Cumulative effect assessment in Canada: a regional framework for aquatic ecosystems

Sustainable development of the aquatic environment depends upon routine and defensible cumulative effects assessment (CEA). CEA is the process of predicting the consequences of development relative to an assessment of existing environmental quality. Theoretically, it provides an on-going mechanism to evaluate if levels of development exceed the environment's assimilative capacity; i.e., its ability to sustain itself. In practice, the link between CEA and sustainable development has not been realized because CEA concepts and methods have developed along two dichotomous tracks. One track views CEA as an extension of the environmental assessment (EA) process for project developments. Under this track, stressor-based (S-B) methods have been developed where the emphasis is on local, project-related stressors, their link with aquatic indicators, and the potential for environmental effects through stressor-indicator interactions. S-B methods focus on the proposed development and prediction of project-related effects. They lack a mechanism to quantify existing aquatic quality especially at scales broader than an isolated development. This limitation results in the prediction of potential effects relative to a poorly defined baseline state. The other track views CEA as a broader, regional assessment tool where effects-based (E-B) methods specialize in quantification of existing aquatic effects over broad spatial scales. However, the predictive capabilities of E-B methods are limited because they are retrospective, i.e., the stressor causing the effect is identified after the effect has been measured. When used in isolation, S-B and E-B methods do not address CEA in the context necessary for sustainable development. However, if the strengths of these approaches were integrated into a holistic framework for CEA, an operational mechanism would exist to better monitor and assess sustainable development of our aquatic resources. This paper reviews the existing conceptual basis of CEA in Canada including existing methodologies, limitations and strengths. A conceptual framework for integrating project-based and regional-based CEA is presented.     

The importance of temperature in assessing iron pipe corrosion in water distribution systems

Temperature is expected to play a significant role in the corrosion of iron pipes in drinking water distribution systems. Temperature impacts many parameters that are critical to pipe corrosion including biological activity, physical properties of the solution, thermodynamic and physical properties of corrosion scale, and chemical rates. Moreover, variations in temperature and temperature gradients may give rise to new corrosion phenomena worthy of consideration by water treatment personnel.     

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.     

Using environmental stressor information to predict the ecological status of Maryland non-tidal streams as measured by biological indicators

In Maryland, U.S., an interim framework has recentlybeen developed for using biologically based thresholds, or `biocriteria', to assess the health of nontidal streams statewide at watershed scales. The evaluation of impairment is based on indices of biological integrity from the Maryland Biological Stream Survey (MBSS). We applied logistic regression to quantify how the biotic integrity of streams at a local scale is affected by cumulative effects resulting from catchment land uses, point sources, and nearby transmission line rights-of-way. Indicators for land use were developed from the remote sensing National Land Cover Data and applied at different scales. We determined that the risk of local impairment in nontidal streams rapidly increases with increased urban land use in the catchment area. The average likelihood of failing biocriteria doubled with every 10% points increment in urban land, thus an increase in urban land use from 0 to 20% quadruples the risk of impairment. For the basins evaluated in this study, catchments with more than 40–50% urban land use had greater than 80% probability of failing biocriteria, on average. Inclusion of rights-of-way and point sources in the model did not significantly improve the fit for this data set, most likely because of their low numbers. The overall results indicate that our predictive modeling approach can help pinpoint stream ecosystems experiencing or vulnerable to degradation.     

Temperature and Concentration Effects in Biomonitoring of Organic Air Pollutants

Up to now only very few studies in biomonitoring of organic air pollutants have been published taking into account the strong influence mean temperatures have on the accumulation process into plants during the course of the exposition. Temperature governed sorption as well as the plants vitality pose a major source of uncertainty making inter-study comparisons difficult. Different surface-to-volume ratios of plant foliage lead to strongly varying concentration effects in different plant species. Moreover a plants content of waxes and lipids must be considered in order to relate xenobiotic concentrations to the compounds being most efficient in the bioaccumulation process. Some of these factors are evaluated in regard to the use of plants as biomonitors for organic air pollutants. Another aim is to deduce the mean ambient gas phase concentrations from PAH concentrations determined in the biomonitor plants using vegetation-air partitioning coefficients which have been corrected for temperature dependent sorption as well as the plants lipid content. Restrictions of such approaches and methods of biomonitoring in general are discussed.     

