scholarly journals Assessing the Environmental Impact and Cost of the Tourism-Induced CO2, NOx, SOx Emission in China

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 604
Author(s):  
Yalan Shi ◽  
Miaojing Yu

Tourism, as one economic activity, results in a full range of environmental impacts globally as well as in China. However, the evaluation of environmental impacts is insufficient because of the strong correlation effect between tourism and other industries. This study attempted to assess the environmental impact and cost of the tourism-induced pollutant emissions (in a broad sense) at the national scale through constructing the environmental-economic input-output model. Our results suggested that the China’s total emission of CO2, NOx, SOx related to tourism industry increased from 42 × 106 t, 162 kt, 345 kt in 1995 to 157 × 106 t, 527 kt, 854 kt in 2009. The indirect CO2, NOx, and SOx emissions of tourism and related industries were nearly 6.8–11 times of their direct emission in travel agency. Most of these indirect emissions (73% of CO2 in 2009, 54% of NOx in 1995, 62% of SOx in 2009) are derived from the energy plants and industrial sectors. The sustainable tourism should largely depend on the realization of sustainable mobility and transportation, through the low-emission behavior and energy-saving technology. The emission reduction cost of tourism industry in China was 30,170 and 172,812 million CNY in 1995 and 2009, accounting for nearly 14% of the total tourism revenue.

Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 1264
Author(s):  
Meng Zeng ◽  
Lihang Liu ◽  
Fangyi Zhou ◽  
Yigui Xiao

Many studies have found that FDI can reduce the pollutant emissions of host countries. At the same time, the intensity of environmental regulation would affect the emission reduction effect of FDI in the host country. This study aims to reveal the internal mechanisms of this effect. Specifically, this paper studies the impact of FDI on technological innovation in China’s industrial sectors from the perspective of technology transactions from 2001 to 2019, and then analyzes whether the intensity of environmental regulation can promote the relationship. Results indicate that FDI promotes technological innovation through technology transactions. In addition, it finds that the intensity of environmental regulation significantly positively moderates the relationship between FDI and technological innovation, which is achieved by positively moderating the FDI–technology transaction relationship. Regional heterogeneity analysis is further conducted, and results show that in the eastern and western regions of China, FDI can stimulate technological innovation within regional industrial sectors through technology trading. Moreover, environmental regulation has a significant positive regulatory effect on the above relationship, but these effects are not supported by evidence in the central region of China.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 465
Author(s):  
Mengyuan Sun ◽  
Yong Tian ◽  
Yao Zhang ◽  
Muhammad Nadeem ◽  
Can Xu

Under the background of economic globalization, the air transport industry developed rapidly. It turns out that the city-to-city network has not been able to adapt well to the development of the society, and the hub-and-spoke network came into being. The hub-and-spoke network demonstrates the advantages of reducing the operating costs of airlines to keep a competitive advantage, and by maintaining the interests of airlines in the rapidly developing context. However, during the operation of aircrafts, they consume fuel and spew a great deal of harmful pollutants into the air, which has an adverse impact on the living environment. This paper explores the impact and external costs associated with hub-and-spoke network in air transport from an environmental perspective. With some mathematical models, we construct a hub-and-spoke network and take a quantitative study on the environmental impact of air transport. For calculating pollutant emissions, meteorological conditions were considered to revise the pollutant emission factors of the Engine Emissions Data Base (EEDB) published by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The environmental external costs measurement model is employed to calculate the externality of toxic gas and greenhouse gas (GHG). In order to make the study more convincing, two alternative networks are computed: hub-and-spoke network and city-to-city network. It is found that the hub-and-spoke network is associated with poorer environmental impact and environmental external costs because of the different network characteristics and the scale of the fleets. Therefore, under the general trend of green aviation, the environmental impact and environmental external costs associated with hub-and-spoke network in air transport provides a certain reference for airlines’ strategic decision-making.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 93
Author(s):  
Daniel Arturo Maciel Fuentes ◽  
Eduardo Gutiérrez González

