Water is becoming a progressively scarce resource on our planet. Although we have vast amount of water on our planet, but fresh water makes up only about 1% of all the planet's water bodies. It is reasonable to say at this point, that any sources of water which might be used economically and effectively be promoted and further developed in the overall benefit of human kind. A large proportion of fresh water is used for human consumption, followed by irrigation use, and whenever fresh water is scarce, marginally good quality or water treated after wastewater treatment should be used for agricultural purposes. Domestic wastewater is comprised of 99.9% water and the 0.1% remaining part consists or organic/inorganic suspended and dissolved solids, making it unfit for human use and placing it in the wastewater category, which may be made suitable for agricultural use. So, the composition of wastewater is dependent upon the functions to which the water was subjected and its treatment is also dependent upon the initial use of water. This book deals with the various treatments to which the waste water is subjected to make reuse of water a possibility.

This book is an effort towards exploration of strategies for studying and protecting plants. We are at the stage in world history where we are facing widespread and devastating loss of plant biodiversity. The plant biodiversity at a particular location influences not only the local micro-climate, but in a broader horizon influences the types of animals, their habitat and water/soil resources for human population. Habitat destruction, over exploitation of resources and land, competition from cultivated plant species or varieties, environmental pollution and possible climate changes are all the human activities that have threatened and destroyed plant biodiversity. Swift action is needed to conserve genetic diversity of both cultivated and wild species. The ex situ conservation is used for all the major crops, where seeds can be dried and cooled and in situ conservation, literally in its "original" place, provided answer for crop diversity using traditional farming conditions. The book examines where and how ex situ, in situ and genetic conservation can be used for sustainable plant conservation and diversity maintenance.

Sustainable forest management deals with the increasing socio-economic demands of growing human populations while maintaining ecological function of forest ecosystems. Forest management deals not only with conservation of biodiversity of forests, but also its role in carbon recycling, climate change and ecosystem based management of broader landscapes, which can be well beyond the confines of the forests. The conservation of biological diversity of forests in an ecologically sustainable way requires successful design of management strategies, especially when the relationships between potential indicator species and biodiversity are not well established. The strategies required for sustainable management of forests are based on the fact that human interactions with the environment are required to be modified to ensure the sustenance of healthy ecosystems. This book presents the studies for sustainable biological diversity considerations in forestry and in consequence strategies applicable for future forest management.

Land degradation is recognized as a key issue for world conservation, as land is the basis of all human food, livestock feed, fiber, fuel and many functions beyond productive functions. The complex relationship between human activities and the land degradation processes is explored in this book, with a particular emphasis on the different habitat types such as forest, woodlands and drylands. Each of these habitat types supports a different range of functions and has a different vulnerability to the various degradation pressures. Human activities puts competing demands on the land for not only production through unsustainable agriculture output needs, but also for large human population needs of infrastructure, recreation facilities, waste disposal and industrial development, damaging further the resilient and self-renewable land. Soil has vast buffering capacity, but only a limited soil remediation functions can happen in the limited timespan that these human activities are able to provide for the vast growth and expansion of human population.

The recent mega earthquakes of richter scale 9 and above, of 2010 and 2004 (Sumatra-Andaman) in Indian ocean plate or the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, have killed hundreds of thousands and have given a new terminology to the study of earthquakes. Before these, the mankind had only known great earthquakes of magnitude 8 +, giving the superlative mega earthquake expression. The importance is of not only of the understanding of risks of ruptures along the tectonic plates that these mega and great earthquakes of the 21st century, but the disaster preparedness role in the view of a seismic event. This book describes the new and important tools or methods of earthquake hazard estimations to reduce the risk of mortality in the event of a mega earthquake in the known fault lines as well as preparedness for a surprise seismological event in the plate boundaries not known to have produced mega earthquake rupturing in the recorded history. The Nepal earth quake of 2015 was merely a magnitude of 7.8-8.1, which killed more than 8000 people, and is a reminder of the terrible disasters that could have been better managed.

There have been two major tsunamis, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and October 2010 Sumatra earthquake on the same fault. Luckily, the Sumatra tsunami was not as disastrous, but still there were 435 mortalities and 20,000 people were displaced in Sumatra. On the other hand, the Indian Ocean tsunami resulted in 229,866 deaths in 14 countries and many more were displaced. The undersea megathrust earthquake, of magnitude 9.1-9.3, was caused when the Indian Plate was sub ducted by the Burma Plate and triggered a series of devastating tsunamis, waves up to 30 metres, along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, creating one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. There are 15 major tectonic plates, of which the majority of plates are under the ocean. The earth’s continents are in motion due to the movement of these tectonic plates. These devastations in our recent history has lead us to closely understand and monitor the different types of plate boundaries.

The vulnerability of natural resources awareness of various governments and intergovernmental organizations have increased considerably, which has led to introduction of various measures aimed at improving the sustainability of fishery resources. Scientific investigations and discovery pave the path to policy changes at socio-economic and political level for effective fishery management. Marine and fisheries scientists are increasingly using advanced tools to better understand and model their systems to bridge the gap in knowledge of fish behavior and distribution. In addition to the scientific investigations, traditional local knowledge sources provide information about declines and changes in fishing fleets, fisheries management and stock assessments in data-poor situations. This book describes the advances in fishery sciences technology, which collectively lead to assessing fish reproductive potential and dispersal in land and marine fishes for economic and ecological advancements.

