Water Management Priorities in a Post-COVID World

This paper maintains that the growing crisis of water scarcity cannot be addressed from within the paradigm that created the problem. The extractive paradigm which prevails views high economic growth as the main goal of development to be achieved through the increasing extraction of natural resources. Approaches to water management that are based on this paradigm view water as a resource primarily meant for human consumption. In contrast, the paper proposes an ecosystem paradigm in which water is viewed as being embedded within the ecosystem as an essential part of it to be conserved and preserved for future generations. The author identifies five areas of action for water management in the post-COVID context: move away from water-intensive agriculture through crop diversification;sustainable and community-based groundwater management;protection of river systems and wetlands;ensuring water quality and drinking water security and the creation of strong legal frameworks for water governance. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

Is irrigation fit for purpose? A review of the relationships between scheme size and performance of irrigation systems

Irrigation is increasingly being called upon to help stabilize and grow food and water security in the face of multiple crises;these crises include climate change, but also recent global food and energy price crises, including the 2007/08 food and energy price crises, and the more recent crises triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war on Ukraine. While irrigation development used to focus on public, large-scale, surface- and reservoir-fed systems, over the last several decades, private small-scale investments in groundwater irrigation have grown in importance and are expected to see rapid future growth, particularly in connection with solar-powered pumping systems. But is irrigation 'fit-for-purpose' to support population growth, economic development, and multiple food, energy and climate crises? This paper reviews how fit-for-purpose irrigation is with a focus on economies of scale of surface and groundwater systems, and a particular examination of systems in Sub-Saharan Africa where the need for expansion is largest. The review finds challenges for both larger surface and smaller groundwater systems in the face of growing demand for irrigated agriculture and dwindling and less reliable water supplies. To support resilience of the sector, we propose both a holistic design and management improvement agenda for larger surface systems, and a series of suggestions to improve sustainability concerns of groundwater systems.

Principles for Water Governance in a Post-COVID World: Water Sector Needs to Be Embedded in Environmental Justice

This paper argues that the crisis in humanity's relationship with water reflected in rapidly escalating demand and dangerously depleting freshwater and groundwater reserves, can be understood as the outcome of the anthropocentric assumptions underlying our current development models. These assumptions have given rise to both the challenge of severe water scarcity as well as to the kind of policies used to address it. Drawing on principles from an environmental justice framework, it calls for a drastic restructuring of the water sector on more equitable, sustainable and democratic lines. Some of the guiding principles for water governance that are suggested include ensuring that interventions in nature or river systems are along the contours of nature, focusing on managing the demand for water as against the present emphasis on supply augmentation, recognition of structural and historical inequities which determine access to water, adoption of an approach to water management that is adaptive to rapidly changing circumstances and promotion of the participation of all stakeholders in governance and knowledge production. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

An LLMS Remotely Controlled Experiment for Smart Hydro Energy Storage and Irrigation System Powered by Photo-Voltaic Array and IoT

Many students all over the world have faced some educational issues due to the Covid-19 epidemic. As a consequence, many educational institutes focused on shifting to an E-learning system. This paper introduces a design and implementation steps of a remotely controlled experiment representing a smart hydro energy storage and irrigation system with monitoring capability using photovoltaic power and the Internet of Things (IoT). The experiment is running within the newly proposed Laboratory Learning Management System (LLMS). The remotely controlled experiment is a smart hydro energy storage and irrigation system, where the stored water during the daytime is used at night for smart irrigation of three different types of plants based on the moisture and temperature, in addition to the amount of water that the user sets for every area. In this experiment, during the daytime, the utilities are feeding from the solar panel and battery, but at night, the utilities are feeding from the battery or the hydro turbine that converts the water potential energy to electric energy. The overall Experiment is controlled using IoT sensors and relays which are connected and driven by the parameters that the user sets and can be communicated with the system using the Internet which allows the system to be proactive and take the needed decision in the right time. The main contribution of this system's experiment is the pumping of underground water in irrigation using a renewable and clean energy source, in addition to controlling the systems using IoT through the proposed LLMS. © 2022 IEEE.

Challenges in the construction of a tunnel under crossing a channel in Singapore

To increase the conveyance capacity to Western Singapore and to meet long-term water needs in a more cost-effective manner, four new transmission pipelines consisting of 2 numbers of 2200 mm diameter and 2 numbers of 1200mm diameter water pipes will be needed by 2024 to convey water from a Water Reclamation Plant to existing networks in the western region of Singapore. Out of the several possible routes studied, the most cost-effective and technically feasible route was selected by laying the proposed 1.6km-long pipelines that under crosses a channel via a 6m diameter subsea tunnel. This paper outlines the challenges the team faced throughout the project thus far. It also examines the difficulties such as the construction of a 56m-deep launching shaft near a highly sensitive 700mm diameter Gas Transmission Pipeline (GTP) and at a location with high groundwater;and manpower and supply disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic situation. © 2023 The Author(s).

