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.

This book covers topics that addresses the global environmental issues, their challenges, and mitigation strategies for sustainable development. Some of the major challenges global environment is facing currently are global warming induced climate change because of which various extreme weather events such as flood, drought, cyclone, forest fires have increased. Industrialization with urbanization and human anthropogenic activities have caused detrimental effect on the environment resulting in environmental pollution (air and water pollution), deforestation, degradation of ecosystems, soil erosion, ground water depletion, drinking water scarcity, biodiversity loss, depletion of fossil fuels, etc. Therefore, it has become utmost necessary to switch to significant lifestyle stages along with conservation of natural resources for a sustainable environment. Sustainable environment may be defined as the practice of responsibly managing natural resources and protect overall ecosystem to support health and well-being of present and future generations. One of the major environment sustainability is the use of renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind, hydroelectric, and biomass which will reduce environmental pollution and also minimize resource misuse. At the same time, crop rotation, solid waste management, water treatment, wastewater treatment are some of the sustainable practices we must carry out for a sustainable environment. Hope, the content of the book gives an overview of recent developments, knowledge gaps related to new research areas related to environment and their future prospects.

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.

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 book explores the concept and issues of sustainability and its symbiotic relationship with existing water resources, the surrounding climate and geospatial development. It covers many dimensions of sustainable water resources, climatic variability, change. It also includes case studies on the basis of specific problems and issues, providing sustainable solutions for the future of the earth.

Over the past several decades, climate change has significantly impacted a number of components of the hydrological cycle and hydrological systems, including changes in precipitation patterns and intensity; widespread melting of snow and ice; increased atmospheric water vapour; increased evaporation; and changes in soil moisture and runoff. Excess runoff eventually reaches larger bodies of water such as lakes, estuaries and the ocean, contaminating the water supply and limiting human and environmental access to water. An improved understanding of how changing anthropogenic activities could affect water resources, and climate in various parts of the world is a necessary step towards sustainability. This awareness requires analyses of challenging interactive areas within the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and sociosphere, as resultant long-term sustainable strategies and measures are greatly needed.

This book presents selected papers from the 2022 7th Asia Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development, which was held in Kyoto, Japan, November 4–6, 2022. The event was co-sponsored by the International Network for Environmental and Humanitarian Cooperation, and technically supported by Yokohama National University and the National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan. The book focuses on environmental restoration and ecological engineering, global environmental change and ecosystems management, environmental dynamics, wastewater and sludge treatment, air pollution and control, and environmental sustainability. The volume is a valuable resource for those in both academia and industry.

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.