Summary

Environmental science emerged from the fields of natural history and medicine during the Enlightenment. Today, it provides an integrated, quantitative, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental systems. Environmental studies are incorporating more of the social sciences in order to understand human relationships, perceptions and policies towards the environment. This entry collection features information about design and technology for improving environmental quality in every aspect.

Expand All
Entries
Topic Review
Management of Municipal Solid Waste Management
Municipal solid waste (MSW) management has become a major concern for developing countries. The physical and chemical aspects of MSW management and infrastructure need to be analyzed critically to solve the existing socio-economic problem. Depending on the socio-economic framework of a country, several MSW management procedures have been established, including landfilling, thermal treatment, and chemical treatment. Most of the MSW produced in underdeveloped and developing countries such as Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan is dumped into open landfills, severely affecting the environment. Waste-to-Energy (WTE) projects based on thermal treatments, e.g., incineration, pyrolysis, and gasification, can be feasible alternatives to conventional technologies. 
  • 1.7K
  • 26 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Assessing Dry Ports’ Environmental Sustainability
The expression “dry port” was initially used to describe a facility useful for redistributing flows of goods arriving by sea. Sustainable development and environmental issues related to ports and sea trade have highlighted the need to enhance transport and trade systems to include green practices, such as the realisation of dry ports. 
  • 520
  • 20 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Microbial Technologies Applied Biofuel Production
The use of fossil energy sources has a negative impact on the economic and socio-political stability of specific regions and countries, causing environmental changes due to the emission of greenhouse gases. Moreover, the stocks of mineral energy are limited, causing the demand for new types and forms of energy. Biomass is a renewable energy source and represents an alternative to fossil energy sources. Microorganisms produce energy from the substrate and biomass, i.e., from substances in the microenvironment, to maintain their metabolism and life. However, specialized microorganisms also produce specific metabolites under almost abiotic circumstances that often do not have the immediate task of sustaining their own lives. Microorganisms can change the current paradigm, energy–environment, and open up countless opportunities for producing new energy sources, especially hydrogen, which is an ideal energy source for all systems (biological, physical, technological). Developing such energy production technologies can significantly change the already achieved critical level of greenhouse gases that significantly affect the climate.
  • 782
  • 20 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Sustainable Valorization of Sugarcane Waste from Sugarcane Processing
Sugarcane is a lignocellulosic crop and the juice extracted from its stalks provides the raw material for 86% of sugar production. Globally, sugarcane processing to obtain sugar and/or ethanol generates more than 279 million tons of solid and liquid waste annually, as well as by-products; namely, straws, bagasse, press mud, wastewater, ash from bagasse incineration, vinasse from ethanol distillation, and molasses. If not properly managed, this waste will pose risks to both environmental factors and human health. Valorization of waste has gained momentum, having an important contribution to the fulfillment of policies and objectives related to sustainable development and circular bioeconomy. Various technologies are well-established and implemented for the valorization of waste and by-products from sugarcane processing, while other innovative technologies are still in the research and development stage, with encouraging prospects.
  • 2.1K
  • 19 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Small-Scale Urban Green Infrastructure
Urban green infrastructure (UGI) such as green roofs, green facades, public parks, urban forests, urban wetlands, and unmanaged green sites, provide nature-based solutions (NBS) that offer a promising avenue for climate change adaptation in cities to reduce the negative environmental impacts of urbanization, such as the urban heat island effect and altered precipitation patterns. UGI supports a wide range of ES at different spatial levels including but not limited to provisioning (e.g., food, and freshwater), regulating (e.g., urban temperature regulations, noise reduction, air purification, pollination, runoff mitigation, and waste treatment), socio-cultural (tourism, recreation, cognitive development, social cohesion), and supporting (e.g., habitat for biodiversity diversity), with fewer documented health benefits (e.g., good health, mortality). 
  • 683
  • 19 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Evaluation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions
In the face of a changing climate, intensive efforts are needed for limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5 °C. Agricultural production has the potential to play an important role in mitigating climate change. It is necessary to optimize all of the agricultural practices that have high levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
  • 477
  • 20 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Glyphosate-Based Herbicide
To meet the demands of farmers and combat weed problems, woodlands and farmlands are sprayed with agrochemicals, primarily glyphosate-based herbicides. Farmers increasingly embrace these herbicides containing glyphosate. Glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), a key metabolite of glyphosate, have been reported as toxicological concerns when they become more prevalent in the food chain.
  • 468
  • 13 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Effect of Sunscreen Ingredients in an Aquatic Environment
Sunscreens have become a product based on increasingly complex formulations that include, among many ingredients, a mixture of UV filters to provide optimal sun ultraviolet radiation protection. A significant group of scientific works deals with the impact of UV filters in aquatic media. However, the knowledge of the mechanism and kinetics of the compound’s direct release, fate, and its transformation and interaction with living organisms is necessary to assess its environmental occurrence and behavior and to predict potential and real impacts on the aquatic environment. The physical‐chemical properties, photodegradation, and release kinetics of particles and chemicals into the water are studied by hydrodynamic and kinetic models. Direct photolysis of chemicals is modeled as pseudofirst‐order kinetics, while the indirect pathway by the reaction of sunscreen with reactive oxygen species is described as second‐order kinetics. The interaction of UV filters with marine biota is studied mainly by toxicokinetic models, which predict their bio‐accumulation in the organisms’ tissues. These models consider the chemicals’ uptake and excretion, as well as their transfer between different internal animal organs, as a first‐order kinetic process.
  • 786
  • 06 Sep 2022
Topic Review
First United Nations Report on Problems of Human-Environment
The 1969 UN Report “Problems of the Human Environment” was a seminal work that first highlighted environmental problems at a global scale. This report underpinned a series of subsequent international summits and conventions of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and the subsequent three global conventions on Biodiversity, Climate Change and Desertification. Many issues of that day have declined in importance or been superseded, and several major environmental problems (including climate change and plastic pollution) were not foreseen. Most of the report’s predictions proved to be much more conservative than proved by reality (a criticism that has also been levelled at contemporary IPCC reports).
  • 725
  • 06 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Evolution of the Energy Mix Transition
Countries have started to aggressively undertake energy structure transformation strategies in order to reach the objective of carbon neutrality. Both clean and efficient coal energy use and clean energy use will be crucial to the process of changing the energy structure since the two cannot be totally replaced within a short period of time.Therefore, it is worth exploring how the two have an impact on the energy mix transition in the energy transition process. It is also important to see how carbon sentiment affects the various actors involved in the decision-making process.
  • 639
  • 07 Sep 2022
  • Page
  • of
  • 105

Featured Entry Collections

>>