This book aims at sensitizing readers towards sustainability and encourages them to understand the importance of lean, green and clean (LGC) issues pertaining to everyday life. The necessity of measurement-based evaluations, statistical significance of material use, and energy are discussed. The book focuses on the importance of climate change issues and environmental concerns associated with lean production and manufacturing. Emphasis is laid on understanding and applying the concepts of quality through project management and measurement based assessment methods. A wide range of audience, including students, teachers, quality professionals, management consultants, lean and Six Sigma practitioners, will find this book valuable.

This book provides the practical basis for the use of remote sensing to accomplish landscape ecological projects, through the merging of theory and practice, with examples. This is a specialized application and both these topics have evolved rapidly in the past decade. This evolution is not in the previous edition, and indeed this update provides much new information and valuable ideas for the professional and assist in directing the training of new personnel. The new edition will feature a combination of landscape ecology metrics, quantitative field measurements, and geospatial analyses.

This book has been produced as a part of the project 'Social-Ecological Systems at the Indian Rural-Urban Interface: Functions, Scales, and Dynamics of Transition'. It addresses transition processes in agriculture and society triggered by urbanization, focusing on Bengaluru as an example of a rapidly growing megacity in India. Adopting a holistic, multidisciplinary approach embedded within a social-ecological systems research framework, it explores how the physical and socio-economic landscapes have led to changes in economic priorities, which have overpowered ecological and traditional priorities with regard to ecosystem governance. Allowing readers to gain a deeper understanding of this unexplored dimension of socio-ecological systems, this book is a valuable resource for international researchers, scholars and master's students in the field of environmental science, socio-ecology, forestry and agriculture.

This book aims, through its chapters, at providing the knowledge to make competent decisions, convince peers or top management to take appropriate action, or beat out the competition for climate adaptation measures including adjustments for design and operations. Topics discussed include business-as-usual vs. divergence; the effects of public pressure on corporate, industrial and government decision making; techniques for gathering the proper information to assess risks and hazards; the importance determining risk tolerance thresholds; the difference between tolerable risks, intolerable ones that benefit from mitigation and those that require strategic shifts; why common practice approaches such as FMEA, and risk matrices are inadequate in today's world and do not help ensure infrastructural and systemic resilience and sustainability. Case histories and three complete case studies that can be adapted to any industry or project walk the reader step by step from client request to recommendations and conditions of validity. The ultimate aim is to understand how to reduce risks to tolerable and societally acceptable levels while simultaneously creating sustainable and ethical systems.

The book provides a cross-sectoral, multi-scale assessment of development-directed investigations in the main rivers of wider Central Asia and Afghanistan. The book highlights the development of river systems, water reservoirs, ecosystems and risks as well as the impact of climate change on water resources in Central Asian countries and Afghanistan. It provides information on the genesis of river basins, physical and chemical properties of water in rivers, and the hydrological regimes of the rivers of Central Asia and Afghanistan. The book is useful for scientists and researchers whose work focuses on rivers and the use of water resources, irrigation, ecosystems, risks, water supply, climate change and remote sensing, as well as for students and planners, administrations and other stakeholders in the water sector.

This book reviews the economic potential of various natural resources found in the Egyptian deserts that could help fill the food gap in Egypt, e.g., the date palm, olives, and domestic animals. Bearing in mind that the entire country is subject to arid or hyperarid climatic conditions, only a small portion (3% of total area) is agriculturally productive in comparison, the dominant deserts. These aspects, combined with a growing population (ca. 100 million citizens) and water resources scarcity, have produced severe adverse effects on natural resource utilization. This book presents innovative methods for addressing desert soil's key problems (soil erosion, salinity, pollution, decreased fertility, minerals, and weed and pest control). Its goal is to help authorities reclaim the desert and optimally utilize the minerals and the available natural resources to support the sustainability agenda 2030. Besides, it offers researchers guidance on remaining gaps and future research directions. Lastly and importantly, it provides essential information on investment opportunities in desert cultivation, such as the fields of food, fodder, and medicinal plants.

