The assessment aims at discussing the sustainable environmental approaches undertaken by the various industries or sectors in Australia. The prediction of the degrading impact on environment due to human activities was recorded in history from time to time and so, it became equally important to combat against those activities. This assessment is based on the discussion of the different aspects of EIA.
In the article, ‘Revisiting the limits to growth after peak oil’ the author discussed on the environmental impact of the human activities that have resulted major changes in the climate and biodiversity. There has been a considerable decrease in the world reservoir of oil, as commonly referred to as “peak oil”. The reading states that our thoughts are strongly influenced by the view-points of the ecologists and the computer scientists who points out that technology can easily bring changes in the limits to growth and even the notion towards the limit to the growth are found to be invalid. The ecologists are found to divert their discussion from the ability of the nature to produce resources and the other threats to the biosphere and biodiversity and focused on the advent of technology to overcome these challenges. The idea or the theory of limit to growth has received major criticism as the world is still not deprived of the major resources and bio-fuel.
Australians are tackling these issues without undertaking any certain measures to overcome the issues. There have been no changes in the transportation system or the means of food production. All these activities are majorly energy derived and in fact these would come to cease without the fuel or petroleum. The complaints on the limited supply of gasoline still existed since the beginning of the 1970s. However, it has been found that the Australians are coming up with several awareness campaign and authoritative strategies to reduce the excessive use of natural resources. These awareness campaigns to some extent are helping Australians to understand the severity of the issue. People have been shifting their regular activities in order to reduce the usage of natural fuels. Australians have been found to use electric cars or robots that drive on battery and this is a step towards not using petroleum of fossil fuels.
The development project of the Environmental Assessment process involves the preparation of the initial environmental examination. Followed by this, the site clearance issuance is released. The preparation of the Times of Reference is done after that and depending on it, the draft report of EIA is submitted along with the report of environmental management and the consequent monitoring plan.
The steps involved in obtaining the approval for a project in Australia to overcome the environmental issues in Queensland can be stated as below:
The practitioners are often found to face challenges while practicing their part of the environmental impact assessment. The most common issue that arise at any point of time is the Cost-Benefit analysis in order to make sure that the project is made within the stipulated cost. In order to overcome this issue, it can be suggested to conduct a high level field work in order to ensure that the cost involved in the process of EIA can make valuable contribution towards the development of the knowledge of the environment, society and the economic condition as well. Apart from this, prediction of the impact of the EIA is another pitfall that the practitioners often have to face. It is difficult to ascertain or predict the likely consequences of a proposed idea and at times, the process is carried out by the means of informal method depending on one’s experience and analogy. However, there is no surety on the success of the project and the design and the implementation plan might fail depending on various situation. In order to overcome this pitfall, it is important that proper monitoring of the plan takes place. Moreover, the decision of a plan should be approved by a higher governmental body and then they should be permitted to carry on with the project.
Other pitfalls of the process of EIA can include the situation where the people in a community might lose its living standard of the environment because of the excessive industrial development. In order to ensure that this does not degrade the living standard of the people, it is important to set up defined regulatory measures and the roles of the agencies should be made more rigid. It has to be ensured that a balanced sustainable development process is carried on without actually hampering the environment where the people live.
Introduction:
The proposed environmental impact assessment is based on monitoring the quality of water in most of the communities in Queensland. In addition to this, the issues related to water harvesting shall also be highlighted. The report describes the step by step process to be followed while carrying out the assessment.
Phase 1 of the EIA process:
Understanding the proposed activity:
Why the activity is being proposed: The reason behind this activity is that there have been considerable issues with respect to the judicial usage of water in many regions of Queensland. In fact, several issues have been identified in case of irrigation water. As per the environmental Protection (Water) policy 2009, it is important to consider the values of the surface water within a projected area and the factors that can affect the usage of water by humans. There has to be a standard that needs to be followed in order to make the water potable for the human consumption. Apart from consumption, there are certain sets of quality that is required for other purposes like daily construction or other operations.
What is being proposed: It is being proposed that the quality of water will be tested and it would be found out if the same quality of water is appropriate for the various uses. In doing so, a particular standard of the quality of water has to be taken into consideration. In fact, in order to understand the issues faced by the local people of a community, a survey can be conducted. This would give a clearer picture of the whole issue and can help to come up with easier measures to overcome the issue.
In order to ensure that the quality of water is good for human to use either for consumption or for any other reason, it is important to measure its quality by various scientific means. This might include testing the pH level of the water. This activity is of low risk level and does not involve any activities that are likely to have significant adverse effect of the environment. For this, there should be significant questions raised on understanding the issue and its impact on the people. For example, the water in a particular region can be contaminated for various reasons like due to the discharge of polluted water into the water bodies or by the mixing of hazardous chemicals. In fact, there might take place such situation where the government did not spend adequate effort in terms of protecting the water bodies. These situations need better screening and monitoring at the same time.
It is only on the basis of the screening, the preliminary assessment has to be carried on. The assessments could include the significant understanding of the nature of the aquifers, the geology of the place to understand the depth and the width of the aquifer. It is important to determine the depth of the water in order to ensure the quality of the water because water at different levels of ground has different characteristics and quality of water. In addition to the survey of the quality of water, it is important conduct a survey to understand the various means of using the water. This is equally important so as to understand the percentage of water used for various purposes. The quality of water can actually be compromised for the different needs of water.
