Understanding the advancement of sustainable development is critical to managing human activities to avoid the overexploitation of resources and pollution of the environment beyond tolerable levels. Sustainable development involves not only preservation and care of the environment, but also recognition of the complex relations between economic, social and living systems. Environmental Modeling for Sustainable Regional Development: System Approaches and Advanced Methods presents processing methods and their applications, which are practical for decision making and task management at the regional level as well as for scientific studies in sustainable development assessment. This book serves as a reference guide for post-graduate students in the field of management as well as a critical guide for managers, government officials, and information professionals.

Environmentalists often predict an Apocalypse is coming: The earth will heat up like a greenhouse. We will run out of energy. Overpopulation will lead to starvation and war. Nuclear winter will kill all plants and animals. During the past fifty to one hundred years, Americans have heard many prophecies of doom, such as the Club of Rome report predicting the world economy would crash about the year 2020. These do not come as complete surprises without any warnings. Sometimes the United States simply ignores the threats, but other times it makes plans to prevent them. This provocative book asks whether American planning is different for dangers that are truly apocalyptic—ones that could end life on the planet or at least modern economic prosperity. This provocative book begins by asking whether American planning is different for dangers that are truly apocalyptic—ones that could end life on the planet or at least modern economic prosperity. It goes on to ask why Americans ignore so many problems like the greenhouse effect or an oil shortage or nuclear war, problems that have been forecast many times. Then when the United States does plan, why do those plans often go astray?

In these short illustrated guides, Dr Mark Everard, avid nature-watcher, angler and scientist, takes a dedicated look at three British freshwater fishes, the Silver Bream, Gudgeon and Ruffe. Though an integral part of aquatic ecosystems and well-known to anglers, these fish are often overlooked by the wider public as well as scientists. Each book is in three sections, first exploring the biology of the fish itself, including science written in accessible style, second discussing angling history and tips, and thirdly exploring the fish's cultural connections, including etymology of the fish. A bibliography at the end of each guide directs the reader to additional resources.

This book not only explores catalysis processes in redox reactions but also proposes a potential after-treatment strategy. Summarizing the authors' major works, it offers a guidebook for those working on environmental and industrial catalysis. It presents insights into reaction kinetics in a variety of materials and analyzes the external conditions influencing the reaction. As such it is of particular interest to engineers and scientists in the field of material chemistry, chemical engineering and automobile industry. With novel images and illustrations, it provides a new perspective for interpreting soot abatement material and understanding the reaction process and inspires scientists to design new catalysts with moderate redox capacity.

This book addresses the developing area of biomass for technological applications. Written by leading researchers in the field, the book differs from other literature available by providing a detailed, in-depth discussion of the characteristics of these materials. The use of biomass for technological applications is a rapidly growing area in materials engineering and green bioprocesses. In this approach, pre-treatments focus on the bioavailability of nutrients and facilitate the use of biomass for delivering byproducts (e.g. enzymes) and for bioenergy production, both of which are discussed at length in this book. In this regard, it explores various aspects of the structural complexity of residual biomass produced by agricultural, industrial and livestock activities for biotechnological purposes, and assesses both conventional and emerging pre-treatments (e.g. biological, enzymatic and physical-chemical). This book reveals the advantages of these techniques, both individually and in combination, making it an excellent resource for all readers interested in cutting-edge applications of biomass.

This new edition of the Phosphor Handbook comprises three volumes and provides a comprehensive source of knowledge for researchers interested in synthesis, characterization, properties, and applications of phosphor materials. The first volume covers the theoretical background and fundamental properties of luminescence as applied to solid-state phosphor materials. New sections include the rapid developments in principal phosphors in nitrides, perovskite, and silicon carbide. The second volume provides the descriptions of synthesis and optical properties of phosphors used in different applications, including the novel phosphors for some newly developed applications. New sections on smart phosphors, quantum dots for display applications, up-conversion nanophosphors for photonic application, phosphors for solar cells. The third volume addresses the experimental methods for phosphor evaluation and characterization and the contents are widely expanded from the Second Edition, including the theoretical and experimental designs for new phosphors as well as the phosphor analysis through high pressure and synchrotron studies.

