Energy and carbon footprints for irrigation water in the lower Indus basin in Pakistan, comparing water supply by gravity fed canal networks and groundwater pumping

Irrigation water can come from surface water or groundwater, or a combination of the two. In general, efforts to provide one type or the other differ depending on local circumstances. This study aims to compare energy and carbon footprints of irrigation water provided by either a gravity-fed irrigation network requiring maintenance or a groundwater pumping system. The case study area is the lower Indus basin in Pakistan. For the assessment, the study could make use of data from local governmental organizations. Energy footprints of surface water are 3–4 KJ/m3, carbon footprints 0.22–0.30 g/m3. Groundwater has energy footprints of 2100 for diesel to 4000 KJ/m3 for electric pumps and carbon footprints of 156 for diesel and 385 g/m3 for electric pumps. Although groundwater contributes only 6% to total irrigation water supply in the lower Indus basin, it dominates energy use and CO2 emissions. The total energy footprint of surface water in Pakistan is 0.5 103 TJ/y, and for groundwater 200 103 TJ/y or 4.3% of national energy use. The total carbon footprint of surface water is 36 106 kg/y, and for groundwater 16 000 106 kg/y or 9% of Pakistan's total CO2 emissions. Although the contributions of water supply to total energy use and CO2 emissions are small, they could increase if more groundwater is used. A shift from groundwater pumping to properly maintaining gravity-fed canal systems decreases energy use and CO2 emissions by 31–82% and increases surface water availability by 3%–10%

Assessment of Air Pollution by PM10 and PM2.5 in Nawabshah City, Sindh, Pakistan

Increased traffic density due to urbanization is a major cause of air quality deterioration. Atmospheric particulate matter (PM) constitutes one of the most challenging issues in environmental research. This study was designed to assess PM10 and PM2.5 pollution at ten main locations in Nawabshah. Analysis of PM10 and PM2.5 pollution was carried randomly at different selected locations of the city. The highest concentration of PM10 was found at Mohini bazar (MB) and the highest concentration for PM2.5 was found at New Naka (NN). The mean concentration of PM10 was 78.3% higher than world health organization (WHO) standards and 35% than Pakistan’s National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS). The mean concentration of PM2.5 was 47.3% and 26.3% higher respectively. Mean concentrations of PM2.5 on day-2 and day-10 were found lower than those set by NEQS, while mean concentrations of PM10 on all days exceeded the WHO and NEQS standards indicating that the city was heavily polluted more with PM10 than with PM2.5. Re-suspension of dust particles due to traffic flow, open burning of unmanaged solid waste on the sides of the road and in the street, and improper handling of construction and demolition waste were identified as the main sources for PM pollution in the city. Exposure to higher levels of PM10 and PM2.5 can cause health problems. High levels of PM10 and PM2.5 are a call for the implementation of strict measures to control PM pollution at Nawabshah in order to protect public health and the environment

Evaluating implementation of LEAPS, a youth-led early childhood care and education intervention in rural Pakistan: protocol for a stepped wedge cluster-randomized trial

BACKGROUND: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight the importance of investments in early childhood care and education (ECCE) and youth development. Given Pakistan's large young population, and gender and urban-rural inequalities in access to education, training, and employment, such investments offer opportunities. LEAPS is a youth-led ECCE program that trains female youth, 18-24 years, as Community Youth Leaders (CYLs) to deliver high-quality ECCE for children, 3.5-5.5 years, in rural Sindh, Pakistan. METHODS: We use a stepped wedge cluster-randomized trial to evaluate implementation of LEAPS. Ninety-nine clusters will be randomized to receive the intervention in one of three 7-month steps (33 clusters/step). The primary outcome is children's school readiness (indexed by the total score on the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA)). Secondary child outcomes are children's IDELA domain scores and executive functions. Data are collected in cross-sectional surveys of 1089 children (11 children/cluster from 99 clusters) aged 4.5-5.5 years at four timepoints (baseline and at the end of each step). Additionally, we will enroll three non-randomized youth participant open cohorts, one per step (33 CYLs: 66 comparison youth per cohort; 99:198 in total). Youth cohorts will be assessed at enrollment and every 7 months thereafter to measure secondary outcomes of youth personal and professional development, depressive symptoms, and executive functions. A non-randomized school cohort of 330 LEAPS students (10 students/cluster from 33 clusters) will also be enrolled and assessed during Step 1 after intervention rollout and at endline. The quality of the learning environment will be assessed in each LEAPS ECCE center and in a comparison center at two timepoints midway following rollout and at endline. A concurrent mixed-methods implementation evaluation will assess program fidelity and quality, and the extent to which a technical support strategy is successful in strengthening systems for program expansion. A cost evaluation will assess cost per beneficiary. Data collection for implementation and cost evaluations will occur in Step 3. DISCUSSION: Youth-led models for ECCE offer a promising approach to support young children and youth. This study will contribute to the evidence as a means to promote sustainable human development across multiple SDG targets. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03764436 . Registered on December 5, 2018

