Hasil untuk "Environmental engineering"

Hefeng Cheng, Baibiao Huang, Ying Dai

R. I. Stephens, H. O. Fuchs

D. Hamby

Dvořák

Amir H. Ahkami, R. White, P. Handakumbura et al.

Abstract The rhizosphere is arguably the most complex microbial habitat on earth, comprising an integrated network of plant roots, soil and a diverse microbial consortium of bacteria, archaea, viruses, and microeukaryotes. Understanding, predicting and controlling the structure and function of the rhizosphere will allow us to harness plant-microbe interactions and other rhizosphere activities as a means to increase or restore plant ecosystem productivity, improve plant responses to a wide range of environmental perturbations, and mitigate effects of climate change by designing ecosystems for long-term soil carbon storage. Here, we review critical knowledge gaps in rhizosphere science, and how mechanistic understanding of rhizosphere interactions can be leveraged in rhizosphere engineering efforts with the goal of maintaining sustainable plant ecosystem services for food and bioenergy production in an ever changing global climate.

Bailing Chen, Chun Wan, Muhammad Aamer Mehmood et al.

M. Bosch-Rekveldt, Y. Jongkind, H. Mooi et al.

Md. Mizanur Rahman, Reena N. Hora, I. Ahenkorah et al.

Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) is a promising new technology in the area of Civil Engineering with potential to become a cost-effective, environmentally friendly and sustainable solution to many problems such as ground improvement, liquefaction remediation, enhancing properties of concrete and so forth. This paper reviews the research and developments over the past 25 years since the first reported application of MICP in 1995. Historical developments in the area, the biological processes involved, the behaviour of improved soils, developments in modelling the behaviour of treated soil and the challenges associated are discussed with a focus on the geotechnical aspects of the problem. The paper also presents an assessment of cost and environmental benefits tied with three application scenarios in pavement construction. It is understood for some applications that at this stage, MICP may not be a cost-effective or even environmentally friendly solution; however, following the latest developments, MICP has the potential to become one.

Amanuel Kumsa Bojer, Muluneh Woldetsadik Abshare, Fitsum Mesfin et al.

Abstract Climate and land use changes are critical factors affecting watershed water yields, with significant implications for water resources at both local and regional levels. This study examined the combined effects of temporal and spatial climate variability and land use/land cover (LULC) changes on surface water yield and availability in the Gilgel Gibe watershed, Ethiopia, from 1993 to 2023. Utilizing the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) hydrological models, machine learning, and remote sensing techniques, this study assessed variations in water resources and their impacts on basin water yield. This study utilized Landsat (30 m), MODIS (500 m–1 km), and 4 km resolution climate datasets from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA POWER for large-scale climate and land-use analyses from 1993 to 2023. An ensemble of machine learning models, including Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and XGBoost (XGB), were used to evaluate the effects of climate variability and land use on annual water yield. The study revealed significant land cover changes over a 30-year period. Shrubland decreased from 1,108.37 km2 (21.54%) in 1993 to 295.22 km2 (5.74%) in 2023. Grasslands and wetlands also showed declining trends. In contrast, water bodies increased from 12.51 km2 (0.24%) to 41.57 km2 (0.81%), primarily due to the construction of the Gilgel Gibe hydroelectric dam, and forested areas slightly decreased from 626.73 km2 (12.18%) to 534.18 km2 (10.38%). The surface runoff decreased to 15.78% in 2021 and 15.28% in 2022, whereas the water yield dropped from 1.22% in 1993 to 0.83% by 2023. This study also showed a reduction in lateral flow and higher evapotranspiration levels in 2000 and 2017. The decrease in runoff can be attributed to the loss of wetlands and grasslands, reduced precipitation, and regulatory effects of hydropower operations. In contrast, elevated evapotranspiration levels were primarily attributed to temperature extremes, vegetation stress, and potential increases in irrigation practices. These findings underscore the importance of climatic elements in regulating river discharge and the necessity for smart land use planning to prevent negative environmental consequences on water resources.

