Urban strategies evaluation for waste management in coastal areas in the framework of area metabolism

Abstract

Europe is considered one of the most attractive and safe prevalent tourist destinations in the entire world. Approximately half (47.4%) of European tourist visits occurred in coastal regions, defined “on the basis of and consist of local administrative units or municipalities that border the sea, or have at least half of their total surface area within a distance of 10 km from the sea.” Destinations such as Malta, Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Croatia presented with an increased level of tourist accommodation establishments, as well as, the overall flow of tourism in the European Union is mostly concentrated on Mediterranean coastal regions (as nine out 10 tourists, in 2015, spent their holidays at coastal areas). This paper, is dealing with the assessment of a tourist area and how the concept of urban metabolism has been affected by touristic activities. Moreover, this research using several key performance indicators such as waste compositional analysis, the clean coast index, the accumulation rate, and accumulation index, etc., tries to measure the level of environmental performance, and furthermore, to assess the existing infrastructures and the waste management plan, that are being implemented. The results are very useful, for any policy-maker, as well as competent authorities and/or tourist organizations which are dealing with tourist activities and aim to propose or re-schedule any waste strategy targeting the goals of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, European Green Deal, and the new circular economy strategy.

Key Points of Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) for Wastewater, Organic Pollutants and Pharmaceutical Waste Treatment: A Mini Review

“…Even in the cases of azoic dyes, the use of different AOPs suggests a more synergistic combination of the techniques [136]. In cases of heavy pollution and municipal wastewater treatment [137][138][139][140], Amr et al [127] stabilized municipal leachate with ozonation combined with Fenton processes, reducing the treatment period and yielding a sufficient value of COD removal (0.63 kg/kg COD). Organic pollutants such as organosulfur, nitro derivatives of benzene, BTEX and phenol were subjected to 100% oxidation in the combined use of sonolysis with ozone/hydrogen peroxide AOP [141].…”

Measuring the Level of Environmental Performance on Coastal Environment before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study from Cyprus

“…It is important to note that, with this method, we were not estimating any light density plastics, i.e., PP (polypropylene), PE (poly-ethylene), but only general concentrations. [52] mentioned that SWOT analysis is considered a useful tool to be used for strategic assessment and strategic improvement as it can associate external (Opportunities and Threats) and internal (Strengths and Weaknesses) aspects of any organization (from the public to private sector). Without limitation, SWOT matrix analysis supports any organization to define any key strategic features using internal and external matrix, taking into consideration any strengths and weaknesses, taking into account the up-to-date circumstances.…”

“…Without limitation, SWOT matrix analysis supports any organization to define any key strategic features using internal and external matrix, taking into consideration any strengths and weaknesses, taking into account the up-to-date circumstances. The link between PESTEL (P: Political, E: Economy, S: Social, T: Technical, E: Environment, L: Legislation) and SWOT was effectively used for other research, i.e., to assess renewable energy establishment and natural resource [49,51], to control end of life tire management in insular communities [52], as well as for the monitoring of any waste strategy development [27].…”

“…The proposed methodology is presented in the flowchart of Figure 5 [50][51][52], which is based on the identification of internal features to analyze the topics of strengths and weaknesses, as well as to clarify the opportunities and threats based on external features. Table 3 provides details related to how PESTEL pillars had been encoded, taking into account the external and the internal features, as well the significance coefficient (1 to 5).…”

Εφαρμοσμένη Αστική Βιώσιμη Ανάπτυξη

“…Ενώ, θέτει ως προτεραιότητα την εισαγωγή νέας νομοθεσίας ή κανονιστικού πλαισίου για την κυκλική οικονομία, την ανακαίνιση των κτιρίων, καθώς και τη βιοποικιλότητα, τη γεωργία και την καινοτομία. Η έννοια της κυκλικής οικονομίας, που έγκειται στην καλύτερη διαχείριση των πόρων (Vardopoulos, Konstantopoulos, et al, 2020;Voukkali et al, 2021), έχει εξελιχθεί με τα χρόνια, ενώ από τα τέλη της δεκαετίας του 1970 έχει αποκτήσει μια ιδιαίτερη δυναμική (Geissdoerfer et al, 2017). Εξ ορισμού, στρατηγικές κυκλικής οικονομίας για τον κτιριοδομικό χώρο αποτελούν ο βιώσιμος αρχιτεκτονικός σχεδιασμός, η συντήρηση, η ανακαίνιση, η επανάχρηση και η ανακύκλωση, ενώ οι μηχανισμοί προς την επίτευξη των ανωτέρω στρατηγικών είναι η ανθεκτικότητα, η προσαρμοστικότητα, και ο σχεδιασμός που διευκολύνει στην αποσυναρμολόγηση της κατασκευής με χρήση υλικών κλειστού ή μακροπρόθεσμου κύκλου ζωής.…”