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IBTS Greenhouse

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The IBTS (“Integrated Biotectural System") greenhouse is a biotectural, urban development project suited for hot arid deserts . It was part of the Egyptian strategy for the afforestation of desert lands from 2011 until spring of 2015, when geopolitical changes like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Sinai Province in Egypt forced the project to a halt. The project begun in spring 2007 as an academic study in urban development and desert greening . It was further developed by N. Berdellé and D. Voelker as a private project until 2011. Afterwards LivingDesert Group including Prof. Abdel Ghany El Gindy and Dr. Mosaad Kotb from the Central Laboratory for Agricultural Climate in Egypt, Forestry Scientist Hany El-Kateb, Agroecologist Wil van Eijsden and permaculturist Sepp Holzer was created to introduce the finished project in Egypt.

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76-629: The IBTS Greenhouse, together with the programme for the afforestation of desert lands in Egypt, became part of relocation strategies. These play a role in Egypt as urbanization of the Nile Delta is a problem for the agricultural sector and because of infrastructural problems like traffic congestion in Cairo. The IBTS features sea-water farming but inside a large greenhouse. All of the evaporated water can thus be harvested. The generation of liquid water from

152-539: A balance of nature, however, can be traced back to the Greeks: Democritus , Epicurus , and their Roman disciple Lucretius . Following the Greeks, the idea of a hydrological cycle (water is considered a nutrient) was validated and quantified by Halley in 1687. Dumas and Boussingault (1844) provided a key paper that is recognized by some to be the true beginning of biogeochemistry, where they talked about

228-497: A building. Therefore, it never hits natural, or physical limitations for growth like the desalination technology in the Persian Gulf already has because of brine discharge and temperature rise. The IBTS is operated with electrical and thermal energy produced from windpower and concentrated solar power , on-site (in a proprietary process). This means that the energy requirement and the use of primary energy can be considered

304-553: A comparison of GDP growth, the generation of real values and a weighted GDP. An example for the infrastructure services of the IBTS Greenhouse is water purification. Wastewater is percolated into the ground and provides water and nutrients for the growth of trees. This is not so easy with food crops for hygienic reasons. Thus the IBTS provides sewage treatment in countries, or areas that lack treatment plants The IBTS Greenhouse

380-459: A consistent balance with production roughly equaling respiratory consumption rates. The balanced recycling efficiency of nature means that production of decaying waste material has exceeded rates of recyclable consumption into food chains equal to the global stocks of fossilized fuels that escaped the chain of decomposition. Pesticides soon spread through everything in the ecosphere-both human technosphere and nonhuman biosphere-returning from

456-724: A data transformation service as well to help convert between application-specific and common formats. This is done in two steps: the adapter converts information from the application's format to the bus' common format. Then, semantic transformations are applied on this (converting zip codes to city names, splitting/merging objects from one application into objects in the other applications, and so on). System integration can be challenging for organizations and these challenges can diminish their overall return on investment after implementing new software solutions. Some of these challenges include lack of trust and willingness to share data with other companies, unwillingness to outsource various operations to

532-531: A growing list of emerging ecological concerns. For example, unique assemblages of marine microbes have been found to digest plastic accumulating in the world's oceans. Discarded technology is absorbed into soils and creates a new class of soils called technosols . Human wastes in the Anthropocene are creating new systems of ecological recycling, novel ecosystems that have to contend with the mercury cycle and other synthetic materials that are streaming into

608-406: A new picture for the overall efficiency not only of the physical process of desalination, but the overall economic efficiency of the IBTS using proprietary renewable energy. The maximum of 500m³ of freshwater production per day and hectare, multiplies to 0.5 million m³ on 1000 ha, equaling the output of the largest industrial desalination power plants in the world. It is reached by heat-recovery from

684-418: A new type of greenhouse. It was designed to be self-sufficient including food production in an ecosystemic context. Another example for Biotecture, which is foremost a residential home, is an Earthship . Earthships incorporate water-purification and reuse on multiple levels. Since 2010 urban developments labeled Forest Cities, drawing from the IBTS and other pioneer projects have been created. The Gardens by

