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The influence of compost on the growth of bean plants irrigated with As-contaminated waters and its influence on the mobility of As in the soils and the uptake of As (as NaAs(III)O2) by plant components was studied at various compost application rates (3·10(4) and 6·10(4) kg ha(-1)) and at three As concentrations (1, 2 and 3 mg kg(-1)). The biomass and As and P concentrations of the roots, shoots and beans were determined at harvest time, as well as the chlorophyll content of the leaves and nonspecific and specifically bound As in the soil. The bean plants exposed to As showed typical phytotoxicity symptoms; no plants however died over the study. The biomass of the bean plants increased with the increasing amounts of compost added to the soil, attributed to the phytonutritive capacity of compost. Biomass decreased with increasing As concentrations, however, the reduction in the biomass was significantly lower with the addition of compost, indicating that the As phytotoxicity was alleviated by the compost. For the same As concentration, the As content of the roots, shoots and beans decreased with increasing compost added compared to the Control. This is due to partial immobilization of the As by the organic functional groups on the compost, either directly or through cation bridging. Most of the As adsorbed by the bean plants accumulated in the roots, while a scant allocation of As occurred in the beans. Hence, the addition of compost to soils could be used as an effective means to limit As accumulation in crops from As-contaminated waters.

Investigating the impact of climate variables on net primary productivity is crucial to evaluate the ecosystem health and the status of forest type response to climate change. The objective of this paper is (1) to estimate spatio-temporal patterns of net primary productivity (NPP) during 2001 to 2010 in a tropical deciduous forest based on the input variable dataset (i.e.meteorological and biophysical) derived from the remote sensing and other sources and (2) to investigate the effects of climate variables on NPP during 2001 to 2010. The study was carried out in Katerniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary that forms a part of a tropical forest and is situated in Uttar Pradesh, India, along the Indo-Nepal border. Mean annual NPP was observed to be highest during 2007 with a value of 878 g C m-2 year-1 and 781.25 g C m-2 year-1 for sal and teak respectively. A decline in mean NPP during 2002-2003, 2005 and 2008-2010 could be attributed to drought, increased temperature and vapour pressure deficit (VPD). The time lag correlation analysis revealed precipitation as the major variables affecting NPP, whereas combination of temperature and VPD showed dominant effect on NPP as revealed by generalized linear modelling. The carbon gain in NPP in sal forest was observed to be marginal higher than that of teak plantation throughout the study period. The decrease in NPP was observed during 2010, pertaining to increased VPD. Contribution of different climatic variables through some link process was revealed in statistical analysis and clearly indicated the co-dominance of all the variables in explaining NPP.

The interaction of severe weather, overhead lines and surrounding trees is the leading cause of outages to electric distribution networks in forested areas. In this paper, we show how utility-specific infrastructure and land cover data, aggregated around overhead lines, can improve outage predictions for Eversource Energy (formerly Connecticut Light and Power), the largest electric utility in Connecticut. Eighty-nine storms from different seasons (cold weather, warm weather, transition months) in the period 2005–2014, representing varying types (thunderstorms, blizzards, nor’easters, hurricanes) and outage severity, were simulated using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) atmospheric model. WRF simulations were joined with utility outage data to calibrate four types of models: a decision tree (DT), random forest (RF), boosted gradient tree (BT) and an ensemble (ENS) decision tree regression that combined predictions from DT, RF and BT. The study shows that the ENS model forced with weather, infrastructure and land cover data was superior to the other models we evaluated, especially in terms of predicting the spatial distribution of outages. This framework could be used for predicting outages to other types of critical infrastructure networks with benefits for emergency-preparedness functions in terms of equipment staging and resource allocation.

In this study, pyrolysis of microalgal remnants was investigated for recovery of energy and nutrients. Chlorella vulgaris biomass was first solvent-extracted for lipid recovery then the remnants were used as the feedstock for fast pyrolysis experiments using a fluidized bed reactor at 500 °C. Yields of bio-oil, biochar, and gas were 53, 31, and 10 wt.%, respectively. Bio-oil from C. vulgaris remnants was a complex mixture of aromatics and straight-chain hydrocarbons, amides, amines, carboxylic acids, phenols, and other compounds with molecular weights ranging from 70 to 1200 Da. Structure and surface topography of the biochar were analyzed. The high inorganic content (potassium, phosphorous, and nitrogen) of the biochar suggests it may be suitable to provide nutrients for crop production. The bio-oil and biochar represented 57% and 36% of the energy content of the microalgae remnant feedstock, respectively.

Background: Chronic alcohol consumption has been demonstrated to be deleterious to bone health. However, binge drinking is the prevalent form of drinking in young people, which was the impetus for the present study to determine the effect of week‐end and week‐long binge drinking on bone health in a young actively growing animal model. Methods: Four‐week‐old, female, Sprague‐Dawley rats were given the amount of 5% alcohol by gavage to be equivalent to a 63 kg woman drinking six beers a day for either 2 or 5 consecutive days per week. Results: There were no changes in the 5‐day binge animals, but the 2‐day binge animals were hypocalcemia Similarly, 2‐day binge animals had slightly increased bone chemistry and histomorphometric values for both tibia and femur, but only femur length, dry weight, and ash weight as well as femur density, presented either as g/ml or ash weight per unit volume, were increased by a statistically significant level. Cross‐section periosteal Mineral Apposition Rate (MAR) was significantly decreased in the 2‐day alcohol fed animals. Conclusions: Actively growing rats given 5% alcohol by gavage for 2 days per week have an increased bone length, bone weight, and bone density. The interpretation of these results must be viewed with great caution because studies of chronic alcohol consumption, and many studies of acute drinking, clearly indicate deleterious effects of alcohol on bone health. Those fed alcohol for 5 days per week showed no change.