Alternate furrow irrigation can radically improve water productivity of okra

Alternate furrow irrigation (AFI) is gaining interest as a means of saving water while minimising loss in crop production. Given the potential water savings of AFI, a field experiment was conducted in the Tandojam region of Pakistan by growing okra with AFI and conventional furrow irrigation (CFI) in which every furrow is irrigated. Our results show that total irrigation water applied in the AFI treatment was roughly half (248 ± 2.9 mm) that applied to the CFI treatment (497 ± 1.7 mm). Despite the very significant reduction in irrigation water used with AFI there was a non-significant (p>0.05) reduction (7.3 %) in okra yield. As a result, we also obtained a significantly (p<0.001) higher crop water productivity (CWP) of 5.29 ± 0.1 kg m-3 with AFI, which was nearly double the 2.78 ± 0.04 kg m-3 obtained with CFI. While this reduction in yield and/or potential income may appear small, it could be critical to the welfare of individual farmers, who may as a result hesitate to make changes from CFI to AFI if they are worse off than farmers who don’t adopt AFI. This situation exists because current water charges are based on crop and land area rather than the volume of water being accessed for irrigation. Transitioning from the current crop and land area based method of charging for water to a volumetric method may require investment in irrigation system changes and may take time to accomplish. These are important lessons for other countries, and particularly developing countries who are trying to improve the environmental, social and economic performance of their irrigated systems. We recommend that further studies be carried out using AFI to determine whether similar water savings and flow-on benefits can be achieved across a wide range of cropping systems in arid and semi-arid environments.http://www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat2017-07-31hb2016Plant Production and Soil Scienc

Role of copper and alumina for heat transfer in hybrid nanofluid by using Fourier sine transform

The convection, thermal conductivity, and heat transfer of hybrid nanofluid through nanoparticles has become integral part of several natural and industrial processes. In this manuscript, a new fractionalized model based on hybrid nanofluid is proposed and investigated by employing singular verses and non-singular kernels. The mathematical modeling of hybrid nanofluid is handled via modern fractional definitions of differentiations. The combined Laplace and Fourier Sine transforms have been configurated on the governing equations of hybrid nanofluid. The analytical expression of the governing temperature and velocity equations of hybrid nanofluid have been solved via special functions. For the sake of thermal performance, dimensional analysis of governing equations and suitable boundary conditions based on Mittage-Leffler function have been invoked for the first time in literature. The comparative analysis of heat transfer from hybrid nanofluid has been observed through Caputo-Fabrizio and Atangana-Baleanu differential operators. Finally, our results suggest that volume fraction has the decelerated and accelerated trends of temperature distribution and inclined and declined profile of heat transfer is observed copper and alumina nanoparticles

Lighting the World: the first application of an open source, spatial electrification tool (OnSSET) on Sub-Saharan Africa

In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Agenda 2030, which comprises a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined by 169 targets. 'Ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030' is the seventh goal (SDG7). While access to energy refers to more than electricity, the latter is the central focus of this work. According to the World Bank's 2015 Global Tracking Framework, roughly 15% of the world's population (or 1.1 billion people) lack access to electricity, and many more rely on poor quality electricity services. The majority of those without access (87%) reside in rural areas. This paper presents results of a geographic information systems approach coupled with open access data. We present least-cost electrification strategies on a country-by-country basis for Sub-Saharan Africa. The electrification options include grid extension, mini-grid and stand-alone systems for rural, peri-urban, and urban contexts across the economy. At low levels of electricity demand there is a strong penetration of standalone technologies. However, higher electricity demand levels move the favourable electrification option from stand-alone systems to mini grid and to grid extensions

