Tesi di Dottorato
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Item Modeling of biological permeable reactive barriers(2017-07-11) Arias Arias, Fabian Ernesto; Pantano, Pietro; Straface, Salvatore; Molinari., RaffaeleItem Remediation of polluted waters by means of surface modified natural cellulose fibers(2019-03-21) Tursi, Antonio; Andò, Sebastiano; Chidichimo, GiuseppeItem The determinants and the effects of the environmental taxation in european countries(2017) Minervini, Maria Teresa; Infante, DavideThe economic growth has always been associated with increasing use of energy and resource. The countries around the world continue to advance economically and, in this way, they put a strain on the ability of the natural environment to absorb the high level of pollutants that are created as a part of this economic growth. Therefore, solutions need to be found so that the economies of the world can continue to grow, but not at the expense of the public good. In the world of the economics, the amount of environmental quality must be considered as limited in supply and, therefore, it must be treated as a scarce resource. This is a resource to be protected. Taxes are the most important used economic instruments available to deal efficiently with pollution and thereby help to protect the environment. In the last ten/twelve years, a growing number of European countries implemented the Environmental Tax Reform (ETR). The Reform refers to “changes in the national tax system where the burden of taxes shifts from economic functions, sometimes called “goods”, such as labour (personal income tax), capital (corporate income tax) and consumption (VAT and other indirect taxes), to activities that lead to environmental pressures and natural resource use, sometimes called “bads”. Therefore, ETR can provide two benefits: the environmental benefit from charging the full cost of environmental resources, and the economic benefit from the reduction in other distortionary taxes. The reform is thus said to offer the possibility of a “double dividend”: it would improve not only the environment but also the economy as a whole. III The main concern of the present work is to analyze the determinants and the effects of the environmental taxation in European countries. Specifically, the research questions are: - Which institutional and governmental factors affect the level of environmental taxation? Understanding the determinants of the environmental taxation could yield a more efficient taxation system. - Is the environmental taxation effective in reducing the pollution levels? (First Dividend). - Is there a tax-shifting between environmental and labour taxes? Moreover, is there an employment gain? (Second Dividend). The thesis is introduced in Chapter 1, which outlines the context, the motivation and the aim of this research. Chapter 2 examines the determinants of the environmental taxation using a panel dataset of 22 European countries for the period from 1996 to 2012. The analysis searches for the environmental taxation determinants by concentrating on three groups of factors. The first group includes the variables responsible for consumption and production processes; the second group refers to the factors that reflect environmental quality; the indicators of the quality of governance are included in the third group. The countries of the sample, in turn, are also divided into three groups in order to highlight the heterogeneity existing of European economies depending on the degree of economic development, environmental awareness and quality of institutions. Findings suggest that in order to apply environmental taxation policy, countries should take advantage of the interrelationship between the IV economic growth and the institutional enforcement; in other words, the connection between economic development and environmental awareness inevitably requires the application and enforcement of functional environmental policies. Chapter 3 analyzes the effectiveness of environmental taxes and the other climate change policies and measures, such as feed in tariff, green certificates and loans. Using a panel dataset that covers 22 European countries over the period 2001-2012, I estimate an OLS and an Arellano–Bover’s (1995) two-step dynamic panel approach to verify whether the environmental tools and the introduction of the Environmental Tax Reform have a significant impact in improving environmental quality. Results show that the environmental taxes, the climate change direct investments and fiscal and financial incentives have an important role in reducing pollution levels. The introduction of the Environmental tax reform, also, has a high effect in improving environmental quality. Chapter 4 verifies the existence of the “second dividend”. The aim of the chapter is to determine if increasing environmental taxes can reduce other distortionary taxes, in particular labour tax. Depending on which taxes rates are cut and the specific country considered, the second dividend could generate cuts in labor taxes and, therefore, employment gains. I use a panel dataset that covers 22 European countries over the period 2000-2012 to investigate whether the environmental