and high-impact release, the timeline of key assessment steps, and evaluation of the chapter development process). It concludes with eight lessons that might inform the activities of future collaborative author teams writing transdisciplinary, integrated assessment reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports the criticism on the biologists who tried to test the performance of a laboratory genetic analysis in the United States. Use of hair from a captive lynx as a blind control; Reaction of interest groups and congressional critics of US environmental-protection laws; Accusation of conspiring with environmental groups.