Sustainable Development has become the leading concept of the 21 century. It describes a development, which agrees with the needs of the present generation but does not endanger the chances of the coming generations to satisfy also their needs. "Sustainable development" has become an important general goal for all fields of life like economy, ecology and social balance. The development and shaping of our future has been discussed internationally like on the summits of the Conferences in Rio and in Johannesburg. But this is also a topic on national base in various countries. Leading authorities in various fields of economy and politics have also accepted this concept. Although the concept of sustainable development has been generally accepted, there are still problems how to achieve and evaluate these general goals. It is clear that the definitions about the prime needs vary from man to man, from country to country and from continent to continent. But pollution does not respect national borders. Therefore, it is necessary to develop the politics of economy, ecology and social demands by a synergistic way that they are strengthened by each other. If it is not possible to stop tendencies, which threaten the future quality of life, the cost demands of societies will dramatically increase and negative tendencies will become irreversible.

Stability of underground excavations is of great importance to an operating mine because it ensures the safety of the working people and operating equipment, and successful ore production. Due to the complex geological conditions and mine constructions, and variability and uncertainty in estimating rock mass mechanical properties, the assessment of rock mass stability for an underground mine is extremely challenging and difficult. Tackling of this difficult problem is not covered in detail in any of the textbooks currently available in the rock mechanics literature. This monograph aims to cover this gap in the rock mechanics and rock engineering field. This monograph provides detailed procedures for the stability assessment and support design for an underground mine case study. It covers the background of the mine site including the monitored deformation data, the state-of-art methodologies for the stability analysis of rock masses around underground excavations, performed laboratory tests, estimation of the rock mass properties, a brief theory and background of the 3-D Distinct Element Code (3DEC), and numerical modeling of underground rock mass stability including investigation of the effectiveness of rock supports. The monograph is an excellent reference for the senior undergraduates, graduate students, researchers and practitioners who work in the Underground Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering area in the Mining Engineering, Civil Geotechnical Engineering and DEM (Distinct Element Method) Numerical modeling.

Algae Based Bioelectrochemical Systems for Carbon Sequestration, Carbon Storage, Bioremediation and Bioproduct Generation explores the integration of carbon capture, storage and sequestration technologies with bioelectrochemical fuels cells (BEFC), showing how conventional technologies can be renovated to aid in the reduction in GHG emissions and simultaneously optimize BEFC performance. The book focuses on the integration of algal biogas upgradation with electrochemical systems, providing a guide to the renovation of conventional technologies to combine energy production and carbon sequestration. Chapters discuss the latest advancements in carbon sequestration biocatalyst and microbial platforms and integrations for rapid carbon biotransformations. In addition, the book highlights the potential of algae and chemolithotrophs as candidates for carbon delivery, biocatalyst orientation and architecture for optimal BEFC performance.

Natural saline water, waste water, and irrigation return flow endanger the groundwater aquifers in the Rift. In the long run this will ruin the socio-economic backbone of the settlements in the area. Sustainability of the water resources will only be achieved when the process of water replenishment and its underground flow is understood and water extraction is regionally controlled. Rare earth element and spider patterns are presented as new tools for studying the hydrology. Progress in 3-D modelling of groundwater flow proved successfully the impact of pumping on the surroundings of wells and overexploitation of aquifers.

Traditional textbooks on rock mechanics often fail to engage students in the learning process as such books are packed with theory that students are unlikely to use in their future employment. In contrast, this book delivers the fundamentals of rock mechanics using a more practical and engaging project-based approach which simulates what practitioners do in their real-life practice. This book will be of great help to those who would like to learn practical aspects of rock mechanics and better understand how to apply theory to solve real engineering problems. This book covers geology, rock mechanics principles, and practical applications such as rock falls, slope stability analysis and engineering problems in tunnels. Throughout the whole book, the reader is engaged in project-based work so that the reader can experience what rock mechanics is like and clearly see why it is an important part of geotechnical engineering. The project utilizes real field and laboratory data while the relevant theory needed to execute the project is linked to each project task. In addition, each section of the book contains several exercises and quiz questions to scaffold learning. Some problems include open-ended questions to encourage the reader to exercise their judgement and develop practical skills. To foster the learning process, solutions to all questions are provided to allow for learning feedback.

