Compiles current research on nanomaterials as well as their versatile applications in plant biotic stress management Describes role of nanomaterials as enzyme-mimicking nanoparticles, nano-pesticides, nano-fertilizers, and nanomaterials Reviews day-to-day problems related to crop plants, their diagnostics and stress management Explores trends in nanomaterials utility towards diagnostics, enzyme-mimicking, crop protection and their possible role in plant disease management Includes pertinent nanomaterials including synthetic strategies, properties, chemistry, and applications

This book provides an introduction to the significant role of physics in evolution, based on the ideas of matter and energy resource flow, organism self-copying, and ecological change. The text employs these ideas to create quantitative models for important evolutionary processes. Many fields of science and engineering have come up against the problem of complex design-when details become so numerous that computer power alone cannot make progress. Nature solved the complex-design problem using evolution, yet how it did so has been a mystery. Both laboratory experiments and computer-simulation attempts eventually stopped evolving. Something more than Darwin's ideas of heredity, variation, and selection was needed. The solution is that there is a fourth element to evolution: ecological change. When a new variation is selected, this can change the ecology, and the new ecology can create new opportunities for even more new variations to be selected. Through this endless cycle, complexity can grow automatically. This book uses the physics of resource flow to describe this process in detail, developing quantitative models for many evolutionary processes, including selection, multicellularity, coevolution, sexual reproduction, and the Serengeti Rules. The text demonstrates that these models are in conceptual agreement with numerous examples of biological phenomena, and reveals, through physics, how complex design can arise naturally. This will serve as a key text on the part physics plays in evolution, and will be of great interest to students at the university level and above studying biophysics, physics, systems biology, and related fields.

Originally published in 1987, this book is written primarily for planners, public administrators and project managers in countries or international agencies considering a development strategy in which agribusiness and rural enterprise projects are viewed as a desirable policy instrument for generating employment and income. It makes available the background and methodology of project analysis so that agribusiness and rural enterprise project can be designed, implemented and reviewed effectively in a wide range of circumstances. It outlines how to establish objectively the potential and limitations of agribusiness and rural enterprise projects; provides guidelines for deciding whether a project can be effective; considers the policy issues relating to such projects and suggests techniques for judging project performance.

This book focuses on analysing how legal systems set the terms for interactions between human beings and plants. The story that the book recounts is one of experimental lawmaking in Ecuador, a country where over the past decade, governmental officials and civil society advocates have attempted to reconfigure how human individuals and institutions relate to nature, by following an "eco-centric" approach to lawmaking. In doing so, Ecuadorian legislators, administrators, and judges have taken seriously the ontologies of non-human entities, including plants, through a process that has required the continuous navigation of tensions with certain "logics" that pervade conventional legal regimes. The book endeavours to disrupt these conventional assumptions and approaches to lawmaking by taking seriously alternative strategies to reconstitute interactions between people and plants. In doing so, the book argues in favour of an "ecological turn" in laws that govern vegetal life. The analysis is based on a close examination of the experiences that lawmakers in Ecuador have had when experimenting with innovative approaches to re-form relationships between human and non-human beings. Concretely, these experiments have yielded constitutional, legislative, and regulatory changes that inform the inquiry of how intellectual property and plant genetic resources laws - both in Ecuador and worldwide - could become more "ecological" in nature. The argument that the book develops is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and empirical research in Ecuador, complemented by archival and doctrinal legal analysis. The contents of the book will be of interest to an academic audience of legal scholars and postgraduate students in law, in addition to scholars and students in the fields of anthropology, sociology, socio-legal studies, and science and technology studies.

This new volume studies the impact and management of environmental pollution on plants, often resulting in plant abiotic stress physiology, which causes reduction in growth due to alterations in biochemical and physiological processes, thus threatening food security, the ecosystem, and the plants themselves. This volume details the harm to plants caused primarily by heavy metal contamination in soils, by pesticides use, and by air pollution and presents several mitigation strategies as well. Soils contaminated with heavy metals is a major challenge worldwide due to increase in anthropogenic and geologic activities. Despite the effectiveness of pesticides in preventing pest invasions and yield decline, pesticides and other air pollutants cause biochemical changes that can instigate leaf damage, stomatal impairment, early senescence, decrease in photosynthetic efficiency, interruption of membrane perviousness, and decrease of growth and yield in sensitive plant types. Chapters in this volume address these issues. Topics include the antioxidant, photosynthesis, and growth characteristics of plants grown in polluted soils; the benefits and hazards of pesticides; microbe-assisted bioremediation and biotechnological advances for plant pollution control; genetically modified plants and their potential resistance to environmental pollution; and more.

