Adapting water resources to climate change in Kiribati: the importance of cultural values and meanings

In many Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States, such as in Kiribati, formal national adaptation programmes are currently being operationalised. A key focus is enhancing the adaptive capacity of vulnerable communities through piloting of sectoral adaptation strategies such as diversifying water resources. This study argues that fundamental to water management and adaptation planning is the integration of people's cultural values attached to the assets/resources they control and utilise in their efforts to adapt to various stresses on water resources. The results from integrating cultural resources into a Sustainable Livelihoods Framework indicate that people's capacity to diversify is constrained by cultural processes negotiated in their daily lives that reinforced and reproduced hardships. Material resources provided personal significance when they were spent on maintaining social identity, expressed in recent times through the church. Thus fewer resources were available for pursuing a diversification strategy. Furthermore, power structures in the church delimited benefits to the individual, depriving people of their freedom to exercise autonomous agency and achieve personal wellbeing. The study demonstrates the significance of religion to adaptation. Moreover, it highlights the need to consider the relational aspects of assets, in conditioning how people access and utilise assets in pursuing adaptation strategies.     

A comparative study of tea waste derived humic-like substances with lignite-derived humic substances on chemical composition,spectroscopic properties and biological activity

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Emerging demand for humic substances escalated the short supply of coal-related resources from which humic substances are extracted in large...     

Characteristics and potential human health hazards of charged aerosols generated by high-voltage power lines

We investigated the characteristics of charged aerosols produced by high-voltage power lines (HVPLs) to explore the effects on respiratory disease incidence among those who handle HVPLs. Charged aerosol currents and charged aerosol concentrations were measured over 24?h at 12 sites. Aerosol current effective levels were 2.7 times higher compared to exposed and control sites. This pattern of relative enhancement at exposed sites was seen consistently in all measurements and the difference was 1.7 higher at exposed sites. Correlation analysis among all important variables revealed strong positive correlations between currents and concentration, currents and magnetic field, humidity and concentration, and humidity and particles of 10?µm or less (PM₁₀), while negative correlations were observed between charged aerosol concentrations and wind velocity and between wind velocity and humidity. Estimated production of charged aerosols from HVPLs found that people who work with HVPLs are highly likely to be exposed to charged aerosols.     

On the mechanistic modeling of As(III) adsorption on gibbsite

Arsenite adsorption on gibbsite was examined as a function of pH, ionic strength (I) and contact time (t(C)). As(III) showed a weak affinity for gibbsite surface. The trends of pH=f(Gamma(ads)) curves have showed a marked deviation from a typical anion adsorption edge showing a maximum Gamma(ads) around pH approximately 8.2. The experimentally derived proton exchange ratio has always converged to zero when 0.26< summation operator [As(III)]<7 microM and 6.2相似文献