Community pressure for green behavior

The desire to avoid rousing community hostility may encourage firms to behave in an environmentally responsible manner. Firms may engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) to maintain community support and/or to regain the support of a community where it has been lost. It has been conjectured that such ‘informal regulation’ could effectively replace formal intervention in some settings, and usefully complement it in others. We explore these conjectures with mixed results. Informal regulation is necessarily less efficient than a well-designed formal alternative and the pattern of green behavior induced by the threat of community hostility may increase or decrease welfare. The existence of community pressure may increase or decrease the optimal calibration of a formal intervention (in this case an environmental tax) and may complement or detract from the incentives generated by an optimally calibrated tax.     

Stress-strain response of plastic waste mixed soil

Recycling plastic waste from water bottles has become one of the major challenges worldwide. The present study provides an approach for the use plastic waste as reinforcement material in soil. The experimental results in the form of stress-strain-pore water pressure response are presented. Based on experimental test results, it is observed that the strength of soil is improved and compressibility reduced significantly with addition of a small percentage of plastic waste to the soil. The use of the improvement in strength and compressibility response due to inclusion of plastic waste can be advantageously used in bearing capacity improvement and settlement reduction in the design of shallow foundations.     

Pertinence of nutriments for a stalwart body

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Nutrition plays a significant role in the prevention and treatment of common diseases. Some superb dietary choices such as functional foods and...     

Synthesizing habitat connectivity analyses of a globally important human-dominated tiger-conservation landscape

As ecological data and associated analyses become more widely available, synthesizing results for effective communication with stakeholders is essential. In the case of wildlife corridors, managers in human-dominated landscapes need to identify both the locations of corridors and multiple stakeholders for effective oversight. We synthesized five independent studies of tiger (Panthera tigris) connectivity in central India, a global priority landscape for tiger conservation, to quantify agreement on landscape permeability for tiger movement and potential movement pathways. We used the latter analysis to identify connectivity areas on which studies agreed and stakeholders associated with these areas to determine relevant participants in corridor management. Three or more of the five studies’ resistance layers agreed in 63% of the study area. Areas in which all studies agree on resistance were of primarily low (66%, e.g., forest) and high (24%, e.g., urban) resistance. Agreement was lower in intermediate resistance areas (e.g., agriculture). Despite these differences, the studies largely agreed on areas with high levels of potential movement: >40% of high average (top 20%) current-flow pixels were also in the top 20% of current-flow agreement pixels (measured by low variation), indicating consensus connectivity areas (CCAs) as conservation priorities. Roughly 70% of the CCAs fell within village administrative boundaries, and 100% overlapped forest department management boundaries, suggesting that people live and use forests within these priority areas. Over 16% of total CCAs’ area was within 1 km of linear infrastructure (437 road, 170 railway, 179 transmission line, and 339 canal crossings; 105 mines within 1 km of CCAs). In 2019, 78% of forest land diversions for infrastructure and mining in Madhya Pradesh (which comprises most of the study region) took place in districts with CCAs. Acute competition for land in this landscape with globally important wildlife corridors calls for an effective comanagement strategy involving local communities, forest departments, and infrastructure planners.     

Predicting the distributional range shifts of Rhizocarpon geographicum (L.) DC. in Indian Himalayan Region under future climate scenarios

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Himalaya, the highest mountain system in the world and house of important biodiversity hotspot, is sensitive to projected warming by climate change....     

Effects of hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) in zebrafish: general and reproductive toxicity

Mixed-sex populations of young adult zebrafish (~2-month-old) were exposed to measured RDX concentrations of 0, 1 or 9.6 ppm for up to 12 weeks followed by a 15-day rearing period in untreated water. RDX caused high mortality at 9.6 ppm, with most deaths occurring within the first 8 weeks of exposure. RDX at 9.6 ppm caused lower body weights at 4 and 8 weeks of exposure; and at 1 ppm, lower body weight was observed only at 4 weeks. Fish length was not affected by treatment at any time during the exposure period. The bioconcentration factor for RDX seemed to be influenced by time of exposure but not by water RDX concentration; its overall values were 1.01+/-0.13, 0.91+/-0.06 and 2.23+/-0.04 at 4, 8 weeks and 12 weeks, respectively. RDX was not detected in fish collected after the 15-day recovery period. In a separate experiment, adult females and males were separately exposed to RDX at measured concentrations of 0, 0.5 and 3.2 ppm for a period of 6 weeks. Reproductive performance was evaluated by biweekly breeding of the fish and measuring packed-egg volume (PEV) as index of fecundity. At 0.5 ppm, RDX caused elevated PEV levels relative to the control value at 2 weeks but not at 4 or 6 weeks, whereas no significant effects were noted at 3.2 ppm. Egg fertilization and embryo hatching rates were not affected by RDX at any of the concentrations tested. In conclusion, RDX at sublethal concentrations causes short-term negative effects on growth and, at 0.5 ppm, positive effects on fecundity.     

Approach for the use of MSW settlement predictions in the assessment of landfill capacity based on reliability analysis

In the analysis and design of municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills, there are many uncertainties associated with the properties of MSW during and after MSW placement. Several studies are performed involving different laboratory and field tests to understand the complex behavior and properties of MSW, and based on these studies, different models are proposed for the analysis of time dependent settlement response of MSW. For the analysis of MSW settlement, it is very important to account for the variability of model parameters that reflect different processes such as primary compression under loading, mechanical creep and biodegradation. In this paper, regression equations based on response surface method (RSM) are used to represent the complex behavior of MSW using a newly developed constitutive model. An approach to assess landfill capacities and develop landfill closure plans based on prediction of landfill settlements is proposed. The variability associated with model parameters relating to primary compression, mechanical creep and biodegradation are used to examine their influence on MSW settlement using reliability analysis framework and influence of various parameters on the settlement of MSW are estimated through sensitivity analysis.     

Waste biomass and recycled polypropylene based jute hybrid composites for non-structural applications

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - There is an overwhelming interest in composite materials derived from bio-based waste resources, recycled plastic materials and their combinations....     

Combustion,performance, and emission characteristics of diesel engine using oxyhydrogen gas as a fuel additive

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - A lot of research is being carried out to reduce the environmental pollution resulting from compression ignition engines. For this, various gaseous...