Today synthetic dyes are used extensively in the textile dyeing, paper printing, color photography, pharmaceuticals, food and drink, cosmetic and leather industries. As of now, over 100,000 different dyes are available, with an annual production of over 700,000 metric tons. These industries discharge an enormous amount of colored effluents into natural water bodies, with or without treatment. T…
This book reviews the mechanisms, patterns, and processes that regulate prokaryotic diversity through different habitats in the context of evolutionary and ecological hypotheses, principles, and theories. Despite the tremendous role of prokaryotic diversity in the function of the global ecosystem, it remains understudied in comparison to the rest of biological diversity. In this book, the autho…
This volume offers a new perspective to debates on local food and urban sustainability presenting the long silenced voices of the small-scale farmers from the productive green fringe of Sydney’s sprawling urban jungle. Providing fresh food for the city and local employment, these culturally and linguistically diverse farmers contribute not only to Sydney’s globalizing demographic and cultur…
What is family farming? How can it help meet the challenges confronting the world? How can it contribute to a sustainable and more equitable development? Not only is family farming the predominant form of agriculture around the world, especially so in developing countries, it is also the agriculture of the future. By declaring 2014 the “International Year of Family Farming,” the United Nati…
This book presents a foundation for studying the micro-behavioral economics of global warming. The author develops an empirical model, named the Geographically-scaled Micro econometric model of Adapting Portfolios (G-MAP) in response to climatic changes and risks. The G-MAP model is applied to observed decisions of agricultural and natural resource enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Am…
This book focuses on environmental engineering, and on wastewater treatment and reuse in particular, which is a vital aspect for countries and regions suffering from water shortages. It introduces a new water cycle management concept for designing water systems that mimic the hydrological cycle, where reclaimed water is produced, stored/regulated, supplied and used in a semi-natural manner so t…
This book assesses both the effectiveness and efficiency of implemented Economic Policy Instruments (EPIs) in order to achieve water policy goals and identifies the preconditions under which they outperform alternative (e.g. regulatory) policy instruments and/or can complement them as part of complex policy mixes. The development of a consolidated assessment framework helps clarify (and where p…
Urbanisation and climate change are among the major challenges for sustainable development in Africa. The overall aim of this book is to present innovative approaches to vulnerability analysis and for enhancing the resilience of African cities against climate change-induced risks. Locally adapted IPCC climate change scenarios, which also consider possible changes in urban population, have been …
Over the last ten years a fresh air has been blowing in the field of molecular magnetism with the re-introduction of lanthanides ions as spin carriers in magnetic molecules. The strong magnetic moment and huge magnetic anisotropy of lanthanide ions has enabled significant breakthroughs in magnetic blocking temperature and related phenomena. The chemical versatility of these ions is also a stron…
With global urbanization rapidly rising and the increasing need of high-quality built environments, the requirement of achieving improved sound quality, both for outdoor and indoor environments, has received a lot of attention. This Special Issue collection reflects the current state of the art, with 12 papers covering environmental acoustics; the influence of soundscapes on people’s behavior…