1,721,118 research outputs found
Modelling biodiversity impacts of renewable energy systems in Norway
No full textGlobal renewable energy production must triple by 2030 to mitigate global warming. This requires a considerable expansion of global energy facilities and electric grids.
Norway is well-positioned for this energy transition, with 98% of its electricity generated from renewable sources like hydropower and wind. Its climate plan aims to cut emissions by half by 2030 through electrification and increased electricity production. However, while the Norwegian government is responsible for fulfilling its climate goals, it is also committed to protecting nature. The development of hydropower and wind farms can disturb wildlife and pose risks to biodiversity through habitat loss and fragmentation, while turbines can cause species mortality. Moreover, power line construction alters and fragments habitats and endangers bird populations through collision and electrocution.
Life cycle assessment is a valuable instrument for assessing the trade-offs between renewable energy expansion and biodiversity conservation. While existing life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) models cover biodiversity impacts related to electricity production, a gap exists in addressing impacts associated with electricity transmission.
This PhD thesis has two goals: (1) developing biodiversity LCIA models to quantify the impacts of power lines on Norwegian species richness, and (2) integrating existing models to analyse the biodiversity impacts of the Norwegian electricity system, including generation and transmission.
Chapter 2 introduces LCIA models that assess the impacts of power lines on bird richness due to collision and electrocution. In Chapter 3, existing LCIA models are adapted to quantify the effects of power lines on bird and mammal richness in Norway from habitat conversion and fragmentation. Overall, distribution lines had a greater impact on species richness, primarily affecting mammal diversity through habitat conversion and fragmentation, while bird richness is more influenced by collisions than electrocutions. Chapter 4 demonstrates the potential global application of these models, using global datasets to assess habitat loss impacts on bird and mammal diversity worldwide. Finally, Chapter 5 merges the newly developed biodiversity LCIA models with existing ones to comprehensively evaluate the current effects of the Norwegian electricity system on species richness. While hydropower electricity production emerged as the primary contributor to biodiversity impacts, the electric grid also significantly affects species richness.
As the energy transition unfolds, critical decisions must balance climate mitigation with preserving nature. The methodology outlined in this thesis offers an assessment approach towards a sustainable, environmentally friendly energy shift. It aims to ensure that the progress towards climate goals does not come at the expense of natural ecosystems
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Quantifying biodiversity impacts of hydropower electricity production within the framework of Life Cycle Assessment
Full text linkThe United Nations developed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the transition into a more sustainable world. One of the central aspects of the SDGs is the provisioning of sustainable energy, covered by SDG 7 (Affordable and clean energy). Hydropower, the largest source of renewable electricity production, has a huge potential to contribute to the fulfilment of SDG 7. As the SDGs can be viewed as a network, fulfilment of the SDG 7 targets can lead to positive synergies and negative trade-offs with other SDGs. Due to relatively low CO2 emissions, compared to other energy technologies, hydropower electricity production can help to fulfil SDG 13 (Climate action). However, due to land use and land use change, freshwater habitat alteration and water quality degradation, hydropower electricity production may negatively affect terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity. This can lead to negative trade-offs with SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation) and SDG 15 (Life on land).
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool that is used to analyse the environmental impacts of a product or process throughout all its life cycle stages. Hence, LCA can help to identify locations where hydropower electricity production will have the lowest biodiversity impact. However, due to a lack of methods, so far no LCA study has accounted for biodiversity impacts of hydropower electricity production.
This PhD work was part of the “Towards sustainable renewable energy production (SURE): Developing a Life Cycle Impact Assessment framework for biodiversity impacts” project, and aimed to advance and develop operational LCA related methods for the assessment of biodiversity impacts of hydropower electricity production in LCA.
The assessment of biodiversity impacts of hydropower electricity production in LCA requires sitespecific Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data. In Chapter 2, the first net land occupation LCI parameters for existing Norwegian hydropower reservoirs are provided. The underlying model uses satellite images to account for the natural water surface area before dam construction. The newly developed method has the potential for global application to all reservoirs where annual electricity production is reported.
The net land occupation values from Chapter 2 enabled a calculation of net water consumption values for Norwegian hydropower reservoirs in Chapter 3. To quantify this water consumption, an evaporation model with global coverage was used, having again the potential for global application.