tax affects the labour tax burden and, consequently, the unemployment rate. I handle endogeneity problems through an instrumental variable approach. Results show that environmental taxation has a significant impact on labour tax, but no impact on V unemployment levels.Item <> modelling study of atmospheric cycle of mercury and its exchange processes at environmental interfaces(2015-12-18) De Simone, Francesco; Bertolini, Roberto; Carbone, Vincenzo; Pirrone, Nicola; HedgecocK, Ian M.Since ancient times human activities have significantly altered the natural global Mercury (Hg) cycle through emissions to the environment. Hg is a global pollutant since its predominant atmospheric form, elemental Hg, reacts relatively slowly with the more abundant atmospheric oxidants and is therefore transported long distances from its emission source. Once oxidised however Hg is readily deposited, an can then be converted to the toxic monomethylmercury (MeHg) in soils and natural waters. MeHg is able to bioaccumulate and biomagnify, up to levels at which it is harmful to human health. Mercury pollution is therefore a threat to ecosystem health on a global scale, and is now being addressed by an international agreement, the Minamata Convention. Comprehensive knowledge of the details of the atmospheric Hg cycle is still lacking, and in particular there is some uncertainty regarding the atmospherically relevant reduction-oxidation reactions of mercury and its compounds. The exchange of Hg and its compounds between the atmosphere and the oceans also plays an important role in the cycling of mercury in the environment: understanding and quantifying mercury deposition patterns and fluxes is critically important for the assessment of the present, and future, environmental impact of mercury contamination. ECHMERIT is a global on-line chemical transport model, based on the ECHAM5 global circulation model, with a highly customisable chemistry mechanism designed to facilitate the investigation of both aqueous and gas phase atmospheric mercury chemistry. An improved version of the model which includes a new set of emissions routines, both on-line and off-line, has been developed and used for this thesis to investigate and assess a number of the uncertainties related to the Hg atmospheric cycle. Outputs of multi-year model simulations have been used to validate the model and to estimate emissions from oceans. Various redox mechanisms have been included to assess how chemical reactions influence the models ability to reproduce measured Hg concentrations and deposition flux patterns. To characterize the Hg emissions which result from Biomass Burning , three recent biomass burning inventories (FINNv1.0, GFEDv3.1 and GFASv1.0) were included in the model and used to investigate the annual variation of Hg. The differences in the geographical distribution and magnitude of the resulting Hg deposition fluxes, hence the uncertainty associated with this Hg source, were quantified. The roles of the Hg/CO enhancement ratio, the emission plume injection height, the Hg0 (g) oxidation mechanism and lifetime, and the inventory chosen, as well as their uncertainty were considered. The greatest uncertainties in the total deposition of Hg due to fires were found to be associated with the Hg/CO enhancement ratio and the emission inventory employed. Deposition flux distributions proved to be more sensitive to the emission inventory and the oxidation mechanism chosen, than all the other model parameters. Over 75% of Hg emitted from biomass burning is deposited to the world’s oceans, with the highest fluxes predicted in the North Atlantic and the highest total deposition in the North Pacific. The net effect of biomass burning is to liberate Hg from lower latitudes and disperse it towards higher latitudes where it is eventually deposited. Finally, the model was used to evaluate the fate of the Hg released into the atmosphere by human activities. Anthropogenic emissions are estimated to amount to roughly 2000Mg/y (1000-4000 Mg/y). Hg speciation (elemental, oxidised or associated with particulate matter) is subject to many uncertainties: the extremely variable lifetimes among Hg species, as well as the Hg emission heights, in combination with the complex physical and chemical mechanisms that drive its final fall-out lead to considerable uncertainties. To address this specific issue three anthropogenic Hg emission inventories, namely AMAP-UNEP, EDGAR and Streets, were included in the Model. Different model parametrisations were adopted to trace the fate of Hg to its final receptors and to thoroughly test the model performance against the measurements. Primary anthropogenic Hg contributes up to 40% of the present day Hg deposition. The oxidation mechanism has a significant impact on the geographical distribution of the deposition of Hg emitted from human activities globally, : 63% is deposited to the world’s oceans. The results presented in this thesis provide a new and unique picture of the global cycle of mercury, evaluating and assessing the uncertainties related to many aspects with an on-line Global Circulation Model developed specifically to investigate the global atmospheric Hg cycle.