Conversion of tropical peat swamp forest to drainage-based agriculture alters greenhouse gas (GHG) production, but the magnitude of these changes remains highly uncertain. Current emissions factors for oil palm grown on drained peat do not account for temporal variation over the plantation cycle and only consider CO2 emissions. Here, we present direct measurements of GHGs emitted during the conversion from peat swamp forest to oil palm plantation, accounting for CH4 and N2O as well as CO2. Our results demonstrate that emissions factors for converted peat swamp forest is in the range 70-117 t CO2 eq ha-1 yr-1 (95% confidence interval, CI), with CO2 and N2O responsible for ca. 60 and ca. 40% of this value, respectively. These GHG emissions suggest that conversion of Southeast Asian peat swamp forest is contributing between 16.6 and 27.9% (95% CI) of combined total national GHG emissions from Malaysia and Indonesia or 0.44 and 0.74% (95% CI) of annual global emissions.
Climate change and global warming as the key human societies' threats are essentially associated with energy consumption and CO2 emissions. A system dynamic model was developed in this study to model the energy consumption and CO2 emission trends for Iran over 2000-2025. Energy policy factors are considered in analyzing the impact of different energy consumption factors on environmental quality. The simulation results show that the total energy consumption is predicted to reach 2150 by 2025, while that value in 2010 is 1910, which increased by 4.3% yearly. Accordingly, the total CO2 emissions in 2025 will reach 985million tonnes, which shows about 5% increase yearly. Furthermore, we constructed policy scenarios based on energy intensity reduction. The analysis show that CO2 emissions will decrease by 12.14% in 2025 compared to 2010 in the scenario of 5% energy intensity reduction, and 17.8% in the 10% energy intensity reduction scenario. The results obtained in this study provide substantial awareness regarding Irans future energy and CO2 emission outlines.
BACKGROUND: Assessment of asthma outside of the hospital using a patient independent device is highly in demand due to the limitation of existing devices, which are manual and unreliable if patients are not cooperative.
OBJECTIVE: The study aims to verify the use of newly developed human respiration, carbon dioxide (CO2) measurement device for the management of asthma outside of the hospital.
METHOD: The data were collected from 60 subjects aged between 18-35 years via convenience sampling method reported in UTM Health Center using the device. Furthermore, the data were normalized and analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, and area (Az) under receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC).
RESULT: Findings revealed that the normalized mean values of end-tidal carbon dioxide (EtCO2), Hjorth Activity (HA), and respiratory rate (RR) were lower in asthmatic compared with healthy subjects with minimum deviation from the mean. In addition, each parameter was found to significantly differ statistically for asthma and non-asthma with p< 0.05. Furthermore, the Az shows the strong association for the screening of asthma and non-asthma with an average of 0.71 (95% CI: 0.57-0.83), 0.77 (95% CI: 0.64-0.90), and 0.83 (95% CI: 0.73-0.94) for RR, EtCO2, and HA, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that the newly developed handheld human respiration CO2 measurement device may possibly be used as an effort-independent asthma management method outside of the hospital.
The development of a human respiration carbon dioxide (CO2) measurement device to evaluate cardiorespiratory status inside and outside a hospital setting has proven to be a challenging area of research over the few last decades. Hence, we report a real-time, user operable CO2 measurement device using an infrared CO2 sensor (Arduino Mega2560) and a thin film transistor (TFT, 3.5″), incorporated with low pass (cut-off frequency, 10 Hz) and moving average (span, 8) filters. The proposed device measures features such as partial end-tidal carbon dioxide (EtCO2), respiratory rate (RR), inspired carbon dioxide (ICO2), and a newly proposed feature-Hjorth activity-that annotates data with the date and time from a real-time clock, and is stored onto a secure digital (SD) card. Further, it was tested on 22 healthy subjects and the performance (reliability, validity and relationship) of each feature was established using (1) an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), (2) standard error measurement (SEM), (3) smallest detectable difference (SDD), (4) Bland-Altman plot, and (5) Pearson's correlation (r). The SEM, SDD, and ICC values for inter- and intra-rater reliability were less than 5% and more than 0.8, respectively. Further, the Bland-Altman plot demonstrates that mean differences ± standard deviations for a set limit were 0.30 ± 0.77 mmHg, -0.34 ± 1.41 mmHg and 0.21 ± 0.64 breath per minute (bpm) for CO2, EtCO2 and RR. The findings revealed that the developed device is highly reliable, providing valid measurements for CO2, EtCO2, ICO2 and RR, and can be used in clinical settings for cardiorespiratory assessment. This research also demonstrates that EtCO2 and RR (r, -0.696) are negatively correlated while EtCO2 and activity (r, 0.846) are positively correlated. Thus, simultaneous measurement of these features may possibly assist physicians in understanding the subject's cardiopulmonary status. In future, the proposed device will be tested with asthmatic patients for use as an early screening tool outside a hospital setting.
