Socioecology Research Today

This study aims to quantify water appropriation and the potential production of algal bio-oil using freshwater and municipal wastewater effluent (MWW) as an alternative water resource. The county-level analysis focuses on open-pond algae cultivation systems located in 17 states in the southern United States. Several scenarios were developed to examine the water availability for algae [...]

Agricultural irrigation in the Central Valley of California doubles the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere, leading to increased rainfall throughout the southwestern United States. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/493455c

Societal pressure on the global land and freshwater resources is increasing as a result of the rising food demand by the growing human population, dietary changes, and the enhancement of biofuel production induced by the rising oil prices and recent changes in United States and European Union bioethanol policies. Many countries and corporations have started [...]

The Bedouin of South Sinai, Egypt, use a technique known as runoff agroforestry to capture rainwater and increase the agricultural potential of the arid landscape. Utilising water that would otherwise be lost from the vicinity allows the creation of multi-strata orchards with higher plant densities than the surrounding environment. We used pitfall traps to compare [...]

Here we address one of the most important missing components in the current ecosystem services toolbox: a comprehensive and generalizable framework for describing and valuing water quality-related services. Water quality is often misrepresented as a final ecosystem service. We argue that it is actually an important contributor to many different services, from recreation to human [...]

The utilization of plants for mitigating carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere in Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects and biofuel production causes a severe burden on the limited sources of arable land and fresh water. This research is aimed at finding alternative plant types for biomass and biofuel production among desert halophytes. Such plants have [...]

They found that, in many areas, water production can be substantially increased without harming the environment. In Africa, for example, most cropland is rain-fed and only four per cent of available water is captured for crops and livestock.”Somehow, we have to get more food without taking more water — and the most promising way is [...]

By mimicking the leaves of a carnivorous tropical plant, US scientists have developed a surface so slippery that everything slides off: water, oil, blood, ice, jam and even ants. This kind of ‘omniphobic’ surface could be used to produce graffiti-repelling walls, self-cleaning windows and pipes that transport fluids easily and quickly. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10447 Ed. Note: [...]

Under present weather conditions, miscanthus and switchgrass utilized more water than maize for total seasonal evapotranspiration by approximately 58% and 36%, respectively. Projected higher concentrations of atmospheric CO2 (550 ppm) is likely to decrease water used for evapotranspiration of miscanthus, switchgrass, and maize by 12%, 10%, and 11%, respectively. However, when climate change with projected [...]

As freshwater resources dwindle, purified wastewater is increasingly discussed as a supplement for such high-volume uses as crop irrigation. In a 15-year field-scale test of this prospect, Assouline and Narkis studied the soil properties of an irrigated avocado farm in Israel; one side of the farm received natural fresh water, while the other received treated [...]