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Abstract Levee systems are an important part of California’s water infrastructure, engineered to provide resilience against flooding and reduce flood losses. The growth in California is partly associated with costly infrastructure developments that led to population expansion in the levee protected areas. Therefore, potential changes in the flood hazard could have significant socioeconomic consequences over levee protected areas, especially in the face of a changing climate. In this study, we examine the possible impacts of a warming climate on flood hazard over levee protected land in California. We use gridded maximum daily runoff from global circulation models (GCMs) that represent a wide range of variability among the climate projections, and are recommended by the California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment Report, to investigate possible climate-induced changes. We also quantify the exposure of several critical infrastructure protected by the levee systems (e.g. roads, electric power transmission lines, natural gas pipelines, petroleum pipelines, and railroads) to flooding. Our results provide a detailed picture of change in flood risk for different levees and the potential societal consequences (e.g. exposure of people and critical infrastructure). Levee systems in the northern part of the Central Valley and coastal counties of Southern California are likely to observe the highest increase in flood hazard relative to the past. The most evident change is projected for the northern region of the Central Valley, including Butte, Glenn, Yuba, Sutter, Sacramento, and San Joaquin counties. In the leveed regions of these counties, based on the model simulations of the future, the historical 100-year runoff can potentially increase up to threefold under RCP8.5. We argue that levee operation and maintenance along with emergency preparation plans should take into account the changes in frequencies and intensities of flood hazard in a changing climate to ensure safety of levee systems and their protected infrastructure.

White sweet clover found voluntarily growing on a deep bed of soft coal fly ash was found to contain high concentrations of a number of elements including selenium, bromine, and molybdenum, rubidium, strontium, and others. The clover was harvested and fed as 23.5% of a dry pelleted ration to lambs and pregnant goats for up to 173 days. High concentrations of selenium were found in 11 tissues, blood, goats' milk, and excreta of lambs, goats, and newborn kids. Molybdenum in liver, strontium in bone, and bromine and rubidium in animal tissues were also elevated over those in the corresponding tissues of animals fed an identical ration containing control clover grown on soil. No gross or histologic lesions were present in any of the animals.

In this study, levulinic acid (LA) was produced from rice straw biomass in co-solvent biphasic reactor system consisting of hydrochloric acid and dichloromethane organic solvent. The modified protocol achieved a 15% wt LA yield through the synergistic effect of acid and acidic products (auto-catalysis) and the designed system allowed facile recovery of LA to the organic phase. Further purification of the resulting extractant was achieved through traditional column chromatography, which yielded a high purity LA product while recovering ∼85% wt. Upon charcoal treatment of the resultant fraction generated an industrial grade target molecule of ∼99% purity with ∼95% wt recovery. The system allows the solvent to be easily recovered, in excess of 90%, which was shown to be able to be recycled up to 5 runs without significant loss of final product concentrations. Overall, this system points to a method to significantly reduce manufacturing cost during large-scale LA preparation.

This article examines land-use, market and welfare implications of lignocellulosic bioethanol production in Hawaii to satisfy 10% and 20% of the State's gasoline demand in line with the State's ethanol blending mandate and Alternative Fuels Standard (AFS). A static computable general equilibrium (CGE) model is used to evaluate four alternative support mechanisms for bioethanol. Namely: (i) a federal blending tax credit, (ii) a long-term purchase contract, (iii) a state production subsidy financed by a lump-sum tax and (iv) a state production subsidy financed by an ad valorem gasoline tax. We find that because Hawaii-produced bioethanol is relatively costly, all scenarios are welfare reducing for Hawaii residents: estimated between -0.14% and -0.32%. Unsurprisingly, Hawaii.s economy and its residents fair best under the federal blending tax credit scenario, with a positive impact to gross state product of $49 million. Otherwise, impacts to gross state product are negative (up to -$63 million). We additionally find that Hawaii-based bioethanol is not likely to offer substantial greenhouse gas emissions savings in comparison to imported biofuel, and as such the policy cost per tonne of emissions displaced ranges between $130 to $2,100/tonne of CO2e. The policies serve to increase the value of agricultural lands, where we estimate that the value of pasture land could increase as much as 150% in the 20% AFS scenario.

