Topic Review
Theory of Urban Farming
Urban agriculture attempts to advance sustainable agricultural methods, such as composting, the use of organic fertilizers, and water conservation. It involves a multidisciplinary approach, combining knowledge of soil science, plant physiology, sustainable agriculture, and technology. Crop rotation and companion planting are two other methods urban farmers can utilize to lessen the demand for pesticides and herbicides. The crops are managed using advanced technology involving sensor-based monitoring, automated irrigation systems, and data analysis to maximize crop output. Urban crop farming is regarded as an important agricultural activity for the modern and circular economy, as it can also improve the urban residents’ income and reduce agricultural waste and gaseous emissions from long-distance transportation.
  • 1.3K
  • 23 May 2023
Topic Review
Viable Bacteria in Dust-Generating Area
The distribution of microorganisms in the atmospheric circulation affects the animals that inhabit the area. Also, many organisms that share the environment also influence the distribution of environmental bacteria. In this paper, we focused on microbes that survive on the surface of Asian Dust, and clarified their topographical features and distribution. The characteristics of microorganisms that are easily influenced by environmental factors, and their effects on the atmospheric circulation are considered as issues of the One Health Concept.
  • 1.2K
  • 16 Sep 2020
Topic Review
Rainfall Threshold
Sediment-related disaster is one of the most significant natural disasters, from the perspective of magnitude, damage and loss to human life and infrastructure, and disruption to socio-economic activities. The rainfall threshold is the condition or amount of rainfall that is likely to initiate sediment-related disasters, it is agreed that the rainfall threshold is the most significant tool to predict impending occurrences.
  • 1.2K
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Atmospheric Influence on Grapevine Development
In many European regions, viticulture and winemaking play a major socioeconomic role in local economies, with climate being a central component of the terroirs, governing vineyard microclimate, vine development and growth, phenology, yield, and grape berry composition, which ultimately control attributes and typicity of the produced wines. Nonetheless, climate change is already affecting the viticultural suitability of many wine regions throughout the continent and is expected to continue along this same path in the upcoming decades. These climate-driven shifts may lead to a redesign of the geographical distribution of wine regions, while wine typicity may also be threatened in most cases. Climate change does require the implementation of well-timed, appropriate, and economically efficient adaptation strategies, while respecting local specificities for an effective reduction of the risks to which this vulnerable sector is exposed. However, knowledge on the adaptation potential of a range of measures is still incipient and will need more research in the near future.
  • 1.2K
  • 28 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Indoor Air Quality Management
The existence of indoor air pollutants—such as ozone, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and total volatile organic compounds—is evidently a critical issue for human health. Over the past decade, various international agencies have continually refined and updated the quantitative air quality guidelines and standards in order to meet the requirements for indoor air quality management. This entry first provides a systematic review of the existing air quality guidelines and standards implemented by different agencies, which include the Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS); the World Health Organization (WHO); the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA); the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH); the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE); the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH); and the California ambient air quality standards (CAAQS). It then adds to this by providing a state-of-art review of the existing low-cost air quality sensor (LCAQS) technologies, and analyzes the corresponding specifications, such as the typical detection range, measurement tolerance or repeatability, data resolution, response time, supply current, and market price. Finally, it briefly reviews a sequence (array) of field measurement studies, which focuses on the technical measurement characteristics and their data analysis approaches.
  • 1.1K
  • 18 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Vegetation Dynamics and Climate Change
Climate extremes and their impacts on vegetation dynamics have been of great concern to the ecosystem and environmental conservation and the policy-decision makers. Of great concern now is that climate change impacts on vegetation dynamics have influenced the global terrestrial ecosystem adversely, thus making ecosystems vulnerability one of the current issues in ecological studies. For instance, the negative consequences attributed to natural hazards associated with climate extremes have been estimated to be billions of dollars across the globe. Accordingly, vegetation dynamics are influenced by several factors including climate change, environmental and climatic components among others. These can expend considerable impact on the water balance by evapotranspiration, interception and development strategy which has the potential to lead to vegetation degradation in a wide variety of ecosystems and biodiversity.
