AbstractOne of the basic principles in the European policy to cope with the growing challenge of water scarcity is that water demand management should be considered before opting for additional water infrastructure. The implication of this is that water must be treated as an economic good, which means that the "user's pays' principle"has to be implemented. At the same time there is much political consensus that the water price has to be "equitable". Water can be subsidized without violating the ...
Autori: Lars Hansson
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25155

AbstractAt the beginning of 3rd century the humankind finds at a crossroads. Daily, people assist at miracles, live in a time of change, both in economical and rational areas. Energy demand is expected to increase steadily over the next couple of decades, as income levels and economic output expand, especially in the new democratic states after ’90th.Renewable energy resources represent a new opportunity in Romania, with less participation in the market than those forums outside of the country...
Autori: Camelia Ciubota-Rosie, Maria Gavrilescu, Matei Macoveanu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25305

AbstractTitanium alloys show attractive properties for biomedical applications where the most important factors are biocompatibility, corrosion resistance, low modulus of elasticity, very good strength-to-weight ratio, reasonable formability and osseointegration. The aim of present study was to evaluate the electrochemical behaviour of Ti6Al7Nb alloy in Ringer’s solution of different pH. This evaluation was carried out through the analysis of the potentiodynamic polarization curves, and electr...
Autori: Daniel Mareci, Julia Claudia Mirza Rosca, Marina Garcia Falcon
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25363

Agrotourism, a form of tourism that falls within the framework of rural tourism, is based on the tourism taking place on farms with the possibility of doing work with the owners of the farm with this being seen as a leisure activity, educational in nature and of interest to members of many groups. The importance of this kind of tourism resides in the possibility of complementing the income generated from the farm with income produced by the tourism, as well as assuring the conservation of the en...
Autori: Ana-María Campón-Cerro, Antonio Pérez-Díaz, Felipe Leco-Berrocal, José-Manuel Hernández-Mogollón
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25828

Human nature constantly tends to place personal interest first, to the detriment of general interest. In this respect, tax and duty payers have always attempted to evade payments on their tax liabilities, resorting to various tactics, as they view such compulsory payments as detrimental to their wealth and income. On the other hand, the state seeks to maximise its receipts from taxes, duties, excises etc. In Romania, after 1990, an entire range of anti-tax reactions occurred in the sphere of pub...
Autori: Carmen Sandu, , Marius Vorniceanu,
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25835

Abstract In order to link the question of renewable energy to regional development and territorial cohesion, the article aims to present and evaluate recent initiatives taking place in the North-West Development Region of Romania, with emphasis on emerging renewable energy clusters. Moreover, we will present a case-study on geothermal energy cluster in Northern Transylvania. The state-of-art analysis is a result of a previous FP7 project, while the action plan has been derived from...
Autori: József Benedek
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26107

Abstract Avocado post-harvest losses and cultivar-oriented trade are relevant issues in Cameroon that affect producers and retailers incomes. Identifying specific chemical characteristics of avocado oils would give an added value to underutilized species. Five avocado varieties, Booth 7, Booth 8, Collinson, Hickson and Lula, were subjected to aqueous extraction and the Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier Transformed Infrared spectrometry coupled with chemometrics (ATR-FTIR) profil...
Autori: Brice Ulrich Saha Foudjo
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26143

AbstractEnvironmental proactivity is a key research topic as it arises as a value-adding creator and therefore constitutes a competitiveadvantage for companies. In this paper, we classify industrial companies according to their environmental proactivity and thenwe determine whether their economic performance differs in relation to the firms’ environmental position. We analyzed 132Spanish industrial firms located in the Valencian region and apply quantitative methods to conduct the analysis. The ...
Autori: María-del-Val Segarra-Ońa
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26194

AbstractMonitoring an unstable slope is quite important for environmental safety. Based on our previous studies, this paper presents athird-generation distributed optical fibre transducer. The operating mechanism of this novel transducer was analysed for itsresponse to a single concentrated and uniform load, and a theoretical study was conducted on the elongation of the bottomsurfacefibres of a bending resistance model at the phases of linear elasticity and total cross-section cut-off stage. A b...
Autori: Bang Liu, Dong-Yan Liu, Hu Luo, Jing-Cheng Liu, Qiao-Ying Yuan, Yun-Ju Luo, Zheng-Wei Zhu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26348