In this day and age, it is unfortunate that the economic prosperity and development leads to disruption of the dynamic balance of the environment. The philosophy of sustainable development has been presented for a long period of time but it has not been able to bring about a substantial change in our society. The transformation of this philosophy into a practical reality seems to be far away - at least in the foreseeable future. In my opinion, the only way I see the revolution taking place is for us to incorporate 'sustainability' in our daily living and to keep pushing for a sustainable society. Meanwhile, we also need scientists to work on technologies that would lead us to that goal at a faster pace. Technologies that are 'completely' environmentally friendly are needed urgently. And if such technologies or ideas of one exists, a platform is required that showcases such ideas to the scientific and non-scientific audience. Through this book, I am happy to present the thoughts of seven different research groups whose work may lead us to the doorsteps of sustainable society. As scientists, most of us specialize in a sub-topic that may be related to one of the three environmental components - air, land, or water. Over a period of time, we become so engrossed with the sub-discipline of our specialization that we only have glimpses of what is happening in other disciplines.

Currently, it is a serious concern to manage waste in the environment. Therefore, detailed knowledge of heavy metals, their eco-toxicological and health effects and ecofriendly approaches for their immobilization and detoxification is urgently required to control and minimize the environmental pollution. Composting is one of the popular methods in waste management and there are a lot of issues pertaining to composting. One of it is the leaching of heavy metals. This book discusses thoroughly, the availability, leachability and the speciation of heavy metals in the entire process of composting.

E. Dijkgraaf and R. H. J. M. Gradus 1. 1 Introduction In 2004 Elbert Dijkgraaf nished a PhD-thesis 'Regulating the Dutch waste market' at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. It was interesting that not much is published about the waste market, although it is a very important sector from an economic and environmental viewpoint. In 2006 we were participants at a very interesting conf- ence on Local Government Reform: privatization and public-private collaboration in Barcelona organized by Germa ` Bel. It was interesting to notice that researchers from Spain, Scandinavian countries, the UK and the USA were studying this issue as well. From this we brought forward the idea to publish a book about the waste market. Because of its legal framework we want to focus on Europe. In this chapter we give an introduction to this book. In the next paragraph we present a short overview of the waste collection market. Since 1960 the importance of the waste sector has increased substantially both in the waste streams and the costs of waste collection and treatment. Furthermore, we discuss policy measures to deal with these increases and give an overview of the different measures in - countries. In the last paragraph we present different chapters of our book. 1. 2 Empirical Update of the Waste Collection Market The Dutch case provides a nice example why studying the waste market is int- esting from an economic point of view.

This is a collection of methods of practical design, calculation and numerical examples that illustrate how organized, analytical reasoning can lead to the discovery of clear, direct solutions to pollution especially in the areas of biosolids management, treatment, disposal and beneficial use. The book contains an extensive collection of detailed design examples and case histories, and a distinguished panel of authors provides insight into a range of topics.

This book engages with the topic of ethical consumption and applies a critical-realist approach to explore the process of becoming and being an ethical consumer. By integrating Margaret Archer's theory of identity formation and Christian Coff's work on food ethics, it develops a theoretical account explicating the generative mechanism that gives rise to ethical consumer practices and identities. The second part of the book presents the findings from a qualitative study with self-perceived ethical food consumers to demonstrate the fit between the proposed theoretical mechanism and the actual experiences of ethically committed consumers. Through integrating agency-focused and socio-centric perspectives on consumer behaviour, the book develops a more comprehensive and balanced approach to conceptualising and studying consumption processes and phenomena.

This book presents the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop Wastewater Reuse - Risk Assessment, Decision-Making and Environmental Security, held in Istanbul in October, 2006. The papers survey the current state of water management in the world and especially the Middle East and Mediterranean regions, and address some of the most difficult international conflicts. Wastewater, a by-product of agricultural, industrial or domestic water use, can be an environmental hazard causing damage to soil and to water resources. However, as demonstrated in many of the papers, it can also be a benefit if exploited correctly. Papers presented cover in great detail and depth the risk assessment, decision-making approaches and environmental security. Information about design, installation, management of wastewater treatment facilities, and use for saline water is provided by experts from the EU, UNESCO, World Bank, United States, Canada and other contributing agencies.

This book presents the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop Wastewater Reuse - Risk Assessment, Decision-Making and Environmental Security, held in Istanbul in October, 2006. The papers survey the current state of water management in the world and especially the Middle East and Mediterranean regions, and address some of the most difficult international conflicts. Wastewater, a by-product of agricultural, industrial or domestic water use, can be an environmental hazard causing damage to soil and to water resources. However, as demonstrated in many of the papers, it can also be a benefit if exploited correctly. Papers presented cover in great detail and depth the risk assessment, decision-making approaches and environmental security. Information about design, installation, management of wastewater treatment facilities, and use for saline water is provided by experts from the EU, UNESCO, World Bank, United States, Canada and other contributing agencies.