Medicinal Plant Responses to Stressful Conditions discusses the effects of multiple biotic and abiotic stressors on medicinal plants. It features information on biochemical, molecular, and physiological strategies used to mitigate or alleviate detrimental effects of biotic and abiotic stressors. The book contains chapters featuring medicinal plants of importance covering subjects including genomics, functional genomics, metabolomics, phenomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics under biotic and abiotic stress of medicinal plants and their molecular responses. It suggests exogenous application of different types of stimulants to enhance medicinal plant production in such conditions. Features: * Details all aspects of biotic and abiotic stressors in various important medicinal plant species. * Chapters cover evidence-based approaches in the diagnosis and management of medicinal plants under stressful conditions. * Includes information on ways to mitigate effects from high salinity, drought, temperature extremes, waterlogging, wind, high light intensity, UV radiation, heavy metals, or mineral deficiencies. A volume in the Exploring Medicinal Plants series, this book is an essential resource for plant scientists, botanists, environmental scientists, and anyone with an interest in herbal medicine

Urban water management has to take an integrated approach that prioritizes sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) over gray infrastructure. This book elaborates on the planning and evaluation of pipework drainage systems with a focus on modern-day constraints to deliver a solution that favors sustainability as the overarching goal. The book includes a technical section on design of gray and green infrastructure, considering the total lifecycle costs of drainage systems. Advanced computer simulation techniques are discussed after covering the derivation of both standard and empirical equations for appropriate hydrology and hydraulics. The book provides an incorporation of reliability analyses for both green and gray infrastructure starting with techniques for forecasting flows, hydraulic performance, and lifecycle costs. The work also involves 3-D modeling, geospatial and big data analysis, and how these techniques are applied into city management—particularly beneficial to municipal engineers who are increasingly becoming involved in mapping the underground. Soil mechanics and subsurface drainage systems are analyzed and structural aspects of sewers are included. Finally, soil behavior in shear, retaining wall structures, and tunneling is briefly featured in the book. This book will be of interest to (under)graduate and postgraduate engineering students, drainage engineers, urban planners, architects, water engineers, developers, construction contractors, and municipal engineers.

Science Communication in a Crisis: An Insider’s Guide identifies the principal challenges that scientists face when communicating with different stakeholder groups and offers advice on how to navigate the maze of competing interests and deliver actionable science when the clock is ticking. If a scientist’s goal is to deliver content and expertise to the people who need it, then other stakeholder groups—the media, the government, industry—need to be considered as partners to collaborate with in order to solve problems. Written by established scientist Christopher Reddy, who has been on the front lines of several environmental crisis events, the book highlights ten specific challenges and reflects on mistakes made and lessons learned. Reddy’s aim is not to teach scientists how to ace an interview or craft a soundbite, rather, through exploring several high-profile case studies, including the North Cape oil spill, Deepwater Horizon, and the 2021 Sri Lanka shipping disaster, he presents a clear pathway to effective and collaborative communication. This book will be a great resource for junior and established scientists who want to make an impact, as well as students in courses such as environmental and science communication.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the benefits and challenges of intensifying groundwater irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for improving smallholder agrarian livelihoods. Only about 3% of the groundwater resources of Sub-Saharan Africa are used for irrigated agriculture despite the subcontinent’s relative abundance of groundwater. The majority of the region’s smallholders are highly dependent on seasonal dryland cropping, making them extremely vulnerable to uncertain weather patterns and droughts. Improved irrigation capabilities through sustainable groundwater development could unleash smallholder farming and make it a major driver of economic growth, poverty reduction, climate resilience, and improved food security. So, why is groundwater so underused? Tapping into groundwater requires a major shift in farming practices and it has its own challenges and requirements – smallholder access to land and finance for irrigation infrastructure and equipment, gendered and equitable adoption options. This whole list is framed in terms of what the smallholder farmers need. Hence, this should also be put in this context, supply chains, energy access, resource availability, and institutional support. The chapters in this book present a picture that is not only heterogeneous across the region, but also hold some common denominators. They serve to enrich the discourse and help better understand the barriers along the pathways toward the sustainable and transformative adoption of groundwater irrigation. The scientific information provided herein would be of interest to researchers, practitioners, decision makers and planners with interest in the region. This book was originally published as a Special Issue of Water International journal.

