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The present study aims to construct ensemble machine learning (EML) algorithms for groundwater potentiality mapping (GPM) in the Teesta River basin of Bangladesh, including random forest (RF) and random subspace (RSS).

The RF and RSS models have been implemented for integrating 14 selected groundwater condition parametres with groundwater inventories for generating GPMs. The GPM were then validated using the empirical and bionormal receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve.

The very high (831–1200 km²) and high groundwater potential areas (521–680 km²) were predicted using EML algorithms. The RSS (AUC-0.892) model outperformed RF model based on ROC's area under curve (AUC).

Two new EML models have been constructed for GPM. These findings will aid in proposing sustainable water resource management plans.

The analysis of groundwater level below the earth surface is focused on current and future scenarios. To analyze the wells under the threat of water level depletion, a study is conducted on the groundwater level using control charts. To improve watershed management, the important criteria are to increase infiltration as well as water storage capacity. There are 15 over-exploited zones in the study area (Dynamic GW Resources 2011). The purpose of this paper is to help in understanding the importance of wells for improving the water level to a certain extent for sustainable development.

The water levels in the wells are located with the help of x, y, z plotting on the ground using ArcGIS software. This water level mapping is done at a micro-watershed level to increase the clarity of information at the micro-level. In this study, the problem of depleted wells is sorted out, and the water level present in depleted wells pre-monsoon and post-monsoon is evaluated for the two years. Also, water level analysis is done using a control chart to find out the critical wells. On the basis of Poisson distribution, C-chart is used here to analyze the quality of wells and the water levels in those wells to be improved.

The outcome of the C-chart helps to track the wells that can be improved further to increase the water level. This paper presents the study of estimation of appropriate sites to be given importance and the rate of water level depletion to be controlled, which also helps to select a site suitable for artificial restoration by targeting groundwater potential zones.

This paper gives an outlook idea of wells that can be improved and the area that should be given more attention. Analyzing water level depletion helps to identify a suitable site for groundwater restoration using a remote sensing and geographical information system. These measures help the government and public sectors for proper planning and management of natural resources.

The purpose of this paper is to give a better knowledge of water resources in the region of Ben Azzouz, and to improve the actual water management through harmonization between the various human communities needs.

After an overview of the geology and hydroclimatology of the study area, the work will be to identify the factors involved in the water balance in the quantitative assessment of groundwater resources, to define areas of use and to estimate water needs for different uses.

The study of the area shows two distinct water reservoirs: the deep aquifer composed of fractured limestone, sands and gravels, and surface massive dune sand aquifer. The impermeable formations are the metamorphic basement and overlying flyschs nappes. Because the average rainfall is relatively high (∼708 mm/year), the region is known by its agricultural vocation and, therefore, most of surface water is assigned to irrigation. The second potential water consumer is population with 2.660 Hm3/year, then industrial needs are 1.793 Hm3/year. Although there was no marked water deficit in the region in the period 2007-2013, it is now time to apply concepts of integrated and sustainable management of water resources in this region because of the growing agricultural practice and population needs.

A quantitative diagnosis of water potential of the study area was evaluated for a better rational use of water resources.

The effects of population growth in the developing world and climate change have increased the stress on available water resources. The majority of Rajshahi city, Bangladesh, is facilitated with groundwater withdrawal. As Bangladesh is a country of monsoon climate, reserved rainwater can be contributed as an alternative to extracted groundwater. This study aims to develop a framework for rooftop rainwater harvesting (RRWH) for domestic purposes and estimate the appropriate size of the storage tanks and their costs required to fulfill the annual drinking and cooking water demands through RRWH in Rajshahi city of Bangladesh.

A total of 100 single-story residential dwellings with varying rooftop areas were surveyed for the projection of RRWH potential. The relationship between the size and cost of a water tank and the rooftop areas of different houses is expressed using a general mathematical equation. Cost estimates for the proposed RRWH system for all houses have been completed, and a cost model illustrating the relationship between rooftop or catchment area and associated cost of RRWH system has been developed.

