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As a global concern, medical waste (MW) links public health, environmental pollution, and resource sustainability. This study aims to assess the two issues related to medical waste in Bahrain: the increasing generation rate of MW and its management. The integrated Environmental Assessment (IEA) methodology was adopted, including the DPSIR (Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Responses) framework, analysis of existing policies, and the outlook. Consequently, data were collected from official health statistics in Bahrain, and related policies for the last two decades (2001 to 2021) were also collected, in addition to interviews with Bahrain medical waste (BMW) treatment company. The results show a vast increase in medical waste during COVID-19. Moreover, most of the existing policies address the impact of the BMW issues, but the policies are lacking in tackling the drivers and pressures; there is also a policy gap related to the generation rate. Accordingly, a set of policies was proposed to overcome the two medical waste issues. Moreover, to overcome issues associated with MW, the study recommended reforming regulations aiming to reduce and manage medical waste efficiently in order to focus more on drivers and pressure causing an elevation in MW issues in Bahrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental protection is a priority at the international level and its evaluation a resource to guide timely decision-making. The objective of the present investigation is to design a procedure to establish an organizational ecosystem in the integrated evaluation of the environment. Consequently, the results provided by the procedure contribute to timely decision-making. The methods were applied: historical-logical, synthesis analysis, surveys, interviews, process modeling and participatory observation. The procedure was conceptualized, designed and applied, obtaining informational resources such as: lists, models and reports. Likewise, the workflow designed in the Business Process Modeling Notation was represented for its subsequent automation. It contributed to identify the capacities of human resources related to the evaluation of the state of the environment and the characteristics of this type of organizational ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green architecture, including green roofs, can limit the effects of urbanization. Green roofs soften the thermal effect in urban conditions, especially considering the significant increase in the European and global population and that a significant share of the age group, mainly the elderly is exposed to diseases caused by high temperatures. We studied runoff and the quality of water from green roof systems in Lower Silesia, within the area of the Agro and Hydrometeorology Station Wrocław-Swojec, in the years 2012–2016. In the study, two systems with a vegetation layer based on light expanded clay aggregate and perlite were analyzed. The studies were based on the assessment of peak flow reduction, rainwater volume preservation and peak wave reduction. The calculated maximum retention performance indicator, relative to rainfall, for perlite surfaces was up to 65%, and in relation to the control surface up to 49%. In addition, the quality of water from runoff was estimated in the conditions of annual atmospheric deposition, taking into account such indicators as electrolytic conductivity; the content of N, NO3, NO2, NH4, P, PO4; and the content of metals, Cu, Zn, Pb and Cd. The load of total nitrogen exceeded the values of concentration in rainwater and amounted to 7.17 and 13.01 mg·L−1 for leca and perlite, respectively. In the case of the metal content, significantly higher concentrations of copper and zinc from green surfaces were observed in relation to precipitation. For surfaces with perlite, these were 320 mg·L−1 and 241 mg·L−1, respectively, with rainwater concentrations of 50 and 31 mg·L−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research analyzed the properties of the water from the Soacha River, Cundinamarca, Colombia, its physicochemical and microbiological properties were investigated. The methodology consisted of performing various tours throughout the sub-basin of the river from Hungría laneto Bosatama lane where Soacha River flows into the Bogota River; livestock, agricultural, industrial and residential discharge points were identified; during the tours several workshops regarding environmental topics were conducted with the community of the area. Subsequently a total of 60 water samples during the period from September, to November 2012; 20 samples were taken from the top of the sub-basin 20 from the middle and 20 from the lower part physical, chemical and microbiological analysis were carried out both in situ and in laboratory; which allowed to identify the contamination of water from Soacha River. The results obtained showed that the waters of this river contain high levels of contamination of phosphorus, nitrogen and coliforms, as well as a low concentration of dissolved oxygen in the middle and low of the subbasin, which revealed clearly that the animals and humans who live near the river are in serious risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains how a role-play game (RPG) can allow participants to get insights on the dynamics of incorporating scientific advice into adversarial policymaking. A RPG called GROUND-LEVEL OZONE (GLO) simulates a multi-stakeholder negotiation based on the recommendations of an integrated environmental assessment (IEA) for urban air quality management. Structured debriefing of the RPG used questionnaire survey of participants’ perceptions of IEA usefulness as well as participants’ feedback about the use of the IEA and performance of the facilitators during negotiations. By linking those perceptional and behavioral patterns to the negotiated outcomes, the debriefing drew much broader insights on the importance of upstream engagement for enhanced legitimacy of the IEA and constructive roles of a facilitator in a multi-stakeholder negotiation. This article also critically reviews the debriefing method and suggests a new design of more sophisticated debriefing method and a new RPG for more effective learning of the dynamics of the use of IEA in a multi-stakeholder negotiation in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Environmental implications of the whole supply-chain of products, both goods and services, their