Lianas (woody vines) are particularly abundant in tropical forests, and their abundance is increasing in the neotropics. Lianas can compete intensely with trees for above- and belowground resources, including water. As tropical forests experience longer and more intense dry seasons, competition for water is likely to intensify. However, we lack an understanding of how liana abundance affects so...

Rice drying with infrared radiation has been investigated during recent years and showed promising potential with improved quality and energy efficiency. However, due to limited penetration capability of infrared radiation, thin layer drying may be used in infrared dryer design. The objective of this study was to study the moisture removal characteristics of thin layer rough rice heated by infr...

Abiotic global change drivers affect ecosystem structure and function, but how they interact with biotic factors such as invasive plants is understudied. Such interactions may be additive, synergistic, or offsetting, and difficult to predict. We present methods to test the individual and interactive effects of drought and plant invasion on native ecosystems. We coupled a factorial common garden...

The efficient water harvesting from air-laden moisture has been a subject of great interest to address world-wide water shortage issues. Recently, it has been shown that tailoring surface wettability can enhance the moisture harvesting performance. However, depending on the harvesting condition, a different conclusion has often been reported and it remains unclear what type of surface wettabili...

Moisture control is one the most important parameters in biofilters for air pollution control. Biofilters tend to experience drying at the air inlet port, which causes decreased pollutant removal over time. In this study, the installation of an irrigation system within the lower part of the biofilter bed was proposed, and its effect was quantified in a laboratory scale biofilter operated side b...

Different methods have been applied to recycle pistachio’s green hulls, the most important of which are siloing and drying pistachio hulls (using industrial dryers). In both methods, hulls should lose their initial moisture content, which constitutes a considerable portion of their weight. The high moisture content takes more time and energy during the drying process. The initial dewateringof h...

Open sun drying (OSD) is the most common method of crop drying in developing countries. Despite several disadvantages, it is widely practiced because it is a simple way of drying. Crop temperature, temperature around the crop, solair temperature, and rate of moisture evaporation are the important parameters in OSD. The thermal behavior of OSD of green chillies, green pea, white gram (kabuli cha...

Topographical effect was considered in the context of bare soil moisture assessment. Soil moisture was evaluated using thermal inertia modelling. As an input data in thermal inertia model, the images in visible and thermal infrared range are required. Two own programs were worked out modi for thermal inertia modelling and topo – for topographical effect removal. Standard GIS software can have a...