Environmental applied impact monitoring

The selection of variables is of central importance for the outcome of a system comparison on environmental and resource use impacts. The ideal variable or set of variables respectively provides information and describes the state of environmental phenomena with certain significance. Thus, applying a set of variables should make it possible to monitor and assess the state of the environment, to identify changes and trends, to transmit scientific data to become relevant for policy, and to evaluate already implemented policy measures. The concept of environmental indicators is broadly accepted as an adequate tool. Accordingly, an indicator is defined as a parameter or a value derived from parameters, which indicates the state of the environment with significance extending beyond that which is directly associated with a parameter value. A parameter s definition in this context is a property that is measured or observed (OECD 1994). Fieri et al. (1996) states that the purposes of indicators are as follows ... 

Nucleic-acid approaches, which involve the extraction of microbial DNA and RNA from environmental samples, have been applied to the study of natural attenuation of petroleum products since the 1990s. With these techniques, the specific genes that are responsible for hydrocarbon degrading capabilities in bacteria can be measured. These tools are especially useful for studying microbial diversity at impacted sites (Madsen, 2000). Various recent applications of these techniques in petroleum-contaminated environments are reviewed by Haack and Bekins (2000). For example, Stapleton and Sayler (1999) monitored changes in the molecular microbial... 

In the following sections the experience with the applied environmental monitoring and the analytical techniques used will be described in more detail. Also the impact of man s activities on the environmental state of the atmosphere around the Italian station will be discussed. 

Engelen, B., Meinken, K., von Wintzintgerode, F., Heuer, H., Malkomes, H.P. and Backhaus, H. (1998) Monitoring impact of a pesticide treatment on bacterial soil communities by metabolic and genetic fingerprinting in addition to conventional testing procedures. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 64, 2814-2821. 

These indicators have been developed mainly to be applied at the industry level, for monitoring and benchmarking, using economic value to measure products or services. Another difference is that, while EATOS and the EQ summarize environmental impact as a general attribute, expressed by potential environmental impact/ environmental unfriendliness factors, IChemE indicators measure particular environmental problems, such as toxicity or acidification. This problem-oriented approach used by IChemE is based on the Life Cycle Impact Assessment framework that will be discussed later. 

The detection method most applied to capillary gas chromatography of PAHs in environmental samples is MS using electron-impact (El) ionization. " Fragmentation of PAHs is minimal under the 70 eV conditions generally used for El therefore single-ion monitoring (SIM) of the molecular ion provides maximum sensitivity although identification of individual isomers is virtually lqDs in the low to sub parts-per-billion level... 

Source related environmental monitoring is carried out to assess the impact of a particular source of radiation and radionuclide discharge. To determine the environmental impact of a particular source, measurement points and sampling points should be selected and analytical methods should be applied that allow the detection of radiation and radioactive contamination arising from the source under consideration. 

In the previous chapter we have seen how tunable lasers can be used in a multitude of ways to gain basic information on atomic and molecular systems. Thus, the laser has had a considerable impact on basic research, and its utility within the applied spectroscopic field is not smaller. We shall here discuss some applications of considerable interest. Previously, we have mainly chosen atomic spectroscopic examples rather than molecular ones, but in this chapter we shall mainly discuss applied molecular spectroscopy. First we will describe diagnostics of combustion processes and then discuss atmospheric monitoring by laser techniques. Different aspects of laser-induced fluorescence in liquids and solids will be considered with examples from the environmental, industrial and medical fields. We will also describe laser-induced chemical processes and isotope separation with lasers. Finally, spectroscopic aspects of lasers in medicine will be discussed. Applied aspects of laser spectroscopy have been covered in [10.1,2]. 

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