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Biofuel covers major parts of the transportation sector in the global economic scenarios. Therefore, the impact assessment parameters like environmental, economic, and social are necessary to evaluate for better understanding. Keeping in mind, a life cycle assessment of biodiesel has been done using Jatropha curcas as feedstock. All the steps from cradle (cultivations, pre-treatment, and transesterification) to gate (biodiesel production) have been evaluated. The functional unit of one ton of biodiesel has been taken as reference, and environmental impacts are assessed accordingly using SimaPro. In the current paper, the conventional and room temperature process for biodiesel production is compared in terms of mid-point categories like greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and other endpoint categories like human health, ecosystems, and resources. The results from the life cycle assessment (LCA) indicates that the room temperature process is more energy-saving than the conventional process. Room temperature biodiesel produced around 1195 kg CO2 eq of emission contributing to global warming, whereas the conventional biodiesel contributed around 1228 kg CO2 eq to GHG emission. Further, the Monte Carlo analysis was carried out to quantify the uncertainty in the process in terms of normalized global warming potential. The biodiesel production from the room temperature process can be explored at the industrial level in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploding population, industrialization, and an increase in water pollution has led to acute shrinkage in freshwater availability. Numerous countries have started exploring municipal wastewater as a new potential source of water to bring a paradigm shift from linearity to obtaining circularity in human water cycle management. This study aims to develop a decision support system for integrated water and wastewater management (DSS_IWWM), targeted towards reuse-focused selection of appropriate wastewater treatment technology, and localized planning around STPs in terms of reclaimed water demand identification, estimation, allocation, and sustainable pricing. The developed DSS_IWWM comprises of a repository of fourteen reuse purposes, reuse quality criteria, and 25 wastewater treatment technologies (WWTTs) in 360 combinations. It is sensitive to local resource scenarios and applies a socioeconomic and technology-focused methodology for addressing the interests of the community and investing agencies and viably. To validate the application of the DSS_IWWM, it is first tested with data from three cities in the state of Uttar Pradesh (India)-Lucknow, Prayagraj, and Agra-and then extended to nine more Indian cities with varying influent quality characteristics, resource inputs, existing STP technologies, and same target quality and decision criteria prioritization, to present a comparison of appropriate WWTTs and associated average prices obtained in different scenarios. It is concluded that influent quality, existing technology, and target quality criteria play significant role in selection of appropriate WWTTs. The traditional technologies such as UASB and ASP are required to be augmented and supplemented with high-performing WWTTs, such as BIOFOR-F with (C + F + RSF) and SBT + WP to obtain desired effluent quality. High-performing advanced oxidation process (AOP)-based systems such as A2O, SBR, and BIOFOR-F require WWTTs with relatively lower average costs (such as SBT and OP). The developed DSS_IWWM may prove to be very useful and beneficial for policymakers, government officials, engineers, and scientific community as it will facilitate rational decision-making for efficient investment planning in reuse focused wastewater treatment towards achieving circular economy in sustainable water resource management., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

India's biofuel programme relies on the ethanol from molasses for blending into gasoline. Therefore, quantification of GHG (green house gas) emissions and the energy consumed during the process of ethanol production is desirable to help policy makers to take meaningful decisions. In order to establish the environmental impact of the biofuels, LCA (life cycle assessment) is conducted for 1 ton of fuel grade ethanol in the NR (northern region) and WR (western region) of India. Four different allocation approaches, WA (without any allocation), MA (mass allocation), EA (energy allocation) and MPA (market price allocation) are used to distribute emissions and energy consumption between the product and the co-products. Total GHG emissions are from 543.3 (−75.9%) to 8219.8 kg CO 2 -eq. (262.7%) in NR and 552.0 (−75.8%) to 7382.4 kg CO 2 -eq. (225.6%) with respect to gasoline. Similarly, the NER (net energy ratio) also varies with different allocation approaches and ranged from 0.38 to 3.39 in the NR and 0.48 to 4.23 in WR. Using MA approach, maximum GHG emissions reduction are, −75.9 and −75.8% and NER, 3.39 and 4.23 in NR and WR respectively indicates the environment and net energy benefits of fuel ethanol. It is observed that MA and EA approaches give more acceptable and real life results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the trends in the allocation of capital in an emerging economy, India, during the post-financial liberalization regime. