Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management
A collection of scholarly work published by and supporting the Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management (CESEM) at Arizona State University.
CESEM focuses on "earth systems engineering and management," providing a basis for understanding, designing, and managing the complex integrated built/human/natural systems that increasingly characterize our planet.
Works in this collection are particularly important in linking engineering, technology, and sustainability, and are increasingly intertwined with the work of ASU's Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS).
Filtering by
- Creators: Chang, Andrew
- Creators: Davis-Welty, Joshua
This paper’s intent is to explore the environmental gap analysis tool, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), as it pertains to the decision-making process.
As LCA is more frequently utilized as a measurement of environmental impact, it is prudent
to understand the historical and potential impact that LCA has had or can have on its inclusion in public policy domain - specifically as it intersects the anticipatory governance framework and the supporting decision-making precautionary principle framework. For that purpose, LCA will be examined in partnership with the Precautionary Principle in order to establish practical
application.
LCA and Precautionary Principle have been used together in multiple functions. In two
case studies, the California Green Chemistry Initiative and in Nanotechnology uncertainty, there is a notion that these practices can create value for one another when addressing complex issues.
The recommendations presented in this paper are ones that recognize the current
dynamics of the LCA field along with the different sectors of decision makers. For effective
catalytic initiatives, adoptions of these recommendations are best initially leveraged by
government entities to lead by example. The proposed recommendations are summarized into
the following categories and explored in further detail later in the paper:
1. Improvement in data sharing capabilities for LCA purposes.
2. Common consensus on standards and technical aspects of LCA structure.
3. Increased investment of resource allocation for LCA use and development.
Recent developments in computational software and public accessibility of gridded climatological data have enabled researchers to study Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects more systematically and at a higher spatial resolution. Previous studies have analyzed UHI and identified significant contributors at the regional level for cities, within the topology of urban canyons, and for different construction materials.
In UHIs, air is heated by the convective energy transfer from land surface materials and anthropogenic activities. Convection is dependent upon the temperature of the surface, temperature of the air, wind speed, and relative humidity. At the same time, air temperature is also influenced by greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere. Climatologists project a 1-5°C increase in near-surface air temperature over the next several decades, and 1-4°C specifically for Los Angeles and Maricopa during summertime due to GHG effects. With higher ambient air temperatures, we seek to understand how convection will change in cities and to what ends.
In this paper we develop a spatially explicit methodology for quantifying UHI by estimating the daily convection thermal energy transfer from land to air using publicly-available gridded climatological data, and we estimate how much additional energy will be retained due to lack of convective cooling in scenarios of higher ambient air temperature.