760-486: A region to precipitation in that same region." These variations on the theme of nutrient cycling continue to be used and all refer to processes that are part of the global biogeochemical cycles. However, authors tend to refer to natural, organic, ecological, or bio-recycling in reference to the work of nature, such as it is used in organic farming or ecological agricultural systems. An endless stream of technological waste accumulates in different spatial configurations across

836-400: A single rain event, which does occur in the desert and can be counted on. Lastly, it is possible to charge the water cycle by pumping saline or contaminated groundwater and to some extent by atmospheric water generation. The volume of water inside the water cycle is not important as it is a quasi-closed cycle, causing evaporation from soil and exhaled moisture from people getting captured under

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912-424: A superstructure approximately 100 modules large. 10 km have the capacity of an industrial desalination plant, which is 0,5 million cubic meters of water per day. Since the first version of the IBTS the atmospheric water generation has evolved through a series of hygrothermal models and can now be operated at 0.45 kwh/m according to the developer. The IBTS works with natural processes in closed cycles, hosted in

988-521: A third party, lack of clear communication and responsibilities, disagreement from partners on where functionality should reside, high cost of integration, difficulty finding good talents, data silos , and common API standards. These challenges result in creating hurdles that "prevent or slow down business systems integration within and among companies". Clear communication and simplified information exchange are key elements in building long term system integrations that can support business requirements. On

1064-414: A unit. From a practical point, it does not make sense to assess a terrestrial ecosystem by considering the full column of air above it as well as the great depths of Earth below it. While an ecosystem often has no clear boundary, as a working model it is practical to consider the functional community where the bulk of matter and energy transfer occurs. Nutrient cycling occurs in ecosystems that participate in

1140-527: A way "that focuses on increasing value to the customer" (e.g., improved product quality and performance) while at the same time providing value to the company (e.g., reducing operational costs and improving response time). In the modern world connected by Internet , the role of system integration engineers is important: more and more systems are designed to connect, both within the system under construction and to systems that are already deployed. Vertical integration (as opposed to " horizontal integration ")

1216-497: Is fundamentally different compared to agri-business styles of soil management . Organic farms that employ ecosystem recycling to a greater extent support more species (increased levels of biodiversity) and have a different food web structure. Organic agricultural ecosystems rely on the services of biodiversity for the recycling of nutrients through soils instead of relying on the supplementation of synthetic fertilizers . The model for ecological recycling agriculture adheres to

1292-441: Is an open concept compatible with most other technologies and practices for water- energy- and food production. It is plugin-ready for upcoming technologies like nuclear power from compact fusion, the traveling wave reactor , or breeder reactors . When these energy sources become available they can be integrated into existing IBTS infrastructure and generate even more fresh water without brine discharge into natural water bodies and

1368-520: Is for most greenhouses. It is fundamentally different from the seawater greenhouses . It differs for its performance in desalination. Alternative desalination-technologies, air-to-water utilities and desalination-greenhouses in testing, require a multiple of the energy for fresh-water production. The significance of the term Integration lies within the efficiency that systems integration can achieve, by imitation of natural systems, especially closed cycles . The establishment of closed watercycles being

1444-413: Is going forward with the introduction of several hundred designated Forest Cities. One of the latest examples is Shenzhen. Systems integration System integration is defined in engineering as the process of bringing together the component sub- systems into one system (an aggregation of subsystems cooperating so that the system is able to deliver the overarching functionality) and ensuring that

1520-404: Is nature's recycling system. All forms of recycling have feedback loops that use energy in the process of putting material resources back into use. Recycling in ecology is regulated to a large extent during the process of decomposition . Ecosystems employ biodiversity in the food webs that recycle natural materials, such as mineral nutrients , which includes water . Recycling in natural systems

