Research Advances in Environment, Geography and Earth Science Vol. 7

During the warm period of El Niño in the spring and fall of 1998, the average water temperatures were very close, between 21.1 and 20.9°C (± 0.2°C); However, in the summer of 1998 the average was higher (24.3°C), in contrast, during the cold period of La Niña in the winter season of 1999 an average of 13.4°C was recorded. The composition of fish fauna of San Ignacio Lagoon comprised 44 species. Eight species were present during all seasons: Eucinostomus dowii, Hippocampus ingens, Pleuronichthys guttulatus, Paralabrax maculatofasciatus, Paralichthys californicus, Sphoeroides annulatus, Sphoeroides lispus and Urobatis halleri. The species with the highest abundance during El Niño were: Paralabrax maculatofasciatus, Eucinostomus dowii; whereas during La Niña they were: Sphoeroides lispus, Paralabrax auroguttatus and Sphoeroides annulatus. In relation to zoogeography affinity in fishes, the provinces and regions were: the Panamic (37%), Californian (32%), Eastern Pacific (18%), Mexican (11%), and the Cortez province (2%). The fish species of tropical affinity found during the El Niño event in 1997-1998 were: Hoplopagrus guntheri, Eucinostomus gracilis, Exerpes asper, Achirus mazatlanus, Rhencus panamensis, Cyclopsetta panamensis, Bairdiella icistia, Microlepidotus inornatus, Orthopristis reddingi, Sphoeroides lispus, and Urobatis maculatus.

The cold chain is vital for reducing food waste and ensuring food safety. The installation, monitoring and maintenance of cold chain equipment would play a vital role in ensuring healthy food quality and reducing losses and pollution. The objective of this work was to evaluate the current status of commercial cold chain equipment primarily, and secondarily to determine elements associated with the management of cold chain equipment.

To achieve this, a cross-sectional descriptive study began on August 7 to September 23, 2023, covering 84 commercial establishments including supermarkets, delicatessens and butchers, food, and butchers in the city of Lubumbashi. The data were collected by interview and direct cross-sectional observation on the evaluation of the conservation of frozen products (fish, meat, and cold meats) on the market in the city of Lubumbashi. To assess the quality of all included studies, two analysts independently assessed the quality of the included data by checking the completeness of the inclusion criteria.

The results show us that the structures using cold chains are food stores, butchers, delicatessens, and supermarkets and sometimes in a certain combination. All these structures mainly use freezing and sometimes refrigeration to maintain the cold chain. Equipment such as cold chain freezers, quick freezers, refrigerated cabinets and refrigerators and insulated boxes are all the equipment used for this purpose, powered by the supply of electric current throughout and often using generators and rarely solar panels in the event of an outage of electric current. Thus, these structures operate in an environment rich in temperature fluctuations leading to rapid deterioration of food, waste, responsible for 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions GHG, the equivalent of the contribution of the entire African continent to climate change. Reducing food waste requires the commitment of all countries in the world to combat food waste, must take measures in terms of laws, systems and policies in order to develop an appropriate strategy for reducing food loss and waste is one of the important issues related to sustainable development.

This work demonstrated the importance of the quality of cold chain equipment on food quality and its impact on the carbon footprint, a situation observable from the production, transport, storage, and elimination of food. The use of solar energy would be a solution in this process because it produces less greenhouse gases.

As the world faces serious deforestation triggered by agricultural land expansion, increasing attention is being paid to the use of certification schemes, which are designed to simultaneously promote ecologically sustainable agriculture and improve livelihood. Among such certification schemes, the Rainforest Alliance is known as one of the most widely used environmental certification programs throughout the world. Previous studies have compared the ecological impacts of certified and non-certified farmlands or evaluated the socio-economic outcomes of certification. However, few studies have assessed the long-term impacts of the certification scheme. This paper attempts to analyze the long-term outcomes of the Rainforest Alliance certification program through a case study of coffee farming practices in southwestern Ethiopia.

Along with field observations and secondary data gathering, we performed in-depth qualitative interviews with key informants who were participating in the certification program. The findings showed that the Rainforest Alliance program's conditions were not consistently followed and that some sections of the certified coffee forests had experienced deforestation or ecological degradation. The presence of members who did not take part in the certification program, government policies encouraging intensive coffee production, a lack of conservation incentives, loopholes in the auditing process, and the rapid population growth that required more land for agriculture and settlement are some of the potential causes.

In order to ensure the successful use of certification programs, we recommend monitoring population growth rates and providing alternative livelihood opportunities, promoting collaboration between environmental and agricultural government authorities, conducting a more stringent on-site inspection at a landscape level, and providing more economic incentives for environmental conservation to all farmers living in or near the certified areas.

Aims: Comparison of results obtained by Köppen, Feddema and clothing thermal resistance–operative temperature (r_cl–T_o) models in the Carpathian region for the period 1971–2000.

Study Design: Description of methods and comparison of their results.

Place and Duration of Study: Carpathian region, period of 1971–2000.

Methodology: Comparative analysis of results obtained by Köppen, Feddema and clothing thermal resistance–operative temperature models.

Results: When the Köppen climate type is C (warm temperate), the r_cl values are mostly below 1 clo (possible thermal sensation types: "neutral" and "cool"). When Köppen’s climate type is D (boreal), the r_cl values are mostly above 1 clo (possible thermal sensation types: "cool", "cold", "very cold"). When the Feddema climate types are "cool, dry" and "cool, moist", the r_cl values are mostly below 1 clo. When the Feddema climate types are "cold, dry", "cold, moist", "cold, wet" and "cold, saturated", the r_cl values are mostly above 1 clo.