"From the International Institute for Environment and Society."

This book gives a comprehensive overview of recent advances in the valorization of agri-food waste and discusses the main process conditions needed to overcome the difficulties of using waste as alternative raw materials. It also discusses specific methodologies, opportunistic microbes for biomass valorization, the sustainable production of agri-food waste, as well as examines the assessment and management of bioactive molecules production from microbial-valorization of agri-food waste. The authors provide technical concepts on the production of various bio-products and their commercial interest including agri-food waste utilization in the microbial synthesis of proteins, the valorization of horticulture waste, the sustainable production of pectin via microbial fermentation, as well as other food and pharmacological applications. This book is intended for bioengineers, biologists, biochemists, biotechnologists, microbiologists, food technologists, enzymologists, and related professionals and researchers. Explores recent advances in the valorization of agri-food waste Provides technical concepts on the production of various bio-products of commercial interest Discusses the main process conditions to overcome the difficulties of using waste as alternative raw materials Introduces technical-economic details on the advantages and disadvantages of exploring the waste recovery chain Explores the main technological advances in the recovery of residues in functional products

Microbes are widely used in large-scale industrial processes due to their versatility, easy growing cultivation, kinetic potential, and the ability to generate metabolites with a wide range of potential applications to various commercial sectors, such as the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, in addition to the potential for agriculture, biomedical, and several others. Among the metabolites of greatest commercial interest, and many obtained on an industrial scale, the wide range of enzymes, biofuels, organic acids, amino acids, vitamins, biopolymers, and many other classes of metabolites. This book is intended for Bioengineers, Biologist, Biochemist, Biotechnologists, microbiologist, food technologist, enzymologist, and related Professionals/ researchers. Explores recent advances in the valorization of agri-food waste Provides technical concepts on the production of various bio-products of commercial interest Discusses the main process conditions to overcome the difficulties of using waste as alternative raw materials Introduces technical-economic details on the advantages and disadvantages of exploring the waste recovery chain Explores the main technological advances in the recovery of residues in functional products

Explores recent advances in the valorization of agri-food waste Provides technical concepts on the production of various bio-products of commercial interest Discusses the main process conditions to overcome the difficulties of using waste as alternative raw materials Introduces technical-economic details on the advantages and disadvantages of exploring the waste recovery chain Explores the main technological advances in the recovery of residues in functional products

The goal of this book is to present recent advances in the production of food ingredients from agro-industrial residues, as well as to explore the technological advances made to make these ingredients a commercial reality for the food industry, such as peptides, food pigments, and organic acids, among others, thereby expanding the potential of bioprocesses in the valorization of agro-industrial residues for the production of molecules of industrial importance. This book is intended for bioengineers, biologists, biochemists, biotechnologists, microbiologists, food technologists, enzymologists, and related professionals/researchers. Explores recent advances in the valorization of agri-food waste into food ingredients; Provides technical concepts on the production of various food ingredients of commercial interest Explore nonel technological advanced strategies of extraction of bioactive compounds from food wastes Presents important classes of food ingredients obtained from alternative raw materials Sustainable food waste resources and management strategies Different pretraetment technologies and green extraction methodologies to support green environment in circular economy concept. Challenges in applications of re-derived bioactive compounds from food wastes in food formulations

The first accessible text on the topic of animals as environmental predictors, bringing together the literature from as far back as 18th century through to the present day. - Covers wider terrain than other titles in a relatively unexplored subject area. The text discusses climate change (highly topical) and how animals may be able to be used to predict future weather and climatic events. There is international potential as the climate challenge is global, and the examples span worldwide case studies. The sources used include myths, anecdotes, news articles and stories backed up by relevant scientific literature in international peer-reviewed journals. Each chapter starts with a short fictitious story to set the scene and anecdotes from indigenous cultures are especially interesting. The author draws on his vast expertise in biochemistry and cell biology. The science does not impede the less technical reader, due to the engaging mix of stories, anecdotes, personal observations and scientific underpinnings.

This book addresses the dynamics of China's grain production, consumption and trade with a particular emphasis on China's demand for feedgrain vis-a-vis its demand for foodgrain and the likely implications of this on the international grain trade given that China is now a member of the WTO. The book provides the reader with insight into the latest developments in China's foodgrain and feedgrain consumption and draws attention to the rising importance of feedgrain (and the relative decline in importance of foodgrain) in the overall Chinese grain economy. It also offers deliberations on many important issues concerning China's grains that are currently hotly debated. The book can be used as a valuable reference by government officials, grain traders, food market analysts, researchers and university students who are interested in China's food issues in general and foodgrain and feedgrain issues in particular.

