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Topic Review
Microplastics in Ecosystems
Plastics are widely used due to their excellent properties, inexpensiveness and versatility leading to an exponential consumption growth during the last decades. However, most plastic does not biodegrade in any meaningful sense; it can exist for hundreds of years. Only a small percentage of plastic waste is recycled, the rest being dumped in landfills, incinerated or simply not collected. Microplastics can be generally divided in two big families: primary microplastics and secondary microplastics. Plastics with microscopic size, ca. 2–5 mm in diameter, are defined as primary microplastics. Secondary microplastics enclose tiny plastic fragments derived from the breakdown of larger plastic debris, both at sea and on land. Waste-water treatment plants can only minimize the problem by trapping plastic particles of larger size and some smaller ones remain within oxidation ponds or sewage sludge, but a large amount of microplastics still contaminate water streams and marine systems. 
  • 2.2K
  • 23 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Tougher Plastics Ban Policies in China
After the Chinese government's new plastics ban policies issued in 2020, another set of tougher plastics ban measures were introduced in Shanghai, China in 2021. The tougher plastic ban polices completely forbade the usage of plastic carrier bags and required all supermarkets to sell only cloth or nylon carrier bags priced from RMB 1.0 to 39.0. Tougher plastics ban policies are penalty-oriented. The tougher plastics ban policies produce positive plastics reducing effects by observing significantly decreased usage of charged carrier bags by 46%, and significantly increased usage of old plastic bags and reusable bags by 117% and 36%, respectively. Policy execution loopholes are found in some supermarkets which do not follow the tougher plastics ban measures. Fortunately, the spill-over effects from tougher-measure-executing supermarkets fix this issue to some extent. The tougher 2021 measures fail to be the most powerful impacting factor on people’s usage of each type of bag. To produce better plastics reducing results, other bag-targeted measures are necessary.
  • 2.2K
  • 19 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Carbon Literacy
Carbon Literacy is the awareness of climate change and the climate impacts of mankind's everyday actions. The term has been used in a range of contexts in scientific literature and in casual usage (see Research), but is most associated with The Carbon Literacy Project (CLP).
  • 2.2K
  • 25 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Food Safety Culture in Nigeria
Food safety culture describes a collection of learned and shared attitudes, values and beliefs that form the foundation of the hygienic behaviors used within a particular food handling environment. Sharman et al. defines food safety culture as a long-term paradigm in a food handling organization deeply rooted in beliefs, behaviors and assumptions which impact the food safety performance within the organization.
  • 2.2K
  • 22 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Barriers to Electric Vehicle Adoption in Thailand
Electric vehicles (EVs) are considered to be a solution for sustainable transportation. EVs can reduce fossil fuel consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and the negative impacts of climate change and global warming, as well as help improve air quality.
  • 2.2K
  • 09 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Abundance of Mycoplankton and Its Ecological Role
Mycoplankton are saprophytic organisms in plankton communities in marine and freshwater ecosystems. They consist of filamentous free-living fungi and yeasts associated with planktonic particles or phytoplankton. Similar to planktonic bacteria, these aquatic fungi play important roles in heterotrophic mineralization and nutrient cycling. Planktonic bacteria can be up to 20 mm in diameter and over 50 mm in length
  • 2.1K
  • 23 May 2022
Topic Review
Plant Growth in Altered Gravity/Microgravity
Understanding how plants respond and adapt to extraterrestrial conditions is essential for space exploration initiatives. Deleterious effects of the space environment on plant development have been reported, such as the unbalance of cell growth and proliferation in the root meristem, or gene expression reprogramming. However, plants are capable of surviving and completing the seed-to-seed life cycle under microgravity. A key research challenge is to identify environmental cues, such as light, which could compensate the negative effects of microgravity.
  • 2.1K
  • 31 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Nickel Toxicity Effects on Crop and Soil
Low or moderate nickel concentrations in soils can cause environmental problems. The main effects of this potentially toxic element on the soil biota and the most common crop species are addressed.