Preface

The title of the ConferenceXXII Conference of PhD Students and Young Scientists "Interdisciplinary topics in mining and geology”The location and the date of the conferencevirtual event – online conference, June 29th to July 1st, 2022 in Wrocław, PolandXXIInd Conference of PhD Students and Young Scientists "Interdisciplinary topics in mining and geology” continues a series of events that started in 2000 at Wrocław University of Science and Technology. Scientific programme of the Conference focuses on four thematic panels:1. Mining Engineering: sustainable development, digitalisation in mining, problems of securing, protecting and using remnants of old mining works, underground mining, opencast mining, mineral processing, waste management, mining machinery, mine transport, economics in mining, mining aeronautics, ventilation and air conditioning in mines,2. Earth and Space Sciences: geology, hydrogeology, environmental protection, extraterrestrial resources, groundwater and medicinal waters, engineering and environmental protection, geotourism,3. Geoengineering: environmental protection, applied geotechnics, rock and soil mechanics, geohazards,4. Geoinformation: mining geodesy, GIS, photogrammetry and remote sensing, geodata modeling and analysis.The XXII Conference of PhD Students and Young Scientists was held as a virtual event, that is as a virtual, online conference in real-time. The reason why the Organizing Committee decided to change the traditional formula of the event to online formula was related to the concern for the health of the participants due to the COVID-19 epidemic.The XXII Conference of PhD Students and Young Scientists took place from June 29th to July 1st, 2022 in Wroclaw, Poland. That is the organizers worked and managed the event from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology Geocentre building. Because the conference focused on four thematic panels, four different special opening lectures were delivered by wellknown scientists- Professor Jan Zalasiewicz (University of Leicester, England)- Associate Professor Artur Krawczyk (AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland)- Professor Biljana Kovacević-Zelić (University of Zagreb, Croatia)- Assistant Professor Eduard Kan (Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanizations Engineers, Uzbekistan).The Conference was divided into 8 oral sessions (with 33 presentations) and 1 poster session (with 33 posters). The amount of time provided to one presentation was 15 minutes, after presentation there was 5 minutes available for discussion. The poster session was available throughout the event, and the posters were available for online viewing on the Conference's website with the possibility of make discussion and ask questions in real time via zoom meeting application as well. Every day of the Conference one "virtual coffee break” was devoted for discussion between participants and question and answer session for the Organizers.There were 96 registered participants from 13 countries. The online XXII Conference of PhD Students and Young Scientists was conducted using the Zoom meeting platform with commemorative screen shots taken. By tradition two competitions, for the best oral presentation and for the best poster were held. The award for the best oral presentation was given ex aequo to Julia Tiganj (TH Georg Agricola University of Applied Sciences, Germany) for the presentation entitled Post-mining goes international: hurdles to climate neutrality using the example of China and Oksana Khomiak, Jörg Benndorf (TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany) for the presentation entitled Spectral analysis of ore hyperspectral images at different stages of the mining value chain, whereas the best poster was awarded to Adam Wróblewski, Jacek Wodecki, Paweł Trybała, Radosław Zimroz (Wrocław University of Science and technology, Poland) for the poster entitled Large underground structures geometry evaluation based on point cloud data analysis.List of Scientific Committee, Organizing Committee, Editorial Team are available i this pdf.

Analysis of sunscreens and antibiotics in groundwater during the Covid-19 pandemic in the Riviera Maya, Mexico.

Tourism contributes to groundwater pollution, but quantifying its exact impact is challenging due to the presence of multiple pollution sources. However, the COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique opportunity to conduct a natural experiment and assess the influence of tourism on groundwater pollution. One such tourist destination is the Riviera Maya in Quintana Roo, Mexico (specifically Cancun). Here, water contamination occurs due to the addition of sunscreen and antibiotics during aquatic activities like swimming, as well as from sewage. In this study, water samples were collected during the pandemic and when tourists returned to the region. Samples were taken from sinkholes (cenotes), beaches, and wells then tested using liquid chromatography for antibiotics and active ingredients found in sunscreens. The data revealed that contamination levels from specific sunscreens and antibiotics persisted even when tourists were absent, indicating that local residents significantly contribute to groundwater pollution. However, upon the return of tourists, the diversity of sunscreen and antibiotics found increased, suggesting that tourists bring along various compounds from their home regions. During the initial stages of the pandemic, antibiotic concentrations were highest, primarily due to local residents incorrectly using antibiotics to combat COVID-19. Additionally, the research found that tourist sites had the greatest contribution to groundwater pollution, with sunscreen concentration increasing. Furthermore, installation of a wastewater treatment plant decreased overall groundwater pollution. These findings enhance our understanding of the pollution contributed by tourists in relation to other pollution sources.