1596-454: Is one of the many ecosystem services that sustain and contribute to the well-being of human societies. There is much overlap between the terms for the biogeochemical cycle and nutrient cycle. Most textbooks integrate the two and seem to treat them as synonymous terms. However, the terms often appear independently. The nutrient cycle is more often used in direct reference to the idea of an intra-system cycle, where an ecosystem functions as

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1672-469: Is part of the ordinary water cycle. The organic matter is partly infiltrated underground into the root zones of the plants and partly processed in septic tanks and then applied as topsoil in the forestry. This concept has been implemented inside residential homes (A common type is an Earthship ). In general, it is possible to build the IBTS as solids and liquids waste treatment sites for settlements, hotels, or cities. The water cycle can also be charged by

1748-502: Is the large roof of the IBTS, which needs to be observed and cleaned continuously and refurbished several times over the lifecycle of the IBTS. This can only be done by special bots, or drones on the scale that the IBTS was developed for as national desert greening strategy for reclaiming and regreening entire regions. The most famous example is the Biosphere 2 , a research project and demonstration site integrating residential areas into

1824-472: Is the movement and exchange of inorganic and organic matter back into the production of matter. Energy flow is a unidirectional and noncyclic pathway, whereas the movement of mineral nutrients is cyclic. Mineral cycles include the carbon cycle , sulfur cycle , nitrogen cycle , water cycle , phosphorus cycle , oxygen cycle , among others that continually recycle along with other mineral nutrients into productive ecological nutrition. The nutrient cycle

1900-442: Is the process of integrating subsystems according to their functionality by creating functional entities also referred to as silos . The benefit of this method is that the integration is performed quickly and involves only the necessary vendors, therefore, this method is cheaper in the short term. On the other hand, cost-of-ownership can be substantially higher than seen in other methods, since in case of new or enhanced functionality,

1976-560: Is to implement the new interface between the ESB and the new subsystem. The horizontal scheme can be misleading, however, if it is thought that the cost of intermediate data transformation or the cost of shifting responsibility over business logic can be avoided. Industrial lifecycle integration is a system integration process that considers four categories or stages of integration: initial system implementation, engineering and design, project services, and operations. This approach incorporates

2052-579: The biodegradation chain. Microorganisms have a significant role in the removal of synthetic organic compounds from the environment empowered by recycling mechanisms that have complex biodegradation pathways. The effect of synthetic materials, such as nanoparticles and microplastics, on ecological recycling systems is listed as one of the major concerns for ecosystems in this century. Recycling in human industrial systems (or technoecosystems ) differs from ecological recycling in scale, complexity, and organization. Industrial recycling systems do not focus on

2128-402: The enzymatic digestion of cellulose . "Cellulose, one of the most abundant organic compounds on Earth, is the major polysaccharide in plants where it is part of the cell walls. Cellulose-degrading enzymes participate in the natural, ecological recycling of plant material." Different ecosystems can vary in their recycling rates of litter, which creates a complex feedback on factors such as

2204-474: The forest floor . Nutrient cycling has a historical foothold in the writings of Charles Darwin in reference to the decomposition actions of earthworms. Darwin wrote about "the continued movement of the particles of earth". Even earlier, in 1749 Carl Linnaeus wrote in "the economy of nature we understand the all-wise disposition of the creator in relation to natural things, by which they are fitted to produce general ends, and reciprocal uses" in reference to

2280-414: The "larger biogeochemical cycles of the earth through a system of inputs and outputs." All systems recycle. The biosphere is a network of continually recycling materials and information in alternating cycles of convergence and divergence. As materials converge or become more concentrated they gain in quality, increasing their potentials to drive useful work in proportion to their concentrations relative to

2356-471: The 'out there' of natural environments back into plant, animal, and human bodies situated at the 'in here' of artificial environments with unintended, unanticipated, and unwanted effects. By using zoological, toxicological, epidemiological, and ecological insights, Carson generated a new sense of how 'the environment' might be seen. Microplastics and nanosilver materials flowing and cycling through ecosystems from pollution and discarded technology are among

