Integrated phytobial remediation for sustainable management of arsenic in soil and water

Arsenic (As), cited as the most hazardous substance by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry (ATSDR, 2005), is an ubiquitous metalloid which when ingested for prolonged periods cause extensive health effects leading to ultimate untimely death. Plants and microbes can help mitigate soil and groundwater As problem since they have evolved elaborate detoxification machineries against this toxic metalloid as a result of their coexistence with this since the origin of life on earth. Utilization of the phytoremediation and bioremediation potential of the plants and microbes, respectively, is now regarded as two innovative tools that encompass biology, geology, biotechnology and allied sciences with cutting edge applications for sustainable mitigation of As epidemic. Discovery of As hyperaccumulating plants that uptake and concentrate large amounts of this toxic metalloid in their shoots or roots offered new hope to As phytoremediation, solar power based nature's own green remediation. This review focuses on how phytoremediation and bioremediation can be merged together to form an integrated phytobial remediation which could synergistically achieve the goal of large scale removal of As from soil, sediment and groundwater and overcome the drawbacks of the either processes alone. The review also points to the feasibility of the introduction of transgenic plants and microbes that bring new hope for more efficient treatment of As. The review identifies one critical research gap on the importance of remediation of As contaminated groundwater not only for drinking purpose but also for irrigation purpose and stresses that more research should be conducted on the use of constructed wetland, one of the most suitable areas of application of phytobial remediation. Finally the review has narrowed down on different phytoinvestigation and phytodisposal methods, which constitute the most essential and the most difficult part of pilot scale and field scale applications of phytoremediation programs.     

国内外环境安全研究进展述评

环境安全是环境问题日益加剧和恶化而对人类社会构成的安全层次上的威胁。本文研究的目标是从整体上描绘当前环境安全研究的大致轮廓和发展前景。本文将当前国内外环境安全研究划分为三种视角并分别进行了述评：①“传统安全视角”：从传统安全的视角研究环境问题对传统安全的影响;②“狭义环境安全视角”：从安全的视角研究日益恶化的狭义环境问题：③“广义环境安全视角”：从安全的视角研究生态、资源、灾害等领域的广义环境问题。通过比较和评论,认为“狭义环境安全视角”研究针对人类社会面临的“继续生存还是自我毁灭”的“新生存安全问题”,揭示了环境安全研究的核心科学问题,具有重要的研究意义和前景。就目前研究而言。在探讨环境安全基本理论和科学问题的同时。应注重加强在国家环境安全、生态环境安全、突发环境安全事件等领域的技术方法、案例的应用型研究。     

Assessment of the Hygiene and Sanitation Campaign in Cameroon

This paper is an evaluation of a nationwide hygiene and sanitation campaign officially launched in Cameroon in the first quarter of the year 2000. It draws on Environmental Management and Planning concepts to appraise the planning and implementation process. The immediate outcome of the project was observed to be a success story as unattractive buildings were either re-furbished, or demolished, giving a face-lift to many towns, decongesting many areas, improving drainage, and instilling some degree of sanitation. It goes further to make the point that no effective monitoring or follow-up structures has made the situation worse, and recommends that future environmental policies should reflect a participatory approach.     

Fungal dye decolourization: recent advances and future potential

Dyes released by the textile industries pose a threat to the environmental safety. Recently, dye decolourization through biological means has gained momentum as these are cheap and can be applied to wide range of dyes. This review paper focuses on the decolourization of dye wastewaters through fungi via two processes (biosorption and bioaccumulation) and discusses the effect of various process parameters like pH, temperature, dye concentration etc. on the dye removing efficiency of different fungi. Various enzymes involved in the degradation of the dyes and the metabolites thus formed have been compiled. Genetic manipulations of microorganisms for production of more efficient biological agents, various bioreactor configurations and the application of purified enzymes for decolourization, which constitute some of the recent advances in this field, have also been reviewed. The studies discussed in this paper indicate fungal decolourization has a great potential to be developed further as a decentralized wastewater treatment technology for small textile or dyeing units. However, further research work is required to study the toxicity of the metabolites of dye degradation and the possible fate of the utilized biomass in order to ensure the development of an eco-friendly technology.     