Probing environmental and tectonic changes underneath Mexico City with the urban seismic field

The sediments underneath Mexico City have unique mechanical properties that give rise to strong site effects. We investigated temporal changes in the seismic velocity at strong-motion and broadband seismic stations throughout Mexico City, including sites with different geologic characteristics ranging from city center locations situated on lacustrine clay to hillside locations on volcanic bedrock. We used autocorrelations of urban seismic noise, enhanced by waveform clustering, to extract subtle seismic velocity changes by coda wave interferometry. We observed and modeled seasonal, co- and post-seismic changes, as well as a long-term linear trend in seismic velocity. Seasonal variations can be explained by self-consistent models of thermoelastic and poroelastic changes in the subsurface shear wave velocity. Overall, sites on lacustrine clay-rich sediments appear to be more sensitive to seasonal surface temperature changes, whereas sites on alluvial and volcaniclastic sediments and on bedrock are sensitive to precipitation. The 2017 Mw 7.1 Puebla and 2020 Mw 7.4 Oaxaca earthquakes both caused a clear drop in seismic velocity, followed by a time-logarithmic recovery that may still be ongoing for the 2017 event at several sites or that may remain incomplete. The slope of the linear trend in seismic velocity is correlated with the downward vertical displacement of the ground measured by interferometric synthetic aperture radar, suggesting a causative relationship and supporting earlier studies on changes in the resonance frequency of sites in the Mexico City basin due to groundwater extraction. Our findings show how sensitively shallow seismic velocity and, in consequence, site effects react to environmental, tectonic and anthropogenic processes. They also demonstrate that urban strong-motion stations provide useful data for coda wave monitoring given sufficiently high-amplitude urban seismic noise.

Managing stormwater in South African neighbourhoods: When engineers and scientists need social science skills to get their jobs done

Stormwater harvesting via managed aquifer recharge in retrofitted infrastructure has been posited as a method for resource augmentation in Cape Town. However, the existing guidelines on stormwater retrofits are technically inclined, occidental, and generally misaligned with the realities and socio-economic contexts of developing nations like South Africa. Water and urban practitioners from developing nations cannot just 'copy and paste' existing guidelines as different socio-economic dimensions and colonial histories typically hinder 'traditional' approaches. This paper assesses how a transdisciplinary team navigated these realities in a case study of a retrofitted pond in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town. A decolonial thinking framework was applied for reflection and thematic content analysis. The framework was used to unpack how the team encountered, addressed, and learned from the challenges during the retrofit process. The research team found that the retrofit process within a context of under-resourced South African communities can be viewed as developmental work with a strong emphasis on continuous community engagement. Thus, it is suggested that in the South African context, water practitioners should consider, at the fore, interaction with local communities, including awareness of racialised histories, to ensure projects are successfully implemented and completed.

Effects of Covid-19 Pandemic on Surface Water Quality: A Case Study in Hong-Thai Binh River, Vietnam

The Covid-19 epidemic that appeared and broke out from the end of 2019 until now has contributed to limiting human production and emissions. As a result, the quality of the global environment tends to be good, including the water environment. The impact of the Covid-19 epidemic on the water environment has been studied by us in the Hong-Thai Binh river of Vietnam. Data at 30 water monitoring points on the Hong-Thai Binh in the period of 2018 - 2021 were used to calculate water pollution indexes including: Comprehensive Polluted Index (CPI), Organic Pollution Index (OPI) and Trace Metal Pollution Index (TPI). The results show that the average values of all three indicators CPI, OPI, TPI on the Hong-Thai Binh river in the period of during the Covid-19 (from 2020 to 2021) were higher than their values before (from 2018 to 2019). This implies that the blockade and social distancing activities implemented during Vietnam's Covid-19 epidemic have disrupted production activities and reduced the amount of waste discharged into the Hong-Thai Binh river. As a result the river water quality has been improved. To protect the water quality of the Hong-Thai Binh river in particular and the quality of the water environment in general, measures to strictly control waste sources and transform the economy from linear to circular are recommended solutions for Vietnamese government in the post-Covid-19.

