User:Mari Malinen
Homework 1
What is shared understanding?
- All participants understand what decision options are considered, desired outcomes, objectives, facts, opinions and disagreements exist and why. Also why a certain decision option is selected.
- Everyone understands the whole picture without having to agree with each other.
What different purposes are there for participation in assessment and/or decision making?
- Openness builds trust among participants and outside observers.
- To make sure all relevant issues are raised and handled properly
- Through successful critique invalid statements can be ruled out from the assessment
What is benefit-risk assessment?
- Analyzing different scientific data to compare benefits and risks of an event, activity, food etc.
- For example assessing use of food additives: do the benefits outweigh possible risks?
←--#: . OK. --Jouni (talk) 10:09, 23 March 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: defence)
DARM 2015 Homework 2
- How to create a prettytable
| Water sample (µg/l) | Drinking water guideline values (µg/l) | |
|---|---|---|
| Iron | 185 | 200 |
| Manganese | 22 | 50 |
- Upload data by t2b table and Opasnet Base Uploader
Cancers caused by drinking water mutagenicity/100 000 people in Finland (1992-1996)
| Cancer type | Men | Women | In total | Dose-response equation | Risk | True risk | Additional cancer cases/100 000 people |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bladder cancer | 17.7 | 4 | 21.7 | y=4E-05x+1 | 1.01 | 0.01 | 0.31 |
| Brest cancer | 0.4 | 71.8 | 72.2 | y=5E-05x+1 | 1.01 | 0.01 | 0.77 |
| Lung cancer | 49.1 | 8.9 | 58 | y=5E-05x+1 | 1.02 | 0.02 | 1.03 |
| Esophageal cancer | 3.4 | 1.4 | 4.8 | y=0.0001x+1 | 1.04 | 0.04 | 0.17 |
DARM 2015 Homework 3
- What could an Universal object be in an assessment?
- Is the Training assessment similar to the assignment we are going to do during the course?
DARM 2015 Homework 4
Group: Mari and Anni ←--#: . Overall, very good draft of an assessment. However, there is still work to do. See comments in text. --Jouni (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: defence)
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- ←--#: . Only one user can be the moderator. --Jouni (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: defence)
Presentation about the draft assessment: File:DARM HW4.pptx
Scope
Question
- What measures should be taken in Helsinki Metropolitan area to control climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
- How to reduce the per capita carbon dioxide emissions of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area by 39 per cent of the 1990 level by the year 2030? [1]
⇤--#: . Think your question carefully. If you want to find a good set of actions, it is not enough to look at three scenarios. Instead, you should do an assessment, where you compare and prioritise individual actions in some way (e.g. cost-effectiveness analysis) and select and reject actions based on that. Instead, if you only compare three pre-set scenarios, you cannot know whether they are the best combinations, but you may get a pretty good idea of their health and other impacts. --Jouni (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: attack) ----#: . Ok. --Anni Hartikainen (talk) 12:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: comment)
Intended use and users
To be used by Helsinki Metropolitan area city authorities in decision making towards less GHG emissions.
----#: . How are they going to use the assessment results+ --Jouni (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: comment) ----#: . Ok. --Anni Hartikainen (talk) 12:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: comment)
Participants
----#: . Participants are people that are needed in the assessment work to produce a good assessment. Therefore, you should also identify roles for all participants. --Jouni (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: comment)
- Cities of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen
- Set boundaries for assessment
- A broad range of environmental protection, planning, traffic and public transport specialists from the cities
- Field-spesific information
- HSY specialists in traffic, solid waste management and regional development
- Field-spesific information
- representatives of energy companies
- Precise knowledge about energy production
- interest groups
- Consider environment and population
Boundaries
- Area: Helsinki Metropolitan area (Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen)
- Time: Based on years 1990, 2000 and 2004. Estimations made for year 2030.