  • 2.1K
  • 11 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Climate State
Climate state describes a state of climate on Earth and similar terrestrial planets based on a thermal energy budget, such as the greenhouse or icehouse climate state. The main climate state change is between periodical glacial and interglacial cycles in Earth history, studied from climate proxies. The climate system is responding to the current climate forcing and adjusts following climate sensitivity to reach a climate equilibrium, Earth's energy balance. Model simulations suggest that the current interglacial climate state will continue for at least another 100,000 years, due to CO2 emissions - including complete deglaciation of the Northern Hemisphere.
  • 2.1K
  • 16 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Volatile Fatty Acid recovery
Volatile fatty acids (VFAs) are low-molecular-weight carboxylic acids containing two to six carbon atoms that are produced as the final product of acidogenic fermentation in anaerobic digestion process.
  • 2.1K
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Biomethane Production of Distillery Stillage
Distillery stillage has a high energy potential (13.6 MJ/kg TS, 10.4 MJ/kg COD), which indicates that it can be processed via anaerobic digestion and is a suitable substrate for conversion into energy. Distillery stillage consists of compounds that are easily biodegraded during anaerobic digestion, such as proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates. Among the carbohydrates, the concentration of cellulose can be on the level of 32.2%, hemicelluloses—20.9%, and lignin—3.2% in the distillery stillage obtained from maize.
  • 2.1K
  • 16 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Driving Cycles for Estimating Vehicle Emission Levels
Standard driving cycles (DCs) and real driving emissions (RDE) legislation developed by the European Commission contains significant gaps with regard to quantifying local area vehicle emission levels and fuel consumption (FC). The aim of this paper was to review local DCs for estimating emission levels and FC under laboratory and real-world conditions. This review article has three sections.
  • 2.1K
  • 12 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Eco-safe Rural Roads assessment
Rural roads are important for the communities in the hilly areas of Nepal as they introduce livelihood opportunities at the local level, provide better access to the health care, education and resources. Yet, most of the rural roads in Nepal are unplanned and non-engineered, and these roads are often closed for many months during and after the monsoon. Such roads require huge investments, especially post-monsoon, to clear debris and to keep them operational. In parallel, there is evidence that such roads lead to large number of slope failures and accelerated sedimentation, which degrade the environment and ecosystem services. To remedy such roadside slope failures, eco-engineering practices were tested and demonstrated in partnership with three communities in the Panchase Region of the Nepal’s Central-Western Middle Hills.  Eco-engineering is a hybrid approach, combining civil engineering works for drainage and slope stability, with the plantation of deep-rooted vegetation. It is one activity contributing to Nature based Solutions (NbS) for the sustainable and long-term operation of the rural roads in the Panchase geographic region. This paper describes the inter-disciplinary and community-based research, monitoring and evaluation methods applied, including, the establishment of onsite demonstration plots and Rhizotrons in which Key performance Indicators (KPI) analysis of plant species were performed. The results demonstrated the effectiveness of eco-engineering for reducing risk, while creating ecological co-benefits along rural roads (or eco-safe roads) in hilly areas.  Based on this research, an ‘Eco-safe Rural Road Assessment Framework’ was developed, outlining the systematic process to be followed for the design of eco-safe rural roads for more sustainable road construction and maintenance. The ecological engineering practices which are being promoted by this framework have been accepted by communities and could be further implemented by local government bodies and up-scaled in other similar hilly areas around the country. 
  • 2.1K
  • 30 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Air Pollution Tolerance Index
Air pollution is a global environmental issue, and there is an urgent need for sustainable remediation techniques. Thus, phytoremediation has become a popular approach to air pollution remediation.
  • 2.1K
  • 29 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Engineering Microbial Consortia towards Bioremediation
Engineering microbial consortia is an effective way for the removal of heavy metals and organic pollutants. In the study, we discussed the molecular and ecological mechanisms of engineering microbial consortia with a particular focus on metabolic cross-feeding within species and the transfer of metabolites. Besides, the advantages and limitations of top-down and bottom-up approaches of engineering microbial consortia were discussed, together with their applications in bioremediation.
