Biomethanation potential of biological and other wastes

Anaerobic technology has been traditionally applied for the treatment of carbon rich wastewater and organic residues. Anaerobic processes can be fully integrated in the biobased economy concept for resource recovery. After a brief introduction about applications of anaerobic processes to industrial wastewater treatment, agriculture feedstock and organic fraction of municipal solid waste, the position of anaerobic processes in biorefinery concepts is presented. Integration of anaerobic digestion with these processes can help in the maximisation of the economic value of the biomass used, while reducing the waste streams produced and mitigating greenhouse gases emissions. Besides the integration of biogas in the existing full-scale bioethanol and biodiesel production processes, the potential applications of biogas in the second generation lignocellulosic, algae and syngas-based biorefinery platforms are discussed.(undefined

OLAP Analysis of Integrated Pest Management’s Defense Rules: Application to Olive Crop in Apulia Region

The Agri-Food sector is facing global challenges. The first concerns feeding a world population that in 2050, according to UN projections, will reach 9.3 billion people. The second challenge is the request by consumers for high quality products obtained by more sustainable, safely and clear agri-food chains. The Integrated Pest Management (IPM) could be an important instrument to help farmers to face these challenges. The IPM requires the simultaneous use of different crop protection techniques for the control of pests through an ecological and economic approach. This work explores the possibility to develop a framework that combines the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) with the IPM principles, in order to support the farmers in the decisional process, improving environmental and production performances. The proposed ICT tool is On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP), which allows performing analysis in the domain of time and space verifying for a single farm the respect of the IPM technical specifications

Global trends and possible future land use

This chapter explores the future global need for land by investigating four trends that drive global land use change: future energy demand; future food demand; future demand for various forest products; and climate change. These trends affect land use competition, food prices, and deforestation rates, and they interact with each other in complex ways that are difficult to foresee. In this chapter, a number of trends, their interactions, and possible implications are discussed on the basis of available scenarios and estimates. The chapter ends with a discussion of how global land use changes might influence the conditions for future Nordic forest management and forest sector transition