- Considered sources of GHG emissions:
- Electric heating
- consumption electric power
- transport, district heating
- separate heating
- industry and machinery
- treatment of solid waste and waste water
Decisions and scenarios
There are many possible decisions to reduce emissions.
Transportation
- Encourage use of public transport
- Improving competitiveness of public transport
- National taxation policy towards choice of low-emission vehicles
- Use of environmentally friendly fuels
Land use
- Location of dwellings, workplaces and services to decrease need for transport
- growth of traffic and access to district heating
- Access to public transport
Electricity consumption
- Improving the awareness of residents towards more efficient electricity consumption
- Cities should put a high value to energy efficiency of appliances
Heating of buildings
- Promoting district heating and cooling
- Correct use and maintenance of buildings
Procurement, consumption and waste
- Promoting material and energy efficiency and low emissions in city procurement
- Prevent solid waste formation
- Advice population how to avoid solid waste
- Enhancing material recycling
Energy generation and distribution
- Enhancing centralized cogeneration of electricity in Helsinki Metropolitan area
- Promoting eco-efficiency and renewable energy sources of decentralized energy generation
Timing
- The assessment should be made as soon as possible to reach a decision to achieve the best GHG emission reduction
- ⇤--#: . Timing is about the schedule of making the assessment, not about taking action. --Jouni (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: attack)
- ----#: . OK --Anni Hartikainen (talk) 12:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: comment)
Answer
Results
⇤--#: . Results and conclusions do not exist before the assessment is started. Of course, it is possible to present what you think the results will be when the assessment is done, but it should be clearly stated that it is guesswork. --Jouni (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: attack)
⇤--#: . Clarify your question. If the question is What are good decisions, then the result will be a set of decision options like here. If the question is What are the impacts of scenarios 1-3, then the results should be estimates of health impacts, costs etc. for each scenario. --Jouni (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: attack)
- ----#: . Ok. --Anni Hartikainen (talk) 13:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: comment)
Possible result of the assessment:
Transportation
- Lowering of ticket prices would increase the cost for the transportation company
- Taxation policy would take money from individuals
Land use
- Compact city construction would lower energy consumption and decrease the use of motor vehicles. On the other hand could decrease the comfort of residential area.
Electricity consumption
- lowering the energy consumption would have a direct impact on GHG emissions
- might affect the living standards
- need of technological development.
Heating of buildings
- wide use of district heating would make it more affordable to users
- need to improve infrastructure
Procurement, consumption and waste
- Enhancing material recycling would require innovations from waste management sector
Energy generation and distribution
- Probably the biggest impact on GHG emissions
- Utilization of all possible excess energy to reduce need of energy generation
- Increase use of renewable energy sources, especially biofuels
- need to develop power plants to be more efficient and to use more diverse fuels
- requires financial investment
Conclusions
With the proposed improvements listed above it might be possible to reduce GHG emissions significantly.
The measures will be a drain on resources but doing nothing would be even more costly.
Rationale
Stakeholders
- Cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, Espoo and Kauniainen
- Citizens of Helsinki, Vantaa, Espoo and Kauniainen
- Enterprises e.g. energy producers, building companies, waste management
- Responsible city agencies e.g. environmental agencies, premises center, building supervision, Helsinki City Transport
- State government
- NGOs
Dependencies
----#: . What kind of things you need to assess to get results? There is no need to go into very detailed description, but some ideas should be presented. --Jouni (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: comment)
- ----#: . Ok. --Anni Hartikainen (talk) 13:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: comment)
Current emissions from all sources
Amount of reductions (as CO2-equivalents) needed to reach the target
Estimation of possibilities and their
- GHG reducing potential
- cost (money, time, work force)
- risk
- health impacts
- environmental impacts
Analyses
Indices
Calculations
See also
Keywords
References
Related files
DARM 2015 Homework 5
Report: Helsinki Metropolitan Area Climate Strategy to the Year 2030 - Summary
----#: . You should put a link here to the report you were looking at. --Jouni (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: comment)
----#: . You should mention the group that did this homework. --Jouni (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: comment)
- ----#: . Ok. --Anni Hartikainen (talk) 13:22, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: comment)
1. What are the aims/goals of the strategy/program, i.e. what are the desired impacts and outcomes striven for?
- To reduce the per capita carbon dioxide emissions of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area by 39 per cent of the 1990 level by the year 2030. This is to meet the EU 2020 target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20 % of 1990 emission level.
