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Topic Review
Safe Reuse of Wastewater Irrigation
Due to climate change, two-thirds of mankind will face water scarcity by 2025, while by 2050, global food production must increase by at least 50% to feed 9 billion people. To overcome water scarcity, 15 million m3/day of untreated wastewater is used globally for crop irrigation, polluting the soil with pathogens, heavy metals and excess salts. Since 10% of the global population consumes food from crops irrigated with wastewater, pathogens transmitted through the food chain cause diseases especially in young children and women. We emphasize that irrigation offers real perspectives for large-scale recovery of wastewater, helping to reduce the deficit and conserve water resources, and increasing food safety, with the express mention that investments must be made in wastewater treatment plants and wastewater must be properly treated before recovery, to limit the risks on human health and the environment. 
  • 694
  • 23 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Agricultural Big Data and Machine Learning
Sustainable agriculture is currently being challenged under climate change scenarios since extreme environmental processes disrupt and diminish global food production. For example, drought-induced increases in plant diseases and rainfall caused a decrease in food production. Machine Learning and Agricultural Big Data are high-performance computing technologies that allow analyzing a large amount of data to understand agricultural production. 
  • 690
  • 21 Dec 2022
Topic Review
The Influencing Factors of Loess Carbon Sink
The relationship between the source and sink of atmospheric CO2 has always been a widely discussed issue in global climate change research. As one of the main overburdened parts of the earth, loess is one of the important driving factors for atmospheric CO2 consumption.
  • 689
  • 13 Jan 2023
Topic Review
North African Climate Cycles
North African climate cycles have a unique history that can be traced back millions of years. The cyclic climate pattern of the Sahara is characterized by significant shifts in the strength of the North African Monsoon. When the North African Monsoon is at its strongest, annual precipitation and consequently vegetation in the Sahara region increase, resulting in conditions commonly referred to as the "green Sahara". For a relatively weak North African Monsoon, the opposite is true, with decreased annual precipitation and less vegetation resulting in a phase of the Sahara climate cycle known as the "desert Sahara". Variations in the climate of the Sahara region can, at the simplest level, be attributed to the changes in insolation because of slow shifts in Earth's orbital parameters. The parameters include the precession of the equinoxes, obliquity, and eccentricity as put forth by the Milankovitch theory. The precession of the equinoxes is regarded as the most important orbital parameter in the formation of the "green Sahara" and "desert Sahara" cycle. A January 2019 MIT paper in Science Advances shows a cycle from wet to dry approximately every 20,000 years.
  • 689
  • 11 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Impacts of River-Engineering on Changjiang-River
       Knowledge of river engineering impacts on water discharge is significant to flow guidelines and sustainable water resource managements for balancing human consumption and the natural environment. In this study, based on the collected multi-decadal discharge data at Yichang, Hankou, and Datong stations, we determined that in October, Three Gorges Dam contributed 34.4%, 24.5%, and 18.7% to the discharge decrease in the upper, middle, and lower reach, respectively, while Gezhouba Dam contributed 14.5%, 10.7%, and 10%. Danjiangkou Reservoir caused the discharge ratio of Hanjiang to Changjiang to decline from 7.2% during 1954–1973 to 6.3% during 1973–2014. Owing to growing water withdrawal and consumption, we suggest that the distribution of water diversion and consumption should be regulated to prevent the probable occurrence of the severe issue of salt water intrusion in the Changjiang Estuary in 2028.
  • 688
  • 09 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Carbon Dioxide Capture
Carbon capture is among the most sustainable strategies to limit carbon dioxide emissions, which account for a large share of human impact on climate change and ecosystem destruction. This growing threat calls for novel solutions to reduce emissions on an industrial level. Carbon capture by amorphous solids is among the most reasonable options as it requires less energy when compared to other techniques and has comparatively lower development and maintenance costs. In this respect, the method of carbon dioxide adsorption by solids can be used in the long-term and on an industrial scale. Furthermore, certain sorbents are reusable, which makes their use for carbon capture economically justified and acquisition of natural resources full and sustainable. Clay minerals, which are a universally available and versatile material, are amidst such sorbents. These materials are capable of interlayer and surface adsorption of carbon dioxide. In addition, their modification allows to improve carbon dioxide adsorption capabilities even more. 