Determination of appropriate service quality attributes for household toilets in rural settlements of India based on user perception

In many developing countries, including India, governments have implemented programs for improvement of environment and health in rural settlements through the provision of a subsidized household toilet with specifications selected and benchmarked from the experts’ perspective with only partial consideration of users’ perception. Provision of household toilets with specifications or service quality as perceived by users is a requirement for the sustainability and sustained use of toilet infrastructure. Users do not judge only the overall quality of a service but also base their judgment on a few attributes which are either perceived to be relatively more important or where there is a wider gap between expectation and perception . This paper presents a review of the service quality attributes of the household toilet as found in the relevant literature and provides a step-by-step approach for identifying appropriate attributes based on users’ perspective. While an initial list of attributes was developed based on literature review, initial selection and modifications of the attributes’ definition and units were carried out as per our judgment. This list was further modified through focus groups discussions and incorporating expert opinions. The final list of attributes is selected based on the stated importance level of attributes as perceived by users. The study finds that the attributes prioritized by the users are different from the experts. While government policies emphasize on the construction of toilet, maintenance of toilet is found an important issue for the users.     

Dominance based fuzzy decision support framework for g-resilient (ecosilient) supplier selection: an empirical modelling

A novel decision support framework has been proposed herein to solve supplier selection problems by considering green as well as resiliency criteria, simultaneously. An expert team involving a finite number of Decision-Makers (DMs) is to be employed to obtain degree of importance of each of the evaluation criteria and also to assign an appropriate rating for each supplier alternative with respect to the criteria. Since subjective human judgment often bears some sort of ambiguity as well as vagueness, application of fuzzy set theory can be recommended in this context. The present work represents a dominance based decision support system in the light of fuzzy set theory which is basically a simplified version of TODIM and PROMETHEE. It explores dominance between two alternatives with respect to a particular criterion, based on which a global dominance measure is computed to facilitate ranking order of candidate suppliers. The approach proposed in this research seems straightforward which can exclude complex and tedious computational steps of TODIM as well as PROMETHEE. Application potential of the proposed dominance based fuzzy decision-making approach has been compared to that of Fuzzy-TOPSIS and Fuzzy-VIKOR. Good agreement has been observed. In addition to this, the concept of a unique performance index i.e. ‘g-resilient’ (also called ‘ecosilient’) index has been introduced to help in assessing suppliers’ overall performance extent. The work has also been extended to identify the ill (poor)-performing areas in which suppliers are lagging and seek further improvement towards enhancing g-resilient performance level.     

Information needs related to teaching about air quality

Translating knowledge of air quality into a form that can be understood by students and the general public is a major challenge for scientists, public officials, and teachers. Social science studies have shown that both educators and the general public are relatively uninformed about recent findings in environmental research. It is especially difficult to get students of today excited about environmental issues because environmental education has become institutionalized. Students believe they know about major environmental problems even when their knowledge is rudimentary or even wrong. One problem in getting public attention is the general level of hyperbole and hysteria common in most media. Thus, do we try to be even more shrill and apocalyptic than other advocates clamoring for public notice, or should we refuse to participate in this competition for attention?A model is presented to bring K-12 teachers, scientists, and students together to develop innovative, inquiry-based, active learning materials for environmental education. Curricular materials utilizing the discovery process can be created and tested in an iterative process that incorporates the results of current science research into highly effective teaching materials for schools. Following extensive evaluative procedures and review, exemplary materials are prepared for publication. This collaborative method also gives teachers and students a more realistic understanding of how science works by giving them access to active scientists and practical scientific experience.Finally, we argue that scientists need to reveal why they care about environmental issues. It is not enough to remain aloof and objective. If we are going to motivate students and the public to make changes in their lives, we need to make a convincing case for the importance of air quality and what it means in practical terms to our common environment.     

