Introduction Biomedical waste is the unwanted materials generated during diagnosis, treatment, operation, immunization and research activities. These wastes are potential source of infections namely  HBV, HCV, HIV, and tetanus. It has been estimated that around 1.45 kg waste is generated per patient per day in Indian hospitals (4.5 kg in developed countries).1 Out of this quantity about 15-20% of this total waste is hazardous,1 while in India the percentage might be much higher of la...

Introduction Energy has an infrastructural role at the industrial economy life of communities. That is, if enough energy is available at the right time, economic development would be possible. On the other hand looking at the previous problems shows that a major competition has existed at the worldwide campaign to seize power. Because the national security and the stability of governing systems largely depend on access to these resources, Iran is among the world's richest countries...

Introduction Decomposition refers to a biological process in which organically bound nutrients released in the form of free ions into the soil solution. Plants take up these nutrients from the soil, use them for metabolic process and return the nutrients through litter fall. Litter decomposition influence the nutrient dynamics of an ecosystem and serve as one of the input of nutrients in the forest ecosystem. It is estimated in a study that about 69-87% of the total annual requirement of esse...

Introduction The performance of cultivars of any crop species has interregional variation under a given set of agro-climatic conditions and was estimated to be reduced by 69% on average when plants are exposed to unfavorable environment.1 Out of various environmental factors effecting the crop production and productivity, available water is the most crucial. Water deficit have negative impact on plant growth and reproduction due to its influence on many cellular and whole plant funct...

Introduction In the context of urban studies, a great number of terms and definitions refer to “urban green and open space” (UGOS) such as open space, green space, public space, and urban greenery. Parks and public gardens, as the most well-known UGOS, are associated with amenity green spaces, having a high quality of landscape design and maintenance. On the other hand, experimental green spaces are often referred to as green feel, which users consciously or unconsciously ...

Introduction India is in the list of fastest growing countries of the world. India's energy needs are also increasing due to population and industrial growth for improving quality of living style. In India, coal is major input infrastructure industries for example Power plants, Steel plants and Cement industries. India’s 52% of primary energy is coal dependent1. 66% of India's power generation depends upon coal production1.   Fig...

Introduction During the extensive reforestation programmes, plantations of forest tree seedlings are being promoted in spite of their poor out planting performance. Among, initial seedling size or biomass of forest species has been related to post planting survival (Bargali and Bargali, 1999; Perez et al., 2007) to the ability to out compete other plant species and to the potential for new root production (Jobidon et al., 2003; Bargali and Singh, 1996). In addition, after disturbance, carbon ...

Introduction Climate affects projects and is itself affected by the implementation of any large project. The climate effects are to be studied for developing this mutual relationship. The overall effect of this relation is crucial to be explored. The changes in the climate pattern are studied with respect to the change in the risk level introduced in the project. The study aims at developing the relationship between the climate changes and risk management. In most of the studies undertaken fo...

Introduction Water is one of the abundantly available substance in the nature next to air. Water is considered as a very dilute solution of number of chemicals essential for maintaining equilibrium in biochemical reactions taking place in all living organisms in order to maintain the physiology. Water quality as well as quantity crisis is the burning issue all around the world and raise a big challenge as the groundwater as use as drinking purposes become very scare in the world. Water scarci...

Introduction Soybean being a high protein and energy crop and its productivity is often limited by the low availability of essential nutrients or imbalanced nutrition farming is one of the important constraints to soybean productivity in India. Hence a balanced nutrients application is must to harness the potential productivity of the crop. Integrated nutrient management (INM) involves the use of manures, bio-fertilizers and chemical fertilizers to achieve sustained crop production and mainta...

Introduction Aquatic biodiversity is one of the most essential characteristics of the aquatic ecosystem for maintaining its stability and a means of coping with any environmental change.1,2 Aquatic insects comprise a taxonomically diverse and ecologically important group of animals. They are also known to play a very significant role in the processing and cycling of nutrients as they belong to several specialized feeding groups such as shredders, filter feeders, depositor collectors ...

Introduction Soils are fundamental components of the ecosystem, the backbone of terrestrial ecosystems and contribute in several biogeochemical processes at air, soil and water Interfaces. Soils can absorb and degrade many types of extremely toxic substances (ETS) such as heavy metals. However its capacities are limited and sometimes may become contaminated (Wahsha et al., 2014a). Therefore, the soil quality and its productive capacity must be preserved and improved. The levels and spatial di...

Introduction The history of Human civilisation reveals that water supply and civilisation are almost synonymous. Water plays a vital role in our life. It is most abundant and useful solvent in nature, 80 % of the earth crust is covered with water. The quantity available for actual use in the form of rivers, lakes, and wells pond is hardly 0.5 % of the world water resources. Rapid industrialisation and urbanisation requires transport through vehicle as an essential part for development and pro...

