The Importance of the Environmental Issue

Question: Describe about environmental management for sustainable development? Answer: Introduction: The importance of the environmental issue has become the larger problem in the society. The oil and gas play a vital role in our society. It is the most important source of energy. This research study has provided an overview of the environmental issues due to the exploration of oil and gas in the nature. The researcher has provided several factors that cause the environmental issue. The oil and gas exploration has been affecting the nature through water pollution, soil pollution and the air pollution (Hellawell 2012). In this context, the researcher has analyzed the impact of oil and gas exploration on the water. The oil and gas industry is actually global with huge operation system in every part of the world. The global community has been heavily relying on the oil and gas supplies. Oil and gas supply provide 63% of the global energy (Tissot and Welte 2012). The oil and gas supply has always been an ecological side effect. For example, oil spills and damaged the land. It also affects the air and water. In the modern times, it has great influenced especially in the remote countries. Therefore, the oil and gas industry have been facing challenges of providing the environmental protection. Many organizations have achieved the target but other is still suffering from the issues (Zou et al. 2012). The prime issues of oil and gas industry is transportation. Transportation and distribution are two major parts of the oil and gas industry. The organization faces challenges during transportation of oil and gas. The industry has been following some strategies to reduce this safety issues in an appropri ate manner. As per the UK regulation, they require oil and gas licensees for retaining their E P data in an accurate form. As per the regulation, the government can request any license data at any pint of time. The government has been trying to increase their renewable energy sources. The oil and gas industry has two parts such as upstream and downstream. In the upstream, it suggests the exploration and production sector of the industry. On the other hand, the Downstream suggests a specific sector that deals with refining and the processing gas and crude oil products. It also engages their distribution and the marketing of the products. The oil and gas exploration have several impacts in the nature. These impacts depend on some factors such as stage of the process, complexity of the project and the size of the projects (Jarvie 2012). The effect of oil and gas exploration on the water is gigantic. It actually damages the water resources such as water quality, water flows, ground water interaction and the surface of the water. The released wastages from the oil and gas production cause water contaminants. Firstly, it affects the ground water level. It decreases the pressure in water wells and affects the quality (Vengosh et al.2013). In the exploration phase, very little water would be generated. Most of the time, water requires top support drilling operations. Through the exploration process hydrocarbon are released into the water and it affect the water. Commercial sea fish species are sensitive to the sound. Therefore, it might disturb the fish under the water. The transportation issues on the environment have become a major problem. It causes harmful waste materials. Moreover, it is responsible for air pollution, noise and land acquisition. These issues can be reduced through supporting governmental laws and re gulations. Through the engagement of proper monitoring system, the local government could reduce the transportation issues of oil and gas exploration. The transportation issues have both direct and indirect impacts on the environment. The direct impact indicates the immediate consequences of transport activities on the environment. For example, noise and carbon monoxide emissions are known to have direct harmful effect on the nature. On the other hand, the indirect impact often causes major impacts. For example, the water pollution could damage the health of the people in the society, as there is a chance to contaminate the drinking water by mixing the wastewater of oil and gas industry. During the oil and gas production, there are large amounts of produced water are recovered with the hydrocarbons. It is cleaned in stringent standards and sometimes, it re-injected to maintain reservoir pressure. As the mount of the oil releases into the water, the amount of produced water automatically increases. Hydraulic fracturing fluids have the poisonous effect on the ground water. Most of the time, the produced water is not used in domestic or the agriculture purposes as it is enormously salty. Produced water includes NORM or the noxious compound as it is released by the production without the actual treatment (Feenberg 2012). The maximum produced-water is disposed through injecting in a clearance wells or improved recovery well. The ground water could be infected during injection of produced water. In the production phase, the degradation of water could be happened due to vehicular traffic and the machinery operations during maintenance. Sometime, the application of chloride due to dust reduction could cause the water contaminates. Cold bed methane discharges many pollutants such as ammonia, arsenic, iron, boron, radium, manganese and fluoride (Rozell and Reaven 2012). Increasing sodium in the water could affect the fish. The underground firs could include the PAHs that could pollute the underground sources of drinking water. The distribution activities may affect the surface of the ground water. If the well is not completed properly such as surface formations are not sealed-off, non-portable formation waters can