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Topic Review
Legionella and Biofilms
Legionella is responsible for the life-threatening pneumonia commonly known as Legionnaires’ disease or legionellosis. Legionellosis is known to be preventable if proper measures are put into practice. Despite the efforts to improve preventive approaches, Legionella control remains one of the most challenging issues in the water treatment industry. Legionellosis incidence is on the rise and is expected to keep increasing as global challenges become a reality. This puts great emphasis on prevention, which must be grounded in strengthened Legionella management practices. The perpetuation of a water focused monitoring approach and the importance of protozoa and biofilms are bottom-line questions for reliable Legionella real-field surveillance. Under this scope an integrated monitoring model is proposed to study and control Legionella at water systems, by combining discrete and continuous information about water and biofilm. Although the successful implementation of such model requires a broader discussion across the scientific community and practitioners, this might be a starting point to build more consistent Legionella management strategies that can effectively mitigate legionellosis risks by reinforcing a pro-active Legionella prevention philosophy.
  • 627
  • 23 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Cryosphere
The cryosphere (from the Greek κρύος kryos, "cold", "frost" or "ice" and σφαῖρα sphaira, "globe, ball") is an all-encompassing term for those portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid form, including sea ice, lake ice, river ice, snow cover, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen ground (which includes permafrost). Thus, there is a wide overlap with the hydrosphere. The cryosphere is an integral part of the global climate system with important linkages and feedbacks generated through its influence on surface energy and moisture fluxes, clouds, precipitation, hydrology, atmospheric and oceanic circulation. Through these feedback processes, the cryosphere plays a significant role in the global climate and in climate model response to global changes. The term deglaciation describes the retreat of cryospheric features. Cryology is the study of cryospheres.
  • 625
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Microbially Induced Calcium Carbonate Precipitation for Hydrological Applications
Microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) refers to a natural biochemical phenomenon wherein micro-organisms stimulate the formation of calcium carbonate precipitation. 
  • 620
  • 30 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Antibiotic Pollution in Mountain Rivers
Environmental aquatic pollution with antibiotics is a global challenge that affects even pristine mountain environments. Monitoring the concentration of antibiotics in water is critical to water resource management. The pollution is strongly related to anthropopressure resulting from intensive tourism. An important aspect of the threat to the environment is water containing antibiotics at sub-inhibitory concentrations, which affects bacterial populations. Antibiotics are ecological factors driving microbial evolution by changing the bacterial community composition, inhibiting or promoting their ecological functions, and enriching and maintaining drug resistance. Modern methods of wastewater treatment are crucial in reducing the supply of antibiotics to aquatic environments and enhancing the possibility of economic and safe reuse of wastewater for technical purposes. 
  • 613
  • 07 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Source of Water Pollution
Water pollution is a severe health concern. Several studies have recently demonstrated the efficacy of various approaches for treating wastewater from anthropogenic activities. Wastewater treatment is an artificial procedure that removes contaminants and impurities from wastewater or sewage before discharging the effluent back into the environment. It can also be recycled by being further treated or polished to provide safe quality water for use, such as potable water.
  • 612
  • 08 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Microplastics Disposal and Water Resources
Microplastics (MPs) can also function as indicators for metals, antibiotics, toxic chemicals, pathogenic bacteria Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB)-forming dinoflagellates across the continents, especially through ballast water, serving as “hotspots” in ballast waters for developing and spreading multiple drug-resistant human pathogens through co-selection mechanisms.
  • 609
  • 19 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Desalination
Access to clean, potable water is crucial for all living beings and is used for various purposes such as drinking, household activities, agriculture, and industrial processes. The impact of water scarcity affects many parts of the world, with approximately 3.7 billion people currently experiencing water scarcity. Solar desalination systems are a promising solution to the water scarcity problem since the majority of the earth’s water resources are salty. With the increasing focus on desalination research, many innovative methods are being developed to extract salts from saline water. Energy consumption is a significant concern in desalination, and renewable energy, particularly solar energy, is considered a viable alternative to fossil fuel energy.
