Environment & Natural Resources Management: Slogan session 4.

The soil: you walk on it but you dont realize how important it is for Biodiversity

Comments Off on Environment & Natural Resources Management: Slogan session 4. / 23 Jan 2012 por Carlos Cerdan Infantes
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Environmental and Natural Resource Management

Slogan for session 3: Biodiversity: life in different shapes, colors and sizes

Comments Off on Environmental and Natural Resource Management / 23 Jan 2012 por Natalia Diaz Zamora
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Sustainable Cities/Urban Planning

Final Thoughts on Urban Planning.

Urban Planning must take into account the interaction between markets, regulations, infrastructure and the communities needs and desires. In development class and then further bolstered in Sustainable cities I have learned that it is the utmost importance that public participation is involved in the planning action of a project. Lewis Mumford defines a city as “a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art.” Urban planning is a growing sector as more and more people are leaving the hillside and moving to cities.( Nearly half of the world’s population inhabit cities) The continuous growth of cities, however, is coupled with outrageous consumption and large energy demands. Urban Planning today needs to be sustainable.
The uncontrolled urban expansion needs to be focused in a sustainable way. Ebenezer Howard bolsters my perspective that we need to keep the nature in the city; that the concrete jungle needs to be parallel with the natural environment. The project Plan Zuid of Amsterdam successfully includes green and open spaces as a key element of their plan and uses the open green spaces to act as structural axis as the cities continues to grow south. I have learned that the four functions of urban planning is to develop a space that is livable, workable and provides recreation and circulation. In our exercise we worked to develop a space where we had to include green open space, community facilities and an integration of social classes by varying the types of housing. We could have made things more complex but due to time constraints we did not have to consider such things as traffic or ethnic, cultural and natural diversity. There are so many things to consider when planning an urban terrain. I hope that due to the current environmental degradation and the impact human activity is having on the planet that we as citizens are working with the expertise of environmentalist and urban planners to build cities that include ecology.

What is your favorite city and why? I said that New York City was one of my favorite cities. It is not due to the sustainable green aspect but the multiculturalism aspect. The diverse music styles, art, sounds, shows, festivals and energy create a dynamic city. NYC is now working to improve its energy efficiency and work towards a more sustainable environment. I think when planning a sustainable city it is important to integrate people and then create a sense of belonging.

In our class we broke our urban plan down into four stages. The first the intervention aims and definition. This is where strategic goals and sustainable measures are defined. Secondly, we discussed the reference situation analysis, including environmental, economic and social analysis. Each one of these is then further broken down for instance on the social and urban analysis you need to access: patrimonial levels, cultural/traditional values, the system, mobility and demography. Once you have an analysis you can begin plan design. The plan design will have several hurdles. The property limits survey, restraining elements, the strategies an sustainable factors such as soil, water and energy, the flow design the roads and connection in a city, the building setting ( where we included height of the building and type of housing) and of course, public spaces and facilities. After the plan is proposed, evaluated and verified then implementation can begin.

Conclusions: Urban Planning is a complex field that must look towards a green future so that planning and implementation does not jeopardize a sustainable future. There is an opportunity to link creativity, culture, the environment with a prosperous sustainable city.

Check out another Dan Hill and his blog :cityofsound.com
Sources:
Fitzgerald, Joan. Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development. New York: Oxford UP, 2010.

Sustainable Design and Urban and Regional Planning. Web. 23 Jan. 2012. .

Comments Off on Sustainable Cities/Urban Planning / 23 Jan 2012 por Lauren Musiello
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The module on Climate Change is starting

Atmospheric concentrations, extreme events, mitigation, adaptation, urgency, low carbon economy, carbon footprint, Al Gore, Kyoto, Durban, emission trading, clean development mechanism, … the list of concepts associated with climate change is long, we may even talk about God (watch short video)! It makes this global environmental issue both an exciting and complex topic of the IMSD, and the course will certainly benefit from the diversity of origins and backgrounds of the students.

