Environmental Management in Practice: Vol 2

Compartments, Stressors and Sectors

Paul Compton, Dimitri Devuyst, Luc Hens, Bhaskar Nath

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134750719
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences physiques
• Subtopic: Géographie

Volume 2: Compartments, Stressors and Sectors, deals with the problems that occur in the three 'compartments' of the environment, namely air, water and soil. The contributors also address the socio-economic sectors of industry, traffic, energy, agriculture and tourism.

PART I

ENVIRONMENTAL COMPARTMENTS AND STRESSORS

INTRODUCTION

Paul A. Compton

Part 1 of this volume introduces readers to the strategies employed in the management of the three environmental compartments of soil, air and water, and defines the major problems involved. The stressors that operate on these compartments arise from the growth and activities of the human population. Management strategies must therefore seek to reconcile the needs of the human population for environmental resources with the preservation of environmental quality. Many of these strategies are designed to combat the adverse consequences of pollution, and the management of solid waste disposal and noise pollution are also discussed here.

The proper management of soil, air and water is integral to the well-being of the human population. Our food is dependent upon maintaining the soil in good heart. Water is not only needed for personal consumption and hygiene but also to support the basic activities of society, including the proper functioning of settlements, industry and agriculture. None of these can be taken for granted and their management is becoming increasingly complex and costly. As for air, this is ubiquitous and treated as a free good, but here, too, it is obvious that air quality cannot be left to look after itself and that proper measures of pollution control go hand in hand with healthy living. The importance of air, soil and water is not, of course, to be measured solely against the yardstick of human well-being; they are also the environmental compartments within which ecosystems exist. The sensitivity of ecosystems to alterations in their environmental surroundings as a result of human activities is well known and profound changes have already been recorded.

The aim of soil management is the preservation of soil structure and fertility. As Cruickshank shows in his chapter, these are maintained, in the absence of human intervention, through the processes of nature. But agriculture disturbs the natural chain of events and good husbandry is needed to prevent soil deterioration and erosion. What constitutes good husbandry varies according to climate, topography and underlying geology. Agricultural practice is therefore a function of environmental conditions and historically humans have adopted a range of different strategies to maintain the soil in good condition. In tropical areas, for instance, the device of ‘slash and burn’ was used, whereby the soil is cultivated for a short time and then abandoned to allow fertility and structure to recover naturally. Fallow periods were also part of traditional agricultural practice in Europe, which evolved later into systems of mixed farming, with crop rotation, periods of temporary grass, and the return of animal waste to the land to maintain soil structure and fertility.

Pressure of population and the quest for greater production and profitability have, however, made these ‘environmentally friendly’ forms of agriculture unattractive to modern farmers. Sometimes the response has been to extend farming to uncultivated areas; but since this has invariably been done with only the haziest prior knowledge of local environmental conditions (which have subsequently turned out to be marginal for agriculture) the extension of cultivation to such areas has usually been accompanied by the adoption of inappropriate farming practices. In the case of the US Dust Bowl in the 1930s, and as we are currently seeing in the Amazon rain forest, these activities have resulted in rapid deterioration of soil fertility, the breakdown of soil structure and rapid erosion of the soil, in which the top layers are literally washed or blown away.

The other response has been the intensification of existing farming, in which soil fertility is maintained through the use of artificial fertilisers. Combined with the application of other chemicals to control weeds and pests, this has led to the adoption of virtual cereal monocultures in many temperate regions. The problem here is not one of maintaining soil fertility (which is actually enhanced through the use of chemicals) but the adverse effect on soil structure of the abandonment of mixed farming systems. The use of heavy machinery on the land compacts the subsoil, and the absence of farm animals from these arable systems means that organic matter is no longer returned to the top soil. Subsoil compaction impedes drainage, leading to increased runoff; this together with the breakdown of the structure of the top soil again leads to enhanced rates of soil loss through the erosive action of wind and water.

The management of water resources and the monitoring of air quality overlap in the sense that both are concerned with pollution control. They also share a common set of principles for controlling pollution, either by setting maximum permitted emission levels for different sources of pollution or by establishing minimum standards of air or water quality. The former approach is associated with direct regulation and the latter with indirect regulation, in which economic mechanisms and incentives may play a leading role.

