Forward. A call for integrated soil fertility management in Africa. Introduction. ISFM and the African farmer. Part I. The principles of ISFM: ISFM as a strategic goal, Fertilizer management within ISFM, Agro-minerals in ISFM, Organic resource management, ISFM, soil biota and soil health. Part II. ISFM practices: ISFM products and fields practices, ISFM practice in drylands, ISFM practice in savannas and woodlands, ISFM practice in the humid forest zone, Conservation Agriculture. Part III. The process of implementing ISFM: soil fertility diagnosis, soil fertility management advice, Dissemination of ISFM technologies, Designing an ISFM adoption project, ISFM at farm and landscape scales. Part IV. The social dimensions of ISFM: The role of ISFM in gender empowerment, ISFM and household nutrition, Capacity building in ISFM, ISFM in the policy arena, Marketing support for ISFM, Advancing ISFM in Africa. Appendices: Mineral nutrient contents of some common organic resources.
By the year 2025 nearly 2 billion people will live in regions experiencing absolute water scarcity. In the face of this emerging crisis, how should the planet's water be used and managed? Current international policy sees nature competing with human uses of water. Hunt takes issue with this perspective. She suggests that nature is the source of water and only by making the conservation of nature an absolute priority will we have the water we need for human use in future. It is essential , therefore, to manage water in ways that maintain the water cycle and the ecosystems that support it. This book looks at the complexity of the problem. It provides a wide array of ideas, information, case studies and ecological knowledge - often from remote corners of the developing world -- that could provide an alternative vision for water use and management at this critical time. Essential and compelling reading for students on courses related to water resource management and development; water managers and decision makers, and non-specialists with an interest in global water issues.
Covers the most recent topics in the field of environmental management and provides a broad focus on the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of environmental management Provides an up-to-date survey of the field from the perspective of different disciplines Covers the topic of environmental management from multiple perspectives, namely, natural sciences, engineering, business, social sciences, and methods and tools perspectives Combines both academic rigor and practical approach through literature reviews and theories and examples and case studies from diverse geographic areas and policy domains Explores local and global issues of environmental management and analyzes the role of various contributors in the environmental management process Chapter contents are appropriately demonstrated with numerous pictures, charts, graphs, and tables, and accompanied by a detailed reference list for further readings
While many African countries lag behind the rest of the industrialised world in scientific and medical research and development, the situation is progressively improving. This is why the Society for the Advancement of Science in Africa was established, to contribute to economic advancement and sustainability through science research, education and innovation. This book provides a selection of papers from the Advancement of Science in Africa’s fourth annual conference. The conference was held under the overarching theme of ‘science, technology and innovation in Africa’, with several important sub-themes, including, but not limited to, improving health research and disease surveillance education; collaborating in research responding to epidemic diseases with high mortality in Africa; and promoting women’s interest in science careers. The collection illustrates how, although the chapter contributors come from various countries and universities, representing their own academic research, they all share a common interest in advancing science, technology and innovation in Africa.
This book focuses on recent advances in genetic resources, host - pathogen interactions, assay methods, mechanisms of pathogenesis, and disease resistance. Environmentally benign crop protection methods for major rice diseases such as rice blast, sheath blight, bacterial blight, and newly emerged rice diseases such as false smut and bacterial panicle blight disease are included. The content also contains recent rice breeding methods for higher yield and improved disease resistance, rice processing, delicious rice recipes, and food safety. The book includes a comprehensive understanding of Bacillus thuringiensis toxin and its application for crop protection. Holistically, the book demonstrates successful applications of genomics, physiology, chemistry, genetics, pathology, soil science, and food technology to sustainably protect rice crops for global food safety.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Computational Intelligence, Communications, and Business Analytics, CICBA 2021, held in Santiniketan, India, in January 2021. The 12 full papers and 8 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 84 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on computational forensic (privacy and security); computational intelligence; data science and advanced data analytics; and intelligent data mining and data warehousing.
Food, water and energy form some of the basic elements of sustainability considerations. This ground-breaking book examines and decodes these elements, exploring how a range of countries make decisions regarding their energy and bio-resource consumption and procurement. The authors consider how these choices impact not only the societies and environments of those countries, but the world in general. To achieve this, the authors review the merits of various sustainability and environmental metrics, and then apply these to 34 countries that are ranked low, medium or high on the human development index. The book assesses their resource capacities and the environmental impacts, both within and outside their country boundaries, from consuming food, water, and energy. The final section uses the lessons derived from the earlier analyses of resource consumption to explore the importance of geography, climates and sustainable management of forests and other natural resources for building resilient societies in the future.