Environmental challenge vis a vis opportunity: the case of water hyacinth

Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) is a noxious weed that has attracted worldwide attention due to its fast spread and congested growth, which lead to serious problems in navigation, irrigation, and power generation. On the other hand, when looked from a resource angle, it appears to be a valuable resource with several unique properties. As a result, research activity concerning control (especially biological control) and utilization (especially wastewater treatment or phytoremediation) of water hyacinth has boomed up in the last few decades. Investigations on biogas/compost production from water hyacinth have also come up very well mainly from few research groups in India. This review presents a comprehensive view of the research related to water hyacinth with special emphasis on the recent investigations on water hyacinth control and utilization technologies conducted in the last 2-3 decades. Based on these significant research achievements, now it is desirable to identify a management strategy so that the excessive growth can be controlled and the plant can be used in beneficial ways. In the rural areas, water hyacinth could be used in an integrated manner for decentralized wastewater treatment systems coupled to biogas and compost production from the resulting biomass. There is a need to work out the techno-economic viability of such integrated model systems.     

Introduction of a recycling system for sustainable municipal solid waste management: a case study on the greater Banjul area of the Gambia

This research proposes for the introduction of a recycling system in the Gambia to enhance sustainable municipal solid waste management. Poor infrastructures, coupled with inadequate resources and lack of funding, work against the optimization of a MSW disposal service. In the authors’ view, authorities in charge of waste management need to change not only behaviors, but modernize their processes. Recycling technology is a key part of the solution. A model has been developed which suggest the involvement of stakeholders to achieve meaningful sustainable MSWM. This can be achieved by recognizing the role of the informal sector through community-based organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and the private sector. The open dump approach is leading to severe environmental consequences as the groundwater and soil within the dump is been contaminated. In this study, an integrated municipal solid waste management approach was developed with a model to help achieve sustainable municipal solid waste management. Resource recovery, not waste disposal, must be the ultimate goal with clearly defined end user markets so that the recovery loop is complete. Mandatory sorting of waste at household level would help greatly in making recycling activity successful.     

Comparative advantages and limitations of the fallout radionuclides (137)Cs, (210)Pb(ex) and (7)Be for assessing soil erosion and sedimentation

The fallout radionuclides (FRNs) (137)Cs, (210)Pb(ex) and (7)Be are increasingly being used as a means of obtaining quantitative information on soil erosion and sediment redistribution rates within agricultural landscapes, over a range of different timescales, and they are frequently seen to represent a valuable complement to conventional measurement techniques. The recent development of the (7)Be method has greatly extended the timescale over which FRNs can be used, by permitting assessment of short-term soil erosion linked to individual events and changing soil management practices. This paper aims to review the advantages and limitations of each of the three FRNs and to identify key knowledge gaps linked to their use. In addition, guidelines for selecting the most appropriate FRN and associated approach, in order to deal with a range of spatial and temporal scales and to investigate specific sets of agro-environmental problems, are provided. Key requirements for future work, related to the application of FRNs in soil erosion investigations, are also identified. These include the upscaling of the approach to the catchment scale and a shift from use of the approach as a research tool to a decision support tool.     

Climate change and food security: a Sri Lankan perspective

There is growing concern in Sri Lanka over the impact of climate change, variability and extreme weather events on food production, food security and livelihoods. The link between climate change and food security has been mostly explored in relation to impacts on crop production or food availability aspects of food security, with little focus on other key dimensions, namely food access and food utilization. This review, based on available literature, adopted a food system approach to gain a wider perspective on food security issues in Sri Lanka. It points to several climate-induced issues posing challenges for food security. These issues include declining agriculture productivity, food loss along supply chains, low livelihood resilience of the rural poor and prevalence of high levels of undernourishment and child malnutrition. Our review suggests that achieving food security necessitates action beyond building climate resilient food production systems to a holistic approach that is able to ensure climate resilience of the entire food system while addressing nutritional concerns arising from impacts of climate change. Therefore, there is a pressing need to work towards a climate-smart agriculture system that will address all dimensions of food security. With the exception of productivity of a few crop species, our review demonstrates the dearth of research into climate change impacts on Sri Lanka’s food system. Further research is required to understand how changes in climate may affect other components of the food system including productivity of a wider range of food crops, livestock and fisheries, and shed light on the causal pathways of climate-induced nutritional insecurity.     

