Spatial-temporal variability of aerosol sources based on chemical composition and particle number size distributions in an urban settlement influenced by metallurgical industry

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The Moravian-Silesian region of the Czech Republic with its capital city Ostrava is a European air pollution hot spot for airborne particulate matter...     

Acknowledgement to Reviewers for 2018

Environmental Fluid Mechanics -     

Using liquid waste streams as the moisture source during the hydrothermal carbonization of municipal solid wastes

Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) is a thermal conversion process that can be an environmentally beneficial approach for the conversion of municipal solid wastes to value-added products. The influence of using activated sludge and landfill leachate as initial moisture sources during the carbonization of paper, food waste and yard waste over time at 250 °C was evaluated. Results from batch experiments indicate that the use of activated sludge and landfill leachate are acceptable alternative supplemental liquid sources, ultimately imparting minimal impact on carbonization product characteristics and yields. Regression results indicate that the initial carbon content of the feedstock is more influential than any of the characteristics of the initial liquid source and is statistically significant when describing the relationship associated with all evaluated carbonization products. Initial liquid-phase characteristics are only statistically significant when describing the solids energy content and the mass of carbon in the gas-phase. The use of these alternative liquid sources has the potential to greatly increase the sustainability of the carbonization process. A life cycle assessment is required to quantify the benefits associated with using these alternative liquid sources.     

能从太空监测珊瑚礁吗?

最近珊瑚礁引人注目的漂白事件加强了环境监测的必要性.遥感是珊瑚礁监测的重要组成部分,现场观测的非常有价值的补充.本文探讨了目前高分辨率卫星测绘和监测珊瑚礁的可能性和局限性.具有当今最佳的空间和辐射测量分辨率的传感器,如IKONOS,可用于测绘和监测珊瑚礁,但是对于全球调查而言,它们的成本太高了.然而,我们的珊瑚漂白研究表明,即使从分辨率较低的卫星上,如Landsat、SPOT、IRS等,也可以探测到大面积漂白.从空间和专题的观点来看,它们也可用于较粗放的全球测绘和更新的目的.较详细的监测需要比当今传感器更好的空间分辨率和光谱分辨率.将来,有必要制造更专门针对珊瑚礁的、具有一些专门选定的窄波段和较好的空间、辐射测量及时间分辨率的传感器.     

Assessing river flood risk and adaptation in Europe—review of projections for the future

Flood damages have exhibited a rapid upward trend, both globally and in Europe, faster than population and economic growth. Hence, vigorous attempts of attribution of changes have been made. Flood risk and vulnerability tend to change over many areas, due to a range of climatic and nonclimatic impacts whose relative importance is site-specific. Flooding is a complex phenomenon and there are several generating mechanisms, among others intense and/or long-lasting precipitation, snowmelt, ice jam. Projected climate-driven changes in future flood frequency are complex, depending on the generating mechanism, e.g., increasing flood magnitudes where floods result of heavy rainfall and possibly decreasing magnitudes where floods are generated by spring snowmelt. Climate change is likely to cause an increase of the risk of riverine flooding across much of Europe. Projections of flood hazard in Europe based on climatic and hydrological models, reviewed in this paper, illustrate possible changes of recurrence of a 100-year flood (with probability of exceedance being 1-in-100 years) in Europe. What used to be a 100-year flood in the control period is projected to become either more frequent or less frequent in the future time horizon of concern. For a large part of the continent, large flooding is projected to become more commonplace in future, warmer climate. Due to the large uncertainty of climate projections, it is currently not possible to devise a scientifically-sound procedure for redefining design floods (e.g. 100-year flood) in order to adjust flood defenses. For the time being, we recommend to adjust design floods using a “climate change factor” approach.     

Hidden genetic diversity in a key model species of coral

A total of 43 colonies of the scleractinian coral Pocillopora damicornis from lagoonal and reef slope sites in the western Indian Ocean (WIO) region were genetically characterised at one nuclear and two mitochondrial sequence markers and six microsatellite loci. Both mitochondrial and microsatellite data support the existence of two reciprocally monophyletic clusters (F- and NF-types) and provide evidence of the existence of two cryptic species of P. damicornis on reefs in WIO region and put current morphological delineation and geographical boundaries of P. damicornis and Pocillopora molokensis into question. The results add to ongoing studies on the phylogeny and phylogeography within the genus Pocillopora, which all point towards a range of unresolved morphological and molecular species boundaries. Nuclear phylogenies derived from the present and previously published sequences show evidence for incomplete lineage sorting and/or introgressive hybridisation between Pocillopora morphospecies. However, the two WIO types largely remain in separate clusters, further supporting the theory that these represent two different species.     

Fatty acid signatures of stomach contents reflect inter- and intra-annual changes in diet of a small pelagic seabird,the Thin-billed prion <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pachyptila belcheri</Emphasis>

In diet analyses of seabirds, fatty acid signatures (FAS) can be used to overcome biases due to differential digestion of prey and enable the analysis of very digested diet samples. We applied FAS analysis to stomach contents of a small sub-Antarctic seabird, the Thin-billed Prion Pachyptila belcheri, which feeds mainly on squid during incubation and on crustacea during chick rearing. This seasonal dietary switch of Thin-billed prions was reflected in differences in FAS in regurgitates, as were inter-annual differences in diet composition. A discriminant function analysis correctly classified 93.4% of cases with respect to year (2006–2008) and stage of the breeding cycle (incubation versus chick rearing). The dominant types of crustacea in the diet of Thin-billed prions (amphipods Themisto gaudichaudii, euphausiids, decapods Munida gregaria, and calanoid copepods) were distinguished well by characteristic FAS patterns. However, the FAS of the two main types of prey by volume, amphipods T. gaudichaudii and squid Gonatus antarcticus, were similar to each other. Although FAS were successfully applied in the analysis of prey in stomach contents of prions, FAS of some prey species were similar and may not be distinguishable from each other if used in quantitative diet analyses.     

Assessment of Population Dynamics of Specific Strains in Groundwater Bioaugmentation Experiments by Two Different Molecular Techniques

A set of microcosm experiments was performed to understand the behaviour of special degraders in bioaugmentation experiments. In the experiments the following chlorobenzene degraders were used: the genetically modified Pseudomonas putida F1CC, and the two wild-type strains Pseudomonas putida GJ31 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa RHO1. These strains were used at an initial cell density of 10⁵ cells mL^–1 groundwater which had been spiked with 1,2-dichlorobenzene (1,2-DCB), 1,4-dichlorobenzene (1,4-DCB) and, as main contaminant, chlorobenzene (CB). The population dynamics and behaviour of the three special degraders within the groundwater microcosms were studied by single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis of 16S rDNA fragments amplified from directly extracted community DNA and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) with species-specific probes. RHO1 disappeared after 4 days as detected by FISH in contrast to SSCP-detection where RHO1 could be found during the whole incubation time. Whereas GEM F1CC and wild-type strain GJ31 survived the whole incubation for 20 days. With both methods we were able to detect all strains with high specificity among the indigenous microbial community. The data sets obtained from SSCP analysis and FISH were highly correlated. Specific band intensity within the SSCPfingerprints and the cell counts determined by FISH gave a quantitative overview about the introduced strains.