Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

This student version of the popular bestseller, Life Cycle Assessment Handbook, is not a watered-down version of the original, but retains all of the important information and valuable lessons provided in the first book, along with helpful problems and solutions for the student learning about Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). As the last several decades have seen a dramatic rise in the application of LCA in decision making, the interest in the life cycle concept as an environmental management and sustainability tool continues to grow. The LCA Student Handbook offers a look at the role that life cycle information, in the hands of companies, governments and consumers, may have in improving the environmental performance of products and technologies. It concisely and clearly presents the various aspects of LCA in order to help the reader better understand the subject. The international success of the sustainability paradigm needs the participation of many stakeholders, including citizens, corporations, academia, and NGOs. The handbook links LCA and responsible decision making and how the life cycle concept is a critical element in environmental sustainability. It covers issues such as building capacity in developing countries and emerging economies so that they are more capable of harnessing the potential in LCA for sustainable development. Governments play a very important role with the leverage they have through procurement, regulation, international treaties, tax incentives, public outreach, and other policy tools. This compilation of points to the clear trend for incorporating life cycle information into the design and development processes for products and policies, just as quality and safety concerns are now addressed throughout product design and development. The Life Cycle Assessment Student Handbook is not just for students. It is also a valuable resource for practitioners looking for a desktop reference on LCA or for any engineer, manager, or policy-maker wishing to learn about LCA.

Everyone jokes about the 20/20 hindsight of cost management. In Life-Cycle Costing, Jan Emblemsvag proposes to do something about it. Here's a new approach to life cycle costing that brings activity-based costing, risk, and uncertainty into the forefront. You'll focus on future costs and learn how you can perform any type of cost management activity better than before by introducing uncertainty into models and exploiting them to the max. Order your copy today!

Whole life-cycle costing (WLCC) is rapidly becoming the standard method for the long-term cost appraisal of buildings and civil infrastructure projects. With clients now demanding buildings that demonstrate value for money over the long term, WLCC has become an essential tool for those involved in the design, construction, operation and risk analysis of construction projects. Whole-life costing: risk and risk responses offers a thorough grounding in both the theory and practical application of WLCC. Part I deals with the fundamentals, providing the general background to appreciate WLCC concepts and whole life risk management techniques at the key decision-making milestones through a project’s life. Part II covers the design stage, including service life forecasting and environmental life-cycle assessment techniques in WLCC. Practical frameworks both for assessing whole life risks and risk responses, as well as guidance on developing WLCC budget estimates are also developed. In Part III, the authors consider WLCC during the construction and operations stages, with a strong emphasis upon risk analysis methods and dynamic WLCC assessment. With its mixture of established theory, best practice and innovative approaches, this book will help you make more accurate assessments of the long-term cost effectiveness of projects by: providing a thorough grounding in the theory of WLCC demonstrating how decision-making uncertainty can be reduced by basing choices on sound risk management principles identifying a systematic approach to planning the post-occupancy costs.

Introduces risk assessment with key theories, proven methods, and state-of-the-art applications Risk Assessment: Theory, Methods, and Applications  remains one of the few textbooks to address current risk analysis and risk assessment with an emphasis on the possibility of sudden, major accidents across various areas of practice—from machinery and manufacturing processes to nuclear power plants and transportation systems. Updated to align with ISO 31000 and other amended standards, this all-new  2nd Edition  discusses the main ideas and techniques for assessing risk today. The book begins with an introduction of risk analysis, assessment, and management, and includes a new section on the history of risk analysis. It covers hazards and threats, how to measure and evaluate risk, and risk management. It also adds new sections on risk governance and risk-informed decision making; combining accident theories and criteria for evaluating data sources; and subjective probabilities. The risk assessment process is covered, as are how to establish context; planning and preparing; and identification, analysis, and evaluation of risk.  Risk Assessment  also offers new coverage of safe job analysis and semi-quantitative methods, and it discusses barrier management and HRA methods for offshore application. Finally, it looks at dynamic risk analysis, security and life-cycle use of risk.  Serves as a practical and modern guide to the current applications of risk analysis and assessment, supports key standards, and supplements legislation related to risk analysis Updated and revised to align with ISO 31000 Risk Management and other new standards and includes new chapters on security, dynamic risk analysis, as well as life-cycle use of risk analysis Provides in-depth coverage on hazard identification, methodologically outlining the steps for use of checklists, conducting preliminary hazard analysis, and job safety analysis Presents new coverage on the history of risk analysis, criteria for evaluating data sources, risk-informed decision making, subjective probabilities, semi-quantitative methods, and barrier management Contains more applications and examples, new and revised problems throughout, and detailed appendices that outline key terms and acronyms Supplemented with a book companion website containing Solutions to problems, presentation material and an Instructor Manual Risk Assessment: Theory, Methods, and Applications, Second Edition  is ideal for courses on risk analysis/risk assessment and systems engineering at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It is also an excellent reference and resource for engineers, researchers, consultants, and practitioners who carry out risk assessment techniques in their everyday work.