Conclusion: The spatial distribution of climate types of a region can also be characterized in terms of human thermal load.

Climate change is a universal phenomenon, no country is spared, from the richest to the poorest. Irrigation schemes in the Nariarlé sub-watershed, Nakanbé basin in Burkina Faso are exposed to climate risks. These risks are accentuated by the combination of several natural, biophysical, and anthropogenic factors. The objective of this study is to assess the climatic risks of developments in Burkina Faso. The absence of a previous study of the risk assessment of the basin highlights the originality of this article. Documentary research and satellite image processing were used as a methodology. This methodology is supported by field surveys of 160 farmers, questionnaires, and interview guides. Three (03) variables are used to analyze the practices and techniques of adaptation to climate risks of irrigation developments in the Nariarlé watershed (Prevention or anticipation, reduction or resilience, monitoring, and evaluation). The climate analysis shows a change in minimum and maximum temperatures and a persistence of deficit years. The climate risks identified are risks of vulnerability to climatic hazards (water stress, soil erodibility, flooding of irrigated areas, heat waves), risks of exposure (demographic pressure, increase in the level of CO₂ content of developments, economic deficit). Climate risk assessment is a tool for decision-making, guidance, practices, and effective adaptation techniques. It is also necessary to strengthen the availability and management of water resources through better monitoring of hydraulic infrastructure, rehabilitation, and integration of groundwater pumping systems using solar panels.

This chapter discussed the recent development of red mud-based geopolymer and its innovative application. These researches included the seepage penetration processes and the physical mechanism of red mud filtrate with heavy metal pollutants, the creation of an advanced cementitious material from solid waste red mud through alkali-thermal activation, the corrosion resistance and frost resistance of the red mud-based material, and the solidification effect on toxic heavy metals. An idea of granular thermodynamics was extended to describe the physico-mechanical characteristics of geotechnical materials like red mud-based geopolymer. This development addresses the utilization efficiency of red mud waste, the environmental pollution and controlling technology, and the purification technology of contaminated soils.

This study presented the efficacy of knowledge-based resource-recovery management to transform municipal waste into a valuable soil conditioner. Guam is a small, isolated tropical island in the western Pacific with a population of over 160,000 people. Although population growth and life style have been shown to have strong effects on the character and generation of waste, very little is known about consumption patterns and behavior of the people of Guam in this regard. Currently landfilling is the only discard method available to the island. Rapid increases in the volume and variety of solid and hazardous waste as a result of continuous economic growth, urbanization, and industrialization are a burgeoning problem for national and local governments, which must ensure effective and sustainable management of waste. Placement of huge volumes of organic waste material in landfills not only causes environmental problems for the island but in fact constitutes loss of valuable resources that could be composted and made available for land application as a soil amendment in forest lands, farm fields, and home gardens. Composting on the other hand reduces both the volume and the mass of the raw material while transforming it into a valuable soil conditioner. Here we present some of the results of survey questionnaires that was developed and conducted over the past two years that is anticipated to help waste operating managers and decision makers to determine societal consumption behavior and residential life style as the first step toward development of an effective waste-management strategy for the island of Guam. In this regards, we also presented an example of a large scale composting method developed in Isfahan, Iran, for recycling of organic wastes of municipal origin. Different zero-waste management strategies and techniques have been developed and adopted in different countries [1], but the strategy used in the city of Isfahan, Iran, which includes large-scale mechanical composting as a major component is of particular interest to Guam and the neighboring islands in the Micronesian region.

Measurements of heavy metal content in sediments in the Makassar Strait were carried out together with the Baruna Jaya VIII expedition in Indonesian waters in the study of marine biodiversity in August-September 1999, October 2003 and September-October 2004. Heavy metals measured were Pb, Cd, Cu, Zn, Cr and Ni. Sediment samples were taken using gravity piston cores at 12 research stations. Measurement of heavy metal levels was carried out using the Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the level of pollution and heavy metal contamination in sediments in the Makassar Strait. The results showed that the six heavy metals were still in accordance with the threshold value of the importance of marine biota. Based on the value of the contamination factor (CF), geoaccumulation index (I_geo) and pollution load index (PLI), the sediment in these waters is included in the category of not polluted and is still safe for marine biota (CF<0, I_geo<0 and PLI<1). The results of this study show that the parairan of the Makassar Strait is very good for habitat sustainability and diversity of marine life.

The water resources of a country constitute one of its vital assets that significantly contribute to socio-economic development and poverty eradication. Surface and groundwater resources play a major role in domestic water supply, watering livestock, industrial operations, hydropower generation, agriculture, marine transport, fisheries, waste discharge, tourism, and environmental conservation. However, this resource is unevenly distributed in both time and space. The major source of water for these resources is direct rainfall, which has recently experienced variability that threatens the distribution of resources and water availability in Uganda. The annual rainfall received in Uganda varies from 500 mm to 2800 mm, with an average of 1180 mm received in two main seasons. The spatial distribution of rainfall has resulted in a network of great rivers and lakes that possess big potential for development. These resources are being developed and depleted at a fast rate, a situation that requires assessment to establish the present status of water resources in the country. The paper reviews the characteristics, availability, demand and importance of present-day water resources in Uganda as well as describe the various issues, challenges and management of water resources in the country. Evidence shows that in 2020, 83 percent of Ugandan households accessed either piped water or improved groundwater, compared to 61 percent in 2000. And the average water consumption per household per day also increased to 31.0 litres from 30.9 recorded in 2021.The major source of water for the country is the springs and wells. The new national strategy of bulk water supply is to meet rural settings demands including demands of water for livestock.