The implementation of the different measures is important in order to ensure that the undesirable impact on the environment can be reduced to certain extent. This is called mitigation. In order to make sure that the water supplied in the community is of good quality and is appropriate for the various activities, it is important to set certain measures that would ensure that the water is fit for consumption or other uses. There has to be a regulatory body that shall be responsible to monitor the various instances of the resource.
Identification of potential impacts: It is expected that by the means of the monitoring the quality of water, the significant result can be gained. Poor quality of water can lead to various issues in terms of health related issues of people or the significant degradation of the crops or other things where water is being used.
Predicting the impact: The negative impact of this situation can lead to critical situations among humans
Significance of the potential impact: Water is the most important component of the human life and any kind of negative impact on this resource can be equally harmful for the environment and thus, it is important to think of ways to mitigate the issue.
Informing the people:
Phase 2 is involved with informing the public about the significant measures to undertake in order to overcome the environmental issues. There should be announcement of the particular intervention among the public, so that they become aware of the issue and at the same time can participate in the activities of overcoming the issue. For this, the community can be made aware by different awareness program using direct and indirect communication channels.
It is expected that the sponsorship of the program is to be done by the regulatory authority or the government, but a part of the sponsorship can be also made available from the local public of the particular community. If the intention behind the program is disseminated in a positive note, it is expected that the required sponsorship can be easily gained from various bodies or authorities. However, there has to be transparency in the accessibility of the resources and the stakeholders should be responsible for all the activities involved in the process.
Conclusion:
It is expected that if the process is followed properly and the message is forwarded to the people clearly, it can be expected that the outcome of the sustainability approach will be positive. The issue of the water contamination or related to harvesting can be easily overcome.
By thorough optimisation of the packaging system, sustainability can be reached by various means. Better packaging can help to avoid or reduce the wastage of food. It is important to facilitate the safety of the consumption by the means of packaging but it has already been found that poor packaging can also result in the degradation of the environment and can in fact lead to other situation that are not sustainable. For instance, a lot of food is wasted by the means of supply chain that ultimately results in the economic downturn. The packaging function also helps in overcoming the issues of microbial action or the degrading condition of the food due to temperature or climate. However, it is equally harmful at certain instances. Food packages that include plastic, fibres, starch based films or poly lactide acid actually causes harm to the environment by various means as they have small threshold and can easily react with the soil or the environment.
In order to overcome these issues, nanotechnology based packaging that is concerned with the manipulation of the micro fibres can be used as a packaging substance. These chemical substances can be considered as soft tools used to overcome the issue of packaging as a sustainability approach. It is important to consider sustainability and create awareness on the safety and security of the environment. It is not only that the packaging industry should be asked to use the particular material for the packaging of the product, but it is equally important that the users are also made aware on the degrading condition of the environment due to the constant activities of using poor quality materials like plastic for the purpose of packaging. It is recommended that stainless steel can be used for the packaging purpose that would prevent the growth of the micro-organisms. It is highly recommended that the government body comes up with certain protocols to ensure that the packaging of the food has been done correctly and that the materials used are not harmful for the environment or for the human.
Conclusion:
The assessment dealt with the various aspects of sustainability and environmental management. Various instances have been put forward in the discussion that talked about the environmental aspect of sustainability. In the recent time, sustainability has become a major challenge and it is only in our hand to overcome the issues and come up with better ideas. However, it is equally important that strict guidelines are being followed in order to ensure that the rules and regulations of protecting the environment are being followed.
References:
[1]”Tackling wicked problems : A public policy perspective | Australian Public Service Commission”, Apsc.gov.au, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.apsc.gov.au/tackling-wicked-problems-public-policy-perspective. [Accessed: 22- Sep- 2018].
[2]D. Dizdaroglu, “Developing micro-level urban ecosystem indicators for sustainability assessment”, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, vol. 54, pp. 119-124, 2015.
[3]”Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) processes (Department of Environment and Science)”, Ehp.qld.gov.au, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.ehp.qld.gov.au/management/impact-assessment/. [Accessed: 23- Sep- 2018].
[4]C. Hall and J. Day, “Revisiting the Limits to Growth After Peak Oil”, American Scientist, vol. 97, no. 3, p. 230, 2009.
[5]D. Agol, A. Latawiec and B. Strassburg, “Evaluating impacts of development and conservation projects using sustainability indicators: Opportunities and challenges”, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, vol. 48, pp. 1-9, 2014.
[6]S. Ajmal Khan, “Tools for Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Using Diversity Indices”, Vingnanam Journal of Science, vol. 12, no. 1-2, p. 1, 2017.
[7]F. Wikström, K. Verghese, R. Auras, A. Olsson, H. Williams, R. Wever, K. Grönman, M. Kvalvåg Pettersen, H. Møller and R. Soukka, “Packaging Strategies That Save Food: A Research Agenda for 2030”, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2018.
[8]N. Mahalik, “Advances in Packaging Methods, Processes and Systems”, Challenges, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 374-389, 2014.
[9]N. Arora, “Environmental Sustainability—necessary for survival”, Environmental Sustainability, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-2, 2018.
[10]M. Thornbush, “Physical Geography and Environmental Sustainability”, Sustainability, vol. 9, no. 12, p. 2195, 2017.
[11]N. Pouw and J. Gupta, “Editorial overview: Sustainability science”, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, vol. 24, p. iv-vi, 2017.
[12]Challenges Editorial Office, “Acknowledgement to Reviewers of Challenges in 2014”, Challenges, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 1-2, 2015.
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