AbstractUsing the provincial panel data of China during 1995-2009, this paper focused on the effects of carbon taxes on economy andcarbon emissions in China based on different scenarios. Our research makes the following conclusions: Carbon taxes will restraineconomy growth and curb carbon emissions, but the effects will continually decrease with the enhancement of carbon taxes.Increasing carbon taxes will increase output elasticities of capital and labour, but decrease output elasticity of energ...
Autori: Ru-yin Long, Shi-Chun Xu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26360

AbstractBased on the improved C-D production function model, the relationship of China’s energy consumption, economic growth andcarbon emissions are comprehensively studied in this paper through the panel data in China from1991 to 2009. The researchshows that energy consumption and economic growth have a long-term equilibrium and a one-way causality relationship fromenergy consumption to economic growth. In both elasticity coefficients and contributive rate, energy consumption plays the mostimpo...
Autori: Huifeng Pan, Jian-Min Wang, Li Yang
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26370

AbstractThe adoption of Carbon tax is usually thought to be one kind of important economic measures to reduce carbon emissions. Onthe one hand, the adoption of carbon tax can reduce the use of fuels that contain high percentage of carbon, and promote thedevelopment and use of renewable energy. On the other hand, the measure will affect energy prices, supply and demand, andincome distribution, thus causing negative effects on economic growth. This paper discusses the design of the basic taxations...
Autori: Yan-bing Cai
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26371

AbstractMunicipal solid waste management is a matter experienced by the entire world, mostly encountered in urban areas as a result ofpopulation growth and increased income per capita. This issue always posed threats to environmental quality and human health,and continues to be one of the major environmental problems people continues to face. In the last few decades, the systemsanalysis techniques have been applied to manage the municipal solid waste (MSW) streams through a range of integrativem...
Autori: Cristina Ghinea
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26481

AbstractThe electricity consumption of a country is influenced by several parameters of the national economic structure, the level ofsocietal advancement and the economic climate. Indicators based on the rate of GDP and electricity consumption are widely usedfor characterizing the productivity of an economy. In this paper, the electricity consumption of the household and productivesectors is analyzed based on reference electricity consumption (proportional to GDP) and the relationship between co...
Autori: Judit T. Kiss
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26540

AbstractAmong the various environmental problems arising today, special attention must be paid to the issues related to energy; inparticular one of the most important tasks to address environmental issues is the decreasing of the energy consumption ofbuildings. As a result, much attention has been given recently to research projects aiming to analyze the technological,economical and environmental features of energy efficient buildings. This paper examines such buildings in four regions ofEurope ...
Autori: Gábor Kozma
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26543

Abstract Patzcuaro Lake, placed in the lacustrine zone of Michoacán (central México), has four municipalities around its shoreline, and is an important tourist attraction in the region. Because the area is predominantly rural it lacks many efficient public services, amount them adequate management of solid wastes that is reflected in the insufficient collection services and lack of landfills in the area. The object of this research was to determine the local environmental perce...
Autori: Otoniel Buenrostro
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26604

Abstract The interest in waterborne paints amelioration increased lately due to the toxicological effect of certain ingredients on human health, the restrictive environmental legislation and the depletion and escalation in price of raw materials. Research efforts in formulating waterborne paints are directed to insure low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emission while maintaining and even improving their properties. This paper presents a waterborne paint formulation process. The required ...
Autori: Andrei Ionut Simion
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26639

Abstract The paper investigates the role of the Common Agriculture Policy support in the economic sustainability of sheep breeding farms from North-Western Romania (Transylvania), focusing particularly on the Agri-Environment Schemes (AES). The region has important High Natural Value (HNV) grassland areas significant for bio-conservation. To analyze their importance in the overall economic viability, individual data was collected from 207 farms using a stratified sample. A principal componen...
Autori: Mugurel I. Jitea
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26716

