scholarly journals Factors Affecting Farmer’s Chemical Fertilizers Consumption and Water Pollution in Northeastern Iran

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 234
Author(s):  
Hosein Mohammadi ◽  
Abdolhamid Moarefi Mohammadi ◽  
Solmaz Nojavan
Keyword(s):  
Water Pollution ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Organic Farming ◽  
Underground Water ◽  
Economic Incentives ◽  
General Information ◽  
Chemical Fertilizers ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Agriculture Sector ◽  
Main Activity

Pollution by fertilizers containing nitrogen is one of the most significant sources of water pollution, and agriculture sector has a considerable share in this type of pollution. In this study, factors affecting the level of contamination of surface and underground water resources by agricultural activities were examined. Data of 254 wheat farmers in the plain of Mashhad in Khorasan Razavi province in Iran were used for investigating the effect of some explanatory variables on the level of water pollution utilizing Ordered Logit Regression Model. The results show that main activity of farmers, years of experience, the level of education, awareness of organic farming, level of income, price of fertilizers and irrigation method have significant effect on the amount of fertilizers utilized by farmers and hence the level of water resources pollution. Efforts for decreasing pollution of water resources require strategies such as changing the main activity of farmers, increase the cost of using chemical fertilizers, create economic incentives for organic farming, and increase general information and knowledge of farmers.

scholarly journals Farmers’ participation in Water User Association in western Iran

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saeed Gholamrezai ◽  
Fatemeh Sepahvand
Keyword(s):  
Water Resources ◽  
Water Consumption ◽  
User Association ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Water User ◽  
Water User Association ◽  
Agriculture Sector ◽  
Water Pumping ◽  
Pumping Stations ◽  
Agriculture Water

AbstractOne of the main challenges of water scarcity is the water consumption in the agriculture sector. Therefore, optimizing water consumption and applying an optimal management in the agriculture sector is necessary. The implementation of a participatory management of water resources in the rural areas and the creation of Water User Association (WUA) can be a successful approach towards this management. That requires the continuity of the management, the comprehensive participation of farmers, and the exploitation of water resources; however, this action needs to understand the factors affecting the behavior of consumers. Thus identifying the factors influencing farmers’ intentions towards participation in WUA is essential. The purpose of this study is to identify factors affecting farmers' intentions towards participation in water user association, by theory of planned behavior (TPB). There are 21 agriculture water pumping stations active in Lorestan Province. Farmers at each agriculture water pumping stations make up a Water User Association. The population of this study consisted of all WUAs in western Iran (N = 1990), and through a proportional stratified random sampling technique farmers were selected (N = 133) from the population. Moreover, the validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a panel of experts. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated at pre-test stage for different parts of the questionnaire ranging from 0.83 until 0.91. The collected data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 20 software. The results revealed that there were effective variables including subjective norm, attitude, and extension training courses which contributed to the importance of participation in the water management, and that the educational level of farmer was a controlled variable that could affect farmers' attitudes towards participating in Water User Association; these factors could explain 53% of farmers' participation totally.

scholarly journals Organic Farming in India: Status, Constraints and Challenges

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 11-15
Author(s):  
N Harish
Keyword(s):  
Organic Farming ◽  
Organic Agriculture ◽  
Good Health ◽  
Chemical Fertilizers ◽  
Demographic Pressure ◽  
Agriculture Sector ◽  
Organic Cultivation ◽  
The World ◽  
Day By Day ◽  
Different Parts

Organic farming in India is attaining popularity day by day. India is endowed with various types of naturally available organic forms of nutrients in different parts of the country, and it will help for the organic cultivation of crops substantially. The rising population of India has started creating demographic pressure on the agriculture sector to maintain food security. For producing better crop yield, chemical fertilizers and pesticides were used, and this creates more health hazards. To generate good health and environment, a need arise a shift to organic agriculture. India is home to 30 percent of the total organic producers in the world. Still, it accounts for just 2.59 percent (1.5 million hectares) of the total organic cultivation area of 57.8 million hectares (World of Organic Agriculture Report, 2018). Organic farming is beneficial for natural resources and the environment. The study mainly focused on the Present Status of organic farming in India and given the main challenges and constraints of organic farming.

