Monitoring the Complex Dynamics of LULC Change of Tanguar Haor, a Ramsar Site in the Northeastern Part of Bangladesh

The bowl-shaped depressions between the natural levees of rivers, mostly found in the wetland of the north-eastern part of Bangladesh are locally known as Haor. This study has tried to find out the dynamics of land use/land cover (LULC) change of Tanguar Haor, a Ramsar Site of Bangladesh between 1989 and 2017. Satellite data from Landsat archive have been used to determine the LULC change and collected primary data through a questionnaire survey used to identify the factors and impacts of LULC change. Post-classification change detection techniques have been applied to evaluate the LULC change, and descriptive statistics are applied for qualitative analysis of primary data as well as other secondary data

Visualizing the Effect of Built Environment on COVID-19 Transmission: A Community-Level Study in Wuhan, China

With the outbreak of a novel respiratory coronavirus disease (COVID-19) over the world, restriction of human mobility plays an important role to reduce the potential for the spread of virus. People are restricted for limited activities in local communities where the built environment in communities serve as a mediated pathway for the virus transmission. Our study aims to examine to what extent built environment factors explain COVID-19 transmission at the community level. Drawing on primary data collected from 648 communities in Wuhan, China, we employed a geographically weighted regression and a 3D mapping approach to examine the relationship between COVID-19 confirmed cases and three built environment factors including green coverage, property price, and underground parking. We find that green coverage and property price explain COVID-19 transmission better in communities with a larger amount of confirmed cases

Corporate Solutions to Climate Change

Climate change is now impacting every country on every continent. Leading European countries are taking action-and even committing real moneyto fight climate change1 . Without action, the world’s average surface temperature is projected to rise over the 21st century and is likely to surpass 3 degrees Celsius this century-with some areas of the world expected to warm even more. In effort to resolve the issues related to climate change we need greater private sector participation. Incentivizing global investors and consumers to direct investments and consumption towards the corporations that are leading the effort towards climate sustainability may accelerate achieving United Nation’s current sustainable development goal (SDG’s) of Climate Action

Novel and Eco-Friendly Washing Agents to Remove Heavy Metals from Soil by Soil Washing

Soil washing is a remediation technology that can efficiently remove heavy metals from soil and decrease environmental risk. Due to the negative effect of conventional washing agents on soil quality, their replacement with novel, eco-friendly agents is necessary. This paper gives a basic presentation of the most promising washing agents that have high potential to be used at field scale: biodegradable chelators, biosurfactants, plant extracts, and dissolved organic matter including soluble low-weight organic matter and soluble humic substances. The main advantages of these novel agents are highlighted

New Perspectives of the Environmental Analysis and Ecology Studies

Research on Environmental Analysis and Ecology provides academia with important papers significant technologies or case studies in the environment. A new interesting perspective that would be of interest to a wide readership is the use of Information and Communications Technologies in Environmental Analysis and Ecology. This may involve research and developments in the application of Information and Communication Technologies to the environment. Interesting topics on this subject involve: Environmental Software, Multi-Criteria Decision Making Analysis of environmental or ecological problems, Environmental Databases, Geographical Information Systems, Remote Sensing, etc. For this purpose, different review papers have been published. An interesting survey on environmental informatics in Europe until 2006 was presented by Pillman et al. [1]. Another interesting review is presented by Athanasiadis [2] who summarized the developments in environmental informatics that exploited agent technology. The synergies between environmental informatics and Knowledge Management are explored by Tochtermann & Maurer

Response of Primary Production and Physiochemical Properties to Nutrients: A Mesocosm Experiment

Eutrophication is one of the major problems facing aquatic systems over the world. Currently, nutrient inputs to aquatic ecosystems have been studied in different parts of the globe. In the present study, a mesocosm experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of dissolved nutrients on primary production and physicochemical properties of tap water in Mekelle Tigray Ethiopia. Four containers with four replicate water samples were collected from a Mekelle canal and one was enriched with Nitrogen (N), one with phosphorous (P), one with both nutrients, one control without any nutrients added. Data on primary production and physiochemical properties of canal water were analyzed using one-way ANOVA with R-software. The result shows that the effect of N and P input on primary production and physiochemical properties of the mesocosm experiment were statistically significant. In particularly, Nitrogen was the limiting factor in the net primary production, periphyton, pH and dissolved oxygen of the water. According to the result of this experiment, it is important to do further investigation for better understanding the effect of nutrient input on an aquatic ecosystem

Charred Rice Hull as Soil Additive to Reduce Arsenic Uptake by Oryza sativa in a Rice Farm

The ecosystem (land, water, air) and the organisms that inhabit it are exposed to various heavy metals at varying levels. However, concerns arise when the potential exist for the levels of these toxicants to exceed the regulatory thresholds. Arsenic is a well-known soil and water contaminant with reported toxic and detrimental risks to the ecosystem, human health, aquatic and terrestrial animals, and plants. Intake of arsenic contaminated water and food diet form the major source of arsenic exposure to humans. Rice paddy rice (Oryza sativa), a major staple food for many countries of the world has been reported to have the capacity to accumulate a large amount of arsenic from contaminated soil or from contaminated irrigation water. The sources of these arsenic could be as a result of old agricultural practices that utilized arsenate insecticide. Chinese fern has been identified as a potential agent for the phytoremediation of arsenic contaminated soil. Additionally, biochars and charcoal have been used for the remediation of Pb, Cu, Zn, Cd from contaminated water. The project reported here investigated the use of charred rice hulls for the remediation of arsenic contaminated rice farm in the North-Western part of Louisiana. Results demonstrate that rice is an accumulator of arsenic if the soil is contaminated with arsenic. Irrigation water was not a source of arsenic contamination for this project for all the irrigation water samples showed no trace of arsenic. Furthermore, the rice hull and rice straw from previous year used in the preparation of the charred biomaterial appear to be contaminated and thus, increased the soil arsenic but decreased arsenic uptake into the rice grain

Methodology of Land Resource Inventory at 1:10000 Scale for Agricultural Land Use Planning-A Case Study in Eastern Extension of Chhotanagpur Plateau Region

Land resource inventory (LRI) at larger scale (1:10000) is the basic prerequisite to develop agricultural land use planning for upgrading the socioeconomic condition of the farmers. In the present era of climate change and huge demand for food, the agriculture in India is under severe stress, which might be improved through a judicious land resource inventory followed by a robust agricultural land use planning. Moreover, site specific land management options must be framed to provide right technology at right time in right place. Thus, with this aim, a methodology of LRI at 1:10000 scale have been developed using geospatial technique for preparation of landscape ecological map (LEU) as base map. The detailed information generated in GIS environment has been used in the field for detailed ground truthing and land resource inventory for farm planning. The detailed methodology has been presented through a case study considering Rajnagar block of Birbhum distrct, West Bengal for doing LRI at 1:10000 scale