Issue 3

This paper deals with the analysis of atmospheric concentrations of secondary photochemical air pollutants
in Athens for the 11-year period 1987-1997. Photochemical pollution, which seems to be the
most serious air pollution problem in Athens, is originating mainly from the transformation of car
emissions, and its control is a quite complicated task since various non-linear phenomena are implicated.
The main subject of this work is to examine whether the substantial decrease observed in the
concentrations of the primary air pollutants, especially for CO, in Athens in recent years is followed by
a corresponding decrease in the photochemical air pollutant levels in the Athens basin, while the characteristics
of the seasonal and diurnal profiles of photochemical pollution are investigated. In this context,
the interannual variability of O3 and OX (O3 + NO2) is examined for the peripheral stations of
Liossia (10 km northwest from city center) and Smyrni (5 km southeast), which have continuous
records of O3 and NO2 data since 1987. In general, the concentrations of the photochemical pollutants
(especially OX) in both examined stations are comparable, while they seem to have remained essentially
at the same levels since 1990. Further pollution abatement measures should be taken in order to
comply with the EU ozone air pollution standards in the Athens basin.

In recent years, a considerable research effort has been devoted to Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA).
However, most of the work has been focusing on improving the methodology as such and providing
guidelines for carrying out LCA studies. Much less effort has been dedicated to the exploration and
analysis of the applications of LCA within the actual context of business. Which are the drivers for
starting LCA activities in a company? Which are the main applications? Which business departments
are involved? This is the kind of questions addressed by the present paper.
The paper reports the results of a survey about the use of LCA in business in four selected European
Countries, namely Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland. 1600 questionnaires have been sent out to
selected companies in the four countries. As expected, there are considerable differences between
countries because of a different level of environmental awareness. However, there are some main common
results. The first one is that the cultural approach of Life-Cycle-Thinking is spreading out, but not
yet the tool. LCA is not yet used as a routine tool for assessing environmental aspects of product innovation
and it is still rather employed in a retrospective way than in a prospective one. Benefits of LCA
are considered to be rather long-term ones. On the other hand, the large majority of firms is optimistic
about the future use of LCA, most likely linked together with other instruments.

A risk-based decision analysis methodology is presented, that can be used as a water policy tool in the
design of economic incentive instruments, under conditions of uncertainty. A contaminated groundwater
resource system with unknown hydrogeological parameters is used as a case study. The polluter
has to select the policy to be followed among a series of alternatives, ranging from the extreme and
environmentally risky scenario of paying pollution charges as long as the aquifer will remain polluted,
up to the conservative option in terms of reduced environmental risks policy of safely rehabilitating the
groundwater system. The full-cost price of water, including direct, opportunity, and environmental
costs, both actual and probabilistic, as well as the risks of failure of the alternative scenarios due to the
uncertainty, as they result from stochastic simulation, are embedded in a risk-cost-benefit decision
model, developed for the evaluation of the alternatives. The pollution charges to be imposed by the
local water authority are determined through the appropriate development of this model and the use
of a proposed algorithm, in a way that these charges can act as incentives to the polluters, forcing them,
or the authorities, to select the most environmentally sustainable water policy, namely that of safely
restoring the aquifer.