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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. 
  • 1.2K
  • 23 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Multiscapes on an Urbanising Planet
The two most significant signatures of the Anthropocene—agriculture and urbanisation— have yet to be studied synoptically. The term periurban is used to describe territory where the urbanising trend of the planet extends into multiscapes. A periurban praxis is required that spatially reconciles urbanisation and agriculture, simultaneously permitting urban growth and the enhance- ment of critical ecosystem services provided by agricultural hinterlands.
  • 1.2K
  • 18 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Ecotoxicological Assessment of Microplastics
Microplastics (MPs) are tiny plastic particles (<5 mm). They have been classified as contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) recently. Microplastics is a commonly used term, the more detailed classification includes: mesoplastics (1–5 mm), microplastics (0.0001–1 mm), and nanoplastics (<0.1 µm).
  • 1.2K
  • 14 May 2021
Topic Review
Ultrasound-Enhanced Organic Wastewater Treatment Equipments
Ultrasound waves have been widely used in the field of organic wastewater treatment due to their mechanical, thermal, and chemical effects derived from their cavitation effect. Many researchers have combined ultrasound waves with other organic wastewater treatment methods because they have the potential to offset the disadvantages of other method.
  • 1.2K
  • 17 Nov 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. 
  • 1.2K
  • 14 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Landfills, Waste and Climate Change
Landfills have been considered the most convenient approach for dealing with waste from time immemorial, even though some have led to disasters of catastrophic proportions. Moreover, recent findings by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that the decomposing fraction of landfill waste that generates greenhouse gases (GHGs) may not be adequately accounted for and could become a critical issue in our effort to restrict atmospheric temperature increases to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. (According to the IPCC, the maximum atmospheric temperature rise is a factor of cumulative net CO2 emissions as well as net non-CO2 radiative forcing.
  • 1.2K
  • 05 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Land Cover Change Detection
Land cover patterns in sub-Saharan Africa are rapidly changing. This study aims to quantify the land cover change and to identify its major determinants by using the Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Responses (DPSIR) framework in the Ethiopian Gozamin District over a period of 32 years (1986 to 2018). Satellite images of Landsat 5 (1986), Landsat 7 (2003), and Sentinel-2 (2018) and a supervised image classification methodology were used to assess the dynamics of land cover change. Land cover maps of the three dates, focus group discussions (FGDs), interviews, and farmers’ lived experiences through a household survey were applied to identify the factors for changes based on the DPSIR framework. Results of the investigations revealed that during the last three decades the study area has undergone an extensive land cover change, primarily a shift from cropland and grassland into forests and built-up areas. Thus, quantitative land cover change detection between 1986 and 2018 revealed that cropland, grassland, and bare areas declined by 10.53%, 5.7%, and 2.49%. Forest, built-up, shrub/scattered vegetation, and water bodies expanded by 13.47%, 4.02%, 0.98%, and 0.25%. Household surveys and focus group discussions (FGDs) identified the population growth, the rural land tenure system, the overuse of land, the climate change, and the scarcity of grazing land as drivers of these land cover changes. Major impacts were rural to urban migration, population size change, scarcity of land, and decline in land productivity. The outputs from this study could be used to assure sustainability in resource utilization, proper land use planning, and proper decision-making by the concerned government authorities.
  • 1.2K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Wild Rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia) Baby-Leaf
Wild rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia (L.) DC) is a cruciferous perennial herb, spontaneous in the Mediterranean Basin. Here, a study on evaluating the hyperspectral response of plants to bio-based disease resistance inducers is presented.
  • 1.2K
  • 30 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Data Quality Supporting Marine Mineral Oil Spill Assessments
Spilled mineral oils in the marine environment pose a number of challenges to sampling and analysis. Mineral oils are complex assemblages of hydrocarbons and additives, the composition of which can vary considerably depending on the source oil and product specifications. Further, the marine microbial and chemical environment can be harsh and variable over short times and distances, producing a rigorous source of hydrocarbon degradation of a mineral oil assemblage. Researchers must ensure that any measurements used to determine the nature and extent of the oil release, the fate and transport of the mineral oil constituents, and any resultant toxicological effects are derived using representative data that adhere to the study’s data quality objectives (DQOs).
  • 1.2K
  • 11 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Green Infrastructure
Green infrastructure provides various ecosystem services through interlinked networks of engineered and natural green space.
  • 1.2K
  • 29 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Mechanisms of Epigenetic Regulation Response to Plant Stress
Plant stress is a significant challenge that affects the development, growth, and productivity of plants and causes an adverse environmental condition that disrupts normal physiological processes and hampers plant survival. Epigenetic regulation is a crucial mechanism for plants to respond and adapt to stress.
  • 1.2K
  • 10 Jan 2024
Topic Review
Recovery of phosphorus from wastewater
Mined phosphate rock is the largest source of phosphorus (P) for use in agriculture and agro-industry, but it also is a finite resource irregularly distributed around the world. Alternatively, waste water is a renewable source of P, available at the local scale. In waste water treatment, biological nitrogen (N) removal is applied according to a wide range of variants targeting the abatement of the ammonium content. Ammonium oxidation to nitrate can also be considered to mitigate ammonia emission, while enabling N recovery. Different alternatives exist for coupling biological N treatment and phosphate precipitation when treating waste water in view of producing P-rich materials easily usable as fertilisers. Phosphate precipitation can be applied before (upstream configuration), together with (concomitant configuration), and after (downstream configuration) N treatment; i.e., chemically induced as a conditioning pre-treatment, biologically induced inside the reactor, and chemically induced as a refining post-treatment. Characteristics of the recovered products differ significantly depending on the case studied. Currently (year 2020), precipitated phosphate salts are not typified in the European fertiliser regulation, and this fact limits marketability. Nonetheless, this topic is in progress according to potential requirements to be complied by these materials. Integrated approaches for waste water treatment including P recovery must consider significant needs for subsequent agronomic valorisation of the recovered phosphate salts following the paradigms of the circular economy, sustainability, and environmental protection.