This study reveals that a maximum of 110.75 m³/year rainwater can be collected from a 100 m² rooftop area of Rajshahi city. Moreover, this study finds that such harvesting of rainwater can reduce municipal water supply to the extent of almost 75%. Water samples collected from rooftops also revealed that if germs were removed through bacteria treatment, the collected rainwater potentially can be used for drinking and cooking purposes.

The novelty of this study is that it focused mainly on how significant RRWH can be to meet people’s daily required amount of water for household purpose and ascertain the cost reduction using the RWH method. This paper also is unique as it assessed the volume of the storage tank that is sufficient to distribute the necessary amount of water for drinking and cooking purpose as a sustainable alternative source in the dry season.

This study aims to test the role of the state of occupation, represented in Israel, as one of the most significant challenges, which faces the Jordanian water security. Where Israel expands in its policy and ideology everyday its hydro-hegemony over the Jordanian waters. Hence, its acts result in negative consequences on the Jordanian water and food security, which in turn affects the Jordanian national security as a whole.

This study relied on the following two approached to tackle its problem: first: descriptive approach: the descriptive approach depends on defining the apparent features and describing their nature and the type of the relationship between its variables. It aims to achieving a better and deeper understanding on the situation of its future policies and measures. And research uses the system analysis approach to handle the subject matter. Given the influence of water on the development, Jordan, as an organic or a political and social state, takes into account the reasons and causes of development. Jordan turns into an active political state, with water as an influencing factor on it. This premise represents the core of the system analysis approach.

The research concluded that the Israeli theft of the Jordanian waters is the main factor in the Jordanian water crisis. If Jordan had received its usurped water rights by Israel, it could have been able to solve its water issue represented in the increasing deficit in its water balance. Therefore, the Israeli hydro-hegemony on the Jordanian water resources caused the imbalance in its water security and, in turn, caused the development process to falter in general.

The value of the research lies in the fact that it addresses the most important reasons behind the water crisis in Jordan, represented in the Israeli control over the Jordanian water resources and the research shows that the amount of water stolen by Israel is enough to solve the water crisis in Jordan.

This paper aims to examine the issues of environment and climate change policy gaps and their impacts on the natural resources and ecosystems in southwest coastal Bangladesh. The effects of the increasing human activities as well as natural disasters due to the environment and climate change are analysed. The policy options as a response to mitigation, adaptation and possible human suffering as consequences are explored through discourse analysis.

This study applied focus group discussions, workshop and field visits to collect the data and information to explore environment and climate change policy-related problems.

It was found that there is a need for major policy reform to guide development interventions to reverse salinity, waterlogging, migration and groundwater recharging problems for sustainable environmental and ecosystem management in the region.

The paper then underscores the need for governments at all levels to adequately fund geo-information-based development interventions as adequate and proactive responses to environmental management and development to combat future environmental and climate change problems in the region.

Increasing public consciousness and demand for sustainable environment make selection of a safe location for effective disposal of healthcare waste (HCW) a challenging issue. This problem becomes more complicated due to involvement of multiple decision makers having varying knowledge and interest, conflicting quantitative and qualitative evaluation criteria, and presence of several alternative locations.

To efficiently resolve the problem, the past researchers have already coupled different multi-criteria decision-making tools with uncertainty models and criteria weight measurement techniques, which are time-consuming and highly computationally complex. Based on involvement of a group of experts expressing their opinions with respect to relative importance of criteria and performance of alternative locations against each criterion, this paper proposes application of ordinal priority approach (OPA) integrated with grey numbers to solve an HCW disposal location selection problem.

The grey OPA can simultaneously estimate weights of the experts, criteria and locations relieving the decision makers from complicated computational steps. The potentiality of grey OPA in solving an HCW disposal location selection problem is demonstrated here using an illustrative example consisting of three experts, six criteria and four alternative locations.