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2432-558: The Bay using all of the core design elements of the TSPC Forest City from 2008 like artificial trees with spherical buildings on top is an outstanding example. The Liuzhou Forest City is one of many examples for green architecture, respectively green urban developments of new cities with a lot of green areas, including the facades of buildings. The international efforts to create Forest Cities are another level of implication. China

2508-436: The ESB. The ESB is capable of translating the interface into another interface. This allows cutting the costs of integration and provides extreme flexibility. With systems integrated using this method, it is possible to completely replace one subsystem with another subsystem which provides similar functionality but exports different interfaces, all this completely transparent for the rest of the subsystems. The only action required

2584-414: The IBTS Greenhouse. This only requires small amounts of seawater. Most of the water flows through the food-production system and is then processed in the full-desalination utility. The IBTS can also be charged by a continuous inflow of organic matter for the workers, animals, and later residents. The organic matter, which is food and drink first, is regained through waste treatment. The waste-water treatment

2660-425: The IBTS can be deployed in cold climates using extra heat energy sources like compact fusion , or small modular reactors . The IBTS can be charged by seawater, which is turned into freshwater by evaporation. This is the primary type because it is important. Seawater is unlimited and the IBTS can thus produce excess water for sale. At the beginning of the saltwater charging lies the seawater farming operation inside

2736-481: The IBTS is its capacity for water Desalination with an efficiency of 0.45kwh per cubic metre of distillate. This is because operational cost for Desalination utilities far outweigh initial building cost over time. Also because the energy requirement for Desalination plants reach up into the GigaWatt region. The dependence on large amounts of fossil energy leaves water provision from industrial plants insecure. Through

2812-440: The appending environmental problems. For infrastructure developments taking decades for the roll-out and upscaling it is crucial to design in terms of future-readiness, a key engineering principle. The manufacturing process of the IBTS is designed for automation , which requires more electricity than common construction sites, or manufacturing processes. This platform design is also future ready for more available energy. An example

2888-435: The application's front-end, and offload querying and reporting from expensive operational systems to cheaper commodity systems (which can save costs, enable scalability, and free up processing power on the main operational system). Usually, an extensive cost-benefit analysis is undertaken to help determine whether an integration project is worth the effort. Nutrient cycle A nutrient cycle (or ecological recycling )

2964-566: The atmosphere inside the IBTS requires large amounts of cooling power. This is done with the incoming sea-water. Thus the cooling requirement and the cooling power are always balanced. The IBTS relies on a new quality of systems integration including architectural, technological and natural elements. It combines food production and residence, as well as desalination of sea water , or brackish groundwater . A CAE demonstration project using real weather-, soil and economic conditions proved feasibility under hyperarid conditions. The relevance of

3040-451: The balance of nature in his book Oeconomia Naturae . In this book he captured the notion of ecological recycling: "The 'reciprocal uses' are the key to the whole idea, for 'the death, and destruction of one thing should always be subservient to the restitution of another;' thus mould spurs the decay of dead plants to nourish the soil, and the earth then 'offers again to plants from its bosom, what it has received from them.'" The basic idea of

3116-471: The best source for the charging with additional CO 2 would be industrial waste CO 2 this is another way in which the IBTS can function as waste treatment site. The energy of operation is 0.45 kWh per cubic metre of distilled water in the full-scale version. This performance is more than 10 times lower than the records set by desalination plants in Dubai and Perth according to official numbers given by

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3192-422: The biogenic nutrient cycle for the standing timber. In 1898 there is a reference to the nitrogen cycle in relation to nitrogen fixing microorganisms . Other uses and variations on the terminology relating to the process of nutrient cycling appear throughout history: Water is also a nutrient. In this context, some authors also refer to precipitation recycling, which "is the contribution of evaporation within

3268-434: The chemical elements and many organic substances can be accumulated by living systems from background crustal or oceanic concentrations without limit as to concentration so long as there is available solar or another source of potential energy" In 1979 Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen proposed the fourth law of entropy stating that complete recycling is impossible. Despite Georgescu-Roegen's extensive intellectual contributions to

