Integrated Natural Resources Management

Scientific studies of global warming, climate change, glacier melting, and salmon protection conducted by international researchers are reviewed, presented, and discussed. The topics covered in this book chapter include technical terminologies, climate change, global warming, greenhouse gases, global warming potential, rising temperature trend in the environment, glacier melting, glacier protection, tidewater glaciers, Glacier Bay National Park and Reserve, Mendenhall Glacier, Mendenhall Lake, salmon protection, salmon life cycle, fire frequency, carbon dioxide stabilization, actions for environmental protection, and Macaulay Salmon Hatchery, Alaska, USA.

This article provides an introduction to proper latrine project design in rural communities. Latrines are usually the most appropriate sanitation technology for rural villages. However, without an adequate understanding of proper design standards and the village context, a latrine project can be a complete failure, with community members returning to previous, unhealthy methods for sanitation. Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB-USA) has provided humanitarian engineering services since 2001 in rural communities on infrastructure projects and has collected many lessons learned to assist those in international development to complete sustainable latrine projects which will effectively decrease waterborne and water-related illnesses in communities. These design standards and best practices are included here for the benefit of rural villages and those who serve them. Additionally, a case study is provided with specific lessons learned from an EWB-USA sanitation project in Kumbo, Cameroon, Western Africa. Both the overall and case study lessons learned point to the need for early, thorough, and respectful village engagement as well as thorough technical investigation of the water, soil, and current sanitation practices in the community.

The fundamental of water quality management and analysis is to adopt several monitoring actions to save water bodies and protect users. Evaluation of physiochemical and biological parameters of surface water is an important aspect for water quality model formation and adopted suitable management actions. This chapter focused on evaluation, monitoring, and analysis of surface water quality. Recently, Water Quality Indices (WQIs) was introduced as new methods for water quality management. Dissolved oxygen in surface water is necessary for aquatic life. Microbial quality of surface water should be safe and should not have adverse effect on human health. In this chapter, WQIs formation, definitions, and limitations were discussed, surface water modeling, standards and indicators of chemical and microbial quality of surface water were presented and discussed.

The electrical and electronic components industry is generally classified as standard industrial classification (SIC) with the code 36. The SIC is a Statistical Classification Standard used for all US-based establishments of Federal Economic Statistics which is under the Department of Commerce. Pollution prevention techniques and processes applicable to the electrical and electronic industry can be, broadly, divided into process or equipment modification, raw materials substitution or elimination, waste segregation (separation or preparation), and, finally, recycling. This chapter discusses industrial description and production processes, waste generation and pollution prevention, water use in the industry, wastewater treatment processes, treatment technology, and cost. Furthermore, US regulations such as best applicable technology (BAT), best conventional pollution control technology (BCT), best practicable control treatment (BPT), point source discharge limitation, performance standards for new source (PSNS), and pretreatment standards for existing sources (PSES) for subcategories in electrical and electronic components manufacturing industry are also presented. A case study of Texas Instruments is also included.

The fundamentals of both remote sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS) are introduced in detail. For RS, the characteristics of various sensor data and the satellite data processing technology are explained. For GIS, the authors describe various GIS subsystems and data models. There are many applications to water resources, such as mapping, monitoring, and modeling. The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has established many useful programs to support the activities of American water resources engineers and planners. These important USEPA support programs are presented.

During the past few decades, the city of Ar-Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, has seen a significant increase in urbanization, from a gross residential area of 8500 ha in 1980 to 62,712 ha in 1990 and up to 155,500 ha in 2015 (33, 242 and 600 mi², respectively). This increase in urbanization in one and three decades was accompanied by a corresponding increase in population from 850,000 to 1,622,000 and up to 6,500,000. This has led to a great increase in water consumption that has reached 620 L/cap/day (164 gpcd). Most of this water is imported into the Ar-Riyadh environment, but the capability of that environment to dispose of the excess water or wastewater by means of infiltration or evaporation is limited. Consequently the city has begun to experience a rise in the groundwater level that is causing a variety of problems for its citizens.

This chapter outlines the methodologies and discusses the results from a field study of water losses from the municipal wet infrastructures in six selected areas of Ar-Riyadh that included the potable water, the sanitary sewer, and the storm drainage networks. More emphasis was put on the field identification of leakage from the potable water network that approached 16% of the water fed into the areas. Thus Ar-Riyadh compares well with other cities around the world where leakage has been reported to be in the range between 5% and 50%. Losses from the sanitary and storm drainage systems were 7% and 4.5%, respectively. Besides the impacts on buildings and infrastructure services, the cost of potable water lost by leakage on its own, estimated at a minimum value of US$50 million per year, is a considerable economic loss.

