The study investigated the removal of divalent manganese (Mn2+) cations using watermelon rinds, as a lowcost adsorbent, in a batch-type adsorption system under different ranges of the most important operating conditions affecting the adsorption process, which included pH, contact time, initial concentration of divalent manganese ions (Mn2+), agitation rate, temperature, and adsorbent dosage. The operating factor values varied between 1-10, 5-180 minutes, 1-40 ppm, 100-500 rpm, 25-50°C, and 0.5-7 g, respectively. The results obtained indicated that a dose of 6.5 g of Iraqi virgin watermelon rinds successfully treated solutions contaminated with divalent manganese (Mn2+) cations by 81.4% in 150 minutes, at the highest temperature, with an agitation speed of 400 rpm, and a pH of 8.

The growing demand for groundwater is due to several reasons such as the increment of population, agriculture, pollution, industrialization and urbanization. This study aims to map the groundwater potential zones by using the Geographical Information System (GIS) with remote sensing techniques in the study area. The study area is located at Kg Timbang Dayang and its surrounding at Kota Belud, Sabah. Eight parameters were studied that affect the occurrence of groundwater in the study area. Those parameters are obtained from existing maps, remote sensing imagery and associated databases. The parameters are; lithology, rainfall distribution, drainage density, lineament density, soil types, elevation, slope steepness and landuse. All these parameters will be used to create the thematic maps based on the given weightage values. Finally, all the thematic maps will be integrated to produce the final groundwater potential map of the study area. The groundwater potential map is classified into three categories which are low, moderate and high.

The algal-bacterial process has received more attention in the present scenario as a new low-cost method towards pollutant removal from wastewater because symbiotic relationship between algae and bacteria is efficient when compared to traditional secondary treatments. The present work evaluated the optimum concentration of microalgal-bacterial consortia for significant reductions in physicochemical parameters of raw domestic wastewater. In the study, three different concentrations (20%, 30% and 40%) of microalgal-bacterial consortia were studied at 8 hours and 16 hours HRT. Among the different concentrations of consortia studied, 30% consortia gave maximum removal efficiency at both the HRTs. The maximum removal efficiency of phosphate, ammonia, BOD and COD was about 99.79%, 94.85%, 89.02% and 88.96%, respectively, at 8 hours HRT. However, at 16 hours, HRT maximum removal efficiency observed was 97.40%, 94.05%, 83.52% and 88.40% for phosphate, ammonia, BOD and COD respectively. The study depicts that microalgal-bacterial consortia can efficiently remediate nutrients and organic matter from domestic wastewater in both cases when sunlight was ample and even with minimal / no sunlight; hence this system can work effectively throughout the day with much lesser HRT and higher removal efficiency.

Geoelectric survey employing Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) was carried out in order to assess the groundwater repositories. A total of seven soundings were obtained with their layer resistivity, thickness and depth within the maximum electrode separation. The geoelectric parameters obtained were used to estimate the Dar-Zarrouk parameters (longitudinal conductance and transverse resistance), hydraulic conductivity and transmissivity. The result shows the aquifer resistivity ranging from 77.14 to 784.76 Ωm, with thickness ranging from 28.78 to 80.04 m. The longitudinal conductance have values ranging from 0.071 to 0.825 Ω-1 while the values of hydraulic conductivity and transmissivity range from 1.087 to 5.881 m/day and 60.180 to 374.031 𝑚2/day respectively. The contour maps generated show the variation of these parameters across the subsurface, and areas with poor protective capacity were delineated. The results also delineate the groundwater potential of the study area as moderate, while the corrosivity rating indicates non-corrosive and slightly corrosive.

Erosion is a natural process that is difficult to remove or zero erosion rates. The purpose research was analysing erosion hazard and conservation planning. The method used is a survey and take soil samples for analysis in the laboratory. Parameters analysed: texture, volume weight, permeability and organic matter. Soil erosion rate is calculated with USLE. The calculation results show that erosion is very light (land units 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12) and light (land units 5). The highest value is in moor land use (29.83 tons/ha /year) and the lowest is rice field land use (0.003 tons/ha/year). The level of erosion hazard is classified as very mild and mild, but the actual erosion that occurs exceeds tolerable erosion. Conservation actions is by increasing plant density, planting soil cover crops, adding organic matter, mulching, repair existing terraces.

Water is essential to sustain life, and an adequate, safe and accessible supply must be available to all as improving access to safe drinking water can result in tangible benefits to health. In the present study, eighteen water samples from six different study area, viz., Red Hills, T. Nagar, Saidapet, Ashok Nagar, Alandur and Guindy of metropolitan Chennai were tested for their physicochemical and biological parameters, of which Red Hills served as control area. Results with regard to the physical parameters, showed no variation in the colour of water samples which was clear except for control as it appeared light brown. The odour of samples collected from all six study areas was observed to be constant and agreeable. The water temperature, turbidity, electrical conductivity and total dissolved solids for all six study areas ranged from 28.7 to 29.7°C, 3.7 to 11.7NTU, 723.3 to 1099.7μS/cm, and 396.7 to 805.0mg/L. The values of chemical parameters represented by pH, total hardness, total alkalinity, sulphates and flourides ranged from 7.7 to 8.0, 128.0 to 503.3mg/L, 13.3 to 50.0mg/L, 106.6 to 224.0mg/L, and 0.6 and 1.5mg/L. All the samples were found to be free from coliforms except for the control in the case of biological parameters. Overall results indicate that the physical and chemical parameters were found to be within the permissible limits set by standards and biological contamination was absent in the samples except in control which is a natural reservoir.