Offers solutions and best practices to respond to recurrent problems and contemporary challenges in the field Since the publication of the first edition of Environmental Impact Assessment in 2003, both the practice and theory of impact assessment have changed substantially. Not only has the field been subject to a great deal of new regulations and guidelines, it has also evolved tremendously, with a greater emphasis on strategic environmental, sustainability, and human health impact assessments. Moreover, there is a greater call for impact assessments from a global perspective. This Second Edition, now titled Impact Assessment to reflect its broader scope and the breadth of these many changes, offers students and practitioners a current guide to today's impact assessment practice. Impact Assessment begins with an introduction and then a chapter reviewing conventional approaches to the field. Next, the book is organized around recurrent problems and contemporary challenges in impact assessment process design and management, enabling readers to quickly find the material they need to solve tough problems, including: How to make impact assessments more influential, rigorous, rational, substantive, practical, democratic, collaborative, ethical, and adaptive How each problem and challenge-reducing process would operate at the regulatory and applied levels How each problem can be approached for different impact assessment types—sustainability assessment, strategic environmental assessment, project-level EIA, social impact assessment, ecological impact assessment, and health impact assessment How to link and combine impact assessment processes to operate in situations with multiple overlapping problems, challenges, and impact assessment types How to connect and combine impact assessment processes Each chapter first addresses the topic with current theory and then demonstrates how that theory is applied, presenting requirements, guidelines, and best practices. Summaries at the end of each chapter provide a handy tool for structuring the design and evaluation of impact assessment processes and documents. Readers will find analyses and new case studies that address such issues as multi-jurisdictional impact assessment, climate change, cumulative effects assessment, follow-up, capacity building, interpreting significance, and the siting of major industrial and waste facilities. Reflecting current theory and standards of practice, Impact Assessment is appropriate for both students and practitioners in the field, enabling them to confidently respond to a myriad of new challenges in the field.

Risk Assessment Explore the fundamentals of risk assessment with references to the latest standards, methodologies, and approaches The Second Edition of Risk Assessment: A Practical Guide to Assessing Operational Risks delivers a practical exploration of a wide array of risk assessment tools in the contexts of preliminary hazard analysis, job safety analysis, task analysis, job risk assessment, personnel protective equipment hazard assessment, failure mode and effect analysis, and more. The distinguished authors discuss the latest standards, theories, and methodologies covering the fundamentals of risk assessments, as well as their practical applications for safety, health, and environmental professionals with risk assessment responsibilities. “What If”/Checklist Analysis Methods are included for additional guidance. Now in full color, the book includes interactive exercises, links, videos, and online risk assessment tools that can be immediately applied by working practitioners. The authors have also included: Material that reflects the latest updates to ISO standards, the ASSP Technical Report, and the ANSI Z590.3 Prevention through Design standard New hazard phrases for chemical hazards in the Globally Harmonized System, as well as NIOSH’s new occupational exposure banding tool The new risk-based approach featured in the NAVY IH Field Manual New chapters covering business continuity, causal factors analysis, and layers of protection analysis and barrier analysis An indispensable resource for employed safety professionals in a variety of industries, business leaders and staff personnel with safety responsibilities, and environmental engineers Risk Assessment: A Practical Guide to Assessing Operational Risks is also useful for students in safety, health, and environmental science courses.