affect aquifers. If the surface water and the ground water are hydrologically connected, it could cause unwanted de-watering or recharging. Some time, the pipeline that is used for the distribution of oil and gas is connected to water resources to release the wastages (Dugan 2012). Hence, it pollutes the water. Now days, it is a big threat to control water pollution due to exploration of oil and gas. Some mitigation can be happened through applying several measures. Wastewater is dangerous element for the pollution and therefore, no wastewater should be discharged in the river or other water sources. The industry must initiate the appropriate treatment of that wastewater before releasing into water resources. Water pollution can be treated through several processes such as neutralization, aeration, evaporation, oil and gas separation, carbon adsorption, flocculation (Forstner and Wittmann 2012). There are several ways to prevent such water pollution such as Sewage treatment. In this treatment process, the household water should be treated properly so that it can be environmentally safe for the society. Human and animal excreta should not be mixed in the water resources to prevent water pollution. the actual sewage system can provide some solution to this issues. Another way of treating thes e issues is to prevent the river water from pollution (Kelland 2014). The flowing water of the river cannot be cleaned easily as it is very costly process. Large numbers of external substances are discharged in the river. The wastages of the oil and gas industry mix with the river water and hence, it cause great contaminates. It could adversely affect the people who use the water as they might have diseases. Therefore, the primary effort should be taken from oil and gas industry to not throwing wastages into the river. Treatment of water before discharging is another healthy method to prevent this kind of serious issues (Hirsch et al. 2010). Factories and the large industry should consider the water treatment before discharge it into the river. The toxic material must be treated properly. Through the engagement of chemically treatment, the toxic material can be converted into harmless materials. Therefore, the oil and gas industry should try to recycle their treated water before dis charging it into the water resources. The factories and the industries must follow the laws and legislation related to water contaminates. Adherence to the water law can facilitate to reduce water pollution (Koh and Sum 2010). As per the new edition of BP energy outlook 2035, the global demand for energy is expected to rise by 37 percent by 2035. Hence, it is a big challenge for the country like India, china. Carbon emission continues to grow in the environment and it causes pollution. Moreover, the growing of LNG becomes dominating factor in trade. In the oil and gas production, the volumes of the produced waters increase as the hydrocarbon resources are being decreased. The produced water dominates over wastages. It includes the injection water, brine, formation water and other technological waters. Formation water and the brine water are extracted along with oil and gas. On the other hand, injection waters are pumped into the injection wells to maintain the pressure of the system and pushing the hydrocarbon towards the producing well. All these waters are polluted waters that contain inorganic salts, hydrocarbon and the technological chemical. Therefore, theses waters are needed to be cleaned through applying several processes before discharging it into the sea. This cleaning process under the marine conditions is difficult technical task. Units on the platforms use a special separation for the oil separation (Koh and Sum 2010). The quality of produced water suggests either discharged into the river or injected into the dispo sal well. Sometimes the mixture of oil and water are transported through the pipelines to the onshore separation units. On the other hand, all kinds of drilling include the drilling mud and cuttings. A new technology has been developed recently to remove the drilling wastes. It provides some achievements of zero discharge of oil containing wastes during offshore oil and gas production (Huang et al.2010). The industry investigates some other measures in order to reduce the discharges. The industries avoid the sensitive locations for discharging these wastes waters. The industry could new initiatives for wastewater management. The new technology promises to improve the sustainability of the water resources. The new system creates new needs that suggest the technological development in the society. The need for change primarily suggests the new technological development due to heavy consumption of resources. The current population is growing and it is the threat for the society to prov ide clean resources of the water. Water stress affects the small amount of people in the world but it is expected that it could affect 45 percent of the global population by 2025 (Kostianoy and Lavrova 2014). Unlike other natural resources, the water is easily renewable. Therefore, the industry could take the initiatives to renewable wastewater. Many industries rely on the recycling technologies as it significantly reduces net water abstraction from the environment. The urban water management system causes water stress. In this process, the amount of nutrients like phosphorus increases. Although, the water service is provided uniformly across the world, nearly 1 billion people on the planet do not have the access to safe drinking water. On the other hand, 2.5 billion people do not have the adequate sanitation system (Kneese 2015). Therefore, the efficient urban water management is needed to meet global needs. Wastewater utilities have not been popular in many places. Therefore, the