Sustainability assessment of greenhouse vegetable farming practices from environmental,economic, and socio-institutional perspectives in China

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - To provide growing population with sufficient food, greenhouse vegetable production has expanded rapidly in recent years in China and sustainability...     

Mutagenic activity of transition‐metal complexes: Relation structure‐mutagenic and antibacterial activity for some Pd(II), Pt(II) and Rh(I) complexes†

The inhibitory and mutagenic action of some Pd(II), Pt(II) and Rh(I) complexes towards various bacterial strains has been evaluated, and some correlations have been found between the chemical behaviour of the complexes and their selective biological activity: most of the complexes cause only a DNA damage repaired by the excision repair system. Particularly, the Rh(I) complexes used in this work show selective antibacterial effects on defective but no effect on wild‐type strains.     

Contribution of vehicular traffic and industrial facilities to PM10 concentrations in a suburban area of Caserta (Italy)

PM10 levels have been recorded in the suburban area of Caserta (Italy) from February to October 2012. The daily limit was exceeded in 13 % of the determinations, with no significant difference between weekdays and weekends. Benzo[a]pyrene concentrations were in the range 0.01–0.46 ng/m³, thus, never exceeding the National Standard. The B(a)P-eq was 0.20 ng/m³. PM10 peaks were associated with wind from east–northeast. The same was observed for Ca concentrations, whereas no relation with wind direction was observed for organic pollutants. The results point to a local limestone quarry and cement factory as the likely major source of PM10 pollution in the area investigated.     

Metal mixtures in pregnant women and umbilical cord blood at urban populations—Rio de Janeiro,Brazil

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This study aims to assess interrelationships between serum lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), arsenic (As), and mercury (Hg) concentrations in pregnant women in...     

A Preliminary Evaluation of the DDT Contamination of Sediments in Lakes Natron and Bogoria (Eastern Rift Valley,Africa)

Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is still used in Africa for the indoor control of malaria and it may represent a potential hazard for wildlife. The littoral sediments of two alkaline-saline lakes, Natron (Tanzania) and Bogoria (Kenya), in the Eastern Rift Valley, supporting large populations of lesser flamingos (Phoeniconaias minor), were analysed for DDT residues. Physical–chemical analyses (temperature, conductivity, pH and dissolved oxygen) were also performed on the water of the two lakes and in the tributaries of Lake Natron, to evaluate the influence of the environmental variables on pollutant occurrence. At Lake Natron, around 1 km from the sediment collection sites, tree leaves of Acacia tortilis were also collected. The main metabolite found in all sediment samples was pp’DDE, whilst equal concentrations of pp’DDT and pp’DDE were measured in acacia leaves. The levels of DDTs measured in the sediments were within 5.9–30.9 ng g⁻¹ d.w., reaching the maximum value in a tributary of Lake Natron. On the whole, the contamination of Lake Natron and Lake Bogoria basins seems to be quite moderate. Nevertheless, the pp’DDE/pp’DDT ratio equals 1 in the Acacia tortilis leaves, which makes one suppose that the input of the parent compound was rather recent and could have been from aerial transport or dust from relatively close-by old pesticides storage sites.     

Sediment analysis to support the recent glacial origin of DDT pollution in Lake Iseo (Northern Italy)

In the present study, a depth-related distribution of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in sediments of Lake Iseo, one of the major southern Alpine Italian lakes, is reported in order to further test the hypothesis of melting Alpine glaciers as a secondary source of contamination. In a previous paper, a “glacier contamination hypothesis” was suggested to explain the unexpected contamination of the biota of Lake Iseo, mainly fed by the Alpine melting ice.The sediment core analyses covered around the last 50 years. The organic matter profile evaluated as a Loss-On-Ignition percentage indicated transition of the basin from an oligotrophic to a mesotrophic status at around the early 1970s, but there was no evidence of the shift to eutrophy in the 1980s. Among DDTs, pp’DDE was the predominant metabolite, accounting on average for 79.4% of the total DDT concentrations and ranging from 6.4 to 447.5 ng g⁻¹ d.w. PCBs ranged from 5.0 to 163.7 ng g⁻¹ d.w. The maximum PCB concentrations were found in sediment layers corresponding to the 1970s when the highest production and use of these compounds occurred in Italy. In contrast, concentrations of DDTs showed a sharp increase from the early 1990s, long after their agricultural use was banned in Italy. This delayed pollution provides support for the hypothesis that the recent retreat of glaciers represents a secondary pollution source for old pesticides that were stored in the ice at the time of their use in agriculture.     