The CO2 capture capacity and cyclic stability of calcium oxide (CaO) prepared from cockle shells (CS) were enhanced by incorporating rice husk (RH) and binder through wet-mixing method. The cyclic reaction of calcination and carbonation was demonstrated using thermal gravimetric analyzer (TGA) which the calcination was performed in a pure N2 environment at 850 °C for 20 min and carbonation at 650 °C for 30 min in 20 vol% of CO2 in N2. The analysis using x-ray fluorescence (XRF) identified silica (Si) as the major elements in the sorbents. The RH-added sorbents also contained several types of metal elements such as which was a key factor to minimize the sintering of the sorbent during the cyclic reaction and contributed to higher CO2 capture capacity. The presence of various morphologies also associated with the improvement of the synthesized sorbents performance. The highest initial CO2 capture capacity was exhibited by CS+10%RH sorbent, which was 12% higher than the RH-free sorbent (CS). However, sorbents with the higher RH loading amount such as 40 and 50 wt% were preferred to maintain high capture capacity when the sorbents were regenerated and extended to the cyclic reaction. The sorbents also demonstrated the lowest average sorption decay, which suggested the most stable sorbent for cyclic-reaction. Once regenerated, the capture capacity of the RH-added sorbent was further increased by 12% when clay was added into the sorbent. Overall, the metal elements in RH and clay were possibly the key factor that enhances the performance of CaO prepared from CS, particularly for cyclic CO2 capture. Graphical abstract Cyclic calcination and carbonation reaction.
We investigate the role of military expenditure on emission in USA during the period 1960-2015. To achieve the objectives of this study, two measures of military expenditure are utilised, while several timeseries models are constructed with the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, population, energy consumption per capita, non-renewable energy consumption per capita, renewable energy consumption per capita, urbanisation, trade openness and financial development serving as additional determinants of air pollution. We also use ecological indicator as an alternative measure of pollution. Moreover, different timeseries methods are utilised including a likelihood-based approach with two structural breaks. The output of this research concluded that all the variables are cointegrated. It is found that military expenditure has mixed impact on CO2 emissions. Real GDP per capita, energy consumption per capita, non-renewable energy consumption per capita, population and urbanisation increase CO2 emissions per capita in the long-run, while renewable energy consumption, financial development and trade openness reduce it. There is also evidence for the mixed role of military expenditure, when ecological footprint is utilised as the environmental degradation index. From the output of this research, few policy recommendations are offered for the examined country.
The relationship between environmental factors and human health has long been a concern among academic researchers. We use two indicators of environmental pollution, namely particulate matter (PM10) and carbon dioxide (CO2) to examine the effects of poor air quality on human mortality. This study explores an issue that has largely been ignored, particularly in the African literature, where the effect of air pollution on human mortality could be influenced by gender specification. We analyse a panel data from 35 African countries and our result suggests that the elevated levels of PM10 and CO2 have a significant effect on the increasing mortality rates in infants, under-five children and adults. Although the effect of poor air quality on adults is found to differ between genders, such difference is not statistically significant. We conclude that the air pollution effects, on average, are similar between genders in the African countries.