The derived results show that it can be employed to deal with real-time HCW disposal location selection problems in uncertain environment providing acceptable and robust decisions. It relieves the experts from pair-wise comparisons of criteria, normalization of data, identification of ideal and anti-ideal solutions, aggregation of information and so on, while arriving at the most consistent decision with minimum computational effort.

This paper aims to respond to increasing interest in the intersection between accounting and human rights and to explore whether access to information might itself constitute a human right. As human rights have “moral force”, establishing access to information as a human right may act as a catalyst for policy change. The paper also aims to focus on environmental information, and specifically the case of corporate water‐related disclosures.

This paper follows Griffin and Sen, who suggest that a candidate human right might be recognised when it is consistent with “founding” human rights, it is important and it may be influenced by societal action. The specific case for access to corporate water‐related information to constitute a human right is evaluated against these principles.

Access to corporate water‐related disclosures may indeed constitute a human right. Political participation is a founding human right, water is a critical subject of political debate, water‐related information is required in order for political participation and the state is in a position to facilitate provision of such information. Corporate water disclosures may not necessarily be in the form of annual sustainability reports, however, but may include reporting by government agencies via public databases and product labelling. A countervailing corporate right to privacy is considered and found to be relevant but not necessarily incompatible with heightened disclosure obligations.

This paper seeks to make both a theoretical and a practical contribution. Theoretically, the paper explores how reporting might be conceived from a rights‐based perspective and provides a method for determining which disclosures might constitute a human right. Practically, the paper may assist those calling for improved disclosure regulation by showing how such calls might be embedded within human rights discourse.

This paper aims to identify the priorities on water sector planning. The priorities are identified by comparing the climate change impact on water consumption and the impact of using domestic water illegally to irrigate the urban agricultural holdings in suburban areas.

Metered water consumption in summer and winter in both urban and suburban areas was studied in Rafah city. A backward chronological linear model of climate change (precipitation and temperature) influence on water consumption was developed using software STATISTICA 10. The developed statistical relation was used to predict the impact of various climate change scenarios for domestic water consumption. Hence, four climate change scenarios were hypothesized – an increase in temperature by 1 and 20°C and a reduction in the rainfall by 10 and 20 per cent, respectively.

The most influential climate change scenario was the increase of temperature by 20°C, which caused an increase of 1.4 per cent on the average domestic water consumption compared to the current value. The hypothesized reduction of 20 per cent in precipitation caused a negligible increase in water consumption by 0.1 per cent from the current value. Urban agriculture and current practice of using municipal water to irrigate cultivated urban holdings have a significant negative influence on domestic water consumption. The aforementioned practice led to a high percentage of unaccounted for water (UFW) of 33, 38 and 45 per cent for the years 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively.

The concerned decision-makers should consider the right track in prioritizing dilemmas for planning water sector in suburban areas.

This research could be considered the first of its kind because impacts of urban agriculture and climate change on domestic water consumption have never been previously considered in the Gaza Strip.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case report involving environmental performance analysis of a small Brazilian business from the foundry industry.

An environmental performance indicator was developed (I_epa) which is calculated taking into consideration the weighting of potential environmental impacts of each residue/sub product generated, the relative spatial dispersion which each residue/sub product can reach, and the adequacy evaluation of final allocation accomplished by the company for each residue/sub product.

Despite the evidence that the corporation do not conduct washing of gases emitted from the chimney of the foundry furnace, which consists an environmentally inadequate attitude, the result of I_epa=97.50 percent was obtained. This favorable result is due to the adequate allocation given to residues generated in greater volume in the process, the molding sand. This sand is addressed to an industrial landfill, which is an environmentally adequate practice and approved by competent environmental authorities.

The method used can be applied to measure the environmental impact generated by any business of the foundry sector industry.

The originality of the work is in the developed method, which takes into account: the potential impact of each residue/sub product generated, the amount of each residue/sub product generated in a given time period, the dispersion that each residue/sub product can attain, and the evaluation of eventual allocation of each residue/sub product.