  • 687
  • 28 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Towards Circular Economy for More Sustainable Apparel Consumption
The apparel industry causes environmental problems, particularly due to the shortening life cycle of garments and fast-fashion’s throw-away culture. The circular economy provides solutions to minimise and prevent these problems through innovative circular business models, which require changes in consumer behaviours. With the lens of environmental psychology, we analyse consumers’ willingness to acquire circular apparel considering four approaches on clothing life-cycle extension. We conducted an online questionnaire among Brazilian and Dutch consumers and tested if the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory can explain the willingness of consumers to purchase circular apparel. Our results indicate that, overall, the variables from the VBN theory explain circular behaviour in the apparel industry and that the paths suggested by the model are supported by our analyses. Additionally, we tested and found that when all of the variables from the VBN theory were controlled for, materialistic values did not explain circular behaviours in the apparel industry among Brazilian respondents. However, they had a positive influence on some circular apparel behaviours among Dutch consumers. Overall, materialistic values did not play an important role in predicting willingness to consume circular clothing. Furthermore, the results suggest that the VBN theory predicts willingness to consume circular apparel better in the Netherlands compared to Brazil, suggesting that this behaviour may be perceived as more effortful for the Brazilian population. However, we highlight the need for future research.
  • 685
  • 12 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Climate Change Policy of California
California has taken legislative steps in the hope of mitigating the risks of potential effects of climate change in California by incentives and plans for clean cars, renewable energy, and pollution controls on industry.
  • 685
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Nanoparticles and Their Role in Heavy Metal Bioremediation
Physical and chemical techniques are used to remove heavy metals (HMs) from contaminated soil. Microbial-metal interaction, a novel but underutilized strategy, might be used to lessen the stress caused by metals on plants. For reclaiming areas with high levels of heavy metal contamination, bioremediation is effective and environmentally friendly. Nanotechnology greatly improves the process of bioremediation, and its application in heavy metal bioremediation.
  • 685
  • 29 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Extremely Acidic Eukaryotic (Micro) Organisms
Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) results from sulfide oxidation, which incorporates hydrogen ions, sulfate, and metals/metalloids into the aquatic environment, allowing fixation, bioaccumulation and biomagnification of pollutants in the aquatic food chain. Acidic leachates from waste rock dams from pyritic and (to a lesser extent) coal mining are the main foci of Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) production. 
  • 684
  • 14 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Arsenic Remediation
Arsenic contamination of the environment is a serious problem threatening the health of millions of people exposed to arsenic (As) via drinking water and crops grown in contaminated areas. The remediation of As-contaminated soil and water bodies needs to be sustainable, low-cost and feasible to apply in the most affected low-to-middle income countries, like India and Bangladesh. Phytoremediation is an aesthetically appreciable and successful approach that can be used for As decontamination with use of the best approach(es) and the most promising plant(s). However, phytoremediation lacks the required speed and sometimes the stress caused by As could diminish plants’ potential for remediation. To tackle these demerits, we need augment plants’ potential with appropriate technological methods including microbial and nanoparticles applications and genetic modification of plants to alleviate the As stress and enhance As accumulation in phytoremediator plants. 
  • 681
  • 29 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Sediment load of River Birs-System
In 2015, the environmental laboratories of the cantons of Berne, Jura, Basel-Country and Basel-City, started a coordinated monitoring of the sediments of the River Birs and its major Affluents. In general, stannane concentrations in the sediments of the river Birs and its major tributaries were low and well below any target values. The sediments of the tributaries Lucelle and Lüssel showed slightly elevated concentrations for monobutyl-tin, and the sediments of the rivulet Chaluet for dibutyl-tin compounds. The same stannane groups were also elevated in the sediments of the river Birs at Birsfelden, above the confluence with the Rhine. Tri-substituted tin compounds were below the detection limit in the entire catchment. The catchment area of the river Birs is free of any nuclear industry and of industries dealing with radioactive materials. Therefore, our investigations showed the “normal” background contamination with artificial radionuclides, including the global fallout and the Chernobyl fallout. The found activities are well below the immission limits.
