• Title/Summary/Keyword: Sustainable production

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Role of litter production and its decomposition, and factors affecting the processes in a tropical forest ecosystem: a review

  • Giweta, Mekonnen
    • Journal of Ecology and Environment
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    • v.44 no.2
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    • pp.81-89
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    • 2020
  • In the forest ecosystems, litterfall is an important component of the nutrient cycle that regulates the accumulation of soil organic matter (SOM), the input and output of the nutrients, nutrient replenishment, biodiversity conservation, and other ecosystem functions. Therefore, a profound understanding of the major processes (litterfall production and its decomposition rate) in the cycle is vital for sustainable forest management (SFM). Despite these facts, there is still a limited knowledge in tropical forest ecosystems, and further researches are highly needed. This shortfall of research-based knowledge, especially in tropical forest ecosystems, may be a contributing factor to the lack of understanding of the role of plant litter in the forest ecosystem function for sustainable forest management, particularly in the tropical forest landscapes. Therefore, in this paper, I review the role of plant litter in tropical forest ecosystems with the aims of assessing the importance of plant litter in forest ecosystems for the biogeochemical cycle. Then, the major factors that affect the plant litter production and decomposition were identified, which could direct and contribute to future research. The small set of studies reviewed in this paper demonstrated the potential of plant litter to improve the biogeochemical cycle and nutrients in the forest ecosystems. However, further researches are needed particularly on the effect of species, forest structures, seasons, and climate factors on the plant litter production and decomposition in various types of forest ecosystems.

Sustainable energy action plans of medium-sized municipalities in north Greece

  • Lymperopoulos, Konstantinos A.;Botsaris, Pantelis N.;Angelakoglou, Komninos;Gaidajis, Georgios
    • Advances in Energy Research
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    • v.3 no.1
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    • pp.11-30
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    • 2015
  • The covenant of Mayors initiative includes the commitment of the municipalities-signatories to reduce voluntarily the greenhouse gas emissions over 20--- by 2020 within their boundaries and obligates them to develop and submit an energy consumption analysis and a sustainable energy action plan within a year from the adhesion. The present paper discusses the energy profile of three medium-sized north-eastern Greek Municipalities (Kavala-MoK, Alexandroupolis-MoA, Drama-MoD) through the analysis of their municipal energy balance. The results of the total final energy consumption per capita include 14.10MWh/capita, 14.24MWh/capita and 12.91MWh/capita for MoK, MoA and MoD respectively. The analysis highlighted the increased energy consumption of the private sectors, namely residential and tertiary building sand private transport. The assessment of the municipalities' energy profiles along with examination of national regulations and action plans and investigation of best available practices within the Covenant of Mayors shaped the development of the sustainable energy action plans of the examined municipalities that is presented in this paper. The proposed pathway towards low-carbon municipalities can be considered a representative case study and a starting point for other municipalities with similar characteristics.

Sustainable Roughage Production in Korea - Review -

  • Hur, S.N.;Lim, K.B.;Kim, D.A.
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.12 no.3
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    • pp.445-448
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    • 1999
  • Beef and dairy cattle are the primary ruminant livestock in Korea, but there is a serious shortage of both fresh and dry forages. Small areas of forage crops or pastures, unfavorable soil and climatic conditions, high costs for pasture production, low establishment and management technologies, etc. are the main factors limiting roughage production in Korea. To meet the roughage demand of cattle several suggestions are presented. About 845,000 ha of hilly area could be developed for pastureland. Almost the same area of paddy field, and more than 200,000 ha of reclaimed land could be used for pasture production. If all the potential area is developed for pastureland, the area could be extended to 10 times more than is presently used for pasture crops and pastureland. Productivity would be increased by developing new technologies of establishment and management. Silvo-pastoral systems should be introduced to Korea.

Some Schemes for the sustainable Development of Korean Laver Industry (우리나라 김 산업 발전을 위한 논점과 방안)

  • Ock, Young-Soo
    • The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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    • v.41 no.2
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    • pp.25-44
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    • 2010
  • The laver has been cultivated long time ago in Korea. And traditional production system was changed to new system about 30 years ago. The new production system is understood the specialization of laver products, that is, originally individual fishery households made final laver products from raw cultured laver in sea working to dry working in land, but the new system was separated raw laver production in sea and dry laver production, which made final dry laver products by purchase the raw laver in land. This change has been increased laver production, 10 billion sheets in 2000's from 5 billion sheets in 1980's. And rapid production increase gave rise to some troubles on laver industry that is a serious drop in real laver prices, discord structure between raw laver producer and dry laver producer, stagnation of laver consumption, etc. Now Korea is the best laver production country together with Japan in world. Then we have to consider some schemes for the sustainable development of laver industry. One of such schemes is export enlargement of laver against world. The consumption of laver has been globally increased in recent. The other is the grading test problem of dry laver. Because the rapid increase of laver production caused to drop laver quality. Then we seriously have to consider the grading test of dry laver for high level quality production.