  • 2.1K
  • 29 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy
Social acceptance of renewable energy is the attitude of the local population of a given territory to accept the presence, installation or expansion of plants, projects and processes for the production of energy from renewable sources (RES) such as geothermal, sun, wind and biomass. It differs from the generally favorable predisposition of a population towards RES in places far from their homes: indeed, social acceptance of local RES can hinder the development of renewable energy projects, even for a population whose general acceptance of RES is relatively high. 
  • 2.1K
  • 08 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Urban Overheating in Australia
Cities in Australia are experiencing unprecedented levels of urban overheating, which has caused a significant impact on the country’s socioeconomic environment. This study provides a comprehensive review on urban overheating, its impact on health, energy, economy, and the heat mitigation potential of a series of strategies in Australia. Existing studies show that the average urban heat island (UHI) intensity ranges from 1.0 °C to 13.0 °C. The magnitude of urban overheating phenomenon in Australia is determined by a combination of UHI effects and dualistic atmospheric circulation systems (cool sea breeze and hot desert winds). The strong relation between multiple characteristics contribute to dramatic fluctuations and high spatiotemporal variabilities in urban overheating. In addition, urban overheating contributes to serious impacts on human health, energy costs, thermal comfort, labour productivity, and social behaviour. 
  • 2.1K
  • 16 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Rick Perry
James Richard "Rick" Perry (born March 4, 1950) is an American politician who served as the 14th United States Secretary of Energy from 2017 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 47th Governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015, having been elected Lieutenant Governor of Texas in 1998 and later assuming the office from George W. Bush. Perry ran unsuccessfully for the nomination for President of the United States in 2012 and 2016. President Donald Trump nominated him as Secretary of Energy; he was confirmed by the United States Senate in a 62–37 vote on March 2, 2017. On October 17, 2019, Perry reported to President Trump that he intended to resign as Secretary of Energy at the end of the year. He left office on December 1, 2019.
  • 2.1K
  • 14 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Reducing Phosphorus Loads
The wide application of fertilizers in tile-drained agricultural systems commonly results in the loss of phosphorus (P) to the underground tile drains during precipitation events and emission to downstream surface waters. As different catchments are subject to local geological and climatic conditions, among other factors, it is observed a large spatiotemporal variation in the dynamics of P emissions, including the load and dominant form (i.e., particulate or dissolved). In-farm practices may be able to mitigate this problem to some extent (e.g. by optimizing the P application), but may not suffice in areas saturated with P. Therefore, systems designed to reduce the excess P loads at relatively low costs and located at the edge of tile-drained catchments have been tested and implemented. This has been done by increasing the hydraulic residence time of the drainage discharge, allowing sedimentation of particles and biogeochemical processes between the water, soil/sediments and biota to occur; by trapping P at the bank of watercourses; and by enhancing the retention of dissolved P with filters rich in P sorbents. The retention of P by these measures, however, can be rather variable and largely depends on the catchment conditions. Thus, a series of considerations, e.g., in regards to design parameters, long-term stability of the P retained and retention of different P forms, must be taken into account, including major constraints (e.g., use of agricultural land), to ensure successful application of edge-of-field measures and achieve the desired cost-efficiency.
  • 2.1K
  • 01 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Optical Sensors
Detection systems using optical principles for ion sensing have become widely used. Optical detection typically relies on the color change resulting from the interaction or reaction between the focal object and the detection reagent. Optical sensors offer the advantages of simplicity and low cost. At the same time, there is no direct contact between the sensor and the sample during analysis, thereby minimizing the effects of contamination of the sensing probe. The portable optical sensors highlighted in this section include fluorescent, colorimetric, Raman scattering, surface plasmon resonance (SPR), and localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) sensors.
  • 2.1K
  • 05 May 2023
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