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Green Smart Environment for Smart Cities
Published in Pradeep Tomar, Gurjit Kaur, Green and Smart Technologies for Smart Cities, 2019
Yaman Parasher, Gurjit Kaur, Pradeep Tomar
The geosphere is defined as the solid part of the earth, which is responsible for food, vital metal resources, fossil fuels and so on. The outermost solid layer of the earth is the lithosphere, which generally consists of solid rocks with varying thickness, ranging from 100–250 km. Below the lithosphere is the asthenosphere, which contains a viscous liquid rock mantle which is relatively weak and plastic. In general, the geosphere mainly consists of rocks, minerals, soil, sediments and hot layers of molten rock along with an iron-rich inner core. On earth, there are known to exist around 2,000 minerals, each of which is characterized by a definite chemical crystal structure and composition. However, most rocks in the geosphere are only composed of around 25 minerals. The crust of the earth, which is an important part of the geosphere, contains around 25.7% silicon and 49.5% oxygen with little traces of other minerals like carbon, iron, sulfur and aluminum. Only about 1.6% of the earth’s crust contains the important resources that are essential for the sustainability of living species on earth (Manahan 2006).
The Geosphere and Geochemistry
Published in Stanley E. Manahan, Environmental Chemistry, 2022
As illustrated in Figure 14.1, the geosphere is the solid Earth (which sometimes is not so solid when earthquakes or volcanic eruptions occur). The geosphere is an enormous source of natural capital, the management and preservation of which are of utmost importance to sustainability.1 It provides the platform upon which most food is grown and is the source of plant fertilizers, construction materials, and fossil fuels that humans use. As part of its natural capital, the geosphere receives and sequesters large quantities of consumer and industrial wastes. As shown in Figure 14.1, the geosphere interacts strongly with the hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and anthrosphere.
Stem Road Map Curriculum Series
Published in Carla C. Johnson, Janet B. Walton, Erin E. Peters-Burton, Rebuilding the Natural Environment Grade 10, 2022
Carla C. Johnson, Erin E. Peters-Burton, Tamara J. Moore
In the STEM Road Map project, we identified different standards that we consider to be oriented toward systems that students should know and understand in the K-12 setting. These include ecosystems, the rock cycle, Earth processes (such as erosion, tectonics, ocean currents, weather phenomena), Earth-Sun-Moon cycles, heat transfer, and the interaction among the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. Students and teachers should understand that we live in a world of systems that are not independent of each other, but rather are intrinsically linked such that a disruption in one part of a system will have reverberating effects on other parts of the system.
Digital earth: yesterday, today, and tomorrow
Published in International Journal of Digital Earth, 2023
Alessandro Annoni, Stefano Nativi, Arzu Çöltekin, Cheryl Desha, Eugene Eremchenko, Caroline M. Gevaert, Gregory Giuliani, Min Chen, Luis Perez-Mora, Joseph Strobl, Stephanie Tumampos
Another important innovation has taken place in the last 10 years: the so-called New Space revolution. It is a paradigm shift in the development of satellites for earth observation, as it has led to the creation of many small satellite systems (from 1 to 100 kg) which monitor a range of variables describing the biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, and atmosphere systems. More significantly, these miniaturized satellites have opened up the market for commercial projects (Zakšek, Oštir, and McCabe 2019). These small satellites have become platforms largely used to exploit space for sustainable socio-economic benefit. They are commonly known as ‘cubesats’, ‘nanosats’, or ‘microsats’ due to the limited size or weight, respectively. Such developments contribute to the ‘democratisation of space’ (European Commission (EC) 2022a), but also open up many potentially complex, social, and political challenges.
HCI and deep time: toward deep time design thinking
Published in Human–Computer Interaction, 2022
Jörgen Rahm-Skågeby, Lina Rahm
While our survey of HCI research on temporality, materiality and sustainability has shown that there is significant ground covered, it also shows opportunities to advance the current understanding and conceptualization of temporality in HCI. Firstly, HCI research could extend its temporal scope to acknowledge the interplay between profoundly long-term geological and ecological time-scales and contemporary technology use and design. Secondly, to go beyond an anthropocentric and to some extent technology-centric perspective on technology use and design. While this may seem to question the very notion of human-computer interaction, it also puts technology in direct connection with our atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and geosphere. Thirdly, for sustainable technologies to be truly sustainable, we cannot continue to make geo-political separations of the here and now from the non-negotiable long-term implications for our planet and future generations of beings. As a consequence, it seems important to try to develop a notion of design thinking that connects these insights and HCI, which is the focus of the next section.
Impact of agricultural management practices on soil carbon sequestration and its monitoring through simulation models and remote sensing techniques: A review
Published in Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology, 2022
Agniva Mandal, Atin Majumder, S. S. Dhaliwal, A. S. Toor, Pabitra Kumar Mani, R. K. Naresh, Raj K. Gupta, Tarik Mitran
Carbon is fourth abundant element in the universe and it is the backbone of all kinds of structural and functional compounds necessary for life. There are three forms of C present on earth viz. (l) elemental (incomplete combustion products of organic matter (OM) and from geologic sources), (2) inorganic (largely present in carbonate minerals, such as calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and dolomite [CaMg(CO3)2] and (3) organic (Nieder & Benbi, 2008; Schumacher, 2002; The Royal Society, 2005). Different OC forms are mainly decomposed or partially decomposed products of plants, animals and microbes. The presence of a variety of forms of OC in soils could be seen, which include freshly deposited litter like leaves, branches, twigs and higher decomposed forms such as humus (Buringh, 1984). According to Kogel-Knabner (2002) and Kramer and Gleixner (2006), source materials responsible for soil organic matter (SOM) formation are mainly microbial biomass and plant litter. Cycling of these three forms of C (elemental, inorganic and organic) between the reservoirs such as biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere of the Earth through biogeochemical processes such as photosynthesis, respiration, burning, burial of OM, decomposition and weathering processes (West, 2008) could be defined as C cycle.