Sustainability assessment of crops' production in India: empirical evidence from ARDL-ECM approach

PurposeThe study aims to evaluate the long- vs short-run relationships between crops' production (output) and crops' significant inputs such as land use, agricultural water use (AWU) and gross irrigated area in India during the period 1981–2018.Design/methodology/approachThe study applied the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to estimate the co-integration among the variables. The study uses the error correction model (ECM), which integrates the short-run dynamics with the long-run equilibrium.FindingsThe ARDL bounds test of co-integration confirms the strong evidence of the long-run relationship among the variables. Empirical results show the positive and significant relationship of crops' production with land use and gross irrigated area. The statistically significant error correction term (ECT) validates the speed of adjustment of the empirical models in the long-run.Research limitations/implicationsThe study suggests that the decision-makers must understand potential trade-offs between human needs and environmental impacts to ensure food for the growing population in India.Originality/valueFor a clear insight into the impact of climate change on crops' production, the current study incorporates the climate variables such as annual rainfall, maximum temperature and minimum temperature. Further, the study considered agro-chemicals, i.e. fertilizers and pesticides, concerning their negative impacts on increased agricultural production and the environment.

Preface

International Conference on Geospatial Science for Digital Earth Observation (GSDEO 2021)The international conference on "Geospatial Science for Digital Earth Observation” (GSDEO) 2021 was successfully held on a virtual platform of Zoom on March 26th and 27th, 2021. The conference was jointly organized by the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (ISRS), Kolkata chapter, and the Department of Geography, School of Basic and Applied Sciences, Adamas University. Due to the non-predictable behaviour of the COVID-19 second wave, which imposed restrictions on organizing offline events, the GSDEO (2021) organizing committee decided to organize the conference online, instead of postponing the event.Remotely sensed data and geographic information systems have been increasingly used together for a vast range of applications, which include land use/land cover mapping, water resource management, weather forecasting, environmental monitoring, agriculture, disaster management, etc. Currently, intensive research is being carried out using remotely sensed data on the geoinformatics platform. New developments have led to dynamic advances in recent years. The objective of the international conference on Geospatial Science for Digital Earth Observation (GSDEO 2021) was to bring the scientists, academicians, and researchers, in the field of geo-environmental sciences on a common platform to exchange ideas and their recent findings related to the latest advances and applications of geospatial science. The call for papers received an enthusiastic response from the academic community, and over 100+ participants from 50+ colleges, universities, and institutions participated in the conference. In total 50+ research papers had been presented through the virtual Zoom conference platform in GSDEO 2021.The conference witnessed the presentation of research papers from diverse applied fields of geospatial sciences, which include the application of geoinformatics in geomorphology, hydrology, urban science, land use planning, climate, and environmental studies. There were four sessions namely, TS 1: Geomorphology and Hydrology, TS 2: Urban Science, TS 3: Social Sustainability and Land Use Planning, and TS 4: Climate and Environment. Each session was further subdivided, into two parts, namely Technical Session 1-A and 1-B. Each sub-session had been designed with one keynote speech and 5 oral presentations. Oral sessions were organized in two parts and offered through live and pre-recorded components based on the preference of the presenters. The presentation session was followed by a live Q&A session. The session chairs moderated the discussions. Similarly, poster sessions were organized in three parts and offered e-poster, live, and pre-recorded components. The best presenter of each sub-session received the best paper award.Dr. Prithvish Nag, Ex-Director of NATMO & Ex Surveyor General of India delivered the inaugural speech, and Dr. P. Chakrabarti, Former Chief Scientist of the DST&B, Govt. of West Bengal delivered a special lecture after the inaugural session. Eight eminent keynote speakers, Prof. S.P. Agarwal from the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Prof. Ashis Kumar Paul from Vidyasagar University, Prof. Soumya Kanti Ghosh from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Prof. L. N. Satpati from the University of Calcutta, Prof. R.B. Singh from the University of Delhi, Dr. A.K. Raha, IFS (Retd), Prof. Gerald Mills from the University College Dublin and Prof. Sugata Hazra from Jadavpur University enriched the knowledge of participants in the field of geoinformatics by their informative lectures. The presentations and discussions widely covered the various spectrums of geoinformatics and its application in monitoring natural resources like vegetation mapping, agricultural resource monitoring, forest health assessment, water, and ocean resource management, disaster management, land resource management, water and climate studies, drought vulnerability assessment, groundwater quality monitoring, accretion mapping and the use of geospatial sci nce in studying morphological, hydrological, and other biophysical characteristics of a region etc. Application of geoinformatics in predicting urban expansion, urban climate, disaster management, healthcare accessibility, anthropogenic resource monitoring, spatial-interaction mapping, and, sustainable regional planning were well-discussed topics of the conference.List of Committees, photos are available in the pdf.

