Difference between revisions of "User:Soroushm"

Revision as of 08:40, 4 February 2013

Homework 1

1. What is the main purpose of environmental health assessment?

environmental health assessment is a tool which is used for decision making in order to analyse environmental issues and model those factors which affect the human health. in other words environmental assessment talks about actions and decisions that required to be done by decision makers to carry out the appropriate scientific knowledge and has got the a big impact on the environment health.

2. What is pragmatism?

is an idea which is used in environmental health risk assessment to merge the knowledge, innovation and practice according to people' thoughts and ideas in order to decide what actions have to be taken. in fact it is one part of the social process to use the knowledge in our everyday life. --# : Good interpretation of the concept in the context of environmental health assessment/policy. More generally pragmatism, means that knowledge and action can not be separated from each other. --Mikko Pohjola 11:15, 28 January 2013 (EET)

7. What is impact assessment?

evaluation of all environmental factors that can have a big impact on the environment as well as living creatures and vegetation called impact assessment. in this topic social as well as economic factors must be taken into account. when some projects are about to be implemented decision makers and environmentalist must consider these factors to make sure that there is no threat for human and environment health and for society. --# : In principle, impact assessments can look at any kinds of impacts. It is the problem at hand that determines, which impacts, e.g. health, environment, economic, are of interest. There are specific approaches developed to health, environmental and other impact assessment, but in principle the basic idea is usually the same. --Mikko Pohjola 11:15, 28 January 2013 (EET)

←# : Good answers. --Mikko Pohjola 11:15, 28 January 2013 (EET)

Homework 2

Are the methods and solutions which are used for Kuopio climate change by 2020 sufficient to challenge against possible climate change and reduce them to the safe level and if not what other methods required to be taken into account because at the moment 13 coal sites still active in Finland?

Homework 3

... User:Adnank

Scope:

To reduce the emissions by minimizing the use of fossil fuels by adopting to Wind energy.

Question

How can we obtain the efficient amount of energy for kuopio from wind power ?

--# : You can leave the alternatives open and go for any emission reduction techniques. But then the scope of your assessment is very large and it will be difficult to leave anything out, causing a lot of work. --Jouni 06:55, 21 January 2013 (EET)--# : We have improved our scope and question --Soroushm 11:06, 1 February 2013 (EET)

Intended use and users

1. City of kuopio

2. Stakeholders

3. Citizens of kuopio

4. Energy companies

It is important for people of kuopio to know about ongoing project in their city for public. also city of kuopio requires to know the information regarding the use of the energy sources because they need to invest money and satisfy the public. participation

←# : Awareness of people about the assessment is an important point. --Jouni 06:55, 21 January 2013 (EET)

Participants

1. University of Eastern Finland

2. Citizens

3. Energies companies

4. Adnan and Soroush

Scenarios

• Public opinion

• Public awareness regarding efficient use of energy

• Wind mills can be installed in the open fields

• Can be install on the hill side

Analyses

There are some statistical programs like R-tool and SPSS are used to get good information.

--# : The question here is, what statistical analyses you will do with your data, not what software you will use. --Jouni 06:55, 21 January 2013 (EET)

Answer

Results

By adopting to wind energy, we can minimize the use of fossil fuels and reduce emissions up to ........

⇤# : The results are not known before the assessment is done. You can describe here, what kind of results you expect. --Jouni 06:55, 21 January 2013 (EET)--# : We have changed our results --Soroushm 11:06, 1 February 2013 (EET)

Conclusion

By using renewable energy sources like wind energy, the amount of emissions and use of fossil fuels can be reduced.

Rationale

Endpoints

1. Health impacts

2. Environmental impacts

3. Cost

⇤# : These are not endpoints. Endpoints are things that the decision maker is interested in, such as health impacts, costs, and GHG emissions. Also, "Endpoints" is about how to compare these things. --Jouni 06:55, 21 January 2013 (EET)--# : End points corrected --Soroushm 11:06, 1 February 2013 (EET)

What are the endpoints that a stakeholder is interested in? How would the stakeholder summarise the endpoints to derive an overall preference ranking for outcomes of decision options? Think about this separately for each stakeholder. stakeholders interested in reduction of the emissions because the physical and mental well being of the city will be increased.

Variables

• Cost
• Emissions
• Health impacts
• Environmental impacts

--# : It's a good start, but try to be more specific and comprehensive. --Jouni 06:55, 21 January 2013 (EET)

What emissions and exposures should be considered?

