Types of environmental impact
Contenido
Actualmente el término de impacto ambiental se emplea mucho debido a la preocupación por el medio ambiente. A pesar de esto, su uso es muchas veces de forma indiscriminada y coloquial, cambiando su significado según el contexto y el enfoque supuesto por el emisor para describir una gran variedad de conceptos que pueden ser a primera vista iguales pero que en realidad guardan una significativa distancia conceptual. El término de impacto ambiental se encuentra conceptualizado y fundamentado teóricamente desde las ciencias ambientales, y específicamente desde los sistemas de evaluación de impacto ambiental. No obstante, es importante entender que la definición a ser desarrollada a continuación se lleva a cabo desde la visión de las ciencias ambientales.[3].
Se puede entender como impacto ambiental, a la alteración (positiva o negativa) en la calidad del medio ambiente como consecuencia de la ejecución de un proyecto, obra o cualquier otra actividad antropogénica.[16] Entiéndase que un impacto ambiental no es la simple relación de causa (producida por el hombre) y efecto (en el medio ambiente).[17] Por ejemplo, es muy común considerar la descarga de efluentes industriales no tratados en un río como un impacto ambiental, sin lugar a dudas es una mala práctica empresarial y tiene el potencial de dañar el medio ambiente, pero por sí mismo, no puede ser considerado un impacto ambiental. Inclusive si se afirma que: debido a la descarga de efluentes existe un incremento en la concentración de DBO río abajo, todavía no se define como impacto ambiental.
Para que el efecto de una actividad o acción humana se considere un impacto ambiental esta tiene que: 1) ser producida directamente o indirectamente por una actividad humana, 2) valorar y catalogar el cambio como positivo o negativo respecto a la calidad ambiental original (es decir sin el desarrollo de la actividad humana). Esto quiere decir que: para valorar el efecto en el medio ambiente necesitamos conocer la magnitud del cambio producido y evualarlo de forma completa e integral. Si esta modificación en la calidad ambiental es significativa en comparación con el estado del medio ambiente original, se puede catalogar de impacto ambiental.[18] Para esto se debe determinar la escala (espacial y temporal) a la cual se estudian los cambios provocados.
Los requerimientos para concluir si un efecto en el medio es o no un impacto pueden sonar mucho más complicados de lo que realmente son. Primero hay que considerar que las directrices para la valoración y categorización de impactos normalmente se encuentra en las leyes ambientales de cada país o en los procedimientos que rigen la evaluación de impacto ambiental. Esto facilita la valoración de un efecto, pero el análisis de impactos indirectos pueden llegar a ser más complejos que impactos directos.[19].
Siguiendo con el ejemplo de descargas de efluentes industriales no tratadas en el cauce de un río, debemos saber si el efecto de esta acción puede catalogarse como positivo o negativo en el medio ambiente. Si el río es capaz de absorber las descargas sin afectar la calidad ambiental de sus factores entonces no puede ser considerado un impacto negativo por lo que no pasaría de ser un efecto ambiental. Por el contrario, si las descargas son altamente contaminantes y la calidad del río sufre significativamente una reducción de oxígeno disuelto, entonces podríamos justificar el uso de impacto ambiental a los efectos provocados por las descargas en el medio acuático.
Como se ha explicado anteriormente, es importante determinar la escala temporal y espacial del estudio, si estudiamos los efectos de las descargas a corto plazo y solo en el área local, por ejemplo, podríamos afirmar que el río es capaz de absorber la carga contaminante y que en el área local no existirían efectos adversos porque el río al seguir su cauce no permite que la contaminación se concentre en el área. Sin embargo, esta sería una conclusión sesgada, ya que si analizamos el mismo escenario en un mediano/largo plazo a una escala regional, podríamos concluir que el río corre hasta un lago y que ha mediano plazo, este lago no tendría la capacidad de sobreponer el aumento en la concentración de DBO por las descargas industriales. Esto a su vez ocasionaría la eutrofización del lago, la pérdida de poblaciones de peces y además un daño económico y social de los habitantes que dependían de la pesca en ese lago. El valorar cuidadosamente los efectos de acciones humanas en el medio ambiente de manera integral permite justificar el llamarlos impactos ambientales.
Es importante recordar que el impacto ambiental es la alteración o modificación de la calidad en el medio ambiente y no la acción que ha llevado a este cambio. Extrapolando el concepto al ejemplo del río con descargas, los impactos ambientales no son la descarga de efluentes industriales ni el aumento en las concentraciones de materia orgánica; en cambio la reducción en la calidad del agua, la eutrofización del lago, la pérdida de especies ictiológicas, y la reducción ingresos a la población pesquera pueden justificarse como impactos ambientales negativos. Siendo los dos primeros impactos directos y los dos restante impactos indirectos.
Global impact
Most of the energy used in different countries comes from oil and natural gas. Pollution[20] of the seas with oil is a problem that has been of particular concern to maritime countries for many years, whether or not they are oil producers, as well as to industrial companies linked to the exploitation "Exploitation (ecology)") and trade of this product. Since then, technical and legal provisions have been taken at the international level to avoid or reduce the occurrence of these problems.