The release of coloured effluents from various dying industries are of great concern due to the challenge involved in the treatment process. In present work, response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural network (ANN) were used to predict the color removal using adsorption process. Water hyacinth (WH) was used as an economical adsorbent for color removal from aqueous solution in a batch system. The individual effect of influential parameter viz. initial pH, MB (dye) concentration, and the adsorbent dose were studied using the central composite design of RSM. The RSM result was used as an input data along with final pH (non-controllable parameter) after adsorption to train the ANN model. Color removal of 96.649% was obtained experimentally at the optimized condition. A comparison between the experimental data and model results shows a high correlation coefficient (R2RSM = 0.99 and R2ANN = 0.98) and showed that the two models predicted MB removal indicating WH can be used as an adsorbent for color removal from dye wastewater.

Drought is regarded as one of the limiting factors in rice production nationally and globally. The present study was conducted to study morpho-physiological and biochemical responses of rice genotypes to drought stress, to identify potential traits for use as a selection criterion in breeding drought-tolerant rice at seedling stage and finally to identify rice genotype resistant to drought stress for use as parents in future breeding. The experimental design used was a split-plot design with three replications, with drought stress as the main plot and rice genotypes as the sub-plot. The main plots consisted of control (normal irrigation) and drought stress. The sub-plots consisted of twelve rice genotypes namely Apami (V1), Boewani (V2), Basmati 370 (V3), Cica- 4 (V4), Dular (V5), Jarom mas (V6), Kalarata (V7), Biris (V8), Haiboq (V9), Moroberekan (V10), MR 297 (V11) and Aerob 1 (V12). Results showed that drought stress led to a decrease in plant height, leaves size, root length, total dry weight, and number of leaves but an increment in proline content. The genotype Apami and Kalarata were found to accumulate higher proline content indicating potential resistant ability towards drought stress. Dular and Aerob1, along with tolerant control genotype, Moroberekan, on the other hand, recorded a lower SES score. Leave size, root length, and plant height could also be used as a selection criterion in breeding drought-tolerant rice due to high values of broad-sense heritability and genetic advance by percentage of mean (GAM). Nevertheless, further study on the genetics and physiological basis of tolerant ability at reproductive growth stages are necessary in order to assess grain yield potential of the potentially tolerant genotype reported in this study.

Bottles of water, by different trademarks which lack of the standard specifications, have overwhelmed shops and markets in Libya. Despite the fact that the number of plants and factories of bottled water is increasing rapidly, there has not been any serious intention on the part of governmental bodies to take action against the unlicensed factories. This has led to the quality of bottled water in many cases violating the required standards of chemical and physical properties for the potable water, which threatens the public health. The aim of this paper was first, to investigate whether if these bottled water do really meets the international and Libyan standards of bottled water, and second to point out the actions taken by the responsible authorities as well as other related governmental/non-governmental organizations. The paper examined four random samples of bottled water sold in Tripoli during January 2019 and measured some of its physicochemical properties, such as total dissolved solids (TDS), pH, sodium, potassium and calcium. The results indicated that all the experimental values were different from what was written on the samples’ labels. The percentage of these differences ranged from 2% to 650 %. The statistical data of TDS (labeled-measured) was found to be 78.725 mg/l with a standard deviation of 33.91758 mg/l, and t-test with p = 0.019 (P ≤ 0.05), which means results are significant. It was also observed that all samples violated the Libyan standards in not providing all the required data on their labels; 25% of samples do not include water source, 50% of samples do not mention the source of the water, 75% of samples do not mention license number, and 50% of samples do not provide any written statement regarding the storage conditions, which means that all the samples must be withdrawn from the market without the need for chemical or biological testing.

This study aims at the assessment of aquifer vulnerability and contaminants plume where artisan refining of crude is taking place, which is a threat to availability of potable water. The ArcGIS version 10.3, ENVI version 4.7, Surfer 10, SPSS 22 and Microsoft Enterprise were used for the interpretation and the water and soil samples were analyzed in the laboratory using standard methods. A total number of sixteen (16) sampling points were selected using random sampling techniques for the water points and soil samples within Ogu Bolo and Okrika. The Digital Elevation Model was created from the elevation data obtained from SRTM (Short Radar Thematic Mapper) satellite image and contour extracted from the topographic map. The influence of the soil type, slope, flow accumulation, flow direction of the study area was used to delineate the level of contaminant plume. This was generated from the DEM using the ArcGIS 10.3 3-D analyst tool function. A water Quality index rating of 1 was measured in the study area which is an indication that the water is very bad. Also, the physiochemical analysis on soil and water revealed poor water and soil. Water analysis showed high concentration of Fe and Zn which made the water in the area unsuitable for drinking. Also, the soil samples recorded high levels of crude content from 1m, with concentration reducing with depth up to 3m. A general contamination map of Okrika/Ogu-bolo was modelled, indicating the contamination rating of the total land mass of the study area, with 23.59km (5.71%) rated very good, while 85.65km (20.71%) were rated good. Also, 140.37km (33.95%) had only showed moderate level of contamination while 112.56km (27.22%) recorded high level of contamination, with 51.29km (12.40%) of the total land mass having a very bad contamination record.