There is evidence that the world has been witnessing more intense tropical cyclones. Accompanying these tropical cyclones are heightened levels of devastation that witness the loss of human life and wildlife, destruction of natural resources and property and the disruption of major economic and social activities. To this end, there is a growing demand for publications focusing on tropical cyclones at various levels that include regional, national and local levels, especially from Africa. One sub-region that has been witnessing the harsh realities of the increasing intensity of tropical cyclones in southern Africa. However, within this region, countries are usually impacted at varying degrees of damage. Among the countries that usually encounter the harshness of these tropical cyclones are the Comoros, Botswana, Madagascar, Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique, Reunion, the Seychelles, South Africa and Zimbabwe. From the history books, the following tropical cyclones made landfall and hit southern Africa: Eline (2000), Favio (2007), Dineo (2017), Idai (2019), Kenneth (2019), Eliose (2021), and Chalane (2020). Although all these tropical cyclones had negative impacts, it is undoubtedly Tropical Cyclone Idai that shocked the world with its devastation mainly in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe in March 2019. Key infrastructure was destroyed, livelihoods were lost, and the environment was degraded. Thousands of people died, many more were injured, many remain unaccounted for and others remained homeless as of the time of finalising this book in February 2021. This book, therefore focuses on the devastating impacts of Tropical Cyclone Idai in Zimbabwe. The book interfaces Tropical Cyclone Idai's impacts with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This linkage was deliberate given that there is still time remaining until 2030, and the world has generally agreed to move into the future along the pathways of sustainable development and sustainability. The book adds to the first comprehensive profiling of the impacts of tropical cyclones on southern African economies, particularly that of Zimbabwe. It also comes up as the first in a three-volume series. The other volumes to look out for are Cyclones in Southern Africa Vol 2: Foundational and Fundamental Topics; 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 proposes the concept of urban multiple habitats and then analyzes its corresponding classification, function and potential supply capability. It provides an analysis framework for studying the relationship between urban biodiversity and built environment, and for considering the loss of urban habitats caused by high-density development. It argues that urban biodiversity is a key indicator for assessing urban ecosystem services. On this basis, the book then presents a case study mainly focusing on wild birds in Shanghai, as urban wild birds and their species could be viewed as an essential indicator for evaluating healthy ecosystem of contemporary cities. Based on the empirical findings, the book proposes an assessment model for urban biodiversity performance and a range of principles, strategies and key indicators regarding the optimization of urban planning and design practice to enhance urban biodiversity performance.

Environmental rights, also known as the human rights or constitutional rights that are used for the protection of the environment, have proliferated over the last forty-five years. However, the precise levels of protection that they represent has since been a major question associated with this phenomenon. Environmental Rights: The Development of Standards systematically investigates this question by analyzing the emerging standards of environmental protection that are associated with such rights and the way that those associations are becoming formalized. It covers all of the relevant human rights treaties to illustrate how environmental rights standards are emerging in this dynamic area. Bringing together an elite group of scholars, this book discusses significant new insights into the way that environmental rights are developing, the standards of protection that they confer, and the way that standards in the field of environmental rights can potentially be further developed in the future.

Water pollution is a matter of concern for both developing and developed parts of the world. This book presents an overview on water pollution and its sustainable management. The book discusses the fundamental aspects of water pollution as well as advanced sustainable technologies for abating water pollution. It is a comprehensive collection of information related with water pollutants which are extremely harmful to man, other living organisms and to the ecosystems. It is all-inclusive coverage of technical, socio-political, scientific as well as social issues revolving around water pollution and management. The book brings out innovative ideas promoting sustainable technologies and extensively covers the diversity of modern technologies related to prevention of water pollution. Book also covers social aspects of water related issues. It is an essential reading for upper level graduates and undergraduates pursuing environmental studies and researchers in the field of waste water management

Energy and water have been fundamental to powering the global economy and building modern society. This cross-disciplinary book provides an integrated assessment of the different scientific and policy tools around the energy-water nexus. It focuses on how water use, and wastewater and waste solids produced from fossil fuel energy production affect water quality and quantity. Summarizing cutting edge research, it describes the scientific methods for detecting contamination sources in the context of policy and regulations. The authors highlight the growing evidence that fossil fuel production, from both conventional and unconventional sources, leads to water quality degradation, while regulations for the water and energy sector remain fractured and highly variable across and within countries. This volume will be a key reference for scholars, industry professionals, environmental consultants and policy makers seeking information on the risks associated with the energy cycle and its impact on the environment, particularly water resources.

