Efforts to recycle organic waste using black soldier fly (BSF) larvae into high-quality alternative protein ingredients in animal feeds and organic fertilizers have gained momentum worldwide.
Wetlands are intermediate habitats that have commonalities with and differ from both terrestrial and aquatic habitats. They are distinguished by the presence of water, either at the surface or within the root zone, which leads to poorly aerated soils and predominance of biota that can tolerate wet and reducing conditions.
This paper describes environmental clean-up activities at Fukushima Prefecture, Japan and a proposed strategic remediation plan, the Chernobyl remediation in Ukraine, and Hanford Site of the U.S. Department of Energy.
Rural areas are often neglected with respect to solid waste management, and if some kind of management is in place it is often inadequate, causing harm to the rural population and environment, especially when open burning and dumping are practiced.
Researchers: Emiliano Lopez Barrera Thomas Hertel Abstract: There are few examples in the existing literature that address the quantitative linkages between food waste, food security,
Geographical Information System (GIS)-based groundwater quality evaluation using Groundwater Quality Index (GQI) has been proved to be a cost-effective tool for assessing groundwater quality and its variability at a larger scale.
The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus facilitates understanding of the intricate and dynamic interlinkages among the three resources.
Wildlife management and conservation requires monitoring of species distribution and population indicators, especially when the unbalanced demographic changes of some species can affect the whole ecosystem functioning.
Energy demand reduction from buildings is widely recognised as a key component of greenhouse gas abatement strategies. As governments shift towards large-scale sectoral interventions, a far more robust research and evidence base is needed to support the development, implementation, and on-going evaluation of energy demand policy.
In this paper, we demonstrate the model’s capabilities by applying it to a food system based on characteristics of Ethiopia, a frequently food-insecure country.
While climate variability in these regions is very complex, the goal of this study is to analyse the role played by unusually warm Indo–Pacific SSTs, where unusual is defined as a 1‐in‐6 year event.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and other climate patterns can have profound impacts on the occurrence of infectious diseases ranging from dengue to cholera. In Africa, El Niño conditions are associated with increased rainfall in East Africa and decreased rainfall in southern Africa, West Africa, and parts of the Sahel.
Here, we present subseasonal crop water stress analyses that indicate degrading, growing conditions along Ethiopia’s eastern highlands, including productive and populated highland regions.
Responses of streamflow and nutrient export to changing climate conditions should be investigated for effective water quality management and pollution control.
The performance of the regional Climate-Weather Research and Forecasting model for downscaling China climate characteristics is evaluated using a 1980–2015 simulation at 30 km grid spacing driven by the ECMWF Interim reanalysis.
The soil erosion and associated lateral movement of eroded carbon (C) have been identified as a possible mechanism explaining the elusive terrestrial C sink of ca. 1.7–2.6 PgC yr−1.
Here, we compile and analyze riverine dissolved organic carbon concentration data from 1402 United States Geological Survey (USGS) gauge stations to examine the spatial variability and environmental controls of DOC concentrations in the United States surface waters.
Nexus data must facilitate stakeholder and analyst understanding of nexus scope, locations, production, consumption, diversion, return flows, and conveyance possibilities along with costs.
Nexus modeling must represent and describe complex interrelationships among WEF systems. Modeling is a necessity as the nexus approach is about widening perspectives to unexplored levels.
Given the recent interest in food waste recycling from a sustainability perspective and the impending New York State (NYS) policy banning the disposal of food waste in landfills, the demand for food waste hauling services will soon increase in NYS.
We studied the fate of infectious double-stranded DNA BK human polyomavirus in hydrolyzed source-separated urine with infectivity assays and quantitative PCR.
Black soldier fly larvae have been used in a variety of applications including composting, animal feed and biodiesel production.
Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas contributing to global warming, with the agriculture sector as the major source of anthropogenic N2O emissions due to excessive fertilizer use.
In this paper we develop a residential food waste collection analysis and modeling framework that captures transportation costs faced by service providers in their initial stages of service provision.
The sensitivity of agricultural productivity to climate has not been sufficiently quantified. The total factor productivity of the US agricultural economy has grown continuously for over half a century, with most of the growth typically attributed to technical change.
A large number of studies have been published examining the implications of climate change for agricultural productivity that, broadly speaking, can be divided into process-based modeling and statistical approaches. Despite a general perception that results from these methods differ substantially, there have been few direct comparisons.
Widespread electrification, i.e., switching direct fossil fuel end-uses to electricity, coupled with renewable power use is essential to achieve aggressive greenhouse gas and criteria pollutant emission reduction targets. Few have investigated the requisite electric grid infrastructure transformation and technology path coupled with spatial and temporal resolution of criteria pollutant emissions for assessing air quality impacts.
Rising global temperatures are causing increases in the frequency and severity of extreme climatic events, such as floods, droughts, and heat waves. We analyze changes in summer temperatures, the frequency, severity, and duration of heat waves, and heat-related mortality in India between 1960 and 2009 using data from the India Meteorological Department.
The pursuit of future energy systems that can meet electricity demands while supporting the attainment of societal environment goals, including mitigating climate change and reducing pollution in the air, has led to questions regarding the viability of continued use of natural gas. Natural gas use, particularly for electricity generation, has increased in recent years due to enhanced resource availability from non-traditional reserves and pressure to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) from higher-emitting sources, including coal generation.
Despite substantial advances in climate change impact research in recent years, the scientific basis for damage functions in economic models used to calculate the social cost of carbon (SCC) is either undocumented, difficult to trace, or based on a small number of dated studies.
We analyze 36 years of global, hourly weather data (1980–2015) to quantify the covariability of solar and wind resources as a function of time and location, over multi-decadal time scales and up to continental length scales. Assuming minimal excess generation, lossless transmission, and no other generation sources, the analysis indicates that wind-heavy or solar-heavy U.S.-scale power generation portfolios could in principle provide ∼80% of recent total annual U.S. electricity demand.
Accurate information on agricultural water needs and withdrawals at appropriate spatial and temporal scales remains a key limitation to joint water and land management decision-making. We use InVEST ecosystem service mapping to estimate water yield and water consumption as functions of land use in Fresno County, a key farming region in California’s Central Valley.
Understanding the value of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions matters for policy decisions and climate risk management, but quantification is challenging because of the complex interactions and uncertainties in the Earth and human systems, as well as normative ethical considerations.
Some energy services and industrial processes—such as long-distance freight transport, air travel, highly reliable electricity, and steel and cement manufacturing—are particularly difficult to provide without adding carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere. Rapidly growing demand for these services, combined with long lead times for technology development and long lifetimes of energy infrastructure, make decarbonization of these services both essential and urgent.
Increases in the severity and frequency of drought in a warming climate may negatively impact agricultural production and food security. Unlike previous studies that have estimated agricultural impacts of climate condition using single‐crop yield distributions, we develop a multivariate probabilistic model that uses projected climatic conditions (e.g., precipitation amount or soil moisture) throughout a growing season to estimate the probability distribution of crop yields.
This website was created with the cooperation of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville under the supervision of Dr. Jie (Joe) Zhuang, Dr. Frank Loeffler, and Dr. Gary Sayler.
This project was funded by a research grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through a program called Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS). Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF.
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