At the 2005 Almaty workshop, specialists from the IAEA, Brazil, France, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia, USA and Uzbekistan discussed safety-related issues of storing spent nuclear fuel. Fifteen papers were presented that dealt with aluminium-clad fuel discharged from research reactors worldwide, five papers were concerned with stainless steel-clad fuel from fast reactors, and two were devoted to Zircaloy-clad fuel from commercial light-water reactors.Although most attention was focused on fuel behaviour in storage pools, many countries - owing to lack of space - are beginning to dry store' spent fuel in an inert atmosphere in shielded casks. Both topics were covered thoroughly at the workshop. Water quality and dryness of the spent fuel, respectively, are critical factors in avoiding material degradation for the two storage modes...

This book contains papers from a NATO-sponsored workshop in Almaty in September 2005, which discussed safety-related issues of storing spent nuclear fuel. Fifteen papers cover aluminum-clad fuel discharged from research reactors worldwide, while five papers examine stainless steel-clad fuel from fast reactors, and two Zircaloy-clad fuel from commercial light-water reactors.

The first International Conference on Engineering Solutions and Sustainable Development which is organized by the University of Miskolc, Hungary is a significant and timely initiative creating the capacity of engineering students, educators, practicing engineers and industries to demonstrate values, problem solving skills, knowledge, and attitude that are required to apply the principles of sustainable development throughout their professional career. The aim of the ICESSD conference was creating an interdisciplinary platform for researchers and practitioners to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of Technical and Environmental Science. The conference covers the following topics: Process Engineering, Modelling and Optimisation Sustainable and Renewable Energy and Energy Engineering Waste Management and Reverse Logistics Environmental Management and Ecodesign Circular Economy and Life Cycle Approaches Smart Manufacturing and Smart Buildings Innovation and Efficiency Earth Science Academics, scientists, researchers and professionals from different countries and continents have contributed to this book.

The Book represents a collection of papers prepared for and presented by specialists of seven concerned countries in the fourth Advanced Research Workshop (ARW), Moscow, September 22-24, 2004, sponsored and organized within the framework of the NATO-Russia partnership.Similar to the three previous publications, which collected the materials of the NATO-Russia ARWs held in Moscow in 1995, 1997 and 2002, the fourth book of the same series also addresses a very important challenge of the present - complex decommissioning of the taken-out-of-service nuclear-powered vessels and environmental rehabilitation of the centers of basing and everyday running of different-type nuclear vessels. The fourth book especially focuses on the scientific and technical problems of management of naval spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste.

The long-term governance of radioactive waste continues to be a major complex and contentious socio-technical issue worldwide. Traditionally, it has been considered as mainly a challenge to scientists and engineers to develop technical solutions to specific problems. But increasingly these narrow solutions have been enlarged by wider societal considerations such as ethics, public involvement, control and retrievability - needs that have in the meanwhile been recognised by the nuclear community, at least in a general way. In this book, we analyse motives for a broad discourse as well as suggest prerequisites to launch it. The author attempts to give a novel, empirically based and technically sound treatment of fundamental issues in long-term management and governance.

The state of the art in the area of security related civil science and technology concerning energetic materials and munitions is of pressing importance at the present time, because 10 years after the end of the cold war, in many countries in east and west, huge stockpiles of munitions still await destruction. The safety behavior of munitions and their energetic material is the determining factor for all precautionary measures for the protection of environment and population. The probability of a catastrophic reaction of munitions and their energetic components will be so more likely, the closer the munitions are to the end of their life time. Residues and undetected ordnance, recycling, destruction of ammunition and depletion or reuse of energetic materials will either cause more or less damage to environment. Scientific research and development have the aim to increase performance of munitions on one side and to improve safety in relation to unpredictable events on the other side. The impact on the environment by the production and normal use of munitions and their residues after use will acquire an increasing importance in environmental awareness. The excellent technical presentations were classified in five Groups, according to the technical programme. The "Introduction to the subject; Methods, tests and application; Insensitive and "green" munitions; Storage and transportation; and Demilitarisation and recycling" sessions, were closed by a final and general interesting discussion among participants.

Many standard industrial waste treatment texts sufficiently address a few major technologies for conventional in-plant environmental control strategies in the food industry. But none explore the complete range of technologies with a focus on new developments in innovative and alternative technology, design criteria, effluent standards, managerial decision methodology, and regional and global environmental conservation specific to the food industry. Until now. Waste Treatment in the Food Processing Industry provides in-depth coverage of environmental pollution sources, waste characteristics, control technologies, management strategies, facility innovations, process alternatives, costs, case histories, effluent standards, and future trends. It delineates methodologies, technologies, and the regional and global effects of important pollution control practices. The book highlights major food processing plants or installations that have significant effects on the environment. Since the areas of food industry waste treatment are broad, no one can claim to be an expert in all of them. Reflecting this, the editors recruited collective contributions from specialists in their respective topics, rather than relying on a single author's expertise. The topics covered include dairies, seafood processing plants, olive oil manufacturing factories, potato processing plants, soft drink production plants, bakeries, and various other food processing facilities. Professors, students, and researchers in the environmental, civil, chemical, sanitary, mechanical, and public health engineering and science fields will find valuable educational materials in this book. The extensive bibliographies for each type of food waste treatment or practice will be invaluable to environmental managers, or researchers who need to trace, follow, duplicate, or improve on a specific food waste treatment practice. Comprehensive in scope, the book provides solutions that are directly applicable