In the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) step, characterization factors (CFs) are required, to transform the calculated land occupation and water consumption LCI values into potential biodiversity impacts.
For the LCIA impact category “water stress”, so far no CFs existed that could quantify the aquatic biodiversity impact of water consumption in a recently (in geological time) glaciated region like Norway. Therefore, the first spatially-explicit CFs quantifying biodiversity impacts of water consumption in a post-glaciated region were developed in Chapter 3. The novelty behind these
CFs is that they include Species-discharge relationships (SDR), which account for local variation in fish fauna by delineating regions with the same postglacial freshwater fish immigration history. Inside the LCIA impact category “land stress”, so far no CFs covering land use change from terrestrial to aquatic habitat existed, even though this may be a major environmental change occurring during reservoir creation. Therefore, in Chapter 4, the first global CFs that quantify the potential future biodiversity impact of inundating terrestrial habitat area were developed. To follow current recommendations from the Life Cycle Initiative hosted by UN Environment and to enhance comparability, the CFs are based on an adaptation of the methodology developed by Chaudhary et al. 2015.
In Chapter 5, a global and spatially explicit assessment of terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity impacts of potential future hydropower reservoirs is performed. This is done by combining a highresolution, technical assessment of the future ecological economic hydropower potential (Gernaat et al. 2017) with the developed LCA models in this thesis and existing methodology. The results reveal that carefully selecting future hydropower reservoir locations can significantly avoid future biodiversity impacts and can in turn help to achieve the development of sustainable renewable energy.
In summary, this thesis contributes models to the research community that now allow the assessment of damages on ecosystem quality from hydropower electricity production (and additional stressors) within LCA, especially regarding the impact categories “water stress” and “land stress”. However, it is not possible to assess all relevant biodiversity impacts (yet), wherefore further methodological developments are needed
Impact assessment of Norwegian hydropower on freshwater fish species - an LCA approach
No full textAccounting for the total environmental impacts associated with energy technologies are becoming increasingly important due to large scale development of renewable resources. In order to assess the trade-offs between large scale development of various technologies, there needs to exist a transparent and efficient quantitative method for such analysis. The goal of this thesis has been to develop an impact assessment of Norwegian hydropower, by constructing a characterization factor that models the relationship between water use for energy production and impacts on freshwater fish species. The thesis presents the importance of hydropower as a renewable energy technology, but focus exclusively on quantifying the negative biodiversity impacts from hydroelectricity production, using the life cycle assessment method. Species-discharge-relationships are calculated for Norway, showing a lower species density per unit of discharge for rivers with high development of hydropower compared to rivers with low development of hydropower. Discharge rates from 97 Norwegian rivers, water efficiency scores, and energy production data, are used to assess the impacts of hydropower. Results single out northern and south-eastern regions of Norway as the main contributors to freshwater fish impacts. The yearly impact of hydropower production from the rivers included in this thesis is estimated to be 0.14 species lost per year. The validity of this estimate is discussed.
In order to evaluate the compatibility of the characterization factor with life cycle assessment, the life cycle inventory data from two EPDs on hydropower stations are used to calculate species impact scores on a per kWh basis. From this we see that the characterization factor is applicable to LCA and provides a species loss estimate relevant for local freshwater fish species. Further development of a connectivity index directed towards including habitat fragmentation into the impact assessment is done and applied to 35 rivers. The inclusion weigh the impact scores of rivers based on the difficulty level of migration due to barriers, as a function of dam development. The applicability of this index is discussed, and further investigation highlighted. Lastly a basic framework for constructing regionally specific characterization factors for species impacts by hydropower is presented, this framework is based on the importance of the parameters that are identified as the most essential for the analysis.
