Search Results (613)

Effective Water Resource Management (WRM) requires the integration of physical hydrological processes with institutional drought response plans. In Romania, the Olt River Basin represents one of the most highly regulated catchments, where water security is maintained through a series of staged restriction measures (TR1–TR3). However, the efficacy of these measures under the shifting baselines of the SSP2-4.5 climate scenario remains poorly understood. This study addresses this gap by coupling rainfall–runoff dynamics with a priority-based allocation model to evaluate the reliability of current drought protocols in a climate-perturbed future. Rainfall–runoff modelling, reservoir operation, priority-based allocation, environmental flow constraints, and officially applied drought restriction plans were combined within a single modelling environment. Under the SSP2-4.5 climate scenario, total basin runoff decreased by approximately 13.3%, leading to more frequent activation of restriction stages and reduced allocation reliability. Full article

The continuous depletion of global groundwater resources has posed a serious threat to the ecological stability of terminal lakes in arid regions. However, accurate ecological assessment and water resource management of these lakes face a long-term key bottleneck—the determination of an appropriate lake surface area. Previous research has primarily focused on identifying the minimum interannual suitable lake surface area, with limited exploration of the suitable area range for lakes experiencing significant annual surface area fluctuations. Taitema Lake is located in the southeastern Tarim Basin of arid northwest China and serves as the terminal lake for both the Tarim and Cherchen Rivers. This study examines Taitema Lake, a continental terminal lake in an arid region. We developed a comprehensive ecological security evaluation system based on landscape structure, steady-state conditions, and habitat elements to establish the minimum suitable lake surface area threshold. By combining this with the threshold for maximum suitable lake surface area—when ecological water use efficiency peaks—we determined the interannual suitable lake surface area for Taitema Lake to be 33.7–154.4 km². This study employed the MIKE 11 one-dimensional hydrodynamic model. Within the constraints of the lake surface area range determined by ecological water demand, we propose ecological dispatching plans for specific periods. During the green-up period (April to May), water is alternately transferred through either the Wenkuoer River or the old Tarim River at a flow rate of 24 m³/s, with a total conveyance volume of 1.3 × 10⁸ m³. For the sowing period (August to October), a dual-channel approach is used where both rivers transport water simultaneously at 27 m³/s each, resulting in a total conveyance volume of 4.3 × 10⁸ m³. This study offers valuable insights, supported by multi-scale models, for optimizing water resource allocation and ecological protection of lakes in arid areas. Full article

Water-scarce river basins face the dual challenge of sustaining development progress while maintaining water resources carrying capacity (WRCC), yet city-scale evidence remains limited on how New Quality Productive Force (NQPF)-driven high-quality development reshapes WRCC through coupled coordination and development–pressure decoupling processes. Using a balanced panel of 15 cities in the Weihe River Basin (WRB) during 2014–2023, an integrated analytical framework was implemented by combining composite index evaluation (WRCC and the high-quality development index (HQDI)), the Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD) model, Tapio decoupling diagnosis between HQDI and total water use (TWU), and logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) decomposition. The results indicate that: (1) both the HQD index and WRCC exhibited sustained growth, with their CCD improving significantly from mild imbalance to primary coordination, while a distinct spatial pattern of “Guanzhong leading, northern Shaanxi improving, and eastern Gansu stabilizing” emerged; (2) the HQDI–WRCC linkage was further supported by pooled statistical tests and a two-way fixed effects specification with city-clustered robust standard errors, confirming a significant positive association (Pearson = 0.517, p < 0.01; Spearman = 0.183, p < 0.05) and a stable positive effect of HQDI on WRCC (β = 0.194, p = 0.0088); (3) Tapio results reveal an overall transition from earlier volatility toward a later-period regime dominated by Weak Decoupling (WD) and Strong Decoupling (SD), implying that development progress became less dependent on rising TWU, although pronounced inter-city heterogeneity persisted; (4) LMDI decomposition further identified water use intensity and industrial structure as primary inhibitors of water consumption, whereas the R&D scale effect increased nearly 60-fold, emerging as a major driver of water demand. This study provides a mechanistic basis for coordinating ecological protection and high-quality development under rigid water constraints in water-scarce basins. Full article

