Application of the benthic index of biotic integrity to environmental monitoring in Chesapeake Bay

The Chesapeake Bay benthic index of biotic integrity (B-IBI) was developed to assess benthic community health and environmental quality in Chesapeake Bay. The B-IBI provides Chesapeake Bay monitoring programs with a uniform tool with which to characterize bay-wide benthic community condition and assess the health of the Bay. A probability-based design permits unbiased annual estimates of areal degradation within the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries with quantifiable precision. However, of greatest interest to managers is the identification of problem areas most in need of restoration. Here we apply the B-IBI to benthic data collected in the Bay since 1994 to assess benthic community degradation by Chesapeake Bay Program segment and water depth. We used a new B-IBI classification system that improves the reliability of the estimates of degradation. Estimates were produced for 67 Chesapeake Bay Program segments. Greatest degradation was found in areas that are known to experience hypoxia or show toxic contamination, such as the mesohaline portion of the Potomac River, the Patapsco River, and the Maryland mainstem. Logistic regression models revealed increased probability of degraded benthos with depth for the lower Potomac River, Patapsco River, Nanticoke River, lower York River, and the Maryland mainstem. Our assessment of degradation by segment and water depth provided greater resolution of relative condition than previously available, and helped define the extent of degradation in Chesapeake Bay.     

天然石材产品放射性水平及其防护管理

简介了我国天然石材产品中放射水平、分类控制使用的现状以及应用天然石材装饰室内所致辐射对人体健康产生的不良影响，提出了加强对天然石材产品使用过程中的监督、监测和管理的建议。     

An Evaluation of Selenium Concentrations in Water, Sediment, Invertebrates, and Fish from the Republican River Basin: 1997–1999

The Republican River Basin of Colorado,Nebraska, and Kansas lies in a valley which contains PierreShale as part of its geological substrata. Selenium is anindigenous constituent in the shale and is readily leached intosurrounding groundwater. The Basin is heavily irrigated throughthe pumping of groundwater, some of which is selenium-contaminated, onto fields in agricultural production. Water,sediment, benthic invertebrates, and/or fish were collected from46 sites in the Basin and were analyzed for selenium to determinethe potential for food-chain bioaccumulation, dietary toxicity,and reproductive effects of selenium in biota. Resultingselenium concentrations were compared to published guidelines orbiological effects thresholds. Water from 38% of the sites (n = 18) contained selenium concentrations exceeding 5 g L^-1, which is reported to be a high hazard for selenium accumulation into the planktonic food chain. An additional 12 sites (26% of the sites) contained selenium in water between 3–5 g L^-1, constituting a moderate hazard. Selenium concentrations in sedimentindicated little to no hazard for selenium accumulation fromsediments into the benthic food chain. Ninety-five percent ofbenthic invertebrates collected exhibited selenium concentrationsexceeding 3 g g^-1, a level reported as potentially lethal to fish and birds that consume them. Seventy-five percent of fish collected in 1997, 90% in 1998, and 64% in 1999 exceeded 4 g g^-1selenium, indicating a high potential for toxicity andreproductive effects. However, examination of weight profilesof various species of collected individual fish suggestedsuccessful recruitment in spite of selenium concentrations thatexceeded published biological effects thresholds for health andreproductive success. This finding suggested that universalapplication of published guidelines for selenium may beinappropriate or at least may need refinement for systems similarto the Republican River Basin. Additional research is needed todetermine the true impact of selenium on fish and wildliferesources in the Basin.     