In this era of globalization, various products and technologies are being developed by the industries. While resources and energy are utilized from processes, wastes are being excreted through water streams, air, and ground. Without realizing it, environmental pollutions increase as the country develops. Effective technology is desired to create green factories that are able to overcome these issues. Wastewater is classified as the water coming from domestic or industrial sources. Wastewater treatment includes physical, chemical, and biological treatment processes. Aerobic and anaerobic processes are utilized in biological treatment approach. However, the current biological approaches emit greenhouse gases (GHGs), methane, and carbon dioxide that contribute to global warming. Microalgae can be the alternative to treating wastewater as it is able to consume nutrients from wastewater loading and fix CO2 as it undergoes photosynthesis. The utilization of microalgae in the system will directly reduce GHG emissions with low operating cost within a short period of time. The aim of this review is to discuss the uses of native microalgae species in palm oil mill effluent (POME) and flue gas remediation. In addition, the discussion on the optimal microalgae cultivation parameter selection is included as this is significant for effective microalgae-based treatment operations.
The objective of the study is to examine the impact of environmental indicators and air pollution on "health" and "wealth" for the low-income countries. The study used a number of promising variables including arable land, fossil fuel energy consumption, population density, and carbon dioxide emissions that simultaneously affect the health (i.e., health expenditures per capita) and wealth (i.e., GDP per capita) of the low-income countries. The general representation for low-income countries has shown by aggregate data that consist of 39 observations from the period of 1975-2013. The study decomposes the data set from different econometric tests for managing robust inferences. The study uses temporal forecasting for the health and wealth model by a vector error correction model (VECM) and an innovation accounting technique. The results show that environment and air pollution is the menace for low-income countries' health and wealth. Among environmental indicators, arable land has the largest variance to affect health and wealth for the next 10-year period, while air pollution exerts the least contribution to change health and wealth of low-income countries. These results indicate the prevalence of war situation, where environment and air pollution become visible like "gun" and "bullet" for low-income countries. There are required sound and effective macroeconomic policies to combat with the environmental evils that affect the health and wealth of the low-income countries.
The main purpose of this work is to analyze the impact of environmental degradation proxied by CO2 emissions per capita along with some other explanatory variables namely energy use, trade, and human capital on economic growth in selected higher CO2 emissions economies namely China, the USA, India, and Japan. For empirical analysis, annual data over the period spanning between 1971 and 2013 are used. After using relevant and suitable tests for checking data properties, the panel fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) method is employed as an analytical technique for parameter estimation. The panel group FMOLS results reveal that almost all variables are statistically significant, whereby test rejects the null hypotheses of non cointegration, demonstrating that all variables play an important role in affecting the economic growth role across countries. Where two regressors namely CO2 emissions and energy use show significantly negative impacts on economic growth, for trade and human capital, they tend to show the significantly positive impact on economic growth. However, for the individual analysis across countries, the panel estimate suggests that CO2 emissions have a significant positive relationship with economic growth for China, Japan, and the USA, while it is found significantly negative in case of India. The empirical findings of the study suggest that appropriate and prudent policies are required in order to control pollution emerging from areas other than liquefied fuel consumption. The ultimate impact of shrinking pollution will help in supporting sustainable economic growth and maturation as well as largely improve society welfare.
This study investigates the relationship between energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission in the causal framework, as the direction of causality remains has a significant policy implication for developed and developing countries. The study employed maximum entropy bootstrap (Meboot) approach to examine the causal nexus between energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission using bivariate as well as multivariate framework for Malaysia, over a period of 1975-2013. This is a unified approach without requiring the use of conventional techniques based on asymptotical theory such as testing for possible unit root and cointegration. In addition, it can be applied in the presence of non-stationary of any type including structural breaks without any type of data transformation to achieve stationary. Thus, it provides more reliable and robust inferences which are insensitive to time span as well as lag length used. The empirical results show that there is a unidirectional causality running from energy consumption to carbon emission both in the bivariate model and multivariate framework, while controlling for broad money supply and population density. The results indicate that Malaysia is an energy-dependent country and hence energy is stimulus to carbon emissions.
The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of financial development on CO2 emission in 129 countries classified by the income level. A panel CO2 emission model using urbanisation, GDP growth, trade openness, petroleum consumption and financial development variables that are major determinants of CO2 emission was constructed for the 1980-2011 period. The results revealed that the variables are cointegrated based on the Pedroni cointegration test. The dynamic ordinary least squares (OLS) and the Granger causality test results also show that financial development can improve environmental quality in the short run and long run due to its negative effect on CO2 emission. The rest of the determinants, especially petroleum consumption, are determined to be the major source of environmental damage in most of the income group countries. Based on the results obtained, the investigated countries should provide banking loans to projects and investments that can promote energy savings, energy efficiency and renewable energy to help these countries reduce environmental damage in both the short and long run.
