scholarly journals Saline Agriculture in the 21st Century: Using Salt Contaminated Resources to Cope Food Requirements

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Ladeiro

With the continue increase of the world population the requirements for food, freshwater, and fuel are bigger every day. This way an urgent necessity to develop, create, and practice a new type of agriculture, which has to be environmentally sustainable and adequate to the soils, is arising. Among the stresses in plant agriculture worldwide, the increase of soil salinity is considered the major stress. This is particularly emerging in developing countries that present the highest population growth rates, and often the high rates of soil degradation. Therefore, salt-tolerant plants provide a sensible alternative for many developing countries. These plants have the capacity to grow using land and water unsuitable for conventional crops producing food, fuel, fodder, fibber, resin, essential oils, and pharmaceutical products. In addition to their production capabilities they can be used simultaneously for landscape reintegration and soil rehabilitation. This review will cover important subjects concerning saline agriculture and the crop potential of halophytes to use salt-contaminated resources to manage food requirements.

Author(s):  
L. M. Sintserov

The article deals with international migration during the last decades of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st centuries and its economic-geographical analysis. The paper provides an overview of opinions about the dating of the contemporary era of global migration. It is shown that only after completion of spatial restructuring of migration processes and with the transition to sustainable growth of the share of international migrants in the world population, the modern increase of migration begins. On the basis of the UN statistics the main sources of migrants to the countries of Western Europe have been determined as well as shifts in the geographical structure of migrant population of the region that have taken place in the last quarter of a century. Two migration waves directed to the core of the European region from its southern and then from the eastern periphery are determined. The transformation of the USA population structure caused by the migration inflow from Latin America and Asia is described. The ratio of the main directions of global migration is shown: South-South, South-North, etc. At the same time, it is noted that a rather limited part of international migrations is associated with the asynchrony of demographic processes in the regions of the world. The article also discusses the remittances of migrants from developing countries to their homeland, forming powerful financial flows, which are second only to foreign direct investment. They play an especially important role in the economies of developing countries. The calculations show that the contribution of international migrants to the world economy far exceeds their share in the world population.


Ultimately, the necessity to supply food, energy, habitat, infrastructure, and consumer goods for the ever-growing population is responsible for the demise of the environment. Remedial actions for pollution abatement, and further technological progress toward energy efficiency, development of new crops, and improvements in manufacturing processes may help to mitigate the severity of environmental deterioration. However, we can hardly hope for restoration of a clean environment, improvement in human health, and an end to poverty without arresting the continuous growth of the world population. According to the United Nations count, world population reached 6 billion in mid October 1999 (1). The rate of population growth and the fertility rates by continent, as well as in the United States and Canada, are presented in Table 14.1. It can be seen that the fastest population growth occurs in the poorest countries of the world. Despite the worldwide decrease in fertility rates between 1975–80 period and that of 1995–2000, the rate of population growth in most developing countries changed only slightly due to the demographic momentum, which means that because of the high fertility rates in the previous decades, the number of women of childbearing age had increased. Historically, the preference for large families in the developing nations was in part a result of either cultural or religious traditions. In some cases there were practical motivations, as children provided helping hands with farm chores and a security in old age. At present the situation is changing. A great majority of governments of the developing countries have recognized that no improvement of the living standard of their citizens will ever be possible without slowing the explosive population growth. By 1985, a total of 70 developing nations had either established national family planning programs, or provided support for such programs conducted by nongovernmental agencies; now only four of the world’s 170 countries limit access to family planning services. As result, 95% of the developing world population lives in countries supporting family planning. Consequently, the percentage of married couples using contraceptives increased from less than 10% in 1960 to 57% in 1997.


Author(s):  
Huma Lodhi

Millions of people are suffering from fatal diseases such as cancer, AIDS, and many other bacterial and viral illnesses. The key issue is now how to design lifesaving and cost-effective drugs so that the diseases can be cured and prevented. It would also enable the provision of medicines in developing countries, where approximately 80% of the world population lives. Drug design is a discipline of extreme importance in chemoinformatics. Structure-activity relationship (SAR) and quantitative SAR (QSAR) are key drug discovery tasks.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md. Kamal Uddin ◽  
Abdul Shukor Juraimi