Resource Recovery Technology for Municipal and Rural Solid Waste: Classification, Mechanical Separation, Recycling, and Transfer describes the practical considerations in recycling solid waste-from source characterization to recycling of end product-with the aim of maximizing pollution control and resource recovery. Topics covered include source classification models, solid waste treatment and resource recovery, integrated mechanical separation and parameter optimization, and the collection and transfer of classified domestic solid waste. The book details pollution control and resource recovery in every stage of municipal and rural solid waste management for solid waste engineers, environmental scientists, and academics and students in waste management. The book goes into significant detail on each stage of the process, including separation technologies according to the difference of particle size, material density difference, the difference in optical, electrical and magnetic effects of materials, preparation of plastic composites, and production of composite boards with organic waste from domestic solid waste. The book also includes a thorough case study of success in solid waste management using these techniques as an example of the application of these technologies.

This book is for practising professionals and academics working in urban planning and international development: international project staff, trainers, urban development researchers and teaching staff in universities and polytechnics.
Solid Waste Management and Recycling is unique in that it:
-utilizes an 'integrated solid waste management perspective' in its analysis;
-provides embedded case study data;
-deals with both formal and informal actors and institutional arrangements in solid waste management and recycling;
-has chapters written by experts from the countries concerned (Kenya and India);
-can be used in graduate-level courses in urban development, urban management and planning, and technical engineering courses for students, project staff, and technical students.

Foreword Over the past decades, Piero Risoluti has built up an intimate knowl edge of the nuclear industry - in particular of nuclear waste man agement. In this book, his scientific understanding is apparent - for example in his comprehensive but readily understandable descrip tions of waste conditioning and disposal. Moreover, he has also been directly involved in the wider societal and political debates in the nuclear area - especially in his Italian homeland. What shines through in these pages is.his frustration at the lack of progress in im plementing disposal concepts that are judged by many to be very safe and his unfaltering drive to improve this situation. To provoke debate, the book is very deliberately written in a po larising, black and white style that can easily be labelled as "politi cally incorrect" - a characterisation that Piero will probably agree with and be amused by. Criticism is directed equally at "loud mouthed and incompetent anti-nuclear environmentalists," the "nu clear Byzantium" of the international nuclear establishment, the "in tellectual narcissism" of those nuclear experts that dare to admit the importance of societal issues, and the tendency of politicians to "in definite procrastination." These are not words chosen to avoid open confrontation of opposing views."

Affordable and effective domestic wastewater treatment is a critical issue in public health and disease prevention around the world, particularly so in developing countries which often lack the financial and technical resources necessary for proper treatment facilities. This practical guide provides state-of-the-art coverage of methods for domestic wastewater treatment and provides a foundation to the practical design of wastewater treatment and re-use systems. The emphasis is on low-cost, low-energy, low-maintenance, high-performance 'natural' systems that contribute to environmental sustainability by producing effluents that can be safely and profitably used in agriculture for crop irrigation and/or in aquaculture, for fish and aquatic vegetable pond fertilization. Modern design methodologies, with worked design examples, are described for waste stabilization ponds, wastewater storage and treatment reservoirs; constructed wetlands, upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactors, biofilters, aerated lagoons and oxidation ditches. This book is essential reading for engineers, academics and upper-level and graduate students in engineering, wastewater management and public health, and others interested in sustainable and cost-effective technologies for reducing wastewater-related diseases and environmental damage.

The Business of Mining complete set of three Focus books will provide readers with a holistic all-embracing appraisal of the analytical tools available for assessing the economic viability of prospective mines. Each volume has a discrete focus. This first volume presents an overview of the mining business, followed by an analysis of project variables and risk, an overall coverage of the royalty agreements, pricing and contract systems followed by a final chapter on accounting standards and practises for the minerals industry. The books were written primarily for undergraduate applied geologists, mining engineers and extractive metallurgists and those pursuing course-based postgraduate programs in mineral economics. However, the complete series will also be an extremely useful reference text for practicing mining professionals as well as for consultant geologists, mining engineers or primary metallurgists.