Currently, there is a growing demand for water treatment technologies considering global environmental challenges such as degradation and depletion of water resources. Micro- and nanobubble (MNB) technology and its application for wastewater treatment has emerged as a problem-solving alternative for such challenges. This paper reviews the important studies on water treatment in the areas of MNBs and discusses their fundamental properties, such as bubble stability (as tiny entities in water solutions), generation methods, and various chemical and physical features. The paper further overviews the current status of MNB application in water treatment processes such as flotation, aeration, and disinfection and its uses in various sectors, including agriculture, aquaculture, medical, and industry. Based on this review, studies regarding MNBs' basic properties, generation, and application are identified and recognized for future research. This study concludes that despite the promising role of MNBs in water-related application, the current status of research has not reached its true potential. Specifically, there is a need to enhance MNB application at a broader scale.

Managing and communicating flood risks necessitates a strong understanding of how people perceive risk. It has become critical to examine risk perception to implement effective disaster risk management (DRM) measures. Socioeconomic determinants have an impact on risk perception, which in turn affects future adaptive capacity and disaster preparedness. First and foremost, this research attempts to determine how Pakistani people in rural areas perceive flood risk, and second, to examine the factors that can influence rural residents’ perceptions of flood risk. The data for this study were collected through face-to-face interviews with 600 respondents (household heads) from Charsadda and Nowshera districts that were severely affected by the 2010 flood. A flood risk perception index was developed (using a risk matrix) using relevant attributes on a Likert scale and classified into two categories: high and low perceived risk. Furthermore, a binary regression model was used to examine the influence of socioeconomic and institutional factors on rural households’ risk perception. Flood risk was perceived by 67 percent of the total sampled participants in the study regions. The results of binary logistic regression demonstrate that flood risk perception is strongly linked to socioeconomic variables such as age, education, house ownership, family size, past flood experience, and distance from the nearest river source, as well as institutional factors such as access to credit and extreme weather forecast information. The findings of the current study additionally revealed that flood risk perception varied among household heads based on education (1–10 years perceived high flood risk (51.47%)), age (age greater than 40 years perceived high flood risk (52.83%)), and monthly income levels (lower monthly income group perceived high flood risk (73.02%)). The findings of this study shed light on rural households’ perception of flood risk and the factors that shape such perceptions. These findings can assist provincial and local disaster management authorities in better understanding flood risk and adopting local actions that could be used to respond to flood and other climate-related disasters.

Agriculture is considered as the main driving force in Pakistan’s economy employing 45% of the country’s labor force and generating 20% of national GDP Agriculture sector of Pakistan is facing numerous challenges including non-adoption of agricultural technology at the farm level, due to farmers’ lack of access to the latest information. In this context, the current study focusses on the use of the mobile phone in accessing agricultural information among the farmers of the of district Muzaffargarh,Punjab, Pakistan. A multistage sampling technique was used to collect data from the two tehsils (cities/sub-districts) of Muzaffargarh formulating a total sample of 180 farmers. SPSS computer-based Software was used for analyzing the data. Results revealed that 91.2% of the farmers indicated mobile phone ownership. It was further reported that 87.20 % of the farmers used private sectors advisory staff to obtain agriculture information. Market information was ranked as the highest accessed information among the rest of farm-related use. Easy access to updated information and connectivity with stakeholders were reported as the highest perceived benefits of mobile phone use (4.63 & 4.72 mean). Findings reported that farmers’ limited aptitude of Mobile phone usage and lack of awareness of information sources as major constraints in farm-related use of the Mobile phone. On the basis of findings, the current study provided recommendations and policy implications for utilizing the true potential of these ICT-enabled solutions in agriculture.

Public institutions could play an important role in building agricultural resilience to climate change by providing information and technology support to farmers. This study takes the case of Pakistan to investigate the perspective and capacities of public institutions as well as to identify gaps in current institutional arrangements in dealing and managing climate change in the agriculture sector. For this purpose, 53 office bearers from thirteen public institutions in Punjab province of Pakistan were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire to collect data on climate knowledge, training, coordination, and resource availability. The study uses an index-based approach to calculate Institutional Capacity Indices (ICI) based on selected seven indicators. The results of the index analysis show that institutions have the least financial capacity, followed by lacking physical and human resources. Whereas results show high index value for perception and knowledge, indicating a good understanding of climate change at the institutional level. The overall ICI index value indicates a medium level capacity of institutions in dealing with climate change. Moreover, the study shows that gaps in management, non-availability of financial and physical resources, and lack of training are the key bottlenecks for limited adaptation support from public institutions. This study highlights the importance of reducing gaps so that institutions could play their role in building the resilience of the agriculture sector to climate change.