Current status, problems and control strategies of water resources pollution in China

Water Policy ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Wu ◽  
Tong Qi ◽  
Dan Li ◽  
Huijuan Yang ◽  
Guoqing Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Pollution ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Water Environment ◽  
Underground Water ◽  
National Standard ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Food Borne ◽  
Major River ◽  
And Control ◽  
Research And Policy

The surface water of 10 major river systems across China has been under intermediate pollution with striking eutrophication problems in major lakes (reservoirs). More data from the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China showed that underground water in 57% of monitoring sites across Chinese cities was polluted or extremely polluted. Rural water pollution, the rising number of incidents of industrial pollution, outdated sewerage systems, and the overuse of pesticides and chemical fertilizers also endanger the health of rural inhabitants in China. Nearly 0.2 billion rural residents could not use drinking water in accordance with the national standard, and there were reports of ‘cancer villages' and food-borne diseases (cancer village refers to a village where a certain proportion of its inhabitants suffer from the same kind of cancer or where there is a hike in cancer incidence in that area). This study aims to raise awareness of the prevention and control of water pollution and to propose a set of national research and policy initiatives for the future safety of the water environment in China.

scholarly journals DIVISION G COMMISSION 35: STELLAR CONSTITUTION

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (T29A) ◽  
pp. 436-452
Author(s):  
Marco Limongi ◽  
John C. Lattanzio ◽  
Corinne Charbonnel ◽  
Inma Dominguez ◽  
Jordi Isern ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cross Sections ◽  
Stellar Populations ◽  
General Information ◽  
International Astronomical Union ◽  
B Stars ◽  
Chemically Peculiar ◽  
International Astronomical ◽  
Working Groups ◽  
Red Giant ◽  
Main Activity

Commission 35 (C35), “Stellar Constitution”, consists of members of the International Astronomical Union whose research spans many aspects of theoretical and observational stellar physics and it is mainly focused on the comprehension of the properties of stars, stellar populations and galaxies. The number of members of C35 increased progressively over the last ten years and currently C35 comprises about 400 members. C35 was part of Division IV (Stars) until 2014 and then became part of Division G (Stars and Stellar Physics), after the main IAU reorganisation in 2015. Four Working Groups have been created over the years under Division IV, initially, and Division G later: WG on Active B Stars, WG on Massive Stars, WG on Abundances in Red Giant and WG on Chemically Peculiar and Related Stars. In the last decade the Commission had 4 presidents, Wojciech Dziembowski (2003-2006), Francesca D'Antona (2006-2009), Corinne Charbonnel (2009-2012) and Marco Limongi (2012-2015), who were assisted by an Organizing Committee (OC), usually composed of about 10 members, all of them elected by the C35 members and holding their positions for three years. The C35 webpage (http://iau-c35.stsci.edu) has been designed and continuously maintained by Claus Leitherer from the Space Telescope Institute, who deserves our special thanks. In addition to the various general information on the Commission structure and activities, it contains links to various resources, of interest for the members, such as stellar models, evolutionary tracks and isochrones, synthetic stellar populations, stellar yields and input physics (equation of state, nuclear cross sections, opacity tables), provided by various groups. The main activity of the C35 OC is that of evaluating, ranking and eventually supporting the proposals for IAU sponsored meetings. In the last decade the Commission has supported several meetings focused on topics more or less relevant to C35. Since the primary aim of this document is to present the main activity of C35 over the last ten years, in the following we present some scientific highlights that emerged from the most relevant IAU Symposia and meetings supported and organized by C35 in the last decade.

