Plenary Lecture
On the Tradeoff between Spatiotemporal Criteria in Selecting / Evaluating / Ranking Environmental Protection Methods Applied to Waterbodies
Professor Fragiskos Batzias
Laboratory of Simulation of Industrial Processes
Department of Industrial Management and Technology
University of Piraeus
Greece
E-mail: fbatzi@unipi.gr
Abstract: The criteria used in selecting / evaluating / ranking environmental protection methods applied to waterbodies may form a tradeoff, in which case the equilibrium point determines the optimal value of the control / independent / explanatory variable each time under consideration. An example of such an independent variable is the concentration of biocide in ballast water, while the dependent variables represent the partial benefit referring to (i) the degree of elimination of invasive species in ballast water stored onboard, and (ii) the avoidance of environmental damage due to toxic substances remaining in discharged seawater when deballasting takes place near the destination port. Another example of such an independent variable is the amount of dispersant applied in seawater after an oil spill has been setup, due to either accidental or systematic pollution with liquid hydrocarbon mixture (usually crude oil or diesel or majout): the higher this amount the higher the indirect partial cost due to seawater ecosystem damage but the lesser the direct cost due to oil spill surface layer hindering air diffusion and sunlight penetration leading to oxygen deficit and photosynthesis limitation, respectively.
To deal with this problem, we have designed/developed/implemented a methodological framework under the form of an algorithmic procedure, making use of decomposition techniques and Case/Rules / Model Based Reasoning (CBR/RBR/MBR) within a dynamic ontological network. This methodology has been applied to two simulation events, river pollution and shoreline environmental management, in northern Greece and the Aegean Sea, respectively. Advanced environmental indices are synthesized to represent complex situations and the results are discusses in comparison with (i) the methodology introduced herein (meta-analysis), and (ii) similar studies selected from relevant technical literature, where simpler techniques have been used.
Brief Biography of the Speaker: Prof. Fragiskos Batzias holds a 5years Diploma and a PhD degree in Chemical Engineering, and a BSc in Economics. He has also studied Mathematics and Philosophy. He is Director of the Laboratory of Simulation of Industrial Processes and Head of the Research Group on Systems Analysis at the Department of Industrial Management and Technology of the University of Piraeus, Greece. He is teaching at the interdepartmental postgraduate courses (i) Systems of Energy Management and Protection of the Environment, running by the University of Piraeus in cooperation with the Chem. Eng. Dept. of the Nat. Tech. Univ. of Athens, and (ii) Techno-Economic Systems, running by the Electr. & Comp. Eng. Dept. of the Nat. Tech. Univ. of Athens in cooperation with the University of Athens and the University of Piraeus. His research interests are in chemical engineering systems analysis and knowledge based decision making. He has >100 publications in highly ranked journals and conference proceedings, including 29 research monographs in collective volumes, with 171 citations and an h-index of 8 (for the period 2004-2012, source: ISI Web of Science, Thompson Scientific; self-citations have been excluded).
He has participated (and chaired after invitation from the organizers) in prestigious international conferences, such as those organized periodically by the IEEE, the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE), the DECHEMA, CHISA, WSEAS Organizations. He organizes the annual Symposium on Industrial and Environmental Case Studies running successfully since 2004 within the International Conference of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering (ICCMSE).