Environmental protection

Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment by individuals, groups and governments. Its objectives are to conserve natural resources and the existing natural environment and, where it is possible, to repair damage and reverse trends. Due to the pressures of overconsumption, population growth and technology, the biophysical environment is being degraded, sometimes permanently. This has been recognized, and governments have begun placing restraints on activities that cause environmental degradation. Since the 1960s, environmental movements have created more awareness of the multiple environmental problems. There is disagreement on the extent of the environmental impact of human activity, so protection measures are occasionally debated. Approaches to environmental protection Voluntary environmental agreements In industrial countries, voluntary environmental agreements often provide a platform for companies to be recognized for m

A multi-criteria decision method for sustainability assessment of the use phase of machine tool systems

Ioan Oliver Avram, Ian Anthony Stroud, Paul Xirouchakis

In recent years, going green has become a strategic priority in manufacturing which has evolved from the growing awareness of the need for environmentally friendly processes and products. Recent trends in developing new machining strategies able to support environmental protection and prevention of pollution in balance with socioeconomic needs and technical requirements inevitably require significant efforts in fundamental understanding of the actual energy and material flows needed to meet the machining requirements. This paper describes the methodology and software, Global Reasoning for Eco-Evaluation of Machining, developed to evaluate the use phase of a machine tool system with respect to a consistent set of technical, economical, and environmental criteria, as a part of the NEXT European project. The evaluation, based on the analytic hierarchy process, is conducted at two levels: (a) the process/part level which considers the local cutting environment along with the "actors" that are directly involved in the cutting area, their relationships, and the phenomena that occur from their interactions and (b) the system level which gathers together the main specifications of the machine tool system and the energy requirements associated with various activities performed in order to support the material removal processes. Two database structures were defined in order to store the entire amount of data needed to perform the analysis at each level. A detailed example of the evaluation carried out at the first level demonstrated the superior performance of the dry and minimum quantity lubrication alternatives over their wet machining counterpart when cutting power, cutting fluid consumption, and the machining time were considered as criteria for the performance evaluation of various milling tests.

Springer-Verlag2011

Development and implementation of eco-genomic tools for aquatic ecosystem biomonitoring: the SYNAQUA French-Swiss program

Régis Lionel Vivien

The effectiveness of environmental protection measures is based on the early identification and diagnosis of anthropogenic pressures. Similarly, restoration actions require precise monitoring of changes in the ecological quality of ecosystems, in order to highlight their effectiveness. Monitoring the ecological quality relies on bioindicators, which are organisms revealing the pressures exerted on the environment through the composition of their communities. Their implementation, based on the morphological identification of species, is expensive because it requires time and experts in taxonomy. Recent genomic tools should provide access to reliable and high-throughput environmental monitoring by directly inferring the composition of bioindicators' communities from their DNA (metabarcoding). The French-Swiss program SYNAQUA (INTERREG France-Switzerland 2017-2019) proposes to use and validate the tools of environmental genomic for biomonitoring and aims ultimately at their implementation in the regulatory bio-surveillance. SYNAQUA will test the metabarcoding approach focusing on two bioindicators, diatoms, and aquatic oligochaetes, which are used in freshwater biomonitoring in France and Switzerland. To go towards the renewal of current biomonitoring practices, SYNAQUA will (1) bring together different actors: scientists, environmental managers, consulting firms, and biotechnological companies, (2) apply this approach on a large scale to demonstrate its relevance, (3) propose robust and reliable tools, and (4) raise public awareness and train the various actors likely to use these new tools. Biomonitoring approaches based on such environmental genomic tools should address the European need for reliable, higher-throughput monitoring to improve the protection of aquatic environments under multiple pressures, guide their restoration, and follow their evolution.

SPRINGER HEIDELBERG2018

Development and implementation of eco-genomic tools for aquatic ecosystem biomonitoring: the SYNAQUA French-Swiss program

Régis Lionel Vivien

SPRINGER HEIDELBERG2018

A multi-criteria decision method for sustainability assessment of the use phase of machine tool systems

Development and implementation of eco-genomic tools for aquatic ecosystem biomonitoring: the SYNAQUA French-Swiss program

Introduction to Environmental Protection and Management

A multi-criteria decision method for sustainability assessment of the use phase of machine tool systems

Development and implementation of eco-genomic tools for aquatic ecosystem biomonitoring: the SYNAQUA French-Swiss program

Introduction to Environmental Protection and Management