Natural resource | EPFL Graph Search

Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value. On Earth, it includes sunlight, atmosphere, water, land, all minerals along with all vegetation, and wildlife. Natural resources are part of humanity's natural heritage or protected in nature reserves. Particular areas (such as the rainforest in Fatu-Hiva) often feature biodiversity and geodiversity in their ecosystems. Natural resources may be classified in different ways. Natural resources are materials and components (something that can be used) that can be found within the environment. Every man-made product is composed of natural resources (at its fundamental level). A natural resource may exist as a separate entity such as fresh water, air, or any living organism such as a fish, or it may be transformed by extractivist industries into a

Seeking methods for improving sustainability in the extractive sector

Farnaz Eslamishoar

Extractive resources are indisputably a necessary component of international sustainable development. Despite current advancements in the circular economy, world production needs for raw materials are ever increasing, and still a long way remains for it to become rather independent from mineral resources. At the same time, mining has too many negative stories in news headlines about its trade-offs for the environment and human health, which hinders sustainable growth. This thesis deals with this integral dilemma in three chapters. In Chapter 1, I have made an extensive effort to understand the socio-political aspects of the mining business, both internationally and specifically in the context of a developing country, and on the issue of the corporate social responsibility the company requires. I then continued with gathering my primary sources of data for answering my first question: What are the primary social variables contributing to mining sustainability issues? I derived theories from Economic Growth in the Political Economy and Institutional Void from Management Science, trying to place my findings in a broader context. I concluded this chapter with underlying sociopolitical factors interfering with sustainable mining practices. This has led to the shaping of the second chapter of my thesis. Chapter 2 builds on the given that throughout the model of Economic Growth, technological change can happen within a shorter timeline and that new technologies lead to more efficiency in the Process Innovation. The mining industry is no exception. Yet, my quick review at the time revealed that this industry is lagging incumbent mainstream businesses in technological adoption. I therefore made my aim here to discuss conditions for transitions towards a more technologically innovative mining business. I surveyed mining firms internationally and noted the critical criteria for responsible practices. I then made what had been to my knowledge and ability, an exhaustive grouping of innovative technologies for the different sectors of mining firms. These tools granted me the ability to perform different multivariate analyses and decide on the best method for benchmarking different technology groups based on these criteria. In the later part of my thesis (Chapter 3), having these findings in hand and all experiences and observations in place with my assumptions, I decided to take one step back to ask whether the criteria I have for measuring mining sustainability are the correct measures by looking through the question using emerging data science tools. Are the sustainability scopes commonly discussed in the mining community the most crucial sustainability problems of this sector? Having the sustainability reports of all major international mining firms in hand, I evaluated around 3500 documents containing 8 million words discussing current sustainability matters pertaining to mining firms. Through implementing appropriate algorithms of Topic Modeling, I introduced five new main scopes for mining sustainability used to examine the discourse and groupings through this framework to observe any possible differences among the conventional and the generated lists. The results of my thesis are my two conceptual frameworks, technological benchmarking assessment tools, and a data-driven sustainability domains list, as well as the innovation policy recommendations for the mining community.

EPFL2021

Towards Solar Decathlon: Concepts for a Sustainable Urban Water Management in a new eco-district

Gianluca Antonio Paglia

Water is rarely considered to be a crucial aspect in sustainable housing. In fact, water sustainability in eco-districts and in ecological architecture is frequently limited to recycling and reuse solutions. Why less water? What could explain the choice of an installation, of a specific strategy or of a criterion trying to decrease water needs? Terms as ecological footprint or sustainability are becoming more and more used, however, how can sustainability be measured? What does sustainable water mean? What are the parameters that quantify the ecological footprint of a water management system? Within this project, some possible concepts of optimization and valorization of sustainable urban water system have been defined and explored. Numerous studies about water management, water distribution, sanitary technologies, recycling, etc. have already been done. Nevertheless, it is less common to identify the reasons that are able to justify a reduced consumption of water. Eco-district labels propose several solutions for sustainable water, however they are limited by scale or simply focused on one stage of the water cycle. The aim of this project is then to consider water from a larger point of view: through a Life Cycle Analysis approach, needs and properties of different urban water management systems are compared and evaluated. The scale considered for such reflections is effectively a central parameter; in this case, hypothesis will be applied to collective habitations inserted in a district and part of a specific urban context: the city of Fribourg. The urban environment has particular features in relation to surrounding rural areas: energy exchanges, hydrology characteristics and limited ecosystems. The relationship between the use of natural resources and urban development is becoming more and more important; the purpose of this thesis is then to define a methodology able to suggest a sustainable use of water through environmental, political and economic issues. A real urban case study with its current water management system defines what has to be analyzed and allows evaluating the limits and the possible enhancements of such system. Thus, in order to have an idea about the potential of sustainable water management solutions, an ambitious analysis of energy related to water uses and disposals is created and is used to show the reasons for change in a real model as the city of Fribourg. A comparison between two extreme scenarios of Fribourg’s selected zones is finally developed, discussed and implied in the conclusions through specific actions and facts. The results show that a high potential of improvements exist. Using them to elaborate new strategies in collaboration with the several stakeholders contacted may contribute to achieve many of today’s objectives for a sustainable urban water management. The best scenario, chosen with a new concept of eco-label, summarizes and concludes the analysis.

2015

Enthalpy and exergy analysis in the framework of a district scale energy balance

Cédric Lambiel

This report presents a study of an enthalpy and exergy analysis in the framework of a district scale energy balance. Energy demand (heating, cooling and lighting) for buildings represents more than 30 % of the total worlds energy use. Main eﬀorts have been made on increasing performances of new building envelop and on the use of low temperature processes in order to increase the exergy eﬃciency. On a district scale, diﬀerent temperature and energy ﬂow levels are present, meaning a great potential to make use of synergetic eﬀects by rationally managing energy ﬂow interactions between buildings as synergies by enhanced energy management and the usability of waste heat source. An optimisation of exergy ﬂows for the heating systems allows to identify the temperatures levels according to the energy demand, which helps to implement the best choice of available technologies. A number of connection cases will be described and studied to show the potential gain in terms of thermal and economical performances, where the thermal performances are deﬁned by both the energy and the exergy eﬃciency. This study shows an improvement of the thermal performances of connection cases where in all scenarios the heat losses are lower than the waste heat recovery. These gains on thermal performances may increase further by the integration of appropriate technologies such as heat pumps. The use of primary resource like gas can also be decreased.

2012