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.

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Topic Review
Vitamin D and Cancer
There is strong evidence from geographical ecological and observational studies that solar UVB exposure and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration are inversely correlated with risk of incidence and death from many types of cancer. Clinical trials have provided limited support for the UVB-vitamin D-cancer hypothesis due to poor design and execution. Many experimental studies in cultured cells and animal models have described a wide range of anticancer effects of vitamin D compounds.
  • 471
  • 27 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Chitosan in Sustainable Development
The chitosan shows interesting and unique properties, thus it can be used for different purposes which contributes to the design and development of sustainable novel materials. This helps in promoting sustainability through the use of chitosan and diverse materials based on it. 
  • 486
  • 19 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Respiratory Control of Crop Yield under High Temperature
Respiration and photosynthesis are indispensable plant metabolic processes that are affected by elevated temperatures leading to disruption of the carbon economy of the plants. Increasing global temperatures impose yield penalties in major staple crops that are attributed to increased respiratory carbon loss, through higher maintenance respiration resulting in a shortage of non-structural carbohydrates and an increase in metabolic processes like protein turnover and maintenance of ion concentration gradients.
  • 551
  • 18 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Public Water Policy Knowledge in the American West
Misalignment between crop production and the volume of water necessary to maintain abundant food yields is becoming more pronounced in the Western US. As the West continues to struggle with water availability, periods of drought offer poignant opportunities to engage the public with education campaigns about water and could provide a salient policy window to advance water conservation policies, as research shows that increasing public water knowledge may be beneficial to gain public support for water conservation policies.
  • 730
  • 18 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Geopolymer Concrete (GPC)
Geopolymer concrete (GPC) is a new material in the construction industry, with different chemical compositions and reactions involved in a binding material. The pozzolanic materials (industrial waste like fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS), and rice husk ash), which contain high silica and alumina, work as binding materials in the mix. The sustainable development can be achieved by employing geopolymers in construction industries, because it results in lower CO2 emissions, optimum utilization of natural resources, utilization of waste materials, low energy consumption, thermally stability, more cost-effective in long life infrastructure construction, and, socially, financial benefits and employment generation
  • 3.1K
  • 18 Apr 2022
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.
  • 1.0K
  • 15 Apr 2022
Topic Review
ncRNA Subtypes, Biogenesis, and Turnover
Epigenetics investigates modifications in the expression of genes that do not depend on the underlying DNA sequence. Some studies have confirmed that environmental factors, such as toxicants, may promote a phenotype or a disease in an individual or even in the subsequent progeny through epigenetic alterations. Several epigenetic mechanisms, including modifications in DNA (e.g., methylation), histones, and non-protein coding RNAs (ncRNAs) can change genome expression under the exogenous influenc. The latent interest in epigenetics has resulted in breakthroughs in seminal concepts in diseases ranging from autoimmune conditions to cancer, congenital diseases, mental retardation, endocrine diseases, pediatric diseases, neuropsychiatric disorders, and many others.
  • 449
  • 20 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Integrated Landscape Approaches
Integrated Landscape Approaches (ILAs) are increasingly presented as socio-environmental conceptual frameworks for holistic management and governance of sustainable landscapes. There is a wealth of literature, case studies, and widespread international interest in ILAs to reconcile and harmonize multiple goals for conservation, development, climate change, and human well-being at the landscape level.  
  • 760
  • 15 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Wine Tourism
Nowadays, wine has become an important beverage that is increasingly being consumed more frequently all over the world, and its production and marketing has received increasing attention from consumers, specialists, and producers. As a result, the growing importance of wine tourism for many destinations and the role of this type of tourism in supporting local economies is now beginning to be understood. It has also been highlighted that wine tourism can play a significant role in the development of tourism by contributing to the economic and social support of local regions and communities. Wine is one of the ingredients of people's journeys, and journeys dedicated to wine-producing areas have led to the tourism product known as wine tourism.
  • 5.5K
  • 18 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Silica Aerogel Incorporated Cementitious Composites
Silica aerogels are made of 95% air, the rest being silica crystal (SiO2). They have an open porous structure that is composed of particles with diameter less than 10 nm and pores smaller than 50 nm. Lightweight cement composites with silica aerogel in the form of granulate, thanks to their low thermal conductivity and good mechanical performance, may soon find wide application in the construction sector. An important aspect that guarantees this application is the proper design of the composite, proper selection of its components, improvement of the interfacial zone between the silica aerogel and the cement matrix, and ensuring the durability of the material in the long term.  
  • 863
  • 18 Apr 2022
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