This study aimed to predict monthly columnar ozone (O3) in Peninsular Malaysia by using data on the concentration of environmental pollutants. Data (2003-2008) on five atmospheric pollutant gases (CO2, O3, CH4, NO2, and H2O vapor) retrieved from the satellite Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography (SCIAMACHY) were employed to develop a model that predicts columnar ozone through multiple linear regression. In the entire period, the pollutants were highly correlated (R = 0.811 for the southwest monsoon, R = 0.803 for the northeast monsoon) with predicted columnar ozone. The results of the validation of columnar ozone with column ozone from SCIAMACHY showed a high correlation coefficient (R = 0.752-0.802), indicating the model's accuracy and efficiency. Statistical analysis was utilized to determine the effects of each atmospheric pollutant on columnar ozone. A model that can retrieve columnar ozone in Peninsular Malaysia was developed to provide air quality information. These results are encouraging and accurate and can be used in early warning of the population to comply with air quality standards.
This study investigates the influence of Internet retailing on carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in 77 countries categorized into developed and developing countries during the period of 2000-2013. To realize the aims of the study, a model that represents pollution is established utilizing the panel two-stage least square (TSLS) and the generalized method of moments (GMM). The results for both regressions similarly indicated that GDP growth, electricity consumption, urbanization, and trade openness are the main factors that increase CO2 emission in the investigated countries. Although the results show that Internet retailing reduces CO2 emission in general, a disaggregation occurs between developed and developing countries whereby Internet retailing has a significant negative effect on CO2 emission in the developed countries while it has no significant impact on CO2 emission in the developing countries. From the outcome of this study, a number of policy implications are provided for the investigated countries.
Environmental quality indicators are crucial for responsive and cost-effective policies. The objective of the study is to examine the relationship between environmental quality indicators and financial development in Malaysia. For this purpose, the number of environmental quality indicators has been used, i.e., air pollution measured by carbon dioxide emissions, population density per square kilometer of land area, agricultural production measured by cereal production and livestock production, and energy resources considered by energy use and fossil fuel energy consumption, which placed an impact on the financial development of the country. The study used four main financial indicators, i.e., broad money supply (M2), domestic credit provided by the financial sector (DCFS), domestic credit to the private sector (DCPC), and inflation (CPI), which each financial indicator separately estimated with the environmental quality indicators, over a period of 1975-2013. The study used the generalized method of moments (GMM) technique to minimize the simultaneity from the model. The results show that carbon dioxide emissions exert the positive correlation with the M2, DCFC, and DCPC, while there is a negative correlation with the CPI. However, these results have been evaporated from the GMM estimates, where carbon emissions have no significant relationship with any of the four financial indicators in Malaysia. The GMM results show that population density has a negative relationship with the all four financial indicators; however, in case of M2, this relationship is insignificant to explain their result. Cereal production has a positive relationship with the DCPC, while there is a negative relationship with the CPI. Livestock production exerts the positive relationship with the all four financial indicators; however, this relationship with the CPI has a more elastic relationship, while the remaining relationship is less elastic with the three financial indicators in a country. Energy resources comprise energy use and fossil fuel energy consumption, both have distinct results with the financial indicators, as energy demand have a positive and significant relationship with the DCFC, DCPC, and CPI, while fossil fuel energy consumption have a negative relationship with these three financial indicators. The results of the study are of value to both environmentalists and policy makers.
Extensive contamination of soils by highly recalcitrant contaminants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is an environmental problem arising from rapid industrialisation. This work focusses on the remediation of soil contaminated with 3- and 4-aromatic ring PAHs (phenanthrene (PHE) and fluoranthene (FLUT)) through catalysed hydrogen peroxide propagation (CHP). In the present work, the operating parameters of the CHP treatment in packed soil column was optimised with central composite design (H2O2/soil 0.081, Fe(3+)/soil 0.024, sodium pyrophosphate (SP)/soil 0.024, pH of SP solution 7.73). The effect of contaminant aging on PAH removals was also investigated. Remarkable oxidative PAH removals were observed for the short aging and extended aging period (up to 86.73 and 70.61 % for PHE and FLUT, respectively). The impacts of CHP on soil biological, chemical and physical properties were studied for both spiked and aged soils. Overall, the soil functionality analyses after the proposed operating condition demonstrated that the values for soil respiration, electrical conductivity, pH and iron precipitation fell within acceptable limits, indicating the compatibility of the CHP process with land restoration.
