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1 Copyright © 2008 by ASME
ESDA2008-59441
Lost Work in an EcosystemUsed as an Environmental Impact Index
Sosimo E. Diaz-Mendez
sdiaz@pampano.unacar.mxMechanical Engineering DepartmentUniversidad de GuanajuatoTampico 912, Col. Bellavista, C.P. 36730,Salamanca, Guanajuato, Mexico
Jose Maria Rodriguez-Lelis
 jmlelis@cenidet.edu.mxMechanical Engineering DepartmentCentro Nacional de Investigacion y Desarrollo TecnologicoInterior Internado Palmira S/N, C.P. 62490,Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
Abel Hernandez-Guerrero
abelh@salamanca.ugto.mxMechanical Engineering DepartmentUniversidad de GuanajuatoTampico 912, Col. Bellavista, C.P. 36730,Salamanca, Guanajuato, Mexico
Rosa Hilda Chavez
rhch@nuclear.inin.mxGerencia de Ciencias AmbientalesInstituto Nacional de Investigaciones NuclearesCarretera México – Toluca S/N, C.P. 52750,La Marquesa, Ocoyoacac, Salazar, Estado de México, México
ABSTRACT
The work that an ecosystem can carry out decreases as afunction of lost work, when some natural or anthropogenicalterations exist; the extinction of the ecosystem depends onhow much lost work it can support. Lost work assessment inan ecosystem can be determined and then used as an indicatorof the environmental impact. If the ecosystem is divided insubsystems and each subsystem is interrelated with the otherones, an ideal work can be obtained to revoke all the damagefrom each alteration in the ecosystem (being the subsystemsthe water, the soil, the atmosphere, the organisms and thesociety). Thus, the global index could be determined byadding the partial indexing of each subsystem, and could beused to determine the trend that an ecosystem will follow dueto alterations.
1. INTRODUCTION
The resources in the environment are important for theorganisms inside an ecosystem, because they offer wellbeingthose are important for the life in the planet [1]; they also offerservices that are linked to the regulation of the conditions of the environment.The maximum exergy principle [2], the maximum powerprinciple [3] and the maximum ascendency principle [4] areused to explain the thermodynamic behavior of the ecosystemand the interdependence between organisms. In an ecosystemin pristine state, the matter and energy that flows between eachentity remain almost in a balance state, stable or in harmony,and also the entropy generation does not vary drastically in alarge period.The entropy generation, the matter and energy flows varyquickly when man breaks up the harmony of the ecosystemwith his excessive industrial activity and loose control [5-6].The ecosystems have a limit of adaptation to assimilate lostwork; this limit of adaptation can end up being surpassed withan abrupt change. If with time the lost work increases, then theoverall damages on the ecosystem place all the organismsinside this ecosystem in extinction danger, this is because astrong interdependence exists between the organisms thatcompose an ecosystem like Salomonsen [7], Jørgensen [8-9]and Vallino [10] show.The Pollution Potential [11-12], Environment NegativeEffect, ENE [13], Environment Negative Effect Factor, ENEF[14], and Exergy Destruction [15], are works based in exergythat are used to determine the impact that society has on theecosystems. These works are a good approach to estimate thequantity of energy resources, at least ideally, that is needed torevoke a change in the ecosystem and to return it to its pristinestate, but most of these works are only applied to one part of the ecosystems and they do not relate the other parts that existin the ecosystem (being the parts of an ecosystem dilutes,floor, air, biota and society [16].)In this work it is believed that the exergy destruction canbe referred to the lost work as it is defined by the theorem of Gouy-Stodola [17], because the exergy destruction shouldvary in function of the dead state. Thus, each part of anecosystem tries to process the pollutants and to absorb them,
Proceedings of the 9th Biennial ASME Conference on Engineering Systems Design and AnalysisESDA2008July 7-9, 2008, Haifa, Israel
 
 
but its capacity to carry out work decreases and it istransmitted to the following parts of the ecosystem or of another ecosystem, thus increasing the entropy generation tothe inherent entropy already produced by the pollutantsemitted. At the end, with reference to the dead state andaccording to the interrelation between species [7-9], thequantity of available energy and resources that the organismscan use are destroyed when the lost work from a part of anecosystem to other or between ecosystems is added.Thus, from the emission of pollutants from the societytowards an ecosystem, the way in how the available energydecreases it can be studied. Next the procedure is shown.
2. INTERRELATIONS IN AN ECOSYSTEM
The polluting emissions that correspond to the emissionfrom society can perturb a group of ecosystems interrelatedbetween them, due to the fact that all elements on Earth have astrong interrelation with each other. Thus the damage of anelement reflects in the whole ecosystem, but a true relationshipexplaining how every element affects the others, and viceversa, is not fully understood.Figure 1. Ecosystem parts in mutual interactions.Wall [18] divides the biosphere in five different spheres,and describes systems involving many kinds of matter in acomplex pattern. Energy and matter permanently flow throughdifferent systems on the earth’s surface.Following Wall’s work, Figure 1 it presented as a proposalof the interactions between the parts of an ecosystem on earth.In Figure 1 S represent society, A the surroundingatmosphere, L the soil, B the organisms, H represent the waterand each arrow represents flows of matter and energy.Using Figure 1, as an example, fossil fuels are extractedthen used by the society in different application mainly incombustion. Part of flue gases emitted to the surrounding canbe processed by the atmosphere, the rest is sent to other partsof the ecosystem, each part carrying out the same processhaving always an intrinsic interaction.Therefore, to determine if the pollutants emitted the societyperturb or damage the surroundings, it is necessary to have anindicator of the environmental impact for each part of theecosystem.
3. THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT INDEX BASEDON LOST WORK.3.1 The extended lost work and the environment
The ecosystem in the pristine state has a useful work,
W 
u,e
,which is important for the organism, i.e. clean water, clear air,oxygen, etc. It can be expressed as:
egereveu
ST W W 
,00,,
⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ −=
•
 (1)
at that time the lost work is:
egelost 
ST W 
,00,
⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ =
•
 (2)
When human activity takes place and it is not in harmonywith the ecosystem, it modifies the ecosystem’s condition. Theamount of total useful work changes as,
egegereveu
ST ST W W 
,10,00,,
⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ −⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ −=
••
 (3)
and
egegelost 
ST ST W 
,10,00,
⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ +⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ =
••
 
