This book discusses the current trends in luxury and jewelry and presents how to make these sustainable for a better future. In the age of sustainability, we increasingly see how designers and consumers begin to think beyond a product's look&feel and operation, and are especially concerned about what has happened during its manufacturing process and what will happen once its useful life comes to an end. Today, consumers value that every industrial product and process should be sustainable, beneficial for the people, the economy and the planet, and so is the case for jewelry.

This book presents the state-of-the-art in plant ecophysiology. With a particular focus on adaptation to a changing environment, it discusses ecophysiology and adaptive mechanisms of plants under climate change. Over the centuries, the incidence of various abiotic stresses such as salinity, drought, extreme temperatures, atmospheric pollution, metal toxicity due to climate change have regularly affected plants and, and some estimates suggest that environmental stresses may reduce the crop yield by up to 70%. This in turn adversely affects the food security. As sessile organisms, plants are frequently exposed to various environmental adversities. As such, both plant physiology and plant ecophysiology begin with the study of responses to the environment. Provides essential insights, this book can be used for courses such as Plant Physiology, Environmental Science, Crop Production and Agricultural Botany. Volume 2 provides up-to-date information on the impact of climate change on plants, the general consequences and plant responses to various environmental stresses.

The 50th anniversary of the Disaster Research Center of the University of Delaware provoked a discussion of the field's background, its accomplishments, and its future directions. Participants representing many disciplines brought new methods to bear on perennial problems relevant to effective disaster management and policy formation. However, new concerns were raised, stemming from the fact that we live today in a globally unfolding environmental crisis every bit as pressing and worrisome as that of the 1960s when the Disaster Research center was founded. This volume brings together ideas of participants from that workshop as well as other contributors. Topics include: the history and evolution of disaster research, innovations in disaster management, disaster policy, and ethical considerations of disaster research. Readers interested in science and technology, public policy, community action, and the evolution of the social sciences will find much of interest in this collection.

This book gathers contributions on modern irrigation environments in Egypt from an environmental and agricultural perspective. Written by leading experts in the field, it discusses a wide variety of modern irrigation problems. In the context of water resources management in Egypt, one fundamental problem is the gap between growing water demand and limited supply. As such, improving irrigation systems and providing farmers with better control over water are crucial to increasing productivity. The book presents state-of-the-art technologies and techniques that can be effectively used to address a range of problems in modern irrigation, as well as the latest research advances. Focusing on water sensing and information technologies, automated irrigation technologies, and improved irrigation efficiency. It brings together a team of experts who share their personal experiences, describe the various applications, present recent advances, and discuss possibilities for interdisciplinary collaboration and implementing the techniques covered

Resource security is a new battleground in the international politics of the Asia-Pacific. With demand for minerals and energy surging, disputes are emerging over access and control of scarce natural resource endowments. Drawing on critical insights from political economy, this book explains why resources have emerged as a source of inter-state conflict in the region. Jeffrey Wilson shows how resources have emerged as a new cause of tension between key regional powers, including China, Japan, Indonesia, Russia and the United States. He focuses on three in-depth case studies of contemporary resource conflicts in Asia; the regional scramble for oil and gas, the 'iron ore war' between Australia and China, and the threat of rare earth minerals to economic and military security. International Resource Politics in Asia-Pacific will appeal to students and academics of international political economy, international relations and Asian studies. It will also be of interest to policymakers, practitioners, managers and analysts of the Asia-Pacific region.

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

This book presents oral histories, collective dialogues, and analyses of rural and indigenous livelihoods facing global socio-environmental regime change in Latin America (LA). Since the late twentieth century, rural and indigenous producers in LA, including agriculturists, coffee-growers, as well as small-scale farmers/fishers, and others, have had to resist, cope with, or adapt to a range of neoliberal socio-environmental regimes that impact their territories and associated resources, including water, production systems and ultimately their cultural traditions. In response, rural producers are using local visions and innovation niches to decide what, when, and how to resist, cope with uncertainty, and still be successful in using their customary laws to retain their land rights and livelihoods. This book presents a range of ethnically diverse case studies from LA, which addresses socio-environmental, educational, and law regimes' effects using transdisciplinary research approaches in rural, traditional and indigenous production systems. Based on both, the results and insights gained into how producers are resisting and adapting to these regimes, as well as decades of research carried out in LA rural territories by the participating authors, the book puts forward a baseline for devising new public policies that are better suited to the real challenges of livelihoods, poverty, and environmental degradation in LA. These recommendations are rooted in post-development thinking; they promote territorial public policy with social inclusion and a human's rights approach. The book draws on over 20 years of research carried out by LA's academics and their undergraduate and graduate students who have addressed collaborative work, participatory research, and transdisciplinary approaches with rural commons and communities in LA. It features 19 case studies, with contributions from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, and Mexico.

