Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
type of social and environmental cost and benefits can be monetized. The question
is how many individuals and companies and how much they are prepared to pay
for the benefits or accept the costs. This readiness may be very different depending
on the quality of life and culture in an area or a region. It is also an important
finding that WTA, which should have been equal to WTP, is generally higher due
to the subjective valuation. As a consequence, the calculated results based on it
may differ significantly from the one based on WTA;
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When aggregating costs and benefits, the most important task is the preparation
of the inventory based on the conceptual model of the problem within which the
types of costs and benefits, groups affected, time frame and locations are to be
considered;
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The socio-economic and environmental inequity is widespread. Beneficiaries never
compensate the losers and the weak ones fully, i.e., low social groups and the
environment;
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Costs of a risk management measure differ for the polluter, the owner, the envi-
ronment, the workers and the residents using the same environment. The polluter
should pay, but some others also “pay'' even if they are not obliged to and do not
want to, for example, the workers contacting contaminated water and soil while
applying remediation technologies, the residents of the area along the transporta-
tion route from the contaminated site to the disposal site, the ecosystem of the
waste disposal site, the residents of neighboring countries affected by acid rain
from the neighbor, transboundary water systems suffering from the emissions of
upstream countries, etc.;
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Every regulatory provision, restriction or ban which provides benefit to one group
of land users (people and ecosystem) may be non-beneficial or even harmful to
others due to the shift of the risk from one location to another or spontaneously
arising, unforeseen and uncontrolled substitute solutions. Too high environmental
penalty/fines/taxes, for example, may lead to the worsening of the situation such
as in the case of road toll for trucks, which resulted in an increased traffic and
pollution on smaller nontax roads in Hungary, Germany and elsewhere;
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Valuation of benefits may meet the problem of the unequal distribution of benefits:
allocation of benefits may result in a situation that certain individuals will be in a
preferred position compared to others;
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Direct costs and benefits are plausible but many of the long-term indirect costs
and benefits are not predictable and not included in the assessment program;
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The requirement of keeping competitiveness in addition to the reduction of envi-
ronmental risk is unjust and privileges the economy, usually at the expense of the
environment. Most of the economic benefits are balanced by the direct and indirect
costs of the environment;
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Energy efficiency could be one of the promising targets. It is beneficial to both the
economy and the environment and may reduce consumption and emissions. Bio-
logical and ecological methods and passive environmental technologies are energy
efficient and can be characterized by high eco-efficiency and sustainability. The
decision as to which type of energy should be used is a more complicated issue,
therefore LCA must be integrated into the process to enable a comparison;
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Material efficiency, the used amount of water and raw materials and hazardous
chemicals should be evaluated considering the whole life cycle of the chemical
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