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Detailed description of the chains of causalities
of environmental impacts
Robert Joumard, Gerassimos Arapis & Tomasz Zacharz
1.
2.
Existing lists of impacts
Detailed impacts and tentative aggregation
Objectives
 What
are the impacts on environment?
 What are their characteristics or typical features?
 Answer to these questions (description of the chain of
causalities) allows us
 to
define what we want to measure with indicators of environmental
impacts
 to define quite precisely the term 'environment’
 Description the chain of causalities for each impact
allows to express clearly
each potential indicator measures and does not measure
 on which scientific mechanisms an indicator should be based
RJ07-130
 what
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
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10.
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13.
14.
Climate change
Land take, landuse (to be merged with habitat fragmentation?)
Hydraulic risk / hydrological changes
Visual qualities of landscape/townscape, light pollution
Habitat fragmentation (biota and humans)
Air pollution (primary and secondary)
Soil and water pollution
Noise: short-term noise emission, vibration, quiet areas
Non-renewable resource use
Waste
Perceived pollution: Odour, soiling, visibility
Ecotoxicity
Human health
Traffic safety
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List of the initial impacts from the action
More detailed and non redondant impact categories
due to pollutant emissions (Goger, 2006)
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 Global warming
 Ozone depletion
 Photochemical pollution
 Acidification
 Eutrophication
 Direct restricted health effects
 Direct ecotoxicity
 Sensitive pollution
 Degradation of common man-made heritage
 Degradation of historic man-made heritage
CMG KOMAG proposal
Climate
Climate change
Impact
Atmosphere
Air pollution
Transport System
Infrastructure
Vehicles
Propellants
Odour
Ecosystems
Traffic safety
Hazardous matterial spills
Fires
Accidents (roadkill)
Lithosphere: Soil and Water
Humans
Humanity
Landtake and Landuse
Material
System
Visual Landscape
Health
Habitat fragmentation
Energy
System
Soil and water pollution
Wastes
Waste
System
Acoustics
Noise
Vibration
Congestion
Well
being
Review of the previous types
 Criteria used to define each impact not clear / defined
 Transport system well defined
 Missing target: man-made heritage
 Some redundancies
 Too simple chains of causalities: type of effect is
missing, no successive impacts
 Proposal
 In-depth
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analysis of all known impacts on the environment
 Tentative of classifying all the impacts
Main characteristics of the impacts:
sources and targets
IB
Sources
infrastructure buil ding
VP
vehicle production
T
VID
energy production and distribution
traffi c
Targets
vehicle and infrastructure destruction
Pseudo-target
Resources
Nature
Humans:
health as
defined by the
WHO
Ecosystems:
nature understoo d as ecosystems,
i.e. the association between a
physicochemi cal and abiotic (the
bioto pe) environment and a living
comm unity characteristic of the
latter (the biocenosis)
Human health:
In a restricted meaning
Human well-being
Man-made heritage:
with a distinction is made between comm on
buil dings and historic ones
Earth:
covers all the
targets: the
three previous
targets
(ecosystems,
humans and
man made
heritage) and
physical
environments
such as the
atmosphere
and the oceans
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EPD
Main characteristics of the impacts
 Sources
 Targets
 Reversibility
 Distance scale from the source
 Time scale
 Main scientific disciplines involved in the chain of
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impact = physical, chemical, biological or psychological
/ sociological phenomena
Examples of impact categories
 Habitat fragmentation for biota
 source: infrastructure; target: ecosystems; practically
irreversible, local scale, biology/ecology
 Greenhouse
 all sources (mainly traffic), all targets, scales century and
earth, successive chains of impacts
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 High spots of noise
 source traffic, restricted health and well-being, local and short
term scales, physical, biological and psycho-physical
phenomena
Impact categories
 38 different impact categories
 Heterogeneous typology
 Sometimes
defined by the source (waste), sometimes by the final impact
(biodiversity), sometimes by the mid-chain impact (ozone depletion)
 Tentative of aggregation because
 Difficult to list always 38 impacts
 Similarities between some of the 38 impacts
 Base for a common indicator?
 Result: 15 large types described by
common characteristic(s)
 common
indicator
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
Aggregation of 38 types of impacts (1/9)
 Noise and vibration
• Noise: high spots
• Noise: scarcity of quiet areas
• Vibration
same source: traffic, first causality: emission of noise/vibrations
 km, hour
 acoustics (physics) and annoyance (psycho-physics)
 targets: health and well-being