Preface

Climate change has led to the increase of heat exposure or natural hazard due to extreme weather. This anthropological climate change phenomenon has negatively altered the most fundamental natural resources for living organism: air, water, and soil. Air has been polluted and warming due to human activities. The quantity of freshwater keeps on depleting, while the ground water recharge intervened with chemical and biological contamination. The sustainability of soil as the natural planting media is under threat due to land use conversion and soil quality degradation. Water acidification and temperature increase have been proved to change the salinity of seawater. Those are the impact of the increasing greenhouse gas emission in the earth's atmosphere.The 8th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC) aims to accommodate and to discuss the regional findings related the adaptation and mitigation strategies on climate change worldwide. The meaning to hold ICCC is getting more and more important. This conference can alert the creeping disaster. The contribution of all the participants, distinguished guests to this conference would make our world better and progress our scientific knowledge. Sharing the insight into the recent research and the cutting-edge technologies should enhance our ability and it might give us the breakthrough ideas on our sustainability under climate change. ICCC would be fruitful for every participant and be a great chance to approach the scientific solution for our common goals.Faculty of Agriculture of Sebelas Maret University, Surakarta, Indonesia is very proud to organize the 8th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC). International Conference on Climate Change has been playing a significant contribution to formulate the strategies to cope with the emerged problems due to the climate change, as well as to support the sustainable development goal achievement. Sebelas Maret University has been seriously taking part to minimize the climate change impact, by promoting environment-friend programs, such as the green campus program and prohibiting the motor-vehicle to enter the campus every month. Sebelas Maret University also realizes that the responsibility of maintaining this earth should be by everyone. Each of us plays a significant contribution to minimize the global warming of this earth. That is why Faculty of Agriculture of Sebelas Maret University organize such events to discuss the findings related the earth-protection.We hope this conference will resulting into valuable recommendations in focusing and improving the natural resources management as well as improving the human's living efficiency to bring the greenhouse gas emission down. We need to produce alternative technologies as the climatic resilience strategies to overcome the key climate-change sensitive pathways, as well as to support the achievements some global goals in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Accordingly, the topic of the 8th ICCC is "Environmental Management towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under the Changing Climate”.The 8th ICCC was organized by Faculty of Agriculture, Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia, in collaboration with Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand and The United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Gifu University, Japan. The 8th ICCC was held at The Asian Institute of Technology Conference Center, Thailand from 17-18 November 2022. The 8th ICCC was conducted in the Hybrid method because travel restrictions are still enforced by some countries to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Besides, providing options for attending the 8th ICCC virtually is more comfortable for participants and presenters with limitedness of budgets.The 8th ICCC 2022 delivers great appreciation to Prof. Dr. Samanhudi, Dean of Faculty of Agriculture, Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia;Professor Dr. Shobhakar Dhakal, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand;and Prof. Dr. Ken Hiramatsu, Dean of United Graduate School of Agricultural Science, ifu University, Japan;for formal support to the conference.Gratitude presented to the invited speakers: Prof. Dr. Avishek Datta from Head of Department of Food, Agriculture, and Bioresources, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand;Prof. Dr. Eric van Hullenbusch from Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, France;Dr. Taku M. Saitoh from Gifu University, Japan;Dr. Jauhari Syamsiyah from Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia;and Dr. James MacGregor from Eco-Plannet, Canada.List of Committee of the 8th ICCC 202 is available in this Pdf.

Groundwater Contamination Monitoring for Pollution Measurement and Transmission Applying WQI Approaches from a Region of the Erode District, Tamilnadu, India

The present research deals with the Risk assessment of groundwater quality. 79 groundwater samples were collected from domestic and agricultural usage open and bore wells during January 2021(COVID-19 Pandemic Period). Groundwater samples were tested to determine the physicochemical parameters using standard testing procedure for the preparation of spatial distribution maps of each parameter based on the World Health Organization (WHO) standard. Multivariate statistical analysis has shown the source of groundwater pollution from secondary leaching of chemical weathering of rocks. From the Water Quality Index and bivariate plot reveals that less than 20% of the area comes under high and very high-risk zone. The types of hardness diagram showed 32.91% of the samples fall in hard brackish water as illustrated by the Piper trilinear diagram. The research outcome result shows that the least percentage of industrials effluents due to the COVID-19 pandemic, not working for all industries during lock down period.

