Page 6 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

L1644_C00.fm Page 9 Tuesday, October 21, 2003 3:05 PM

Preface

The simplistic perspective that emission sources control is a way to improve the
environmental behavior of an industrial process has to be replaced by a more
systematic approach that integrates all of the evaluations of environmental effects
that can be assigned to a product. This book is a direct response to this challenge,
developing environmental impact analysis with a global systems approach.
Life-cycle assessment is a methodology used to evaluate the environmental
impacts of a product during the span of its life-cycle, and risk assessment is a tool
to evaluate potential hazards to human health and the environment introduced by
pollutant emissions. This textbook does not focus on only one specific analytical
tool, such as life-cycle assessment, nor does it concentrate exclusively on risk
assessment, but it looks instead at both of them, embedding them in a toolbox for
environmental evaluations. Such a convergence of tools is necessary due to potential
contradictory results when applying each tool separately.
In recent years life-cycle impact assessment has continuously enhanced its
performance through the incorporation of elements stemming from risk assessment.
It has also been increasingly embedded in environmental management practices, but
until now these developments have not been reflected in the literature for graduate
students, lifelong learners and interested professionals. This book aims to fill in that
demand. We have identified a clear need for information provided in the form of a
textbook with exercises designed for checking the understanding of the content, and
a manual with flowcharts and examples for guidance.
The book covers life-cycle assessment, risk assessment and a combined frame-
work of both for environmental damages estimations in industrial process chains
and site-dependent impact assessment. The explanations of methods accompany the
description of practical applications of environmental impact analysis for industrial
processes.
The first four chapters of the book give a general overview of environmental
management strategies, describe life-cycle assessment and risk assessment and place
them in the so-called environmental management toolbox. The fifth chapter supplies
additional information on techniques for data analysis that are commonly used in
the analysis of environmental impacts. The sixth and seventh chapters show the
interfaces between life-cycle assessment and risk assessment and provide ways of
integrating the two. In the final chapter, resolved exercises of integrated life-cycle
and risk assessments are presented.
The parallel presentation of both tools, life-cycle assessment and risk assessment,
is a unique feature of this book. Only recently have both tools been further developed
in a way that allows methods that combine both tools to become fully operational.
Therefore, the exercises presented can be considered as pilot projects. As the case
study on the Municipal Solid Waste Incinerator of Tarragona (Spain) develops from

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