Oil spills in the seas, rivers and lakes produce environmental pollution, which is reflected in damage to marine fauna, birds, vegetation and waters. In addition, they harm fishing and recreational activities on the beaches. It has been discovered that despite the volatility of hydrocarbons, their persistence and toxicity characteristics continue to have fatal effects underwater. But, spills due to accidents from tankers or ships that transport oil, on the high seas or near the coast, are not the only causes of oceanic pollution with hydrocarbons. The largest proportion of pollution comes from industrial and motor oil, the burned oil that reaches the oceans through rivers and urban drains. It is estimated that on a global scale 3,500 million liters of used oil enter rivers and oceans, and 5,000 million liters of crude oil or its derivatives are spilled.
The products of gaseous waste expelled from agroindustrial industries are gaseous emissions that are directed to the atmosphere through chemical conversions. They can be of a very diverse nature, among which, due to their toxicity, the sulfurous and sulfuric anhydrides and nitrogen oxides expelled in refineries stand out, causing alteration, not only of the atmosphere, but also of water, land, vegetation, birds and other animals.[21] One of the most harmful gaseous pollutants is Sulfur dioxide damages the lungs and other parts of the respiratory system. It is an eye and skin irritant, and even destroys tooth enamel.[21].
Another alternative source of energy developed is radioactive, which generates a lot of radioactive waste or contaminants from nuclear reactions, deposits of radioactive minerals, plants where these minerals are refined or transformed, and electricity generators that work with radioactive matter. There is still no known method to eliminate these wastes without risk to humans.
Another impact generated by the exploitation of energy resources is noise pollution. The noise produced by industry decreases hearing ability and can significantly affect the nervous and circulatory systems.
Mining and mineral processing often produce negative environmental impacts on air, soil, water, crops, flora, fauna and human health. They can also impact, both positively and negatively, on various aspects of the local economy, such as tourism, the settlement of new populations, inflation, etc. In the past, companies were not always required to remediate the impacts of these resources. As a result, much of the cleanup costs have had to be subsidized by taxpayers and local citizens. This paper presents representative costs for numerous remediation activities. Often the most expensive item in the long term is water treatment. The use of financial guarantees or environmental insurance can ensure that the polluter pays most of the costs.
Social impact
The impacts on the social environment contribute to different dimensions of human existence. They can be distinguished:
Economic impact
Environmental degradation affects the competitiveness of the productive sector through several aspects, among others:
Competitiveness is also affected by the instability of the environmental regulatory framework and the lack of oversight by authorities, which leads to legal and technical uncertainty. This can influence additional costs that companies must incur to demonstrate that products or services are clean or environmentally friendly.
New technological devices constantly emerge that make everyday life easier and offer the user a greater number of services, but surely not all of us stop to think about what happens to the technological devices that we no longer use, that have fallen into disuse and have become scrap metal. From the simplest, through the everyday, to our digital world, they have a great impact on the environment.
Cell phones, GPS, PDA, computers, laptops, recorders, iPods, and so on, have facilitated our functions, but, once we stop using them, they become part of technological pollution. Each of these accessories has been built with plates that contain small amounts of lead that, thrown into the ground and not given adequate treatment, can cause contamination with great ecological consequences. The solution to this problem is not very far away, since proper waste separation is not too complicated. Using battery eaters to throw away old batteries, which are enormously polluting, and separating all technological devices and then taking them to a specialized recycling center, or even factories where they can be reused, you can prevent these plates from ending up in an open dump, being incinerated and greatly damaging our ozone layer.
In order to understand the pollution that technology contributes, an article by Jaime Escobar Aguirre"), a computer expert, supported by studies by the consulting firm Gartner"), concluded that "the information and communications industry polluted the same as commercial aviation. The levels of carbon dioxide emitted are the same between both industries, from which it can be deduced that the information industry is responsible for 2% of the carbon dioxide emitted throughout the planet."
Likewise, companies like The Synergy Group develop technologies, where appropriate to reduce odor pollution that affects the population. Through analysis of the situation, technology has been developed to increasingly reduce pollution.[22].
If this is not remedied, the consequences can be irreversible. If today we suffer from suffocating increases in temperatures due to climate change, it is impossible to imagine what will happen when the waters are contaminated, the sky is unprotected and ultraviolet rays fall directly on us.
However, more measures have been taken to address these atrocities. There are methods such as the article by Pablo Branchi and Carlos Fernández (2015) from the Public University of Navarra, which proposes a methodology to evaluate the impact of the incorporation of new technologies in cities, based on their usefulness and consequences, considering the frequency of use.[23] Like Hilda Zornoza (2009), from the Externado University of Colombia, she proposes a risk premium in the introduction of technology in society, taking into account environmental and ecological factors, interpreting them statistically to evaluate these.[24] So we can notice that as more technologies are implemented, various challenges have been generated in the environment. However, methods have also been implemented to reduce their impact, in addition to technologies.