Current and Future Trends of Refrigerants Development

In this chapter is addressed the thematic of refrigerants: its historical evolution; properties; legislation applied in the area and future trends. The first refrigerant being marketed on a large scale was ethyl ether (R610), in 1834. Since then, the evolution of the utilized refrigerants was stimulated, initially due to constructive issues in the refrigeration system and later to environmental issues. This evolution may be divided into four generations: 1st use of any fluid that worked; 2nd safety and durability of the equipment; 3rd ozone layer protection and 4th increase of global warming concerns. During the process of evolution many refrigerants were tested to understanding of their properties. Currently, environmental concerns are taken as guide in the search for new refrigerants. The most promising refrigerants to be used in future are the HFEs, HFOs and HFCs with low-GWP, natural refrigerants and blends between (HCs/HFCs and HFCs/HFOs) refrigerants.

Trends in the Evolution of Romania's Agricultural Resources in the Context of Sustainable Development

Although its share in Romania's Gross Domestic Product is relatively small (about 5%), agriculture is one of the important activities of the national economy, with direct implications on ensuring food security. Achieving an efficient modern agriculture represents a major strategic objective for Romania, imposed both by the need of ensuring food security and the role of this activity in supporting export. In this chapter it is analysed the evolution of Romanian agriculture in the context of sustainable development's objectives, through the resources available in this activity: land, technical means, human resources and financial resources. In doing so, we considered an analysis of the agricultural real estate, labour force, investments and loans used in agriculture on the period 2008 – 2014.

Organic Farming

India practised organic farming in early centuries but Green revolution lead to shift of farming to fertilizer based farming. So, in this chapter the focus is to elucidate the idea of organic farming and its growth over the years across the countries with focus on India. Organic farming is a type of farming method where the crops are sowed and raised by using organic wastes instead of the regular use of pesticides and insecticides. This method has been quickly accepted and adopted by most of the countries across the world with the number being 144 in the year 2010 with major percentage being practised in developing nations. Out of this, India has just about 0.03 percent of the total land under organic farming across the world. India has witnessed a significant growth in organic farming since the last few years, keeping in sync with the world market.

Organic Agriculture as a Tool to Make Economy Green

The main questions that trouble ecologists are concentrated on the state of the environment per square unit, while concerns of food security supporters are concentrated on a cost of production unit (which is bigger in comparison with standard for organic agriculture). Economists, in turn, are concerned about the low cost of decision for achievement of food security in comparison with environmental safety. The point, discussed in the chapter, is related to implementation of organic and traditional technologies of farming. It is expedient to estimate the changes of environment per units of production, if there is a set of food production and soils of a variable quality.

Basin-Scale, Real-Time Salinity Management Using Telemetered Sensor Networks and Model-Based Salt Assimilative Capacity Forecasts

This chapter describes a new approach to environmental decision support for salinity management in the San Joaquin Basin that focuses on Web-based data sharing using tools such as YSI Econet and continuous data quality management using an enterprise-level software tool WISKI. These tools offer real-time Web-access to sensor data as well as providing the owner full control over the way the data is visualized. The same websites use GIS to superimpose the monitoring site locations on maps of local hydrography and allow point and click access to the data collected at each environmental monitoring site. This information technology suite of software and hardware work together with a watershed simulation model WARMF-SJR to provide timely, reliable, and high quality data and forecasts of river salinity that can used by stakeholder decision makers to ensure compliance with state water quality objectives.

Regional Development Disparities in Romanian Agriculture and Rural Development

Initially, the Romanian development regions created in 1998 had as a main objective the insurance, from the statistic point of view a relatively territorial equilibrated development; they where set up in accordance with the level NUTS-II from the EU. According to the Romanian legislation on force, the regions do not have an administrative status and they do not have legal personality. The analysis of the rural space highlights significant regional disparities, phenomena that have influence to the spending of the EU funds and their degree of absorption. This chapter proposes a method for multi-criteria analysis in order to identify the agricultural and rural territorial disparities and to establish the regional disparities in implementing the National Plan of Rural Development (NPRD) during 2007-2013. The NPRD was put under multi-criteria analysis: the main 13 measures implemented by Romania during 2007-2013 periods.