Land and water resources are becoming scarce and are insufficient to sustain the burgeoning population. Salinity is one of the most important abiotic stresses affecting agricultural productions across the world. Cultivation of salt-tolerant turfgrass species may be promising option under such conditions where poor quality water can also be used for these crops. Coastal lands in developing countries can be used to grow such crops, and seawater can be used for irrigation of purposes. These plants can be grown using land and water unsuitable for conventional crops and can provide food, fuel, fodder, fibber, resin, essential oils, and pharmaceutical products and can be used for landscape reintegration. There are a number of potential turfgrass species that may be appropriate at various salinity levels of seawater. The goal of this review is to create greater awareness of salt-tolerant turfgrasses, their current and potential uses, and their potential use in developing countries. The future for irrigating turf may rely on the use of moderate- to high-salinity water and, in order to ensure that the turf system is sustainable, will rely on the use of salt-tolerant grasses and an improved knowledge of the effects of salinity on turfgrasses.


1991 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 1355
Author(s):  
Jeffrey B. Harborne

ICR Journal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 420-422
Author(s):  
Shahino Mah Abdullah

Energy plays an important role in our lives. It comes in several forms which can be utilised to keep people warm during cold weather, provide foods, improve transportation, and increase productivity. When energy is utilised efficiently, it brings great comfort to our lives. However, energy consumption has been increasing in recent decades as the world population keeps growing. According to a United Nation (UN) report, the current world population of 7.4 billion is projected to increase by 1 billion over the next 10 years and reach 9.6 billion by 2050. Besides population, the standards of living for many people in developing countries is increasing, which in turn results in growing energy demand.


1997 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
IAN S. F. JONES ◽  
HELEN E. YOUNG

Mankind is faced with three interconnected problems, those of rising population, the provision of adequate food and the increasing level of waste carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The ocean plays an important role at present by annually providing c. 90 Mt of high protein food and absorbing about 1000 Mt of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. By the year 2100 it is predicted by the United Nations (1992) that the world population will have more than doubled its 1990 level of 5.2 thousand million people and will approach 11.5 thousand million. Most of this population increase will occur in the developing countries.


Author(s):  
Arun Kumar

Mother is a radiant nurse, an angel of mercy, a patient teacher, a watchful guardian and compassionate attorney and a fountainhead of courage. Post independence sociologists paid attention towards the women who are traditionally backward, exploited and taken as second-rate citizens. This is obstruction and hindrance in the progress and prosperity of family, community and country. The complete social structure is affected. For the rural development and reconstruction, it is necessary to understand the changing social status and role of rural women who are 48.3% of the Total population of the country. For the study of past enables us to grasp the fundamental psychology behind the present problems and attitudes that uphold or reject them due to which it has come to be what it is. We may thus be enabling to make out the cause and circumstances embedded in the past, which led to the existence and conditions and causes are sure to prove themselves of great help to us in the making up and planning of a figure. Women constitute about fifty per cent of the world population. It is estimated that by A.D. 2000, the total number of women in the world will be more than 3 billion and they will outnumber men by nearly 175 million. At the United Nations Conference in Nairobi in 1985, it was noted that they comprise 35 per cent of the world’s labor force in the sphere of employment and occupied lower positions. Further it is observed that over 60 per cent of world’s illiterates are women, mostly in the developing countries. More than 60% respondents have accepted all the factors mentioned as variables are responsible for the uplift of the status of rural women. But; it is note-worthy that more than three-fourth of the respondents have emphasized especially on urbanization, women welfare organizations and rural development programs; as the tools of uplift for the status of rural women.


Author(s):  
Nikhilesh Dholakia ◽  
Nir Kshetri

Despite rapidly falling costs of hardware, software, and telecommunications services, a wide gap persists between rich and poor nations in terms of their capabilities of accessing, delivering, and exchanging information in digital forms (Carter & Grieco, 2000). Developing countries, comprising over 81% of the world population, account for a tiny fraction of global e-commerce. An estimate suggests that 99.9% of business-to-consumer e-commerce in 2003 took place in the developed regions of North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific (Computer Economics, 2000).


Author(s):  
Emily Klancher Merchant

Chapter 6 documents the fragmentation of what had previously been a consensus regarding global population growth at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, resulting in the emergence of two separate factions. The population establishment continued to promote the position of the erstwhile consensus, which held that rapid population growth in developing countries was a barrier to economic development and could be adequately slowed through voluntary family planning programs. The population bombers contended that population growth anywhere in the world posed an immediate existential threat to the natural environment and American national security and needed to be halted through population control measures that demographers had previously rejected as coercive. These two positions went head-to-head at the UN World Population Conference in 1974, where both were rejected by leaders of developing countries.


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