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Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include non-salty mineral-rich waters such as chalybeate springs. Fresh water may encompass frozen and meltwater in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, snowfields and icebergs, natural precipitations such as rainfall, snowfall, hail/sleet and graupel, and surface runoffs that form inland bodies of water such as wetlands, ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, as well as groundwater contained in aquifers, subterranean rivers and lakes. Fresh water is the water resource that is of the most and immediate use to humans. Water is critical to the survival of all living organisms. Many organisms can thrive on salt water, but the great majority of higher plants and most insects, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds need fresh water to survive. Fresh water is not always

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Effects of groundwater on desalinization in coastal reservoir and adjacent aquifer

David Andrew Barry, Jing Xu

Coastal reservoir provides the additional storage capacity of freshwater in coastal zone which greatly alleviate the water shortage in stressed areas, and the salinization of reservoir water degrade the utility of coastal reservoir. Salinization may result from inadequate desalinization in early operation stage, and groundwater as the important source of freshwater to coastal reservoir and adjacent aquifer was obviously have significant impacts on salinization which was in a dearth research. Laboratory experiments and mathematical model were designed to further discuss the influence of groundwater on the desalinization. The results from experiments shown that with the groundwater discharge rate increased, residual saltwater distribution result from intruded fresh groundwater was further moderated. Coastal reservoirs also greatly changed groundwater discharge pathways to sea. Without coastal reservoir, groundwater discharge to sea directly, while with coastal reservoir, part of groundwater would firstly discharge to coastal reservoir, desalinate the reservoir water, and then to sea. Mathematical model was designed for the prediction of the salinity of reservoir water, and the results from model could indicate the accuracy groundwater discharge pathways in coastal reservoir and adjacent aquifer. These results demonstrate the complexity of the groundwater system in adjacent aquifer of coastal reservoir, and may have great implications for future investigations on the predication of water quality during the full operational period.

2019

Techno-economic and environmental impact assessment of an olive tree pruning waste multiproduct biorefinery

Elia Mercedes Ruiz Pachon

This work focuses on the economic performance and environmental assessment of two biorefinery schemes using 100 t/day of olive tree pruning waste as feedstock. The first scheme is based on a multiproduct biorefinery producing 6363.64 m3/yr of ethanol, 999.31 t/yr of xylitol, and 1221.51 t/yr of antioxidant, obtaining a positive investment balance with a net present value (NPV) of 11.56 Meuro in a 20-year period with an initial investment of 39.5 Meuro (antioxidants account for 60.2% of revenues). In addition, it shows lower environmental impacts: 0.435 kg CO2 eq in global warning, 0.007 kg 1,4-DCB in human carcinogenic toxicity, 0.148 kg oileq in fossil resource scarcity for 1 kg OTP consumed, in comparison to the business-as-usual production of ethanol, xylitol and antioxidants (7.96 kg CO2 eq, 0.444 kg 1,4-DCB and 2.228 kg oileq). The second scheme considered is the standalone production of antioxidants, showing a similar economic performance (NPV = 11.9 Meuro) to the previous multiproduct biorefinery with lower initial investment requirements (24.9 Meuro). This process configuration also reduces some important environmental impacts such as global warming impact (0.55 kg CO2 eq) and freshwater consumption (0.067 m3), with respect to the multiproduct scheme. Thus, it has been demonstrated that antioxidants production from OTP is a promising alternative in terms of both process economics and environmental performance. (c) 2022 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

ELSEVIER2022

The microbiome of cryospheric ecosystems

Tom Ian Battin, Massimo Bourquin, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Leïla Ezzat, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Tyler Joe Kohler, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud, Hannes Markus Peter

The cryosphere includes those parts of Earth where water or soil is frozen, such as snow, ice, glaciers and permafrost soils. Here, the authors present a global inventory of cryospheric microbial communities and their genetic repertoires. The melting of the cryosphere is among the most conspicuous consequences of climate change, with impacts on microbial life and related biogeochemistry. However, we are missing a systematic understanding of microbiome structure and function across cryospheric ecosystems. Here, we present a global inventory of the microbiome from snow, ice, permafrost soils, and both coastal and freshwater ecosystems under glacier influence. Combining phylogenetic and taxonomic approaches, we find that these cryospheric ecosystems, despite their particularities, share a microbiome with representatives across the bacterial tree of life and apparent signatures of early and constrained radiation. In addition, we use metagenomic analyses to define the genetic repertoire of cryospheric bacteria. Our work provides a reference resource for future studies on climate change microbiology.

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