Circular economy (CE) strategies in the agri-food sector hold strong potential for reducing waste, enhancing resource efficiency, and promoting sustainable value creation. However, early-stage assessment of innovative valorisation pathways remains challenging due to limited data availability and heterogeneous sustainability trade-offs. This study presents a multi-criteria evaluation tool designed to identify sustainability hotspots and support the preliminary screening of CE solutions based on easily obtainable information. The tool combines a structured literature review with expert-based scoring across environmental (ENV), economic (EC), and social (SOC) dimensions. Its applicability was demonstrated through the following three case studies: (i) reconstitution of cheese approaching expiration, (ii) extraction of polyphenols from grape-wine residues via subcritical water extraction, and (iii) biodegradable mulching film production from grape-wine pomace. Results show that the tool successfully differentiates sustainability performance across value chain areas Residue, Final Product, and Process (RES, FP, and PRO) and reveals critical gaps requiring further investigation. Scenario 3 achieved the higher overall score (69.7%) due to fewer regulatory constraints, whereas Scenarios 1 and 2 (61.2% and 54.5%, respectively) are penalised due to the more regulations for human consumption. The proposed tool offers a practical and efficient method to support researchers and industry stakeholders in identifying CE strategies with the highest potential for sustainable development. Full article

To address the high-carbon emissions associated with the large use of Portland cement (PC) in traditional engineered cementitious composites (ECCs) and the resource constraints on supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), this study proposes a strategy combining limestone calcined clay cement (LC³) as a PC replacement with the incorporation of hybrid synthetic fibers to develop low-carbon, environmentally friendly ECCs. The fundamental properties of the LC³-ECC were tested, and a sustainability analysis was conducted. The experimental results show that an increase in water-to-binder ratio (W/B) or superplasticizer (SP) dosage significantly enhanced fluidity while reducing the yield stress and plastic viscosity. An LC³-ECC with a W/B of 0.25, 0.45% SP and 2% polyethylene fibers exhibited the best tensile performance, achieving an ultimate tensile strain of 8.40%. In contrast, an increase in polypropylene fiber led to a degradation in crack-resistant properties. In terms of sustainability, replacing the PC with LC³ significantly reduced carbon emissions by 19.1–20.8%, while the cost of the limestone calcined clay cement–polypropylene fiber (LC³-PP) was approximately 50% of that of the limestone calcined clay cement–polyvinyl alcohol fiber (LC³-PVA). Furthermore, an integrated evaluation framework encompassing rheological, mechanical and environmental factors was established using performance radar charts. The dataset on the performance results and the developed assessment framework provide a foundation for optimizing the mixture proportioning of LC³-ECC in practical engineering applications. Full article

Aeroponics has emerged as a key technology for sustainable and resource-efficient food production, particularly under intensifying constraints on water availability, land use, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This review synthesizes recent advances in water–energy–nutrient integration, highlighting operational parameters—humidity (50–80%), temperature (18–25 °C), nutrient solution pH (5.5–6.5), and electrical conductivity (1.5–2.5 mS cm⁻¹)—that critically influence system performance. Evidence indicates that closed-loop water recirculation and AI-assisted monitoring for environmental control and nutrient dosing can stabilize system dynamics and reduce water consumption by more than 90%. Reported yield improvements ranged from 45% to 75% compared with conventional soil-based cultivation. Moreover, systems powered by renewable energy demonstrated up to an 80% reduction in GHG emissions. Life-cycle assessment studies further suggest that aeroponics, coupled with low-carbon electricity in controlled-environment agriculture (CEA), can outperform traditional agricultural supply chains in climate and resource efficiency metrics. Additional technological innovations—including multi-tier vertical rack architectures, optimized misting intervals, and micronutrient-enriched fertigation formulations containing N, P, Ca, Mg, and K—were found to enhance spatial productivity and crop quality. Overall, aeroponics represents a promising pathway toward net-zero, high-performance agricultural systems. Full article