  • 609
  • 23 May 2023
Topic Review
Hydrology and Cranes Attraction Partnership
The Hula Valley in northern Israel was partly covered by swamps and a shallow lake. The entire valley was drained and converted for agricultural cultivation. Later, an additional soil reclamation operation was implemented, including eco-tourism. From the early 1990s, winter migratory cranes have attracted visitors, thus supporting the hydrological management of the entire valley that protects the downstream Lake Kinneret. 
  • 602
  • 30 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Bioretention Systems Optimization and Design Characterization Model
Urban stormwater has become a persistent concern on a global scale due to its adverse environmental implications. It is the prime vector of aquatic contaminants worldwide that causes pollutants when water bodies drain. Bioretention systems are increasingly used to alleviate setbacks associated with stormwater run-off in urban locales. It has played a substantial role in the implementation of low impact development (LID), a concept that addresses urban stormwater problems caused by land changes and development. The use of LID technologies is an innovative approach.
  • 593
  • 30 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Significance of the Langat River Basin, Malaysia
Approximately 2986 river basins can be found in Malaysia, but only 189 of them are viewed as significant basins dependent on the region of the basin that is >80 km2. IRBM has many cross-cutting concerns, thus accomplishing a sound IRBM will connect practically all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Langat is the UNESCO HELP (Hydrology for the Environment, Life, and Policy) River Basin in Malaysia, and distinct in its attributes because of its flow through three distinct constituencies. Langat River Basin is among the HELP basins from the 91 river basins globally, 26 river basins in the Asia Pacific region, and 3 from the south-east Asia region.
  • 593
  • 17 Jul 2023
Topic Review
Terrestrial Evapotranspiration of Three-Gorges Reservoir
Identifying the spatiotemporal variations and influencing climate factors of evapotranspiration (ET) and its components (vegetation transpiration (Ec), soil evaporation (Es), and canopy interception evaporation (Ei)) can greatly improve our understanding of water cycle, carbon cycle, and biogeochemical processes in a warming climate. As the world′s largest hydropower project, the construction of the Three Gorges Project (TGP) coupled with the significant land use/land cover change affected the regional water and energy exchange in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA). This study aimed to reveal the spatiotemporal variations and influencing climate factors in ET and its components using PML-V2 products in TGRA during 2000–2020. Results showed that the mean annual ET, Ec, Es, and Ei in TGRA were 585.12, 328.49, 173.07, and 83.56 mm, respectively. The temporal variation of ET was dominated by Ec, with no significant change in the time trend. Es decreased (2.92 mm/y) and Ei increased (1.66 mm/y) significantly mainly in the cultivated land. ET, Ec, and Ei showed a similar seasonal variation pattern with a single peak, while Es presented a bimodal pattern. From the pre-impoundment to the first impoundment period, ET and Ec mainly increased in the head of TGRA, meanwhile, Es in urban area increased significantly by 27.8%. In the subsequent impoundment periods, ET and Ec changed slightly while Es sharply decreased. The Ei increased persistently during different impoundment period. The dominant climate factors affecting changes in Ec and Es were air temperature, vapor pressure deficit, and sunshine hours, while the variation of Ei was mainly affected by air temperature, vapor pressure deficit, and precipitation. 
  • 589
  • 06 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Hybrid Artificial Intelligence in Groundwater
As one of the world’s most valuable and vital water sources, groundwater is integral to many facets of human life, including food production, economic growth, and safe drinking water. Developing precise soft computing methods for groundwater management, which includes quality and quantity, is crucial for improving water resources planning and management. Significant progress has been made in groundwater management using hybrid machine learning (ML) models as artificial intelligence (AI). 
  • 582
  • 12 May 2023
Topic Review
Water Quality Monitoring Systems
Water quality monitoring (WQM) refers to the collection of representative information on the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of various water bodies in both spatial and temporal scales. Water quality monitoring systems are being developed and deployed to monitor changes in the aquatic environment. With technological progress, traditional sampling-based water monitoring has been supplemented with sensors and automated data acquisition and transmission devices, resulting in the automation of water quality monitoring systems. 
