223 research outputs found

    Study of the Soil Water Movement in Irrigated Agriculture

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    In irrigated agriculture, the study of the various ways water infiltrates into the soils is necessary. In this respect, soil hydraulic properties, such as soil moisture retention curve, diffusivity, and hydraulic conductivity functions, play a crucial role, as they control the infiltration process and the soil water and solute movement. This Special Issue presents the recent developments in the various aspects of soil water movement in irrigated agriculture through a number of research topics that tackle one or more of the following challenges: irrigation systems and one-, two-, and three-dimensional soil water movement; one-, two-, and three-dimensional infiltration analysis from a disc infiltrometer; dielectric devices for monitoring soil water content and methods for assessment of soil water pressure head; soil hydraulic properties and their temporal and spatial variability under the irrigation situations; saturated–unsaturated flow model in irrigated soils; soil water redistribution and the role of hysteresis; soil water movement and drainage in irrigated agriculture; salt accumulation, soil salinization, and soil salinity assessment; effect of salts on hydraulic conductivity; and soil conditioners and mulches that change the upper soil hydraulic properties and their effect on soil water movement

    Assessing Atmospheric Pollution and Its Impacts on the Human Health

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    This reprint contains articles published in the Special Issue entitled "Assessing Atmospheric Pollution and Its Impacts on the Human Health" in the journal Atmosphere. The research focuses on the evaluation of atmospheric pollution by statistical methods on the one hand, and on the other hand, on the evaluation of the relationship between the level of pollution and the extent of its effect on the population's health, especially on pulmonary diseases

    CERNAS: Current Evolution and Research Novelty in Agricultural Sustainability

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    Climate changes pose overwhelming impacts on primary production and, consequently, on agricultural and animal farming. Additionally, at present, agriculture still depends strongly on fossil fuels both for energy and production factors ,such as synthetized inorganic fertilizers and harmful chemicals such as pesticides. The need to feed the growing world population poses many challenges. The need to reduce environmental impacts to a minimum, maintain healthy ecosystems, and improve soil microbiota are central to ensuring a promising future for coming generations. Livestock production under cover crop systems helps to alleviate compaction so that oxygen and water can sufficiently flow in the soil, add organic matter, and help hold soil in place, reducing crusting and protecting against erosion. The use of organic plant production practices allied to the control of substances used in agriculture also decisively contributes to alleviating the pressure on ecosystems. Some of the goals of this new decade are to use enhanced sustainable production methodologies to improve the input/output ratios of primary production, reduce environmental impacts, and rely on new innovative technologies. This reprint addresses original studies and reviews focused on the current evolution and research novelty in agricultural sustainability. New developments are discussed on issues related to quality of soil, natural fertilizers, or the sustainable use of land and water. Also, crop protection techniques are pivotal for sustainable food production under the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, allied to innovative weed control methodologies as a way to reduce the utilization of pesticides. The role of precision and smart agriculture is becoming more pertinent as communication technologies improve at a rapid rate. Waste management, reuse of agro-industrial residues, extension of shelf life, and use of new technologies are ways to reduce food waste, all contributing to higher sustainability in food supply chains, leading to a more rational use of natural resources. The unquestionable role of bees as pollinators and contributors to biodiversity is adjacent to characterizing beekeeping activities, which in turn contributes, together with the valorization of endemic varieties of plant foods, to the development of local communities. Finally, the short circuits and local food markets have a decisive role in the preservation and enhancement of rural economies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    CERNAS – Current Evolution and Research Novelty in Agricultural Sustainability

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    This book addresses original studies and reviews focused on the current evolution and research novelty in agricultural sustainability. New developments are discussed on issues related with quality of soil, natural fertilizers or the sustainable use of land and water. Also crop protection techniques are pivotal for the sustainable food production under the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, allied to innovative weed control methodologies, as a way to reduce the utilization of pesticides. The role of precision and smart agriculture is becoming more pertinent as the communication technologies improve at a high rate. Waste management, reuse of agro industrial residues, extension of shelf life and use of new technologies are ways to reduce food waste, all contributing to a higher sustainability of the food supply chains, leading to a more rational use of natural resources. The unquestionable role of bees as pollinators and contributors for biodiversity is subjacent to the work of characterization of beekeeping activities, which in turn contribute, together with the valorization of endemic varieties of plant foods, for the development of local communities. Finally, the short circuits and local food markets have a decisive role in the preservation and enhancement of rural economies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    A geo-informatics approach to sustainability assessments of floatovoltaic technology in South African agricultural applications

