Transportation (main)

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Transportation


  • Noise pollution Featured Article Noise pollution Noise pollution (Transportation)
    Noise pollution is unwanted or harmful sound that intrudes upon human or other faunal activity. Noise pollution is almost entirely human generated, whether by machine sources... More »
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Indiana Dunes Habitat Fragmentation.jpg Roads, highways, and ecosystems Last Updated on 2014-11-30 22:01:04 Lead Author: John Stilgoe (other articles) Content Partners: National Humanities Center (other articles) and TeacherServe (other articles) Article Topics: Transportation This article has been reviewed and approved by the following Topic Editor: Brian Black (other articles) EDITOR'S NOTE: This entry was originally published as "Roads, Highways and Ecosystems" in the series "Nature Transformed: The Environment in American History," developed by the National Humanities Center and TeacherServe. Citations should be based on the original essay. In the United States, formal education begins on the road, often along the city street. Nowadays for the bulkof students away from downtown urban America, it begins aboard the yellow school bus collecting children bound for the first day of kindergarten. Before most children encounter principals and teachers,... More »
Beijing-Air-Pollution--011.jpg Pollution (Transportation) Last Updated on 2014-11-09 17:40:04 Pollution is environmental contamination that results in harm or death to living organisms. Most pollution is in the form of chemical additions to air, water or soil; however, in modern times starting in the mid-twentieth century noise and light have been considered as pollution sources. Most pollution is man-made, with natural fluctuations in atmospheric composition, surface water bodies and soil considered temporal gyrations in the Earth's natural history. The chief driver of pollution is the massive growth in human population, which induces the proximate causes of intensive agriculture and extraordinary industrial output. The United Nations and the Blacksmith Institute[1] are two prominent organisations that tabulate locales of the greatest pollution intensity; while their listings do not correspond precisely, the overlap countries that both entities agree are the worst polluted... More »
ContentImg.jpg Lovins, Amory B. Last Updated on 2013-09-12 20:08:35 Amory B. Lovins (1947-), an American physicist noted for his advocacy of renewable energy and energy efficiency. His book, Soft Energy Paths (1977), was among the first to articulate the social and environmental imperatives of shifting from the “hard” (fossil and nuclear fuels) to “soft” (renewable) energy sources. Lovins formed the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colorado, a leading think tank and advocacy group aimed at shifting the hydrocarbon, automobile, real estate, electricity, water, semiconductor, and other industries toward advanced resource productivity. Lovins had a particular interest in automotive technology. He led the design of the Hypercar®, a vehicle designed to capture the synergies of ultralight construction, low-drag design, hybrid-electric drive, fuel cells running on compressed gaseous hydrogen fuel, and efficient... More »
Linesourcenigelcox.jpg Nonpoint source (Transportation) Last Updated on 2013-05-23 00:00:00 A nonpoint source refers to a source of pollution from an origin other than a well defined point. The term is most often applied to air pollution, water pollution and noise pollution. Nonpoint pollution sources may be classified as either line sources, area sources, or less frequently as volume sources. The classic line source is a linear highway, which produces both air pollution and noise pollution. A classic area source is a parcel of land, which produces water pollution in the form of surface runoff containing excessive amounts of nitrates, phosphates, pesticides and herbicides. The attention to nonpoint sources was heightened, when researchers realized that most human exposure to air and noise pollution derived from nonpoint sources. In the case of noise pollution, over ninety percent of environmental noise exposure worldwide arises from line sources .Less commonly,... More »
MalaccaClose.gif.jpeg Strait of Malacca Last Updated on 2013-05-16 00:00:00 The Strait of Malacca, located between Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, links the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea and Persian Gulf. The length of the strait is about 800 kilometres. At its narrowest point in the Phillips Channel of the Singapore Strait, Malacca is only approximately 1.7 miles wide, creating a natural bottleneck, as well as potential for collisions, piracy, grounding, or water pollution, particularly for oil spills. Geography The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Strait of Malacca as shown by the dashed lines on the map below. However, for practical purposes, many include the Singapore Strait as part of Malacca. Base map source: Demis Importance for Oil Transportation Malacca is the shortest sea route between Persian Gulf suppliers and the Asian markets—notably China, Japan, South Korea, and the... More »