The relationship between national income growth and the environment of 14 Asian economies over a 50 year period is examined using the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. Ecological Footprint (EF) measures environmental impacts and gross domestic product (GDP) measures economic growth. It is hypothesised that increased rates of economic growth come at a cost to the natural environment. The EKC hypothesis has been mainly tested in the literature by cross-sectional or panel data methods. In this study, it is tested using time series analysis through initially examining the relationship between EF and GDP using linear, quadratic and cubic estimating OLS regression functions. In the second stage, the long-run relationship between EF and GDP is investigated using an augmented error correction trend model. There is a statistically significant cointegrated long-run relationship between the variables in most of the countries. The EKC hypothesis is supported in the case of India, Nepal, Malaysia and Pakistan with the other countries exhibiting a positive linear relationship between the two variables. Almost all error correction terms are correct in sign and significance that implies that some percentage of disequilibria in EF in the previous year adjusts back to the long-run equilibrium in the current year. Based on the long-run relationship, it is apparent that rapid economic growth has had an impact on the environment and the ecosystems of these countries over the last 50 years. Despite that, until now, not many of them have taken sufficient steps to reduce their EF or to improve their bioproductive capacity.
The availability of natural energy resources and the environmental issues are the most significant issues that are often highlighted by the world communities. With regard to these problems, isobutanol is a higher chain alcohol with four carbons which can be derived from biomass resources and it is potential to become an alternative fuel source besides the biodiesel for a diesel engine. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of isobutanol with Calophyllum inophyllum methyl ester and diesel as the ternary blend on physicochemical properties, engine performance, and emission characteristics. Five different fuel blends containing Calophyllum inophyllum biodiesel and isobutanol were tested on a single-cylinder direct injection diesel engine at different engine load of brake mean effective pressure. The physicochemical properties of the fuel blends were measured and then compared with neat diesel. The results indicate that the blend containing isobutanol and CIME gives a slight increase in BSEC and EGT and a minimal drop in BTE as compared to that of neat diesel. Besides that, the tested blends show a reduction of carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbon emissions. Meanwhile, all the fuel blends show a minimal increase in carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions, compared to that of neat diesel. Isobutanol can be proved as a preferred substitute for biodiesel and diesel fuels to achieve desired engine performance and emissions level.
Sustainable development inculcates the process of preserving the environment for future generations while maintaining existing human needs. This study attempts to empirically investigate the relationship between CO2 emissions, GDP, energy consumption, and imports and exports using yearly data between 1980 and 2014 for the panel of eight developing countries (i.e., Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Turkey). All the tests for cointegration establish the long-run association among the variables and confirm the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for the panel of eight countries. GDP and energy consumption remained significant factors for emission intensity both in the long and short run. However, exports found to be positive factor for emissions in the long run only and imports spur emissions in the short run. The country-specific results validate EKC hypothesis for Bangladesh, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Turkey. The findings are policy oriented and suggest that the countries' economic growth along with energy consumption and exports are highly emission intensive which require necessary adjustments at sustainable development policy front.
This study was undertaken to compare the chemical properties and yields of pineapple leaf residue (PLR) char produced by field burning (CF) with that produced by a partial combustion of air-dried PLR at 340 °C for 3 h in a furnace (CL). Higher total C, lignin content, and yield from CL as well as the presence of aromatic compounds in the Fourier Transform Infrared spectra of the char produced from CL suggest that the CL process was better in sequestering C than was the CF process. Although the C/N ratio of char produced from CL was low indicating a high N content of the char, the C in the char produced from CL was dominated by lignin suggesting that the decomposition of char produced from CL would be slow. To sequester C by char application, the PLR should be combusted in a controlled process rather than by burning in the field.