3344-401: The competitive dominance of certain plant species. Different rates and patterns of ecological recycling leaves a legacy of environmental effects with implications for the future evolution of ecosystems. A large fraction of the elements composing living matter reside at any instant of time in the world's biota. Because the earthly pool of these elements is limited and the rates of exchange among

3420-445: The computational engineering of the physical model as well as the financial plan in an iterative process. Because of the independence of primary energy- and material resources, the efficiency of water production and the scalable, modular design the IBTS Greenhouse is sustainable. A strategic, national infrastructure project like the IBTS allows for the successful energy-transition into a sustainable economy. This can be understood by

3496-406: The connections are reminiscent of a star, but when the overall diagram of the system is presented, the connections look like spaghetti, hence the name of this method. The cost varies because of the interfaces that subsystems are exporting. In a case where the subsystems are exporting heterogeneous or proprietary interfaces, the integration cost can substantially rise. Time and costs needed to integrate

3572-428: The cycle of organic life in great detail. From 1836 to 1876, Jean Baptiste Boussingault demonstrated the nutritional necessity of minerals and nitrogen for plant growth and development. Prior to this time influential chemists discounted the importance of mineral nutrients in soil. Ferdinand Cohn is another influential figure. "In 1872, Cohn described the 'cycle of life' as the "entire arrangement of nature" in which

3648-467: The desalination industry. Taking this into account the IBTS uses less than 5% of the current efficiency world-record. This industrial record is about 3.5kWh/m plus ca. 1.0kWh/m for seawater pumping and other factors not accounted for. It is multiplied with the efficiency of primary energy use. Together 9-14 kWh/m. The term of primary energy should be combined with energy quality for realistic understanding. Energy quality in context of desalination shows

3724-511: The dissolution of dead organic bodies provided the materials necessary for new life. The amount of material that could be molded into living beings was limited, he reasoned, so there must exist an "eternal circulation" (ewigem kreislauf) that constantly converts the same particle of matter from dead bodies into living bodies." These ideas were synthesized in the Master's research of Sergei Vinogradskii from 1881-1883. In 1926 Vernadsky coined

3800-686: The employment of ecological food webs to recycle waste back into different kinds of marketable goods, but primarily employ people and technodiversity instead. Some researchers have questioned the premise behind these and other kinds of technological solutions under the banner of 'eco-efficiency' are limited in their capability, harmful to ecological processes, and dangerous in their hyped capabilities. Many technoecosystems are competitive and parasitic toward natural ecosystems. Food web or biologically based "recycling includes metabolic recycling (nutrient recovery, storage, etc.) and ecosystem recycling (leaching and in situ organic matter mineralization, either in

3876-455: The environment. As their potentials are used, materials diverge, or become more dispersed in the landscape, only to be concentrated again at another time and place. Ecosystems are capable of complete recycling. Complete recycling means that 100% of the waste material can be reconstituted indefinitely. This idea was captured by Howard T. Odum when he penned that "it is thoroughly demonstrated by ecological systems and geological systems that all

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3952-490: The extensive habitat modifications to a wetland by a beaver, whose components are recycled and re-used by descendants and other species living under a different selective regime through the feedback and agency of these legacy effects. Ecosystem engineers can influence nutrient cycling efficiency rates through their actions. Earthworms , for example, passively and mechanically alter the nature of soil environments. The bodies of dead worms passively contribute mineral nutrients to

4028-468: The following principals: Where produce from an organic farm leaves the farm gate for the market the system becomes an open cycle and nutrients may need to be replaced through alternative methods. The persistent legacy of environmental feedback that is left behind by or as an extension of the ecological actions of organisms is known as niche construction or ecosystem engineering. Many species leave an effect even after their death, such as coral skeletons or

4104-537: The high efficiency, Desalination has become financially and ecologically viable for large scale agriculture, forestry and aquaculture . Another point of relevance is the creation of a bio-diverse landscape and many jobs instead of smoking chimneys and factories along the valuable waterfront. Particular relevance also lies in the applicability inland, also that would exclude the high Desalination capacity. The building has its roots in construction engineering and construction physics in contrast to food production as it