The module is divided in two parts: a first one focussed on science, emissions and policies, by me, a second one on low carbon economy, by Marcos Lopez Brea.

To start with, here is an interesting website on climate change science:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/ “Scientific scepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to expand their knowledge and improve their understanding. So this website gets sceptical about global warming scepticism. Do their arguments have any scientific basis? What does the peer reviewed scientific literature say?”

To be continued soon!

Maryse Labriet: EOI teacher

Comments Off on The module on Climate Change is starting / 23 Jan 2012 por evacurto
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Project Management: la primera llamada celular se hizo en Manhattan

En 1973 Martin Cooper, ex ejecutivo de Motorola, sacó a la luz el primer celular o teléfono portátil de la historia. Pero no fue hasta 1983 que salió al mercado el Dyna-Tac 8000X de Motorola para complacer a los usuarios. Se trató de un teléfono móvil que pesaba 1 kilo de peso y medía 33 centímetros de largo 8,9 centímetros de ancho. Todo un ladrillo en pocas palabras. Costaba US$4.000 y su batería solo permitía una hora de conversación.

Volvamos a remontarnos a la fecha decisiva: 3 de abril de 1973. Ese día Martin Cooper logró realizar la primera llamada a través de un teléfono portátil en las calles de Manhattan, Nueva York. El protagonista de esta historia cogió el primer prototipo del Dyna-Tac y logró conectarlo a la red fija a través de una estación base instalada en el tope de un edificio. El destinatario: Dr. Joel S. Engel, ejecutivo de AT&T’s Bell. Dicha empresa en ese momento se encontraba en una aguerrida carrera contra Motorola por lograr inventar el primer teléfono móvil. Pues Motorola ganó la batalla por puesta de manos. Y sin duda, la primera llamada a través de un teléfono celular originó un cambio radical en la historia de las comunicaciones. Ya no se necesitarían de tantos cables de cobre para dar a las personas la libertad de hablar con sus pares en cualquier momento.

El proceso por minimizar tamaño y ampliar cobertura

Luego de ese abril decisivo, Cooper comenzó el largo proceso de llevar los teléfonos celulares portátiles al mercado masivo. El camino demoró 10 años. Recién en 1983 se comenzó a comercializar, como ya se mencionó, los Dyna-Tac (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage), serie de celulares fabricados por Motorola hasta 1994.

Antes de la invención del celular, Motorola había desarrollado toda una serie de productos tecnológicos destinados a la telefonía. Entre ellos se encontraba el modelo Dyna-Tac, diseñado por Cooper. Pero tras la insistencia de este ejecutivo, Motorola pidió permiso a la Federal Communications Commission (FCC) de Estados Unidos para hacer uso de las frecuencias electromagnéticas e instalar una estación base en New York. El propósito era presentar a la opinión pública cómo funcionaría la telefonía celular.

En distintas entrevistas Cooper ha manifestado que fabricar el primer celular costó aproximadamente US$1 millón y para ello se tuvo que movilizar todo un equipo de ingenieros y diseñadores industriales de Motorola. Y es que el gran reto fue estudiar al milímetro la telefonía y engranar miles de piezas por primera vez.

Según Cooper, lo más difícil fue echar andar la batería, que en un primer momento pesaba cuatro o cinco veces más que el mismo teléfono móvil. Además, esta primera batería apenas se mantenía prendida por 20 minutos. Había que alargar su campo y tiempo de acción.

Otro gran obstáculo fue adaptar la infraestructura celular a la una nueva red móvil. De hecho, de acuerdo a Cooper, el desafío fue crear una red que solo necesitara de tres megahertz de espectro (el equivalente a cinco canales de televisión) para que los usuarios logren hacer llamadas.