Studies of prehistoric exchange of goods provide information about the types of economic interaction, social organization, or political structures in which prehistoric peoples were engaged. Long-distance exchange is a special situation where the materials exchanged crossed significant boundaries, whether they were geographic, social, political, or otherwise. By examining the types and quantities of goods exchanged, along with the directions and distances they moved, archaeologists are able to examine the dynamic properties of exchange systems, i.e., how they operate and why they undergo change.

The purpose of this volume is to present a number of case studies of long-distance exchange from around the world which demonstrate the use of geochemical analysis of artifacts to find evidence of exchange. More important than the use of analytical technique employed or the types of artifacts studied are the interpretations themselves which illustrate that exchange studies are maturing and helping archaeologists to develop more accurate models of exchange.

Fungal nanobionics has great prospects for developing new products with industrial, agriculture, medicine and consumer applications in a wide range of sectors. The fields of chemical engineering, agri-food, biochemical, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics and medical device development all employ fungal products, with fungal nanomaterials currently used in a wide range of applications, ranging from drug development to food industry and agricultural sector. The fungal agents emerge as an environmentally friendly, clean, non-toxic agent for the biogenic metal nanoparticles and employs both intracellular and extracellular methods. The simplicity of scaling up and downstream processing and the presence of fungal mycelia affording an increased surface area provide key advantages. In addition, the larger spectrum of synthesized nanoparticle morphologies and the substantially faster biosynthesis rate in cell-free filtrate (due to the higher amount of proteins secreted in fungi) make this a particularly enticing route. Understanding the diversity of fungi in assorted ecosystems, as well as their interactions with other microorganisms, animals and plants, is essential to underpin real and innovative technological developments and the applications of metal nanoparticles in many disciplines including agriculture, catalysis, and biomedical biosensors. Importantly, biogenic fungal nanoparticles show significant synergistic characteristics when combined with antibiotics and fungicides to offer substantially greater resistance to microbial growth and applications in nanomedicine ranging from topical ointments and bandages for wound healing to coated stents.

WAhrend das VerstAndnis, die Bearbeitung und die LAsung von existierenden Umweltproblemen sowie die Vermeidung neuer Probleme immer schwieriger werden, werden im gleichen Zuge die finanziellen Ressourcen immer knapper. Deshalb stellt sich die Frage nach dem Erfolg von MaAnahmen und nach den MAglichkeiten ihrer Steuerung und Verbesserung umso dringender. Die Erfolgskontrolle stellt eine Schnittstelle zwischen den Umweltnatur- und den Umweltsozialwissenschaften dar. So werden zu ihrer DurchfA1/4hrung einerseits ein detailliertes SystemverstAndnis von Problem und MaAnahme vorausgesetzt, andererseits sind die Formulierung von Zielen, die Ableitung geeigneter Erfolgskriterien und deren Bewertung eindeutig gesellschaftliche Prozesse. Aufgabe der Erfolgskontrolle ist es, diese Aspekte zu verbinden bzw. die Grundlagen hierfA1/4r zu schaffen. Erfolgskontrollen von umweltrelevanten AktivitAten spielen sowohl in Unternehmen als auch in staatlichen Institutionen eine wichtige Rolle.

Most of the world s redundant ships are scrapped on the beaches of the Indian sub-continent, largely by hand. As well as cargo residues and wastes, ships contain high levels of hazardous materials that are released into the surrounding ecology when scrapped. The scrapping process is labour-intensive and largely manual; injuries and death are commonplace.

Ship breaking was a relatively obscure industry until the late 1990s. In just 12 years, action by environmental NGOs has led to the ratification of an international treaty targeting the extensive harm to human and environmental health arising from this heavy, polluting industry; it has also produced important case law.

Attempts to regulate the industry via the "Basel Convention" have resulted in a strong polarization of opinion as to its applicability and various international guidelines have also failed because of their voluntary nature. The adoption of the "Hong Kong Convention" in 2009 was a serious attempt to introduce international controls to this industry."