However, as Pescod and Younger show, the management of water resources involves a much broader remit than that of merely controlling pollution. Basic to this is an understanding of the hydro-logical cycle which describes the transport of water in its various forms from atmosphere, to earth's surface, to groundwater and its return to the oceans. Water resource management is also concerned with ensuring the availability of adequate water resources for human use. As consumption goes on rising, society is increasingly coming up against the limits set by water availability. Consequently conservation is now a pressing issue in many countries. Although the use of water for industrial purposes may well have declined in recent decades, this has been more than offset by rising domestic use and the use of water in agriculture.

There is also the matter of climate change to be taken into account. For instance, the climate of Western Europe now appears to have entered a phase of lower rainfall, with drier winters and therefore inadequate recharge of the groundwater table. Hence the need for conservation through measures such as wastewater reclamation, artificial recharge and proper pricing structures is not an exclusive feature of areas subject to drought, but also occurs in areas where rainfall might otherwise appear to be adequate. A strong case can be made for building grid systems that enable water to be moved from water surplus to water deficit areas in similar manner to the transport of electricity. The desalination of sea water may also become a more attractive proposition.

Although Christolis et al. focus on the technical aspects of air monitoring and management, they also introduce the reader to the general aspects of air pollution and the impact on human health and the environment. Emphasis is placed on monitoring because the effective management of air quality depends, above all, on the availability of regular and reliable information. Much has, of course, been accomplished over the last few decades in the improvement of air quality. A reduction in the emission of particulates has accompanied the shift away from the burning of coal as an energy source towards the use of cleaner fuels; the classic urban smog is now a thing of the past. Sulphur dioxide emissions, a major cause of acidification, are also coming under more effective control as power stations install technology to remove the sulphur produced during the generation process or switch to the use of more efficient and cleaner gas turbines.

But offsetting these improvements is the increase, resulting from the growth of road traffic, in pollution involving nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. This is now perhaps the most pressing air quality issue awaiting resolution. Not only does it damage the built environment, but it is also hazardous to human health: it is associated with diseases of the respiratory system, and contains carcinogens. However, the efficient working of modern societies is almost totally dependent upon the motor vehicle, and it seems unlikely that the problem of road traffic pollution can be solved in the foreseeable future. It is bizarre, to say the least, that governments should be attempting to curb car usage through piling on additional costs at the same time as they actively compete to encourage the multinationals to locate new vehicle manufacturing plants within their borders, in the interests of boosting employment opportunities and export earnings. One might be tempted to believe that this is prompted more by the need to raise general revenue than by a desire to improve environmental quality.

When excessive, noise, like air pollution, may fall into the category of environmental stressor. In the workplace it may become an issue because of its adverse effects on the health of the workforce. But of more concern here is the effect of noise in the broader environmental context. Obvious instances are the noise generated around airports and alongside arterial motorway routes, where the environmental impact results in general loss of amenity as expressed in terms of depressed property values. These matters, along with measures of noise control and the legislative framework regulating noise in the European Union, are discussed by Marc Van Overmeire and his co-authors.

Alfons Buekens’ chapter is a comprehensive treatment of waste management. The aim of waste management is the safe disposal of waste without causing harm to the environment. This requires the separation of hazardous from non-hazardous waste and a thorough understanding of the consequences and implications of the various methods of disposal. For instance, landfill sites should be selected with regard to geological conditions so as to prevent the leachate infiltrating the groundwater table. Care is also needed when operating such a site so as to minimise the production of methane gas during the process of material breakdown. Similarly, care should be exercised in the location of incinerators and appropriate technology employed so as to avoid the release of toxic substances into the atmosphere. But attention is increasingly being redirected away from the mechanics of disposal and towards reducing the amount of waste produced by the use of economic and other instruments. Within this, recycling is an obvious and attractive strategy, although this needs to be thought through carefully: the overall amount of energy expended in implementing some of the most obvious candidates for recycling, such as glass and paper, may well be greater than in traditional methods of disposal.

1

SOIL MANAGEMENT

James G. Cruickshank

SUMMARY

Soil management is presented as a selective review of the practices and problems of managing certain elements of soil, such as the physical survival of soil, soil conservation, soil structure, soil water, soil organic matter and plant nutrients in soil.

Soil is introduced as a central part of the natural environment, and is itself a complex, sensitive and reactive system. Soil management is seen as the management of a vital environmental resource within the framework of the whole natural environment, and particularly within ecological and economic constraints for sustain...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• Notes on contributors
• Preface and acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• List of units
• PART I ENVIRONMENTAL COMPARTMENTS AND STRESSORS
• PART II THE SECTORAL APPROACH
• Glossary
• Answers to self-assessment questions
• Index