Abstract The eddy covariance method was used to investigate carbon fluxes and evapotranspiration (ET) from a high biomass forage sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor L.) field in the Southern U.S. Great Plains for three growing seasons (2013–2015). Above normal precipitation and narrow row spacing (50 cm) led to higher biomass production (25 Mg ha −1 ) and leaf area index (LAI = 7.2) development in 2014. This also resulted in higher carbon uptake or net ecosystem production (NEP) and ET during that year. Early and late season precipitation enhanced ecosystem respiration (R eco ) resulting in lower NEP in 2015. Shorter growing season (119 days) also contributed to lower cumulative NEP in 2015. Estimated gross primary production (GPP) in 2014 (1780 g m −2 ) was 10% higher than the GPP in 2013 (1591 g m −2 ) and 24% higher than the GPP in 2015 (1353 g m −2 ). During all growing seasons, the site was a source of carbon (negative NEP) at the beginning and transitioned to a sink (positive NEP) later in the season. Biomass-GPP relationship indicated that approximately 65% of total GPP was allocated to above ground biomass (AGB). Average monthly ecosystem WUE (expressed as gross carbon gain per unit of ET) ranged from 1.7 g mm −1 to 4.2 g mm −1 . Results from our study indicate that weather conditions, growing season length and crop management are important factors in determining the magnitude of carbon uptake and release, and ET of this cellulosic biofuel feedstock crop in the Southern U.S. Great Plains.

While there is a consensus on the multifaceted advantages of wind farms, only a handful of developing countries harness it to the fullest potential. Among the various factors that contributed to the low development of wind farms in those countries, the dearth of methods for identifying a suitable site is the leading one. Studies conducted elsewhere on wind farm industry identifies criteria such as slope, wind speed, land use/land cover, geology, distance from electric transmission grids, roads, and settlements. However, the relative magnitude of each factor to the optimum location of the wind farm is inadequately examined. This study focuses on the combined use of geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) for selecting the most appropriate sites for wind-farm development. Using a pairwise comparison method of the analytical hierarchical process, we computed the relative importance and weight of parameters affecting wind farm sites in a weighted overlay technique. Based on the analysis of pertinent data collected from Bahir Dar City and its surroundings, northwestern Ethiopia, we categorized the study area into five suitability classes ranging from extremely suitable to not suitable. Our result, revealed a spatial pattern of the potential sites suitable for wind farm investments that are economical, environmentally sound, and aesthetically amenable. We recommend replicating the method developed in this study in other areas of developing countries where transitioning to renewable energy sources through windfarm development is sought.

Abstract The ecological footprint is a measure of the resources necessary to produce the goods that an individual or population consumes. It is also used as a measure of sustainability, though evidence suggests that it falls short. The assumptions behind footprint calculations have been extensively criticized; I present here further evidence that it fails to satisfy simple economic principles because the basic assumptions are contradicted by both theory and historical data. Specifically, I argue that the footprint arbitrarily assumes both zero greenhouse gas emissions, which may not be ex ante optimal, and national boundaries, which makes extrapolating from the average ecological footprint problematic. The footprint also cannot take into account intensive production, and so comparisons to biocapacity are erroneous. Using only the assumptions of the footprint then, one could argue that the Earth can sustain greatly increased production, though there are important limitations that the footprint cannot address, such as land degradation. Finally, the lack of correlation between land degradation and the ecological footprint obscures the effects of a larger sustainability problem. Better measures of sustainability would address these issues directly.

PurposeThis paper examine beneficiary women's awareness of the harmful effects of traditional cooking fuels and the benefits of cleaner cooking fuel (LPG) in the Indian state of Haryana after the inception of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana.Design/methodology/approachDescriptive statistics, factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Mann–Whitney U test and Kruskal–Wallis H test were used for the data analysis.FindingsThe paper finds that the women of the scheduled caste were highly aware of the hazards of traditional cooking fuel. They perceived that the usage of LPG led to significant health and environmental improvements. However, the refilling was low among the respondents. So, the only low awareness was not the cause of the low refilling of LPG among Ujjwala beneficiaries.Research limitations/implicationsTechnological advancement, accessibility and successful adoption require convergence with socio-economic and institutional aspects. It was evident that focus on technology might not necessarily serve developmental purposes if it is not integrated correctly with socio-economic and institutional factors. These should have conversed with the household's needs, preferences, affordability, social structures, policy support and delivery mechanism, as it was observed that, in different cases, high-end technologies have limited access.Originality/valueThis study shows that the low awareness is not the barrier to the adoption of cleaner cooking technologies in India. So, the policymakers have to revive and further investigate the real cause of the low adoption of cleaner cooking technologies in India.