Description / Table of Contents: The Built Environment in the Context of the New Urban Agenda: An Overview -- The Built Environment as a Value Chain Process.-The Biophysical Environment: Key Ingredient in Shaping the Built Environment -- Geoinformatics and Land Surveying Steering the New Urban Agenda in Zimbabwe -- Spatial Planning Steering the New Urban Agenda in Zimbabwe -- Construction and Civil Engineering Steering the New Urban Agenda in Zimbabwe -- The Role of architecture in implementing the New Urban Agenda -- Sustainable Urban Mobility and the New Urban Agenda in Zimbabwe -- Quantity Surveying Steering the New Urban Agenda in Zimbabwe -- A review of the contribution of the real estate sector towards the attainment of the New Urban Agenda in Zimbabwe -- Institutions, Laws and Governance Structures for Developing and Managing the Built Environment: Elephant in the Room for Advancing the New Urban Agenda -- Climate Resilience and the New Urban Agenda in Zimbabwe: The Role of the Built Environment Disciplines and Practice -- The New Urban Agenda in Zimbabwe: Policy and the Future .

Description / Table of Contents: A comprehensive review on the development of zero waste management -- Crop residue management practices for sustaining soil health -- Biostimulation of microbes for enhanced oil removal from petroleum hydrocarbon contaminated soils: A zero waste remediation approach.

Description / Table of Contents: Chapter 1. Biologically Active Compounds from Medicinal and Aromatic Plants for Industrial Applications (Sevinç Yeşilyurt) -- Chapter 2. In-vitro propagation to conserve medicinally important plants: insight, procedures, and opportunities (Samridha V) -- Chapter 3. Harnessing In-Vitro Propagation for the Sustainable Conservation of Medicinal Plants: Challenges and Prospects (Yogesh K. Ahlawat) -- Chapter 4. Response of Cultivated Industrial Crops to Abiotic Stress: Strategies to Enhance Target Metabolite Productivity (Rakesh Chandra Nainwal) -- Chapter 5. Clove: Tiny buds with global fame (Leila Mohtashami, Shokoufeh Aalinezhad) -- Chapter 6. Konkan's Curcuma: Insights into Morphological and Genetic Diversity, Phytochemical Treasures, and In-vitro Micropropagation (Hafsa Shaikh) -- Chapter 7. Recent Advances in Extraction, Analysis, Value Addition, and Applications of Essential Oils (Munmun Kumar Singh) -- Chapter 8. Green Techniques for The Extraction of Bioactives from Withania somnifera for Agro-Industrial Potential (Arti Shukla) -- Chapter 9. Phytochemical importance of medicinal plants as potential sources against neurodegenerative diseases (Vibha Pandey) -- Chapter 10. Exploring Therapeutic Potential of Indian Ayurvedic Plants for Parkinson's Disease Treatment (Philip Thomas) -- Chapter 11. Computational Strategies for Maximizing Biomass and Metabolite Yields for Bioproduction (Yogesh K. Ahlawat) -- Chapter 12. Plant Essential Oils as Multifunctional Biomolecules for Applications in Therapeutics, Food and Industry (Irshika Divanji) -- Chapter 13. Phytotherapy: An alternative approach to treat Glioblastoma (Pratibha Kumari) -- Chapter 14. Gene-based Management of Alzheimer’s Disease: Role of Coumarins of Ferulago Genus (Farid Dabaghian) -- Chapter 15. Harnessing the power of aromatic and medicinal plants for natural product innovation (Shiuly Bhowmick).

Description / Table of Contents: Researching crises and solutions with urgency and agency: An introduction -- Part 1: Mainstreaming risk reduction in recovery and reconstruction -- Disentangling governance for nature-based restoration projects -- Female leadership and everyday hazards: Care practices and solidarity networks in Campamento Dignidad -- Structural measures for wildfire risk reduction in informal contexts in Chile -- Analyzing urban Tsunami evacuation through evacuees’ spatial behaviors -- Part 2: Enhancing inclusion through humanitarian architecture -- Integrating soft infrastructure in design to build community resilience in Puerto Rico -- Can a gender perspective fulfill the end-user's needs in housing reconstruction projects? -- Leaving the slum: International collaborative design initiatives to shape capabilities during resettlement -- Architecture and incremental housing in climate change and pandemic times in Lisbon and Bhopal informal settings -- Part 3: Disentangling urban forced displacement challenges -- Displacement as precarious inhabiting: Care and repair at the urban margins -- Improving post-conflict self-recovery programming: Addressing the complexities in Syria -- Waiting in non-places: The spatialization of displacement discourses -- Can urban factors enhance the integration of asylum seekers in cities?.

