Requirements for developing a regional monitoring capacity for aerosols in Europe within EMEP

The European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) has been established to provide information to Parties to the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution on deposition and concentration of air pollutants, as well as on the quantity and significance of long-range transmission of pollutants and transboundary fluxes. To achieve its objectives with the required scientific credibility and technical underpinning, a close integration of the programme's main elements is performed. These elements are emission inventories, chemical transport modelling, and the monitoring of atmospheric chemistry and deposition fluxes, which further are integrated towards abatement policy development. A critical element is the air pollution monitoring that is performed across Europe with a focus not only on health effect aspects and compliance monitoring, but also on process studies and source receptor relationships. Without a strong observational basis a predictive modelling capacity cannot be developed and validated. Thus the modelling success strongly depends on the quality and quantity of available observations. Particulate matter (PM) is a relatively recent addition to the EMEP monitoring programme, and the network for PM mass observations is still evolving. This article presents the current status of EMEP aerosol observations, followed by a critical evaluation in view of EMEP's main objectives and its model development requirements. Specific recommendations are given for improving the PM monitoring programme within EMEP.     

Utilization of waste glass in ECO-cement: strength properties and microstructural observations

Waste glass creates a serious environmental problem, mainly because of the inconsistency of the waste glass streams. The use of waste glass as a finely ground mineral additive (FGMA) in cement is a promising direction for recycling. Based on the method of mechano-chemical activation, a new group of ECO-cements was developed. In ECO-cement, relatively large amounts (up to 70%) of portland cement clinker can be replaced with waste glass. This report examines the effect of waste glass on the microstructure and strength of ECO-cement based materials. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigations were used to observe the changes in the cement hydrates and interface between the cement matrix and waste glass particles. According to the research results, the developed ECO-cement with 50% of waste glass possessed compressive strength properties at a level similar to normal portland cement.     

Pollution indices and sources appointment of heavy metal pollution of agricultural soils near the thermal power plant

Alluvial soils of valleys of the Danube and Mlave rivers represent priority development areas with favorable conditions for life, agriculture and tourism in eastern Serbia. Operation of the thermal power plant Kostolac results in the emission of potentially toxic pollutants into the air, water and land. The goals were to determine the soil pollution with inorganic pollutants using different pollution indices, to identify of the sources of pollutants by means of principal component analysis and the loading of each factor for individual element assessed by multi-linear regression analyses. Chemical characteristics of the studied area resulted in division of the area into four impact zones upon the distance from main pollutants (power plant blocks and ash disposal dumps). There was no established soil pollution with potentially toxic elements in bulk of the agricultural territory. Two principal components (PC1 and PC2) explained about 73% of variance. Three studied elements (As, Cu and Pb) showed anthropogenic origin of their most concentrations in soil, while other elements (Cd, Co, Cr, Ni and Zn) were of a natural (geological) origin. Single pollution index showed moderate pollution level by Ni. Integrated Nemerow pollution index showed low to no pollution levels, indicating slight ecological risk. There were no established limitations for agricultural production in the studied area, except for the only spot polluted by As due to the great flooding event in the studied year.

     

Metabolic and Environmental Control on Methane Emission from Soils: Mechanistic Studies of Mesotrophic Fen in West Siberia

The biological mechanisms regulating methane emission fromnatural wetlands are the focus of this article. A novel techniqueprovides estimates of the distribution of CH₄ sources withinan undisturbed soil profile by recording the transient gasdynamics after soil enclosure by deep (50 cm) chamber. Thecombined use of conventional surface and soil chambers across a200-m fen transect allowed us to relate the observed methaneemission to its instant generation and uptake. Surprisingly, themethane generation was relatively constant (9–12 mg CH₄-C hr^-1 m^-2) and highly variable net emission (0.2–20 mg CH₄-C hr^-1 m^-2) was closely correlated (r = –0.809)with methane uptake. In laboratory incubations, CH₄ uptakefollowed Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Added chloride and nitrateirrespective of the cation's nature suppressed uptake as a strongnoncompetitive inhibitors (K _i 0.5 mM). The methaneformation turned out to be unstable and under anaerobicincubation, the formation of CH₄, CO₂ andH₂displayed sustained weekly oscillations. We conclude that effectsof environmental factors alone are not sufficient topredict the variation in emission, which depends also on metabolic control of respective soil organisms. The multitude ofsuch controls is dependent on diversity of respective soilorganisms and could be grouped into a limited number ofcategories considerably simplifying large-scale simulations.     

