Earth Resources: A continuing bibliography with indexes, issue 10, August 1976

This bibliography lists 506 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system between April 1976 and June 1976. Emphasis is placed on the use of remote sensing and geophysical instrumentation in spacecraft and aircraft to survey and inventory natural resources and urban areas. Subject matter is grouped according to agriculture and forestry, environmental changes and cultural resources, geodesy and cartography, geology and mineral resources, hydrology and water management, data processing and distribution systems, instrumentation and sensors, and economic analysis

Machine Learning with Metaheuristic Algorithms for Sustainable Water Resources Management

The main aim of this book is to present various implementations of ML methods and metaheuristic algorithms to improve modelling and prediction hydrological and water resources phenomena having vital importance in water resource management

Climate Change and Air Pollution Effects on Forest Ecosystems

Both climate change and air pollution have large negative impacts on physiological processes and functions at the individual tree level and on whole forest ecosystems. The objective of climate change and air quality monitoring is to make decisions, based on scientific knowledge, regarding how to best manage and improve the current state of the environment. Our ability to take urgent measures to combat climate change and its impact on forest ecosystems and conserve forest biodiversity depends upon our knowledge of the latest scientific results on the status of forest ecosystems. Unfortunately, there are a lot of gaps in our knowledge of the detection and monitoring of their effects on forest ecosystems. This book presents relevant results from scientific research in the fields of climate change, air pollution, forest conservation, protection and monitoring that can contribute to a better science–policy interaction and to the elaboration of specific strategies, in accordance with the areas of forest sciences from IUFRO RG 8.04.00 - Impacts of air pollution and climate change on forest ecosystems

Integrated Water Resources Research

Anthropogenic and natural disturbances to freshwater quantity and quality are a greater issue for society than ever before. To successfully restore water resources requires understanding the interactions between hydrology, climate, land use, water quality, ecology, and social and economic pressures. This Special Issue of Water includes cutting edge research broadly addressing investigative areas related to experimental study designs and modeling, freshwater pollutants of concern, and human dimensions of water use and management. Results demonstrate the immense, globally transferable value of the experimental watershed approach, the relevance and critical importance of current integrated studies of pollutants of concern, and the imperative to include human sociological and economic processes in water resources investigations. In spite of the latest progress, as demonstrated in this Special Issue, managers remain insufficiently informed to make the best water resource decisions amidst combined influences of land use change, rapid ongoing human population growth, and changing environmental conditions. There is, thus, a persistent need for further advancements in integrated and interdisciplinary research to improve the scientific understanding, management, and future sustainability of water resources

Hydrology of the Powerless

This PhD project identifies the complex imbrications of political and environmental violence resulting in patterns of human bodies and remains washing up on the shores of three rivers. It seeks to demonstrate that, contrary to common abstractions and universalisations of water as empty and neutral, the materiality and fluvial processes of rivers are highly engineered and even weaponised. Part I, co-researched with colleague Stefanos Levidis (CRA), considers the Evros / Meriç / Maritsa river between Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria as a Fluvial Frontier weighted with riverine crossings and systematic illegal pushbacks at the border of the EU. Part II explores the condition of Fluvial Terror on the Cauca river in Colombia, where the dispossessions of local communities, through extractive processes, are further compounded by the obfuscation of paramilitary violence within the reservoir of the Hidroituango megadam. Part III reads the mobilisation of the confluence of the Wisła, Soła and Przemsza rivers, Poland, as a technology in the obfuscation of traces from the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp and IG Farben chemical factory, as well as contemporary anthropogenic pollutants. In each case power organises, and is organised around, specific fluvial processes and hydrologic properties to disperse the causal agencies ofviolence enacted against subjugated and disempowered communities. Incorporatingvisual culture, testimony, field notes and hydrophonic soundings I employ amethodology that reads rivers across a multi-scalar spectrum from flood to drought,and from entire river catchments to the particulate scale of processes of saltation,accretion and erosion. This thesis, consequently, offers an alternative conceptualisation of rivers as complex and dynamic archives that resist attempts to erase acts of state and non-state violence, and instead continue to narrate andmediate the stories and traces of those who have been lost

An investigation into gas emission and outburst control in thick seam coal mining

Nowadays, coal mining is extending to deeper and deeper levels, facing ever increasing coal seam gas contents, much higher gas emissions and outburst risks. Capturing coal seam gas before it migrates into atmosphere has been seen as an effective approach to simultaneously improve mining safety, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and produce clean energy. Thick seams account for a considerable share of global coal reserve. The application of longwall top coal caving (LTCC) method to extract thick seams generally yields a much higher productivity and is more efficient in comparison to a mechanised single-slice longwall panel. However, the greater productivity achieved by LTCC may further exacerbate the gas emission problems often faced in longwall mining. Geomechanical response of the strata and associated gas emission patterns around thick seam layouts are significantly different from coal mining under thinner multi-seam mining conditions, which is not well understood. This thesis focuses on establishing an understanding of the stresses, pressure regimes, and gas emission patterns around advancing LTCC faces. During the PhD research, gas pressure and gas concentration were measured in a large number of boreholes in and around an advancing LTCC face at a coal mine. These data are complemented with ventilation and seismic monitoring programmes at the same LTCC district. An integrated analysis of the monitoring data has been carried out and conceptual models for gas emission and drainage for LTCC faces have been developed. These were later used as the basis for numerical modelling research. A two-way sequential coupling of a geomechanical simulator with a reservoir simulator has been achieved, whereby mining induced stresses and pressures are linked by two coupling parameters: permeability and pore pressure. By applying this approach, gas emission during coal extraction at a LTCC panel in the study coal mine has been successfully modelled and history matched with field data. Recognising that coal and gas outbursts are the most serious and violent gas emissions in both thick and thin seam mining, the application of the coupled modelling approach has been further extended to model two common types of outbursts experienced in an outburst-prone coalfield. Gas drainage before mining is a standard gas emission control technique, however, its application is largely limited to high permeability coal seams and roof/floor source seams undermined/overmined by single level longwall mining. The feasibility of utilising mining induced permeability enhancement zones to drain gas at thick and tight seams mined by multi-level LTCC method was studied via field trials and numerical models. Building upon the gas emission model developed earlier, a parametric study was carried out to assess different borehole layouts in order to optimise gas drainage designs. It is believed that the findings of this research and gas drainage methods developed for thick seam mining will create a safer underground environment for miners at high productivity LTCC panels.Open Acces

Mining Safety and Sustainability I

Safety and sustainability are becoming ever bigger challenges for the mining industry with the increasing depth of mining. It is of great significance to reduce the disaster risk of mining accidents, enhance the safety of mining operations, and improve the efficiency and sustainability of development of mineral resource. This book provides a platform to present new research and recent advances in the safety and sustainability of mining. More specifically, Mining Safety and Sustainability presents recent theoretical and experimental studies with a focus on safety mining, green mining, intelligent mining and mines, sustainable development, risk management of mines, ecological restoration of mines, mining methods and technologies, and damage monitoring and prediction. It will be further helpful to provide theoretical support and technical support for guiding the normative, green, safe, and sustainable development of the mining industry

Social work with airports passengers

Social work at the airport is in to offer to passengers social services. The main methodological position is that people are under stress, which characterized by a particular set of characteristics in appearance and behavior. In such circumstances passenger attracts in his actions some attention. Only person whom he trusts can help him with the documents or psychologically