Relationship between Lightning, Lightning Fire and Human Activities

Lightning is the main source of natural fire, and lightning fire and other types of forest fires together constitute the global forest fire system. It is generally believed that lightning fire, as a natural fire source, has nothing to do with human beings and is different from man-made fire sources, but in fact, human activities have inextricable links with the occurrence of lightning fire. Since 2019, due to the severe impact of COVID-19 lockdowns, non-essential activities and mobility have decreased, which has led to a significant decrease in pollutant concentrations and lightning. In this paper, we linked the lightning fire with modernization process of human beings, the expansion of habitation, the change of underlying surface, the development of prediction technology and firefighting technology, and the laws and regulations of the country, to explore the impact of human activities on the occurrences of lightning and the forest lightning fire. Lightning is the fire source of the three elements in lightning fire occurrence, the lightning that can cause lightning fire is mainly cloud-to-ground lightning. The human activities in recent decades have profoundly affected the content of aerosols in environment. Aerosols are the main factors affecting lightning, and the large amount of pollution aerosols emitted from urban areas, soot aerosols emitted from biomass combustion and urban heat island effect have all increased the probability of lightning occurrence. The average annual ground lightning density of different land cover types is obviously different, and the construction land has the highest average annual ground lightning density. Intense lightning in forest areas has a higher density and slope. Most of the forests are located in high altitude areas, which is consistent with previous studies showing high lightning frequency in high altitude areas. The lightning in forests is intenser, steeper and more destructive, so forest areas are prone to lightning strikes. Lightning has the characteristic of selective discharge, that is, it will discharge into some special areas, which are also known as lightning selection areas, such as the place groundwater is exposed to the ground, where different conductive soils are connected, and where there are underground metal mines, such as copper and iron mines, and underground lake and water reservoir areas. Lightning strikes are caused by changes in soil conductivity caused by human activities such as mining waste rock sites, reservoir construction on mountain tops, and power transmission lines in mountainous areas. At the same time, due to the abundant trees in the mountainous area, it is also important to avoid the resulting lightning fire. With the development of lightning monitoring technology, a lightning location monitoring system has been established in some areas of China. Especially in 2021, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration launched the "Enlisting and Leading" emergency science and technology project of forest lightning fire prevention and control, and the project team has constructed a lightning fire sensing system in the Daxing'anling region with three-dimensional lightning full-wave detection network as the main body, covering the forest area of the Daxing'anling forest region, which can accurately locate the location of cloud-to-ground lightning in real time, improve the monitoring and warning ability of lightning fires, and improve the efficiency of lightning fire discovery. National laws and regulations indirectly affect lightning fires by affecting forest cover and climate change. This paper is expected to provide reference for the occurrence, prevention and control of forest lightning fire in the future, and provide a basis for the formulation of corresponding policies.

Methane emissions are predominantly responsible for record-breaking atmospheric methane growth rates in 2020 and 2021

The global atmospheric methane growth rates reported by NOAA for 2020 and 2021 are the largest since systematic measurements began in 1983. To explore the underlying reasons for these anomalous growth rates, we use newly available methane data from the Japanese Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) to estimate methane surface emissions. Relative to baseline values in 2019, we find that a significant global increase in methane emissions of 27.0 ± 11.3 and 20.8 ± 11.4 Tg is needed to reproduce observed atmospheric methane in 2020 and 2021, respectively, assuming fixed climatological values for OH. We see the largest annual increases in methane emissions during 2020 over Eastern Africa (14 ± 3 Tg), tropical Asia (3 ± 4 Tg), tropical South America (5 ± 4 Tg), and temperate Eurasia (3 ± 3 Tg), and the largest reductions are observed over China (-6 ± 3 Tg) and India (-2 ± 3 Tg). We find comparable emission changes in 2021, relative to 2019, except for tropical and temperate South America where emissions increased by 9 ± 4 and 4 ± 3 Tg, respectively, and for temperate North America where emissions increased by 5 ± 2 Tg. The elevated contributions we saw in 2020 over the western half of Africa (-5 ± 3 Tg) are substantially reduced in 2021, compared to our 2019 baseline. We find statistically significant positive correlations between anomalies of tropical methane emissions and groundwater, consistent with recent studies that have highlighted a growing role for microbial sources over the tropics. Emission reductions over India and China are expected in 2020 due to the Covid-19 lockdown but continued in 2021, which we do not currently understand. To investigate the role of reduced OH concentrations during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 on the elevated atmospheric methane growth in 2020–2021, we extended our inversion state vector to include monthly scaling factors for OH concentrations over six latitude bands. During 2020, we find that tropospheric OH is reduced by 1.4 ± 1.7 % relative to the corresponding 2019 baseline value. The corresponding revised global growth of a posteriori methane emissions in 2020 decreased by 34 % to 17.9 ± 13.2 Tg, relative to the a posteriori value that we inferred using fixed climatological OH values, consistent with sensitivity tests using the OH climatology inversion using reduced values for OH. The counter statement is that 66 % of the global increase in atmospheric methane during 2020 was due to increased emissions, particularly from tropical regions. Regional flux differences between the joint methane–OH inversion and the OH climatology inversion in 2020 are typically much smaller than 10 %. We find that OH is reduced by a much smaller amount during 2021 than in 2020, representing about 10 % of the growth of atmospheric methane in that year. Therefore, we conclude that most of the observed increase in atmospheric methane during 2020 and 2021 is due to increased emissions, with a significant contribution from reduced levels of OH.