- 1.1 Who are those that benefit if the aims/goals of the strategy/program are reached?
- Citizens of Helsinki Metropolitan area, globally all population, city authorities to meet their target
2. What are the actions that are needed/intended to take in order to progress towards the aims/goals?
- Transportation
- Encourage use of public transport
- Improving competitiveness of public transport
- National taxation policy towards choice of low-emission vehicles
- Land use
- Location of dwellings, workplaces and services to decrease need for transport
- growth of traffic and access to district heating
- Access to public transport
- Electricity consumption
- Improving the awareness of resindents towards more efficient electricity consumption
- Cities should put a high value to energy efficiency of appliances
- Heating of buildings
- Promoting district heating and cooling
- Correct use and maintanance of buildings
- Procurement, consumption and waste
- Promoting material and energy efficiency and low emissions in city procurement
- Prevent solid waste formation
- Advice population how to avoid solid waste
- Enhancing material recycling
- Energy generation and distribution
- Enhancing centralised cogeneration of electricity in Helsinki Metropolitan area
- Promoting eco-efficiency and renewable energy sources of decentralised energy generation
- 2.1 Who are those that actually realize these actions?
- Responsible city agencies e.g. environmental agencies, premises center, building supervision, Helsinki City Transport and enterprises e.g. energy producers, building companies and waste management
3. What are the decisions that are needed to make in order to enable/promote the actions?
- Changes in infrastructure
- e.g. decisions considering land use, district heating, waste management
- Financial investments
- e.g. Energy policy, public transportation...
- Changes in infrastructure
----#: . Think about decisions that could enhance or prevent the actual climate --Jouni (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: comment)
- 3.1 Who are the decision makers?
- Authorities of Helsinki, Espoo, Kauniainen and Vantaa
4. What direct or indirect health impacts, positive or negative, these decisions and actions (may) have?
- Decreasing cardio and respiratory illnesses by reducing PM, globally hindering the negative health effects of climate change (vector diseases, malaria etc.)
- 4.1 Where and how do these impacts take place, who are those that face these health impacts in practice?The community,the citizens,
- Lowering PM concentrations will impact the local population, global effects will impact a larger population
- 4.2 Are the health impacts big or small in relation to other impacts (e.g. economical, social, climate, other environmental, ...)?
- Health impacts would be quite small. Economical and environmental impacts will probably be more significant.
- 4.3 Do the intended policies result in win-win, win-lose, lose-win, or lose-lose situations with regard to health and other impacts?
- Health and environmental impacts of the intended policies would probably result in win-win situation with regarding each other. With economical impacts the situation would be probably win-lose (environmental and/or health impacts - economical impacts).
5. Formulate a plausible and meaningful specific assessment question that takes account of (some of) the aspects considered in above questions.
- How to reduce the per capita carbon dioxide emissions of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area by 39 per cent of the 1990 level by the year 2030 and which health impacts would the made decisions have?
6. Extra question: In what ways your answers do or do not represent "shared understanding"? (The climate program/strategy can be considered a compilation of contributions by many experts and attempting to reflect the views and needs of different decision makers and stakeholders).
- Opinions of the public or NGOs weren't taken into account
- How open was the assessment process?
- It is not certain that everyone participating in the strategy making understand every aspect of the assessment material and the final strategy
- It is possible that experts only focused on the sections of their own fields
- It is not certain that everyone participating in the strategy making understand every aspect of the assessment material and the final strategy
DARM 2015 Homework 6
Group: Mari and Anni
Homework 6, part A: Questions about identifying roles and participation:
- Who are the relevant participants of the assessment? What are their roles? What kind of relevant knowledge they (may) have regarding the assessment? What needs and aims do they represent in the assessment?