Off-office audit of natural resource assets and water pollution: a quasi-natural experiment in China

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaowei Ma ◽  
Muhammad Shahbaz ◽  
Malin Song
Keyword(s):  
Water Pollution ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Prevention And Control ◽  
Industrial Structure ◽  
Dynamic Effect ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Audit System ◽  
And Control

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the off-office audit of natural resource assets on the prevention and control of water pollution against a background of big data using a differences-in-differences model.Design/methodology/approachThis study constructs a differences-in-differences model to evaluate the policy effects of off-office audit based on panel data from 11 cities in Anhui Province, China, from 2011 to 2017, and analyzes the dynamic effect of the audit and intermediary effect of industrial structure.FindingsThe implementation of the audit system can effectively reduce water pollution. Dynamic effect analysis showed that the audit policy can not only improve the quality of water resources but can also have a cumulative effect over time. That is, the prevention and control effect on water pollution is getting stronger and stronger. The results of the robustness test verified the effectiveness of water pollution prevention and control. However, the results of the influence mechanism analysis showed that the mediating effect of the industrial structure was not obvious in the short term.Practical implicationsThese findings shed light on the effect of the off-office audit of natural resource assets on the prevention and control of water pollution, and provide a theoretical basis for the formulation of relevant environmental policies. Furthermore, these findings show that the implementation of the audit system can effectively reduce water pollution, which has practical significance for the sustainable development of China's economy against the background of big data.Originality/valueThis study quantitatively analyzes the policy effect of off-office auditing from the perspective of water resources based on a big data background, which differs from the existing research that mainly focuses on basic theoretical analysis.

scholarly journals Can Organic Sources of Nutrients Increase Crop Yields to Meet Global Food Demand?

Agronomy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jagadish Timsina
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Organic Farming ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Food Demand ◽  
Conventional Farming ◽  
Chemical Fertilizers ◽  
Organic Nutrients ◽  
On Farm ◽  
Global Food

Meeting global demand of safe and healthy food for the ever-increasing population now and into the future is currently a crucial challenge. Increasing crop production by preserving environment and mitigating climate change should thus be the main goal of today’s agriculture. Conventional farming is characterized by use of high-yielding varieties, irrigation water, chemical fertilizers and synthetic pesticides to increase yields. However, due to either over- or misuse of chemical fertilizers or pesticides in many agro-ecosystems, such farming is often blamed for land degradation and environmental pollution and for adversely affecting the health of humans, plants, animals and aquatic ecosystems. Of all inputs required for increased agricultural production, nutrients are considered to be the most important ones. Organic farming, with use of organic sources of nutrients, is proposed as a sustainable strategy for producing safe, healthy and cheaper food and for restoring soil fertility and mitigating climate change. However, there are several myths and controversies surrounding the use of organic versus inorganic sources of nutrients. The objectives of this paper are: (i) to clarify some of the myths or misconceptions about organic versus inorganic sources of nutrients and (ii) to propose alternative solutions to increase on-farm biomass production for use as organic inputs for improving soil fertility and increasing crop yields. Common myths identified by this review include that organic materials/fertilizers can: (i) supply all required macro- and micro-nutrients for plants; (ii) improve physical, chemical and microbiological properties of soils; (iii) be applied universally on all soils; (iv) always produce quality products; (v) be cheaper and affordable; and (vi) build-up of large amount of soil organic matter. Other related myths are: “legumes can use entire amount of N2 fixed from atmosphere” and “bio-fertilizers increase nutrient content of soil.” Common myths regarding chemical fertilizers are that they: (i) are not easily available and affordable, (ii) degrade land, (iii) pollute environment and (iv) adversely affect health of humans, animals and agro-ecosystems. The review reveals that, except in some cases where higher yields (and higher profits) can be found from organic farming, their yields are generally 20–50% lower than that from conventional farming. The paper demonstrates that considering the current organic sources of nutrients in the developing countries, organic nutrients alone are not enough to increase crop yields to meet global food demand and that nutrients from inorganic and organic sources should preferably be applied at 75:25 ratio. The review identifies a new and alternative concept of Evergreen Agriculture (an extension of Agroforestry System), which has potential to supply organic nutrients in much higher amounts, improve on-farm soil fertility and meet nutrient demand of high-yielding crops, sequester carbon and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, provide fodder for livestock and fuelwood for farmers and has potential to meet global food demand. Evergreen Agriculture has been widely adapted by tens of millions of farmers in several African countries and the review proposes for evaluation and scaling-up of such technology in Asian and Latin American countries too.

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