Salinity stress represents a critical environmental constraint that significantly limits the development of tilapia aquaculture in brackish water environments. Its substantial impacts on fundamental physiological processes in fish, particularly osmotic balance, energy metabolism, and antioxidant defense mechanisms, have become a major scientific concern in aquaculture research. To systematically elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying the response of genetically improved farmed tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) to salinity stress and to test the hypothesis that it adapts through metabolic reprogramming for energy reallocation under such conditions, this study employed an integrated transcriptomic and metabolomic approach. Through a rigorously controlled experimental design with freshwater (0‰) as the control group and brackish water (24‰) as the experimental group, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of dynamic changes in gene expression profiles and metabolite spectra in the liver tissues of experimental fish. The study yielded the following key findings: First, salinity stress significantly suppressed growth performance indicators, including body weight and length, while simultaneously inducing extensive transcriptomic restructuring and profound metabolic remodeling in liver tissue. A total of 1529 differentially expressed genes (including 399 up-regulated and 1130 down-regulated genes) and 127 significantly differential metabolites were identified. Second, the organism achieved strategic reallocation of energy resources through coordinated suppression of multiple energy-consuming anabolic pathways, particularly steroid biosynthesis and fatty acid metabolism, with the remarkable down-regulation of Fasn, a key gene in the fatty acid synthesis pathway, being especially prominent. Energy-sensing and metabolic homeostasis regulatory networks played a central coordinating role in this process, guiding the organism through metabolic reprogramming by regulating downstream metabolic nodes. From a multi-omics integrative perspective, this study provides in-depth insights into the sophisticated metabolic remodeling and energy allocation strategies employed by GIFT to cope with salinity stress. These findings, particularly the suppression of fatty acid biosynthesis and the reprogramming of glycolysis/gluconeogenesis pathways, not only elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which teleosts achieve environmental adaptation through energy reallocation, but also provide actionable molecular targets for the selective breeding of salinity-resilient tilapia strains. Full article

Offshore wind energy is a strategic pillar for achieving European climate neutrality targets, yet its deployment faces geographical and technological constraints. Fixed-bottom offshore wind (FBOW) has reached industrial maturity in shallow waters but is limited by depth. Floating offshore wind (FOW) emerges as a solution for deep-water contexts, unlocking vast resources and enabling integration with advanced energy systems such as power-to-X. This analysis conducts a systematic comparative analysis of FBOW and FOW technologies through a techno-economic framework based on six key parameters: installation depth, turbine power, capacity factor (CF), CAPEX, OPEX, and levelized cost of energy (LCOE). A review of 313 sources, reduced to 61 after applying selection criteria, reveals that FOW operates at depths up to 1550 m, with higher average turbine capacities (16 MW vs. 11 MW for FBOW) and superior CF (38% vs. 22%). Economic results show combined averages CAPEX of 2.43 M$/MW, OPEX of 22.7 k$/MW/year, and LCOE around 120 $/MWh, with significant variability. While FOW currently exhibits higher initial costs, its scalability and operational advantages, such as tow-to-shore maintenance, suggest strong potential for cost reduction. These findings highlight FOW as essential for exploiting deep-water wind resources and achieving long-term decarbonization goals in regions like the Mediterranean. Full article

Glacier inventories are critical for monitoring glacier response to climate change, providing constraints for glacier modeling studies and for assessing the impacts of glacier retreat on ecosystems and human societies. In the Bhutanese Himalaya, an up-to-date glacier inventory and a systematic analysis of decadal-scale glacier changes is lacking. Here, we present three glacier inventories (1976, 1998, and 2024) for this region. Manual mapping of glacier outlines from multi-source satellite imagery and the Copernicus digital elevation model (DEM) are used to derive a glacier inventory with associated topographic attributes. We found that 1871 glaciers existed in this region in 1976, covering an area of 2297.07 ± 117.15 km². By 1998 this number had reduced to 1803 glaciers, covering 2106.99 ± 90.60 km². In 2024, only 1697 glaciers remained, covering 1584.18 ± 36.37 km². A total of 89 (1976–1998) and 435 (1998–2024) glaciers became extinct in the Bhutanese Himalaya during these two time periods, and glacier area decrease accelerated from ~0.38% yr⁻¹ to ~0.95% yr⁻¹. Lake-terminating glaciers retreated almost three times faster (~32.2 m yr⁻¹) than land-terminating (~10.4 m yr⁻¹) glaciers during the observation period. Debris-covered glacier area increased from 112.79 ± 11.50 km² in 1976 to 128.89 ± 10.50 km² in 2024. Glaciers on the South Bhutanese Himalaya (draining into Bhutan) experienced faster glacier retreat than the glaciers of the North Bhutanese Himalaya (draining into the Tibetan Autonomous Region). ERA5-Land reanalysis data show that summer decadal average temperature in this region increased by 0.003 °C yr⁻¹ between 1976 and 1998 and 0.020 °C yr⁻¹ between 1998 and 2024, with the increase in warming rate coinciding with accelerated glacier retreat after 1998. Our updated glacier inventories will be useful for assessments of global sea level change, mountain hazards, and water resources. Full article