use, and waste management, i.e., their entire life cycle from "cradle to grave" have to be considered to achieve more sustainable production and consumption patterns. Progress toward environmental sustainability requires enhancing the methodologies for quantitative, integrated environmental assessment and promoting the use of these methodologies in different domains. In the context of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of products, in recent years, several methodologies have been developed for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA). The Joint Research Center of the European Commission (EC-JRC) led a "science to decision support" process which resulted in the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook, providing guidelines to the decision and application of methods for LCIA. The Handbook is the result of a comprehensive process of evaluation and selection of existing methods based on a set of scientific and stakeholder acceptance criteria and involving review and consultation by experts, advisory groups and the public. In this study, we report the main features of the ILCD LCIA recommendation development highlighting relevant issues emerged from this "from science to decision support" process in terms of research needs and challenges for LCIA. Comprehensiveness of the assessment, as well as acceptability and applicability of the scientific developments by the stakeholders, are key elements for the design of new methods and to guarantee the mainstreaming of the sustainability concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the major management tools that are utilized to resolve coastal zone problems, including the integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) and ecosystem-based management (EBM). It reviews several research areas that could be used in coastal management, such as marine spatial planning (MSP), ecological modelling, and the tools to communicate science to managers. It cites the U.S. National Estuary Program (NEP) as an example of EBM for the management of estuaries. The Atlantic Coastal Action Program (ACAP) is an example of EBM in Canada.

Abstract: We address the future of science and governance for the California Delta, focusing on the CALFED Bay-Delta Program, an interagency, multi-stakeholder effort to understand and manage the Delta for multiple purposes. We portray a Delta history as a coevolutionary process between science, governance and ecosystems. Global integrated environmental assessments (IEA) provide insights into understanding complex, dynamic socio-ecological systems. Many of the discursive stakeholder and scientific activities that have arisen under CALFED are similar to IEA and remain essential to the shared learning needed to effectively interact with a dynamic Delta. More deliberately enmeshing environmental monitoring, analysis, and collective learning into Delta governance will improve outcomes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper presents a method to determine the most influencing stressors and the most susceptible resources for complex assessment problems involving multiple stressors impacting multiple resources over a region. The method is based on the concept of limiting priorities in a square matrix which capture the transmission of influence along all paths between stressors and resources in the matrix. The proposed method allows the relationship between stressors and resources to be looked at in both univariate and multivariate fashion, taking into account the interactions among the variables. Hypothetical and case study examples are given for illustration purpose. It shows that the proposed method is suitable for the determination of the most important stressors and the most susceptible resources, a common (but often uneasy) task in integrated environmental assessment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Environmental integrated assessments are often carried out via the aggregation of a set of environmental indicators. Aggregated indices derived from the same data set can differ substantially depending upon how the indicators are weighted and aggregated, which is often a subjective matter. This article presents a method of generating aggregated environmental indices in an objective manner via Monte Carlo simulation. Rankings derived from the aggregated indices within and between three Monte Carlo simulations were used to evaluate the overall environmental condition of the study area. Other insights, such as the distribution of good or bad values of indicators at a watershed and/or a subregion, were observed in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An adaptation of the Drivers-Pressure-State-Impact-Response methodology is presented in this work. The differential DPSIR (ΔDPSIR) was developed to evaluate impacts on the coastal environment and as a tool for integrated ecosystem management. The aim of the ΔDPSIR is to provide scientifically-based information required by managers and decision-makers to evaluate previously adopted policies, as well as future response scenarios. The innovation of the present approach is to provide an explicit link between ecological and economic information related to the use and management of a coastal ecosystem within a specific timeframe. The application of ΔDPSIR is illustrated through an analysis of developments in a Southwest European coastal lagoon between 1985 and 1995. The value of economic activities dependent on the lagoon suffered a significant reduction (ca. −60%) over that period, mainly due to a decrease in bivalve production. During that decade the pressures from the catchment area were managed (ca. 176 million Euros), mainly through the building of waste water treatment plants. Notwithstanding this, the ecosystem state worsened with respect to abnormal clam mortalities due to a parasite infection and to benthic eutrophication symptoms in specific problematic areas. The negative economic impacts during the decade were estimated between −565 and −315 million Euros, of which 9–49% represent the cost of environmental externalities. Evaluation of these past events indicates that future management actions should focus on reducing the limitation on local clam seeds, which should result in positive impacts to both the local socio-economy and biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Over the last decades the concepts of Integrated Environmental Assessment (IEA) and Industrial Ecology (IE), both claiming to provide