Oil supplementation improved growth and diet digestibility in goats and sheep fed fattening diet

  • Candyrine, Su Chui Len;Jahromi, Mohammad Faseleh;Ebrahimi, Mahdi;Chen, Wei Li;Rezaei, Siamak;Goh, Yong Meng;Abdullah, Norhani;Liang, Juan Boo
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.32 no.4
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    • pp.533-540
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    • 2019
  • Objective: This study evaluated the growth, digestibility and rumen fermentation between goats and sheep fed a fattening diet fortified with linseed oil. Methods: Twelve 3 to 4 months old male goats and sheep were randomly allocated into two dietary treatment groups in a $2(species){\times}2$ (oil levels) factorial experiment. The treatments were: i) goats fed basal diet, ii) goats fed oil-supplemented diet, iii) sheep fed basal diet, and iv) sheep fed oil-supplemented diet. Each treatment group consisted of six animals. Animals in the basal diet group were fed with 30% alfalfa hay and 70% concentrates at a rate equivalent to 4% of their body weight. For the oil treatment group, linseed oil was added at 4% level (w:w) to the concentrate portion of the basal diet. Growth performance of the animals was determined fortnightly. Digestibility study was conducted during the final week of the feeding trial before the animals were slaughtered to obtain rumen fluid for rumen fermentation characteristics study. Results: Sheep had higher (p<0.01) average daily weight gain (ADG) and better feed conversion ratio (FCR) than goats. Oil supplementation did not affect rumen fermentation in both species and improved ADG by about 29% and FCR by about 18% in both goats and sheep. The above enhancement is consistent with the higher dry matter and energy digestibility (p<0.05), as well as organic matter and neutral detergent fiber digestibility (p<0.01) in animals fed oil- supplemented diet. Sheep had higher total volatile fatty acid production and acetic acid proportion compared to goat. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggested that sheep performed better than goats when fed a fattening diet and oil supplementation at the inclusion rate of 4% provides a viable option to significantly enhance growth performance and FCR in fattening sheep and goats.

A Basic Study on the Sustainable Design Elements in China's Houtan Park

  • Jiang, Sijing;Kim, Soobong
    • Journal of recreation and landscape
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    • v.12 no.4
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    • pp.17-24
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    • 2018
  • With industrialization, environmental problems have become severe worldwide as resources are exhausted for mass production purposes and pollutants are produced in excess of nature's capacity to absorb them. Since modernity, urban parks have emerged as an important element for addressing challenges facing urban environments, which include environmental degradation. In 1987, the Brundtland Commission's report presented a sustainable developmental perspective in solving environmental problems and provided ideas for sustainable design and sustainable urban park landscape design. The purpose of this study is to analyze sustainable design applied to Houtan Park in central Shanghai, China from the perspective of social culture preservation, ecological restoration, and economic effect, and to provide the basic data for urban park design in similar areas in the future. This study consists of a literature survey and a field investigation. The field investigation lead to analysis from three perspectives: social culture preservation, ecological restoration, and economic effect. The literature survey examined sustainable urban parks and Houtan Park based on relevant papers, newspaper articles, and reports. Through actual visits (Aug. 28 - Sep. 1, 2018), it also examined the elements of sustainable design that were applied to the architecture. The three sustainable design elements derived from this study, being a sustainable design for the future, will be used as an important basis for developing urban parks for the regeneration of brownfields in many areas in China.

Production and Characterization of Ethanol- and Protease-Tolerant and Xylooligosaccharides-Producing Endoxylanase from Humicola sp. Ly01

  • Zhou, Junpei;Wu, Qian;Zhang, Rui;Yang, Yuying;Tang, Xianghua;Li, Junjun;Ding, Junmei;Dong, Yanyan;Huang, Zunxi
    • Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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    • v.23 no.6
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    • pp.794-801
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    • 2013
  • This paper reports the production and characterization of crude xylanase from the newly isolated Humicola sp. Ly01. The highest (41.8 U/ml) production of the crude xylanase was obtained under the optimized conditions (w/v): 0.5% wheat bran, 0.2% $KH_2PO_4$, and 0.5% peptone; initial pH 7.0; incubation time 72 h; $30^{\circ}C$; and 150 rpm. A considerable amount of the crude xylanase was induced using hulless barley bran or soybean meal as the carbon source, but a small amount of the enzyme was produced when supplementary urea was used as the nitrogen source to wheat bran. The crude xylanase showed apparent optimal cellulase-free xylanase activity at $60^{\circ}C$ and pH 6.0, more than 71.8% of the maximum xylanase activity in 3.0-30.0% (v/v) ethanol and more than 82.3% of the initial xylanase activity after incubation in 3.0-30.0% (v/v) ethanol at $30^{\circ}C$ for 2 h. The crude xylanase was moderately resistant to both acid and neutral protease digestion, and released 7.9 and 10.9 ${\mu}mol/ml$ reducing sugar from xylan in the simulated gastric and intestinal fluids, respectively. The xylooligosaccharides were the main products of the hydrolysis of xylan by the crude xylanase. These properties suggested the potential of the crude enzyme for being applied in the animal feed industry, xylooligosaccharides production, and high-alcohol conditions such as ethanol production and brewing.