In recent decades, urban air pollution has increased considerably in Mexico City, leading to harmful effects on the ecosystem. To reduce pollutant emissions, new sustainable technologies have been adopted in the transport sector. To date, no studies have conducted a technoeconomic analysis of the environmental impact of electric vehicles (EVs) in regard to taxis in Mexico. To address this gap in the research, this study aimed to perform a cost-environmental impact assessment of electric taxi introduction in Mexico City using the life-cycle cost (LCC) methodology and the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions assessment. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis was performed to identify parameters with the greatest influence on the LCC. The LCC of EVs was found to be larger than that of internal combustion vehicles (ICVs); the acquisition cost was identified as the greatest contributor to the total LCC, followed by the maintenance cost. Worldwide, mixed results have been reported due to differences in the use of local parameters and values. To promote EVs, it is necessary to reduce either acquisition costs or battery costs. The environmental analysis showed that there is only a slight reduction in GHG emissions with electric taxi introduction. Nevertheless, cleaner renewable energy sources must be adopted and considered in order to achieve a much greater reduction and take full advantage of the benefits of EVs.


Author(s):  
Ioannis Goulos ◽  
Fakhre Ali ◽  
Konstantinos Tzanidakis ◽  
Vassilios Pachidis ◽  
Roberto d'Ippolito

This paper presents an integrated methodology for the comprehensive assessment of combined rotorcraft–powerplant systems at mission level. Analytical evaluation of existing and conceptual designs is carried out in terms of operational performance and environmental impact. The proposed approach comprises a wide-range of individual modeling theories applicable to rotorcraft flight dynamics and gas turbine engine performance. A novel, physics-based, stirred reactor model is employed for the rapid estimation of nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions. The individual mathematical models are implemented within an elaborate numerical procedure, solving for total mission fuel consumption and associated pollutant emissions. The combined approach is applied to the comprehensive analysis of a reference twin-engine light (TEL) aircraft modeled after the Eurocopter Bo 105 helicopter, operating on representative mission scenarios. Extensive comparisons with flight test data are carried out and presented in terms of main rotor trim control angles and power requirements, along with general flight performance charts including payload-range diagrams. Predictions of total mission fuel consumption and NOx emissions are compared with estimated values provided by the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA). Good agreement is exhibited between predictions made with the physics-based stirred reactor model and experimentally measured values of NOx emission indices. The obtained results suggest that the production rates of NOx pollutant emissions are predominantly influenced by the behavior of total air inlet pressure upstream of the combustion chamber, which is affected by the employed operational procedures and the time-dependent all-up mass (AUM) of the aircraft. It is demonstrated that accurate estimation of on-board fuel supplies ahead of flight is key to improving fuel economy as well as reducing environmental impact. The proposed methodology essentially constitutes an enabling technology for the comprehensive assessment of existing and conceptual rotorcraft–powerplant systems, in terms of operational performance and environmental impact.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2898
Author(s):  
Rakhyun Kim ◽  
Myung-Kwan Lim ◽  
Seungjun Roh ◽  
Won-Jun Park

This study analyzed the characteristics of the environmental impacts of apartment buildings, a typical housing type in South Korea, as part of a research project supporting the streamlined life cycle assessment (S-LCA) of buildings within the G-SEED (Green Standard for Energy and Environmental Design) framework. Three recently built apartment building complexes were chosen as study objects for the quantitative evaluation of the buildings in terms of their embodied environmental impacts (global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, ozone layer depletion potential, photochemical oxidant creation potential, and abiotic depletion potential), using the LCA approach. Additionally, we analyzed the emission trends according to the cut-off criteria of the six environmental impact categories by performing an S-LCA with cut-off criteria 90–99% of the cumulative weight percentile. Consequently, we were able to present the cut-off criterion best suited for S-LCA and analyze the effect of the cut-off criteria on the environmental impact analysis results. A comprehensive environmental impact analysis of the characteristics of the six environmental impact categories revealed that the error rate was below 5% when the cut-off criterion of 97.5% of the cumulative weight percentile was applied, thus verifying its validity as the optimal cut-off criterion for S-LCA.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Gmünder ◽  
Reena Singh ◽  
Stephan Pfister ◽  
Alok Adheloya ◽  
Rainer Zah