common indicator
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 no
Aggregation of 38 types of impacts (2/9)
 Local air quality
•
•
•
•
•
Direct ecotoxicity
Direct restricted health effects of air pollution
Odour (sensitive pollution)
Soiling (sensitive pollution)
Visibility (sensitive pollution)
km, all time scale
 first causality: emission of atmospheric pollutants
 without physico-chemical transformation

common indicator
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 no
Aggregation of 38 types of impacts (3/9)
 Regional air quality
•
•
•
•
Acidification
Eutrophication
Photochemical pollution: ecotoxicity
Photochemical pollution: indirect restricted health effects
1000 km, all time scale
 first causality: emission of atmospheric pollutants
 with physico-chemical transformations
 no common indicator: acidification, eutrophication, ozone potentials
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
Aggregation of 38 types of impacts (4/9)
 Quality, usages and regimes of water
•
•
•
•
•
•

same final or medium target: water/soil
common indicator
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 no
Hydraulic changes
Hydraulic risk
Soil and water pollution: agriculture
Soil and water pollution: drinking water (water quality, uses and régime)
Soil and water pollution: ecosystems
Soil and water pollution: outdoor recreation
Aggregation of 38 types of impacts (5/9)
 Protected areas
• Habitat fragmentation for biota
• Natural protected areas
• Wild life protected area
source: infrastructure
 target: mainly ecosystems
 phenomena: modification of fauna habitat
 common indicator?

 Waste
first phenomena: production of waste
 large diversity of chains of impacts, including some among the 37 others
 common indicator: waste production, weighted by a impact factor?

 Loss of biodiversity
Final phenomena: disappearance of fauna and flora species
 large diversity of chains of impacts, including some among the 37 others
 common indicator: risk of disappearance of species?
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
Aggregation of 38 types of impacts (6/9)
 Light pollution
first phenomena: emission of light during the night
 large diversity of chains of impacts, including some among the 37 others
 common indicator: light power, weighted by the visibility?

 Technological hazards
first phenomena: accidents
 large diversity of chains of impacts, including some among the 37 others

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 indicator?
Aggregation of 38 types of impacts (7/9)
 Landscape, cultural and built heritage
•
•
•
•
•
•
Degradation of common man-made heritage
Degradation of historic man-made heritage
Destruction of common man-made heritage
Destruction of historic man-made heritage
Habitat fragmentation for humans
Visual qualities of landscape/townscape
main source: infrastructure
 targets: well-being and man-made heritage
 psycho-sociology

common indicator
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 no
Aggregation of 38 types of impacts (8/9)
 Landuse

targets: ecosystems and resources (?)
 common
indicator: infrastructure area?
 Non-renewable resource use

 no
target: resources
common indicator: specific to each resource
 Ozone depletion
• Ozone depletion: ecotoxicity
• Ozone depletion: indirect restricted health effects
mid-chain target: tropospheric ozone
 common
indicator: ozone depletion potential based on emissions?
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
Aggregation of 38 types of impacts (9/9)
 Climate change
• Greenhouse effect
• Dimming
mid-chain target: climate change
 large diversity of chains of impacts, including some among the 37 others

 no
common indicator: GWP based on emissions, dimming potential based on
air quality
 Safety of transport users and residents

specific chain of causalities
 common
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indicators: mortality rate (number of deaths), number of injuries
(serious or not) / number of impairments, lost life years
Conclusion
 Necessity to describe in detail what are the impacts to be able to
“measure” them by using indicators
 What
do we want to measure?
 In order not to forget some impacts
RJ07-147
 Quite exhaustive description by 38 impact categories
 Most of the 38 impacts are end-point ones
 Some are mid/end point ones: ozone depletion, climate change
 Some are initial impacts: waste, light pollution, technological hazards
 Tentative of aggregation into 15 large impacts
 Similarity criteria non homogeneous
 Rarely base for a common indicator
 More a didactic than a scientific figure