Description / Table of Contents: Chapter 1 Fundamentals of industrial sludge -- Chapter 2 Management of textile industry sludge for environmental sustainability -- Chapter 3 Sustainable management of oily petroleum refinery sludge through anaerobic digestion with bioenergy production -- Chapter 4 Hydrothermal carbonization of industrial sludge -- Chapter 5 Sustainable management of industrial sludge through vermistabilization utilizing pollutants loaded spent biochar produced from wastewater treatment process -- Chapter 6 Production of microbial fuel cell material from industrial wastewater sludge -- Chapter 7 Industrial sludge as adsorbent for wastewater treatment and reclamation -- Chapter 8 Sustainable utilization of industrial sludge in the construction industry -- Chapter 9 Utilization of waste sludge and poplar trees for remediation -- Chapter 10 Sustainable production of enzymes using industrial sludge -- Chapter 11 Sustainable application of industrial sludge in agriculture land -- Chapter 12 Production of biodiesel from industrial sludge -- Chapter 13 Advancement in sustainable management and valorization of solid waste through composting and vermitechnology.

Description / Table of Contents: Chapter 1. Urbanization and urban climate in high-density cities -- Chapter 2. Origins and evolution of the Local Climate Zone classification system -- Chapter 3. Current popular methods for LCZ mapping -- Chapter 4. Recent improvements in supervised pixel-based LCZ classification -- Chapter 5. Application of LCZ to urban heat island studies -- Chapter 6. Application of LCZ to land use and land cover studies -- Chapter 7. Application of LCZ to wind environment studies -- Chapter 8. Application of LCZ to energy consumption and carbon emission modeling -- Chapter 9. Application of LCZ to thermal comfort and health-related studies -- Chapter 10. Application of LCZ to time-series urban morphology detection -- Chapter 11. Application of LCZ in mesoscale meteorological model simulations and climate projection -- Chapter 12. Integration of LCZ to planning strategies -- Chapter 13. Conclusions and outlook.

Description / Table of Contents: Introduction -- General view on synergies and trade-offs using wastewater and anaerobic processes for current in the form of biomass, CH4 and H2 as well as energy production systems -- Anaerobic Digestion -- Decreasing the retention time as a way for stabilizing anaerobic digestion processes -- Dark Fermentation -- Microbial population dynamics in continuous hydrogen production systems by dark fermentation of tequila vinasse -- Practical applications of dark fermentation for hydrogen production -- Biohydrogen Production: A Focus on Dark Fermentation Technology -- Experiences of Biohydrogen Production from various feedstocks by Dark Fermentation at laboratory scale -- Microbial communities in Dark Fermentation, analytical tools to elucidate key microorganisms and metabolic profiles -- Microbial Fuel Cells -- Microbial fuel cell systems for wastewater treatment and energy generation from organic carbon and nitrogen: fundamentals, optimization, and novel processes -- Microbial Electrolysis Cells -- Online optimization of Microbial Electrolysis Cells -- Bioethanol and Butanol Systems -- Optimizing Bioethanol Production via Extremum Seeking Control in a Continuous Stirred Tank Bioreactor -- Performance evaluation of the non-structured and structured kinetic modelling for the abe process. From batch to continuous fermentation -- Microalgae -- Microalgae-Based Diesel: A Historical Perspective to Future Directions -- Bioconversion of industrial CO2 into synthetic fuels -- Future trends -- Bioprocesses Coupling for Biohydrogen Production: Applications and Challenges -- Harvesting biofuels with Microbial Electrochemical Technologies (METs): state of the art and future challenges -- Evolution of the biorefinery concept and its evaluation tools toward a circular bioeconomy.

Description / Table of Contents: Marine fish play important functional roles within the carbon cycle, including the production and excretion of intestinal carbonates. With fish accounting for at least 3-15% of total marine carbonate production, the global significance of this process is clear. A comprehensive assessment of the drivers of fish carbonate excretion rate and mineralogy is however lacking. Closing this gap is imperative to fully understand the role of fish in the inorganic carbon cycle and to predict how it may change in future. Focusing on tropical and subtropical reefs, this thesis assessed the drivers of fish contributions to the inorganic carbon cycle at different ecological levels and spatial scales. At the individual level, this project compiled intestinal traits for 142 species and carbonate excretion rates and mineralogy for 85 species. A comprehensive modelling approach then identified the species traits and environmental factors that influence individual excretion rates and mineralogy. At the community level and at the global scale, a novel analysis of 〉1,400 reefs mapped distribution patterns in fish carbonate excretion and mineralogy. A causal inference analysis identified the major ecological, environmental, and socio-economic factors driving these community-level patterns. At the regional scale (i.e., in the Australian coral reefs context), structural equation models disentangled the indirect effects of human gravity (i.e., a proxy for human pressure) and fisheries management on fish contributions to inorganic carbon cycling. Findings at the individual level confirmed the long-assumed direct link between fish carbonate excretion and metabolic rate and showed that diet strongly influences intestinal morphology. Relative intestinal length was uncovered as a strong driver of carbonate excretion rates and mineralogy, as were taxonomic identity and temperature. Current global patterns of fish contribution to the inorganic carbon cycle are primarily driven by fish community structure, sea surface temperature, and human gravity. Carbonate excretion rates peaked in highly productive areas supporting high fish biomass, especially within the upper trophic levels, and where human gravity is low. Globally, fish communities predominantly excrete the more soluble carbonates and their proportion increases with increasing temperature. On Australian reefs, fish carbonate excretion was strongly affected by human impact through reduced fish biomass despite the region’s relatively low fishing pressure. In this particular geographic context, current fisheries management is not sufficient to maintain fish carbonate excretion, despite positive effects on fish biodiversity. This thesis advances our understanding of the role of fish in inorganic carbon cycling from the physiological, ecological, biogeographic, chemical, mineralogical, and conservation perspectives. It unravels the complex variability of this function across ecological levels and spatial scales. Coupled with predictive models, this information could yield solid predictions of the future levels of this function in light of anthropogenic impacts and climate-driven range shifts. While fish carbonate excretion may increase with climate change, excreted carbonates will dissolve faster and/or at shallower water depths, thereby changing their influence on seawater chemistry and reducing their sedimentation potential. Protecting large predators would promote inorganic carbonate production and other fish roles within the carbon cycle. However, fisheries management has in places limited capacity to sustain fish inorganic carbon cycling. The need for effective, context-tailored management approaches that address socio-economic factors beyond fishing pressure is strongly emphasised.