Por supuesto, tuvieron que pasar bastantes años y mucha mano de obra también hasta lograr que los celulares “ladrillo” disminuyeran su tamaño y pudieran caber en los bolsillos. Es más, el primer Dyna-Tac que salió a la venta en 1983 costaba $4.000, lo que, con el aumento de la inflación, habrían significado al día de hoy unos US$10.000. Todo un lujo. Aun así, el sueño de Cooper y todo su equipo era lograr que algún día todas las personas de la Tierra sean dueñas de un celular. Pues parece que el señor Cooper siempre fue todo un visionario.

Comments Off on Project Management: la primera llamada celular se hizo en Manhattan / 22 Jan 2012 por Iana Malaga Newton
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Environmental and Natural Resource Management: Cycles

Carbon cycle

Plants absorb the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which is used by them to live. Together with water they get from the soil they make substances that are needed for growth. The process of photosyntesis transform carbon dioxide into sugars, which later are eaten by animals or instects that use it for their own needs. Those animals reinject carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by breathing or when thay die it is being returned to the soil by the decomposition process.

Nitrogen cycle

It is one of the most important cycles as it represent the majority of elements in the atmosphere. Nitrogen is used by living organisms to produce organic molecules like amino acids, proteins or nucleic acids. plants receive nitrogen from soil as an inorganic nitrate. animals receive the required amount of nitrogen they need for metabolism, growth and reproduction consuming living or dead organisms containing the composed nitrogen molecules. Nitrogen is being then implemented into soil from where it is being carried out by different bacteria and other organisms and reintroduced into the atmosphere.

Water cycle

The water cycle is the only way that Earth can be continually supplied with fresh water. The heat from the sun is the most important part of renewing our water supply.

This heat soaks up water from the oceans, lakes, rivers, trees and plants in process called evaporation. As the water mixes with the air it forms water vapor. As the air cools, the water vapor forms clouds. This is called condensation.

Most of the water is immediately returned to the seas by rain (precipitation). The rest of the water vapor is carried inside clouds by wind over land where it rains or snows.

Rain and melted snow is brought back to the oceans by rivers, streams, and run-off from glaciers and water underground.

Phosphorus cycle

The phosphorus cycle is the biogeochemical cycle that describes the movement of phosphorus through the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere.

Initially, phosphate weathers from rocks. The small losses caused by leaching through the action of rain are balanced in the gains from weathering rocks. In soil, phosphate is absorbed on clay surfaces and organic matter particles and becomes incorporated (immobilized).

Plants dissolve ionized forms of phosphate. Herbivores obtain phosphorus by eating plants, and carnivores by eating herbivores. Herbivores and carnivores excrete phosphorus as a waste product in urine and feces. Phosphorus is released back to the soil when plants or animal matter decomposes and the cycle repeats.

Sulphur cycle

When sulphur is released from the rock and comes in contact with air, it is converted into sulfate (SO4), which is taken up by plants and microorganisms and converted into organic forms. Animals acquire these organic forms of sulfur from their foods. When organisms die and decompose, some of the sulfur enters the tissues of microorganisms and some is released again as sulfate.

Additional sulphur enters the ocean through fallout from the atmosphere.

Once in the ocean, some of the sulphur cycles through marine communities as it moves through food chains, some reenters the atmosphere, and some is lost to the ocean depths as it combines with iron to form ferrous sulfide (FeS).

Sulphur reenters the atmosphere naturally in three major ways: sea spray releases large amounts of the element from the ocean into the atmosphere; anaerobic respiration by sulfate-reducing bacteria causes the release of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas especially from marshes, tidal flats, and similar environments in which anaerobic microorganisms thrive; and volcanic activity releases additional but much smaller amounts of sulfur gas into the atmosphere.

