In anticipation of future environmental science and engineering challenges and technologic advances, EPA asked the National Research Council (NRC) to assess the overall capabilities of the agency to develop, obtain, and use the best available scientific and technologic information and tools to meet persistent, emerging, and future mission challenges and opportunities. Although the committee cannot predict with certainty what new environmental problems EPA will face in the next 10 years or more, it worked to identify some of the common drivers and common characteristics of problems that are likely to occur. Tensions inherent to the structure of EPA's work contribute to the current and persistent challenges faced by the agency, and meeting those challenges will require development of leading-edge scientific methods, tools, and technologies, and a more deliberate approach to systems thinking and interdisciplinary science. Science for Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead outlines a framework for building science for environmental protection in the 21st century and identified key areas where enhanced leadership and capacity can strengthen the agency's abilities to address current and emerging environmental challenges as well as take advantage of new tools and technologies to address them. The foundation of EPA science is strong, but the agency needs to continue to address numerous present and future challenges if it is to maintain its science leadership and meet its expanding mandates.

A state-of-the-art review of scientific knowledge on the environmental risk of ocean discharge of produced water and advances in mitigation technologies. In offshore oil and gas operations, produced water (the water produced with oil or gas from a well) accounts for the largest waste stream (in terms of volume discharged). Its discharge is continuous during oil and gas production and typically increases in volume over the lifetime of an offshore production platform. Produced water discharge as waste into the ocean has become an environmental concern because of its potential contaminant content. Environmental risk assessments of ocean discharge of produced water have yielded different results. For example, several laboratory and field studies have shown that significant acute toxic effects cannot be detected beyond the "point of discharge" due to rapid dilution in the receiving waters. However, there is some preliminary evidence of chronic sub-lethal impacts in biota associated with the discharge of produced water from oil and gas fields within the North Sea. As the composition and concentration of potential produced water contaminants may vary from one geologic formation to another, this conference also highlights the results of recent studies in Atlantic Canada.

Within the span of last couple of years, the increasing human interference with v- ious natural ecosystems and higher discharge of pollutants has presented numerous challenges to the society related to preserving the nature for a better tomorrow. The challenges also mount pressure on the scienti?c community to invent technologies that would provide solutions to the problems that are man made and also decrease the negative consequences that we are facing because of our own actions. This edited book attempts to present eight technological innovations that have shown potential to provide answers to a few challenges. Like the previous collection, the described innovations in the current volume also cover a range of areas including water and soil pollution, bio-sensors and energy. However, it is to be realized that no combination of technology can be enough to make a sizeable difference. As I said in my last collection, technological advances have to be integrated with a change in social behavior. The philosophy of sustainable development has to be the principle of future planning and growth. In this collection, I am pleased to include an article on noise pollution. Noise is a pollutant of our own behavior and can only be solved by a behavioral change. The change that is either voluntary or enforced by laws. As an environmental scientist noise is not normally a pollutant that would come in mind as a leading pollutant.

Over the past ten years, innovative technologies have shown that advanced oxidation processes are highly promising when applied to the remediation of polluted water or wastewater as they don’t generate any sludge or solid material of hazardous nature. Advances in Ultrasound Technology for Environmental Remediation reviews the fundamentals of ultrasound technology and the state of the art developments in “ultrasound-based free radical generation” in environmental remediation and pollution prevention. It also presents the challenges of introducing ultrasound technology into large-scale environmental remediation applications and examines the methods used to improve ultrasound technology. Indeed, ultrasonic systems are extremely sensitive and vulnerable to operational parameters which cannot be controlled without a good knowledge and understanding of physical and chemical phenomena. Advances in Ultrasound Technology for Environmental Remediation features the theory and fundamentals of ultrasound technology and discusses its potential as an alternative method in environmental remediation.

This proceedings contains a collection of 26 papers from the following six 2013 Materials Science and Technology (MS&T'13) symposia: Green Technologies for Materials Manufacturing and Processing V Materials Development and Degradation Management in Nuclear Applications Materials Issues in Nuclear Waste Management in the 21st Century Energy Storage III: Materials, Systems and Applications Nanotechnology for Energy, Healthcare and Industry Hybrid Organic – Inorganic Materials for Alternative Energy

Environmental Technology and Sustainability: Physical, Chemical and Biological Technologies for Clean Environmental Management provides a dependable source of information on the fundamental scientific evidence involved in environmental protection and sustainable development. The book provides the basic natural sciences that underpin the understanding, development and application of environment technologies that support a clean inhabitable world that includes environmental technologies and sustainable, renewable energy systems. It considers the science and technology for environmental benefits, including the development of both smarter, cleaner technologies for environmental protection, conservation, and more. - Provides methods and processes for CO2 Sequestration - Focuses on technologies for reducing greenhouse gases and for biofuel production - Outlines issues surrounding contaminated water and provides solutions for water management - Describes problems facing air pollution, including sources and mitigation - Includes contaminated soil management

Advances in Environmental Pollution Management: Wastewater Impacts and Treatment Technologies has been designed to bind novel knowledge of wastewater pollution-induced impacts on various aspects of our environment. The book also contains novel methods and tools for the monitoring and treatment of produced wastewater.

Selected, peer reviewed papers from the 2014 International Conference on Energy and Environmental Protection (ICEEP 2014), April 26-28, 2014, Xi'an, China

These proceedings contains a collection of 24 papers from five 2012Materials Science and Technology (MS&T’12)symposia. Green Technologies for Materials Manufacturing and ProcessingIII Materials Development for Nuclear Applications and ExtremeEnvironments Materials Issues in Nuclear Waste Management in the21st Century Energy Conversion – Photovoltaic, Concentrating SolarPower, and Thermoelectric Energy Storage: Materials, Systems and Applications