This book argues that development strategies have thus far failed in Western Africa because the many challenges afflicting the area have yet to be explored and understood from the perspective of institutional resources. With a particular focus on three countries on the bend of the Upper West African coast - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - this book offers a theory to account for the nature of these institutional elements, to test deductions against evidence, and finally to propose a reset for rural development policy to make fuller use of local institutional resources. Based on quantitative analysis and eight years of multidisciplinary field research, this volume features several large-scale RCTs in the domain of rural development, local governance, and nature conservation. The authors address one of the biggest topics in agricultural and development economics today: the structural transformation of poor, agrarian economies, and they do so through the important and unique lens of institutions.

Cereal Crops: Genetic Resources and Breeding Techniques provides the reader practical tools for understanding relationships and challenges of successful farming; improvements to genetic modifications; and environmentally sound methods of production of bulk and quality cereals including wheat, maize, rice, barley, and millets. It explores the trait mapping, cropping systems, genome engineering, and identification of specific germplasms needed for the more effective development of biotic and abiotic stress resistant cereals within the framework of ensuring future food supplies around the world. Features: Focuses on cropping systems, genetics and genome engineering for higher crop production at a global level. Features information on specific prebiotic formulas to ward off adverse effects of antibiotics. Covers mechanistic as well as practical approaches for enhancing crop production in a sustainable way. Includes further in depth analysis of various topics following each chapter. This is a vital resource for researchers, crop biologists, and students working with crop production and climate changes that have a significant impact on crop production, spanning basic to advanced level discussions of plant breeding, molecular genetics, and agronomy. Covering mechanistic and practical approaches for enhancing crop production in a sustainable way, this text is beneficial to intensive farmers and stakeholders in the field of crop production.

Roots of Power tells five stories of plants, people, property, politics, peace, and protection in tropical societies. In Cameroon, French Polynesia, Papua New Guinea, St. Vincent, and Tanzania, dracaena and cordyline plants are simultaneously property rights institutions, markers of social organization, and expressions of life-force and vitality. In addition to their localized roles in forming landscapes and societies, these plants mark multiple boundaries and demonstrate deep historical connections across much of the planet's tropics. These plants' deep roots in society and culture have made them the routes through which postcolonial agrarian societies have negotiated both social and cultural continuity and change. This book is a multi-sited ethnographic political ecology of ethnobotanical institutions. It uses five parallel case studies to investigate the central phenomenon of "boundary plants" and establish the linkages among the case studies via both ancient and relatively recent demographic transformations such as the Bantu expansion across tropical Africa, the Austronesian expansion into the Pacific, and the colonial system of plantation slavery in the Black Atlantic. Each case study is a social-ecological system with distinctive characteristics stemming from the ways that power is organized by kinship and gender, social ranking, or racialized capitalism. This book contributes to the literature on property rights institutions and land management by arguing that tropical boundary plants' social entanglements and cultural legitimacy make them effective foundations for development policy. Formal recognition of these institutions could reduce contradiction, conflict, and ambiguity between resource managers and states in postcolonial societies and contribute to sustainable livelihoods and landscapes. This book will appeal to scholars and students of environmental anthropology, political ecology, ethnobotany, landscape studies, colonial history, and development studies, and readers will benefit from its demonstration of the comparative method.

Throughout the 1990s, Russian households experienced a dramatic fall in their traditional sources of subsistence: wages and social benefits. Many commentators have argued that households have adopted 'survival strategies' that enable them to make ends meet, particularly taking second jobs, growing their own food and calling on the help of family and friends. This book reviews the available data to analyse the forms, scale and incidence of these phenomena. The author finds that so-called 'survival strategies' merely represent a continuation of traditional soviet practices. He demonstrates that they disproportionately benefit the better off and that they do not provide a means by which those who have suffered misfortune can compensate for a fall in their earnings. Instead, he illustrates that most Russian households have adapted simply by cutting expenditure rather than by finding new sources of income. The author concludes by arguing that the notion of a 'household survival strategy' is inappropriate for the study of post-soviet society. Based on the analysis of a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data, Making Ends Meet in Contemporary Russia provides a comprehensive analysis of the means by which Russian households have secured their subsistence in the face of a collapse in wages and employment since the end of the soviet system. It will be required reading for all students, scholars and researchers of transition studies, development studies and human geography.

