Mercury (Hg) Contaminated Sites in Kazakhstan: Review of Current Cases and Site Remediation Responses.

Mercury (Hg) emissions from anthropogenic sources pose a global problem. In Central Asia, Kazakhstan's central and northern regions are among the most severely Hg-contaminated territories. This is due to two former acetaldehyde (in Temirtau) and chlor-alkali (in Pavlodar) plants, discharges from which during the second half of the 20th century were estimated over 2000 tons of elemental Hg.

Indicator rating methodology for Rapid Sustainability Assessment Method (RSAM) for existing residential buildings using opinions of residents.

The presented method provides the details for how each indicator in "RSAM: A Rapid Sustainability Assessment Method" is scored using a residents' opinions-based sustainability assessment procedure that is specifically designed for the assessment of existing residential buildings. Existing methods in the literature mostly suggest indicator scores in construction sustainability assessments using highly technical data and require a high level of engineering and management expertise. This makes them elaborate but labor-, time-, and cost-intensive; and thus, their use is more frequently favored in new projects.