Growth of non-English-language literature on biodiversity conservation

English is widely recognized as the language of science, and English-language publications (ELPs) are rapidly increasing. It is often assumed that the number of non-ELPs is decreasing. This assumption contributes to the underuse of non-ELPs in conservation science, practice, and policy, especially at the international level. However, the number of conservation articles published in different languages is poorly documented. Using local and international search systems, we searched for scientific articles on biodiversity conservation published from 1980 to 2018 in English and 15 non-English languages. We compared the growth rate in publications across languages. In 12 of the 15 non-English languages, published conservation articles significantly increased every year over the past 39 years, at a rate similar to English-language articles. The other three languages showed contrasting results, depending on the search system. Since the 1990s, conservation science articles in most languages increased exponentially. The variation in the number of non-English-language articles identified among the search systems differed markedly (e.g., for simplified Chinese, 11,148 articles returned with local search system and 803 with Scopus). Google Scholar and local literature search systems returned the most articles for 11 and 4 non-English languages, respectively. However, the proportion of peer-reviewed conservation articles published in non-English languages was highest in Scopus, followed by Web of Science and local search systems, and lowest in Google Scholar. About 20% of the sampled non-English-language articles provided no title or abstract in English; thus, in theory, they were undiscoverable with English keywords. Possible reasons for this include language barriers and the need to disseminate research in countries where English is not widely spoken. Given the known biases in statistical methods and study characteristics between English- and non-English-language studies, non-English-language articles will continue to play an important role in improving the understanding of biodiversity and its conservation.     

Comparison of concentrations of toxic elements in the hair of first-year students of RUDN University from different regions of the world: a cross-sectional study

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Due to the development of the metallurgical and energy industries and the operation of incinerators, more and more environmental pollution is...     

Cytogenotoxic activity of herbicidal and fungicidal pesticides on Triticum aestivum root meristem

Phytotoxicity, cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of pesticides with various mechanisms of targeted activity were studied in a hydroponic culture of 2-day-old seedlings of Triticum aestivum. All studied pesticides (with the exception of metribuzin) exhibited dose-dependent phytotoxicity (inhibited the growth of the main root and reduced the yield of root biomass). All studied pesticides did not affect mitotic index in the root apex meristem but did affect the duration of some phases of mitosis. Herbicides increased, while fungicides, on the contrary, decreased the duration of the cytokinesis phase. All pesticides (1 μg/mL) exhibited genotoxic activity: in the root apex meristem the number of cells with mitotic abnormalities was significantly higher than in the control variant (7–14 times). The genotoxic activity of metribuzin and tebuconazole was 2 times lower than for tribenuron-methyl, fenoxaprop-P-ethyl, epoxiconazole and azoxystrobin. The genotoxicity of the studied pesticides was combined: depending on the class of the pesticide, clastogenic or aneugenous effects dominated.

     

Phylogenetic analysis of hyperaccumulator plant species for heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

Increasing concentration of heavy metals (HMs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the soil may impose a serious threat to living organisms due to their toxicity and the ability to accumulate in plant tissues. The present review focuses on the phylogenetic relationships, sources, biotransformation and accumulation potential of hyperaccumulators for the priority HMs and PAHs. This review provides an opportunity to reveal the role of hyperaccumulators in removal of HMs and PAHs from soils, to understand the relationships between pollutants and their influence on the environment and to find potential plant species for soil remediation. The phylogenetic analysis results showed that the hyperaccumulators of some chemicals (Co, Cu, Mn, Ni, Zn, Cd) are clustered on the evolutionary tree and that the ability to hyperaccumulate different pollutants can be correlated either positively (Cd–Zn, Pb–Zn, Co–Cu, Cd–Pb) or negatively (Cu–PAHs, Co–Cd, Co–PAHs, Ni–PAHs, Cu–Ni, Mn–PAHs). Further research needs to be extended on the focus of commercializing the techniques including the native hyperaccumulators to remediate the highly contaminated soils.