Forest Health Assessment and Monitoring – Issues for Consideration

Part of this paper has been prepared for the lecture Forest Health Assessment-Criteria,Methods and Problems given by the author at the UIMPuniversity course Sanidad Forestal en el Bosques Mediterraneos yTemplados. Implicacion de la Contaminacion Atmosferica y del Cambio Global, held in Valencia, Spain, October, 1995. Assessment and monitoring of forest health representsa key point for environmental policy and for the management ofenvironmental resources. With the renewed interest in assessment andmonitoring of forest health generated by the suspected occurrence ofa widespread forest decline in Europe and North America, manyactivities have been undertaken: however, some questions should beconsidered and clarified when attempting to estimate forest health.Particularly, the objective(s) of the assessment and monitoringprogram should be carefully identified. Identification of a program‘stask has a number of implications and consequences: it implies adefinition of what concept of forest health (forest ecosystem health,forest health or forest trees health?) is assumed, what will be thetarget entity to be monitored, and therefore the identification of therelevant assessment questions and assessment endpoints.Consequences concern the definition of the spatial scale (frominternational to landscape and plot scale monitoring) and ecologicalcoverage (from single species population to population ofecosystems) of the program, which can have a considerable influenceon the choice of the proper sampling strategy and tactic, as well ason the most suitable methods, indicators and indices to be used.Although much of the work in the field of forest health and airpollution has concentrated on surveys on crown transparency anddiscoloration, there is an entire range of methods, indicators andindices developed to assess the health status of forests. The decisionas to which ones should be used will depend on the aim of theprogram and on economic and practical considerations. A furtherconsideration concerns the time span of the program, but anydecision in this field is subject to many limitations due to difficultiesin predicting future monitoring needs. All these points should becarefully considered and implemented according to a rigorousQuality Assurance procedure since any decision will influence futurework for many years.     

Assessment of the Heavy Metal Pollution Effects on the Soil Respiration in the Baix Llobregat (Catalonia, NE Spain)

A main goal of investigations is to determine could a soilrespiration be an indicator of the soil pollution. In this case a measured levelof the soil oxygen consumption depends of its pollution. It alsomeans that the pollution reduces biological processes in edaphon.Investigated soil samples were taken from polluted andnon-polluted places in the Baix Llobregat near Barcelona (Catalonia, NE Spain). Soil samples were taken from the top ofsoil (0–5 cm) without a litter. Soil analysis were done, determining percentage shares of coarsefragments, coarse sand, fine sand, coarse silt, fine silt, clay,CaCO₃, organic matter as well as water pH and conductivityCE (1:5 [mS cm^-1]). Also were determined (in mg kg^-1)quantities of heavy metals, as Fe, Al, Mn, Zn, Cr, Ni, V, Cu, Cd, Pb.The soil respiration was investigated in temperatures15 and 30 °C and with controlled humidity.The respiration in 30 °C is number of times greater thenin 15 °C both for polluted and non-polluted soils.Particularly high coefficients of correlation between the soilrespiration and soil pollution in polluted soils were obtainedfor Pb: r = 0.75 in 15 °C and r = 0.98 in30 °C; for Ba: 0.90 and 0.57; for V: 0.99 and 0.81. In non-polluted soils highest correlation coefficients are for Pb: r = 0.70 in 15 °C; Fe: 0.60 and 0.72; Al: 0.68 and0.64; Mn: 0.51 and 0.66; Ba: 0.63 and 0.61; Cr: 0.94 and0.70; Ni: 0.64 and 0.65; Cu: 0.69 and 0.48; as well as V: 0.62in 15 °C; and Cd: 0.69 in 15 °C.This way the soil respiration could be a good indicator of the soil pollution.     

The interaction between physical and social-psychological factors in indoor environmental health

Indoor environmental health is now recognized as an important factor in preventing respiratory health problems in the United States. It is also a concern in Canada due to the amount of time that Canadians spend indoors because of cold weather and the potential for increased time indoors during the summer if theclimate warms. The negative health effects are often labeled assick building syndrome, but diagnosing a building or itsoccupants as sick is complicated by the variety of symptoms, thepresence of chronic versus acute symptoms and social andpsychological (socio-psychological) factors that may reduce theeffectiveness of an engineering solution. As a case study, thecontribution of various factors to indoor environmental health,in three buildings at the University of Toronto, was examinedusing five different methods. The results indicate that theinhabitants of the buildings consider features other than airquality in considering building health such as design,maintenance, funding cuts and socio-psychological factors.     