Improvement of the antifouling characteristics in a bioreactor of polypropylene microporous membrane by the adsorption of Tween 20

Surface modification by physical adsorption of Tween 20 was accomplished on polypropylene microporous membranes (PPMMs). Attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR/FT-IR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used to characterize the chemical and morphological changes on the membrane surfaces. Water contact angles and relative pure water fluxes were measured. The data showed that the hydrophilic performance for the modified membranes increased with the increase in the adsorption amount of Tween 20 onto the surface or into the pores of polypropylene microporous membranes. To test the antifouling property of the membranes by the adsorption of Tween 20 in a membrane bioreactor (MBR), filtration for active sludge was performed using synthetic wastewater. With the help of the data of water fluxes and the FE-SEM photos of the modified PPMMs before or after operating in a MBR for about 12 d, the PPMMs with monolayer adsorption of Tween 20 showed higher remained flux and stronger antifouling ability than unmodified membrane and other modification membranes studied.     

PHBV表面疏水改性用作吸油材料的研究

利用多种表面改性剂对生物可降解材料PHBV进行了表面改性实验研究，测定了不同改性剂改性后PHBV的吸油率以及温度对其吸油效果的影响，并探讨了改性机理，研究结果表明：不同改性剂对PHBV的改性效果有所差异，从疏水和吸油的共同效果来看，最佳疏水改性剂为添加量5％时的硅油，温度对未改性PHBV和改性PHBV的吸油率及吸油速度均有影响。     

中国臭氧短期暴露与人群死亡之间关系的Meta分析研究

为探讨中国臭氧短期暴露与死亡率之间的关系，更新适用于中国本地化的暴露-反应系数，本研究全面检索了1990年1月1日-2020年1月1日在Web of Science数据库、PubMed、中国期刊全文数据库（CNKI）、万方医学数据库和维普数据库上发表的文献，以"O₃/臭氧（ozone）"、"空气污染（air pollution）"、"死亡率（mortality）"、"时间序列（time-series）"，"病例交叉（case-crossover）"、"中国（China）"为关键词，对符合纳入标准的文献进行质量评价后提取相关数据，通过Meta分析方法合并估计值.结果显示，大气中臭氧浓度每增加10 μg·m^-3，人群总死亡率、心血管系统疾病和呼吸系统疾病死亡率分别增加0.40%（95% CI：0.28%~0.52%）、0.67%（95% CI：0.46%~0.88%）、0.23%（95% CI：-0.20%~0.66%）.亚组分析结果表明，除季节外，温度、年龄、性别均不存在显著的修饰作用.本文结论可为开展城市大气污染健康风险精细化评估提供依据.     

新型复合材料处理氮磷废水的性能研究

采用阳离子表面活性剂十六烷基三甲基溴化铵（Hexadecyl Trimethyl Ammonium Bromide，HDTMA）和稀土溶液氯化镧（LaCl₃）对人造沸石进行改性，以增强其对水中氨氮和总磷的同步去除效果.结果表明，HDTMA和LaCl₃可有效负载于人造沸石表面，且在pH为7的条件下，改性沸石对氨氮和总磷的去除率分别由改性前的75%和1%提高到95.67%和91.96%.影响因素的实验表明，改性沸石对不同浓度废水的氨氮和总磷去除率均达到90%以上；氮、磷的去除率随改性沸石投加量的增加而上升；准二级动力学模型适合描述改性沸石对氨氮吸附的动力学过程，准一级动力学模型适合描述改性沸石对总磷吸附的动力学过程；吸附等温线说明改性沸石对水中氨氮的吸附属于离子交换，对水中磷酸盐的吸附包含离子交换和化学吸附两种过程.此外，通过再生性能、负载强度和离子竞争的试验证明改性沸石能应用于实际生化尾水的氮、磷去除.     

FAO生产潜力模型中基本参数的修正

用美国Licor -6200便携式光合作用测定仪对黄淮海主要作物叶片光合进行了测定 ,建立了较强机理的冠层光合模型 ,模型时间积分为瞬时尺度并充分考虑了株型对冠层光合的影响 ,验证结果表明模型具有较高的准确度。在此基础上 ,对deWit在1965年用数值模式计算出的、目前仍在国内大量使用的FAO生产力模型中最基本的参数进行了重新计算 ,发现FAO生产力模型中基本参数对黄淮海地区而言存在较大偏差。文中重新给出了冬小麦、夏玉米两种作物冠层CO2 日总同化量随纬度分布表 ,为以后更准确地计算中国不同作物生产潜力提供了最基本的模型参数 ,同时文中也阐明了作者对国内生产潜力研究的一些观点和看法。