4180-534: The hot fresh-water. This recovered energy is used to heat the brine leaving the Mariculture in the IBTS doubling the daily evaporation of 100m³ and generating salt for sale. The recovered energy is also used to preheat incoming salt-water for the Mariculture. The chosen breed of fish needs warm water and that warm water also increases the natural evaporation inside the Greenhouse. The design points arose out of

4256-510: The most crucial of all, because of the increasing severity of the Global Water crisis particularly in hot desert climates . The industrial-scale desalination is bound to hot climates because it requires high amounts of solar thermal power. It has turned out to be suitable in mitigation of the sinking of water tables in agricultural areas of the MENA region and beyond. In future versions

4332-412: The nonsense of carrying poisonous wastes and nutrients in the same vessels." Ecologists use population ecology to model contaminants as competitors or predators. Rachel Carson was an ecological pioneer in this area as her book Silent Spring inspired research into biomagnification and brought to the world's attention the unseen pollutants moving into the food chains of the planet. In contrast to

4408-881: The nutrients. The earthworm is employed in this process and the production of the ecosystem depends on their capability to create feedback loops in the recycling process. Shellfish are also ecosystem engineers because they: 1) Filter suspended particles from the water column; 2) Remove excess nutrients from coastal bays through denitrification ; 3) Serve as natural coastal buffers, absorbing wave energy and reducing erosion from boat wakes, sea level rise and storms; 4) Provide nursery habitat for fish that are valuable to coastal economies. Fungi contribute to nutrient cycling and nutritionally rearrange patches of ecosystem creating niches for other organisms. In that way fungi in growing dead wood allow xylophages to grow and develop and xylophages , in turn, affect dead wood, contributing to wood decomposition and nutrient cycling in

4484-410: The only possible way to implement (scale the system) would be by implementing another silo. Reusing subsystems to create another functionality is not possible. Star integration , also known as spaghetti integration , is a process of systems integration where each system is interconnected to each of the remaining subsystems. When observed from the perspective of the subsystem which is being integrated,

4560-409: The other hand, system integration projects can be incredibly rewarding. For out-of-date, legacy systems, different forms of integration offer the ability to enable real-time data sharing. This can enable, for example, publisher-subscriber data distribution models, consolidated databases, event-driven architectures , reduce manual user data entry (which can also help reduce errors), refresh or modernize

4636-441: The planet and becomes hazardous in our soils, our streams, and our oceans. This idea was similarly expressed in 1954 by ecologist Paul Sears : "We do not know whether to cherish the forest as a source of essential raw materials and other benefits or to remove it for the space it occupies. We expect a river to serve as both vein and artery carrying away waste but bringing usable material in the same channel. Nature long ago discarded

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4712-454: The planet's natural ecosystems, technology (or technoecosystems ) is not reducing its impact on planetary resources. Only 7% of total plastic waste (adding up to millions upon millions of tons) is being recycled by industrial systems; the 93% that never makes it into the industrial recycling stream is presumably absorbed by natural recycling systems In contrast and over extensive lengths of time (billions of years) ecosystems have maintained

4788-431: The pricy space under the roof of the IBTS. These can be on land or in sea. Most noteworthy are seaweed farms. Just as the nutrient cycle has to be charged with biomass there is an option to charge the atmosphere inside the IBTS, or seaweed water-ponds, with CO 2 . This would increase the biomass yield. This process has certain limits. One is the availability of trace element like phosphorus required by any organism. As

4864-443: The production of food inside the IBTS. In sea-water systems the biomass is created from salt-tolerant plants called halophytes . Biomass yields of up to 52 tons per hectare per year have been recorded. Moreover, the biomass generation of roots are important for Carbon sequestration . This is up to 35t/ha*y extra. The IBTS-Greenhouse is a Blue Carbon project. A third source of biomass are external seawater farms, which do not require

