Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology attempts to provide concise, critical reviews of timely advances, philosophy and significant areas of accomplished or needed endeavor in the total field of xenobiotics, in any segment of the environment, as well as toxicological implications.

An increasing population has put tremendous pressure on agricultural productivity to fulfill the demands of human consumption. Numerous agricultural activities and techniques have been developed to raise annual crop production globally. While agriculture has succeeded in enhancing the yearly crop productivity, this achievement is at the cost of environmental degradation by applying synthetic persistent substances, such as industrial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc. Chemical fertilizers are nearly as destructive as they are productive, causing monocultures and consequences associated with elimination of diversity, nutrient pollution as evidenced by algae blooms, eutrophication, water quality issues, lower oxygen levels and dangers to fish stocks. Therefore, the scientific approach to maintain sustainable fertility in soil and plants is to switch over to biofertilisers.Biofertilisers are compounds of organic matter that are applied to crops for growth and health. Their constituent micro-organisms interact in an ecofriendly manner with the soil, root and seeds of plants, promoting the growth of micro-flora that enhances soil fertility. They are known to play a number of vital roles in soil fertility, crop productivity and production in agriculture. Application of biofertilisers results in increased mineral and water uptake, root development, vegetative growth and nitrogen fixation. They liberate growth promoting substances and vitamins and help to maintain soil fertility. They act as antagonists and play a pivotal role in neutralising the soil borne plant pathogens, thereby assisting in the bio-control of diseases. Application of biofertilisers in lieu of synthetic fertilizers could be the promising technique to raise agricultural productivity without degrading the environmental quality. The present book focuses on the latest research approaches and updates from the microbiota ecosystem and their applications in agriculture industry. It also highlights the great potential and possible future of action of microbiota in the development of sustainable agricultural systems.

This book presents the design and development of an Internet of Things (IoT) enabled, smart sensor to detect nitrate contamination in natural water. It considers three different sensors designed, fabricated and configured for nitrate detection: a Graphite/PDMS and Si-based MEMS sensors, and aFR4-based sensor. It also introduces a selective polymer material developed by means of the ion imprinting polymerization technique that was used as a coating on the Si-based MEMS sensor. Further, the book discusses the development of a smart sensing system that can be used to remotely monitor the nitrate concentration in any water. Fully explaining all the techniques used, the book is of interest to engineers, researchers and scientists working in the field of the water-quality measurement.

This book highlights the significance of using sustainable energy to prevent the deterioration of our planet using heat pumps. Energy sustainability can be achieved through improved energy efficiency. In this regard, heat pumps offer an energy-efficient alternative for heating and cooling. To drive the adoption of heat pumps as a key component of sustainable buildings, the authors focus on examining sustainable practices in heat pump operations and innovative system design. In view of the growing desire to use sustainable energy to meet heating and cooling demands and improve indoor air quality, this book offers a valuable reference guide to the available options in HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) system design. To begin with, the authors define sustainable energy and discuss the trend of "thinking green" in building design. They then discuss sustainable practices and heat pump applications in mapping out HVAC systems. In turn, they examine the use of green operations to promote sustainable practices and, in order to highlight the importance of innovative design, discuss the configuration options and precision control aspects. In closing, the authors illustrate innovative sustainable design on the basis of several energy-efficient cases. The book's main goal is to drive the adoption of sustainable energy solutions. Heat pumps, it argues, represent the most efficient system for meeting commercial/recreational/residential heating and cooling demands. The book not only examines industrial practices in heat pump application, but also discusses advanced heat pump technologies and innovative heat pump designs.

This book presents developments of novel techniques and applies them in order to understand the interactions between thermally driven mesoscale flows (sea and mountain breezes) and the turbulent exchange within the atmospheric boundary layer. These interactions are not accurately reproduced in the meteorological models currently employed for weather forecasting. Consequently, important variables such as air temperature and wind speed are misrepresented. Also, the concentrations of relevant greenhouse gases such as CO2 are considerably affected by these interactions. By applying a systematic algorithm based on objective criteria (presented here), the thesis explores complete observational databases spanning up to 10 years. Further, it presents statistically significant and robust results on the topic, which has only been studied in a handful of cases in the extant literature. Lastly, by applying the algorithm directly to the outputs of the meteorological model, the thesis helps readers understand the processes discussed and reveals the biases in such models.