Legal Approach to the Concept of 'Sustainability' in Sustainable Development (지속적 개발의 '지속성' 개념에 관한 법학적 접근)

  • Seo, Won-Sang
    • Journal of Environmental Policy
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    • v.3 no.2
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    • pp.59-87
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    • 2004
  • In its Declaration of Principles, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development recommends that, "to achieve sustainable development and a higher quality of life for all people, states should reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of production and consumption...." This notion of sustainability lies at the core of many "commons" problems, where the central issue is to enable "individuals to sustain long-term, productive use of natural resource systems". In other worlds, a common definition of "sustainability" captures the idea of aligning human consumption with the capacity of ecological systems to supply, over a long period of time, such natural resources as air, soil, or water on which production depends. The concept of sustainability raises all sorts of political, social, and economic questions about the distribution of environmental protection. For sustainable community development to be addressed, these questions must be raised. In order to convince different citizenry of the necessity of sustainability, these questions must also be answered. This is where questions of equity, justice, and fairness arise. Sustainability and equity require that we deal with nature as an undivided whole, with no part being unsustainable. Sustainability and social policy also requires that we deal with the human population as an undivided whole. We simply cannot move people around the planet to either perpetuate past practices of earth exploitation or to implement sustainable planning. Everyone must work with the people inhabiting sensitive ecological areas, especially areas of regeneration. In the sustainable global community, we are as strong as our weakest link, or our most toxic community. This is the undeniable driving force for the infusion of equity into the sustainable development debate.

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Fast, ethical and sustainable - The challenge for twenty-first century fashion producers -

  • Hann, Michael;Wang, Chaoran
    • The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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    • v.24 no.1
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    • pp.114-117
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    • 2016
  • It is recognized that the global apparel market of the twenty-first century is largely profit driven, and that the majority of producers and retailers have sourced products from the lowest cost locations. Purchase tickets of fashion goods available from 'fast' fashion retailers (at least within the UK) refrain from providing the consumer with details of the full circumstances of production. It seems that the majority of major retailers and producers are not willing to engage in levels of self-regulation which could ensure that the products offered to consumers are ethically produced and offer acceptable levels of sustainability. Meanwhile many fashion consumers have the desire to purchase sustainable products, produced ethically by workers paid fair wages in safe working environments. Consumer demand could be a powerful tool to adjust the behaviour of manufacturers and buyers. This paper proposes the introduction of international legislation demanding greater degrees of transparency than exist currently and that the full sourcing and production details of fashion products are stated clearly on the product's purchase ticket within its retail setting. With the introduction of such legislation, consumers could thus be given the opportunity of purchasing goods which they feel accommodate their own views on ethical manufacture and sustainable products. In turn, consumer pressure could ensure indirectly that retail buyers consider all ethical and sustainable aspects of production when negotiating with garment producers/suppliers. Further to this, such a negotiating stance could ensure the improvement of the terms and conditions of employment of the numerous garment workers worldwide.

Sustainable Development of Palm Oil: Synthesis and Electrochemical Performance of Corrosion Inhibitors

  • Porcayo-Calderon, J.;Rivera-Munoz, E.M.;Peza-Ledesma, C.;Casales-Diaz, M.;de la Escalera, L.M. Martinez;Canto, J.;Martinez-Gomez, L.
    • Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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    • v.8 no.2
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    • pp.133-145
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    • 2017
  • Palm oil production is among the highest worldwide, and it has been mainly used in the food industry and other commodities. Currently, a lot of palm oil production has been destined for the synthesis of biodiesel; however, its use in applications other than the food industry has been questioned. Thereby for a sustainable development, in this paper the use of palm oil of low quality for corrosion inhibitors synthesis is proposed. The performance of the synthesized inhibitors was evaluated by using electrochemical techniques such as open circuit potential measurements, linear polarization resistance and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The results indicate that the fatty amides from palm oil are excellent corrosion inhibitors with protection efficiencies greater than 98%. Fatty amides molecules act as cathodic inhibitors decreasing the anodic dissolution of iron. When fatty amides are added, a rapid decrease in the corrosion rate occurs due to the rapid formation of a molecular film onto carbon steel surface. During the adsorption process of the inhibitor a self-organization of the hydrocarbon chains takes place forming a tightly packed hydrophobic film. These results demonstrate that the use of palm oil for the production of green inhibitors promises to be an excellent alternative for a sustainable use of the palm oil production.