For the following cycles there is not a machine or systemthat removes the lost work then the lost work increases for thefollowing cycles and the work will be:
(4)
egegegereveu
ST ST ST W W 
,20,10,00,,
......
⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ −⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ −⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ −=
•••
 (5)
Thus for n cycles Eq. (5) may be written as:
eigniegereveu
ST ST W W 
,01,00,,
⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ ∑−⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ −=
•=•
 (6)
It is seen from Eq. (6), that the work decreases as the lostwork increases:
ei pnie pelost 
ST ST W 
,01,00,
⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ ∑+⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ =
•=•
 (7)
The total work in the environment can be seen as the sumof the partial work that each part of the ecosystem carries out.The water, the soil, the atmosphere, the organisms and thesociety are the parts of the ecosystem. The total work can beexpressed as:2 Copyright © 2008 by ASME
 
Su Lu Bu H u Aueu
W W W W W W 
,,,,,,
++++=
 (8)
For the atmosphere, A, has its own useful work, and itsentropy generation is expressed as:
 Aigni Ag Arev Au
ST ST W W 
,01,00,,
⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ ∑−⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ −=
•=•
 (9)
and
 Ai pni A p Alost 
ST ST W 
,01,00,
⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ ∑+⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎝ ⎛ =
•=•
 
(10)
In the same way one equation can represent the usefulwork for the other parts in the ecosystem.Referring to an ecosystem in the former discussion andfrom the point of view of the society, part of the lost work from society will go through natural machines that can revertpartially the pollutant’s effects. However, they also producesome entropy and the sum of the lost work for each naturalmachine will be transmitted to each other and decrease theability of the ecosystem to produce work. In this form theecosystem is unsustainable
.
3.1 Environmental impact index
Starting from the concept of exergy of mixing [11, 17], theminimum ideal thermodynamic work per mole, required forcomplete separation or combination of a component in a mix,on the other hand, the potential environmental consequenceassociated to release any pollutant is proportional to the degreeof chemical change generated in the environment, as measuredby the change in configurational entropy per mole of theaffected species in the environment of interest [11, 12]:
( )
iimix
 y RT  E 
,00,
ln
−=
•
 (11)
The ideal thermodynamic work per mole, required toinstantaneously return the polluted environment to its pristineestate is expressed as follow:
∑
=•
⎟⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎜⎝ ⎛ −=
niiiPE 
 y y RT W 
1,00
ln
 (12)
3 Copyright © 2008 by ASMEon the other hand
PSPLPBPH PAPE 
W W W W W W 
••••••
++++=
 (13)
The above equation can be seen as the lost work in theenvironment, also representing the sum of the lost work ineach part forming an ecosystem.Then, the hydrosphere’s ideal work to revoke damage fromeach element is:
⎟⎟ ⎠ ⎞⎜⎜⎝ ⎛ −=
•
iiuiPH 
 y yT  RW 
,00,
ln
 (14)
Similar expressions can be obtained for the other parts of an ecosystem.Using the concept of dimensionless irreversibility asdescribed in [19], an environmental impact index for thehydrosphere can be written as:
∑
=••
=
niimixiPH  H 
 E W  EII 
1,,
 (15)
Its value depends on the reference state. The sameexpressions can be obtained for the other parts of theecosystem.
4. ENVIRONMENT IMPACT ON LAKES4.1 Eutrophication of lakes
The eutrophication of a river or lake is common in manyregions in the world; it refers to excessive rate of addition of nutrients; it is a natural process, but it is drastically acceleratedwhen human activities take place [20]. Nutrients additionresult in the excessive growth of plants and phytoplankton innatural waters. The process has some negatives effects onwater quality like green color by algae growth, loss of dissolved oxygen, odors problems and loss of diversity,mainly loss of fishery that is important for organismsincluding the human being.Data from Salomonsen [7] shows the conditions for anoligotrophic and eutrophic lake. Two steady-state carbon-flowmodels are shown, each one illustrates the change in carbonmetabolism, and the distribution of species is consideredhomogeneous. The data for models is used as reference in thiswork to demonstrate the environment impact of the lost work on ecosystem due to a change in the concentration of phosphorus in the water (see Tables).Table 1. Two steady-state carbon-flow models in a lake [7].
Data Oligotrophic gr C/m
3
Eutrophic gr C/m
3
Phytoplankton 0.1 1.5Fish 0.1 1.0Macro-Zooplankton 0.06 0.16Micro-Zooplankton 0.015 0.030Bacteria 0.02 0.1
The chemical formula for algae protoplasm (representingthe ratios of element in algae cells) can be taken asC
106
H
263
O
110
N
16
P
1
. This chemical formula helps to determinethe ratios at which the phosphorus is assimilated duringprimary production.The value obtained will be taken in this work as thequantity of nutrients incoming to a lake from the society.Thus, the quantity of phosphorous in the phytoplankton forboth models was calculated in this work, and it is shown inTable 2.
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