1. Introduces students to current and emerging environmental hazards to human and related ecosystem health. 2. Explains detrimental policy changes of existing policies and recently developed policies that impact the health of the environment and that of communities. 3. Presents a perspective for global sources of pollution and how international actions have emerged for control of environmental hazards such as climate change and global air pollution. 4. Includes foundation lectures, case studies, and practice questions to help create student-led discussions for both in-class and homework assignments. 5. Describes the integrated One Health concept and critically examines the interconnectedness of human- and ecosystem health. 6. Written by environmental health experts with a long teaching career on policy and public health.

This book comprehensively introduces fundamentals and applications of fermentative hydrogen production from organic wastes, consisting of eight chapters, covering the microbiology, biochemistry and enzymology of hydrogen production, the enrichment of hydrogen-producing microorganisms, the pretreatment of various organic wastes for hydrogen production, the influence of different physicochemical factors on hydrogen production, the kinetic models and simulation of biological process of fermentative hydrogen production, the optimization of biological hydrogen production process and the fermentative hydrogen production from sewage sludge. The book summarizes the most recent advances that have been made in this field and discusses bottlenecks of further development. This book gives a holistic picture of this technology and details the knowledge through illustrative diagrams, flow charts, and comprehensive tables. It is intended for undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in bioenergy and wastes management, researchers exploring microbial fermentation process, and engineers working on system optimization or other bioenergy applications.

This book addresses the core issues involved in the dynamic modeling, simulation and control of a selection of energy systems such as gas turbines, wind turbines, fuel cells and batteries. The principles of modeling and control could be applied to other non-convention methods of energy generation such as solar energy and wave energy. A central feature of Dynamic Modeling, Simulation and Control of Energy Generation is that it brings together diverse topics in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, electro-chemistry, electrical networks and electrical machines and focuses on their applications in the field of energy generation, its control and regulation. This book will help the reader understand the methods of modelling energy systems for controller design application as well as gain a basic understanding of the processes involved in the design of control systems and regulators. It will also be a useful guide to simulation of the dynamics of energy systems and for implementing monitoring systems based on the estimation of internal system variables from measurements of observable system variables. Dynamic Modeling, Simulation and Control of Energy Generation will serve as a useful aid to designers of hybrid power generating systems involving advanced technology systems such as floating or offshore wind turbines and fuel cells. The book introduces case studies of the practical control laws for a variety of energy generation systems based on nonlinear dynamic models without relying on linearization. Also the book introduces the reader to the use nonlinear model based estimation techniques and their application to energy systems.

This volume contains reviews on different aspects of human, animal and plant bioclimatology; the mechanisms linking human melanoma with radiation from both the sun and artificial sources; field and experimental studies on the health of farm animals in adverse climatic environments and the impact of climatic extremes on airborne disease organisms and their hosts' defense mechanisms; measurement techniques used in plant bioclimatology, including thermoelectric methods of measuring sap flow and transpiration in plants, remote sensing techniques: the use of lasers in both spectrofluorometry, and the study of the geometrical structure of plant canopies and the use of radar mounted in aircraft and satellites to monitor forest size and state.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has become the recognized instrument to assess the ecological burdens and human health impacts connected with the complete life cycle (creation, use, end-of-life) of products, processes and activities, enabling the assessor to model the entire system from which products are derived or in which processes and activities operate. This volume introduces the major new book series "LCA Compendium - The Complete World of Life Cycle Assessment." In this volume, the main drivers in the development of LCA are explored. The volume also discusses strengths and limitations in LCA as well as challenges and gaps, thus offering an unbiased picture of the state-of-the-art and future of LCA.

This book treats the theoretical fundamentals of adsorption technology for water treatment from a practical perspective. It presents all the basics needed for experimental adsorption studies as well as for process modeling and adsorber design. According to the increasing importance of micropollutants in the water cycle, particular attention is paid to their competitive adsorption in the presence of background organic matter. The current edition considers recent developments in adsorption theory and practice.