This book reviews the globally important freshwater resource of the Great Lakes, which is currently threatened by contaminants that compromise water quality and impact its ecological and economic health. Divided into four parts, this volume covers historic, current and emerging sources of contamination from heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants to microplastics; and identifies their ecological impacts. Due to factors ranging from rapidly changing land use practices, climate change and our emerging understanding of their impact on biological, chemical and physical interactions, the effectiveness of management strategies has proven highly variable. Continued enhancements in the rate of lake recovery are required to sustain the health of the Great Lakes. Accordingly, the book also explores recent advances in contaminant detection, along with future steps forward in lake management approaches. Revealing our current knowledge gaps and providing a roadmap towards sustainable solutions, the book offers a valuable asset for scientists, managers and the public alike.

This book applies interactive perspectives, which have historically mainly been discussed in the context of Western European countries, to case studies on water governance in Asia. It examines how these perspectives can be used to reveal complex and dynamic interactions in water governance in Asia, and how interactions between policies and practices, as well as those between formal institutes and emerging informal institutes, come to pass. In two introductory chapters and seven case studies in Asia (two from China, and each one from Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and India), the book reveals the interactive forms currently emerging in Asia under hierarchical but often fragmented administrative systems. In addition, it explores emerging hybrid forms of interactive governance, which bring together governmental and non-governmental actors, and discusses how the expected role of government and roles of non-governmental actors could be changed to solve problems in a more cooperative manner. In this context, researchers from outside the locality could play an important role, helping facilitate such forms of interactive governance. The book offers extensive information on the essential features of interactive forms, and on the role of such transdisciplinary approaches, making it a valuable resource not only for scholars and university students, but also for policymakers and grass-roots practitioners directly involved in the interactive process of water governance.

The subject of tropical cyclones in Southern Africa, also known as hurricanes or typhoons in other regions of the world, has been growing over the past few decades. However, there is still limited literature on foundational and fundamental topics on the matter. To this end, this book addresses this gap, citing some examples from both historic and recent tropical cyclones. The book presents meteorological and climatic aspects of tropical cyclones, including reviews on forecasting, warning message dissemination and public response aspects of early warning systems with a focus on the Tropical Cyclones Idai and Kenneth. Fundamentals in disaster risk reduction (DRR) are also discussed moving from the provisions of the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005-2015), to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030). Climate change issues are central to the publication, as well as the role of information and communication technologies in DRR and management. The book also tackles some challenges and opportunities associated with the implementation of regional legal and institutional frameworks on DRR. The book comes as part of a series with three volumes. The other volumes include "Cyclones in Southern Africa Vol. 1: Interfacing the Catastrophic Impact of Cyclone Idai with SDGs in Zimbabwe" and "Cyclones in Southern Africa Vol 3: Implications for the Sustainable Development Goals". To this end, this book is suitable as a read for several professionals and disciplines such as tourism and hospitality studies, economics, sustainable development, development studies, environmental sciences, arts, geography, life sciences, politics, planning and public health.

This book provides hands-on conceptual, theoretical, and case study discussions on vulnerability and resilience in the global south. This book covers the core of adaptation strategies in developing countries context in an easy-to-follow theoretical and empirical examples. This book shares contemporary approaches on vulnerability, adaptation strategies, and resilience, which aim to assist its targeted audience (academics, policymakers, and practitioners) to understand and make informed decisions in a wide variety of real-world resilience situations.

Water is at the core of all life on Earth and exists as one of the main components of the human body. Because water is essential to life, addressing water pollution and sustainability issues is of great concern to environmentalists and public health specialists alike. Impact of Water Pollution on Human Health and Environmental Sustainability highlights several important water-related issues and explores a number of potential solutions to the problem of water sustainability. Focusing on research-based perspectives on water availability, industrial and agricultural pollution, water contamination, and their impacts on the human population as well as the environment, this crucial publication is a necessary addition to academic and government libraries serving graduate-level students, environmental scientists, public health workers, policy makers, and legislators seeking the latest information on sustainable and contaminant-free water resources.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the challenges in hydrological modeling. Hydrology, on both a local and global scale, has undergone dramatic changes, largely due to variations in climate, population growth and the associated land-use and land-cover changes. Written by experts in the field, the book provides decision-makers with a better understanding of the science, impacts, and consequences of these climate and land-use changes on hydrology. Further, offering insights into how the changing behavior of hydrological processes, related uncertainties and their evolution affect the modeling process, it is of interest for all researchers and practitioners using hydrological modeling.

Green manufacturing has developed into an essential aspect of contemporary manufacturing practices, calling for environmentally friendly and sustainable techniques. Implementing successful green manufacturing processes not only improves business efficiency and competitiveness but also reduces harmful production in the environment. The Handbook of Research on Green Engineering Techniques for Modern Manufacturing provides emerging perspectives on the theoretical and practical aspects of green industrial concepts, such as green supply chain management and reverse logistics, for the sustainable utilization of resources and applications within manufacturing and engineering. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as additive manufacturing, integrated manufacturing systems, and machine materials, this publication is ideally designed for engineers, environmental professionals, researchers, academicians, managers, policymakers, and graduate-level students seeking current research on recent and sustainable practices in manufacturing processes.