analyses and solutions for sustainability issues, have been developed separately as they emerged in response to questions from different policy-fields. In both fields, specific tools are used to support national and international environmental policy. The focus of IEA and IE tools, however, is different. IEA tools focus on one or a limited number of specific environmental issues. They often model the chain environmental processes with high spatial (and temporal) resolution, but have a low resolution for the material structure of the economy and only partly take into account indirect effects that occur via physical and socio-economic linkages. IE tools take into account all environmental issues related to a specific substance or product. They have a high resolution for the material structure of the economy and take into account indirect effects that occur via physical linkages, however, their environmental modelling is very limited. Both IE and IEA tools have proven to be very useful and neither is superior to the other. However, a combination of both can provide additional information that can be used for more effective policy making. We use the case of a hypothetical world-wide ban on PVC to show that a measure that is not directly related to climate change could still have significant climate effects. This indirect effect is a result of the linkages of material flows in society. We show that IEA tools are not well suited to include these types of effects and that IE tools can fill this gap partially. What is really needed is a broader systems perspective that takes into account the full range of possible side-effects of environmental policy measures. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Indicators are essential instruments to identify environmental problems, their analysis and evaluation, to set priorities, and to monitor trends and temporal changes in the environmental conditions. They are important tools to follow policy performance, and to measure progress towards achievements to of specific objectives. Indicators are used in Integrated Environmental Assessment (IEA) reports since they provide decision-makers with simplified and relevant information about the conditions and trends of the environmental issues of interest, which also helps to monitor and assess environmental policies. Indicators also enhance the level of public awareness about the environmental issues without dealing with the complicated specific data and statistics. The objective of this research is to make visible the most important (Core) environmental indicators relevant to (WEHABC) themes, which include (Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture, (and Land), Biodiversity, Marine and Coastal Ecosystems), since they are the most significant themes that constitute Integrated Environmental Assessment Reports. This step has been performed by use of DPSIR model (Driving force, Pressure, State, Impacts and Responses), to synthesize and analyze the interrelationships between human activities, environmental eco-systems and their environmental, social and economic impacts and the social responses to mitigate these impacts. The matrix of environmental indicators relevant to WEHABC themes were discussed, scrutinized, and finally selected through a number of activities organized by the United Nations Environmental Programme/Regional Office for West Asia (UNEP/ROWA) during 2003-2004. For each selected indicator, a methodology sheet was proposed that shows the theme, the issue, the definition, unit of measurement, type of indicator, purpose, significance and relevance, methodology of description, linkage to other indicators, alternative definitions, and sources of information and references. The main finding of this study indicates that it is vitally important to use environmental indicators to monitor and assess the trends and conditions of the environment in the Arab Region and its outlook. It is important not only at the regional base, but also at the national and local levels, to enable countries of the region to periodically prepare environmental assessment reports of shared environmental issues of interest. Such exercises can contribute to and facilitate the formulation of environmental strategies and initiation of future sustainable development policies for the Region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Using the concept of life cycle analysis, the whole life cycle of anthracite production in Vietnam was assessed and the environmental “hot-spots” were identified. These include (i) dust pollution at coal transfer points or piles in storage; (ii) noise pollution resulting from the usage of heavy equipment, and (iii) high volume of acid and turbid mine water discharged into the environment. Pollution prevention and treatment options were identified and discussed in this study which consists of wet treatment of dust, planning, collection and treatment of mine water, planting of trees for dust and noise reduction as well as minimization of erosion. Some recommendations are made for pollution abatement from coal production and improvement of anthracite production in the region. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Lack of regulations and standards on mineral waste recycling makes Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) useful methods for environmental assessment of recycling scenarios. An unsolved problem arises whenever two scenarios of recycling have to be compared according to both ERA and LCA impact results considered simultaneously. A methodology to combine LCA and ERA results and tools toward Integrated Environmental Assessment (IEA) is proposed together with three application examples based on case studies. The most effective combination approach is to define further impact categories for ERA to be considered with the standard LCA ones. Then, the use of a multicriteria analysis method was proved to be an efficient way to rank alternative scenarios with respect to all the results. The key issues to be further researched are discussed and proposals are suggested. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Environmental indicators are often aggregated into a single index for various purposes in environmental studies. Aggregated indices derived from the same data set can differ, usually because the aggregated indices’ sensitivities are not thoroughly analyzed. Furthermore, if a sensitivity analysis is carried out, it is not presented in a transparent fashion to policy decision-makers. This paper presents a method of generating various aggregated environmental indices and analyzing their sensitivities via the use of the fuzzy set concept. Results show that several insights into the environmental conditions of the study area (e.g., the distribution of good or bad values of indicators at a watershed and or across the region) can be revealed in the sensitivity analysis of aggregated indices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper draws results from a review of literature to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the integrated environmental assessment framework in Canada with respect to the inclusion of health impact assessment. Insights include the legislative nature, rigid structure and priority for the natural environment that may restrict progress and the pool of government agencies that need to be convinced of the benefits of health impact assessment that may provide a strong structure for compliance in the long term. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Participation of stakeholders in stewardship of the aquatic environment, including participation from members of the general public, has become much more widespread than was the case a decade or so ago. With this shift, from a former predominantly technocratic stance to something of a democratic stance on the style of management, it becomes important to elucidate public perceptions of environmental behavior. The paper examines this issue: from a rather specific perspective, where the role of time is significant; with a specific purpose in mind—for defining illustrative stakeholder aspirations for the future, whose plausibility is to be assessed against a computational model of lake behavior; and for a specific case study, Lake Lanier in the Chattahoochee watershed of Georgia, USA. Perturbations and variation in the behavior of the aquatic environment span many time frames, from the very short-term response associated with storms, infrastructure failure, transient pollution events, and so on, to the much longer-term, for instance, the biogeochemical ‘ageing’ of a lake over many decades and more. Our analysis is devoted to data from a survey of stakeholder imagination and perceptions of how the future state of Lake Lanier may evolve in the relatively short term (2–5 years) and in the long term, defined as 25+ years (the span of a generation). Overall, stakeholders are pessimistic and fear that things will be worse in the longer term. Guided largely by thinking on the perspectives of the social solidarities of Cultural Theory, extraction and analysis of sub-samples of the survey responses show that this outlook over the two frames of time is persistent, irrespective of what are, in principle, rather different ‘global’ attitudes towards the man-environment relationship. Of interest inter alia to the foresight generating procedure, by which the ‘reachability’ of stakeholder-derived futures for the lake is to be assessed using a computational model of the relevant parts of the science base, is the question of whether the same small number of priorities for further research on lake behavior is robust in the face of the rich variety of aspirations for the future inevitable in a democratic community of stakeholders. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A decision analysis method for integrating environmental indicators was developed. This was a combination of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the Analytic Network Process (ANP). Being able to take into account the interdependency among variables, the method was capable of ranking ecosystems in terms of environmental conditions and suggesting cumulative impacts across a large region. Using data on land cover, population, roads, streams, air pollution, and topography of the Mid-Atlantic Region of the United States, we were able to point out areas which were in relatively poor condition and/or vulnerable to future deterioration regarding various environmental aspects. The method offered an easy and comprehensive way to combine the strengths of conventional multivariate statistics (PCA) and decision-making science tool (ANP) for integrated environmental assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A concise review of the evolution of the integrated environmental assessment field is presented. The opening conference of the European Forum on Integrated Environmental Assessment in 1998 is taken as a reference point. A mixed record of notable accomplishments and modest progress is detected in surveying examples in four large areas of concern to the integrated assessment community: modeling, participatory techniques, mega-assessments involving hundreds of people for several years, and organizational and community issues. Plausible reasons for slow progress in participatory assessments are sketched and possible remedies are suggested. Examples of the challenges facing the integrated assessment community are elaborated in three areas: the identification of integrated assessment as a discipline and/or profession by clearly defined distinctive features, thematic issues to be resolved, and methodological improvements that are possible and needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a decision support system for evaluation of wetland ecosystem management strategy and examines its, so far partial, application in a case study of an important complex coastal wetland known as the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, in the east of England, UK. Most managed ecosystems are complex and often poorly understood hierarchically organized systems. Capturing the range of relevant impacts on natural and human systems under different management options will be a formidable challenge. Biodiversity has a hierarchical structure which ranges from the ecosystem and landscape level, through the community level and down to the population and genetic level. There is a need to develop methodologies for the practicable detection of ecosystem change, as well as the evaluation of different ecological functions. What is also required is a set of indicators (environmental, social and economic) which facilitate the detection of change in ecosystems suffering stress and shock and highlight possible drivers of the change process. A hierarchical classification of ecological indicators of sustainability would need to take into account existing interactions between different organization levels, from species to ecosystems. Effects of environmental stress are expressed in different ways at different levels of biological organization and effects at one level can be expected to impact other levels, often in unpredictable ways. The management strategy, evaluation methodologies and indicators adopted should also assess on sustainability grounds whether any given management option is supporting, or reducing, the diversity of functions which are providing stakeholders with the welfare benefits they require. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Northern Adriatic Coastland, between the cities of Monfalcone and Cattolica, is characterized by locations of great tourist interest, such as the Venice Lagoon and the Romagna Riviera, and areas with a very precarious environmental setting, such as the Valli di Comacchio and the Po River Delta. Therefore, the coastal management and the design of new defence works of the littoral have to be made with the utmost care, possibly with the aid of numerical predictions of the coastal morphodynamics and the flood risk analysis of the lowland involved. In the study area, land may subside due to sediment natural compaction and subsurface fluid (water and gas) withdrawal. At the same time, littoral transport of solid material can contribute appreciably to change the shore morphology. Mean sea level may rise permanently due to global climate change (eustatism) and occasionally due to tides and intensive storm events. The predictions of each individual process is obtained using various ad hoc mathematical models and the outcome of the numerical simulations are managed with a GIS (geographical information system). Coastline evolution until the year 2100 is investigated and risk factor maps of the low-lying coastal areas are generated which account for the hazard of the expected event, and the land economic value and vulnerability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

[Display omitted] • An Open Science integration approach for vessel tracking data is presented. • It combines heterogeneous fisheries, biodiversity, and environmental FAIR data. • It infers fishing activity and risks to potentially impacted species. • The impact of Italian reduced fishing activity during the 2020 lockdown is estimated. • Three use cases demonstrate consistency and potential applications. Vessel tracking data help study the potential impact of fisheries on biodiversity and produce risk assessments. Existing workflows process vessel tracks to identify fishing activity and integrate information on species vulnerability. However, there are significant data integration challenges across the data sources needed for an integrated impact assessment due to heterogeneous nomenclatures, data accessibility issues, geographical and computational scalability of the processes, and confidentiality and transparency towards decision making authorities. This paper presents an Open Science data integration approach to use vessel tracking data in integrated impact assessments. Our approach combines heterogeneous knowledge sources from fisheries, biodiversity, and environmental observations to infer fishing activity and risks to potentially impacted species. An Open Science e-Infrastructure facilitates access to data sources and maximises the reproducibility of the results and the method's reusability across several application domains. Our method's quality is assessed through three case studies: The first demonstrates cross-dataset consistency by comparing the results obtained from two different vessel data sources. The second performs a temporal pattern analysis of fishing activity and potentially impacted species over time. The third assesses the potential impact of reduced fishing pressure on marine biodiversity and threatened species due to the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown in Italy. The method is meant to be integrated with other systems through its Open Science-oriented features and can rapidly use new sources of findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data. Other systems can use it to (i) classify vessel activity in data-limited scenarios, (ii) identify bycatch species (when catchability data are available), and (iii) study the effects of fisheries on habitats and populations' growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over recent years Integrated Assessment (IA) has been presented as a new and innovative approach to modern decision making. In this paper we explore some of the key features that we consider characterise IA; we present IA as a framework that allows a flexible approach to uncertainty in decision making and to which a broad palette of expertise can contribute. The example of the development of an international agreement to reduce acidic deposition is used to illustrate the current practical status of an IA. The scientific process leading to this agreement has previously been described as IA but we argue that, although it marks a change from traditional approaches, further progress is still required to satisfy the requirements for a successful and durable IA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fuzzy Cognitive Maps were missing in the latest guidance by Kelly et al. (2013), which reviewed five common integrated modeling approaches. Through a scoping review, the paper shows how Fuzzy Cognitive Maps satisfy key criteria for suitability in integrated environmental assessment, such as model purpose, types of data available to build a model, requirements in terms of spatial and temporal scales, stakeholder involvement, and treatment of uncertainty. The paper consequently updates the guiding framework that can be used by modelers to select the most appropriate modeling approach by including Fuzzy Cognitive Map techniques. We argue that the method can be the starting point of any integrated environmental assessment research to map out perspectives and potential system sensitivities. They constitute a great addition to the integrated assessment modeling toolbox as they can complement quantitative model approaches that are invariably constructed around a single perspective that relates to available data. • We review FCMs as an integrated environmental assessment modeling approach. • FCMs can be the starting point of any environmental assessment research to map out perspectives and system sensitivities. • FCMs can complement quantitative approaches that are invariably constructed around a single data-related perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]