4940-400: The rates of growth and exchange of materials, where some ecosystems may be in nutrient debt (sinks) where others will have extra supply (sources). These differences relate to climate, topography, and geological history leaving behind different sources of parent material. In terms of a food web, a cycle or loop is defined as "a directed sequence of one or more links starting from, and ending at,

5016-503: The requirements of each lifecycle stage of the industrial asset when integrating systems and subsystems. The key output is a standardized data architecture that can function throughout the life of the asset. A common data format is an integration method to avoid every adapter having to convert data to/from every other applications' formats, Enterprise application integration (EAI) systems usually stipulate an application-independent (or common) data format. The EAI system usually provides

5092-487: The respective authorities. The IBTS is based on a modular concept, with a core size of 1 hectare. This is the minimum size for the construction and for self-sufficiency , but the circular, architectural modules can be built 10 hectare large, or more. Each module is based on sub-modules allowing for immediate commencement of operation and generation of profit (like a re-afforestation site generating profit in its early stages). Best efficiency and full capacity can be provided with

5168-529: The roof. Losses occur due to the export of food and in case of a leak in the roof. Leaks would occur frequently under normal conditions. The Skyroof is maintained with a special refurbishment and replacement system that can deal with harsh weather and objects landing on the thin foil. The nutrient cycle is connected to the watercycle. Charging it mainly means the practice of building up soil fertility and soil organic matter . This can entail import of biomass through organic waste , but mainly by biowaste from

5244-438: The same species." An example of this is the microbial food web in the ocean, where "bacteria are exploited, and controlled, by protozoa, including heterotrophic microflagellates which are in turn exploited by ciliates. This grazing activity is accompanied by excretion of substances which are in turn used by the bacteria so that the system more or less operates in a closed circuit." An example of ecological recycling occurs in

5320-409: The same, which is not the case for common desalination plants. Common desalination plants are dependent on power-plants using fossil fuels. Accounting for energy-loss during the energy transformation in the power-plant, common desalination plants use 2-3 times more energy than stated in the usual performance data. These are common factors for energy-conversion losses for the combustion engines used in

5396-408: The science of ecological economics , the fourth law has been rejected in line with observations of ecological recycling. However, some authors state that complete recycling is impossible for technological waste. Ecosystems execute closed loop recycling where demand for the nutrients that adds to the growth of biomass exceeds supply within that system. There are regional and spatial differences in

5472-399: The soil. The worms also mechanically modify the physical structure of the soil as they crawl about ( bioturbation ) and digest on the molds of organic matter they pull from the soil litter . These activities transport nutrients into the mineral layers of soil . Worms discard wastes that create worm castings containing undigested materials where bacteria and other decomposers gain access to

5548-533: The subsystems function together as a system, and in information technology as the process of linking together different computing systems and software applications physically or functionally, to act as a coordinated whole. The system integrator integrates discrete systems utilizing a variety of techniques such as computer networking , enterprise application integration , business process management or manual programming . System integration involves integrating existing, often disparate systems in such

5624-491: The systems increase exponentially when adding additional subsystems. From the feature perspective, this method often seems preferable, due to the extreme flexibility of the reuse of functionality. Horizontal integration or Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is an integration method in which a specialized subsystem is dedicated to communication between other subsystems. This allows cutting the number of connections (interfaces) to only one per subsystem which will connect directly to

5700-435: The term biogeochemistry as a sub-discipline of geochemistry . However, the term nutrient cycle predates biogeochemistry in a pamphlet on silviculture in 1899: "These demands by no means pass over the fact that at places where sufficient quantities of humus are available and where, in case of continuous decomposition of litter, a stable, nutrient humus is present, considerable quantities of nutrients are also available from

5776-414: The various components of the biota are extremely fast with respect to geological time, it is quite evident that much of the same material is being incorporated again and again into different biological forms. This observation gives rise to the notion that, on the average, matter (and some amounts of energy) are involved in cycles. Ecological recycling is common in organic farming, where nutrient management

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