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    South African project engineers recently pioneered the first agricultural floating solar photovoltaic tech nology systems in the Western Cape wine region. This effort prepared our country for an imminent large scale diffusion of this exciting new climate solver technology. However, hydro-embedded photovoltaic sys tems interact with environmentally sensitive underlying aquatic ecosystems, causing multiple project as sessment uncertainties (energy, land, air, water) compared to ground-mounted photovoltaics. The dissimi lar behaviour of floatovoltaic technologies delivers a broader and more diversified range of technical advan tages, environmental offset benefits, and economic co-benefits, causing analytical modelling imperfections and tooling mismatches in conventional analytical project assessment techniques. As a universal interna tional real-world problem of significance, the literature review identified critical knowledge and methodology gaps as the primary causes of modelling deficiencies and assessment uncertainties. By following a design thinking methodology, the thesis views the sustainability assessment and modelling problem through a geo graphical information systems lens, thus seeing an academic research opportunity to fill critical knowledge gaps through new theory formulation and geographical knowledge creation. To this end, this philosophi cal investigation proposes a novel object-oriented systems-thinking and climate modelling methodology to study the real-world geospatial behaviour of functioning floatovoltaic systems from a dynamical system thinking perspective. As an empirical feedback-driven object-process methodology, it inspired the thesis to create new knowledge by postulating a new multi-disciplinary sustainability theory to holistically characterise agricultural floatovoltaic projects through ecosystems-based quantitative sustainability profiling criteria. The study breaks new ground at the frontiers of energy geo-informatics by conceptualising a holistic theoretical framework designed for the theoretical characterisation of floatovoltaic technology ecosystem operations in terms of the technical energy, environmental and economic (3E) domain responses. It campaigns for a fully coupled model in ensemble analysis that advances the state-of-the-art by appropriating the 3E theo retical framework as underpinning computer program logic blueprint to synthesise the posited theory in a digital twin simulation. Driven by real-world geo-sensor data, this geospatial digital twin can mimic the geo dynamical behaviour of floatovoltaics through discrete-time computer simulations in real-time and lifetime digital project enactment exercises. The results show that the theoretical 3E framing enables project due diligence and environmental impact assessment reporting as it uniquely incorporates balanced scorecard performance metrics, such as the water-energy-land-food resource impacts, environmental offset benefits and financial feasibility of floatovoltaics. Embedded in a geoinformatics decision-support platform, the 3E theory, framework and model enable numerical project decision-supporting through an analytical hierarchy process. The experimental results obtained with the digital twin model and decision support system show that the desktop-based parametric floatovoltaic synthesis toolset can uniquely characterise the broad and diverse spectrum of performance benefits of floatovoltaics in a 3E sustainability profile. The model uniquely predicts important impact aspects of the technology’s land, air and water preservation qualities, quantifying these impacts in terms of the water, energy, land and food nexus parameters. The proposed GIS model can quantitatively predict most FPV technology unknowns, thus solving a contemporary real-world prob lem that currently jeopardises floating PV project licensing and approvals. Overall, the posited theoretical framework, methodology model, and reported results provide an improved understanding of floating PV renewable energy systems and their real-world behaviour. Amidst a rapidly growing international interest in floatovoltaic solutions, the research advances fresh philosophical ideas with novel theoretical principles that may have far-reaching implications for developing electronic, photovoltaic performance models worldwide.GeographyPh. D. (Geography

    Developing magnetic functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes-based buckypaper for the removal of Furazolid

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    Magnetic f-MWCNTs-based BP/PVA membrane was fabricated and utilized for the elimination of furazolidone (FZD) from aqueous solution. Characterisation and adsorption studies were performed to evaluate the performance and adsorptive efficiency, respectively of the membrane. Furthermore, statistical and machine learning technique were also applied to predict the removal efficiency of FZD on the membrane. The results revealed that magnetic f-MWCNTs-based BP/PVA membrane has the potential to be used as an efficient membrane for practical applications

