Indonesia has extreme risk of natural disasters because of its position at the confluence of four tectonic plates: the Asian Continent, the Australian Continent, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. The volcano eruption is one of the geological disasters that frequently occur in this country. Mount Merapi is Indonesia’s most active volcano and is famous worldwide. The evacuation crisis in 2010, the last major eruption, led to many fatalities for humans and cattle. Nowadays, the local government developed the "sister village" strategy for mitigation. That means cooperation within or between the local community has been constructed to provide shelter, logistics, and other disaster-related services. In this scenario, the meeting area and shelter have been coordinated. However, people's behavior has not been fully considered yet in the vulnerability assessment and government's contingency plan. On the other hand, evacuation issues in a volcanic disaster such as difficulty in expecting evacuation period, aging population, missed communication and risk perception, limited private vehicles in the community, and limited evacuation transport and supporters by the government need to be addressed for better mitigation. This situation led some people to walk to the meeting area, and low walking speeds by vulnerable persons may increase the risk and delay during an emergency. The objective of this study is to find the effectiveness of the evacuation process, especially for the vulnerable community in the Mount Merapi area. Especially, this study purposes to develop a “mutual assistance” model for vulnerable people in the affected regencies with the people’s behavior and vehicle ownership as a viewpoint. The first goal is an assessment of the mutual assistance strategy and social vulnerability index (SoVI) of pedestrian evacuation. I conducted the surveys and then analyzed the data using a multicriteria method to obtain the SoVI values for communities. The second goal is the development of the assembly model to support safer and faster evacuation for vulnerable people. The AnyLogic software was selected for model simulation using input parameters from field surveys. In conducting a survey, I measured the walking speed directly of the evacuation drills in four affected regencies. I also investigated the people’s behavior and eruption characteristics using an interview process with stakeholders and group discussions with local communities. After that, I used the multicriteria method and focused on two factors, social and age structure (young, vulnerable, and mutual assistance between them), and risk perception (work, rain, night, alert, and evacuation map). The index reflects the distribution of actual walking speed, mutual assistance, and the government's plan. The result showed that mutual assistance groups have a higher walking speed than vulnerable people but lower than young people. Mutual assistance coordination is crucial to support the vulnerable in shorter evacuation times. The social and age structure of the social vulnerability index has a stronger risk influence than the perception factor in the evacuation process. The successful evacuation of vulnerable people during emergencies is a significant challenge. In this study, a mutual assistance strategy is proposed to support vulnerable people by evacuating them with young people. This strategy was simulated using AnyLogic software with the agent-based model concept. Pedestrians and vehicles played the roles of significant agents in this experiment. Evacuation departure rate, actual walking speed, group size, route, and coordination were crucial agent parameters. Residents’ attitudes, distribution of each agent, and actual walking speed were obtained from surveys. Then, I developed three scenarios and three models for the evacuation process. Scenarios considered traffic conditions of evacuation routes and models represented behavior approach. The results revealed that this mutual assistance model is effective for the rapid evacuation and risk reduction of vulnerable communities where successful evacuation rates have improved. As for mutual assistance behavior, Model 3, where young people are matched with vulnerable people in advance, has shown better results than Model 2. Additionally, Scenario C, where pedestrians have separate lanes from vehicles during the evacuation process, has resulted in more number of vulnerable people reaching the shelter than Scenario B in Model 3. The highest arrival rate was obtained by the combination of scenario C and Model 3. These findings are a novelty in the volcano context and reflect all categories of vulnerable behavior involving the elderly, disabled, children, and pregnant mothers. The model will benefit disaster management studies and authorities’ policies for sustainable evacuation planning and aging population mitigation.

Population growth drives the demand for energy, which is the most pressing human need today. It puts pressure on other related sectors and increases wastewater production, which is a big problem in some countries that is inaccessible to available wastewater treatment facilities. Concerning the SDGs 2030 target, which mentions integrated sectors to deal with environmental issues, energy and water as a part of the water-energy-food nexus have a high linkage to build substantial economic and ecological benefits. Therefore, they have become the core attention of the world at this moment. To deal with the problem solving mentioned above, nowadays, an alternative energy converter integrated wastewater treatment has been massively developed to achieve green label production of products. Many countries, favoured by their scientists and practitioners, compete to find technology that is a user-friendly, eco-friendly, back-to-nature concept, inexpensive and can be accepted in any society stratifications. However, there is an available standalone converter technology known as conventional technology, which is a disintegrated system with no added value. This challenge opens an opportunity to develop a fully integrated system with any advantages. One of the promising technologies needed for solving the environmental problem and simultaneously producing other benefits for human living is a part of the bioelectrochemistry system (BES), which is microbial fuel cell (MFC). It could be easily assisted with the available conventional wastewater treatment, and it gives more benefits not only in energy production but also for remediating the environment through the superior biocatalyst, named electroactive bacteria (EAB), which has the availability to reduce organic and inorganic matter and generating electricity. However, factors affecting MFC have been a drawback in their field application that must be concerned extensively. Therefore, this study accommodates to investigation more in order to get an optimum condition in operation so that the technology could be widely used properly on the full scale. The disadvantages of the air–cathode single-chamber microbial fuel cell (AC-SCMFC) performance can be caused by numerous factors, and retention time (RT) is one such factor. It is difficult to conclude the ideal RT run for the specific tests under the same conditions. To determine the optimum RT for various types of microbial fuel cell (MFC), an AC-SCMFC batch-mode reactor was carried out by comparing different types and concentrations