Response to lead pollution: mycorrhizal Pinus sylvestris forms the biomineral pyromorphite in roots and needles

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The development of mycorrhized pine seedlings grown in the presence of lead was assessed in order to investigate how higher plants can tolerate lead...     

The Role of Disaggregation of Asset Values in Flood Loss Estimation: A Comparison of Different Modeling Approaches at the Mulde River,Germany

In loss estimation there is a spatial mismatch of hazard data that are commonly modeled on an explicit raster level and exposure data that are often available only for aggregated administrative units. Usually disaggregation methods that use ancillary information to distribute lumped exposure data in a finer spatial resolution help to bridge this gap. However, the actual influence of different mapping techniques and ancillary data on the final loss estimation has not been analyzed yet. In this paper three methods are applied to disaggregate residential building assets using two kinds of land use/land cover (LULC) data. The resulting disaggregated assets are validated and compared using census data of the residential building number on the community and constituency level. In addition, the disaggregated assets are taken to estimate residential building losses due to the flood in August 2002 in 21 municipalities on the River Mulde in Saxony, Germany. Losses are calculated with the help of four loss models. In general, disaggregation helps to decrease the error variance within the loss estimation. It must, however, be stated that the application of sophisticated disaggregation methods does not lead to significant improvements compared to the straightforward binary method. Therefore more effort should instead be put into the provision of high-resolution LULC data. Finally, the remaining uncertainties in loss estimation are high and demand further improvements in all modeling aspects.     

Working safely with foreign contractors and personnel

Foreign companies and personnel are increasingly being employed for risky activities in process industry (Agro, Gas and Chemicals) in the north of the Netherlands. Against the backdrop of these developments, the need arose within the ‘VGM Noord-Nederland’ cooperation (health, safety and the environment in the Northern Netherlands) to further investigate experienced and detected problems, possible explanations, solutions and directions for preventing unsafe situations when working with foreign contractors and personnel. Because of little scientific information available on the topic, in autumn of 2004 an exploratory study was conducted into ‘working with foreign contractors and personnel’ in the process industry in the northern Netherlands under the auspices of VGM Noord-Nederland. In the course of the study, ten qualitative interviews were held with safety experts working at multinational companies in the agro, gas and chemical industry in the Northern Netherlands. The objective of the study was to gain sharper insight into the common problems and best practices experienced by these companies when working with foreign contractors and personnel in order to focus future joint activities towards these problematic areas. The study resulted in the identification of five problematic areas: communication, level of education, cultural differences, specific employment situations and cooperation between principal and contractor. All of these factors can be located within the ‘latent failure types’ or ‘basic risk factors’ described by the well known Tripod Model (i.e. Groeneweg, J., Lancioni, G.E., Metaal, N., 2002. Motivating for Safety, Leading by Example: moving from Compliance to Competence, Profshore Management Motivation Module, Stavanger) of accident causation. The results of the interviews are described for each problem area individually and are linked to state of the art scientific theory and models. Directions for ‘best practice’ examples are given and an indication for follow-up action is made.     

Enhancing phytoextraction: the effect of chemical soil manipulation on mobility, plant accumulation, and leaching of heavy metals

For heavy metal-contaminated agricultural land, low-cost, plant-based phytoextraction measures can be a key element for a new land management strategy. When agents are applied into the soil, the solubility of heavy metals and their subsequent accumulation by plants can be increased, and, therefore, phytoextraction enhanced. An overview is given of the state of the art of enhancing heavy metal solubility in soils, increasing the heavy metal accumulation of several high-biomass-yielding and metal-tolerant plants, and the effect of these measures on the risk of heavy metal leaching. Several organic as well as inorganic agents can effectively and specifically increase solubility and, therefore, accumulation of heavy metals by several plant species. Crops like willow (Salix viminalis L.), Indian mustard [Brassica juncea (L.) Czern.], corn (Zea mays L.), and sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) show high tolerance to heavy metals and are, therefore, to a certain extent able to use the surpluses that originate from soil manipulation. More than 100-fold increases of lead concentrations in the biomass of crops were reported, when ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) was applied to contaminated soils. Uranium concentrations could be strongly increased when citric acid was applied. Cadmium and zinc concentrations could be enhanced by inorganic agents like elemental sulfur or ammonium sulfate. However, leaching of heavy metals due to increased mobility in soils cannot be excluded. Thus, implementation on the field scale must consider measures to minimize leaching. So, the application of more than 1 g EDTA kg(-1) becomes inefficient as lead concentration in crops is not enhanced and leaching rate increases. Moreover, for large-scale applications, agricultural measures as placement of agents, dosage splitting, the kind and amount of agents applied, and the soil properties are important factors governing plant growth, heavy metal concentrations, and leaching rates. Effective prevention of leaching, breeding of new plant material, and use of the contaminated biomass (e.g., as biofuels) will be crucial for the acceptance and the economic breakthrough of enhanced phytoextraction.