Environmental Science Quiz

Environmental Aspects

• Environmental aspect is a feature of company operations, processes, activities, products, or services that impacts the environment, positively or negatively.
• Aspects can be inputs or outputs during a product or service's lifecycle assessment.

Reasons for Identifying Environmental Aspects

• Guiding the creation of new environmental objectives and targets as part of continuous improvement efforts.
• Focusing operational controls on significant environmental aspects.
• Reducing risks from significant environmental aspects.
• Identifying training needs.

Environmental Impact

• Environmental impact is any change to the environment, beneficial or adverse, caused by activities, products, or services.
• Impacts can be direct, occurring through direct interaction with an environmental component.
• Impacts can be indirect, resulting from the activity, often produced away from or as a result of a complex impact pathway.
• Impacts can be cumulative, resulting from the combination of multiple activities, along with past, present, and foreseen future projects' effects.

Types of Environmental Impacts

• Natural: Physical (wind, earthquakes, volcanoes), biological (bacteria).
• Man-made: Global warming, ozone layer depletion, acid rain, air, water, or land pollution, loss of biodiversity.

Global Warming

• Global warming is an increase in Earth's average temperature, mainly attributed to a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
• Sources include industry, open burning, and transportation.
• Results include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide.
• Greenhouse gases lead to global warming.
• Impacts include floods, soil erosion, crop destruction, and famine.

Ozone Layer Depletion

• Ozone layer depletion is a reduction in the amount of ozone in the stratosphere.
• Depletion begins with chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) entering the stratosphere.
• Sources include refrigerators, industry, and firefighting.
• Impacts increase ultraviolet radiation, skin cancer, and a weakened immune system.

Acid Rain

• Acid rain is rain made acidic by atmospheric pollution, primarily caused by industrial burning of coal and other fossil fuels.
• Sources include industrial activities and open burning.
• Outcomes include sulfuric acid and destruction of forests, health problems, and damage to buildings.

Air Pollution

• Air pollution occurs when harmful or excessive quantities of substances (gases, particulates, and biological molecules) are introduced into Earth's atmosphere.
• Sources include industry, open burning, and transportation.
• Impacts include lung diseases, cancer, and respiratory infections.

Air Quality Index (AQI)

• AQI is a measure for reporting daily air quality that factors the pollution level in the air.
• Different countries use different indices for measuring air quality by monitoring these pollutants: carbon monoxide, PM2.5, PM10, nitrogen dioxide, ground ozone (O3), and sulfur dioxide.

National Ambient Standards

• Ambient air quality standards set limits for air pollutants like carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, and lead.
• Each pollutant has different standards for measurement timeframes, such as 8 hours, 24 hours, or a 3-month rolling average.

Exposure Limits

• Exposure limits define three ways to assess worker exposure:
• Time-Weighted Average (TWA): The average exposure level over an 8-hour workday or 40-hour workweek.
• Ceiling: The maximum allowable concentration.
• Short-Term Exposure Limit (STEL): The concentration over a 15-minute period.

Time Weighted Average (TWA)

• TWA calculates a worker's daily exposure to hazardous substances over an 8-hour day or 40-hour week.
• The formula is (C₁T₁ + C₂T₂ +... + CₙTₙ)/8.
• Key variables: equivalent exposure for the 8-hour working shift (E), the concentration (C), and the duration of time the concentration remains constant (T).

Liquid Pollution

• Liquid pollution is the contamination of surface or ground water.
• Sources include industry, marine transportation, and agricultural wastewater.
• Outcomes include water quality degradation and liquid pollution.
• Impacts include death of aquatic animals, disruption of food chains, and destruction of ecosystems.

Concentrations (Liquid Pollution)

• Concentrations are expressed as mass of substance per unit volume or per mass of a mixture.
• Types include parts per million (ppm) or billion (ppb) or molar concentrations (moles/liter).
• Other types of concentrations include molarity and molality.

Water Quality Standards

• Water quality standards are recommended by WHO.
• Parameters include total solids, color, turbidity, chloride, iron, and many others.

Water Quality Index

• Water quality index is a combined score from chemical and physical tests to assess the overall quality of water.
• Chemical tests include pH, nitrates, phosphates, dissolved oxygen, and biochemical oxygen demand.
• Physical tests include turbidity, fecal coliform, total dissolved solids, and temperature changes.

Land Pollution

• Land pollution is the degradation of Earth's surface, mainly caused by human activities and poor waste management.
• Sources include industry, hazard solid waste, and agriculture.
• Outcomes include land degradation, water pollution, loss of fertile land, effect of wildlife, and air pollution.
• Solutions include solid waste strategy, recycling, and cleaner production.

Solids Pollution

• Solid pollution is contamination by solid substances.
• Concentrations can be expressed as mass of substance per mass of solid mixture, e.g., mg/kg, μg/g
• Units include parts per million (ppm) and parts per billion (ppb).

Environmental Pollution & Degradation

• Environmental pollution is the contamination of physical and biological components, adversely affecting normal environmental processes.
• Environmental degradation refers to damage or harm to the environment.
• Degradation includes some kind of environmental damage, specifically related to the environment, while destruction of any subject or matter falls under Environmental degradation.
• Environmental pollution is increasing, causing serious impacts on living organisms.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

• Greenhouse gas emissions are the release of gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, leading to the greenhouse effect.
• Sources include industry, buildings, transportation, and others.
• Global warming potential is a measure of how much energy is absorbed over a given period of time, compared to carbon dioxide.
• Factors affecting it are concentration, atmospheric lifetime, and IR radiation absorption capability.

How to Calculate Greenhouse Gas Emissions

• Activity impacts organization operations, causing greenhouse gas emissions.
• Various activities (e.g., heating, electricity, vehicle use, air conditioning, waste disposal) contribute to emissions.
• Emissions are calculated using emission factors and activity data.

Global Warming Potentials

• Greenhouse gases (GHGs) warm the Earth by absorbing energy, delaying its escape into space.
• Different GHGs have different effects on global warming (radiative efficiencies and atmospheric lifetimes).
• Global warming potential (GWP) measures how much energy a gas absorbs compared with carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period.
• GWP is used for emissions estimates, inventory, and policymaking comparisons.

Alternatives to 100-year GWP

• The scientific community has developed various metrics beyond the 100-year GWP for comparing greenhouse gases.
• Other methods differ according to the timeframe, the measured climate endpoint and the calculation method.
• Key factors to consider when calculating GWP include concentration, atmospheric lifetime, and absorption of IR radiation.

Greenhouse gas Potency and Lifetime

• Greenhouse gases have different global warming potentials and atmospheric lifetimes.
• Factors such as methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆) show much higher GWP than CO₂
• Some have short lifetimes while others can stay in the atmosphere for a long time.

Emission Factor

• Emission factors are ratios representing the amount of a greenhouse gas emitted as a result of a specific activity.
• Examples include carbon dioxide per kWh of electricity, methane per ton of waste, or greenhouse gases per mile driven.

Greenhouse gas Potency: Examples

• Using provided data, potency examples demonstrate calculation methods for GHG emissions.
• Input values are used to find emission factors.
• Solutions for the example involve calculation with given values. Results show greenhouse gas potency.

Greenhouse Gas Potency: Home Electricity

• Home electricity use generates CO2 emissions, related to consumption during 2019.
• Average home electricity use and emission rates are incorporated in calculations.
• Calculations demonstrate annual GHG emission per home.

Test your knowledge on key concepts related to environmental science, including global warming, pollution, and biodiversity loss. This quiz covers various topics, such as the causes and effects of environmental degradation and pollution. Discover how well you understand the impact of human activities on our planet.