In the context of energy security, rural development and climate change, India actively promotes the cultivation ofJatropha curcas, a biodiesel feedstock which has been identified as suitable for achieving the Indian target of 20% biofuel blending by 2017. In this paper, we present results concerning the range of environmental impacts of differentJatropha curcascultivation systems. Moreover, nine agronomic trials in Andhra Pradesh are analysed, in which the yield was measured as a function of different inputs such as water, fertilizer, pesticides, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Further, the environmental impact of the wholeJatropha curcasbiodiesel value chain is benchmarked with fossil diesel, following the ISO 14040/44 life cycle assessment procedure. Overall, this study shows that the use ofJatropha curcasbiodiesel generally reduces the global warming potential and the nonrenewable energy demand as compared to fossil diesel. On the other hand, the environmental impacts on acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication, and water depletion all showed increases. Key for reducing the environmental impact ofJatropha curcasbiodiesel is the resource efficiency during crop cultivation (especially mineral fertilizer application) and the optimal site selection of theJatropha curcasplantations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 747-764
Author(s):  
Aggelos Soteropoulos ◽  
Paul Pfaffenbichler ◽  
Martin Berger ◽  
Günter Emberger ◽  
Andrea Stickler ◽  
...  

Developments in the field of automated mobility will greatly change our mobility and the possibilities to get from one place to another. This paper presents different scenarios for personal mobility in Austria, anticipating the possibilities and developments in the field of automated vehicles (AVs). The scenarios were developed using a systematically formalized scenario technique and expand the social and political discourse on automated mobility, which is currently characterized by a lack of experience and visibility as an established transport service. Using system dynamics modeling techniques, i.e., the Metropolitan Activity Relocation Simulator (MARS), impacts of the scenarios on the Austrian transportation system are estimated. The simulations show that, without suitable transport policy measures, automated mobility will lead to a significant increase in the volume of individual traffic and to modal shift effects with lower traffic volumes for public transport, walking and cycling. In addition, without a link between AVs and post-fossil propulsion systems, increases in pollutant emissions can also be expected. In contrast, the simulation results of an increased use of AVs in public transport show positive effects for the support of a more sustainable mobility. Hence, transport policy measures accompanying the introduction and development of automated vehicles will be needed in the future to reach a sustainable development.


2016 ◽  
Vol 106 (03) ◽  
pp. 136-140
Author(s):  
R. Miehe ◽  
M. Wiedenmann ◽  
T. Prof. Bauernhansl

Die Ökobilanz hat sich als Instrument zur Bewertung der Umweltauswirkungen von Produkten und Prozessen durchgesetzt. Dennoch stellt ihre Durchführung Nutzer immer wieder vor Herausforderungen. Der Fachartikel präsentiert einen Ansatz für eine vergleichende Betrachtung der ökologischen Auswirkungen des unternehmerischen Handelns auf Basis der jeweiligen Unternehmens- und Branchenumsätze. Der Umsatz-Nachhaltigkeitsindex soll als Konzept für ein Benchmark für Unternehmen einer Branche dienen.   Life Cycle Assessment has prevailed as an instrument to evaluate the environmental impact of products and processes. Its execution, however, poses a challenge to operators. In this paper, we present an approach for a comparative examination of environmental impacts of industrial behavior based on the turnover of companies and their equivalent sectors. The Turnover-Sustainability-Index serves as a benchmark for companies within a sector.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 13261
Author(s):  
Alberto-Jesus Perea-Moreno

Energy is a very important resource for the development of the residential and industrial sectors, and it should be used with high efficiency, low environmental impact, and at the lowest possible cost [...]


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