- Cities of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen
- Set boundaries for assessment, facilitators
- Decision makers
- Information about finances and politics
- Aim: best decision possible, meet the targets set
- A broad range of environmental protection, planning, traffic and public transport specialists from the cities
- Experts, informants
- Provide field-specific information
- Aim: Secure the future of their own field
- HSY specialists in traffic, solid waste management and regional development. Representatives of energy companies
- Experts, informants
- Provide field-specific information
- Options to consider in the assessment
- Aim: improvement of economical growth
Homework 6, part B: Consider also the following questions about facilitating collaboration:
- How could the relevant participants be involved in the assessment in an effective way?
- Discussion
- Meetings to present ideas, progress, give comments and critique.
- How can the quality of an assessment be assured if anyone can participate?
- Specialist is needed to summarize individual comments
- Assessment of information
- How can you prevent malevolent contributions where the purpose is to vandalize the process?
- If comments are first analyzed to make a summary of contributions of individual people, the importance of single malevolent comments decrease
- Openness: decreases possibilities of corruption
- How can you make the outcome converge to a conclusion, because all issues are uncertain and controversial?
- Use of best available information
- Role of experts is important
- How can you ensure that the outcomes are useful for the users?
- The users should be involved in the assessment process
DARM 2015 Homework 10
Evaluation of draft assessment by Mohammad Shahidehnia and Paula Maatela "Dust storm in south of Iran causes lots of environmental impacts and health problems for the country" and the real-life assessment of Pahtavaara mine op_fi:Pahtavaaran kaivos.
Evaluation of draft assessment "Dust storm in south of Iran causes lots of environmental impacts and health problems for the country"
| Category | Characterization |
|---|---|
| Impacts | The negative health impacts of sand storms, impacts on the economy of the city, impacts on the contentment of citizens and impacts on the value of the properties |
| Causes | Naturally occuring sandstorms |
| Problem owner | The people of Ahvaz city are affected by the impacts. "Planning and Development Assistance in Ahvaz" is mentioned to have planned solutions for solving the problem. |
| Target | The result of the assessment is intended to be used by decision makers of Ahvaz. Also citizens of Ahvaz are intended to make use of the results. |
| Category of interaction | Degree of interaction is probably quite high, because the assessment is said to use an open participation. It is not said in what way the public is included in the assessment process, though. Also "assessors of Ahvas city" are mentioned as participants, so the category of interaction is likely to be participatory. |
| Dimension | Characterization |
|---|---|
| Scope of participation | Citizens of Ahvaz city, assessors and decision makers of Ahvaz. Also international meetings between Iran and Iraq are required. |
| Access to information | It is not described. |
| Timing of openness | It is not described. The timing of the assessment is from present to 2030. |
| Scope of contribution | It is not described which contributions can be made for the assessment. Among the possible decision options are equipping houses with high efficiency air filters and citizens to stay at home during dust storms. At least these decision options would require contributions from the local people. |
| Impact of contribution | The impacts of contributions are not described. |
| Category | Evaluation (1-5) | Reasoning | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality of content | 2 | A lot of work has been put in gathering information and understanding the problem and its impacts. Still, the ideas about how the actual assessment would be conducted, seem vague. | |
| Applicability | Relevance: Correspondence between output and its intended use. | 2 | The draft does not give a clear image of the intended use of the assessment. The assessment question was discussed during the seminars, but it has not been corrected to the written draft. Current assessment question does not address the purpose of the assessment. |
| Availability: Accessibility of the output to users | 3 | The possible decision options address multiple participatory groups, so the output should be accessible. Still, it is not described, how the output is made available to all users. | |
| Usability: Potential of the information in the output to generate understanding among its user(s) | 3 | The presented possible decision options seem relevant in controlling the air pollution problem and are probably understandable to the users. | |