water management could facilitate to utilize wastewaters. The need of new approaches is driven by the need of sustainability. It can be defined as below: Providing access of clean water and sanitation Increase the use of local water resources Energy neutrality Taking more responsibility for nutrient management Financially stable utilities The area of sustainability must contain economy, environment and the society. The economical goal is to provide financially stable utilities with adequate resources for maintaining the infrastructure. The environmental goal includes three major factors such as sustainable water supply in the locality, energy neutral system with minimal chemical consumption and responsible nutrient management. The sustainable goal can be achieved through utilizing the new technologies. Membrane filtration systems have been developed for the water-reclamation systems (Feenberg 2012). Its micro and ultra filtration membrane provide excellent pretreatment for RO. With the engagement of MBR treatment solid residence times (SRT) are increased. It helps in completing the biological treatment along with the retention of pathogen. Nanotechnology provides the higher performing membranes with less fouling characteristics. It provides the advancement in RO technology consisted with enhanced membrane and configur ations, efficient pumping and energy recovery system and the development of process technology (Dugan 2012). Monitoring and the control systems is a complex system that provides sophisticated method of monitoring process (Weiland 2010). The production and consumption of reclaimed water should be balanced. It should not exceed the storage capacity. Therefore, the water production must be managed to maintain the integrity of the entire system. The local government should take the initiative to provide the monitoring system for preventing water pollution. There must be an operational team. They will be responsible for detecting such things that could pollute the river. The enforcement team could use several field agents to monitor on the river bodies. Ongoing work monitoring is essential for reducing the water pollution. Under the water framework directive, staffs and members are required to monitor and report on the status and the classification of the water quality (Weiland 2010). Thereby, it is determined by assessing an arrangement of chemical, biological, ecological and hydromorphilogical quality elements for assigning status from high to bad quality. The local authority must collect the water report from the agent on daily basis. They may start a hotline facility through which the people could inform the authority about the water condition. Several environment agencies and communication centre could facilitate the loc al government to gather updated report of the water status in the society (Kneese 2015). Conclusion: It can be concluded that the exploration of gas and oil industry roughly affect the environment. The serious action must be taken in order to save the nature. In this scenario, the researcher has discussed the effect of exploration, production and distribution of oil and gas industry in the environment. The researcher has analyzed the water pollution made by oil and gas industry. The researcher has discussed the new technologies that may prevent the water pollution. Monitoring system and enforcement program has been discussed in an appropriate manner. By analyzing the topic, the researcher has understood the importance of the water treatment before discharging it into the river or other water resources. References Dugan, P., 2012.Biochemical ecology of water pollution. Springer Science Business Media. Feenberg, D., 2012.Measuring the benefits of water pollution abatement. Elsevier. Forstner, U. and Wittmann, G.T., 2012.Metal pollution in the aquatic environment. Springer Science Business Media. Hellawell, J.M. ed., 2012.Biological indicators of freshwater pollution and environmental management. Springer Science Business Media. Hirsch, R.L., Bezdek, R. and Wendling, R., 2010. Peaking of World Oil Production and Its Mitigation.Driving Climate Change: Cutting Carbon from Transportation, p.9. Huang, G., Chen, F., Wei, D., Zhang, X. and Chen, G., 2010. Biodiesel production by microalgal biotechnology.Applied energy,87(1), pp.38-46. Jarvie, D.M., 2012. Shale resource systems for oil and gas: Part 2Shale-oil resource systems. Kelland, M.A., 2014.Production chemicals for the oil and gas industry. CRC press. Kneese, A.V., 2015.Water Pollution: Economics Aspects and Research Needs. Routledge. Koh, C.A. and Sum, A. eds., 2010.Natural gas hydrates in flow assurance. Gulf Professional Publishing. Kostianoy, A.G. and Lavrova, O.Y., 2014. Oil pollution in the Baltic Sea.The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry. Rozell, D.J. and Reaven, S.J., 2012. Water pollution risk associated with natural gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale.Risk Analysis,32(8), pp.1382-1393. Tissot, B. and Welte, D., 2012.Petroleum formation and occurrence: a new approach to oil and gas exploration. Springer Science Business Media. Vengosh, A., Warner, N., Jackson, R. and Darrah, T., 2013. The effects of shale gas exploration and hydraulic fracturing on the quality of water resources in the United States.Procedia Earth and Planetary Science,7, pp.863-866. Weiland, P., 2010. Biogas production: current state and perspectives.Applied microbiology and biotechnology,85(4), pp.849-860. Zou, C., Zhu, R.K., Wu, S.T., Yang, Z., Tao, S.Z., Yuan, X.J., Hou, L.H., Yang, H., Xu, C.C., Li, D.H. and Bai, B., 2012. Types, characteristics, genesis and prospects of conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon accumulations: taking tight oil and tight gas in China as an instance.Acta Petrolei Sinica,33(2), pp.173-187.