Gabriela Haag Coelho, Joice Cristini Kuritza Denck Gonçalves, Raynner Menezes Lopes et al.

Em sistemas de abastecimento de água (SAA), os grandes volumes de perda de água não apenas acarretam prejuízos financeiros, mas, também, representam desperdício de recursos naturais, sendo estes alguns dos principais desafios enfrentados pelo setor no Brasil. Neste estudo, realizou-se ranqueamento para avaliar os sistemas de abastecimento de água de 397 municípios em relação às perdas de água, por meio de indicadores de desempenho disponíveis no Sistema Nacional de Informações em Saneamento Básico (Sinisa). A análise foi conduzida em dois contextos: uma avaliação geral, abrangendo todos os municípios incluídos no estudo, e uma avaliação estratificada, considerando a divisão dos municípios em diferentes estratos populacionais. Os resultados indicaram os municípios com maiores oportunidades de melhoria em implementação de medidas de redução de perdas e os que podem ser utilizados como referência para coleta de informações sobre boas práticas de redução e controle de perdas de água.

Jay Lee, Hanqi Su, Dai-Yan Ji et al.

Over the past ten years, the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in engineering domains has gained significant popularity, showcasing their potential in data-driven contexts. However, the complexity and diversity of engineering problems often require the development of domain-specific AI approaches, which are frequently hindered by a lack of systematic methodologies, scalability, and robustness during the development process. To address this gap, this paper introduces the "ABCDE" as the key elements of Engineering AI and proposes a unified, systematic engineering AI ecosystem framework, including eight essential layers, along with attributes, goals, and applications, to guide the development and deployment of AI solutions for specific engineering needs. Additionally, key challenges are examined, and eight future research directions are highlighted. By providing a comprehensive perspective, this paper aims to advance the strategic implementation of AI, fostering the development of next-generation engineering AI solutions.

Anatoly A. Krasnovsky

Chaos engineering reveals resilience risks but is expensive and operationally risky to run broadly and often. Model-based analyses can estimate dependability, yet in practice they are tricky to build and keep current because models are typically handcrafted. We claim that a simple connectivity-only topological model - just the service-dependency graph plus replica counts - can provide fast, low-risk availability estimates under fail-stop faults. To make this claim practical without hand-built models, we introduce model discovery: an automated step that can run in CI/CD or as an observability-platform capability, synthesizing an explicit, analyzable model from artifacts teams already have (e.g., distributed traces, service-mesh telemetry, configs/manifests) - providing an accessible gateway for teams to begin resilience testing. As a proof by instance on the DeathStarBench Social Network, we extract the dependency graph from Jaeger and estimate availability across two deployment modes and five failure rates. The discovered model closely tracks live fault-injection results; with replication, median error at mid-range failure rates is near zero, while no-replication shows signed biases consistent with excluded mechanisms. These results create two opportunities: first, to triage and reduce the scope of expensive chaos experiments in advance, and second, to generate real-time signals on the system's resilience posture as its topology evolves, preserving live validation for the most critical or ambiguous scenarios.

Nghiem Thanh Pham, Tung Kieu, Duc-Manh Nguyen et al.

Small Language Models (SLMs) offer computational efficiency and accessibility, yet a systematic evaluation of their performance and environmental impact remains lacking. We introduce SLM-Bench, the first benchmark specifically designed to assess SLMs across multiple dimensions, including accuracy, computational efficiency, and sustainability metrics. SLM-Bench evaluates 15 SLMs on 9 NLP tasks using 23 datasets spanning 14 domains. The evaluation is conducted on 4 hardware configurations, providing a rigorous comparison of their effectiveness. Unlike prior benchmarks, SLM-Bench quantifies 11 metrics across correctness, computation, and consumption, enabling a holistic assessment of efficiency trade-offs. Our evaluation considers controlled hardware conditions, ensuring fair comparisons across models. We develop an open-source benchmarking pipeline with standardized evaluation protocols to facilitate reproducibility and further research. Our findings highlight the diverse trade-offs among SLMs, where some models excel in accuracy while others achieve superior energy efficiency. SLM-Bench sets a new standard for SLM evaluation, bridging the gap between resource efficiency and real-world applicability.