Abstract Social perception is a tool widely used in the environment research, due to the emphasis put on the one hand on the human component, as an important factor in the development of society, and on the other hand on the man-environment interaction of the past decades. The aim of the present study is to assess the population concern about the environment, and particularly about the use of asbestos (a material partly forbidden in Romania since 2007), for construction purposes. The case st...
Autori: Elena Matei
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26734

Abstract The recent awareness about recycling also involves the resources used in civil engineering. The use of Recycled Aggregate Concrete (RAC) has several advantages in terms of conservation of natural resources and of reduction of pollution. Although the interest on the use of structural concrete with recycled aggregates is increasing, extensive studies on the mechanical behaviour of such materials that can allow their use in alternative to standard concrete are still lacking. As a conse...
Autori: Marco Breccolotti
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26776

Environmental persistence of endocrine disrupting estrogen chemicals (EDC) subsequent to endocrine function even at nanogram concentration in environmental matrices has garnered significant global attention due to their possible disruptive effects in an intact organism, or its progeny. An attempt was made in present study to investigate the occurrence of two estrogens viz. natural (estriol, E3) and synthetic (17α-ethynylestradiol, EE2) in the surface waster bodies of Hyderabad, India. A...
Autori: A. Kiran Kumar
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26953

This paper examined some physical and mechanical properties of wood from thin trees of sessile oak collected from thinning operations, in order to recommend this secondary wood resource for potential superior applications (as solid wood panels and furniture components). Swelling, shrinkage, modulus of rupture (MOR) and modulus of elasticity (MOE) and compression strength parallel to the grain were examined and compared with data from literature reported for mature trees. The variation of the abo...
Autori: Alin M. Olărescu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27210

Anthropogenic influences on the hydrological network in the lower part of the Kolubara River have been notably intensive since 1959, when huge river regulation works were constructed to open new mining fields for lignite exploitation. From that moment, the Kolubara River flowed through the Pestan's riverbed (its right tributary), and the bank erosion became stronger, resulting in the lateral migration of the river course on one hand and land loss, land use changes, and economic consequenc...
Autori: Slavoljub Dragicevic
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27257

This study focuses on some mechanical properties resulted from the tensile testing of a set of green composites with a Dammar-based matrix and reinforcement material of silk, flax, cotton and hemp fabrics. To be precise, we have ascertained the characteristic curve, the resistance to and the elongation at fraction, as well as the modulus of elasticity for each set of samples from these composites and for a set of bioresin samples. With the help of an Electronic Scanning Microscope we captured im...
Autori: Ion Ciucă
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27516

Based on principal-agent model, this paper tries to solve the asymmetric information problem between the investor and agriculture leading enterprises. A mathematical model of the incentive contract is designed, on the basis of which it is investigated the design of the incentive contract under different risk preference, the change of the income when implementing the incentive contract and the changing trends of the contractors’ costs when an observable variable is included in the incentiv...
Autori: Xitai Sheng
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27547

Urban expansion, often seen as an indicator of economic growth and a possible response to housing crisis in big cities, is the main driver for carbon emissions in the metropolitan area due to higher values of household income, vehicle ownership and home size. The transport related pollution includes over 200 different compounds: besides CO2 emissions, CO, NOx, BTX and dust resulting from exhausting processes, from abrasive wear of brakes, tires and road surfaces. The expansion of the urban areas...
Autori: Lucian Roșu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27560

A coal-fired steam power plant, located near an open pit coal mine in Mae Moh, Lampang, a province in the north of Thailand, has been in operation since 1978, with a generating capacity of 2,400 megawatts, and lignite consumption of 40,000 tons/day. A maximum hourly concentration of SO2 of 3,418 μg/m3 was measured and an emission of 150 tons/hour of SO2 from the power plant was estimated. In order to mitigate the impacts of the emission on human health, crops and livestock, several measures h...
Autori: Athikom Bangviwat
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27621

Inadequate sanitation and poor infrastructure for waterborne sanitation are common in many developing countries. The anaerobic/aerobic baffled reactor (AABR) is a sustainable option for water sanitation in developing countries. In the present study, a 2.50 m3 AABR reactor working with real municipal wastewater was monitored. Four sequenced chambers, the first three being anaerobic and the fourth aerobic composed the AABR reactor. AABR efficiency and performance were examined during four diff...
Autori: Gustavo Henrique Ribeiro da Silva
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27656

