Industrial Ecology and the Geoenvironment - Sustainable Practices in Geoenvironmental Engineering - page 113

industries dealing with the manufacture of goods. Included in the group of midstream-
downstream industries are (a) life-support industries such as the agro, forest, mining,
isheries, and energy producing industries and (b) production industries producing such
varied goods as automobiles, pharmaceuticals, urban infrastructures, etc.
Although strictly speaking, service industries are not considered as downstream indus-
tries because they do not produce goods, we include them in the discussions in this chap-
ter because these industries provide services (as goods) to the consumer. Two simple
examples of sources of potential geoenvironmental problems from service industries are
(1) medical services (e.g., hospitals) and (2) military services (e.g., munitions handling and
storage).
The industry concerns addressed in this chapter center around land use in an industrial
context , i.e., land use in the context of activities in development of, and in support of the
various kinds of life-support, manufacturing-production, and service industries. The
industries discussed in Chapters 5 through 7 will give examples of the interactions of vari-
ous upstream and downstream industries with the geoenvironment. Since downstream
industries are the consumers of the raw goods and products from upstream industries,
their interactions with the geoenvironment are more in terms of “what comes out from
the processing and transformation end.” The nature and composition of the outputs (airborne
noxious particulates, liquid, and solid wastes) will be direct functions of (a) the nature of
the product being produced, (b) the nature and composition of the source material used
for the production of the product, (c) the process technology and the kinds of treatments
and additives used in the process technology, and (d) the various controls on emissions,
wastes and wastewaters, treatments, and management of the production technology and
system.
Given the wide extent of the various kinds of industries, it is clear that within the context
of geoenvironmental sustainability , a discussion of all of them would not be possible or desir-
able. Instead, the examination of the effects of land-use and geoenvironmental manage-
ment requirements will conine itself to a few representative industries in the three groups
of downstream industries. It is important to stress that the terms effects and impacts are not
used in a negative sense. The nature of impacts ascribed to activities and events runs the
gamut from beneicial through benign (neutral) to negative, depending on (a) the activity
or event and (b) the indicators, markers, and criteria used to evaluate or assess the results
of the impact or impacts. Whether impacts from a speciic set of activities or events will
add to, or subtract value from, the particular ecosystem in the geoenvironment is the ques-
tion that needs to be answered. It is important to recognize that a comprehensive listing of
all the impacts on the ecosystems of the geoenvironment accruing from a particular set of
activities is not possible, to a very large extent because of the lack of knowledge of all the
various items, activities, and interactions that comprise a functioning ecosystem. Chapter 2
has discussed many of these concerns.
4.3 Upstream, Midstream, and Downstream Industries
The various kinds of industries that exist run the gamut from (a) those that produce raw
goods to those that provide inished products to (b) service industries providing a variety
of services. As mentioned previously, upstream industries are primarily those devoted to
production of the raw materials that need processing and transformation by midstream