Palm oil production on a commercial scale is one of the important agro-industrial activities in south-east Asian countries. Malaysia leads in the production of palm oil in the world. Through palm oil production, a significant proportion of the raw material is converted into non-degradable effluents. Palm oil mill effluents are acidic, viscous colloidal suspensions and are characterized by high content of organics and solids that get discharged into the surrounding environment. Polluting ingredients such as non-oxidizable intoxicants and heavy metals present in the effluent cause serious contamination of the water bodies into which they are discharged. Wastewater treatment facility is an important component in palm oil industries. Treatment of wastewater by ultrasonic irradiation is found to be an effective method of degradation of specific organic pollutants. In the first article, “Potential Effect of Using Ultrasonic Irradiation to Reduce Concentration of COD in Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME)”, the authors Nurliza Rosli, Puziah Abdul Latif and Sidek Abd Aziz, conducted a study using raw POME as a test media to investigate the effectiveness of ultrasonication in reducing the organic compounds based on the chemical oxygen demand concentration at selected operating conditions such as power density of ultrasonic probes and addition of Fenton’s type reagent as a catalyst.

High degree of urbanization together with unexpected population growth results in an increased demand for water, while at the same time varied surface runoff predicted by climate change has the potential to increase the volume of storm water that can contribute to drainage and flooding problems. Effective management of storm water runoff offers a multitude of possible benefits, including protection of wetlands and aquatic ecosystems, improved quality of receiving water bodies, conservation of water resources, protection of public health and flood control. In the second article, “Integration of Remote Sensing and GIS for Urban Storm Water Management”, Srinivas Naik L, M Anji Reddy, P Sudha Rani and Chandrashekhar A, presented an integrated approach to improve the urban storm water management with remote sensing, GIS and hydrologic simulation. The city of Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh, India) was taken as the study area. Satellite images were used to acquire land use information of the developed urban area, whereas GIS Software was used to derive the hydrologic parameters from the processed satellite data.

In recent years, Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) has emerged as a dominant forest management paradigm which focuses on sustainable commodity production, conservation, amenity values, and long-term sustainability of forests where larger spatial scales and longer gestation periods are accommodated. It is now defined as stewardship and use of forests and forest land in a way, and at a rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, generation capacity, vitality, and their potential to fulfill now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic, and social functions. Making a decision about the forest resources management often involves balancing conflicting, incommensurate and incompatible values of many users and uses of a resource. One of the most difficult tasks involved is the effective integration and synthesis of all values, irrespective of their origin, to achieve and maintain ecologically sustainable development. In the third article, “Best Decision Making Technique in Forest Management Using Analytic Hierarchy Process”, Nur Ilyana M Z, Latifah A M, Alias M S and Mohd. Armi A S, have performed a study that uses Analytic Hierarchy Process as a potential decision making tool in forest resources management. This inductive decision making study has been carried out taking the vast tropical timber resources of Malaysia as the domain model. Metal contamination in aquatic environment is an important health concern all over the globe. Metallic elements are released into the environment by various anthropogenic activities. The concentration and contamination of elements in the surface water and sediment of lakes and reservoirs of both nearby and remote watersheds are related to several factors, particularly atmospheric dry and wet depositions, the conditions in the catchment areas and that of the aquatic ecosystems. Some of these elements are bioaccumulated beyond withstanding limits within the aquatic food chains and are potentially toxic to animals at higher trophic levels including human beings and produce both chronic and acute ailments. In the fourth article,“Elemental Contamination with Particular Reference to Heavy Metals in Surface Water and Sediment of the Eutrophic Hussainsagar Lake in Hyderabad (India)”, M Vikram Reddy and A Vijaya Kumar, reported a study that includes the assessment of the concentration of various elements in the surface water and sediment at four stations in the littoral zone of the eutrophic Hussainsagar Lake in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. The outcome of the study confirms the presence of toxic heavy metals/non-metals such as Selenium and Mercury in water and Cadmium, Lead, Mercury, Zinc and Chromium in the sediment at an abnormally high concentration.

Biofilteration is an efficient technique of degradation and removal of toxic organic compounds and odorous gases from commercially important molecular vapors. The technique involves development of a biofilm surrounding the stationary phase, whereupon the contaminants of the vapor are selectively adsorbed. Microorganisms present inside the biofilm metabolize the pollutants, thereby releasing pure vapor as effluent. Various agro-based waste products are used as a stationary phase that can harbor the microorganism laid biofilm on their surface. Durian, a tropical fruit, harvested in huge quantities in Malaysia has a shell weighing more than half of the fruit weight. The non edible shell can essentially be used for alternative purposes such as a support media in biofilteration. In the fifth article, “Characteristics of Durian Shell as Support Media in Biofilter”, Nur Hidayah Abdul Latip and Puziah Abdul Latif, have investigated the physical and chemical characteristics of Durian Shell (DS), to assess its potential to be used as a biofilter media for removing toxic vapors. Various micro analytical analyses were carried out with the processed shells to ascertain the presence of functional groups, to estimate the specific surface area and average pore size, and to determine the surface morphology. Results of the analyses reveal that DS has the potential to be used as an alternative over other conventional carriers as biofilters.

Zooplankton plays a significant role in maintaining the marine food web by contributing to the flow of energy and matter and biogeochemical cycles of elements and their vertical flux. They account for about one-tenth of the total marine biomass. Both, as primary and secondary consumers, they considerably affect the world marine fishery. Their abundance is taken as a good index of the available fishery resources of different water masses. In the sixth article, “Zooplankton Diversity in the Nearshore Waters of Bay of Bengal, Off the Rushikulya Estuary”, Gouri Sahu, A K Mohanty, Brajeswari Singhsamanta, D Mahapatra, R C Panigrahy, K K Satpathy and B K Sahu, have reported a study carried out in the coastal waters of Bay of Bengal, off the Rushikulya estuary to evaluate the diversity of zooplankton and its distribution with respect to hydrographical parameters.

-- G S Brahma
Consulting Editor