The book introduces two domains namely Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing. It discusses remote sensing, texture, classifiers, and procedures for performing the texture-based segmentation and land cover classification. The first chapter discusses the important terminologies in remote sensing, basics of land cover classification, types of remotely sensed images and their characteristics. The second chapter introduces the texture and a detailed literature survey citing papers related to texture analysis and image processing. The third chapter describes basic texture models for gray level images and multivariate texture models for color or remotely sensed images with relevant Matlab source codes. The fourth chapter focuses on texture-based classification and texture-based segmentation. The Matlab source codes for performing supervised texture based segmentation using basic texture models and minimum distance classifier are listed. The fifth chapter describes supervised and unsupervised classifiers. The experimental results obtained using a basic texture model (Uniform Local Binary Pattern) with the classifiers described earlier are discussed through the relevant Matlab source codes. The sixth chapter describes land cover classification procedure using multivariate (statistical and spectral) texture models and minimum distance classifier with Matlab source codes. A few performance metrics are also explained. The seventh chapter explains how texture based segmentation and land cover classification are performed using the hidden Markov model with relevant Matlab source codes. The eighth chapter gives an overview of spatial data analysis and other existing land cover classification methods. The ninth chapter addresses the research issues and challenges associated with land cover classification using textural approaches. This book is useful for undergraduates in Computer Science and Civil Engineering and postgraduates who plan to do research or project work in digital image processing. The book can serve as a guide to those who narrow down their research to processing remotely sensed images. It addresses a wide range of texture models and classifiers. The book not only guides but aids the reader in implementing the concepts through the Matlab source codes listed. In short, the book will be a valuable resource for growing academicians to gain expertise in their area of specialization and students who aim at gaining in-depth knowledge through practical implementations. The exercises given under texture based segmentation (excluding land cover classification exercises) can serve as lab exercises for the undergraduate students who learn texture based image processing.

This book provides a didactic overview of techniques for inferring information from soil spectroscopic data, and the codes in the R programming language for performing such analyses. It is intended for students, researchers and practitioners looking to infer soil information from spectroscopic data, focusing mainly on, but not restricted to, the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Little prior knowledge of the R programming language or digital soil spectra is required. We work through the steps to process spectroscopic data systematically.

This book discusses and studies the basic course of ecological civilization construction in the 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China and summarizes the experience and lessons. It contains 75 articles from 75 top experts and government officials in the field of ecological civilization policy-making and basic theory research in China, including Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, ecological culture, green industry economy, environmental quality, legal system, ecological security and so on, so as to provide reference for understanding and studying the progress of ecological environment protection since the founding of China.

This book contains some contributions presented at the Applied Mathematics for Environmental Problems minisymposium during the International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) held July 15-19, 2019 in Valencia, Spain. The first paper addresses a simplified physical wildfire spread model, based on partial differential equations solved with finite element methods and integrated into a GIS to provide a useful and efficient tool. The second paper focuses on one of the causes of the unpredictable behavior of wildfire, fire-spotting, through a statistical approach. The third paper addresses low -level wind shear which represents one of the most relevant hazards during aircraft takeoff and landing. It presents an experimental wind shear alert system that is based on predicting wind velocities obtained from the Harmonie-Arome model. The last paper addresses the environmental impact of oil reservoirs. It presents high-order hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin formulation combined with high-order diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta schemes to solve one-phase and two-phase flow problems through porous media. All the contributions collected in this volume are interesting examples of how mathematics and numerical modelling are effective tools in the field of environmental problems.

More than half of the world population now lives in cities, and urban expansion continues as rural people move to cities. This results in the loss of land for other purposes, particularly soil for agriculture and drainage. This book presents a review of current knowledge of the extension and projected expansion of urban areas at a global scale. Focusing on the impact of the process of 'land take' on soil resources and the ecosystem services that they provide, it describes approaches and methodologies for detecting and measuring urban areas, based mainly on remote sensing, together with a review of models and projected data on urban expansion. The most innovative aspect includes an analysis of the drivers and especially the impacts of soil sealing and land take on ecosystem services, including agriculture and food security, biodiversity, hydrology, climate and landscape. Case studies of cities from Europe, China and Latin America are included. The aim is not only to present and analyse this important environmental challenge, but also to propose and discuss solutions for the limitation, mitigation and compensation of this process.