Although considered a rare disease, endemic to low-income regions and unsanitary environments, leptospirosis is still encountered in some parts of Romania, in both rural and urban environments. Its specific pathways of transmission caused it to be a threat to people working with animals, pest control, farmers or those whose jobs place them in the presence of waters, sewers or in flooded areas. This paper investigates the occurrence and effects of leptospirosis by analyzing 17 cases of infec...
Autori: Doina Carmen Manciuc
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27678

This paper aims to identify the influencing factors of the acceptable amount of compensation (AAC) of farmers for controlling fertilizer-induced water pollution, and build a valid ecological compensation mechanism to curb the water impact. To this end, the ecological compensation for farmers is viewed as a good way to reduce fertilizer-induced pollution at drinking water sources, and the opportunity cost is introduced into the discussion of farmers’ AAC. To avoid the gaps of previous studi...
Autori: Jie Lin
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27781

This research aimed to analyze the impact of the introduction of a separate collection system for organic waste and cardboard in the Governorate of Tulkarem, West Bank (Occupied Palestinian Territories). The amount of waste diverted from the final disposal at the landfill of Zahret Al-Finjan was quantified and the quality of separate materials was evaluated. An economic and environmental analysis was performed to quantify the impact of separate collection in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and...
Autori: Francesca Villa
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27802

Livestock farming in rural areas in Jilin Province is producing a huge amount of organic pollutants like livestock and poultry manure, of which, a large portion is directly dumped into the Yitng River, bringing serious harm to the environment. Taking Soonlng Village as an example, this paper investigates the environmental pollution caused by the livestock husbandry in this village and builds a biogas heat storage greenhouse ecosystem, which, by using solar energy to heat the biogas digester, ...
Autori: Songying Zhao
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27943

In this paper, we determined some mechanical properties of a new category of green composites, based on tensile tests. More precisely, we selected a set of samples from a new bio-resin based on Dammar and two sets of samples from green-composites with matrix by bio-resin and reinforced with almost compact layers of Typha latifolia or Schoenoplectus lacustris. For these built materials, we obtained the characteristic curve, tensile strength, percentage elongation after fracture and elasticity mod...
Autori: Ion Ciucă
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27980

Since the middle of the past century, when the synthetic fibers began their rise, wool has steadily lost importance in the textile sector, and now is a marginal fiber on the textiles market. Great amounts of non-marketed raw wool have turned from an income source for sheep farmers into a problematic waste, which is, at best, burn or landfill. With increasing interest for sustainable use of natural resources, wool was reconsider as an underrated, underused renewable resource, worthy of a bette...
Autori: Hossein Rajabinejad
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28031

To ensure that green growth are achieved and socially optimal, we develops an endogenous growth model featuring a directed technological innovation, environmental taxation and economic activity. Our model investigates the inner dynamic interactions of green growth. Then, a numerical analysis is presented to trace how the green growth will be achieved by the four parameters: the size of tax distortions, the rate of capital tax, the elasticity of pollution conversion and the cost of carbon abateme...
Autori: Yuzhe Zhao
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28066

Challenges that characterize the relations between humans and environment can be addressed using the concepts and methods of ecosystem services assessment to provide a proper basis for environmental accountability and policy development. While the provisioning ecosystem services received a lot of focus in the science, and based on different cultural values that may be associated to different regions, there are still gaps in understanding how local communities use the ecosystems’ cultural s...
Autori: Danny Daniel Castillo Vizuete
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28126

Car fluff is an important problem for the industrial compartment, especially for Italy, considering the huge amount of waste produced by the automotive sector, approx. 180.000 ton/year. Although car fluff (CER 191004) is suitable for CSS-Combustible production, with destination to cement factories, a very low amount of it reaches this destination. An alternative way to transform this problem into an opportunity consists into the transformation of bioliquid after its thermochemical transformati...
Autori: Ivana Moscato
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28289