Georgi Markov, Jon G. Hall, Lucia Rapanotti

Many organisational problems are addressed through systemic change and re-engineering of existing Information Systems rather than radical new design. In the face of widespread IT project failure, devising effective ways to tackle this type of change remains an open challenge. This work discusses the motivation, theoretical foundation, characteristics and evaluation of a novel framework - referred to as POE-$Δ$, which is rooted in design and engineering and is aimed at providing systematic support for representing, structuring and exploring change problems of a socio-technical nature, including implementing their solutions when they exist. We generalise an existing framework of greenfield design as problem solving for application to change problems. From a theoretical perspective,POE-$Δ$ is a strict extension to its parent framework, allowing the seamless integration of greenfield and brownfield design to tackle change problems. A Design Science Research methodology was applied over a decade to define and evaluate POE-$Δ$, with significant case study research conducted to evaluate the framework in its application to real-world change problems of varying criticality and complexity. The results show that POE-$Δ$ exhibits desirable characteristics of a design approach to organisational change and can bring tangible benefits when applied in practice as a holistic and systematic approach to change in socio-technical contexts.

Michaeline B. N. Albright, Stilianos Louca, D. Winkler et al.

Microbiome engineering is increasingly being employed as a solution to challenges in health, agriculture, and climate. Often manipulation involves inoculation of new microbes designed to improve function into a preexisting microbial community. Despite, increased efforts in microbiome engineering inoculants frequently fail to establish and/or confer long-lasting modifications on ecosystem function. We posit that one underlying cause of these shortfalls is the failure to consider barriers to organism establishment. This is a key challenge and focus of macroecology research, specifically invasion biology and restoration ecology. We adopt a framework from invasion biology that summarizes establishment barriers in three categories: (1) propagule pressure, (2) environmental filtering, and (3) biotic interactions factors. We suggest that biotic interactions is the most neglected factor in microbiome engineering research, and we recommend a number of actions to accelerate engineering solutions.

Ziwei Wang, Ming Chen, Danlian Huang et al.

Abstract Bismuth oxyhalide (BiOX) photocatalysts have attracted tremendous attentions due to their unique optical and electronic properties. However, pristine BiOX suffered from inherent drawbacks and unsatisfactory photocatalytic performance. Interest in engineering layered structure BiOX for efficient environment remediation has grown exponentially. Recent studies tend to focus on alloying, bismuth-rich strategies, defect introduction, element doping. Therefore, the aim of this review is to summarize multiply structural optimized strategies for the improvement of their photocatalytic applications in environmental remediation. The distinct photochemical properties and synthesis method of alloyed, bismuth-rich, doped and defect-introduced BiOX are detailly elaborated based on the discussion of the structure-property relationship. The other methods such as heterojunction, facet effect, surface plasmonic resonance and strain engineering are briefly introduced. Subsequently, environmental applications in aquatic pollutants photodegradation and air purification are also discussed. Finally, challenges and outlooks covering synthetic strategies, characterization, and applications are featured.