The steps leading to the demise of a lake are discussed. One of the primary causes of the death of lake is excessive biological growth, called eutrophication. Biological growth is limited primarily by the availability of the nutrients necessary for growth. It has been shown that phosphorus is most frequently the limiting nutrient to control biological growth in a lake, but nitrogen is also commonly limiting. Phosphorus may be permanently removed from a lake by various processes, whereas nitrogen is difficult to remove permanently due to the fact that certain blue-green algae can fix atmospheric nitrogen as a nitrogen source. Thus, emphasis has been placed on removal of phosphorus. There are various methods for treatment of wastewaters to remove the nutrients before being discharged to a body of water. Once in a lake, phosphorus removal is most frequently achieved by producing an insoluble aluminum salt of the phosphorus, but iron salts are effective under aerobic conditions. Calcium salts are effective in removing phosphorus, but they generally adversely increase the pH of the lake. Precipitated aluminum phosphate salts may be allowed to settle to the bottom of the lake, or they may be removed from the water column. A study showed that removing the phosphate-rich hypolimnetic waters from a summer-stratified temperate climate lake, precipitating the phosphorus as either aluminum or iron salts, separating the precipitate by DAF, and returning the phosphate-reduced water to the lake were very effective in controlling the phosphorus nutrient content in Devils Lake, WI, USA.

Acid rain is formed when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides reach the air and are transformed into sulfate or nitrate particles. When combined with water vapor, they are converted into sulfuric or nitric acids. Acid rain can adversely affect aquatic life at all levels of the food chain that can be harmed by acid rain. Destruction begins at the lowest level of the food chain, when the tiny microorganisms that are food for minnows and other small organisms die. As food sources dwindle, more and larger fish die. Acid in the water may also interfere with oxygen circulation, harm fish gills, and cause heart problems in fish. The chemistry and control of acid rain are also discussed. A case history involving the use of lime or sodium aluminate for neutralization of acid rain contaminated reservoir water is also presented.

Industrial organic waste from food processing, livestock production, brewery, bakery, and other related industries is a renewable substrate for anaerobic digestion to produce methane (CH₄) or with some process manipulation and control to produce hydrogen (H₂). Type of waste, its strength, presence of any toxic compounds, and other specific characteristics affect the operating conditions such as organic loading rate, hydraulic retention time, substrate pretreatment, as well as the yield and the rate of H₂ production from industrial waste. Therefore, they need to be optimized for each waste. Research is required on the modeling, cost analysis, economic evaluation, comparative studies about the effect of bioreactor design, as well as on combining several industrial wastes to prepare a well-balanced substrate for H₂-producing mixed culture dark fermentation.

The growing concerns on the environment in recent years have influenced the usage of renewable sources as alternative materials to create a platform for the development of new technology with possible economic potential. Adsorbents derived from agricultural wastes have hidden economic values which could be benefited by transforming the agricultural wastes into valuable and useful products. Numerous agricultural wastes such as skins/peels, cores, pits, leaves, brunches, and pericarp are being produced in plantation and processing industries. The agricultural wastes have exhibited the potential usage as an adsorbent to remove contaminants from water environment which conserve the natural environment and resources mainly in the ecology system sustainably, for the reason that this utilization converts the agricultural wastes into value-added product and at the same time decontaminate polluted water source. This application on the utilization of agricultural wastes is not only good for a sustainable environment but is also suitable for rural economic development, meaning possible increases in profit for farmers and the agricultural industry. This chapter provides insight on some findings on heavy metal removal by adsorbents produced from agricultural wastes. The chapter also discusses the situation of the heavy metals in the environment, parameters affecting the adsorption process of the heavy metals, kinetic models, and adsorption isotherms that are associated with the agricultural waste-derived adsorbents. The development of the adsorbents from agricultural waste biomass and the prospect of developing hybrid adsorbent and magnetic adsorbent have attracted many researchers worldwide in performing research work on the application to water and wastewater treatment.

Heavy metal ions contaminate water environment through point sources and nonpoint sources. Heavy metal ions are categorized as inorganic contaminants by both the WHO and the USEPA. The heavy metal ions are increasingly being introduced into the environment as pollutants and contaminants resulting from human activities.

Magnetic particles for water treatment applications have received considerable attention from researchers due to high separation efficiency. The magnetic particles behave similar to or even better than various commercial adsorbents. The magnetic particles also exhibit high selectivity for the target pollutants from the environment besides enabling ease of operation for reducing the particle separation steps from the flowing stream. A comprehensive and systematic understanding of synthesis and surface modifications of magnetic particles is significant to enhance their practicability in environmental technology. Although high removal performance and reactivity can be achieved by smaller particle size, the stability, toxicity, and recovery of the particles magnetically could be challenging.

In contrast, the active surface of magnetic particles may be forfeited, while surface modifications stabilize and reduce the toxicity of the particles. Reliable surface modifications are necessarily needed for the increment of the number of active sites to remove the heavy metals. For successful environmental applications of the magnetic particles, modification on the magnetic particles is principally crucial to balance the effects on their reactivity, capacity, and reusability.

Extremely halotolerant hydrogen-producing bacteria were investigated, owing to their ability to live in high salinity conditions. Based on this characteristic, it was hypothesized that extremely halophilic hydrogen-producing bacteria can tolerate high concentrations of Na⁺ ions. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the characteristics of extremely halotolerant hydrogen-producing bacteria obtained from salt-damaged soil in Khon Kaen and a commercial salt pan field near Bangkok (Samut Sakhon), Thailand. Results of this preliminary investigation showed that hydrogen production under saturated conditions of 26% (6 M) NaCl was possible after 1 year of acclimatization. The extremely halotolerant hydrogen-producing bacteria in this research were also confirmed to have a requirement for Cl⁻ ions for hydrogen production. Therefore, these extremely halotolerant hydrogen-producing bacteria are suitable for hydrogen production from lignocellulosic biomass.