Methodological background Clause Samples
Methodological background. Material flow accounting is a tool for measuring the use of natural resources and for analysing the flows of materials through economic activities. Material flow accounts have been developed in many countries and the indicators are used for improving material efficiency. Information provided by material flow statistics is essential for achieving the goal of eco-efficiency as reducing the use of materials in the economy and their environmental impacts. The relevance of purely physical material flow statistics and balances alone for policy and decision-making purposes is often seen to be quite low. The use of physical statistics in environmental accounting is aimed at connecting data on material flow to other data in economic sectors or product groups reflecting economic sectors involved and thus improve and expand the information produced by material flow statistics for policy formulation and decision-making in both environmental and economic spheres. For these purposes the data on material flows are also applied in the SEEA and NAMEA frameworks. The use of material flow statistics in modelling including both physical and economic components, input-output approaches, and linking material flows to information on environmental quality and land use are expected to further expand their usefulness. In the preliminary stage of the pilot project we studied the methodological recommendations of Eurostat and filtered the relevant parts applicable for the Slovenian economy. We followed the economy-wide material balance scheme of Eurostat so we also excluded air and water flows. In the scope of this project we concentrated on the direct material input categories: domestic extraction of raw materials and biomass as well as import and export. We were only working on the compilation of the direct flows for the following reasons: • the data are more easily available therefore we do not need complicated estimations and assumptions; • in the field data are more reliable compared to indirect flows, which are not easy to be estimated. MFA tables and databases are methodologically consistent with the Eurostat recommendations together with the description of the tables and results in order to efficiently contribute to the harmonised system of the European material flow accounts. We calculated two indicators DMI and DMC for 2000–2005. Direct material inputs (DMI) are all solid, liquid and gaseous materials that enter the economy for further use, either in production or consumpti...
Methodological background. The identification of benefits constitutes a part of the Benefits-Costs analysis, therefore, to carry out this phase the European Commission’s Guide to Cost-Benefit Analysis of Investment Projects is used as a methodological reference. The objective of the guide reflects a specific requirement for the European Commission to offer practical guidance on major project appraisals, as embodied in the cohesion policy legislation for 2014-2020. Following the guide, the benefit identification and analysis is structured in five steps, described in the following paragraphs: • Description of the contest, • Definition of objectives, • Case study identification, • Benefit analysis, • Risk assessment.
Methodological background. The process of assessing seismic hazard can be divided into three principle tasks, as shown in the often-reproduced figure from TERA Corporation (1980), shown here as Figure 1. These tasks are the identification of seismic sources, the description of seismic sources in terms of the characteristics of the earthquake activity, and the characterisation of the propagation of strong ground motion from earthquakes occurring in those sources. It is often the case that a seismic hazard project is divided into two areas of work: seismic source characterisation (SSC) and ground motion characterisation (GMC). The SSC part of a project is a combination of the first two tasks, while the GMC part is the third task. The purpose of this report is to discuss the second task, the characterisation of earthquake recurrence within a seismic source; in particular, within a seismic source zone (SSZ), taken to be an area containing one or more populations of faults such that one can reasonably conclude that there is an equal chance of an earthquake occurring anywhere within the SSZ. For SSZs, the key to assessing earthquake activity is largely through analysis of the relevant section of the regional earthquake catalogue. For fault sources, other approaches can be used based on slip rate. Two assumptions are generally made about earthquake occurrence within a SSZ: firstly, that seismicity follows a Poisson process, and secondly, that seismicity follows a ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇- ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ power law model according to equation (1). Log N = a – b M (1) In equation (1), N is the cumulative number of earthquakes per year equal to or greater than magnitude M, and a and b are constants. Equation (1) can also be written Log N = a – b ( M – m0) (2) where m0 represents a threshold magnitude of interest. Note that neither assumption is absolutely necessary in probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA), but they are usually found to be an adequate representation of reality. If these assumptions are taken as applicable, it follows that the earthquake behaviour of a SSZ can be adequately described by three parameters: the a and b constants in equation (1), and the maximum possible earthquake, Mmax. This last is required; from equation (1) it would be possible to infer that there is an infinitely small possibility of an infinitely large earthquake, which is not the case. Equation (1) has to be considered as truncated at some upper bound magnitude that expresses the physical limit on earthquake size that co...