Nanotechnology and the Environment

The importance of evapotranspiration is well-established in different disciplines such as hydrology, agronomy, climatology, and other geosciences. Reliable estimates of evapotranspiration are also vital to develop criteria for in-season irrigation management, water resource allocation, long-term estimates of water supply, demand and use, design and management of water resources infrastructure, and evaluation of the effect of land use and management changes on the water balance. The objective of this Special Issue is to define and discuss several ET terms, including potential, reference, and actual (crop) ET, and present a wide spectrum of innovative research papers and case studies.

Water resources management should be assessed under climate change conditions, as historic data cannot replicate future climatic conditions. - Climate change impacts on water resources are bound to affect all water uses, i.e., irrigated agriculture, domestic and industrial water supply, hydropower generation, and environmental flow (of streams and rivers) and water level (of lakes). - Bottom-up approaches, i.e., the forcing of hydrologic simulation models with climate change models’ outputs, are the most common engineering practices and considered as climate-resilient water management approaches. - Hydrologic simulations forced by climate change scenarios derived from regional climate models (RCMs) can provide accurate assessments of the future water regime at basin scales.

The Muna Consortium (Mediterranean and Middle East University Network Agreement) was founded in 2015 and renewed in 2021, when 30 Uni­versities coming from all Countries of Mediterranean area and some others from Middle East signed the Fra­mework Agreement. As written in the Framework Agreement, also in this Muna space in the CUCS Conference, we propo­se three different main themes: MARE NOSTRUM (our Sea, the Mediterranean), PERSONA (Man) and ORBIS (the Earth), to summarize the proposals of Co­operation between Muna Network Universities. The first session is dedicated to the field of ORBIS to share the sustainability, through the biodiversity as a key ele­ment for the development of soil in different aspects as agricolture, fauna and flora sustainable management, with impact in the field of veterinary. Neverthless, a focus is also related to the inclusion and integration in the sustainable cities during this time of pandemia and migration flows with regard to the problem of clima changes in the Mediterranean area.

Introduction: Sustainable water and wastewater services are critical to providing the American public with clean and safe water and helping ensure the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of the communities that utilities serve. Utilities across the country face tremendous challenges, such as aging infrastructure, an aging workforce, increasing mandates, and competing priorities within the communities they serve. The purpose of this document is to assist utility leaders with implementing proven and effective practices over time to improve their operations and move toward sustainability, at a pace consistent with their needs and the needs of their communities. It provides utility leaders with a cohesive structure to help them address various challenges proactively and with confidence. The practices described in this document reflect the lessons learned and the practical experience utilities have derived as they have improved their operations. A utility can use this document to identify specific opportunities for improvement and draw on the example practices to create an individualized “roadmap” to more sustainable operations.

Sour water units are integral units in the refineries Proposed vapor compression design offers: Hot utilities reduction of 90%, Cold utilities reduction of 22%, TAC reduction by 52%.