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This study delves into the patterns of urban expansion in Kabul, using Landsat and Sentinel satellite imagery as primary tools for analysis. We classified land use and land cover (LULC) into five distinct categories: water bodies, vegetation, barren land, barren rocky terrain, and buildings. The necessary data processing and analysis was conducted using ERDAS Imagine v.2015 and ArcGIS 10.8 software. Our main objective was to scrutinize changes in LULC across five discrete decades. Additionally, we traced the long-term evolution of built-up areas in Kabul from 1973 to 2020. The classified satellite images revealed significant changes across all categories. For instance, the area of built-up land reduced from 29.91% in 2013 to 23.84% in 2020, while barren land saw a decrease from 33.3% to 28.4% over the same period. Conversely, the proportion of barren rocky terrain exhibited an increase from 22.89% in 2013 to 29.97% in 2020. Minor yet notable shifts were observed in the categories of water bodies and vegetated land use. The percentage of water bodies shrank from 2.51% in 2003 to 1.30% in 2013, and the extent of vegetated land use showed a decline from 13.61% in 2003 to 12.6% in 2013. Our study unveiled evolving land use patterns over time, with specific periods recording an increase in barren land and a slight rise in vegetated areas. These findings underscored the dynamic transformation of Kabul’s urban landscape over the years, with significant implications for urban planning and sustainability.

Agricultural production in the Rehamna region, Morocco is limited with various challenges including drought and salinity. Introduction of climate resilient and rustic crops such as quinoa was an optimal solution to increase farmer’s income and improve food security. This study summarizes results obtained from a research project aiming to develop quinoa value chain in Morocco. The study tackled several aspects including agronomic traits (yield and growth), transformation, quality (nutritional and antinutritional traits) and economic analysis and, finally, a strength–weaknesses–opportunities–threats analysis, lessons learned and development perspectives were presented. From an agronomic point of view, introduced new quinoa cultivars showed higher performance than locally cultivated seeds and, furthermore, the use of irrigation and organic amendment has tremendously improved seed yield by double and three times, respectively, compared to rainfed conditions. Nutritional analysis revealed that protein and phosphorus content remained stable after seed pearling while most of the micronutrients content decreased after seed pearling. However, saponins content was reduced by 68% using mechanical pearling compared to 57% using both traditional abrasion and washing. The economic analysis showed that production cost of quinoa seeds could be further decreased using mechanized intensive tools along with irrigation and organic amendment supply. This study revealed several lessons learned from the field experience and proposed several development actions for each value chain component that can be implemented within a national quinoa program.

The main energy used today is fossil energy which is decreasing and cannot be replaced. Meanwhile, the Indonesian people themselves are facing a problem as well as a great opportunity, namely, plastic waste and the potential of use rice husks, respectively. This study aimed to determine the most effective flame and most effective temperature for combustion in rice husk gasification, and to determine the temperature in the distillation reactor, and then to determine the mass of oil produced from the pyrolysis process and determine the quality of PP (polypropylene) plastic pyrolysis oil. The method used was direct experiment. The test was carried out using two furnaces and was carried out in parallel six times. The results showed that the gasification of rice husk briquettes could be a source of combustion in the pyrolysis process. The time used in the pyrolysis process was 260 min while the average flame duration in the furnace over six test was 43.33 min. The average flame temperature over the six periods of combustion was 733.89 °C. Additionally, the average temperature at the bottom of the reactor was 593.564 °C, and the average temperature in the reactor chamber was 143.319 °C. This process was categorized as low-temperature pyrolysis. The mass produced from 3000 g of shredded PP (polypropylene) plastic waste produces 1.29 L of fuel oil. It is of note that the quality of plastic pyrolysis oil is not greatly different from kerosene, with a thermal efficiency of 38.60%.