of substrates based on the main parameters of organic removal and power generation. The AC-SCMFC reactor was designed for the effective working volume of 500 mL and operated for 52 d in batch mode with factors being significantly correlated with the performance of the MFC reactor, which were two different substrates, sucrose and acetate, and three different chemical oxygen demand (COD) levels of 400; 1000, and 2500 mg/L (low, medium, and high, respectively) equipped with two graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs)-based electrodes connected to 100 Ω resistance and plugged onto a ii data logger. The results of this study indicated a significant pattern at the medium level, at which the optimum RT of sucrose was achieved at 24 h and that of acetate at 48 h. In comparison, the performances pattern at low and high levels of both substrates was insignificant to determine the optimum RT. For further application, the recommended RT for both substrates at any concentration is 24 h due to high overall performance, and the optimum RT established in this study could be applied to all types of MFC research, particularly in oxidizable or biodegradable organic ranges, which ensures high performance. One of the important factors in enhancing the performance of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) is reactor design and configuration. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the regressors and their operating parameters affecting the double anode chamber–designed dual-chamber microbial fuel cell (DAC-DCMFC) performance. Its primary design consists of two anode chamber compartments equipped with a separator and cathode chamber. The DAC-DCMFCs were parallelly operated over 8 days (60 days after the acclimation period). They were intermittently pump-fed with the different organic loading rates (OLRs), using chemically enriched sucrose as artificial wastewater. The applied OLRs were adjusted at low, medium, and high ranges from 0.4 kg.m-3.d-1 to 2.5 kg.m-3.d-1. The reactor types were type 1 and type 2 with different cathode materials. The pH, temperature, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), optical density 600 (OD600), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and total organic carbon (TOC) were measured, using standard analytical instruments. In general, the power production achieved a maximum of 866 ± 44 mW/m2, with a volumetric power density of 5.15 ± 0.26 W/m3 and coulombic efficiency of 84%. Two-stage COD and TOC removal at medium OLR achieved a range of 60–80%. Medium OLR is the recommended level to enhance power production and organic removal in DAC-DCMFC. The separated anode chambers into two parts in a dual anode chamber microbial fuel cell adjusted by various organic loadings expressed a preferable comprehension of the integrated MFCs for wastewater treatment. With respect to both studies, RT influences the design and configuration of MFCs, particularly in this regard, modified anode compartment of DCMFCs adapted to the range of oxidizable or biodegradable organics and reactor components towards control and dependent variables provide the simultaneous performance of DCMFCs in organic removal and power generation. In addition, DAC-DCMFC offers an opportunity to achieve optimal conditions in concurrent MFC-assisted wastewater treatment. Therefore, this study is one step closer to understanding the operating conditions comprehensively, which are the dominant factors affecting performance.

Access to clean water has been crucial global problem, especially with climate change, increasing population, and industrial activities. As one of Malaysia’s leading economic activities, the Oil and Gas Industry generates a massive amount of wastewater called Produced Water (PW). Dissolved organics in produced water, such as organic acids and phenolic compounds, are concerning due to the possibility that they can be toxic, non-biodegradable, and have bioaccumulation properties. Conventional treatments such as adsorption, incineration, and biological treatment seem to have difficulties treating these dilute but toxic components in an economical and environmentally friendly manner. Regulations on wastewater management has also been stricter around the globe. Therefore, there is a need on a new water treatment method to treat the diluted organics in a large volume of wastewater. Membrane technology has been of interest in the water treatment technologies’ industrial and research scenes. It offers simpler configuration and maintenance. However, the application is limited by the reduction of performance over time due to fouling phenomena. Photocatalyst offer an effective method to decompose organics in an environmentally friendly manner. This study researched on photocatalytic removal of diluted organic in water and potential of biofouling reduction by deposition of AgTiO2 coating on membrane surface. In Chapter 1: Introduction, the research background and purpose of this research were discussed. At the end of this chapter, the thesis framework was shown. In Chapter 2: Preparation and characterization of TiO2 and AgTiO2 coatings; the method to prepare AgTiO2 coatings on membrane support were explained. The prepared membranes were characterized with XPS, SEM, TEM, and ICP analysis to understand the prepared coatings. Results shows that the concentration of silver deposited on the membrane can be control by the concentration of silver in the precursor (silver acetate solution) used during the photochemical deposition step. Via XPS, it was found that the state of silver prepared through this method is oxide state. In Chapter 3: Removal of dissolved organic pollutants in water by photooxidation, the photocatalytic performance of prepared membranes was studied. Decomposition of diluted formic acid was performed under UV-light, and the concentration was evaluated using UVspectrophotometer. AgTiO2 membranes show better photocatalytic activity then TiO2 membrane. The concentration of silver on the membrane was found to influence its photocatalytic performance. In relation to PW application which commonly contain high salts, influence of salt types; NaCl, MgSO4, MgCl2 and K2SO4 and concentration were studied. All salts were found to inhibit the membranes’ photocatalytic performance. In Chapter 4: Antibacterial activity of AgTiO2 membranes, the antibacterial activity towards E. coli by prepared AgTiO2 membranes were investigated. Silver dissolution from membrane was found to be significantly increased in the presence of NaCl as compared to only water. Comparing membrane with lower Ag deposition, and around 20 times higher deposition, the silver dissolution from these membranes reached almost the same value after some time. However, as the amount of silver deposited on the membrane was higher, the antibacterial performance show around four times higher than the lower silver membrane. Based on other tests performed, it was concluded that there are potential of contribution from the silver oxide deposited on the membrane surface on the antibacterial activity of the AgTiO2 membranes In Chapter 5: Antibacterial activity in filtration system, prepared AgTiO2 membrane was used to filter E. coli suspension in water. E. coli growth was found to be inhibited by short contact with silver on the coated membrane. Finally, Chapter 6: Conclusion, the thesis was summarized, and future works were proposed.