The latest edition of this perennial bestseller instructs and updates students and clinicians on the basic principles of psychological assessment and measurement, recent changes in assessment procedures, and the most widely used tests in counseling practice today. Dr. Danica Hays guides counselors in the appropriate selection, interpretation, and communication of assessment results. This edition covers more than 100 assessment instruments used to evaluate substance abuse and other mental health disorders, intelligence, academic aptitude and achievement, career and life planning, personal interests and values, assessment of personality, and interpersonal relationships. In addition, a new chapter on future trends in assessment discusses the changing cultural landscape, globalization, and technology. Perfect for introductory classes, this text provides students and instructors with practical tools such as bolded key terminology; chapter pretests, summaries, and review questions; self-development and reflection activities; class and field activities; diverse client case examples; practitioner perspectives illustrating assessment in action; and resources for further reading. PowerPoint slides, a test bank, a sample syllabus, and chapter outlines to facilitate teaching are available to instructors by request to ACA.

A guide to conducting Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment to promote client growth Mental health professionals are increasingly enthusiastic about and ready to use psychological test data, research, and theory in life-relevant ways to improve diagnosis, client care, and treatment outcomes. With Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment (C/TA), clients participate actively with the assessor in exploring how their test scores and patterns reflect who they are in their daily lives and how they can learn to help themselves cope with life's challenges. Using a case study approach to demonstrate how to apply C/TA in practice, Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment provides practitioners with a variety of flexible and adaptable case examples featuring adults, children, adolescents, couples, and families from different backgrounds in need of treatment for assorted concerns. Designed for both experienced and novice clinicians, the book begins with a brief history of C/TA, and provides clear definitions of the distinctions among many common approaches. It uniquely presents: Eighteen diverse C/TA assessments covering: depression, multiple suicide attempts, severe abuse, dissociation, an adolescent psychiatric ward, custody evaluation, a couple in crisis, and collaborative neuropsychology Guidance on how both client and clinician can agree on the best course of action through joint exploration of assessment procedures, results, and implications Closely related approaches to psychological testing, including Individualized Assessment, Collaborative Assessment, Therapeutic Model of Assessment, Collaborative/Therapeutic Neuropsychological Assessment, and Rorschach-based psychotherapy Clearly labeled Teaching Points in each chapter Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment provides psychologists in all areas of assessment, and at all levels of experience, with powerful C/TA examples that can dramatically illuminate and improve clients' lives.

A new guide to conducting more comprehensive and meaningful psychological assessments of young children Early Childhood Assessment presents a thorough, step-by-step approach to the comprehensive psychological assessment of young children. In addition to covering major psychological tests, this invaluable resource includes specific guidelines and formats for interviewing parents and other caregivers, observing children and caregiver-child interaction, conducting dynamic assessments, writing reports, and evaluating outcomes of recommended interventions. Dr. Lidz's approach encourages a broad range of observation with an overarching objective of completing a picture of the «whole» child, from family life to social-emotional and neuropsychological functioning. She leads the reader through each step of a comprehensive assessment, touching on the major data sources necessary for a full understanding of the child within different environments. Throughout the book, Dr. Lidz advocates best assessment practices that reflect the interests of children and families. Features useful information on: * Conducting initial interviews and observations for setting the course of the assessment * Using standardized and nonstandardized approaches to generate both qualitative and quantitative data * Viewing children and families within their cultural contexts * Integrating assessment data sources to generate meaningful recommendations and readable reports Plus: * Includes unique chapters on play, observation of parent-child and teacher-child interactions, and dynamic assessment Early Childhood Assessment is a valuable tool for professionals and students who are concerned about the richness and complexity of children's development within their families and communities.