This open access book advocates for the Social Sciences and Humanities to be more involved in energy policymaking. It forms part of the European platform for energy-related Social Sciences and Humanities' activities, and works on the premise that crossing disciplines is essential. All of its contributions are highly interdisciplinary, with each chapter grounded in at least three different Social Sciences and Humanities disciplines. These varying perspectives come together to cover an array of issues relevant to the energy transition, including: energy poverty, justice, political ecology, governance, behaviours, imaginaries, systems approaches, modelling, as well as the particular challenges faced by interdisciplinary work. As a whole, the book presents new ideas for future energy policy, particularly at the European level. It is a valuable resource for energy researchers interested in interdisciplinary and society-relevant perspectives. Those working outside the Social Sciences and Humanities will find this book an accessible way of learning more about how these subjects can constructively contribute to energy policy.

This book explains the tragic tale of the Satluj floodplain since its inception. As a landscape this floodplain entity evolves and sets a niche to distinctive natural and cultural aspects. The historical reconstruction of the landscape transformation depicts the excessive human encroachment and development activities which leads to more than fifty percent of landscape transformation. Data set layers were generated in a geospatial environment, with the use of multiscale and multitemporal satellite imageries, empirical field verification, and ancillary data input. An integrated landscape model was hence formed in order to identify the causal links between natural and cultural aspects. The author shows a landscape transformation matrix and change detection maps to explain the spatial trends and patterns of land use and land cover change. Pixel wise land use and land cover gain-loss algorithm were identified and measured for a selected time period. Changing spatial pattern of land cover to land use ratio are explained with underlying local to regional level causes. The author thoroughly explains the satellite image interpretation and related methodology. This book provides the detailed transition journey of landscape conversion from resource rich natural entity to a human dominated 'hazardscape'. It also explains how the expansion of population and related activities in the close vicinity of an active floodplain accentuates the problem of flood risks and how it affects the human and livestock life and creates economic loss. The author maps and explains the vector and magnitude of increased human pressure on the landscape and its adverse ecological implications, and describes issues with reference to the hazard status of the Punjab Satluj floodplain, including increased flood risk, increased pressure on agricultural land and depletion of resources, loss of biodiversity, qualitative and quantitative loss to surface and sub-surface water, and soil degradation (soil erosion, waterlogging and soil loss). Recommendations are provided with a detailed provision of potential applications with the underlying agenda of further conversion of this ecologically highly vulnerable flood prone 'hazardscape' to a Green Habitat. This book consist of two major themes: land use/land cover change and floodplain. The author answers all the geographical questions (what, where, when, why and how) related with both themes and provides an outlook to potential future prospects. The book is targeted at stakeholders, students, researchers and policy makers to optimize their interest and to guide them towards a positive charge in sustainable resource management through suitable and best possible sustainable utilization of landscape.

This book explores the interactions of local inhabitants and environmental systems in the Protected Natural Areas of Mexico. Its goal is to help understand how social groups contextualize ecological knowledge, how human activities contribute to modifying the environmental matrix, how cultural and economic aspects influence the use, management and conservation of their ecological environment, and how social phenomena are to be viewed against the backdrop of ecological knowledge. The book reviews the epistemological and historical bases of the socio-ecological relationship, and addresses the evolution of human-natural systems. From a methodological standpoint, it assesses the tools required for the integration of "human" and "natural" dimensions in the management of the environmental matrix. Further, in the case studies section, it reviews valuable recent experiences concerning the retro-interactions of local inhabitants with their environmental matrix. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable asset for researchers and professionals all over the world, especially those working in Latin American countries.

This book tries to answer the question how different communities in such an arid area as the Iranian central plateau could have shared their limited water resources in a perfect harmony and peace over the course of history. They invented some indigenous technologies as well as cooperative socio-economic systems in order to better adapt themselves to their harsh environment where the scarce water resources had to be rationed among the different communities as sustainably as possible. Those stories hold some lessons for us on how to adjust our needs to our geographical possibilities while living side by side with other people. This work gives insight into the indigenous adaptation strategies through the territorial water cooperation, and describes how water can appear as a ground for cooperation. It explains the water supply systems and social aspects of water in central Iran. Topics include the territorial water cooperation, qanat's, the traditional water management and sustainability, the socio-economic context, the sustainable management of shared aquifers system and more.