Microalgae, are enormously bio-diverse microscopic algae that are primary producers of biomass and oxygen by photosynthesis, ie from carbon dioxide in the presence of sunlight, in marine or freshwater systems. It is un-disputed that they are the basic sustenance units of earth's atmosphere, as they produce approximately half of the atmospheric oxygen and use simultaneously the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to grow photoautotrophically. In addition to biological diversity, the chemical composition of microalgae can be diversely varied by cultivation conditions making it ideal for biomass production as a nutrient source or for bulk production of bio-chemicals. The microalgae are an untapped resource of nutrition and protein for not only human, animal feel but also for the aquaculture. This book details the use of microalgae as food source in the rearing of all stages of marine clams, oysters, scallops or the the larval stages of some marine gastropods, fish species and shrimp.

Production of Plant Based Bioactive Compounds examines various aspects of bioactive compounds required for the production of plant. It includes two important parts, where the first part deals with those Bioactive Compounds which have been extracted from the Marine Plants and the second part deals with the Bioactive Compounds from Plants to Drug Development. Provide the reader with the insights into the compounds that are required for the production of plants, so as to analyze various chemical properties of various components through an approach known as metabolomics approach.

Advances in Beekeeping is a detailed guide that discusses beehive management, social apoptosis in honey bee superorganisms, and bee breeding & genomic approaches in a detailed manner. The book discusses perception of community on beekeeping, management and constraints in beekeeping in various locations where this business is prominent. Ethiopia is kept in focus to explain the local honeybee subspecies, their productive characteristics, and behaviour. Later in the book, the genomic approaches and bee breeding has been explained, that include Methods to estimate breeding values, Simulating a base population in honey bee and Social genetic and social environment effects on a cooperative breeding bird.

Advances and Applications of Immobilization discusses the improvements and areas of applications of Immobilization are discussed in detail. Immobilization has numerous applications that are discussed in detail like optimization of enzyme immobilization on magnetic microparticles, immobilization of cellulase on a functional inorganic-organic hybrid support, activity and stability of trypsin, printable enzyme-embedded materials, recent advances in carbon nanotube-based enzymatic fuel cells, enhanced stability of -amylase via immobilization. The book is a complete guide for anyone who is interested in studying advances and applications of Immobilization.

Oxidative Stress: Environmental Induction and Dietary Antioxidants takes into account various aspects of oxidative stress and cancer describing about the correlation between oxidative stress, nutrition and cancer initiation. It includes three different sections where section 1 and 2 talks about oxidative stress and cancer and Neurodegenerative Diseases. Section 3 is dedicated to Therapeutic Antioxidants for cancer prevention. Provide the reader with the insights into the development of various stress causing different problems like, liver problem and cancer. This helps in understanding the conditions of patients going through these symptoms resulting from overpressure.

A practical guide to summarize the physical chemical and biological treatments used in various types of industries for abstracting the level of pollutants, quantitatively expressed as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), and total dissolved solids (TDS), from the waste water stream. This book can provide a clear but concise overview of industrial effluent treatment, which can be used as a quick reference by students, researchers and practitioners.

Soil fertility and plant nutrition are two interdependent subjects, as the plant growth is influenced by the availability of nutrients in soil and in turn the soil quality is also defined by the plants growing in that particular biological system. Fertile soils are defined by the presence of a balanced amount of organic and inorganic elements, as well as soil pH that are essential to maintain a homogenous environment for plants to flourish. Due to wide diversity of plants in different climatic conditions on earth, the essential nutrients in soil also shows variation in the levels of elements, which maybe suitable for a particular region and toxic to plants growing in another region or climate, For example, countries of the Mediterranean basin produce annually vast quantities of olives that are a extracted for olive oil production. The Mediterranean region is especially suitable for olive tree growth and olive fruit production, due to the well-drained soil, that are non-stratified, moderately fine textured soils, including sandy loam, loam, silt loam, clay loam, and silty clay loam. Olive trees are especially sensitive to long harsh winters, making the Mediterranean mild winters with long and dry summers much more adaptable. In this book we have discussed in the broader preview of soil fertility, the effects of plant growth on soil as well as counter effect of soil characteristics on plant growth, especially the soil nutrients, such as, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and pH of soil.

Biofilm development is a multistep process. Single cell of bacterium in its planktonic (free swimming) state approaches a surface, attaches and then becomes immobilized on the surface. In order to form microcolonies, the bacteria divides and move along the surface and associate with one another. Finally, an ordered three-dimensional structure is formed, which may be of single bacterial colony or mixed colony. In nature usually a mixed microbial biofilm is observed. This biofilm structure is composed of pillars of bacteria surrounded by matrix, which is essentially slimy water channels with DNA, proteins, enzymes etc, that allow nutrients to reach biofilm-associated bacteria and allow toxic metabolites to diffuse out of the biofilm. Studies confirm that attachment to surfaces and formation of a biofilm, provides an ecological adaptive advantage for aquatic organisms. For example, it is well known that in water sources, either fresh water or marine is a very dilute nutrient source, where nutrients such as large organic compounds (i.e. humic acids) that are not easily metabolizable or soluble, are found adsorbed to aquatic surfaces, may provide nutrients for attached bacteria. By attachment and establishment of biofilm on a surface, microbes degrade or corrode the surface. In this book we are discussing the various studies on biofilm formation on various surfaces and its implications ie the affects that biofilm have on many areas of human activity including food processing, transportation, public infrastructure, and most importantly healthcare; overall an interesting read.

Over the past century, as science in general has grown at an ever increasing pace, many aspects of yeast have also been studied in depth, including the complete elucidation of the pathway of alcoholic fermentation. This book is an effort to compile various studies of the alcohol fermentation process and the different substrates leading to differences in the final product in high quality, using the original text and artwork.