The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has posed severe threats to humans and the geoenvironment. The findings of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (Sars-CoV-2) traces in waste water and the practice of disinfecting outdoor spaces in several cities in the world, which can result into the entry of disinfectants and their by-products into storm drainage systems and their subsequent discharge into rivers and coastal waters, raise the issue of environmental, ecological and public health effects. The aims of the current paper are to investigate the potential of water and waste water to operate as transmission routes for Sars-CoV-2 and the risks of this to public health and the geoenvironment. Additionally, several developing countries are characterised by low water-related disaster resilience and low household water security, with measures for protection of water resources and technologies for clean water and sanitation being substandard or not in place. To mitigate the impact of the pandemic in such cases, practical recommendations are provided herein. The paper calls for the enhancement of research into the migration mechanisms of viruses in various media, as well as in the formation of trihalomethanes and other disinfectant by-products in the geoenvironment, in order to develop robust solutions to combat the effects of the current and future pandemics.
COVID-19 is proving to be an unprecedented disaster for human health, social contacts and the economy worldwide. It is evident that SARS-CoV-2 may spread through municipal solid waste (MSW), if collected, bagged, handled, transported or disposed of inappropriately. Under the stress placed by the current pandemic on the sanitary performance across all MSW management (MSWM) chains, this industry needs to re-examine its infrastructure resilience with respect to all processes, from waste identification, classification, collection, separation, storage, transportation, recycling, treatment and disposal. The current paper provides an overview of the severe challenges placed by COVID-19 onto MSW systems, highlighting the essential role of waste management in public health protection during the ongoing pandemic. It also discusses the measures issued by various international organisations and countries for the protection of MSWM employees (MSWEs), identifying gaps, especially for developing countries, where personal protection equipment and clear guidelines to MSWEs may not have been provided, and the general public may not be well informed. In countries with high recycling rates of MSW, the need to protect MSWEs' health has affected the supply stream of the recycling industry. The article concludes with recommendations for the MSW industry operating under public health crisis conditions.
This paper reports the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 on the practice and delivery of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering (GGE) education modules, including lectures, lab sessions, student assessments and research activities, based on the feedback from faculty members in 14 countries/regions around the world. Faculty members have since adopted a series of contingent measures to enhance teaching and learning experience during the pandemic, which includes facilitating active learning, exploring new teaching content related to public health, expanding e-learning resources, implementing more engaged and student-centred assessment and delivering highimpact integrated education and research. The key challenges that faculty members are facing appear to be how to maximise the flexibility of learning and meet physical distancing requirements without compromising learning outcomes, education equity and interpersonal interactions in the traditional face-to-face teaching. Despite the challenges imposed by the pandemic, this could also be a good opportunity for faculty members obliged to lecture, to rethink and revise the existing contents and approaches of professing GGE education. Three future opportunities namely, smart learning, flipped learning and interdisciplinary education, are identified. The changes could potentially provide students with a more resilient, engaged, interactive and technology-based learning environment.
The industrial byproducts extensively generated all over the world impose challenges associated with their disposal, handling, storage, and reuse. The major challenges in transport, storage, and utilization of these byproduct materials arise from their inherent alkalinity and the presence of leachable heavy metals (read: contaminants). The coal ash, bauxite residues (red mud), different slags (i.e., blast furnace slag, steel slag, ferrochrome slag, copper slag, etc.), and cement kiln dust are some of the major industrial byproducts that pose challenges. In this manuscript, an attempt has been made to address the extensive global research that has been done (and is being conducted) on the utilization of industrial byproducts in construction and infrastructural developmental activities such as land reclamation, production of building materials, pavement layers, embankments, soil stabilization/amelioration, mine backfill, and various geoenvironmental cleanup functions (the treatment of water and gases). Apart from this, attempts have also been made to consolidate the issues associated with the management and utilization of these byproducts. Also, this manuscript summarizes various aspects related to byproducts with a primary emphasis on their generation, and their physicochemical and mineralogical properties. This study then projects the application of industrial byproducts in geopolymers (a green cement) that can consume their bulk quantity, which would facilitate synergy among various industrial byproducts for sustainable infrastructure development.
Desiccation cracking is a phenomenon commonly associated with the fine-grained soils, which initiates at their surface and subsequently propagates deeper inside their matrix. Hence, for safe and durable infrastructure development, stabilization of such soils becomes important. In order to stabilize these soils, cement, chemicals, and fibers have been employed by earlier researchers. However, in recent times, the ill effects of these stabilizers on the ecosystem have been realized, and hence their replacement with sustainable materials that are mostly industrial by-products is becoming necessary. This philosophy would not only conserve natural resources, but would also result in a “marriage” between “two suitable” materials to create a “synergy” within the ecosystem. With this in view, the ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), a by-product from the iron and steel plants, was activated by red mud (RM), a by-product from alumina manufacturing units, with an objective to establish its utility in stabilizing the fine-grained soils against desiccation cracking. To achieve this, the parameter crack intensity factor (CIF), which has been employed by earlier researchers to quantify cracking characteristics of the (virgin) soil mass, has been employed for the soils amended with GGBS and RM. Subsequently, the CIF has been correlated with the soil specific parameters (viz., cation exchange capacity and tensile strength) and the environmental conditions (viz., humidity and temperature), represented by the evaporation rate of the soil mass. Based on these extensive investigations, it has been demonstrated that such correlations would be very useful for selection of the right combination of the soil and sustainable material(s) to achieve a stabilized system of the fine-grained soil. It has been put forth through this study that the by-products chosen exhibit high potential to stabilize the fine-grained soils, which also resulted in alteration of their micro-structure and strength post stabilization. Furthermore, studies have been carried out to establish the effect of addition of industrial by-products to virgin soils, mainly in terms of their micro-structure, which in turn controls their strength.
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