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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.
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