Modelling the biphasic sorption of simazine,imidacloprid, and boscalid in water/soil systems

The sorption kinetics of simazine (6-chloro-N,N′-diethyl-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-diamine), imidacloprid (1-(6-chloro-3-pyridylmethyl)-N-nitroimidazolidin-2-ylideneamine), and boscalid (2-chloro-N-(4′-chlorobiphenyl-2-yl)nicotinamide), three pesticides of wide use in agriculture, was determined in five different water/soil systems over a time interval from the initial few seconds to about 1 month. In all the experiments, sorption kinetics showed a biphasic pattern characterized by an initial, relatively short phase with a high sorption rate and a later phase with much a lower sorption rate. Initial sorption capacity increased with soil organic carbon content and with sorbate hydrophobicity. We postulate that the first phase of the process involves a fast second-order sorption reaction on superficial sites of soil particles, whereas the second phase depends on diffusion-controlled migration to internal binding sites. A kinetic equation based on this hybrid model accurately fitted all data sets. Less satisfactory results were obtained employing the pseudo-first order, pseudo-second order, Elovich, two site non-equilibrium, or Weber-Morris equation. The superior performance of the hybrid model for describing boscalid sorption probably reflects the high hydrophobic character and consequent low diffusion rates of this compound. The accuracy of modelling was in any case strongly dependent on the time interval considered.     

The role of zooplankton in DDT biomagnification in a pelagic food web of Lake Maggiore (Northern Italy)

Background  

In the present study, we report the analytical results of pp′DDT, pp′DDE and pp′DDD determination in lake water, plankton and zooplanktivorous fish of Lake Maggiore (Northern Italy), rather recently polluted by DDT of industrial origin, in order to understand the bottom-up pollution transfer among the abiotic and biotic components of the lake ecosystem.     

Application of the Method of Organizational Congruencies in Substituting Organic Solvents With Vegetable Agents for the Cleaning of an Offset Printing Machine

The aim of this research is the application of the Method of Organizational Congruencies before and after the substitution of organic solvents with vegetable agents for the cleaning of an offset printing machine in order to assess the organizational changes. A solvent-free process is the goal of the Subsprint Project (Technology Transfer Program of the European Community). This, study shows how human and environmental health is improved by using vegetable agents, though this change may lead to some other organizational constraints such as an increase of tbe time needed, monotony, and repetitiveness of the technical actions involved. The authors underline that the knowledge of the impact of the new technology on health helps a better understanding of the resistance to the change and its further amelioration.     

Effects of abiotic factors on growth and chemical defenses in cultivated clones of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Laurencia dendroidea</Emphasis> J. Agardh (Ceramiales,Rhodophyta)

Laurencia dendroidea shows high inter- and intrapopulation variability in the amount of the sesquiterpene elatol, caused by genetic variation as well as environmental factors. To test the independent effect of physical and nutritional conditions, the growth and the levels of elatol in L. dendroidea clones were evaluated under different conditions of temperature, salinity, irradiance, and culture medium in the laboratory. Growth of L. dendroidea was clearly affected by all these factors, but elatol levels were influenced only by temperature and salinity. Better conditions for growth did not produce a similar effect on elatol production in L. dendroidea, contradicting the carbon/nutrient balance and growth/differentiation balance models. On the contrary, severe conditions of temperature and salinity promoted a decrease in elatol levels, as predicted by the environmental stress model. Our results using clones indicated that abiotic factors clearly take part in fostering chemical variations observed in natural populations, in addition to genetic factors, and can promote differential susceptibility of plant specimens to natural enemies.