Introduction Rain is the most important phase of hydrologic cycle and prime requirement for living organism. It comes in different forms like fog, mist, drizzle, snow, sleet and glaze. The rain water in the form of soil moisture and groundwater are the most important requirements for agricultural production and social development in country like India where 68 per cent of total geographical are comes under the rainfed condition. India has adequate quantity water but uneven spatial distributio...

Introduction Leh is the largest district in the country with an area of 45,100 Km2. Agriculture is the prominent occupation of the rural folk of the district. Naked barley, locally known as ‘grim’ is the major food grain crop of the district. Wheat, pulse, oil seeds and other millets are also grown in scattered areas. Whole of the cultivated area is irrigated and the source of irrigation water is mainly streams originated from glaciers. Both diurnal and seasonal v...

Introduction The combination good natural elements and effective landscape design may provide the approach to create both sustainable urban development and desirable urban environment through the modification of urban microclimate. The modification can be targeted at four key microclimate components of the dynamic outdoor thermal cycle: wind velocity, humidity, temperature and radiation. A good quality landscape, with its own characteristics can be adapted on its technical and functionality t...

Introduction The quality and quantity of water are effect on any water supply planning. . A wide range of statistical analysis and interpretation were  applied on groundwater data in recent years and this is due to huge number of physical and chemical variables ( Ali ,2010; Sanchez-Martos et al., 2001 and Suk & Lee, 1999 ). Cluster and factor analysis can applied to several fields of empirical investigation to study the quality of groundwater  (Ma, et al., 2013). It ...

Introduction The production system adopted during Green Revolution has been explorative and the natural resources like soil and water were subjected to exploitation, as a result sustainability of agricultural production system has been jeopardized. This suggests the integration of land-based enterprises viz. dairy, fishery, poultry, duckery, apiary, field and horticultural crops within the farm, with the objective of generating adequate income and employment for the small and marginal farmers...

Introduction Water is one of the most important natural resource required to all living organisms. Its diversified uses include drinking, cooking, washing, irrigation and industrial activities (Rathore et al., 2014). Recently, water pollution is main problem because of uncontrolled urbanization which is due to sewage effluent disposed into water bodies and leads to the adverse effect on living organism (Tamil Selvi et al., 2012). Due to such problems the main global agenda is environmental ma...

Introduction Background The ecosystem comprises both biotic and abiotic components and the interactions between them. A well functioning ecosystem is integral to the existence of the living organisms. The ‘five basic elements’ central to the ecology is well stated in the Prasna Upanishad as “kshiti, jal, pawak, gagan, sameera; panch tatwa yah adham sharira”. This means soil, water, fire (energy), sky (space) and air, respectively, are integral part o...

Introduction The brick kiln industries occupy a very significant place in the unorganised sector, confined mainly to rural and semi –urban areas. Small and medium sized traditional brick kilns are growing in cities of developing countries around the globe supplying the urban population with cheap construction material.1 Fired clay brick is one of the most important building materials in the country. There are no reliable estimates of brick makers in India. The current (2001...

Introduction Urmia Lake is an internationally registered protected area in Ramsar contention by UNESCO as biosphere reserve in 1971 and 1976. Urmia Lake hosts about 212 different types of bird species and is the only habitat of Artemia Urmiana. In recent years, human activities such as river damming, excessive water withdrawals and construction of Shahid Kalantary causeway in the middle of the lake have adversely affected the natural regime and water salinity of the lake. Recent prolonged dro...

Introduction Water is renewable natural resource of earth and sustains the needs of all living creatures in the world1 and health depends on the availability of drinking water. It is considered a basic human right and a part of effective policy2 for protection of health. Groundwater is one of the major sources of drinking water in both urban and rural India and the quality comprises the physical, chemical, and biological properties of ground water. Quantity and Quality Management3 of groun...

Introduction Flood quantity is used in design of hydraulic structures, which are affected by hydrological events considering factors such as structural safety, lifetime and probable damage. This quantity is also called design flood. Calculating design flood for large dams is considered as one of the most important steps in dam engineering studies. Comparing the damages resulting from dam failure with the profits gained by constructing them and their optimize utilization shows the high sensiti...

Introduction Groundwater resources are highly essential to the survival of human beings, particularly in areas where other sources of potable water are lacking. However, many sources of contamination contribute to the impairment of this precious resource. The major sources of spot and dispersive contaminants arising from human activities on the ground and penetration of these contaminants into the ground tend to reduce the quality of the ground water. Therefore, preventing the ground water fr...