  • 679
  • 05 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Sustainability in a Matrix Approach
Considering that sustainability is a relative concept, but also that this limitation could be avoided through continuous adaptation of the evaluation tools by taking into account the directions of change (such as time, space, application domain), the goal of the present study is to elaborate a matrix for measuring the level of sustainability for small vegetable farms.
  • 679
  • 22 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Urban Soils and Road Dust
Urban soils might be defined as soils within the administrative boundaries of municipalities or settlings, respective a territory of settlement and natural production, including rests of soils in young cities.
  • 679
  • 16 May 2021
Topic Review
Water-Energy Nexus in Africa
The operationalization of the Water-Energy Nexus in the water supply is gaining  a lot of attention among water utilities, water regulators and stakeholders in the water sector. This is due to the growing body of evidence on the potential benefits of exploration of potential energy savings in the supply of water services, as the largest controllable operational input with short payback periods on investment. As population grows, high urbanization and the demand for water services increases especially in Africa, water utilities are faced with the challenges of meeting the current demand and expansion of services. However, there is paucity in the assessment of energy input for water supply and energy use is not considered as a key performance indicator for water utilities. Yet, accrued benefits from scrutinizing energy input in the water sector provides potential benefits of savings, revenue recovery and expansion of water services.
  • 678
  • 20 Oct 2020
Topic Review
List of Life Zones by Region
The climate and ecology of different locations on the globe naturally separate into life zones, depending on elevation, location, and latitude. The generally strong dependency on elevation is known as altitudinal zonation: the average temperature of a location decreases as the elevation increases. The general effect of elevation depends on atmospheric physics. However, the specific climate and ecology of any particular location depends on specific features of that location. This article provides a list of life zones by region, in order to illustrate the features of life zones for regions around the globe.
  • 676
  • 09 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Process of Wastewater Treatment
Domestic wastewater (DWW) contains inorganic and organic components that can be harmful to aquatic organisms. Traditional remediation approaches (physical, chemical and biological) can be used on-site or off-site to purify polluted domestic water (activated sludge, built-wetlands, stabilization ponds, trickling filters and membrane bioreactors), and each has its own advantages and limitations. Biosorption through microorganisms, bacteria (microbe-mediated remediation), fungi (mycoremediation) and algae (phycoremediation) has shown promising results in removing toxic chemicals and nutrients. The type of waste and its concentration, heterogeneity level and percentage of clean-up required; and the feasibility of the clean-up technique and its efficiency, practicability, operational difficulties, environmental impact and treatment costs are all factors that are to be considered when choosing a technique for domestic wastewater treatment (DWWT).
  • 675
  • 25 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Climate-Change Impact on Florida’s Water Resources
Emerging changes in water availability in the U.S. state of Florida have been recognized as a combined result of human perturbations, natural variability, and climate change. Florida is particularly susceptible to the impacts of the sea level rise due to its extensive coastline, low elevation, and lack of topographic relief to promote drainage. Owing to the porous nature of the state’s aquifer systems, saltwater intrusion into coastal areas is an evolving threat. Additionally, anthropogenic intervention has increased the contribution of nutrients and sediments to many lakes, reservoirs, and rivers, subsequently causing eutrophication and sedimentation problems. 
  • 675
  • 07 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Plants' Physiological Responses to Drought and Water Stress
Drought affects several biochemical and physiological processes of plants, such as translocation, respiration, the uptake of ions, photosynthesis, nutrient and sugar metabolism, and phytohormones. Cell membranes can be destroyed, and leaf water potential can be diminished by drought. Furthermore, heavy drought causes the cessation of photosynthesis and metabolic disorders, and it can lead to the death of plants.
  • 674
  • 05 Jul 2023
Topic Review
Mountain Permafrost Hydrology
Mountain Permafrost Hydrology can be defined as “the geoscience that describes and predicts the occurrence, circulation, and distribution of the water within high and cold mountainous terrain”.
  • 673
  • 30 Jan 2022
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