Biological complexity confounds the separation of point- and non-point sources of human impact on the natural world

Identifying process from pattern is one of the most vexing tasks inenvironmental monitoring. Given information on the distribution of speciesin a pre-defined area, together with comprehensive data on how environmentalconditions in that area have altered through time, is it possible toidentify the factors controlling the species‘ layout? Here, the practicalsignificance of this quandary is demonstrated using a series ofenvironmentally-degraded coastal lagoons in New South Wales. The TuggerahLakes (33°17′S,151°30′E) have over the last 50 yearsexperienced significant changes in species‘ distributions. Seagrasses,macroalgae, phytoplankton, molluscs, prawns and the jellyfish Catostylus mosaicus have altered in spatial pattern. Two human activitieshave been blamed for these perturbations: (1) agricultural clearance ofnative vegetation from the catchment, with associated input of top-soil andnutrients; (2) the commissioning of a coal-fired power station in 1967, withmassive uptake and recirculation of lake water for cooling purposes. In thispaper, spatial changes in macrophyte distributions over the last 50 yearsare reviewed in an attempt to identify the true source(s) of perturbation.The model adopted assumes that the power station is a point source of impactwhile nutrient inputs from the catchment are a diffuse source of impact;changes in species distributions can hypothetically be related back to thesesources according to whether they are localised or widespread. However,after a comprehensive analysis of available macrophyte data derived frominterviews, aerial photography and line transect methodologyies theconclusion is reached that changes in biogeographical pattern around theTuggerah Lakes cannot be attributed to specific anthropogenic pressures atanything beyond the coarsest of levels. This is considered to be the normfor most coastal management situations where natural background variation(’noise‘) and the complexity of linkages between physical, chemical andbiological components confounds the identification of causal relationships.The practical implications of this conclusion are discussed in the contextof litigation and remedial management design. Emphasis is placed on theneed to adopt an adaptive approach to estuarine management, incorporatingexplicit recognition of the limitations of available data, and to developnew techniques for identifying cause-effect relationships.     

中国生物入侵现状及对策

生物入侵是当今世界三大难题之一,中国也是世界上遭受生物入侵危害最大的国家之一.入侵中国的生物主要是以陆生植物为主,源地以美洲为主.在地域分布上南方和东部地区比较严重.主要侵入途径是以人类活动影响为主,自然扩散比重比较小.生物入侵对我国造成的危害十分巨大,解决生物入侵的主要对策是加强立法,全民重视.     

Removal of high concentrated ammonia nitrogen from landfill leachate by landfilled waste layer

The landfill of municipal solid waste(MSW) could be regarded as denitrification reactor and involved in ammonia nitrogen biological removal process. In this research, the process was applied to municipal solid waste collected in Shanghai, China, which was characterized by high food waste content. The NH4^ removal efficiency in the system of SBR nitrifying reactor followed by fresh and matured landfilled waste layer in series was studied. In the nitrifying reactor, above 90% of NH4^ in leachate was oxidized to NO2^- and NO3^- . Then high concentrated NO2^- and NO3^- were removed in the way of denitrification process in fresh landfilled waste layer. At the same time, degradation of fresh landfilled waste was accelerated. Up to the day 120, 136.5 gC/(kg dry waste) and 17.9 gN/(kg dry waste) were converted from waste layer. It accounted for 50.15 % and 86.89 % of the total carbon and nitrogen content of preliminary fresh waste, which was 4.42 times and 5.17 times higher than that of reference column respectively. After filtering through matured landfilled waste, BOD5 concentration in leachate dropped to below 100 mg/L, which would not affect following nitrification adversely. Because the matured landfilled waste acted as a well methanogenic reactor, 23% of carbon produced accumulatively from fresh landfilled waste degradation was converted into CH4.     

煤中有害元素对环境和人体健康影响的评价参数

煤中有害元素对环境和人体健康影响的较为全面的评价体系一直未建立，环保部门也缺乏系统性评价参数对电厂等在煤煤过程中有害元素排向大气的释放量进行监测估算。本文在查阅大量资料（主要为外文）的基础上，认为评价煤中有害元素对环境和人体健康影响的参数应该包括以下方面的数据C、H、O、N、无机硫，有机硫，有害微量元素的含量，分布规律，赋存状态，迁移转化行为（在燃煤过程中），洁净能力，淋滤力，矿物质，有机化学特征，煤炭学特征，并对煤中有害元素的污染方法进行探讨，如果上述各参数的数据被全面提供，并据此数据作针对性的抑制措施，煤中有害元素对环境和人体健康危害影响必将降低到最小。