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that financial liberalization leads to better allocation of funds, the study could not find any obvious evidence of increase in efficiency over the reform period, especially during the early years of reform. Further, the study highlights the disturbing trend of convergence of efficiencies across various strata of firms towards a lower level over the reform period. This paper rationalizes the decline as a result of excessive capacity creation in certain industries, financed by cheap external sources of finance, without any consideration of return or demand conditions. This paper, as a policy recommendation, highlights the importance of creating appropriate institutions prior to pursuing financial liberalization in developing countries like India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education plays an important role in the growth and prosperity of a nation. But in the present era poor financial management of higher educational institutions is one of the biggest problem. Financial management in education is an integral part of overall management. Higher education depends on financial management for optimum utilization of resources. So this paper focuses on the financial health of the higher educational institutions in Punjab and suggesting various ways for proper allocation of recourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A life cycle approach was adopted for energy, green house gas (GHG) emissions and renewability assessment for production of 1 ton of Jatropha biodiesel. Allocation and displacement approaches were applied for life cycle inventory, process energy and process GHG emission attribution to co-products. The results of process energy and GHG emission analyses revealed that the amount of process energy consumption and GHG emission in the individual stages of the life cycle assessment (LCA) were a strong function of co-product handling and irrigation. The GHG emission reduction with respect to petroleum diesel for generating 1 GJ energy varied from 40% to 107% and NER values from 1.4 to 8.0 depending upon the methodology used for energy and emission distribution between product and co-products as well as irrigation applied. However, GHG emission reduction values of 54 and 40 and NER (net energy ratio) values of 1.7 and 1.4 for irrigated and rain-fed scenarios, respectively indicate the eco-friendly nature and renewability of biodiesel even in the worst scenario where total life cycle inventory (LCI), process energy and GHG emission were allocated to biodiesel only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing tourism in a hilly region has become a thriving process which induces a complex land-cover dynamics. The study area (Shimla District in Himachal Pradesh) is located in the beautiful Himalayan environment in northern India and was the summer capital of India during the days of British rule. The current study has attempted to understand and model the suitability of three major land use forces (agriculture need, forest ecosystem conservation and human development) using the spatial Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). Further, the study utilised a multi-objective conflict analysis (MOCA) to understand and resolve the competition amongst these major land use forces. The cross overlay analysis of the existing land use map and the MOCA-derived map infers that the agricultural and human settlement preference can potentially expand into 26% of the current actual forest area. Around 18% of the potentially suitable area for forest class has already been occupied by non-forest classes. The potential future change zones are located in the middle and western regions/sections of the study area. Since the western region is already developed, more attention needs to be paid in the future to the central region of the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a linear programming model for optimal water allocations in a large river basin system. The model is applied to the transboundary Subernarekha River in India, which has two main stream reservoirs, two barrages, and three small command area reservoirs. The Tripartite Agreement (TPA) among the cobasin riparian states for sharing of its waters is analyzed. The main objective is to find the maximum annual benefits from irrigation and hydropower subject to various constraints on the system. Design constraints as per the TPA relating to the water shares among riparian states (i.e., Bihar, Orissa, and West Bengal) at individual dams and barrages are also considered. Optimal water allocations are obtained based on the 75% water year dependable flow as specified in the TPA. Water shortage and water surplus years have also been considered to determine optical water allocations during the dry and wet years, respectively. The stream reservoirs Chandil and Icha would fail to meet the water demands during the low flow years, whereas the Kharkai and Galudih barrages would essentially satisfy water demands according to the TPA provisions. Results indicate that Bihar is likely to benefit most from the TPA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]