Improving performance of eco-industrial parks

Abstract

Industrial Ecology hypothesises that networks of industries designed to be analogous to the structure and properties of food webs may approach a similarly sustainable and efficient state. Although ecology is the metaphor for designing Eco-Industrial Parks (EIPs), prior research has shown that EIPs are inferior in performance compared to natural ecosystems. One EIP design approach is to enlarge EIPs by combining two or more synergistic networks to create a larger, and hopefully more successful, synergistic mega-network. A quantitative analysis using structural ecosystem metrics is presented in this paper in order to test the potential of this approach. The findings indicate that merely enlarging EIPs by significant amounts may not be the best strategy for improving performance, but that special attention should be placed on the inclusion of key actors like agriculture that act like detritivores and promote more intense internal cycling.     

Researching Visual Environmental Communication

In 2008, we published a journal paper arguing that while scholarly work on media representations of environmental issues had made substantial progress in textual analysis, there had been much less work on visual representations. This special edition has a number of aims in this respect. It seeks to mark out where there has been progress since 2008, and the papers in this collection represent some of the fresh and exciting high quality scholarly work now emerging on an expanding number of topics and using different methods. We argue that we need to think more openly about what we mean by “the visual.” We begin by placing research into visual representations of the environment into the wider trajectory of visual studies research. We then proceed to review key trends in visual environmental communication research and to delineate core dimensions, contexts and sites of visual analysis.     

A “toad’s eye” view of drought: regional socio-natural vulnerability and responses in 2002 in Northwest Colorado

Drought is a part of the normal climate variability and the life and livelihoods of the Western United States. However, drought can also be a high impact or extreme event in some cases, such as the exceptional 2002 drought that had deleterious impacts across the Western United States. Studies of long-term climate variability along with climate change projections indicate that the Western United States should expect much more severe and extended drought episodes than experienced over the last century when most modern water law and policies were developed, such as the 1922 Colorado River Compact. This paper will discuss research examining regional socio-natural climate vulnerability and adaptive response capacities to the 2002 drought in the Yampa–White Basins region of Colorado across sectors and will demonstrate how a bottom-up or “toad’s eye” approach to understanding drought is paramount to complement top-down, instrumental data-driven analyses of drought. The results of empirical observations through interviews and participant observation in combination with analysis of drought indicators will be presented. Implications for adaptation research and planning for climate variability and change will be discussed.     

Ecological economics: themes, approaches, and differences with environmental economics

This article provides a short overview of the main themes of ecological economics (EE). It is argued that EE provides a platform that fosters multidisciplinary environmental research by bringing together the core contributing disciplines – economics and ecology. In addition, EE is regarded as a pluralistic approach to environmental research that can be set opposite to, and has indeed developed as a response to, traditional environmental and resource economics. A comparison of the two fields is presented to clarify the essential differences between them. In addition, specific themes are examined in more detail. These include: sustainable development; the growth debate; international trade; dynamic processes; and behaviour and policy. Electronic Publication     

Design for environment as a tool for the development of a sustainable supply chain