In this book, the authors cover the recent progress in the synthesis, characterization and application of various multi-layered carbides, carbonitrides and nitrides. Moreover, the processing and development of MXene-based composites are elaborated, focusing on their applications and performances as transparent conductors in environmental remediation and energy storage systems.

Petroleum Development and Environmental Conflict in Aotearoa New Zealand: Texas of the South Pacific examines the dilemmas associated with economic growth through the expansion of resource extraction. States seeking to grow their economies through the expansion of resource extraction are forced to cope with the rising influence of transnational corporations on domestic politics and democratic institutions; to mitigate the environmental damage from increased extraction activities; to respond to the mounting evidence which indicates that unconventional oil and gas development practices are harming communities, local environments, and human health; and to manage the international pressures and citizens' demands that climate change is addressed through a transition from fossil fuel dependence to a clean-energy economy. Terrence M. Loomis analyzes the circumstances under which environmental opposition to state policies to promote oil and gas development-in collaboration with the petroleum industry-, has lead to far-reaching changes in institutional relations between the state and civil society.

Achieving environmental sustainability with rapid industrialization is a major challenge of current scenario worldwide. As globally evident, industries are the key economic drivers, but are also the major polluters as untreated/partially treated effluents discharged from the industries is usually thrown into the aquatic resources and also dumped unattended. Industrial effluents are considered as the major sources of environmental pollution as these contains highly toxic and hazardous pollutants, which reaches far off areas due to the medium of dispersion and thus, create ecological nuisance and health hazards in living beings. Hence, there is an urgent to find ecofriendly solution to deal with industrial waste, and develop sustainable methods for treating/detoxifying wastewater before its release into the environment. Being a low cost and eco-friendly clean technology, bioremediation can be a sustainable alternative to conventional remediation technologies for treatment and management of industrial wastes to protect public health and environment. Therefore, this book (Volume I) covers the bioremediation of different industrial wastes viz. tannery wastewater, pulp and paper mill wastewater, distillery wastewater, acid mine tailing wastes, and many more; which are lacking in a comprehensive manner in previous literature at one place. A separate chapter dedicated to major industries and type of waste produced by them is also included. This book will appeal to students, researchers, scientists, industry persons and professionals in field of microbiology, biotechnology, environmental sciences, eco-toxicology, environmental remediation and waste management and other relevant areas, who aspire to work on the biodegradation and bioremediation of industrial wastes for environmental safety.

Liquid multiphase processes represent a promising option for realizing novel, efficient, and sustainable production processes, as required for the transformation towards climate-neutral manufacturing processes. This volume presents the results obtained over twelve years in the DFG-funded collaborative project Transregio 63 "Integrated Chemical Processes in Liquid Multiphase Systems". In an interdisciplinary approach to the design and operation of such processes, essential principles of Green Chemistry are realized, such as using long-chain olefins as model representatives of renewable raw materials, highly effi cient catalysts, and green solvents, linked with process optimization to improve energy and material efficiency. Experts from different fields addressed all steps of the development process, from the description of the reactions on the molecular level via thermodynamics and the design of efficient separation processes to the operation of entire miniplants for liquid multiphase production processes. Thus, the complete development chain from the first reaction-related investigations in the laboratory to the technological realization in miniplants with model-based control is demonstrated. Numerous methodological innovations are proposed and validated using several innovative phase systems (thermomorphic multiphase systems, microemulsion systems, Pickering emulsions) and homogeneously catalyzed reactions. Engineers and chemists from the chemical industry as well as advanced students and researchers will get valuable insights into the physico-chemical phenomena in chemical multiphase processes and benefit from recommendations concerning methods for the selection of phase systems and rapid model-based process development.

The Evolution of the Genome provides a much needed overview of genomic study through clear, detailed, expert-authored discussions of the key areas in genome biology. This includes the evolution of genome size, genomic parasites, gene and ancient genome duplications, polypoidy, comparative genomics, and the implications of these genome-level phenomena for evolutionary theory. In addition to reviewing the current state of knowledge of these fields in an accessible way, the various chapters also provide historical and conceptual background information, highlight the ways in which the critical questions are actually being studied, indicate some important areas for future research, and build bridges across traditional professional and taxonomic boundaries.
The Evolution of the Genome will serve as a critical resource for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and established scientists alike who are interested in the issue of genome evolution in the broadest sense.
-Provides detailed, clearly written chapters authored by leading researchers in their respective fields
-Presents a much-needed overview of the historical and theoretical context of the various areas of genomic study
-Creates important links between topics in order to promote integration across subdisciplines, including descriptions of how each subject is actually studied
-Provides information specifically designed to be accessible to established researchers, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students alike