| Acceptability: Potential of the output being accepted by its users. | 3 | Mostly the possible decision options seem to be possible to be accepted by the users. However, the options requiring contributions of the citizens might not be totally accepted: installing high efficiency air filters might be too expensive for some and staying indoors during dust storms might not always be possible. | |
| Efficiency | 3 | The intended use of the assessment is not clear from the draft. The dust storms have been proven to cause severe health impacts to the citizens. The assessment should be addressed into finding the optimal solutions for the problem. Some possible decision options are listed in the draft. The most efficient and concrete solution seems to be revegetating the area to bind dust. | |
Evaluation of the assessment "Pahtavaaran kaivos"
| Category | Characterization |
|---|---|
| Impacts | Impacts on health. Possibly also impacts on the environment (the second assessment question: will the released tailings sand cause harm? - without describing, harm to what). |
| Causes | Asbestos found from the surroundings of the mining site, partly originating from tailings (a spill from the tailings pond occured in 2012). Health hazard is possible when asbestos is inhaled (flying dust). |
| Problem owner | Local people living close to the mining area and mine workers. The group of possibly impacted was not described more in detail, it was only said that there are no housing with a 5 km radius. Kaivosvahdit ry made the initiative for the assessment. The mining company is responsible for causing and managing possible health hazard. |
| Target | It is not totally clear who are the intended assessment users. Probably the mining company as well as authorities, The Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY Centre) of Lapland, which can make use of the results by setting guideline values and regulations to control dust flying from tailings and if necessary, limit access to the area. Local people are likely to be interested in the results. |
| Category of interaction | People could pose questions about the assessment and they were answered. No further information was given about tthe participation, so the category is participatory at the most. |
| Dimension | Characterization |
|---|---|
| Scope of participation | The ELY-center of Lapland has asked the mining company to explain the situation. Mining company is the responsible party and the local paople the possible sufferers of health impacts. People could pose questions of the assessment and they were answered by ELY-center. |
| Access to information | The sampling data and analysis results are available on Opasnet. Results of sample analyses were sent to ELY-center of Lapland. It is not explained how the other participants are informed about the availability of data. |
| Timing of openness | The results of sample analyses were sent to ELY-center in November 2013. It is not explained if information was available for participants before the assessment was conducted. |
| Scope of contribution | ELY-center of Lapland has set the boundaries for the assessment. The mining company was the facilitator and the local people were probably mostly being informed about the results. |
| Impact of contribution | The assessment might not have been made if the Kaivosvahdit ry had not contacted the ELY-center about the possible health risk. The mining company conducted the assessment out of the request of the ELY-center. |
| Category | Evaluation (1-5) | Reasoning | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality of content | 4 | The information seems correct and the sampling data and results are visualized well. However, sampling and analyses could have been done better for more accurate results. | |
| Applicability | Relevance: Correspondence between output and its intended use. | 4 | The conclusions give answer to the assessment questions. However, the assessment questions could be even more precise. |
| Availability: Accessibility of the output to users | 4 | There is no detailed information about this. At least the results have been sent to ELY-center and are available at Opasnet. | |
| Usability: Potential of the information in the output to generate understanding among its user(s) | 3 | I am not sure if the results (numeric data) are easily understandable for all users. The conclusion "considering the data avaliable, the asbestos in Pahtavaara does not cause health impacts" is a clear statement, but the answer could have been explained more. Also, the asbestos concentrations are not given in the results, only yes/no asbestos in sample. The analyses were criticized by the assessment makers as well. | |
| Acceptability: Potential of the output being accepted by its users. | 3 | I would assume the output being accepted by ELY-center, but the local people might not accept it totally. On my opinion the resul is not sufficiently validated based on the given data (e.g. no spesific asbestos concebtrations of the samples given), which might cause distrust. | |
| Efficiency | 4 | The assessment was made efficiently and answer was found to the assessment question. There was some critique against the asbestos concentrations analyses. | |