• Traffic emissions
• Emissions from industries
• Emissions from construction sites and burning activities

What health endpoints should be considered?

• lung cancer

• Terminal disease

• Asthma

• Eye irritation

What exposure-response functions should be considered?

Noise from wind turbine should be taken into account.

--# : How would you use the safe level in an assessment? --Jouni 06:55, 21 January 2013 (EET)

What population subgroups should be considered?

Public opinion should be taken before installing a wind milll in some area

--# : What about other groups, such as the whole population? --Jouni 06:55, 21 January 2013 (EET)

Soroush Majlesi- Adnan Khan Ahmad

homework4

Groupwork with Adnan Ahmad [[http://en.opasnet.org/w/User:Adnank

Q1. What are the aims/goals of the strategy/program, i.e. what are the desired impacts and outcomes striven for? The main goal was to assess the impacts of climate change in the area and to prepare for the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. This can be done by reducing the vulnerabilities of the area to climate change. The aim of the strategy was well-being of citizens and functioning of cities in changing climate.

Q2. Who are those that benefit if the aims/goals of the strategy/program are reached? How? Society and following organizations and government ministries will be most benefited if the strategy is achieved because the impacts of climate change will cause a lot of damage. Cities of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen, HSY, HSL, Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of the Interior, Rescue services, Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities- Other interest groups: Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Transport and Communications, Uusimaa ELY Centre- Research institutes.

Q3. What are the actions that are needed/intended to take in order to progress towards the aims/goals? Background studies were done in order to collect data about the regional climate and sea level scenarios, modeling of river floods in climate change conditions and a survey of climate change impacts in the region. Existing programmes, legislation, research and studies concerning adaptation were collected.

Q4. Who are those that actually realize these actions?

The work was carried out with close cooperation with the experts of themetropolitan area cities, regional emergency services, Ministry of the Environment, Helsinki Region TransportAuthority and other regional organizations.

Q5. What are the decisions that are needed to make in order to enable/promote the actions? Some of the decisions that might improve the actions would be assessment of air quality, health impacts, biodiversity, economic impacts and greenhouse emissions.

Q6. Who are the decision makers? Organizations like the environment ministry, board of HSY, Government or other local organizations.

Q7. What direct or indirect health impacts, positive or negative, these decisions and actions (may) have? Climate change causes adverse effects mostly such as effects in drinking water, air quality, food chain which most of them are negative. Also flood risk and thunderstorms could be the other indirect problems in other words natural disasters could be another indirect factor.

Q8. Where and how do these impacts take place, who are those that face these health impacts in practice? The community,the citizens, both of them can be affected by negative results of climate change but the level of exposure for people can be higher because due to the disaster and natural hazards, the injuries and disease will affect the people and also communications, heating, water supply and traffic and food system will be disturbed.

Q9. Are the health impacts big or small in relation to other impacts (e.g. economic, social, climate, other environmental ...)? Economic, social and environmental impacts are much bigger than health impacts because they will be long lasting.

Q10. Do the intended policies result in win-win, win-lose, lose-win, or lose-lose situations with regard to health and other impacts? The storms of recent years have demonstrated the vulnerability of the Finnish society to natural hazards and the importance of preparing for them. Our society is very dependent on electricity, and long-lasting power cuts can have a significant impact on such things as communications, heating, water supply and traffic. The significance of co-operation between authorities and other actors in the prevention of natural disasters and in the recovery of them is now being highlighted. Preparing in advance for disasters and their consequences is worth doing, as it reduces the damages and costs that arise from them. And in my opinion this is a lose-win situation as the Finnish authorities have learnt from the previous disasters and have planned the strategies for any upcoming natural disaster.

Q11. Formulate a plausible and meaningful specific assessment question that takes account of (some of) the aspects considered in above questions? What other alternatives are available to cope up with the disasters resulting from climate change?

Q12. Extra question: In what ways your answers do or do not represent "shared understanding"? (The climate program/strategy can be considered a compilation of contributions by many experts and attempting to reflect the views and needs of different decision makers and stakeholders). Shared understanding probably points out in here because the ideas and thoughts of City of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen, HSY, HSL, Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of the Interior, Rescue services, Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities- Other interest groups: Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Transport and Communications, Uusimaa ELY Centre- Research institutes and experts are gathered together in order to make the best decisions however some changes might be required to modify and update the information but all the comments from the interviews are collected so that a better source of data will be available.