This book presents a survey, dynamic monitoring and comprehensive analysis of Sri Lanka's land, vegetation, surface water, ocean and other environmental resources, as well as its economic, transportation, urban, agricultural and tourism development. It offers readers accurate, systematic and comprehensive information on Sri Lanka's ecological setting and socio-economic development. It also sheds light on policies for the protection of the environment and biodiversity.

This book demonstrates the measurement, monitoring and mapping of environmental contaminants in soil & sediment, surface & groundwater and atmosphere. This book explores state-of-art techniques based on methodological and modeling in modern geospatial techniques specifically focusing on the recent trends in data mining techniques and robust modeling. It also presents modifications of and improvements to existing control technologies for remediation of environmental contaminants. In addition, it includes three separate sections on contaminants, risk assessment and remediation of different existing and emerging pollutants. It covers major topics such as: Radioactive Wastes, Solid and Hazardous Wastes, Heavy Metal Contaminants, Arsenic Contaminants, Microplastic Pollution, Microbiology of Soil and Sediments, Soil Salinity and Sodicity, Aquatic Ecotoxicity Assessment, Fluoride Contamination, Hydrochemistry, Geochemistry, Indoor Pollution and Human Health aspects. The content of this book will be of interest to researchers, professionals, and policymakers whose work involves environmental contaminants and related solutions.

Indicators are more and more applied to describe and analyze complex systems. Typical examples: Innovation potential of nations, child-well being, Environmental health, poverty, chemical pollution, corruption of nations. The task is: How can a system of indicators be defined in order to fulfill the above expectations. One possibility is the application of the mathematical theory of partial order, especially when the indicator system shall be used for ranking purposes.

The use of a multi-criteria, decision-making theory was first studied in the 1970s. Its application in civil and environmental engineering is a new approach which can be enormously helpful for manufacturing companies, students, managers, engineers, etc. The purpose of this book is to provide a resource for students and researchers that includes current application of a multi-criteria, decision-making theory in various fields such as: environment, healthcare and engineering. In addition, practical application are shown for students manually. In real life problems there are many critical parameters (criteria) that can directly or indirectly affect the consequences of different decisions. Application of a multi-criteria, decision-making theory is basically the use of computational methods that incorporate several criteria and order of preference in evaluating and selecting the best option among many alternatives based on the desired outcome.

This book provides a step-by-step methodology and derivation of deep learning algorithms as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Convolution Neural Network (CNN), especially for estimating parameters, with back-propagation as well as examples with real datasets of hydrometeorology (e.g. streamflow and temperature) and environmental science (e.g. water quality). Deep learning is known as part of machine learning methodology based on the artificial neural network. Increasing data availability and computing power enhance applications of deep learning to hydrometeorological and environmental fields. However, books that specifically focus on applications to these fields are limited. Most of deep learning books demonstrate theoretical backgrounds and mathematics. However, examples with real data and step-by-step explanations to understand the algorithms in hydrometeorology and environmental science are very rare. This book focuses on the explanation of deep learning techniques and their applications to hydrometeorological and environmental studies with real hydrological and environmental data. This book covers the major deep learning algorithms as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Convolution Neural Network (CNN) as well as the conventional artificial neural network model.

Climate change is a key problem of the 21st century. China, as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has committed to stabilize its current emissions and dramatically increase the share of electricity production from non-fossil fuels by 2030. However, this is only a first step: in the longer term, China needs to aggressively strive to reach a goal of zero-emissions. Through detailed discussions of electricity pricing, electric vehicle policies, nuclear energy policies, and renewable energy policies, this book reviews how near-term climate and energy policies can affect long-term decarbonization pathways beyond 2030, building the foundations for decarbonization in advance of its realization. Focusing primarily on the electricity sector in China - the main battleground for decarbonization over the next century - it provides a valuable resource for researchers and policymakers, as well as energy and climate experts.