Introduction From the advent of Agricultural to the Industrial revolution, the scale of natural resource exploitation has progressively exerted pressure on the environment, and the signs of ‘weakness’ have become very obvious. Consequently, ‘sustainable development’1, a global concept and panacea, is now in the front burner of all development issues. The concept recognizes the fact that human health and life are inextricably linked to a robust and healt...

Introduction Rizipisciculture, rearing fish along with paddy is a sustainable system involving concurrent harvesting of paddy and fish as a unit reaping multiple benefits. Paddy cultivation is a major agricultural operation in many of the northern, north-eastern and south-eastern coastal states of India. Large areas otherwise remaining unused because of water logging can provide natural habitat for various kinds of fish. Thus, the proposition of rearing fish and raising fish nurseries, in sp...

Introduction Historic urban landscape is a consequence of dynamic interactions and interrelationships between physical, ecological, cultural and social factors in a causality based dynamic system. This open system includes various levels of subsystems and over systems (Jokilehto, 2010). The historic urban landscape and the urban cultural landscape offer parallel terminology for the same resources. Historic urban landscape and urban cultural landscape both address the entire townscape ensem...

Introduction Green spaces provide human social and health benefits.1 They can also address broader ecological needs for local and regional benefit.2  With only one-fifth of the US population engaging in sports and recreation activity,3 green spaces are, on average, under used. In this note, we provide evidence showing that activity designers seeking to engage the public in green space could benefit from understanding park use and environmental literacy at t...

Introduction In Many developing and under developing countries are facing water problems due to lack of clean supplied water. It is reported that more than 1.1 billion people are suffering health problems for consuming unsafe water.1,2 About 74% of India’s total population, currently about 1.25 billion, live in rural areas. More than one third of the water available to them is not potable. In a grim reminder that poor quality of drinking water leads to serious health problems.3&...

Introduction Sustainability reporting is not limited to any specific country and is followed in both developed and developing countries. Over 80 percent of companies worldwide now publish sustainability reports (KPMG, 2008) and more than half of the world’s 250 largest companies issue sustainability reports (White, 2005). As a result, considerable research work has been devoted to examine the reason for their development and their relevance to improving their accountability towards ...

Introduction Changes in the surface of land are primarily result of natural ecological processes and human activities. Studying about these changes requires an interdisciplinary approach that is conducted in the field of tension between social and natural sciences (Keken et al, 2015). Among the factors which are caused significant changes on the earths land surface the land use changes are very important and they are probably the main cause of changes in global environment. Nowadays in many r...

Introduction Approximately half of people in the world live in urban areas.  One important element for their well-being and quality of life is the availability of urban green space. There are different ways in which urban green space can positively influence well-being and health. However, in most urban areas, and particularly in inner-city areas, green spaces are in insufficient supply (Kabisch and Haase 2011). Individual countries and/or cities have begun to take an increasing resp...

Introduction Fly ash is a waste material generates on the combustion of coal in power station throughout the world. The increasing amount of fly ash being generated from thermal power plants can pose a serious environmental threat (Nalawade et al., 2012). Fly ash contains major elements like Silica, Aluminum and Iron with significant amount of Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Phosphorous and Sulphur (Ivanova et al., 2011; Aswar, 2001). It also contain trace amount of some heavy metals like Moly...

Introduction Water has profound influence on human health.1,2 Every individual requires a minimum amount of water per day for survival and in other words without water life is just impossible on earth. Therefore human health broadly depends upon quantity and quality of water supplied to them.3 Thus whenever we talk about improvement of public health, the issues like accessibility of quality drinking water, microbiological quality of water, quantity of water available for mass populat...

Introduction The effect of agricultural practices on soil fertility is growing concern in many parts of the world. In the recent years, agricultural practices were increasingly shifted towards forest and very steep slopes of mountains for meeting the increasing demand of household food. The natural cycle of a watershed is usually altered whenever native vegetation replaced by agricultural plants; and leads nutrients to be easily transported by runoff and sediments. Intensive agriculture for h...

Introduction Coal mining industry now uses modern technology with powerful and high capacity machinery so as to increase coal extraction capability at the cost of large amount of dust, gases, etc. spewed into the atmosphere, thereby degrading quality of air. These pollutants have harmful consequences not only on the mine workers, but also, depending on the meteorological conditions, on the human settlements, agricultural lands and live stocks in the nearby areas. Particulate matter is the ...

Introduction Soil and water are the basic resources and these must be conserved as carefully as possible. The pressure of increasing population neutralizes all efforts to raise the standard of living, while loss of fertility in the soil itself nullifies the value of any improvements made. This calls for more systematic resource conservation efforts. It is well known to every farmer that it is the top soil layer, which sustains agricultural production. Once this layer is lost or eroded, nothin...