Description / Table of Contents: Quantifying species responses to the effects of changing environmental conditions is critical for a better understanding of how climate change affects invasion, expansion, and contraction of marine coastal species. Climate change is leading to modifications in the marine coastal environment, to conditions not experienced before; climate change results in that marine organisms experience simultaneous changes in several environmental variables (=drivers: e.g. temperature, salinity, food). How simultaneous changes in multiple drivers are experienced depend on species-specific traits (e.g. physiological tolerance, developmental time); for instance, co-occurring native and non-native species may experience and respond to climate change in different ways. In addition, within species, responses to multiple drivers may vary across populations and environmental gradients. The general objective of this thesis was to quantify the effects of environmental drivers (temperature, salinity and food limitation) on performance of native and non-native species with focus on larval stages and using crabs as model systems. There were two main objectives, first to compare native and non-native species in the responses to multiple environmental drivers and to quantify larval responses to temperature across their distribution range. I focused on larvae because they play a critical role in population dynamics: larvae are important for the dispersion and connectivity of populations, and are more sensitive to changes in environmental conditions than adults. I used three ecologically relevant species of coastal areas of the North Sea and North Atlantic Ocean as models: Hemigrapsus sanguineus, Carcinus maenas and Hemigrapsus takanoi. C. maenas is native to Europe; Hemigrapsus spp. are both non-native species in the European coast, where they coexist with C. maenas as juveniles and adults in the benthos. I used factorial experiments rearing larvae from hatching to megalopae at different combinations of temperature and other environmental drivers (salinity, food limitation). Larval performance was quantified as survival, duration of development, and growth. The first series of result show that both non-native (Hemigrapsus spp) species had higher performance (high survival, shorter duration of development and high growth rates) than the native C. maenas at higher temperatures and at moderately low salinities (18 – 24 °C, 20 – 25 ‰). These results are comparable to another non-native species in Europe, the Chinese mitten crab Eriocheir sinensis. In H. sanguineus, larvae show moderate level of tolerance to limited access to food at high temperature, which contrasted to the low tolerance shown in native C. maenas. Experiments and modelling show that the nature of the multiple driver response depends strongly on the metric used to measure time, where my emphasis is on biological time (time to metamorphosis). The results from the populations comparisons showed species and gradient-specific responses. For H. takanoi, distributed over a salinity gradient (North Sea -Baltic Sea), larvae from the North Sea populations always showed higher survival and faster development compared with those from the Baltic Sea. The population near the limit of the distribution showed very low survival, suggesting that subsidies or complex ontogenetic migration patterns are needed for population persistence. Results did not show genetic differentiation among the studied populations in the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit one gene (COI) suggesting that there is high connectivity among populations. For C. maenas distributed across a latitudinal gradient (South: Vigo, Spain; North: Bergen and Trondheim, Norway) and reared under different temperatures (range 6 to 27 °C in steps of 3 °C), there was little variation in survival and growth among populations. However, larvae from the Norwegian populations had a slightly shorter duration of development at low temperatures than those from Vigo, this response has an adaptive value in that it could sustain survival in scenarios of reduced temperature, by shortening the larval phase, when mortality rates are high. Besides, results from this experiment (as well as for the mentioned above) showed high intrapopulation variability in larval performance which has a potential to affect range expansion of the above-mentioned species. Variation in the responses of larval stages to the effects of different environmental drivers highlights the importance of using physiological descriptors to quantify the performance of marine invertebrates to changing environments. Larval responses vary in rates of survival but also in the duration of time to achieve metamorphosis, as well as the rate at which the organisms grow, with concomitant effects on post-metamorphic success, which in seasonal habitats may strongly depend on temperature. The results from the thesis highlight the importance of quantifying the responses of marine invertebrates to changing environmental conditions, considering different species and species distributed across different gradients as well as variations among and within species.