This book employs a suite of remotely sensed products and advanced technologies to provide the first comprehensive space-based sensing of Lake Victoria, the world's second largest freshwater lake that supports a livelihood of more than 42 million people, modulates regional climate, but faces myriads of challenges. Proper understanding of the lake and changes in its physical dynamics (e.g., water level, shorelines and areal dynamics) resulting from the impacts of climate variation and climate change as well as anthropogenic (e.g., hydropower and irrigation) is important for its management as well as for strategic development before, during and after climate extremes (e.g., floods and droughts) in order to inform policy formulations, planning and mitigation measures. Owing to its sheer size, and lack of research resources commitment by regional governments that hamper its observations, however, it is a daunting task to undertake studies on Lake Victoria relying solely on in-situ "boots on the ground" measurements, which are sparse, missing in most cases, inconsistent or restricted by governmental red tapes. To unlock the potentials of Lake Victoria, this book argues for the removal of obsolete Nile treaties signed between Britain, Egypt and Sudan in the 1920s and 1950s, which prohibits its utilization by the upstream countries. The book is useful to those in water resources management and policy formulations, hydrologists, environmentalists, engineers and researchers. In a unique cross-disciplinary approach, the Book articulates the various climatic impacts and explanations from natural and anthropogenic origins, which affected Lake Victoria and its vicinity, including the drastic increase and depletion of water level in the Lake and dams, floods and droughts, water quality/security, crop health, food security, and economic implications. With no exception as in his many publications, Joseph L. Awange used data analysis methodologies including filtering, adjustment theory, and robust statistics, to quantify the hydrologic and other parameters, and their estimated uncertainties. The Book is recommended for readers from a diverse disciplines, including physical and social sciences, policy, law, engineering, and disaster management. Professor C.K. Shum, Ohio State University.

This book provides effective statistical analyses in benthic foraminiferal communities patterns and show solutions for sea-land processes and alterations caused by climate changes and other local (and global) environmental concerns. Our goal is to provide, through these chapters, the monitoring and forecasting of environmental impacts with accurate data. We identify global regions most subject to industrial pollution, contamination and sewage, identifying potential sites prone to accumulate organic matter, which effects erosion, deposition, ocean temperature and pH changes (warming, cooling, acidification), climate and sea-level changes. Benthic habitats, specifically foraminiferal (single celled microorganisms found in the water column and sediment) contribute to our understanding of local and global climate change that effect at risk communities. Derived through the accuracy of oceanographic climate science, allow us to predict with the intention to alleviate potential loss in coastal areas, which are, the most vulnerable to ocean warming, cooling, acidification, and sea-level rise impacts. We unravel the mystery of the Environmental Impacts and Climate Change, helping communities prepare, adjust, adapt, and minimize effects or remediate loss. We show how to pinpoint the most vulnerable and specific sites for economic and social damage and loss, using foraminifera, an inexpensive and easily handled proxy valuable for monitoring coastal and marine environmental stressors. The implications of those problems and the ability to forecast patterns on land are primary issues we address by studying marine sediment of beaches, estuaries, bays and deep water worldwide. Ecology, biology, life history, and taxonomy of modern Foraminifera allows us to examine the current and historical record of environmental change effects, and predict implications for future sea-level rise, and ocean patterns. The prediction of responses of interacting systems to these problems, and development of strategies is needed to inform leadership with the knowledge and data to effectively implement policy, making this book a very informative and significant contribution for researchers and decision makers.

This book introduces readers to the press release work carried out by Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China in 2018. It is divided into 3 parts, and each part is arranged in chronological order. The first part contains the records of Li Ganjie, Minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, who attended the press conference of the two conferences and the "Ministerial Channel". The second part contains the record of Special Representative of China's Climate Change Affairs, Xie Zhenhua, who attended the "China's Policies and Actions on Climate Change 2018 Annual Report" press conference, and Zhao Yingmin, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, who attended the "Three-year Action Plan to Win the Blue Sky Defense War" policy briefing. The third part contains the records of 12 regular press conferences of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment throughout the year.