Sustainability, Volume 1, Issue 4

Exergy is a thermodynamic concept that has been widely promoted for assessing and improving sustainability, notably in the characterization of resources and wastes. Despite having many notable benefits, exergy is often misused by authors who tend to...

The Amazon Rain Forest has attracted worldwide attention due its large scale services to climate and also due to the green house gas emissions arising from deforestation. Contributing to the later and detrimental to the former, timber logging in the...

This paper provides a critical review of sustainability, including its definitions, dimensions, measurements, and practices, as well as approaches to achieve sustainability. It raises questions about conventional definitions and argues for taking int...

Sweden has adopted ambitious energy savings objectives for buildings, but at the current rate of energy efficiency investments the objectives are unlikely to be reached. In this article we report the early findings of how real estate owners reason an...

In recent years, Jamaica has been seriously affected by a number of extreme meteorological events. The one discussed here, Hurricane Dean, passed along the south coast of the island in August 2007, damaging crops and disrupting livelihood activities...

Sustainable use of natural resources seems necessary to maintain functions and services of eco- and social systems in the long run. Efforts in policy and science for sustainable development have shown the splintering of local, national and global str...

The interaction between economic integration and environmental policy has become an important issue in the last few years. Despite the considerable scholarly attention this topic attracted, actual government responses in terms of environmental policy...

Astrobiology, a new field of research associating the prospects and constraints of prebiotic chemistry, mineralogy, geochemistry, astrophysics, theoretical physics, microbial ecology, etc., is assessed in terms of sustainability through the scientifi...

The purpose of this study is to provide an integrated analysis of water distribution on Maui and the cross-sectoral impacts of policies and regulations aimed at rejuvenating and sustaining the deep-rooted culture on the island. Since the water divers...

The impact of arsenic on human health has led its drinking water MCL to be drastically reduced from 50 to 10 ppb. Consequently, arsenic levels in many water supply sources have become critical. This has resulted in technical and operational impacts o...

The zinc acetato and triflato complexes of 2,2’-bipyridine and 1,10-phenanthroline were prepared and completely characterised. The whole series (including the already described dichlorido complexes and the ligands themselves) were screened for their...

In the early 1990s the countries of Central Asia started their transformation to a market economy. Uzbekistan is in the throes of change and facing a huge restructuring task and a need to improve governance. Decades of central bureaucratic allocation...

The commercial seed industry has undergone tremendous consolidation in the last 40 years as transnational corporations entered this agricultural sector, and acquired or merged with competing firms. This trend is associated with impacts that constrain...

The influence of thermodynamics on the emerging transdisciplinary field of 'ecological economics‘ is critically reviewed from an interdisciplinary perspective. It is viewed through the lens provided by the 'bioeconomist' Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (19...

The objectives of this article are to: (1) investigate the current state of knowledge of the risks of engineered nanoparticles for the environment and human health, (2) estimate whether this knowledge is sufficient to facilitate their comprehensive a...

There are many legislative, stakeholder and supply chain pressures on business to be more ‘sustainable’. Universities have recognised the need for graduate knowledge and understanding of sustainable development issues. Many businesses and universitie...

The trade-sustainable impact assessment of the European Union-Mercosur trade agreement found that the economic impact of the trade liberalisation scenario could be positive in the agricultural sectors of Mercosur countries. However, it also found tha...

This paper presents an overview on the sustainability of ancient water supply systems in Jerusalem from the Chalcolithic period (4500–3200 B.C.) until the present time. Archaeological evidences and landscape settings were applied utilizing all availa...

The engineering profession should embrace a new mission statement—to contribute to the building of a more sustainable, stable, and equitable world. Recently, engineering students and professionals in the United States have shown strong interest in di...

This study is dedicated to the assessment of the possibility of replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy as a source of power in modern agriculture. We examined the use of a completely sustainable agricultural mechanization system based on a rene...

Current Building Sustainability Rating Tools (BSRTs) are concerned mainly with the technical features of new designs. The author argues for the inclusion of user performance criteria in BSRTs for buildings in operation. The case is based on insights...

Various government agencies around the world have proposed vegetable oils and their conversion to biodiesel as a renewable alternative to fossil fuels. Due to its adaptability to marginal soils and environments, the cultivation of Jatropha curcas is...

The Mar del Plata International Water Conference provided the first global assessment of the water sector. It was found that in most developing countries the state of water supply and sanitation services were deplorable. Consequently, a call for conc...

The argan tree is a slow growing tree exclusively endemic in the dry lowlands of Southwest Morocco. The argan forest constitutes a long time ignored specific biotope that has been declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1998. The argan forest is pa...

Water is today considered to be a vital and limited resource due to industrial development and population growth. Developing appropriate water treatment techniques, to ensure a sustainable management, represents a key point in the worldwide strategie...

This paper investigates, using the GIS platform, the potential impacts of meeting national bioenergy targets using only indigenous sources of feedstock on the habitats and carbon stores that exist within Ireland’s field boundaries. A survey of the Re...

The paper presents thoughts on Sustainable Data Infrastructure (SDI) development, and its user requirements bases. It brings Maslow's motivational theory to the fore, and proposes it as a rationalization mechanism for entities (mostly governmental) t...

Different transport stakeholders have different needs for transport infrastructure and services. Meeting the needs of all stakeholders implies a trade-off of benefits and costs between supply and demand and creates transport diversity issues. However...

During these last years, cyclodextrins have contributed greatly to the development of catalytic processes in water. These cyclic oligosaccharides composed of 6(α), 7(β) or 8(γ) glucopyranose units improve the mass transfer in aqueous-organic two-phas...

A groundwater mound (or pressure mound) is defined as a volume of fluid dominated by viscous flow contained within a sediment volume where the dominant fluid flow is by Knudsen Diffusion. High permeability self-sealing groundwater mounds can be creat...

American forest resource management and planning goes back to the European roots of American Forestry. Timber management plans, documents based on forest regulation for timber production, were the foundation of American forestry. These types of manag...

Life on a global biosphere basis is substantiated in the form of organics and organisms, and defined as the intermediate forms (briefly expressed as CH₂O) hovering between the reduced (CH₄, methane) and (CO₂, carbon dioxide) ends, different from the...

Sustainable consumption is a core policy objective within the UK Government’s Sustainable Development Strategy and there is a growing awareness that retailers have a vital role to play in promoting more sustainable patterns of consumption. This paper...

The paper aims to develop a practice and evaluation model for public open spaces in residential areas that considers water sensitive urban design techniques contributing to place-making.