Environmental Pollution Control

Jingling Liu, Lulu Zhang, Zhijie Liu, China Environment Publishing Group

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9783110538069
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

The book illustrates theories of sustainable development from physical, chemical and biological aspects, and then introduces technologies to prevent pollution of water, air, solid waste and noise, finally concludes with ecological environmental protection and restoration techniques. With interdisciplinary features and abundant case studies, it is an essential reference for researchers and industrial engineers.

1The principle of environmental pollution control

1.1The basic theory

The globality and complexity of environmental problems are new challenges faced by mankind; managers, experts, and the public around the world attach great ­importance to these. Environmental pollution control technology is the key technology for implementing sustainable development strategy. The principle of environmental pollution prevention and control is the optimization, application, and innovation of environmental pollution control technology and theoretical support.

The types of environmental pollution could be classified in various ways. In accordance with environmental elements, it can be divided into air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, and physical pollution. In accordance with anthropogenic activities, it can be divided into industrial pollution, cities pollution, and agricultural pollution. In accordance with the nature and sources of pollution, it can be divided into chemical pollution, biological pollution, physical pollution, solid waste pollution, and energy pollution.

The features of environmental pollution are as follows:

1. Pollutants can enter the environment naturally or can be caused by human activities (for example from burning coal). Most pollution from anthropogenic activities occurs in or near urban and industrial areas, where pollutants are concentrated. Industrialized agriculture also is the major source of pollution.
2. Pollutants could transform, metabolize, degrade, or be enriched in the environment through biological, physical, or chemical reactions, which result in property and concentration change in pollutants and then cause different harmful effects.
3. Pollutants affect the human body in a long time through air, water, soil and food in various ways, for example, disruption of life-support systems for humans and other species; damage to wildlife, human health, and property; and nuisances such as noise and unpleasant smells, tastes, and sights.

Two approaches are commonly used to deal with pollution: 1 preventing pollution that comes into the environment or 2 cleaning it up if it did. Pollution prevention or pollution source control can reduce or eliminate the generation of pollutants. Pollution can be prevented by the following “five Rs” of resource use: refuse, replace, reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Theory is the foundation and precondition for technology and management innovation, which determines the development, practice, and integration of environmental pollution control. The theory of sustainable development requires legal protection, technical support, and management practice to build, in order to ultimately be built into national/regional environmental security and early warning system.

1.1.1Theory of circular economy

Circular economy is a kind of ecological economy, which is the integration of cleaner production and comprehensive utilization of waste, in accordance with the material circulation of natural ecosystem and energy flow pattern reconstruction of the economic system; it is harmonious with the natural ecosystem material cycle.

Circular economy is based on the basis of constant and circulatory use of resource, which requires the economic activities in accordance with the natural ecological system pattern, forming a “resource-product-renewable resource” such a closed-loop model of material cyclic flow. The important symbol of resource utilization is the comprehensive waste reutilization, reduction, and harmless. The main objective is to achieve the sustainable use of resources, such as the resources with “efficient use and low pollution emissions.”

Circular economy will become the main mode in future development in developing countries. At present, the Guigang national ecological industry (sugar) demonstration zone and the South China Sea national ecological demonstration zone are carrying out cycle testing and pilot for the promotion of circular economy in China and have accumulated valuable experiences.

1.1.2Life cycle theory

The life cycle theory may be involved in various stages of the product system. It is an application of self-organization of ecosystem structure and function and the theory of ecological balance in the production and living. Life cycle is an important theoretical basis for clean production and aims at helping in environmental management. In the long-term, that is, the tools and techniques is very important in sustainable development.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) includes the entire life cycle of the product or the production and living activities. LCA studies the environmental impact of the system from three areas: the ecosystem, human health, and resources consumption, but does not deal with the economic and social impact. In accordance with the ISO definition, LCA is a technique that researches the production, use, and disposal of the entire product life cycle from raw material (from the cradle-the grave-the cradle) and may be involved in the whole production process of the environmental aspects and potential impacts.

LCA has 20 years of development history, known as “environmental management tools” in the 1990s; in the 21st century, it is the most important utility tool used at different levels of environmental protection and sustainable development and plays an important role in cleaner production and energy conservation.

1.1.3Complex systems theory

Complex systems theory is a front direction in system science, the most active fields of science and hotspot after combination with environmental sciences, which is the main task of complexity science. Its main purpose is to reveal the dynamic process of complex systems, which is difficult to explain through existing scientific methods.

Compared with traditional reductionist approach, the difference is that the complex systems theory emphasizes combining holistic method with reductionist method to the analysis system. Living systems, social systems, and environmental systems are complex systems; the complex systems theory applied in large-scale integration and optimization of environmental technology, environmental simulation, and mathematical modeling has great significance.

The main differences with the traditional control system are as follows:

1. Model: The system model is usually the subject and their interactions with the evolution of variable structure description.
2. Objectives: to the overall behavior of the system.
3. The law: to explore the general evolutionary dynamics law.

In the process of national, regional/watershed, and urban environmental pollution control technology optimization and integrated prevention and control process, more and more applications of various types of environmental models and broad application prospects in environmental pollution control.

1.1.4Ecosystem management theory

Ecosystem management is driven by clear objectives and practical implementation under the supervision of policies and agreements, on the basis of ecological monitoring and ecological interactions, in accordance with the management to maintain the structure and function of the ecosystem.

The purpose of ecosystem management is to overcome obstacles on the use of information obtained through adaptive management. Ecosystem management should apply ecological knowledge into natural resources management activities. The transfer from concept to practice needs to consider the sustainability, complexity, and relevance; the characteristics of ecosystem dynamics; and the relationship between human and ecological systems, adaptability, and interpretability.

In recent years, sustainability has become the goal of natural resource management. In China, theory, technology innovation, and good experience have been made in natural resource management, industrial and agricultural ecological engineering, ecological city and new rural construction, and ecological restoration in the level of eco-city/community building and watershed/wetland restoration.

1.2Environmental pollution control targets

Environment problems, pollution features, and stages of development have differences in different countries/regions and scales, and environmental pollution control target should give full consideration to the particularity of environmental issues [1].

The main goals of environmental pollution control are as follows:

1. Pollution control: prevention and control of large quantities of pollutants entering into the water, air, and soil systems and ensuring the safety of environment and human health.
2. Ecological restoration: aims at regions with serious environmental pollution, to repair use functions of water, air, soil, and other environmental factors.
3. Environmental safety: plays the services function of ecosystem, provides a safe environment to sustainable production of human life.

Aiming at the complexity, comprehensiveness, and lagging of environmental issues and guided by sustainable development theory, environmental pollution control targets have undergone great change, with trends from concentration control to total quantity control, from end treatment to the whole process, and from simple pollution control to environmental risk management [2].

1.2.1Concentration control and total control

Concentration control is the method of controlling the concentration of pollutants in the discharge port to protect environment quality. The emission concentration standards are based on the concentration of pollutants emission standards of the countries. In the past decades, China’s pollution control mainly according to the concentrations of pollutants emission standards. The implementation of concentration control is convenient in management, with lower request for managers; it is suitable for the actual situation of China’s economic development; and it has played a very important role ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Preface
• Contents
• 1 The principle of environmental pollution control
• 2 Water pollution control technology
• 3 Air pollution control technology
• 4 Solid waste pollution control technology
• 5 Physical pollution control technology
• 6 Ecological recovery technology
• 7 Regional environmental systems engineering and technology
• Postscript
• Acknowledgments
• About the authors
• Index