  • 1.1K
  • 30 Sep 2021
Topic Review Video
Chaos and Order in the Atmosphere
The Lorenz 1963 and 1969 models have been applied for revealing the chaotic nature of weather and climate and for estimating the atmospheric predictability limit. Recently, an in-depth analysis of classical Lorenz models (LMs) and newly developed, generalized Lorenz models suggested a revised view that “The atmosphere possesses chaos and order; it includes, as examples, emerging organized systems (such as tornadoes) and time varying forcing from recurrent seasons”, in contrast to the conventional view of “weather is chaotic”. The revised view focuses on distinct predictability and time varying multistability. Distinct predictability suggests limited predictability for chaotic solutions and unlimited predictability (or up to their lifetime) for non-chaotic solutions. To support the revised view, multistability (for attractor coexistence) and monostability (for single-type solutions) are first illustrated using kayaking and skiing as an analogy. Additionally, this entry provides a list of non-chaotic weather systems and a short list of suggested future tasks.
  • 1.1K
  • 29 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Groundwater dynamics
Analytical solutions of groundwater dynamics in an elongated aquifer subjected to general time-dependent recharge are presented. The lateral boundaries are specified heads with the head variations governed by general time-dependent functions.  General recharge function was not considered in previous works of this kind. Both single and double-porosity aquifers are considered. The solution is obtained using Fourier sine and Laplace transformations, followed by an inverse Fourier-Laplace transform involving residue theorem and convolutional integral. For the unconfined single-porosity aquifer case, the exact time-domain solution is obtained using the residue theorem; for the unconfined double-porosity aquifer case, the time-domain head is calculated using the de Hoog inverse Laplace algorithm. The presented solution can be used to estimate the hydraulic parameters of 1) groundwater head variation of a river basin aquifer subjected to general lateral head variation and recharge; 2) groundwater head variation in a double-porosity elongated fractured anticline; 3) groundwater depletion of an elongated fractured anticline subjected to recharge due to rainfall or snowmelt to its adjacent alluvial aquifer.  In addition, the presented solution can be utilized to optimize the irrigation pattern in a cropland between two trench drains to control the groundwater mound.
  • 1.0K
  • 23 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Air Pollution Policy in Israel
Since its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel has been oriented towards economic development and industrialization, with a transportation sector increasingly focused on private cars. In 1961, initial awareness of environmental risks led to the adoption of the Abatement of Nuisances Law, which served as the platform for air pollution policy for several decades, even as population growth and growth of the industrial sector, including fossil fuel power plants, led to a continuous increase in air pollution. In the early 2000s, the environmental movement in Israel criticized local air pollution policy as being out of date and started to promote a new Clean Air Law. The law, which was adopted in 2008 and came into force in 2011, was a watershed in air pollution policy in Israel. It includes ambient air quality values for 28 contaminants, emission permits for the industrial sector based on best available techniques (BAT), an enforcement system, and a unified and transparent monitoring system. This entry introduces the history of air pollution policy in Israel from 1948, through the 1961 and 2008 landmark legislations and their strengths and weaknesses, to the present. Also, it gives  recommendations for future air pollution policy in Israel.
  • 912
  • 28 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Wind Farms and Humidity
Several investigations have shown that enhanced mixing brought about by wind turbines alters near-surface meteorological conditions within and downstream of a wind farm. When scalar meteorological parameters have been considered, the focus has most often centered on temperature changes. A subset of these works has also considered humidity to various extents. These limited investigations are complemented by just a few studies dedicated to analyzing humidity changes. With onshore wind turbines often sited in agricultural areas, any changes to the microclimate surrounding a turbine can impact plant health and the length of the growing season; any changes to the environment around an offshore wind farm can change cloud and fog formation and dissipation, among other impacts. This article provides a review of observational field campaigns and numerical investigations examining changes to humidity within wind turbine array boundary layers. Across the range of empirical observations and numerical simulations, changes to humidity were observed in stably stratified conditions. In addition to the role of atmospheric stability, this review reveals that the nature of the change depends on the upstream moisture profile; robustness of the mixing; turbine array layout; distance from the turbine, in all three directions; and vertical temperature profile.
  • 890
  • 15 Apr 2022
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