From fragile, corporate-controlled supply chains breaking down, to millions of already hyper-exploited farmworkers risking their lives in the fields without basic personal protective equipment, the COVID-19 pandemic made it painfully obvious that US agriculture does not work. Agrarian Crisis in the United States: Pathways for Reform situates the many food system problems that the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare in historical context across four key policy areas, namely, in land, labor, markets, and the environment. In applying and building from the work of Jürgen Habermas, Agrarian Crisis in the United States highlights how deep-seated problems concerning systemic racism, economic inequality, and political legitimacy endanger the US food and farm system’s future. Besides analyzing crises, it presents solutions that would make agriculture in the United States more just and resilient through the implementation of certain communication and policy strategies. Its original argument, as well as a novel set of remedies, will appeal to scholars and activists with interests in agrarian studies, environmental policy, and social movements.

• Concepts, ideas, and processes explained in an easy to digest format, making this the perfect introduction to key ideas in Environmental Psychology • Engages with both historical and contemporary research, with contributions from highly qualified contributors in the field • The ideal resource for those studying Environmental Psychology for the first time, as well as those studying Sustainability Studies, Architecture and Built Environment Studies, and related fields

Food consumption and nutrition are historically among the most characteristic features of inequality in living standards driven by socioeconomic, gender, generational and geographical reasons. Nutrition directly impacts mortality, life expectancy, height and illness and thus becomes a good indicator of living standards and their evolution over time. However, one issue that remains unresolved is how to measure past diet inequalities with the available sources. This book evaluates nutritional inequalities in Spain from the nineteenth century to the present day. It explores the socioeconomic, gender, generational and geographical variations in food consumption and nutrition in Spain during this period. Deriving historical data on nutrition and diet has always been difficult due to issues with available sources. This book adopts a multi-dimensional approach and two complementary methodologies capable of presenting a more comprehensive picture: the first analyses diets based on primary sources, while the second examines the effect of nutritional inequalities on biological living standards, with special emphasis on average height. This combination allows for greater precision than previous studies on the impacts of food inequality. This book will be of significant interest to scholars from different academic branches, especially historians, economic historians and historians of science, economists, and also doctors, endocrinologists, paediatricians, anthropologists, nutritionists and expert in cooperation and development.

Pests cause economic damage to crop and stored products, while vectors are responsible for transmission of disease-causing agents in human beings and livestock. Application of synthetic pesticides in agriculture though has given immediate relief but has also caused well known side effects, leading to a consensus among entomologists and agriculturists to shift towards other ecofriendly pest management. Insect natural enemies consisting of predators, parasitoids and pathogens have attracted the attention of scientists across the globe. These natural enemies exist in agroecosystems and suppress the populations of pests. Parasitoids are farmers' friends and most successful group of natural enemies. Highly specialized in their host choice, female parasitoid searches for a suitable host to lay eggs and larvae in or on or near the hosts. Exploiting this potency of parasitoids may yield successful results in controlling notorious pests in an ecofriendly way. This book covers information on the important biocontrol agents effective in pest suppression. It starts with insect parasitic groups followed by specific group of parasitoids. It is hoped that the book presents a comprehensive account of beneficial parasitoids and will be useful to Undergraduate and Postgraduate students of Entomology, Biological Control, Plant Protection, Agricultural Zoology and Zoology, besides those involved in competitive examinations and policy planning. Features Each chapter has been written by specialized senior persons. Every chapter contains Learning Objectives and Points to Remember. This book offers comprehensive knowledge of parasitoids and their application in pest management in a lucid way.

This volume of papers from the Eighth World Congress deals with changes in proportions and growth rates of sectors of the economy in relation to economic development. It includes a survey of theories of sectoral balance and studies of structural transformation in the Kuznets tradition but with richer economometric models and data on more than 100 countries over several decades. There are in-depth country analyses of India, Korea and Nigeria and for Eastern Europe, the GDR and Hungary. In the last part of the volume the link between agriculture and industry is studied in terms of the importance of rural non-farm activities, the effectiveness of balanced growth and of an agriculture-led development strategy. A wide range of data is examined with one chapter focusing particularly on Japan. Jeffrey Williamson has also written "Modelling Growth Economics in Equilibrium and Disequilibrium" with A.Kelley and "Did British Capitalism Breed Inequality". Amongst his other publications, Vadiraj Panchamukhi has written "Trade Policies in India: A Case Study of Karnataka, Capital Formation and Output in the Third World" and "Planning, Development and World Economic Order".