Earth and Environmental Science (R0)

This book highlights the multi-pronged strategy for achieving sustainable rural domestic water supply in India. It deepens the understanding of groundwater (predominant source of water supply) behaviour in response to natural processes in different geological settings, analyses the factors influencing the performance of water supply schemes; identifies the conditions under which groundwater-based drinking water sources become sustainable, suggests measures for improving the sustainability of drinking water wells in hard rock regions (covering 2/3rd of India’s geographical area), presents a decision-making framework for planning rural water supply schemes in the country for ensuring long-term sustainability, and suggests physical strategies and policy measures for achieving them.

This book highlights the environmental footprints and best practices in sustainable agriculture. This first volume includes forty-four interesting chapters that present agriculture in the light of food security, circular economy, sustainability, food exports and imports written by leading experts in the field. It provides and interesting read for researchers, policy makers and professionals in the area of agriculture and economy.

This first of this set of books presents the various sustainable approaches in terms of circular economy and micro plastic pollution pertaining to the textiles and fashion supply chain. Sustainability is one of the important aspects in today’s industrial context, which is followed by every industrial sector with no exception to textiles and fashion. Sustainability and strict adherence to the principles of sustainability has become  one of the essential needs in industry. There are countless measures in terms of various approaches to make the textiles and fashion sector sustainable. These measures, but not limited to, range from innovating and implementing new fibres and raw materials, introducing innovative manufacturing methods, chemicals, processes to focus on all the possible stages of a textile product’s life cycle from cradle to grave. These approaches include making the textiles and fashion sector circular and also development of new products from sustainable raw materials/processes or combination of both.

This book highlights the environmental footprints and best practices in sustainable agriculture. This second volume includes fifteen interesting chapters that present agriculture in the light of forest conservation, circular economy, climate change, sustainability, food security during pandemics and soil conservation, written by leading experts in the field. It provides and interesting read for researchers, policy makers and professionals in the area of agriculture and economy.

This open access book is based on the research outputs of China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) in 2021. It covers major topics of Chinese and international attention regarding green development, such as climate, biodiversity, ocean, BRI, urbanization, sustainable production and consumption, technology, finance, value chain, and related topics. It also reviews the progress of China‘s environmental and development policies and the impacts from CCICED. This is a highly informative and carefully presented book, providing insight for policy makers in environmental issues.

Textiles and Clothing are key sectors and apparel is one of the necessities of human life. Environmental brunt of the textile sector and cradle to grave life cycle impacts of textiles and clothing products are a subject of constant investigation. There have been a lot of advancements in the textile sector in terms of materials such as textile fibres, yarns, fabrics, garments and also in terms of processes. All these innovations demand an environmental profile as well. Life Cycle Assessment is one of the widely used and popular scientific tools which has been utilized to measure the environmental footprints of various products and processes. This volume presents recent advances on LCA in the textiles and clothing sector.

Fashion, and the growth of fashion, are presented as the manifestation of a process of civilization, within a capitalist culture (capital understood as material possessions) that has become global and imperialist, of which - in an economic sense - the industry (or the fashion system?) functions as one of its main instruments of exploitation. And with respect to design, Arturo Escobar said:

"Can design detach itself from its roots in modernist practices of unsustainability and defuturization and reorient itself towards other commitments, practices, narratives and ontological enactions? Moreover, can design be part of the toolkit for the transition to the pluriverze (i.e. a world in which many worlds can fit)?"

This 2-volume book highlights cutting-edge ecodesign research and covers broad areas ranging from individual product and service design to social system design. It includes business and policy design, circular production, life cycle design and management, digitalization for sustainable manufacturing, user behavior and health, ecodesign of social infrastructure, sustainability education, sustainability indicators, and energy system design. Featuring selected papers presented at EcoDesign 2021: 12th International Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing, it also includes diverse, interdisciplinary approaches to foster ecodesign research and activities.  In the context of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), it addresses design innovations for sustainable value creation, considering technological developments, legislation, and consumer lifestyles. Further, the book discusses the conceptof circular economy, which aims to develop circular business models for resource efficient society by taking advantage of digital technologies including artificial intelligence, internet of things, digital twin, data analysis and simulation.

Written by experts from academia and industry, Volume 1 highlights sustainable design such as product and process design, collaborative design, sustainable innovation, digital technologies, design methodology for sustainability, and energy system design. The methods, tools, and practices described are useful for readers to facilitate value creation for sustainability.

This book shares with an international audience of teachers, scholars, and policymakers the experience of pedagogical practices to facilitate sustainability in the world. Sustainability is seen here as a journey toward the end state of sustainable development. Therefore, the authors contribute different roads to engage teachers and students with pedagogical discourse. Overall, the book demonstrates the value of powerful knowledge through action-oriented learning based on a bottom-up process. Consequently, pedagogical practices are understood as the instructional approaches based on a social constructivist model in which active learning is performed with student-to-student engagement.

The contributing authors are experienced scientists in the field of geography education who are giving special attention to pedagogical practices that promote new directions toward sustainable thinking.

This book is the first outcome of an international collaboration officially established in 2023 between the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Texas State University and the Department of Geography at the University of Bayreuth.

This 2-volume book highlights cutting-edge ecodesign research and covers broad areas ranging from individual product and service design to social system design. It includes business and policy design, circular production, life cycle design and management, digitalization for sustainable manufacturing, user behavior and health, ecodesign of social infrastructure, sustainability education, sustainability indicators, and energy system design. Featuring selected papers presented at EcoDesign 2021: 12th International Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing, it also includes diverse, interdisciplinary approaches to foster ecodesign research and activities.  In the context of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), it addresses design innovations for sustainable value creation, considering technological developments, legislation, and consumer lifestyles. Further, the book discusses the conceptof circular economy, which aims to develop circular business models for resource efficient society by taking advantage of digital technologies including artificial intelligence, internet of things, digital twin, data analysis and simulation.

Written by experts from academia and industry, Volume 2 focuses on the sustainability assessment of product lifecycle, waste management, material circularity and energy efficiency, food and agriculture, user behavior and health, and transportation. The methods, tools, and practices described are useful for readers to facilitate value creation for sustainability.

Management geography explores the spatial characteristics of management-related issues, especially of firms. This book discusses management geography in Japan and other Asian countries from Asian perspectives. The field has made significant contributions to the global economy but has not been deeply investigated in English-language geographical literature to date. The book addresses the following critical questions:

• What kinds of challenges do multinational corporations in Japan and other Asian countries face?
• How are managerial actors in multinational enterprises (MNEs) embracing boundary-spanning activities in a global context?
• How do firms and related entities cultivate business pipelines and ‘buzz’ within and beyond local regions?
• How do actors in Japanese MNEs, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and related institutions embed various managerial processes at overseas locations?

This book consists of two parts:Part I discusses the application and roles of Japanese and international managerial practices in the globalizing world. Part II examines changing business communities in the industrial and rural spaces of East Asia, focusing primarily on Japan and China. This work will interest readers in a wide range of fields, including geography, management studies, economics, urban planning and sociology. The book is also suitable for upper-level undergraduate students and graduate students in geography, management studies and related fields.