Drought stress represents a major constraint on global apple production, with the widely used semi-dwarfing rootstock ‘M.26’ being particularly vulnerable to water deficit. Although the osmolyte trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) has been shown to improve abiotic stress tolerance in the model plant Arabidopsis, its potential role in enhancing drought resilience in woody fruit trees remains largely unexplored. Under prolonged moderate drought stress, exogenous TMAO application significantly promoted plant growth, mitigating the drought-induced suppression of plant height by 5.3–12.2% compared to untreated drought-stressed controls and alleviating the decline in above-ground biomass. This improvement was underpinned by a substantial alleviation of root growth inhibition, with TMAO restoring total root length and biomass from 37% in the control to only 6.1–9.5%. TMAO also fine-tuned the root-to-shoot ratio to favor resource allocation to roots. Consequently, TMAO-treated plants maintained superior leaf water status, exhibiting higher relative water content (drought-induced reduction limited to ~17.5% with TMAO versus 26.3% in the control). Physiologically, TMAO alleviated the drought-induced stomatal limitation of photosynthesis, sustaining higher net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, and transpiration rate. Crucially, under severe drought stress, TMAO pretreatment markedly enhanced ‘M.26’ survival rates from approximately 39% in the untreated control to 60–68%, representing a relative increase of approximately 74%. Collectively, this study demonstrates that exogenous application TMAO significantly enhances drought tolerance in apple rootstock ‘M.26’, highlighting its potential as an effective and environmentally safe plant growth regulator for more sustainable cultivation of fruit trees under irregular/erratic irrigation conditions. Full article

The conventional method of flue gas desulfurization gypsum (FGDG) application, i.e., blending with flood irrigation, is hindered by low water efficiency and significant amendment loss due to runoff and uncontrolled leaching, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions in which water scarcity is a major constraint. This study aimed to evaluate a novel integration of FGDG band application with drip irrigation to enhance targeting and resource efficiency. A laboratory-scale experiment investigated the effects of two FGDG application methods (band and blend application) and drip rates (0.3 and 0.6 L h⁻¹) on soil water movement and chemical properties. Band application significantly accelerated initial wetting front advancement by up to 44.9 cm h⁻¹ near the emitter and sustained horizontal propagation, while blend application promoted a more uniform water distribution. Chemically, band application created localized zones of reduced pH (7.57–8.62) and elevated water-soluble Ca²⁺ (up to 492.2 mmol kg⁻¹), facilitating a 79.1% reduction in exchangeable Na⁺ near the emitter. In contrast, blend application resulted in broader but shallower amendment distribution, reducing exchangeable sodium percentage uniformly to 1.99–4.16% across the soil profile. The combination of banded FGDG and drip irrigation achieves targeted amelioration, with superior Na⁺/Ca²⁺ exchange and favorable moisture dynamics resulting from the synergy between amendment placement and water delivery. This approach is a viable strategy for precision reclamation in arid regions. Full article

The water yield (WY) service is a critical ecosystem service in arid regions, and understanding its spatiotemporal heterogeneity and controls is important for sustainable watershed management. Annual water yield (WY) in the Aksu River Basin (ARB), China, from 2000 to 2020 was simulated using the InVEST model, with validation against observed runoff (NSE = 0.840, R² = 0.846, RMSE = 1.787). The results revealed a decline in WY from 66.49 mm in 2000 to 43.15 mm in 2015, while retaining a clear north–south gradient, with higher values in the north. Areas showing decreasing and increasing trends accounted for 45.34% and 3.14% of the basin, respectively. WY exhibited strong spatial autocorrelation (global Moran’s I = 0.912–0.941), with high-value clusters in the north and low-value clusters in the south. GeoDetector identified precipitation, temperature, and potential evapotranspiration as key drivers (q = 0.889, 0.880, and 0.832, respectively), with precipitation-related interactions generally exceeding 0.9, indicating enhanced explanatory power through multi-factor coupling. After variable screening and collinearity control, MGWR revealed spatially varying effects of drivers and significant spatial non-stationarity. Overall, despite the declining trend, WY in the ARB maintained a relatively stable spatial structure, with its heterogeneity primarily driven by the coupling of climatic forcing and topographic constraints, providing a scientific basis for zonal water resource management in arid river basins. Full article