Global Warming as a Socioscientific Controversy

Socioscientific controversies are “extended argumentative engagements over socially significant issues … comprising communicative events and practices in and from both scientific and nonscientific spheres” (Stewart, 2009, p. 125). While global warming is not controversial among the vast majority of climate scientists, socioscientific controversies over global warming abound in various media, as citizens, politicians, journalists, and others discuss and weigh the scientific evidence for and appropriate policy responses to global warming. In this chapter, the authors investigate the lexical choices used in the New York Times in straight news articles reporting on controversies about global warming from 2001-2006, as partisan differences on this issue became more pronounced. Specifically, using DICTION 5.0, the authors analyze 87 news reports, comparing those focused on science issues with those focused on policy issues. These statistical lexical comparisons are supplemented with qualitative discourse analyses.

An Agent Based Hydro Informatics Approach for the Engagement of Farmers in Irrigation Water Management in Saudi Arabia

The use of software agent systems and technologies to simulate water resources management scenarios and improve the engagement of stakeholders in policy making is gaining paramount importance. Such importance originates from two main concerns or change agents. Firstly, the context of water management is becoming highly complicated due to the intensity of connections with other systems, the diversity of stakeholders and the multiplicity (and sometime conflicting) objectives of decision partners. Moreover, the domain used for capitalizing on water management issues is becoming planetary (as it is the case of shared basins) rather than being local (watershed, watercourse, scheme, etc.). As a result, the concern is not limited to the optimization of the utility matrix of stakeholders but additional attention is required to incorporate many emerging issues such as the maintenance of financial sustainability, functional mainstreaming and improving engagement to promote reconciliation and change of water use behaviors. Secondly, the recent technological developments have improved the processing capacity of hardware, software functionalities and the accessibility of telecommunication platforms. Such developments have been reflected in the improvement of the capacities of decision makers to address complex problem domains. Software agents' technologies possess the qualities that make them useful for the provision of decision support in water management domains. As it is the case of irrigated agriculture, software agents' technology can be used for the design of farm surface irrigation systems, the improvement of irrigation systems management and the enhancement of the involvement of farmers in the processes of integrated water management. This paper is concerned with the use of agent based systems to facilitate the engagement of farmers in Al Ahsaa area in the management of water resources. The government of the Kingdom is adopting a demand management approach for the management of irrigation water by discouraging the cultivation of water-consuming crops such as wheat and dates. Improving the ability of farmers to analyze alternative cropping patterns significantly affects their water use behavior.

The Evolution of Effective Leadership Practices in Botswana Horticulture Council

Botswana Horticultural Council was formed by District Horticultural Associations. It represents and advocates for the interest and development of horticultural farmers. Botswana Horticultural Council leads the associations by acting as their voice, protecting their interest, advocating for conducive and favourable horticultural policies, working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture for promoting and facilitating sound extension services for horticulture farmers in the country. Extension Service provides technical knowledge and skills for improved horticultural crop production that ensures good quality products. Botswana Horticultural Council creates linkages by networking with other relevant organizations within the country and outside. It promotes sustainability of the horticultural business in the country by ensuring improved management practices, conformity to the required production standards, good handling and packaging of products, proper records keeping and marketing efficiency. It plays a leading and coordinative role in horticultural crop production in Botswana.

Nanotechnology Applications for Sustainable Crop Production

Innovations in nanotechnology revolutionized the world in all sectors, including medicine, biotechnology, electronics, material science, energy sectors etc. In fact, the existing literature also points towards the potential application of nanotechnology in global food production and alarming situation of food scarcity. With the advancement of nanotechnology, use of nanofertilizers for yield enhancement, nanopesticides for insect pests and disease control and nanosensors to monitor soil and plant health becomes one of the most fascinating and promising lines of investigation to achieve sustainability. Furthermore, nanobiotechnology application enables gene transfer to expand the genetic base of crop varieties against different biotic and abiotic stresses. Some lacunas which may resist commercialization of nanotechnology are cost, industrial setup, and public attitude towards the health and food safety issues. Sincere attempts are required to answer these questions and develop suitable strategies to solve any problems, we might encounter in near future.