References

Reference: University of Victoria. Retrieved 19/01/2012 from: http://education2.uvic.ca/Faculty/mroth/438/weather/watercycle.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus_cycle

(1) Enciclopedia Britannica Online

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/66191/biosphere/70870/The-sulfur-cycle

Comments Off on Environmental and Natural Resource Management: Cycles / 21 Jan 2012 por Iana Malaga Newton
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Energy Planning: Energy Efficiency policies Costa Rica

Costa Rica has a good share of renewable energies in its energy mix (for electric generation) and only about 7% or less comes from thermal plants. The other 93% of Costa Rica’s power comes from renewable energies. In order of importance these would be hydroelectric, geothermal, wind power and solar. Since the country is rich in hydric resources and geothermal most of these renewable energies are very efficient for the country. So in terms of efficiency the main space of action on the broad energy consumption is in the consumption of fossil fuel which is mainly imported. The main role of these are transportation and for thermal electric generation. In the summer when water reservoirs are low causing electric shortages, so grid operators have to turn on thermal plants to keep up with the electricity demand.

Some of the policies detected to improve the countries efficiency in terms of electric consumption:

Options detected to reduce the energy consumption in the fuel sector: in the strengthen of local Energy sources such as biofuels of first and second generation (bio ethanol and biodiesel). As well as evaluating the natural gas potential in the country.
Options detected to improve the energy production in the electric sector: during the dry season (when the water reservoirs are at a low level). Once again the use of biofuels and natural gas to substitute thermal generation plants that depend on fossil fuels.
Strengthen investigation programs on geothermal energy and increase geothermal electric production.
Increase the usage of biomass (agricultural by products), as well as expanding the usage of photovoltaic technologies in rural areas.

The transportation sector is the main responsible for all of GHG (green house gases) and CO2 emissions in the country. To reduce the fossil fuels consumption in the transport sector there several options that are being considered:

In terms of the Train System expanding the urban passenger train system, evaluating the possibility a cargo train and the electrification of these services.
Improve public transportation systems, give priority to cars with more occupation
Informative and educative campaigns
Encourage a shift towards newer technologies with high efficiency fuel technologies, such as electric vehicles, and conventional vehicles with higher efficiency and limit and restrict the import of old used vehicles with a high consumption.

In Conclusion Costa Rica is very efficient in terms of electric generation. Soon is going to open a new hydroelectric power plant called Dikis which is going to allow the country to produce electricity from almost 100% renewable energies. However the main challenge is transportation which uses imported fossils fuels to run increasing the countries total energy bill as well as incrementing the GHG and CO2 emissions, which gets on the way of the countries goals of achieving carbon neutrality by 2021.

References:

www.DSE.go.cr

Comments Off on Energy Planning: Energy Efficiency policies Costa Rica / 20 Jan 2012 por Javier Solano Palacios
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Sustainability: South-Eastern Asia Development Goals

The millennium development goals are a set of eight goals agreed to be achieved by 2015. These goals were set by the 193 countries that conform the United Nations. The fulfillment of these 8 goals in south East Asia has been:

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
- Decrease by halve the population living with less than $1 per day
- Full and productive employment (including women and young people)
- Decrease by halve the population who suffer from hunger

It is previewed that South Eastern Asia will be able to meet the hunger reduction target by 2015. One of the initiatives found for the achievement of this goal in the Philippines consists in creating ambulant food vendors. They are provided with energy efficient stoves and micro financing to allow them to pursue this entrepreneurial activity. This was catalogued as one of the best practices lead by Asian Alliance of Appropriate Technology Practitioners NGO.

Achieve universal primary education.
- Boys and Girls on a global scale complete primary school

In Southeast Asia already around 90% of children attend school. For example in Indonesia YCAB Foundation is attacking this problem by educating street children. They target street children that have drop-out of school for at least six months. They have achieved great results having 90% of their students passing the national education examinations and 80% of their graduates getting jobs.

Promote gender equality and empower women
- Eliminate gender disparity in education primary and secondary specifically

Southeastern Asia has accomplished the goal of achieving gender parity in primary education. One of the approaches being given to this initiative in the Philippines is being lead by ISIS (international women’s information and communication service) in The Philippines. The main idea is to promote gender parity by encouraging women’s participation in media by increasing access, participation and ICT (information, communication and technologies) skills. This is done by imparting seminars, workshops and training programmers. By getting women involved in media the idea is this will have a multiplier effect in promoting gender equality.

