THE DRINKING WATER BOOK takes a level-headed look at the serious issues surrounding America's drinking water supply. Unlike water purifier manufacturers and public health officials, Ingram presents unbiased reporting on what's in your water and how to drink safely. Featuring all the latest scientific research, the book evaluates the different kinds of filters and bottled waters and rates specific products on the market.‚A[ The completely revised comprehensive guide to making tap and bottled water safer, covering the toxins in our water, how to test for them, and how to get rid of them.‚A[ Honestly and thoroughly tackles a subject vital to ongoing environmental, health, and safety concerns.‚A[ Shows how to avoid bogus safety tests, scams, and unnecessary expenditures.‚A[ Details which toxins aren't regulated by federal and state water standards.

The presence of toxic Cr(VI) in the aquatic environment and their harmful effects on living organisms has emerged as one of the most serious environmental concerns in Thailand, located in the Southeast Asian region. The research, undertaken at the Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology of Thammasat University (2001-2003), directly addressed the need of our society for clean water. This book reports the technical applicability of coconut shell waste, a low cost material from local agricultural waste for treatment of Cr(VI)-contaminated water, and can be a useful resource for environmental scientists, engineers, researchers, policy and decision makers, and engineering students world-wide.

Municipalities face important water supply challenges. One response has been to render utilities independent from municipal government through alternative service delivery (ASD). For its proponents, ASD provides needed autonomy from municipal government; for its detractors, it is privatization under another name. Using Ontario as a case study, Kathryn Furlong paints a complex picture of both ASD and municipal government. Examining organizational models for water supply and how they are affected by shifting governance and institutional environments, she reveals water management and municipal governance to be deeply interdependent and contends that both must be strengthened to meet contemporary water supply needs.

When an oil spill occurs in coastal waters of the United States, responders have several options for managing the environmental impacts of the spill, including the use of chemical dispersants and well containment. Dispersants do not reduce the total amount of oil entering the environment; rather, they help break down oil into small droplets that can more easily mix into the water below the surface, increasing biodegradation rates and potentially decreasing the impact of spilled oil on the shoreline. However, because chemical dispersants promote the movement of oil below the surface, their use exposes the underwater environment and the ocean floor to more of the spilled oil, where it may also have harmful effects. This book examines and assesses new spill response capabiities and technologies, with a focus on dispersants and well containment.

The presence of heavy metals such as Cr(VI) in the aquatic environment and their harmful effects on living organisms has emerged as one of the most serious environmental concerns world-wide. This book reports the technical feasibility of coconut shell waste, a low cost material from local agricultural waste, as well as zeolite, an inexpensive natural material for treatment of Cr(VI)-contaminated wastewater. The book contains insightful and novel ideas on how solid waste, an unused resource available in large quantities from local coconut industries, is able to be chemically modified in such a way that it could be further used as a low cost material adsorbent to remove toxic Cr(VI) from contaminated wastewater, thus improving environmental protection in the aquatic environment.

This book addresses current issues in agriculture as well as the effects of wind and water. There is public concern world-wide about the impact of agriculture runoff on the environment and the migration of agrochemicals from their target to nearby terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Coastal management aims to prevent erosion and flooding. Without conservation work, subsiding coastal area are prone to progressive submersion by the sea. This book presents new methodologies and research trends to manage the concerns related to these three environmental concerns.

Explore a Viable Resource for Desalination The world's freshwater supplies are rapidly depleting and seawater is being positioned as a major feasible replacement in the search for a sustainable water source. Focused on large-scale multi-stage flash (MSF) seawater desalination plants, and based on research conducted on a real 18-stage plant, Multi-Stage Flash Desalination: Modeling, Simulation and Adaptive Control outlines the principles and processes of MSF desalination and highlights the state of the art in MSF desalination modeling, simulation, and control. This book offers a brief overview of MSF plants, explains the importance of the various control systems for large MSF plants, and describes methods of mathematical modeling centered on physical phenomena in the MSF process. It introduces a developed dynamic model and illustrates the simulation of the model using an equation-based flowsheet simulation package (SPEEDUP) from AspenTech. It also presents a method for finding and using a non-parametric model in designing optimal PID control systems and recommends an adaptive scheme that maintains optimal plant operation over a range of operating conditions. The improvements suggested by the author for PID controllers are pervasive in desalination plants of high dimension and also relate to other process industries with comparable conditions. He also discusses the use of renewable energy sources for desalination and stresses the potential of solar energy in the Arab region, an area known for its aridity and scarcity of water. The text: Details the dynamic model of the various elements in an MSF plant Considers the obtained model as well as available measurement data Presents a developed model for use in PID control Provides descriptions, listings, and additional reference material for further research Multi-Stage Flash Desalination: Modeling, Simulation and Adaptive Control covers the processes of desalination and the operation and control of MSF plants for large-scale desalination and provides you with a greater understanding of dynamics, operation, and control.

Assessment of freshwater sediments can determine whether chemical concentrations are sufficient to cause adverse effects on aquatic organisms or organisms higher in the food chain, including humans. This book presents methods for assessing sediments and includes an integration of physical, chemical, and biological information. It examines the elements of quality assurance and control programs, considerations for the conduct of field surveys, screening-level analyses, chemical analyses, toxicity tests for assessing biological impacts, assessments of benthic invertebrate community structure, surveys of fish tumors and abnormalities, and data presentation and interpretation techniques.

This book introduces readers to desalination processes and technologies, covering both commercial desalination technologies (MSF, MED, MVC/TVC, RO and EDR), as well as newly developed technologies (MD, HDH, SS) and alternative driving energies, such as solar and nuclear. The author presents the material in the form of questions and answers in order to be accessible to readers with a wide variety of backgrounds. The book includes special sections in RDI with novel ideas particularly in solar desalination (water from Sun). Presents a unique, wide range of questions and answers in desalination processes and technologies; Includes over 200 colored illustrations, photos and specifications of typical commercially operating desalination plants; Covers conventional driving energies and alternatives as solar and nuclear energies; Includes selected RDI topics in desalination and typical RDI proposals.