  • 561
  • 21 Feb 2023
Topic Review
Sea Water and Cement-Based Materials
The use of blast furnace cement is an effective way to meet the requirements of sustainable development. However, CEM III/C is characterized by slow strength gain. The problem can be worse for plasticized reinforced blast furnace cement concretes mixed with sea water in view of shorter durability. The mitigation of corrosion in plasticized blast furnace cement concretes mixed with sea water can be provided through a composition of minor additional constituents, with percentage by mass of the main constituents: alkali metal compounds, 2…3; calcium aluminate cement, 1; clinoptilolite, 1. The alkali metal compounds are known to activate hydraulic properties of ground granulated blast furnace slag. A calcium aluminate cement promotes the accelerated chemical binding of Cl− and SO42−-ions with the formation of Kuzel’s salt. A clinoptilolite occludes these aggressive ions. The positive effects of the mentioned minor additional constituents in the blast furnace cement were supported by the increased early strength gain and the higher structural density, as well as by a good state of steel reinforcement, in the plasticized concretes mixed with sea water.
  • 553
  • 28 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Modelling of Nature-Based Solutions on Surface Water Quality
Global climate change and growing urbanization pose a threat to both natural and urban ecosystems. In these, one of the most impacted elements is water, which is responsible for a large variety of ecosystem services and benefits to society. Mathematical models can be used to simulate the implementation of Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs), thus helping to quantify their impacts on these issues in a practical and efficient manner.
  • 550
  • 28 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Machine Learning Methods for Rainfall–Runoff Modelling
Runoff plays an essential part in the hydrological cycle, as it regulates the quantity of water which flows into streams and returns surplus water into the oceans. Runoff modelling may assist in understanding, controlling, and monitoring the quality and amount of water resources. In machine learning (ML) models, the association between hydrological cycle variables and runoff is examined directly without regard for the actual processes involved. However, such ML (black-box) approaches are good enough at modelling runoff. The most widely used ML approaches in hydrologic research are K-nearest neighbor (K-NN), decision tree (DT), fuzzy rule-based systems (FRBS), ANN, deep neural networks (DNN), adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), and support vector machine (SVM), etc. Numerous researchers have utilized these ML models for rainfall–runoff analysis.
  • 546
  • 03 Jan 2023
Topic Review
Wetland Water-Level Prediction
Wetlands are simply areas that are fully or partially saturated with water. Wetlands have numerous hydrological, ecological, and social values. They play an important role in interactions among soil, water, plants, and animals. The rich biodiversity in the vicinity of wetlands makes them invaluable. Many anthropogenic activities damage wetlands. Climate change has adversely impacted wetlands and their biodiversity. The shrinking of wetland areas and reducing wetland water levels can therefore be frequently seen. However, the opposite can be seen during stormy seasons. Since wetlands have permissible water levels, the prediction of wetland water levels is important.
  • 543
  • 09 May 2023
Topic Review
Study of Water Safety Plan
The use of Microfiltered Water Dispensers (MWDs) is increasing in offices, companies, or commercial facilities, as a response to plastic pollution. Despite their widespread use, poor data are available about the water quality and pathogens developed. Starting from a high contamination found in MWDs, a Water Safety Plan (WSP) was implemented on 57 MWDs to improve the water quality. To assess the effectiveness of WSP during the period 2017–2021, the environmental monitoring of heterotrophic plate counts (HPCs) at 36 °C and 22 °C, Enterococcus spp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Clostridium perfringens, as prescribed by Italian regulation for drinking water, was conducted.
  • 539
  • 08 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Propagating Rifts
Propagating rifts are seafloor features associated with spreading centers at mid-ocean ridges and back-arc basins. They are more commonly observed on faster rate spreading centers (50 mm/year or more). These features are formed by the lengthening of one spreading segment at the expense of an offset neighboring spreading segment. Hence, these are remnant features produced by migration of the tip of a spreading center. In other words, as the tip of a spreading center migrates or grows, the plate itself grows at the expense of the shrinking plate, transferring lithosphere from the shrinking plate to the growing plate.
  • 528
  • 02 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Mega Borg Oil Spill
The Mega Borg Oil Spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico on June 8, 1990, roughly 50 miles off the coast of Texas , when the oil tanker Mega Borg caught on fire and exploded. The cleanup was one of the first practical uses of bioremediation.
  • 523
  • 05 Dec 2022
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