Collaborative Learning Supported by a Brownfield Remediation Case Study

Industrial activity of the past has created several contaminated brownfields, which, particularly in remote areas, are difficult to remedy from an economic point of view. In this project, a novel approach for in-situ removal of mineral hydrocarbons from soil was investigated. The underlying concept was to flush contaminated soil with emulsions of plant oil in water, to suck off the contaminant-laden emulsion from the ground water level and to separate oil and water using oil-binding non-wovens. The process development was carried out in a research project, where students from a university of applied sciences and from a technical college were involved. Based on the specific case of brownfield remediation, a collaborative learning experience for the students was created. Environmental protection and safeguarding is a topic of high interest to students, and there was a high motivation to obtain results. Due to the COVID19 pandemic, most collaboration was handled remotely via virtual teams. The chosen brownfield for this case study was a former petroleum refinery site in Lower Austria, were up to 40 g/kg of mineral hydrocarbons were found in the soil in the non-saturated zone. Mineral hydrocarbons show good solubility in plant oils. Emulsions of 5–10% of rapeseed oil in water were prepared and chosen, to have better wettability of the ground materials and lower viscosity. The goal was to develop a process that can extract 80–90% of mineral hydrocarbons in the soil, and which leaves only a minor fraction of the plant oil in the soil. When the trials, which were carried out in the lab and in the field, showed that the permeability of soil is very low, it was decided to develop a prototype for on-site soil washing. The soil of the chosen brownfield is partly made from gravel and sand, where an in-situ flushing process is possible. However, there is also clay, and that material hardly lets water or emulsion penetrate. For the on-site washing process, a laboratory-scale prototype was developed. It was built by the Linzer Technikum (LITEC) and tested with different soils at the university of applied sciences. The prototype could be built by LITEC, with an extraction vessel made of steel and a mixer. Trials were done to determine the degree of extraction of mineral oil and the fraction of plant oil that is not recaptured. 500 g of soil were mixed intensely with 500 g of solvent (water and emulsions). Table 1 presents the results for sand and clay. The process of washing out mineral hydrocarbon contamination from soil was found to show a good potential. The ground material should be sieved to remove coarse material (>10 mm), and the finer fraction can be subjected to the washing of plant oil in water, where the plant oil fraction can be between 5 and 50%, depending on degree of contamination. To reduce the amount of non-recaptured plant oil, a second and third washing cycle with a lower oil fraction, or with pure water, can be applied. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

A Retrospective Analysis of National-Scale Agricultural Development in Saudi Arabia from 1990 to 2021

Agricultural intensification has resulted in the depletion of groundwater resources in many regions of the world. A prime example is Saudi Arabia, which witnessed dramatic agricultural expansion since the 1970s. To explore the influence of policy interventions aimed to better manage water resources, accurate information on the changes in the number and acreage of center-pivot fields is required. To quantify these metrics, we apply a hybrid machine learning framework, consisting of Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise, Convolutional Neural Networks, and Spectral Clustering, to the annual maximum Normalized Differential Vegetation Index maps obtained from Landsat imagery collected between 1990 to 2021. When evaluated against more than 28,000 manually delineated fields, the approach demonstrated producer's accuracies ranging from 83.7% to 94.8% and user's accuracies ranging from 90.2% to 97.9%. The coefficient of determination ((Formula presented.)) between framework-delineated and manually delineated fields was higher than 0.97. Nationally, we found that most fields pre-dated 1990 (covering 8841 km (Formula presented.) in that year) and were primarily located within the central regions covering Hail, Qassim, Riyadh, and Wadi ad-Dawasir. A small decreasing trend in field acreage was observed for the period 1990–2010. However, by 2015, the acreage had increased to approximately 33,000 fields covering 9310 km (Formula presented.). While a maximum extent was achieved in 2016, recent decreases have seen levels return to pre-1990 levels. The gradual decrease between 1990 to 2010 was related to policy initiatives designed to phase-out wheat, while increases between 2010 to 2015 were linked to fodder crop expansion. There is evidence of an agricultural uptick starting in 2021, which is likely in response to global influences such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the conflict in Ukraine. Overall, this work offers the first detailed assessment of long-term agricultural development in Saudi Arabia, and provides important insights related to production metrics such as crop types, crop water consumption, and crop phenology and the overarching impacts of agricultural policy interventions. © 2023 by the authors.

