Groundwater storage (GWS) – a hidden resource underneath the land surface, plays a critical role in sustaining irrigated agriculture in these river basins, particularly during the dry season when rice crops are generally grown in irrigated lands across South Asia. Although monitoring of groundwater levels has been operational in the region for a number of decades, a basin-wide comprehensive assessment of GWS is lacking in most river basins.
Solar water disinfection catalyzed by metal-free photocatalyst has emerged as a promising approach for clean water production. By using the edge-functionalized graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) as photocatalytic disinfectants, we find that the pathogen-rich water can be rapidly purified in 30 min with a disinfection efficiency of over 99.9999% under visible-light irradiation, which meets the requirement for drinking water.
Brassica carinata (Ethiopian mustard) could be a potential oilseed species for the semiarid tropics but no work has been done to explore the agronomic potential of the crop. Besides that, there is very little chance for horizontal growth of the crop as land is shrinking due to population growth in South-East Asia. Thus, the traditional practice of mixed cropping has gained popularity in recent years in the form of intercropping with a suitable modification in planting pattern.
Using a consumption-based Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) model, we investigate the distinctive characteristics, self-efficiency or external dependency, of energy demand's water footprint in China's two biggest and fastest developing megalopolises. We find that energy demand water footprint in the Jing-Jin-Ji and the Yangtze Delta amounted to 2.41 and 9.59 billion m³of water withdrawal respectively in 2010, of which 848.06 and 973.91 million m³was consumed. Among all energy products, electricity contributed the largest share to the energy sector's water footprint in both regions.
The world food price crisis in 2007/08 has aroused worldwide attention to the global food price volatility and food self-sufficiency issues. This paper modelled the entire environment of food production and transaction from a holistic view by a Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus in order to reveal the hidden connections related to the food self-sufficiency issue, including the interdependencies of food production with its restraining factors (hybrid energy, hybrid water), other production sectors, and international exchanges.
Although the effects of nitrogen (N) fertilization on soil microflora have been well studied, the effects should be verified across soil types and N-added levels. To understand the impacts of N fertilization on shifts in soil biological traits and bacterial communities and to further explore the coupling mediation of these parameters with respect to crop yields, we sampled soils from three experimental sites (each site received three levels of N fertilization (0, 168 and 312 kg N ha−1)) that share the same climatic conditions but have different soil types (clay, alluvial and sandy soils).