A Geospatial Assessment of Small-Scale Hydropower Potential in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa has been at the epicenter of an ongoing global dialogue around the issue of energy poverty. More than half of the world’s population without access to modern energy services lives there. It also happens to be a sub-continent with plentiful renewable energy resource potential. Hydropower is one of them, and to a large extent it remains untapped. This study focuses on the technical assessment of small-scale hydropower (0.01–10 MW) in Sub-Saharan Africa. The underlying methodology was based on open source geospatial datasets, whose combination allowed a consistent evaluation of 712,615 km of river network spanning over 44 countries. Environmental, topological, and social constraints were included in the form of constraints in the optimization algorithm. The results are presented on a country and power pool basis

Novel Calix[4]arene network resin for Cr(VI) ions Remediation : A Response Surface Approach

Novel Calix[4]arene Netwok (NCN) resin has been synthesized using Amberlite XAD-2 as the starting material. Hydroxyl groups have been introduced onto the para position of alkylated phenyl ring of Amberlite XAD-2 followed by the condensation to NCN by reacting it with formaldehyde. The NCN resin has been used for the remediation of Cr(VI) contaminated water using factorial design approach. A face-centered Draper-Lin composite design predicted ~100% removal effi ciency at optimum variables (the initial concentration of Cr(VI) ion 10 mg/l sorbent dose 200 mg, agitation time 136 min and pH 2). The accuracy and the fi tting of the model were evaluated by ANOVA and R2 (0.9992) values. The 99.5% removal effi ciency has been achieved experimentally at the optimum values of the variables. The Langmuir and D-R isotherm models were applicable to the sorption data with the value of RL and the sorption free energy 0.0057-0.1 and 7.93 kJ/mol respectively, suggesting favorable and physical/ion-exchange nature of the sorption. The calculated sorption capacity was 176.1š2.4 mg/g. The recycling studies of NCN resin showed that the multiple use of resin is feasible. Effect of concomitants has also been studies and proposed method was applied successfully for removal (98.7%) of Cr (VI) from electroplating wastewater

Optimization and equilibrium studies of Pb(II) removal by Grewia Asiatica seed: a factorial design approach

This study aims to explore the efficiency of an agro waste material for the remediation of Pb(II) contaminated water. A factorial design approach is adopted to optimize removal efficiency and to study the interaction between effective variables. A face-centered Draper-Lin composite design predicted 100% removal efficiency at optimum variables; pH 8, initial concentration of Pb(II) ion 12mg/L, sorbent dose 200mg and agitation time 110 min. Regration coefficient (R2 = 99.9%) of a plot of the predicted versus the observed values and p value (>0.05) confirms the applicability of the predicted model. Langmuir and Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-R) isotherm models were applicable to sorption data with the Langmuir sorption capacity of 21.61š0.78 mg/g. The energy of sorption was found to be 13.62š0.32 kJ/mol expected for ion-exchange or chemisorption nature of sorption process. Characterization of Grewia seed suggested a possible contribution of carboxyl and hydroxyl groups in the process of biosorption. The present study shows that Grewia seeds can be used effectively for the remediation of Pb(II) contaminated water

A NEW IMAGE PROCESSING ALGORITHM FOR VEHICLE DETECTION AND MONITORING APPLICATIONS

There is a growing demand for road traffic data of all kinds. These data are required by local and central governments for traffic surveillance, control and management. Vehicle detection and monitoring through video image processing is now considered as an attractive and flexible technique. However, the computational requirement in real-time image processing applications, such as road traffic, is beyond the capacity of conventional computers. Therefore, algorithms designed must be able to be processed in real-time. In this paper we describe a novel approach to detect and monitor vehicles in real-time. This approach is based on applying a novel morphological edge detector called SMED (Separable Morphological Edge Detector) to the key regions or windows. This method eliminates the need of a background frame, which is an essential but unreliable technique for background based image detection methods. The SMED edge detector has been applied to detect vehicles and monitor their movements at traffic junctions in real-time by using Pentium-based standard PCs