Surface Subsidence Characteristics and Causes in Beijing (China) before and after COVID-19 by Sentinel-1A TS-InSAR

Surface subsidence is a serious threat to human life, buildings and traffic in Beijing. Surface subsidence is closely related to human activities, and human activities in Beijing area showed a decreasing trend during the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). To study surface subsidence in Beijing before and after the COVID-19 outbreak and its causes, a total of 51 Sentinel-1A SAR images covering Beijing from January 2018 to April 2022 were selected to derive subsidence information by Time Series Interferometry Synthetic Aperture Radar (TS-InSAR). The results of surface subsidence in Beijing demonstrate that Changping, Chaoyang, Tongzhou and Daxing Districts exhibited the most serious subsidence phenomenon before the COVID-19 outbreak. The four main subsidence areas form an anti-Beijing Bay that surrounds other important urban areas. The maximum subsidence rate reached −57.0 mm/year. After the COVID-19 outbreak, the main subsidence area was separated into three giant subsidence funnels and several small subsidence funnels. During this period, the maximum subsidence rate was reduced to −43.0 mm/year. Human activity decrease with the COVID-19 outbreak. This study effectively analysed the influence of natural factors on surface subsidence after excluding most of the human factors. The following conclusions are obtained from the analysis: (1) Groundwater level changes, Beijing's geological structure and infrastructure construction are the main reasons for surface subsidence in Beijing. (2) Seasonal changes in rainfall and temperature indirectly affect groundwater level changes, thereby affecting surface subsidence in the area. (3) The COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020 reduced the payload of Beijing's transportation facilities. It also slowed down the progress of various infrastructure construction projects in Beijing. These scenarios affected the pressure on the soft land base in Beijing and reduced the surface subsidence trend to some extent. © 2023 by the authors.

Preface

We are pleased to provide you with the proceedings of 2022 4th International Conference on Resources and Environment Sciences (ICRES 2022).The conference was expected to be held during June 10-12, 2022 in Bangkok, Thailand, while the situation of COVID-19 pandemic is unpredictable and unstable. Most of conference participants could not travel to attend the conference venue to do oral presentations. Taking all conditions into consideration, conference committee decided to change physical conference into virtual conference. It was held online by ZOOM application successfully during the same date.The conference was highlighted by four outstanding Keynote Speakers and two invited speakers. Keynote speakers include Prof. Kaimin Shih, The University of Hong Kong, China with his topic "Metal Stabilization and Resource Recovery Examples in Urban Environment”;Prof. Nur Islami, University of Riau, Indonesia who presented a talk on "An Valuable Approach to Study Groundwater Contamination in a Shallow Aquifer System”;Prof. Danny Sutanto, University of Wollongong, Australia who shared a speech on "Solid-State Transformer for Smart Power Grid Applications”;Assoc. Prof. Phebe Ding, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia who presented a talk about "Role of Postharvest Technology in Producing Quality Fresh Horticultural Produces”. Additionally, two excellent invited speakers, Assoc. Prof. Chunrong Jia from University of Memphis, Tennessee, USA with speech title "Apportioning variability of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the ambient air in the Memphis Tri-State Area, USA”, and Assoc. Prof. Farhad Shahnia from Murdoch University, Australia with speech title "Recent and Future Research on Microgrid Clusters”.Each normal oral presenter had about 12 Minutes of Presentation and 3 Minutes of Question and Answer. Conference was organized in 5 sessions with various topics: Environmental Management, Waste Utilization and Sustainable Development, Wastewater Treatment, Water Analysis and Hydraulic Engineering, Renewable Energy Technology, Chemical Engineering and Fluid Mechanics, Resources and Environmental Science & Sustainable Development, Energy and Chemical Engineering.All accepted papers presented at the ICRES 2022 were included in this volume, which contained three chapters with topics: (1) Environmental Pollution and Control (2) Waste Management and Utilization (3) Clean Energy and Technology. All papers were subjected to peer-review by conference committee members and international reviewers. The papers were selected based on high quality and high relevancy to the conference scope.We would like to express our sincere gratitude to organizing committee and the volunteers who have dedicated their time and efforts in planning, promoting, and helping the conference. We hope that the readers would gain some valuable knowledge from this effort.List of Committees, Statement of Peer Review are available in this Pdf.