The recovery of the lower montane cloud forest in the Mucujún watershed, Mérida, Venezuela

High deforestation rates in tropical countries continue to reduce forest cover and thereby habitat quantity and quality. However, in some places the forest is recovering and expanding thus offsetting the biodiversity and ecosystem service losses. In order to characterize the forest recovery, land use and land cover (LUC) changes were analyzed using aerial photographs, taken between 1952 and 2009, of a peri-urban watershed in the Andes region of Venezuela. The qualities of the changes were assessed using landscape indices and hemeroby indicators. In that period, the forest cover increased about 18 %, mainly due to abandoned pastures on steep slopes. At the same time, the urban area expanded about 4 % on valley bottoms, while pastures and crop fields were reduced about 20 %. The results also showed that forest patches were aggregating, whereas pastures were fragmenting. A reduction in direct human impacts on forests growing on abandoned pastures resulted in a slight recovery of the lower montane cloud forest structure and plant composition. But non-native species were found in all LUC categories. During the study period, we documented not only forest recovery, but also urban area growth, intensified land use and invasions by non-native species all of which could partially counterbalance the positives of forest recovery.     

Workers’ Involvement—A Missing Component in the Implementation of Occupational Safety and Health Management Systems in Enterprises

Effective implementation of occupational safety and health (OSH) legislation based on European Union directives requires promotion of OSH management systems ( OSH MS). To this end, voluntary Polish standards (PN-N-18000) have been adopted, setting forth OSH MS specifications and guidelines. However, the number of enterprises implementing OSH MS has increased slowly, falling short of expectations, which call for a new national policy on OSH MS promotion. To develop a national policy in this area, a survey was conducted in 40 enterprises with OSH MS in place. The survey was aimed at identifying motivational factors underlying OSH MS implementation decisions. Specifically, workers’ and their representatives’ involvement in OSH MS implementation was investigated. The results showed that the level of workers ‘ involvement was relatively low, which may result in a low effectiveness of those systems. The same result also applies to the involvement of workers’ representatives and that of trade unions.     

A formulation to optimize the risk reduction process based on LOPA

This paper presents a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model to improve the computational use of the layer of protection analysis (LOPA). For a given set of independent protection layers to be implemented in a process, the proposed optimization model is solved to: a) Include costs associated with the different prevention, protection and mitigation devices, and b) Satisfy the risk level typically specified in the LOPA analysis through the occurrence probability. The underline purpose focuses on improving the analysis process and decision making to obtain the optimal solution in the safeguards selection that satisfies the requirements to be considered as IPL’s. The optimization is based on economic and risk tolerance criteria. As a first stage of this proposal, the safety instrumented system (SIS) design is optimized so that the selection of SIS components minimizes the risk and satisfies the safety integrity level (SIL) requirements. A case study is presented to validate the whole proposed approach.     

Morphology,Chemical Characterization and Sources of Microplastics in a Coastal City in the Equatorial Zone with Diverse Anthropogenic Activities (Fortaleza city,Brazil)

Journal of Polymers and the Environment - The aim of the present study was to perform morphological and chemical characterizations of microplastics (MPs) found in seawater samples from the coast of...     

Ecotoxicity of binary mixtures of ILs and inorganic salts of electrochemical interest

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The applicability of ionic liquids (ILs) has increased over the last years, and even new opportunities are becoming a reality, i.e. mixtures of pure...     

Importance of the polarity on nanostructured silica materials to optimize the hydrolytic condensation with molecules related to CO2 adsorption

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The present work reports the changes for the mesoporous materials SBA-15 and KIT-6 associated with the structural, textural, and chemical properties...     

Consumption of low-density polyethylene,polypropylene, and polystyrene materials by larvae of the greater wax moth,Galleria mellonella L. (Lepidoptera,Pyralidae), impacts on their ontogeny

Low-density polyethylene (LDPE), biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP), and expanded polystyrene (EXPS) are the most common plastics found in every home of the world, but only ~ 10% enter the recycling chains. Consequently, the study of plastic biodegradation by microorganisms and insects, such as the wax moths, has gained special interest. Galleria mellonella (L.) has been shown to consume single-layered polyethylene and polystyrene, though biological impacts of this consumption have been rarely reported. We evaluated the consumption of different plastics by G. mellonella larvae (L7, mean size: 25–30 mm) and its effect on larval duration, survival, and development. For this, we offered the larvae five diets: single-layered LDPE, EXPS, BOPP, triple-layered polyethylene (SB, for silo-bags), and a control with beeswax. We recorded the state and weight of the materials and the state of larvae until they reached the adult stage. Larvae consumed more PE (both LDPE and SB) and EXPS than BOPP; still, they were able to emerge as adults in all treatments. Larvae that consumed plastics turned into pupal stage faster than those that consumed beeswax, regardless of the type and amount of plastic consumed. This is the first report of wild G. mellonella larvae in Argentina consuming biaxially polypropylene and silo-bags.

     

Impact assessment of a large river on the sediments and fish from its continental shelf: using Solea solea as sentinel in the Ebro river mouth (NW Mediterranean,Spain)

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Many studies have been carried out along mighty rivers with heavily industrialized watersheds to evaluate pollutants and their effects on freshwater...     

Atmospheric pollution assessment using polar graphs and its relationship with the bird community from the Sierra de Guadalupe,Mexico (initial data)

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - One of the most populated areas of the world is the Metropolitan Zone of the Mexican Valley, which has serious atmospheric pollution problems. To the...     

Quality of the surface water of a basin affected by the expansion of the agricultural frontier over the native forest in the Argentine Espinal region

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Land use changes have led to the degradation of multiple ecosystem services and affected the quality of aquatic ecosystems. The aims of this study...