In this work, design for environment (DfE) methodologies have been used as a tool for the development of a more sustainable supply chain. In particular by combining life‐cycle assessment (LCA) techniques and by using the quality function deployment (QFD) multi‐criteria matrices, an ‘environmental compromise’ can be reached. In this work, the QFD matrices have been developed in a new way using an iterative process that involves the whole supply chain starting from the product life‐cycle, taking into consideration the machines that make the product and their components. This methodology is compatible with the requirements of the various stakeholders, suppliers, manufacturers and clients, involved in the supply chain. To assess the validity of the proposed approach a specific supply chain was studied concerning packaging systems for liquid food substances (beverage cartons). Firstly all the stages which are most critical from the environmental point of view in the supply chain of packaging systems were identified and assessed. The starting point for the analysis of environmental aspects and impacts which characterise the supply chain was LCA, which proved to be useful for the identification and the environmental assessment of the various stages in a packaging system. Through the use of ‘iterative QFD’ it is possible to arrive at a definition of the engineering characteristics of all the machinery which is involved in the supply chain. In particular in this work the authors have tried to identify the critical points in the design of those machines which either make the beverage cartons or are involved in the filling process.     

A science of integration: frameworks,processes, and products in a place-based,integrative study

Integrative research is increasingly a priority within the scientific community and is a central goal for the evolving field of sustainability science. While it is conceptually attractive, its successful implementation has been challenging and recent work suggests that the move towards interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in sustainability science is being only partially realized. To address this from the perspective of social-ecological systems (SES) research, we examine the process of conducting a science of integration within the Southcentral Alaska Test Case (SCTC) of Alaska-EPSCoR as a test-bed for this approach. The SCTC is part of a large, 5 year, interdisciplinary study investigating changing environments and adaptations to those changes in Alaska. In this paper, we review progress toward a science of integration and present our efforts to confront the practical issues of applying proposed integration frameworks. We: (1) define our integration framework; (2) describe the collaborative processes, including the co-development of science through stakeholder engagement and partnerships; and (3) illustrate potential products of integrative, social-ecological systems research. The approaches we use can also be applied outside of this particular framework. We highlight challenges and propose improvements for integration in sustainability science by addressing the need for common frameworks and improved contextual understanding. These insights may be useful for capacity-building for interdisciplinary projects that address complex real-world social and environmental problems.     

Exploring the relationship between climate change and violent conflict

ABSTRACT

Does climate change lead to violent conflict? This article reviews the existing literature connecting climatic conditions to conflict. It finds that the existing literature has not detected a robust and general effect from climate to conflict onset. Moreover, there exists scientific agreement that climatic changes can contribute to conflict under some conditions and through certain pathways. In particular, the recent literature offers considerable suggestive evidence that climatic changes can lead to conflict in countries and/or regions, which are dependent on agriculture, host politically excluded groups, and have ineffective institutions. Future research should focus not only on understanding of the pathways and contexts in which climatic changes are most likely to increase or exacerbate the risk of conflict but also work to understand the mechanisms by which climate variability and change might cause conflict.     

三峡库区农田面源污染典型区域制图及其研究现状评价

利用GIS空间叠加分析方法，通过遴选影响库区农田面源污染关键因子，获得了3大类8小类库区农田面源污染典型区，从空间分布格局的角度对这些典型区做了深入的比较分析，并提出土壤类型是导致不同典型区分布差异的主导因素。在此基础上，对国内外已在库区内开展农田面源污染研究工作的相关研究区进行了典型性分布现状评价，研究认为：(1)目前针对“紫色土-旱地-林地-水田”农田面源污染典型区的研究区设置较完善，在整个库区中的分布格局也较合理，有利于相关研究成果在该区推广应用；(2)对“黄壤-旱地-林地”典型区研究较少，无法满足整个库区尺度下的应用需求，需加强对库区中部和库尾相关区域的研究区配置；(3)由于对“石灰(岩)土-林地”典型区的研究缺失，亟需开展该区内农田面源污染研究工作。研究获得的不同类型典型区分布图可为相关研究区的选择提供必要的决策依据。此外，研究虽只是针对农田面源污染开展了典型区制图分析，但研究方法具有一定的推广性，在必要数据支持下，可应用于三峡库区或其他区域农业面源污染典型区制图研究