Modern food governance is increasingly hybrid, involving not only government, but also industry and civil society actors. This book deftly analyzes the unfolding interplay between public and private actors in global and local food governance. Split into three parts, chapters focus on the legitimacy and integrity of private food governance, the hybridization of EU Food Law and hybridization in transnational food governance. Within these key areas, food scholars from diverse disciplinary fields present a fascinating array of original empirical case studies, showing hybrid governance arrangements in China, Europe and North America. Through these practical examples, they consider in detail how the responsibilities and risks inherent in these arrangements are allocated, how their legitimacy is ensured and the effect that they have on industry and government practice. Timely and discerning, this book will appeal to legal students and scholars focusing on regulation and governance and, in particular, those considering its relation to food. It will also provide guidance to policymakers on how to shape and direct the trends, types and outcomes of hybrid food governance. Contributors include: D. Casey, E. Fagotto, M. Faure, A. Fearne, M. Garcia, T. Havinga, M. Hussein, A. Kalfagianni, K. Kindji, K. Kirezieva, K. Kottenstede, P. Luning, T.D. Lytton, L.K. McAllister, T.A. Roche, E. Thomann, B.M.J. van der Meulen, P. Verbruggen

This volume presents new developments in the research on ancillary benefits. Twenty years after the influential OECD report on ancillary benefits, the authors discuss theoretical innovations and offer new empirical findings on various ancillary effects in different world regions. Covering topics such as ancillary health effects associated with reduced air pollution, the influence of ancillary benefits on international cooperation on climate protection, co-effects of carbon capture and storage, ancillary effects of adaptation to climate change, multi-criteria decision analysis covering multiple effects of climate protection actions, and the analysis of primary and ancillary effects within an impure public goods framework, it provides starting points for further research on integrated climate policies seeking to address a range of policy objectives simultaneously.

This book shows how the change of water paradigm has become urgent, and provides evidence for new policies that expand water balance to green and virtual water. The issue of water security concerns drinking water supply but also food safety, linked to agricultural policy. Both rain-fed and irrigated agriculture play complementary roles in food security, and the water issue implies a holistic view of water resources. This view constitutes the book's backstory. The reader will find original ideas that can be applied everywhere because the example of Tunisia is typically a basis to illustrate a universally prevalent situation. The book deals with other important issues: desalination, wastewater recycling, water quality, groundwater overdraft, water savings, governance, knowledge valuing, education, information: upgrading the whole water systems for the future implies emancipation of the whole society.

This thesis provides a novel methodological basis for mechanistically understanding the dynamics of chemicals in products (CiPs) in the anthroposphere and physical environment and establishes a modeling continuum from production of a chemical to its concentrations in various environmental compartments. Using this framework, the thesis investigates how CiPs are transported and transformed and how they accumulate in the global environment. Furthermore, it identifies the measures needed to minimize their adverse effects on the environment and human society. It serves as an invaluable, interdisciplinary reference resource for industrial ecologists, environmental chemists and decision-makers involved in environmentally sound management of CiPs and associated waste.

Extensive previous research has investigated environmental conflict management issues in networked settings and the design of policy networks, but the emergence and evolution of self-organizing policy networks are still not fully understood. Especially misunderstood is the problem of how the multiple motivations or incentives of competing policy actors in conflictual situations affect their structures of interaction, as this issue has not been studied systematically. This book aims to address the following research questions: how do policy stakeholders cope strategically with collective action or environmental conflict resolution? How do they utilize or maintain formal and informal policy networks to resolve problems effectively? What motivates them to engage or be involved in collaborative or conflictual networks? What influences their networking or their decisions on partner selection for conflict resolution? This book consists of four studies. The goal of the first study is to examine the form of a policy network by focusing on how policy networks emerge and evolve at the micro-level to solve collective action dilemmas endemic to decentralized and democratized policy decision-making processes, particularly in the environmental conflict resolution arena. The goal of the second study is to examine the main policy actors and structural characteristics of network governance evolution in the dynamic process of environmental conflict resolution. The goal of the third study is to highlight the role of policy tie formality in the evolution of multiplex ties in the environmental conflict resolution process. The goal of the fourth study is to demonstrate the relationships between patterns of interactions among policy actors and their modified and adjusted strategic behaviours within policy networks and across advocacy coalitions.

This book aims to foster a better understanding of the particular challenges faced by resource-dependent countries or jurisdictions in managing their resource revenues through natural resource funds (NRFs). It explores the varieties of natural resource management strategies as dictated primarily by domestic politics, and how the potential negative distributional consequences of resource wealth management (the resource curse) may add political dimensions and potential conflicts to decisions about NRFs in ways that other sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) do not experience. By bridging the existing academic and practical knowledge gap arising from the limited attention given to the domestic politics of NRFs and state-society relations, this edited book is a valuable resource for academics, policymakers, and civil society actors in resource-driven economies and especially those interested in learning from comparative experiences of natural resource wealth management through NRFs.