Keywords: Life cycle assessment, LCA, Impact assessment, Hydropower, Norwegian, environment, freshwater fish, species-discharge-relationship
Linking ecosystem services and damages from bauxite mining in an LCA context - A case study from Hydro and a movement towards no net loss of ecosystem services
No full textThis study is part of a yearlong study with Norsk Hydro ASA addressing the impacts on ecosystem services in primary aluminum value chains. Here, the focus is on the impacts of bauxite mining at two locations in northern Brazil: Trombetas and Paragominas. Although increasingly used as an impact assessment method, life cycle assessment (LCA) has yet to incorporate ecosystem services as an area of protection, mainly due to region-specific data requirements and the lack of a cohesive agreement as to how they should be covered in LCA. To solve these problems, I propose a region-specific method to account for the potentially lost fraction of ecosystem services (PLES) at an endpoint level. This study is based on aluminum, although the PLES method is applicable in many different cases. The PLES system relies on a literature review, expert knowledge, and a scoring system corresponding to land cover to evaluate the potential presence of ecosystem services. Because ecosystem services are highly site- and area-dependent, this study addresses discrepancies between modeled land cover and expert knowledge on land cover. I found that using modeled land cover data leads to a 27% increase in the perceived loss of ecosystem services when compared to data based on expert knowledge. Trombetas had a lesser impact on ecosystem services than Paragominas using the PLES methodology. However, the PLES does not account for cultural ecosystem services. This would likely yield higher results on overall ecosystem service impacts in Trombetas, especially since it is located where many Quilombolas are living
Impact assessment of Norwegian hydropower on freshwater fish species - an LCA approach
Full text linkAccounting for the total environmental impacts associated with energy technologies are becoming increasingly important due to large scale development of renewable resources. In order to assess the trade-offs between large scale development of various technologies, there needs to exist a transparent and efficient quantitative method for such analysis. The goal of this thesis has been to develop an impact assessment of Norwegian hydropower, by constructing a characterization factor that models the relationship between water use for energy production and impacts on freshwater fish species. The thesis presents the importance of hydropower as a renewable energy technology, but focus exclusively on quantifying the negative biodiversity impacts from hydroelectricity production, using the life cycle assessment method. Species-discharge-relationships are calculated for Norway, showing a lower species density per unit of discharge for rivers with high development of hydropower compared to rivers with low development of hydropower. Discharge rates from 97 Norwegian rivers, water efficiency scores, and energy production data, are used to assess the impacts of hydropower. Results single out northern and south-eastern regions of Norway as the main contributors to freshwater fish impacts. The yearly impact of hydropower production from the rivers included in this thesis is estimated to be 0.14 species lost per year. The validity of this estimate is discussed.
In order to evaluate the compatibility of the characterization factor with life cycle assessment, the life cycle inventory data from two EPDs on hydropower stations are used to calculate species impact scores on a per kWh basis. From this we see that the characterization factor is applicable to LCA and provides a species loss estimate relevant for local freshwater fish species. Further development of a connectivity index directed towards including habitat fragmentation into the impact assessment is done and applied to 35 rivers. The inclusion weigh the impact scores of rivers based on the difficulty level of migration due to barriers, as a function of dam development. The applicability of this index is discussed, and further investigation highlighted. Lastly a basic framework for constructing regionally specific characterization factors for species impacts by hydropower is presented, this framework is based on the importance of the parameters that are identified as the most essential for the analysis.
Keywords: Life cycle assessment, LCA, Impact assessment, Hydropower, Norwegian, environment, freshwater fish, species-discharge-relationship
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Monetary impacts of plastic pollution on coastal recreational ecosystem services
No full textThe importance of Ecosystem Services (ES) and the threats human activity pose to their supply have become a common topic of academic research. In the marine environment, the steady increase of plastic pollution now threatens to compromise the supply of important marine ES. While current life cycle assessment methods have started to account for some of the ES impacts of plastic, they still fail to account for effects on marine cultural ES. This thesis presents an attempt to fill this research gap through the development of Effect Factors that can be used in Life-Cycle Impact Assessment to estimate the monetary impact of marine plastic and debris on coastal tourism.
Using data from Contingent Valuation Method studies and coastal clean-ups, several effect factors were developed that measure the monetary impact per kg of marine plastic and debris pollution. Two main effect factors were developed that can predict the monetary costs per kg marine plastic and debris for (1) a country or (2) for a smaller region. The monetary impacts are calculated using recreational value loss estimates and incurred cleaning costs. For the predicting of recreational value loss per kg of marine plastic and debris, the use of the Human Development Index was recommended.
The effect factors that are presented in this thesis are the first step in the development of a Characterization Factor to be incorporated in Life-cycle Impact Assessment. In addition to the need for the development of a Fate Factor, new research using Contingent Valuation Method with a wider geographical range and more standardized results is needed to improve the robustness of the effect factors
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