K. Kellens, M. Baumers, T. Gutowski et al.

Additive manufacturing (AM) proposes a novel paradigm for engineering design and manufacturing, which has profound economic, environmental, and security implications. The design freedom offered by this category of manufacturing processes and its ability to locally print almost each designable object will have important repercussions across society. While AM applications are progressing from rapid prototyping to the production of end‐use products, the environmental dimensions and related impacts of these evolving manufacturing processes have yet to be extensively examined. Only limited quantitative data are available on how AM manufactured products compare to conventionally manufactured ones in terms of energy and material consumption, transportation costs, pollution and waste, health and safety issues, as well as other environmental impacts over their full lifetime. Reported research indicates that the specific energy of current AM systems is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude higher compared to that of conventional manufacturing processes. However, only part of the AM process taxonomy is yet documented in terms of its environmental performance, and most life cycle inventory (LCI) efforts mainly focus on energy consumption. From an environmental perspective, AM manufactured parts can be beneficial for very small batches, or in cases where AM‐based redesigns offer substantial functional advantages during the product use phase (e.g., lightweight part designs and part remanufacturing). Important pending research questions include the LCI of AM feedstock production, supply‐chain consequences, and health and safety issues relating to AM.

Y. Guo, W. Shi, Yongfa Zhu

Funding information Collaborative Innovation Center for Regional Environmental Quality; National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant/Award Numbers: 21437003, 21621003, 21673126, 21761142017, 21872077 Abstract Photocatalysis as a desirable technology shows great potential in environmental remediation and renewable energy generation, but the recombination of photogenerated carriers is a key limiting factor for efficiency in artificial photosynthesis. Internal electric field (IEF, also known as built-in electric field) engineering acts an emerging and clearly viable route to increase photocatalytic efficiency by facilitating charge separation and transfer. This review summarizes the basic principles of IEF including the source, the strategies for the enhancement and the measurement of IEF. Highlight is the recent progress in steering photogenerated charge separation of photocatalysts by IEF engineering and related mechanisms. Finally, the challenges in IEF engineering and exciting opportunities to further enhancing charge separation and photocatalytic performance are discussed.

P. Kangas

Ecological engineering is a hybrid discipline developed for solving certain kinds of environmental problems. The conceptual basis is to engineer solutions that incorporate ecosystems that are fueled by natural energies such as sunlight into the design. The creation of ecologically engineered ecosystems includes both restoration of past systems for conservation and the design of new systems that address environmental problems. The goal is to create designs that are cost effective and that provide multiple benefits to society. Where applicable ecological engineered systems are intended to be alternatives to conventional technologies that rely on higher inputs of fossil fuel energies. As with other kinds of engineering, ecologically engineered systems require quantitative methods of design such as sizing, optimization, and input-output balances. However, because ecologically engineered systems utilize living ecosystems, they also allow for and often rely on self-design of the system itself through the self-organizing quality of species populations and abiotic components. It is the utilization of natural ecosystems and self-design that differentiates ecological engineering from traditional engineering disciplines. Because engineering is inherently based on complete knowledge of and control over designs, there has been some resistance to the concept of self-design from traditional engineering disciplines. In fact, ecological engineering is applicable to only a subset of problems but, where appropriate, it offers solutions that can be more effective and sustainable than conventional approaches. The challenge is to combine the strengths of ecology and engineering to create a new paradigm for environmental problem solving. Ecological engineering is both an academic field with curricula taught in universities and with a regularly published journal of peer-reviewed articles (Ecological Engineering by Elsevier) along with a practical field where systems are designed, built, and operated by commercial companies for clients. Professional societies, such as the American Ecological Engineering Society, have arisen to try to better connect theory and practice in this emerging discipline through the use of certification programs and annual meetings of academics and practitioners.

R. Kaunda

The unprecedented demand for highly efficient batteries for use in electric vehicles and other electronics has generated an increased demand for lithium-ion batteries. Lithium is highly desirable given its light weight and its ability to store high amounts of energy. Some estimates have pegged the demand for lithium-ion batteries to reach 2.2 million tonnes by 2030. Consequently, the exploitation and mining of lithium has generated much interest from various sectors of industry and society. Although studies on life-cycle assessment of lithium batteries have been conducted, there is a paucity of information regarding the environmental impacts of the mining of the actual lithium raw material. This article aims to explain how lithium mining is conducted and processed, what the mining and chemical issues are, and what the potential environmental impacts are from a technical and mining engineering perspective.