Topic Review
Eco-Friendly Energy Source in Bangladesh
Global fossil fuel reserves are declining due to differential uses, especially for power generation. Everybody can help to do their bit for the environment by using solar energy. Geographically, Bangladesh is a potential zone for harnessing solar energy. In March 2021, the renewable generation capacity in Bangladesh amounted to 722.592 MW, including 67.6% from solar, 31.84% from hydro, and 0.55% from other energy sources, including wind, biogas, and biomass, where 488.662 MW of power originated from over 6 million installed solar power systems. Concurrently, over 42% of rural people still suffer from a lack of electricity, where solar energy can play a vital role.
  • 745
  • 21 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Seasonal Changes in Soil Microbial Community
Hazelnut is one of the four major nuts in the world and has high nutritional and economic value. This study employed Illumina sequencing of ITS rDNA and 16S rRNA genes to identify the seasonal changes in soil microbial community, the predominant environmental factors driving microbial community composition, and the differences in soil microbial composition among different species of the genus Corylus. We found that the soil microbial community composition of species of Corylus changed significantly with the change in seasons. Corylus heterophylla and Corylus kweichowensis had more ectomycorrhiza in their soil compared to Corylus avellane. The main factor influencing fungal community composition in soil was the available potassium, while that of bacteria was the total phosphorus content.
  • 744
  • 02 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Mediterranean Drought: Regional Exceptional Datasets
To define such drought events and their characteristics, separate analyses based on three drought indices were performed at 12-month timescale: the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), and the Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI). A multivariate combined drought index (DXI) was developed by merging the previous three indices for more understanding of droughts’ features at the country and subregional levels. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify five different drought subregions based on DXI-12 values for 312 Mediterranean stations and a new special score was defined to classify the multi-subregional exceptional drought events across the Mediterranean Basin (MED). The results indicated that extensive drought events occurred more frequently since the late 1990s, showing several drought hotspots in the last decades in the southeastern Mediterranean and northwest Africa. In addition, the results showed that the most severe events were more detected when more than single drought index was used. 
  • 743
  • 11 Aug 2021
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
A Review of Event-Based Conceptual Rainfall-Runoff Models: A Case for Australia
Event-based models focus on modelling of peak runoff from rainfall data. Conceptual models indicate simplified models that provide reasonably accurate answers despite their crude nature. Rainfall-runoff models are used to transform a rainfall event into a runoff event. This paper focuses on reviewing computational simulation of rainfall-runoff processes over a catchment. Lumped conceptual, event-based rainfall-runoff models have remained the dominant practice for design flood estimation in Australia for many years due to their simplicity, flexibility, and accuracy under certain conditions. Attempts to establish regionalization methods for prediction of design flood hydrographs in ungauged catchments have seen little success. Therefore, as well as reviewing key rainfall-runoff model components for design flood estimation with a special focus on event-based conceptual models, this paper covers the aspects of regionalization to promote their applications to ungauged catchments.
  • 743
  • 13 Jun 2024
Topic Review
Urban Green Space and Residents’ Mental Health
As an important part of urban built environment, urban green space has long been recognized in the fields of promoting residents’ mental health. The mediators can be divided into environmental factors, outdoor activity, and social cohesion. From the perspective of heterogeneity, both individual characteristics (e.g., age and gender) and group characteristics (e.g., level of urban development and urban density) of residents are considered to be the cause of various mediating effects. Types of urban green space tend to affect residents’ mental health through different paths.
  • 742
  • 25 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Remote Sensing in Coastal Areas
Coastal areas are regions of remarkable relevance for humans, providing essential components for social and economic development from the local to the national scale. To preserve the economic and ecological sustainability of the coastal environment, the scientific community has been pushing for the use of integrated observation systems aimed at monitoring such susceptible areas. Remote sensing data can complement traditional field measurements, ensuring almost continuous synoptic coverage with a good trade-off between spatial and temporal resolution, thus allowing for a timely characterization of coastal environment dynamics. In particular, the availability of a multi-temporal historical series of remote sensing data can provide useful information on the spatiotemporal variability of hydrological (sea surface currents, river runoff/discharge), biological (phytoplankton blooms, primary productivity) and physical (temperature, salinity, and turbidity) properties of coastal waters as well as on human-induced land cover mutations (deforestation, surface urban islands).  This Special Issue seeks to collect high-quality papers focused on satellite-based applications for monitoring coastal areas, continental shelves and estuarine ecosystems.
  • 742
  • 29 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Optimizing Sustainability Opportunities for Biochar
Biochar is most commonly considered for its use as a soil amendment, where it has gained attention for its potential to improve agricultural production and soil health. Twenty years of near exponential growth in investigation has demonstrated that biochar does not consistently deliver these benefits, due to variables in biochar, soil, climate, and cropping systems. While biochar can provide agronomic improvements in marginal soils, it is less likely to do so in temperate climates and fertile soils. Here, biochar and its coproducts may be better utilized for contaminant remediation or the substitution of nonrenewable or mining-intensive materials. 
  • 742
  • 18 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Attitudes towards Plastic Pollution
Plastic pollution has received unprecedented attention globally, and there are increasing calls to control it. Despite this, the uptrends of plastic consumption and mismanaged plastic waste show little sign of reversal. It is imperative to understand the attitudes of various societal groups towards plastics to identify the barriers to behavioral changes to reduce plastic pollution and synthesize effective countermeasures. Generally, there are negative attitudes towards plastic pollution and people are willing to act against it by supporting campaigns, paying for environmentally friendly alternatives, and supporting solution-based interventions from governments including policies, regulations and guidelines. Inconvenience due to limited options for plastic items and habits are two main barriers to behavioral changes. Governments play crucial roles to tap into these attitudes to lead and intensify control plastic pollution through a multi-pronged approach that facilitates systematic substitution of conventional plastics with environmentally friendly alternatives as well as the stepping-up of the circular plastic economy and industrial symbiosis. Progressively regulated capping of conventional plastic production and consumption could help the transition, and the public could complement government endeavors through education, mutual influence and awareness-raising which could also be driven by governmental policies and programs.
  • 742
  • 21 Jun 2023
Topic Review
Homothetic Behavior of Betweenness Centralities
       In mathematics, a homothetic behavior is characterized by a transformation of an affine space by a factor λ and results in an invariance of this space form or configuration, albeit its overall scale changes. In this sense, if two objects or parts of those objects have distinct sizes, but conserve the same appearance, they can be considered homothetic. In networks, the occurrence of homothetic behaviors would imply that a section of the network, when modelled independently, ought to retain a certain regularity in their distribution of centrality hierarchies (visual similitude) when compared to a larger section, independently modelled as well, that contains it. Hence, the smaller network maintains its overall proportions (configuration, hierarchies and values) across scales. This visual similitude was perceived while apposing several Normalized Angular Choice (NACH) models, a Space Syntax’ derivative from mathematical betweenness. Network homotheties, due to their invariability in form and value, can be used as an alternative to extensive network generalization for the construction of large spatial networks. Hence, data maps can be constructed sooner and more accurately as “pieces of a puzzle”, since each individual lesser scale graph possesses a faster processing time.
  • 742
  • 21 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Groundwater Level Prediction Techniques
Groundwater level (GWL) refers to the depth of the water table or the level of water below the Earth’s surface in underground formations. It is an important factor in managing and sustaining the groundwater resources that are used for drinking water, irrigation, and other purposes. Groundwater level prediction is a critical aspect of water resource management and requires accurate and efficient modelling techniques.
  • 742
  • 06 Mar 2023
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