    Investigating renewable energy systems using artifcial intelligence techniques

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    This research investigated applying Artificial Intelegence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to renewable energy through three studies. The first study characterized and mapped the recent research landscape in the field of AI applications for various renewable energy systems using Natural Language Prcoessing (NLP) and ML models. It considered published documetns at Scopus database in the period (2000-2021). The second study built hybrid Catboost-CNN-LSTM architecture pipeline to predict an industrial-scale biogas plant’s daily biogas production and investigate the feedstock components importance on it. The third study investigated prediciting biogas yield of various subtrates and the significance of each organic component (carbohydrates, proteins, fats/lipids, and legnin) in biogas production using hybrid VAE-XGboost model. The first study showed seven main metatopics and ascent of "deep learning (DL)" as a prominent methodology led to an increase in intricate subjects, including the optimization of power costs and the prediction of wind patterns. Also, a growing utilization of DL approaches for the analysis of renewable energy data, particularly in the context of wind and solar photovoltaic systems. The research themes and trends observed in the first study signify substantial recent investments in advanced AI learning techniques. The developed Catboost-CNN-LSTM pipeline achived a significant results and presented a superior approach when compared to previous relevant studies by eliminating the requirement for feature engineering, enabling direct prediction of biogas yield without the need for converting it into a classification task. The VAE-XGboost pipeline could ovcercome data limitation in the field and produced significant results. It has shown that the "fats" category is the most influential group on the methane production in biogas plants, however, “proteins” illustrated the lowest impact on biogas production

    The inevitability of arbuscular mycorrhiza for sustainability in organic agriculture—A critical review

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    The arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are significant fertility-promoting microbes in soils. They enable soil fertility, soil-health and boost crop productivity. There are generalist and specialist groups among AMF in natural soils. Optimized use of specific AMF concerning crops and soils can improve agricultural sustainability. Thus, AMF is becoming an inevitable biological tool for improving crop productivity and soil health. Especially in the context of chemicalized agriculture undermining the sustainability of food security, safety, and human and ecosystem health, alternative agricultural means have become inevitable. Therefore, AMF has become essential in nature-friendly, organic agriculture. Of such farm fields, natural biological activity is enhanced to sustain soil fertility. Crops show increased innate immunity against pests and diseases in many such systems. Moreover, ecosystems remain healthy, and the soil is teeming with life in such farms. The primary goal of the review was a thorough critical analysis of the literature on AMF in organic agriculture to assess its efficiency as an ecotechnological tool in sustainable agricultural productivity. The novelty is that this is the first comprehensive review of literature on AMF concerning all aspects of organic agriculture. A vital systematic approach to the exhaustive literature collected using regular databases on the theme is followed for synthesizing the review. The review revealed the essentiality of utilizing specific mycorrhizal species, individually or in consortia, in diverse environmental settings to ensure sustainable organic crop production. However, for the exact usage of specific AMF in sustainable organic agriculture, extensive exploration of them in traditional pockets of specific crop cultivations of both chemical and organic fields and wild environments is required. Moreover, intensive experimentations are also necessary to assess them individually, in combinations, and associated with diverse beneficial soil bacteria

    Trends and Prospects in Geotechnics

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    The Special Issue book presents some works considered innovative in the field of geotechnics and whose practical application may occur in the near future. This collection of twelve papers, in addition to their scientific merit, addresses some of the current and future challenges in geotechnics. The published papers cover a wide range of emerging topics with a specific focus on the research, design, construction, and performance of geotechnical works. These works are expected to inspire the development of geotechnics, contributing to the future construction of more resilient and sustainable geotechnical structures

    New Trends in Environmental Engineering, Agriculture, Food Production, and Analysis

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    This Special Issue presents the latest advances in agriculture, aquaculture, food technology and environmental protection and engineering, discussing, among others, the following issues: new technologies in water, stormwater and wastewater treatment; water saving, lake restoration; new sludge and waste management systems; biodiesel production from animal fat waste; the microbiological quality of compound fish feeds for aquaculture; the role of technological processes to improve food quality and safety; new trends in the analysis of food and food components including in vitro, in vivo, and in silico analyses; and functional and structural aspects of bioactivities of food molecules
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