This book talks about the dynamics of the surface water-groundwater contaminant interactions under different environmental conditions across the world. The contents of the book highlight trends of monitoring, prediction, awareness, learning, policy, and mitigation success. The book provides a description of the background processes and factors controlling resilience, risk, and response of water systems, contributing to the development of more efficient, sustainable technologies and management options. It integrates methodologies and techniques such as data science and engineering, remote sensing, modelling, analytics, synthesis and indices, disruptive innovations and their utilization in water management, policy making, and mitigation strategies. The book is intended to be a comprehensive reference for students, professionals, and researchers working on various aspects of science and technology development. It will also prove a useful resource for policy makers and implementation specialists.

Waste to Energy deals with the very topical subject of converting the calorific content of waste material into useful forms of energy. It complements and, to a certain degree, overlaps with its companion volume, "Biomass to Biofuels", since a significant proportion of biomass converted to energy nowadays originates from various types of waste. The material in the first, more substantial part of the volume has been arranged according to the type of process for energy conversion. Biochemical processes are described in six articles. These relate to the production of methane by anaerobic digestion; reactor conversion efficiencies; investigations on ethanol production from biodegradable municipal solid waste through hydrolysis and fermentation; hydrogen production from glucose through a hybrid anaerobic and photosynthetic process; biodiesel production from used cooking oil through base-catalyzed transesterification. Conversions by thermochemical processes are discussed in the subsequent eleven articles of the volume.These cover combustion, the direct use of heat energy; using the heat produced in thermal power stations for steam and, ultimately, electricity generation; municipal solid waste and refuse-derived fuel. In another article, computational fluid dynamics modelling is applied to assess the influence of process parameters and to perform optimization studies. A group of articles deal with more complex thermochemical processes involving combustion combined with pyrolysis and gasification. Two articles focus on biofuels as feed for fuel cells. In the last six articles, the emphasis is on management and policy rather than technical issues.

This book presents a collection of chapters covering research on the Litani River Basin. The Litani River Basin occupies about a quarter of Lebanon's surface area, and it has recently been subject to severe geo-environmental conditions such as water contamination and decreased discharge. This motivated the Lebanese government to take action and start working on the remediation of the river. These actions are also supported by international organizations including the World Bank.

This book presents the spatial and temporal dynamics of land use and land cover in the central Tibetan Plateau during the last two decades, based on various types of satellite data, long-term field investigation and GIS techniques. Further, it demonstrates how remote sensing can be used to map and characterize land use, land cover and their dynamic processes in mountainous regions, and to monitor and model relevant biophysical parameters. The Tibetan Plateau, the highest and largest plateau on the Earth and well known as "the roof of the world," is a huge mountainous area on the Eurasian continent and covers millions of square kilometers, with an average elevation of over 4000 m. After providing an overview of the background and an introduction to land use and land cover change, the book analyzes the current land use status, dynamic changes and spatial distribution patterns of different land-use types in the study area, using various types of remotely sensed data, digital elevation models and GIS spatial analysis methods to do so. In turn, it discusses the main driving forces, based on the main physical environment variables and socioeconomic data, and provides a future scenario analysis of land use change using a Markov chain model. Given its scope, it provides a valuable reference guide for researchers, scientists and graduate students working on environmental change in mountainous regions around the globe, and for practitioners working at government and non-government agencies.

This book assesses harmful effects of plastics on the environment and public health. Risk assessment of plastics is required to evaluate currently available treatment technologies and identify the significance of plastic pollution. This book covers background information concerning plastic pollution in the environment, sources and pathways of plastics, characterization and analysis of plastics in the environment, environmental risks of plastics, public health risk of plastics, life cycle approaches in assessing plastic pollution, preventive measures of plastic pollution, fate and transport of plastics, and summary and outlook. The content of the book focuses on assessment of risks of plastics (including nano- and micro-plastics) released into the environment, and it is designed to educate fundamental aspects of plastic materials, including potential risks to the public health and environment, approaches to assessing their harmful effects, prevention of plastic pollution, and environmentally sound technologies for recycling plastics and/or converting them into renewable energy sources. Readers, particularly those in the field of toxicology, materials, environmental policy, public health, and water treatment, benefit from this book's content and educational features, in perspectives of providing knowledge in the environmental field, namely the current status and technology developments for avoiding or minimizing plastic contamination, case studies used to assess environmental and public health risks of micro- and nano-plastics, and educational recommendations in resolving issues with global plastic pollution.

The effects of climate change are beginning to impact water quantity and water quality across the globe. However, there is no single action or strategy that any government can implement to ensure a community is resilient to climate change-related extreme weather events while also protecting the natural system. Instead, Robert Brears argues, climate resilient water resources management requires integrated, forward-thinking policies that are not only adaptable to changing climatic conditions but also seek to maximise economic and social welfare in an equitable manner while ensuring the continued health of their ecosystems. This book addresses how several levels of government in different geographical locations, with varying climates, incomes, and lifestyles, have implemented a variety of policies and technologies to ensure communities are resilient to climatic risks, and how these policies preserve and enhance the natural system and its associated ecosystem's health.