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
Stand-Level Optimization
There is a vast backlog of conducted first commercial thinnings (FCTs) in Finland. The reasons are many, but probably the most crucial would be the lack of simultaneous economic incentives for participating agents, i.e., private forest owners and forest machine contractors. In this study an FCT was executed accruing to five predetermined management options: (1) Industrial wood thinning with only two timber assortments, pulpwood and saw logs, (2) Integrated procurement of industrial and energy wood, (3) Energy wood thinning solely consisting of delimbed stems, (4) Whole-tree energy wood thinning with an energy price of 3 € m−3 and (5) Whole-tree energy wood thinning with energy price of 8 € m−3. Then, a two-phase financial analysis consisting of stand-level optimization (private forest owners) and profitability assessment (contractor) was conducted in order to find out whether there would be simultaneous economic incentives for both participants of FCT. The stand-level optimization revealed the financially best management options for a private forest owner, and then, for a contractor, the profitability assessment exposed the profit (or loss) associated with the particular management option.
  • 618
  • 22 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Sustainable Management by Rhizobacteria
Rhizobacteria are bacteria from diverse taxonomic genera, which are living in the rhizosphere of plants. Among the rhizobacterial bulk, several genera of bacteria have been proven for plant growth promotion are termed as ‘beneficial rhizobacteria’. There are various modes of action for plant growth promotion through the adoption of beneficial rhizobacteria. The beneficial bacteria also enhance tolerance in plants to various biotic and abiotic stresses caused by the global climate change.
  • 679
  • 29 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Shade Covers in Water Reservoirs
Shade objects are small plastic spheres, squares or even hexagons floating on top of a water reserve for environmental reasons. The creator of shade balls in California originally used them to prevent chemical treatments in the reservoir from reacting with sunlight creating bromate, which is a carcinogen regulated by many institutions worldwide (chlorine plus sunlight turns bromine into bromate that is a potentially cancer-causing agent; because shady objects stop bromate from forming below, less chlorine is required to treat the water than without them). More recently, other environmental issues have been associated to the use of shade objects: slowing down water evaporation, preventing algae blooms, avoiding birds landing on bodies of water and promote water heating.
  • 925
  • 21 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Decapods Crustaceans Amylase
Decapod crustaceans are a very diverse group and have evolved to adapt to a broad variety of diets. However, α-amylases have been more thoroughly studies in herbivore and omnivore species, both from an evolutionary/ecological and applied (i.e., aquaculture) point of view, while information on α-amylases from carnivorous species is scarce. Diverse studies revealed that enzyme sequences and overall architecture is highly conserved among decapods. 
  • 736
  • 21 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Toward a Feminist Agroecology
Agroecology is gaining ground as a movement, science, and set of practices designed to advance a food systems transformation which subverts the patterns of farmer exploitation currently entrenched in dominant agricultural models. A feminist agroecology focuses on redressing unequal gender relations as well as other intersecting relations of marginalization such as race, class, caste, and ethnic identity. 
  • 1.2K
  • 20 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Malaysian Palm Oil Industry
Oil palm is a highly productive oil crop as it produces up a yield up to ten times higher than other oilseed crops, such as soybean, sunflower and rapeseed, and has a productive life span of over 20 years. As such, oil palm plantations record the highest land productivity. With the growth in population and the surge in renewable energy, palm oil can address those demands by increasing the yield from the existing plantation areas.
  • 984
  • 20 Oct 2021
Topic Review
A Connected Community Approach to Building Community Resilience
Urban resilience research is recognizing the need to complement a mainstream preoccupation with “hard” infrastructure (electrical grid, storm sewers, etc.) with attention to the “soft” (social) infrastructure issues that include the increased visibility of and role for civil society, moving from (top-down, paternalistic) government to (participatory) governance. Analyses of past shock events invariably point to the need for more concerted efforts in building effective governance and networked relations between civil society groupings and formal institutions before, during, and after crisis. However, the literature contains little advice on how to go about this. A Connected Communities Approach is advanced that offers the missing guidance, and it's key features are explained.
  • 1.2K
  • 20 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Wool Characteristics Variationacross of Alpacas in Poland
The quality of the fibers obtained from alpacas is primarily determined by the mean fiber diameter (MFD) and the presence of medullas. The staple length and crimping are also important. These parameters depend on many genetic and phenotypic factors, such as age, sex, and the color of the coat.Alpaca wool is luxurious and, hence, arouses great interest among consumers. However, the drawbacks of this wool are its variation in thickness and the proportion of medullated fibers. Knowing about variations in the quality characteristics of the wool on an animal’s body can help in properly evaluating and using this wool.
  • 639
  • 21 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Plant Tolerance to Drought Stress
Increasing temperature leads to intensive water evaporation, contributing to global warming and consequently leading to drought stress. These events are likely to trigger modifications in plant physiology and microbial functioning due to the altered availability of nutrients. Plants exposed to drought have developed different strategies to cope with stress by morphological, physiological, anatomical, and biochemical responses.
  • 1.3K
  • 19 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Tougher Plastics Ban Policies in China
After the Chinese government's new plastics ban policies issued in 2020, another set of tougher plastics ban measures were introduced in Shanghai, China in 2021. The tougher plastic ban polices completely forbade the usage of plastic carrier bags and required all supermarkets to sell only cloth or nylon carrier bags priced from RMB 1.0 to 39.0. Tougher plastics ban policies are penalty-oriented. The tougher plastics ban policies produce positive plastics reducing effects by observing significantly decreased usage of charged carrier bags by 46%, and significantly increased usage of old plastic bags and reusable bags by 117% and 36%, respectively. Policy execution loopholes are found in some supermarkets which do not follow the tougher plastics ban measures. Fortunately, the spill-over effects from tougher-measure-executing supermarkets fix this issue to some extent. The tougher 2021 measures fail to be the most powerful impacting factor on people’s usage of each type of bag. To produce better plastics reducing results, other bag-targeted measures are necessary.
  • 995
  • 19 Oct 2021
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