Lucia Elghali

Stigma and Attachment: Performance of Identity in an Environmentally Degraded Place

Research examining the relationship between place and identity shows that the experience of places influences a persons process of identification, through which an emotional bond with the place may be developed. However, the implications of this literature for land restoration remain unexplored. This is partially due to a gap in empirical research that explores the performance of identities in environmentally degraded settings. This article examines the relationship between identity and place among residents living around five coal ash disposal sites in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The article develops a qualitative model to understand the emergence of divergent responses toward the pollution and illustrates that in an environmentally degraded setting the bonds between the individuals and the place are not necessarily dislocated; in some cases, these bonds may be even reinforced by the performance of adaptative identities in response to environmental change.

Coal ash and risk: Four social interpretations of a pollution landscape

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine how cultural and natural components of landscapes interact in the context of environmental change. The paper looks at an example of a ‘pollution landscape’ through the lens of four distinct perspectives on the relationship between landscapes and society derived from the literature. The aim is both to develop a holistic understanding of the interaction of landscape and society in the case study and to explore the insights and limitations of each perspective. The case study explored in this paper concerns coal ash pollution in the city of Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Environmental changes due to coal ash pollution in Tuzla have compromised the capacity of the landscape to provide societal needs and generated new meanings associated with the landscape. The case study shows that landscape influences local perceptions of environmental risks and as a result, local inhabitants develop risk management strategies dwelling in a pollution landscape. The paper concludes that the relationship between landscapes and societies may be understood best as an interactive complex, examining the actions performed in and by landscapes.

Expert Decision Making in a Complex Engineering Environment: A Comparison of the Lens Model, Explanatory Coherence, and Matching Heuristics

This study investigated the complex decisions made by engineers when conducting contaminated-land risk assessments. Experienced assessors studied summaries of site reports, which were composed of different combinations of relevant cues, and decided on the risk level of each site. Models from three theories of decision making were compared. Applying judgment analysis to develop a lens model provided the best account of the data, lending support to social judgment theory. A model based on a fast-and-frugal heuristic, the matching heuristic, did not fit the data as well; nor did a coherence model based on the theory of explanatory coherence. Comparison with decisions generated with the use of industry guidance showed only a moderate fit, suggesting that the standard procedure does not accurately represent how highly proficient domain practitioners make assessments in this context. Qualitative analyses of comments made by participants suggested that they used a combined approach that applied key cues as predicted by social judgment theory, integrated into a meaningful, coherent account, as predicted by the theory of explanatory coherence. Overall, these findings suggest a novel process in which a range of information is combined to form a coherent explanation of the data but in which key cues are more influential than others.

The governance of coal ash pollution in post-socialist times: power and expectations

The coal energy sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) represents both a significant economic hope and a considerable environmental threat for the country. One of the major problems of the coal industry is the disposal of large amounts of coal combustion residues. RECOAL was an EU-supported project (2005–7) whose objective was to develop remediation solutions for coal ash disposal (CAD) sites in BiH. Most of RECOALs environmental fieldwork was based around TEP in the municipality of Tuzla, one of the biggest thermo-electric power plants in the country. Qualitative research was carried out to understand the environmental governance structure of the area and inform and test the acceptance of different remediation solutions proposed by RECOAL. Interviews with institutional stakeholders showed a highly complex institutional structure, where government institutions and industry are involved in complicated negotiations about the distribution of the liabilities resulting from TEPs pollution. Interviews among local residents show that locally organised action could help steer the policy-making process towards more sustainable solutions.

Ecodesign through environmental risk management: A focus on critical materials

This paper presents an approach to Ecodesign based on the management of environmental business risks, which are defined as ‘stakeholder responses to environmental impacts with the potential to cause harm to business objectives’. Case studies are used to demonstrate the approach, with a particular focus on the management of critical materials. The paper concludes that by using risk, environmental considerations can be integrated into design decisions at Rolls-Royce, although the method contains significant uncertainties. In particular, the paper highlights the complexity of both assessing the supply risk of a material and how this could translate into an impact on the business. The paper also discusses how the risk model could be expanded to address other environmental business hazards.

Contaminated land risk assessment: Variability in site assessment and decision making in the UK

Judgement forms an integral part of a risk-based approach to the assessment of land affected by contamination. Legislation and guidance suggest that the assessor should use a rational step-wise process to identify pollutant linkages in order to assess risk from land contamination. The present study aims to investigate the decision-making processes that are used by experienced contaminated land assessors. This study required 29 participants with a minimum of five years’ relevant experience to rate the level of risk from land contamination on 27 hypothetical housing development sites. Each site was designed with specific information (variables) used as indicators of the potential for unacceptable risk. Linear regression analysis was used to identify the significance of each of the variables in determining the level of risk assessed by participants. The first of the key findings was that considerable disagreement was observed between participants, and this was correlated to cases with contradictory information. This may have also been related to the participant’s perception of the available risk scale. The linear regression analysis showed that the most influential variables were chemical-test data and the presence of human-exposure pathways. These findings would suggest that experienced assessors focus on a few key aspects of the information available to assess risk from land contamination. However, analysis of the qualitative data collected in the study supported a more holistic decision-making process, in line with use of pollutant linkages described in guidance. The results suggest that when presented with limited data for development sites, assessors may rely on a few variables to rate the risk, but that a coherent picture of the interaction of all of the variables is required for a more confident assessment. The findings of the study presented here can be used to inform training and future guidance in this sector.

A framework for environmental risk management

This research has developed and tested a framework for environmental risk management. The framework provides a means for considering the environmental impacts of products as part of standard design decisions within Rolls-Royce by considering their relationship with other design requirements. This research began during the development of an environmental assessment methodology within Rolls-Royce, which was to form the basis of a Design for Environment (DfE) capability. It had been successfully shown how the methodology could produce product life cycle environmental information in response to design inputs. However, it was not clear how this information should be used within design decisions. This EngD project was started to investigate how environmental impacts could be considered as part of standard design decisions within Rolls-Royce and to develop a bespoke decision support framework that could fulfil this requirement. Aiming to produce outcomes that could lead to change within Rolls-Royce, an action research approach was applied. Initial research concluded that an approach to DfE consistent with existing ways of working needed to be developed and a risk based approach was selected as risk management is an important part of design at Rolls-Royce. The framework for environmental risk management was developed to assess business risks posed by the environmental impacts of products alongside other risks as part of standard design and risk management processes. To test the framework, focus groups were conducted to identify priority environmental business hazards that needed to be considered as risks in design. Case study scenarios based on these hazards were used to show how the risks posed to design objectives could be assessed, using actual design and business information within Rolls-Royce. Findings from testing the framework for environmental risk management culminated in recommendations on how to implement it into the business. A further contribution to knowledge was made in the form of a framework for conducting material criticality assessments, which was developed through testing the framework for environmental risk management.