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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Entries
Topic Review
Tools in Circular Building Environment
The circular economy (CE) has become a trend because concern has arisen regarding the end of life of several products and the reduction of CO2 emissions in many processes.
  • 921
  • 13 Apr 2022
Topic Review
The Heat Rate of Thermal Power Plants
Rapid industrialization and the increased use of consumer electronic goods have increased the demand for energy. To meet the increasing energy demand, global nations are looking for energy from renewable sources rather than non-renewable sources, to adhere with the sustainability principle. As energy from renewable sources is still in the experimental stage, there is a need to use available energy sources optimally.
  • 965
  • 12 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Climate-Resilient and Climate-Neutral City
The urban heat island (UHI) effect is the main problem regarding a city’s climate. It is the main adverse effect of urbanization and negatively affects human thermal comfort levels as defined by physiological equivalent temperature (PET) in the urban environment. Blue and green infrastructure (BGI) solutions may mitigate the UHI effect. First, however, it is necessary to understand the problem from the degrading side. Researchers related to urban planning, architecture, and climatology are developing the city-UHI relationship’s mechanics and effective mitigation strategies based on the already-known dependencies. What the future urban environment should look like in order to be resilient to climate change and to be climate neutral are examined here.
  • 502
  • 12 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Photosynthesis and Rubisco: An Evolutionary Perspective
When oxygenic photosynthesis evolved around 2.4 billion years ago, it is believed that all the oxygen-evolving organisms used the ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase (Rubisco)- photosynthetic carbon reduction cycle (PCRC) despite there being five other major CO2 assimilation pathways. Rubisco-PCRC was dominant, with the highest specific activity in presence of carbon dioxide at high concentrations without the presence of oxygen. 
  • 666
  • 13 Apr 2022
Topic Review
The Role of Phytoplankton in Carbon Dioxide Fixation
Marine phytoplankton account for more than half of the carbon dioxide fixation of Earth. The export of carbon is highest at the photic zone of the ocean, which is dominated by phytoplankton. The term phytoplankton comes from the Greek words phyto (plants) and plankton (wanderers or drifters). Plankton can also be zooplanktons that feed on phytoplankton and release fecal pellets that are made of dissolved carbon particles.
  • 2.0K
  • 13 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Engineering Photosynthetic Plants
One of the main contributors to biological carbon fixation is plants, during the process of photosynthesis. Plants are divided into three main categories based on their photosynthetic pathways, i.e., C3, C4, and crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM). These pathways are differentiated by their respective methods of carbon fixation and their ability to combat photorespiration.
  • 451
  • 11 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Chemical Alternatives for Fixing Carbon Dioxide
Carbon is the most important element of organic matter, forming the major part of its dry weight. Elemental carbon exists in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2) and is dissolved in water, rocks, and soils as carbonic acid (H2CO3), bicarbonates, and carbonates. In fossil fuels, it exists as carbon rings or chains and in biomolecules such as nucleic acids, carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids. Atmospheric CO2 is the major cause for global warming through the greenhouse effect; hence, carbon dioxide emissions must be strictly regulated to minimize the greenhouse effect.
  • 937
  • 13 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Ice Accretion on Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
UAV is an aircraft without an onboard human pilot. The main components of a UAV are the aircraft structure, ground control center (remote), payload (camera), and a data link for the communication between aircraft and ground control center. According to their structure, UAVs are classified into four broad categories: fixed-wing UAVs, rotary-wing UAVs, flapping-wing UAVs, and blimps. The operation of UAVs in high north regions is prone to three main challenges: low temperature, high wind speeds, and atmospheric icing. The ice accretion along a UAV structure causes deterioration of aerodynamic performance and structural characteristics leading to catastrophic failures.
  • 628
  • 11 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Valuing Ecosystem Services for Agricultural Total Factor Productivity
The United Nations (UN) Millennium Ecosystem Services Assessment (MA) defines ecosystem services as the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. These include provisioning services such as food and water; regulating services such as regulation of floods, drought, land degradation, and disease; supporting services such as soil formation and nutrient cycling; and cultural services such as recreational, spiritual, religious, and other nonmaterial benefits. Agriculture and ecosystem services are closely intertwined, giving rise to the term “agro-ecosystem” to denote the complex relationships between agricultural production and surrounding ecosystems. Total factor productivity (TFP), also termed multifactor productivity (MFP), relates total output quantity to total input quantity to provide an aggregate measure of economic performance. Total Factor Productivity (TFP) provides a general framework for modeling agricultural production and constructing aggregate index measures to allow for the multilateral assessment of agricultural productivity.
  • 629
  • 11 Apr 2022
Topic Review
The Financial Outcome of Successful Green Innovation
Climate change, pollution of the environment, and the consecutive challenges for the 21st century have been increasingly recognized by governments, policymakers, and industry over the last decade. It is therefore vital to transition from environment- and resource-intensive trajectories to more sustainable growth paths for the global economy. This also requires corporate environmentalism and (green) technological innovation. To realize sustainable growth paths, green innovation and technology diffusion must be financially and commercially attractive to convince corporate decision makers to introduce environmentalism. The current strand of literature on the financial attractiveness of green innovation can be divided into two parts: the traditional view follows Friedman and considers green innovation as firm-value decreasing, while the Porter hypothesis argues that environmental policies, adoption of corporate environmentalism, and green innovation increase profits of firms by reducing costs and increasing revenues. In fact, prior studies provide empirical evidence to support the Porter hypothesis for many cases. Therefore, scholars have suggested intervention by governments to overcome these barriers. Government organizations included environmental issues into their agendas for multiple decades now. As a result, different forms of intervention were introduced, ranging from regulatory (e.g., forced shutdowns or investments) to market-based, economic measures (e.g., supply-push and demand-pull). One of the most important green growth strategies from a governmental perspective is the development of green technologies through appropriate innovation to stimulate corporate environmentalism, particularly green innovation policies.
  • 477
  • 11 Apr 2022
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