Reduce child mortality rates,
- Reduce child mortality under five years old by two thirds

Although South East Asia is well on track on the under five mortality rate and it is previewed it will accomplish this goal for 2015. The region still has a lot of work to be done on the overall infant mortality rate.

Improve maternal health,
- Reduce by three quarters the rate of maternal deaths

In this goal the leading countries are Fiji, China, and Thailand. As for the whole region maternal deaths per 100,000 births have reduced from 230 to 92 between 1990 and 2008 in the region. While the proportion of deliveries attended by skilled health personnel, between 1990 and 2009 from 49% to 72%.

Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases,
- Halt and start reducing the HIV epidemic
- Universal HIV/AIDS treatment for those who need it
- Halt and reverse incidence of malaria and other diseases

Southeast Asia has handled this goal very well in fact they have achieved these targets ahead of time. The number of new HIV infections per year per 100 people aged 15-49 stayed at a level 0.4 between 2001-2009 and the percentage of women given retroviral drugs to prevent newborn infection increased from 28% to 54% between 2004-2009.

Ensure environmental sustainability,
- Introduce the principles of sustainable development into government policies reverse loss of environmental resources
- Reduce biodiversity loss
- Reduce by halve the population with access to clean drinking water

Although South-Eastern Asia has already met the MDG drinking water target it still hasn’t met sanitation for rural areas and in some urban areas water coverage is failing due to population increase. While in the environment it has achieved the protected area a head of time, but unfortunately the forest cover areas are still diminishing and far from meeting the goals to reduce biodiversity loss. In terms of CO² emissions it is not improving but rather increasing between 1990 and 2008, CO² emissions increased from 0.3-0.8 (Billions of metric tons).

Develop a global partnership for development.
- Address the special needs of the least developed countries,
- Develop a fair financial and trading system

In most of the goals for the new millennium South-East is well on track to accomplish them aside from the environmental sustainability targets. But we have to remember that the achievement of these goals is just part of the process of development and the region still far from achieving developed countries indexes.

References:

The millennium development goals report 2011

Successful Models on achieving the Millennium Development Goals in South East Asia By Youjin Jung* December 2010

The Millenium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007

Comments Off on Sustainability: South-Eastern Asia Development Goals / 19 Jan 2012 por Javier Solano Palacios
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Presentación Módulo Contaminación de las Aguas MPIGMA

En el modulo de aguas residuales se va a llevar a cabo el estudio de la problemática del medio hídrico, desde el punto de vista de su contaminación.

El modulo tiene fundamentalmente cuatro grandes líneas, que son:

– Situación actual de la contaminación del agua en nuestro país. Definición de los contaminantes más habituales en las aguas residuales.

– Estudio de los diferentes procesos y operaciones unitarias utilizadas en las plantas depuradoras de aguas residuales.

– Conjunto de temas complementarios, como emisarios submarinos, explotación y mantenimiento de infraestructuras de depuración, instrumentación en la EDAR, Legislación aplicable al agua, contaminación marina, etc

– En paralelo con las clases presenciales, se llevara a cabo el diseño básico de una EDAR para 100.000 hab-eq, incluyendo la línea de fangos y la regeneración del agua depurada, definiendo el tamaño y características de los diferentes sistemas que componen la instalación. Al final del modulo habrá una clase presencial donde se llevará a cabo la presentación, corrección, y finalización del trabajo

Como complemento, se realizara una visita a dos EDAR en Toledo.

En este módulo se tratan por igual la problemática y posibles soluciones de las aguas residuales tanto urbanas como industriales.

Juan Antonio Sainz Sastre

Profesor del Módulo Contaminación de las Aguas

MPIGMA

Comments Off on Presentación Módulo Contaminación de las Aguas MPIGMA / 19 Jan 2012 por mpigmamad
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