According to the renewable energy directive 2009/28/EC, the European Union Member States should increase by 2020 the use of renewable energy to 20% of gross final energy consumption and to reach a mandatory share of 10% renewable energy in the transport sector. This study aims to quantify the impact of 2020 bioenergy targets on the land use in the EU, based on the projections of the National Renewable Action Plans in four scenarios: Scenario 1. Bioenergy targets according to NREAPs; Scenario 2. Bioenergy targets according to NREAPs, no second generation biofuels; Scenario 3. Bioenergy targets according to NREAPs, reduced import of biofuels and bioliquids; Scenario 4. Bioenergy targets according to NREAPs, high imports of biofuels and bioliquids. This study also considers the credit for co-products generated from biofuel production. The analysis reveals that the land used in the EU for bioenergy would range between 13.5 Mha and 25.2 Mha in 2020. This represent between 12.2% and 22.5% of the total arable land used and 7.3% and 13.5% of the Utilised Agricultural Area (UAA). In the NREAPS scenario, about 17.4 Mha would be used for bioenergy production, representing 15.7% of arable land and 9.4% of UAA. The increased demand from biofuels would lead to an increased generation of co-products, replacing conventional fodder for animal feed. Considering the co-products, the land used for bioenergy would range between 8.8 Mha and 15.0 Mha in 2020 in the various scenarios. This represent between 7.9% and 13.3% of the total arable land used in the EU and 4.7% and 8.0% of the UAA. In the NREAPS scenario, when co-products are considered, about 10.3 Mha would be used for biofuels, bioliquids and bioenergy production, representing 9.3% of arable land and 5.6% of agricultural land. This study further provides detailed data on the impact on land use in each Member State.

The effects of exogenous trehalose (Tre) on salt tolerance of pharmaceutical plant Catharanthus roseus and the physiological mechanisms were both investigated in this study. The results showed that the supplement of Tre in saline condition (250 mM NaCl) largely alleviated the inhibitory effects of salinity on plant growth, namely biomass accumulation and total leaf area per plant. In this saline condition, the decreased level of relative water content (RWC) and photosynthetic rate were also greatly rescued by exogenous Tre. This improved performance of plants under high salinity induced by Tre could be partly ascribed to its ability to decrease accumulation of sodium, and increase potassium in leaves. The exogenous Tre led to high levels of fructose, glucose, sucrose and Tre inside the salt-stressed plants during whole the three-week treatment. The major free amino acids such as proline, arginine, threonine and glutamate were also largely elevated in the first two-week course of treatment with Tre in saline solution. It was proposed here that Tre might act as signal to make the salt-stressed plants actively increase internal compatible solutes, including soluble sugars and free amino acids, to control water loss, leaf gas exchange and ionic flow at the onset of salt stress. The application of Tre in saline condition also promoted the accumulation of alkaloids. The regulatory role of Tre in improving salt tolerance was optimal with an exogenous concentration of 10 mM Tre. Larger concentrations of Tre were supra-optimum and adversely affected plant growth.

The Sulphurdale Geothermal Field is located in Beaver County Utah, within the boundaries of the Cove Fort--Sulphurdale Known Geothermal Resource Area (KGRA). During the past year, three wells drilled in Section 7, T-26-S, R-6-W, have produced dry steam from a fractured volcanic formation located at a depth of about 1100 feet. Two of these three wells are currently prepared to supply steam to a power plant, and one well has been plugged and abandoned. ThermaSource, Inc. was retained by Mother Earth Industries, the operator of the field, to conduct well tests and render an opinion as to the nature of the geothermal reserves and assess the commercial potential of these reserves. Because of the limited area that has been explored to date, there can be no assurance that the reserves estimate will prove accurate. Project economics are based on parameters believed to be accurate, but there is no assurance that such cash flow projections will be realized.

Consumer interest in food products, including fresh vegetables, with health promoting properties is rising. In fresh vegetables, these properties include vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, and secondary compounds, which collectively impart a large portion of the dietary, nutritional or health value associated with vegetable intake. Many, including farmers, aim to increase the health-promoting properties of fresh vegetables on the whole but they face at least three obstacles. First, describing crop composition in terms of its nutrition-based impact on human health is complex and there are few, if any, accepted processes and associated metrics for assessing and managing vegetable composition on-farm, at the origin of supply. Second, data suggest that primary and secondary metabolism can be 'in conflict' when establishing the abundance versus composition of a crop. Third, fresh vegetable farmers are rarely compensated for the phytochemical composition of their product. The development and implementation of a fresh vegetable 'nutritional yield' index could be instrumental in overcoming these obstacles. Nutritional yield is a function of crop biomass and tissue levels of health-related metabolites, including bioavailable antioxidant potential. Data from a multi-factor study of leaf lettuce primary and secondary metabolism and the literature suggest that antioxidant yield is sensitive to genetic and environmental production factors, and that changes in crop production and valuation will be required for fresh vegetable production systems to become more focused and purposeful instruments of public health.

Yeast volatiles double starvation survival in Drosophila .