  • 1.2K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Streamflow Duration
Streamflow Duration: The length of time a stream has surface flow or conversely, has no surface flow. It is one of several dimensions that characterize flow regimes of streams[1]. Streamflow duration is used to differentiate reaches into discrete classes (e.g., perennial, intermittent, and ephemeral) for water resource management.  
  • 1.2K
  • 21 Sep 2020
Topic Review
Culturable and Molecular Diversity of Marine Fungi
Fungi are considered terrestrial and oceans are a “fungal desert”. However, with the considerable progress made over past decades, fungi have emerged as morphologically, phylogenetically, and functionally diverse components of the marine water column. Although their communities are influenced by a plethora of environmental factors, the most influential include salinity, temperature, nutrients, and dissolved oxygen, suggesting that fungi respond to local environmental gradients. 
  • 1.2K
  • 18 May 2022
Topic Review
Removal of Dyestuffs from Effluents onto Biochar
Processing significant amounts of dye effluent discharges into receiving waters can supply major benefits to countries that are affected by the water crisis and anticipated future stress in many areas in the world. When compared to most conventional adsorbents, biochars can provide an economically attractive solution. In comparison to many other textile effluent treatment processes, adsorption technology provides an economical, easily managed, and highly effective treatment option.
  • 1.2K
  • 20 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Nanofluids in Desalination
Desalination accounts for 1% of the total global water consumption and is an energy-intensive process, with the majority of operational expenses attributed to energy consumption. Moreover, at present, a significant portion of the power comes from traditional fossil-fuel-fired power plants and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with power production along with concentrated brine discharge from the process, pose a severe threat to the environment. Due to the dramatic impact of climate change, there is a major opportunity to develop sustainable desalination processes to combat the issues of brine discharge, greenhouse gas emissions along with a reduction in energy consumption per unit of freshwater produced. Nanotechnology can play a vital role to achieve specific energy consumption reduction as nanofluids application increases the overall heat transfer coefficient enabling the production of more water for the same size desalination plant. Furthermore, concentrated brine discharge harms the marine ecosystems, and hence, this problem must also be solved to support the objective of sustainable desalination. Several studies have been carried out in the past several years in the field of nanotechnology applications for desalination, brine treatment and the role of renewable energy in desalination. The content is focused on reviewing existing desalination practices, along with identifying the gaps in the development of sustainable desalination systems. Furthermore, the role of nanofluids is discussed as a potential tool to develop cost-competitive and energy-efficient standalone desalination system. Desalination is an energy-intensive process, and it's exceptionally crucial to power the process with a reliable independent source of energy along with coupling the desalination process with advanced systems to treat the brine and take benefit of economies of scale by producing more products from the same raw material (seawater). 
  • 1.2K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Leaf Macro-Morphological Traits and Air Pollution
Urban trees provide different ecosystem benefits, such as improving air quality due to the retention of atmospheric particulate matter (PM) on their leaves. The LMTs most used for PM monitoring were leaf area (Q1) and specific leaf area (Q4). These LMTs were frequently used for their easy measurement and quantification.
  • 1.2K
  • 25 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Tropical Cyclone
Tropical cyclones (TCs) plague coastal communities around the world, threatening millions of lives and causing many billions of dollars in damage to infrastructure. The primary hazards responsible for many of the fatalities and damage in coastal communities include storm surge and wind damage, while further inland hazards include torrential rainfall and severe weather that often accompany landfalling TCs. The danger from these hazards is only increasing due to greater coastal development worldwide, increasing sea surface temperature, and sea level rise.
  • 1.2K
  • 17 Jun 2021
Topic Review
SPE/DLLME for Determining Plasticizer Residues
This entry aims to compare two extraction procedures for the analysis of phthalates (PAE) in hot drinks collected from vending machines, usually coffee and tea. The two analytical procedures rely on solid phase extraction (SPE) using C18 cartridge and ultrasound and vortex assisted liquid-liquid dispersive microextraction (DLLME) to mechanically improve dispersion, each followed by a routine analytical method such as GC- FID. Seven phthalates (DMP, DEP, DiBP, DBP, DEHP, DOP, DDP) were analyzed and determined. All analytical parameters (i.e., recovery, limit of detection, limit of quantification, enrichment factors, repeatability, reproducibility) were studied and discussed, as well as the matrix effect. The whole procedure was applied to hot drink matrices, for example coffee, decaffeinated coffee.
  • 1.2K
  • 13 Sep 2021
Topic Review
The Application of Zeolites and Mesoporous Silica Materials
Zeolites and mesoporous silica materials are effective adsorbents that can be useful for the removal of various pharmaceuticals including non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and antibiotics from low-quality water. This paper summarizes the properties and basic characteristics of zeolites and mesoporous silica materials and reviews the recent studies on the efficacy of the adsorption of selected non-steroidal medicinal products and antibiotics by these adsorbents to assess the potential opportunities and challenges of using them in water treatment. It was found that the adsorption capacity of sorbents with high silica content is related to their surface hydrophobicity (hydrophilicity) and structural features, such as micropore volume and pore size, as well as the properties of the studied medicinal products. 
  • 1.2K
  • 20 Oct 2021
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