Delayed sowing has become a key constraint on winter wheat production in the Guanzhong Plain, Shaanxi Province, China, due to the widespread adoption of late-maturing maize and the delayed harvest of preceding crops. A two-year field experiment was conducted on the Guanzhong Plain to elucidate the physiological mechanisms behind yield reduction under delayed sowing and to explore potential mitigation strategies. The study examined the effects of sowing time (normal, 10-day delay, and 20-day delay) and plastic film mulching on yield components, crop development, and water and nitrogen uptake and use in winter wheat. Compared to normal sowing, delayed sowing significantly reduced grain yield (7.64–17.19%), spike number (11.65–21.3%), 1000-grain weight (5.2–9.05%), growth duration (7–16 d), dry matter accumulation (21.79–58.07%), and partial factor productivity of nitrogen fertilizer (7.64–17.2%). Late sowing slowed overall growth and development, shortened the growth cycle, and suppressed root system expansion and plant height, particularly under the 20-day delay. However, plastic film mulching under delayed sowing improved seedling emergence, root growth, tiller number (8.42–51.23%), water use efficiency (10.15–18.15%), and nitrogen productivity, thereby mitigating the adverse effects of delayed sowing on resource capture. Mulching enabled wheat sown with a 10-day delay to achieve yields comparable to normal-sown crops and alleviated 9.1–10.3% of the yield loss under a 20-day delay, although it did not fully restore yields to the non-delayed level. These findings provide practical insights for managing winter wheat under delayed sowing conditions. Full article

Kazakhstan’s 2025 Water Code aims to institutionalize Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), but its success is threatened by a persistent “implementation gap” between policy requirements and the workforce’s practical competencies. This study provides empirical evidence of a persistent misalignment between water-related higher education and emerging governance demands in Kazakhstan by conceptualizing the implementation gap as a human-capital deficit. We conducted a repeated two-wave survey of students enrolled in “Water Resources” programs (n₁ = 39, n₂ = 82) to empirically diagnose this gap and examine changes in educational preferences over time. The findings reveal an overwhelming demand for dual education (97.6%), alongside a statistically significant shift (χ²(1) = 33.53, p < 0.001) from theory-oriented learning (56.4% to 4.9%) toward practice-oriented formats (30.8% to 62.2%). Key reported constraints include limited access to modern laboratories (47.6%) and insufficient real-world professional experience (28%). Taken together, these results indicate a structural misalignment between academic training and the competency requirements implied by ongoing water-sector reforms. The study concludes that dual education may function as an institutional mechanism for narrowing the policy-to-competence gap, supporting efforts to operationalize the 2025 Water Code and advance Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 6. Full article

Edge detection is a key building block in real-time image-processing applications such as drone-based infrastructure inspection, autonomous navigation, and remote sensing. However, its computational cost remains a challenge for resource-constrained embedded systems. This work presents a hardware-accelerated edge detection architecture based on a homogeneous 2D-mesh Network-on-Chip (NoC) integrating systolic arrays to efficiently perform the convolution operations required by the Sobel filter. The proposed architecture was first developed and validated as a 3 × 3 mesh prototype on FPGA (Xilinx Zynq-7000, Zynq-7010, XC7Z010-CLG400A, Zybo board, utilizing 26,112 LUTs, 24,851 flip-flops, and 162 DSP blocks), achieving a throughput of 8.8 Gb/s with a power consumption of 0.79 W at 100 MHz. Building upon this validated prototype, a reduced 2 × 2 node cluster with 14-bit word width was subsequently synthesized at the physical level as a proof-of-concept using the OpenLane RTL-to-GDSII open-source flow targeting the SkyWater 130 nm PDK (sky130A). Post-layout analysis confirms the manufacturability of the design, with a total power consumption of 378 mW and compliance with timing constraints, demonstrating the feasibility of mapping the proposed architecture to silicon and its suitability for drone-based infrastructure monitoring applications. Full article