Part 5 of the 5-part Principles and Practices of Water Supply Operations (WSO), this text provides a practical education in mathematics, hydraulics, chemistry, and electricity. Hundreds of problems and examples are included to relate these sciences specifically to municipal water supply operations. This book is referenced in the four other textbooks in the series. It is a required text when used with other WSO series texts, but may be used alone as a basic science text. Designed for self study or classroom use, the Fourth Edition provides many new problems and examples. Includes glossary, index, conversion tables, periodic table of the elements, and color plates.

Smart Bioremediation Technologies: Microbial Enzymes provides insights into the complex behavior of enzymes and identifies metabolites and their degradation pathways. It will help readers work towards solutions for sustainable medicine and environmental pollution. The book highlights the microbial enzymes that have replaced many plant and animal enzymes, also presenting their applications in varying industries, including pharmaceuticals, genetic engineering, biofuels, diagnostics and therapy. In addition, new methods, including genomics andmetagenomics, are being employed for the discovery of new enzymes from microbes. This book brings all of these topics together, representing the first resource on how to solve problems in bioremediation.

This book provides a multi-level and multi-dimensional insight into urban water and sanitation development by analyzing sector reforms in Africa. With the recent events in mind - water shortages in Cape Town, widespread cholera in Haiti, mass-migration from low-income countries, etc. - it elaborates a pressing topic which is directly linked to the precarious living conditions of the urban poor in the developing countries. It is urgent to acknowledge the proposed findings and recommendations of the book which will help to improve the situation of potential refugees in their home countries with a realistic vision for the development of the most basic of all life supporting services. So many efforts to reverse the negative trend in water and sanitation development have failed or targets have been repeatedly missed by far without notable consequences for decision makers on different levels and institutions. It has unnecessarily consumed many young lives, contributed to keep billions in poverty until today and fostered discrimination of women. The knowledge gap and the confusion in the sector lined out in the book becomes evident when a national leader in a low-income country declares a state of emergency in urban water and sanitation while at the same time global monitoring publishes an access figure for urban water of over 90% for the same country. It is time to change this with an effective sector development concept for our partner countries and a more realistic discourse on global level. The book argues for a sweeping rethinking and combines extended local knowledge, lessons learned from history in advanced countries and thorough research on reforms in Francophone and Anglophone developing countries. This was possible because the writer was working in Sub-Saharan partner countries for almost 30 years as an integrated long term advisor in different sector institutions (ministry, regulator, financing basket and different sizes of utilities) and had the opportunity to cooperate closely with the main development partners. The reader has the opportunity to obtain a comprehensive understanding of how the sector works and sector institutions in low-income countries function and can discover the reasons behind success and failures of reforms. The book also covers issues which have a significant influence on urban water and sanitation development but are hardly the subject of discussions. It helps to make the shortcomings of the water and sanitation discourse more apparent and assist institutions to move beyond their present perceptions and agendas. All of this makes the book different from other literature about urban water and sanitation in the developing world.

Healthy environment is important for any kind of biota on earth. It provides the basic elements of life such as clean water, fresh air, fertile soil and supports ecosystem of the food chain. Pollution drastically alters quality of the environment by changing the physico-chemical and biological aspects of these components. Accordingly, toxic metals, combustible and putrescible substances, hazardous wastes, explosives and petroleum products are all examples of inorganic and organic compounds that cause contaminations. Specifically, pollution of toxic and heavy metal in the environment is a growing problem worldwide, currently at an alarming rate. Toxic metals threaten the aquatic ecosystems, agriculture and ultimately human health. Traditional treatment techniques offer certain advantages such as rapid processing, ease of operation and control and flexibility. But, they could not maintain the quality of the environment due to the high operational costs of chemicals used, high energy consumption and handling costs for sludge disposal and overburden of chemical substances which irreversibly affect and destroy biodiversity, which ultimately render the soil useless as a medium for plant growth. Therefore, bioremediation and biotechnology, carried out by living assets to clean up, stabilize and restore contaminated ecosystems, have emerged as promising, environmental friendly and affordable approaches. Furthermore, the use of microbes, algae, transgenic plants and weeds adapted to stressful environments could be employed to enhance accumulation efficiency. Hence, sustainable and inexpensive processes are fast emerging as a viable alternative to conventional remediation methods, and will be most suitable for developing countries. In the current volume, we discuss pollution remediation challenges and how living organisms and the latest biotechnological techniques could be helpful in remediating the pollution in ecofriendly and sustainable ways.