Human health effects of residual carbon nanotubes and traditional water treatment chemicals in drinking water

The volume of industrial and domestic wastewater is increasing significantly year by year with the change in the lifestyle based on mass consumption and mass disposal brought about by the dramatic development of economies and industries. Therefore, effective advanced wastewater treatment is required because wastewater contains a variety of constituents such as particles, organic materials, and emulsion depending on the resource. However, residual chemicals that remain during the treatment of wastewaters form a variety of known and unknown by-products through reactions between the chemicals and some pollutants. Chronic exposure to these by-products or residual chemicals through the ingestion of drinking water, inhalation and dermal contact during regular indoor activities (e.g., showering, bathing, cooking) may pose cancer and non-cancer risks to human health. For example, residual aluminium salts in treated water may cause Alzheimer's disease (AD). As for carbon nanotubes (CNTs), despite their potential impacts on human health and the environment having been receiving more and more attention in the recent past, existing information on the toxicity of CNTs in drinking water is limited with many open questions. Furthermore, though general topics on the human health impacts of traditional water treatment chemicals have been studied, no comparative analysis has been done. Therefore, a qualitative comparison of the human health effects of both residual CNTs and traditional water treatment chemicals is given in this paper. In addition, it is also important to cover and compare the human health effects of CNTs to those of traditional water treatment chemicals together in one review because they are both used for water treatment and purification.     

Western Land Managers will Need all Available Tools for Adapting to Climate Change,Including Grazing: A Critique of Beschta et al.

In a previous article, Beschta et al. (Environ Manag 51(2):474–491, 2013) argue that grazing by large ungulates (both native and domestic) should be eliminated or greatly reduced on western public lands to reduce potential climate change impacts. The authors did not present a balanced synthesis of the scientific literature, and their publication is more of an opinion article. Their conclusions do not reflect the complexities associated with herbivore grazing. Because grazing is a complex ecological process, synthesis of the scientific literature can be a challenge. Legacy effects of uncontrolled grazing during the homestead era further complicate analysis of current grazing impacts. Interactions of climate change and grazing will depend on the specific situation. For example, increasing atmospheric CO₂ and temperatures may increase accumulation of fine fuels (primarily grasses) and thus increase wildfire risk. Prescribed grazing by livestock is one of the few management tools available for reducing fine fuel accumulation. While there are certainly points on the landscape where herbivore impacts can be identified, there are also vast grazed areas where impacts are minimal. Broad scale reduction of domestic and wild herbivores to help native plant communities cope with climate change will be unnecessary because over the past 20–50 years land managers have actively sought to bring populations of native and domestic herbivores in balance with the potential of vegetation and soils. To cope with a changing climate, land managers will need access to all available vegetation management tools, including grazing.     

Family Forest Landowners’ Interest in Forest Carbon Offset Programs: Focus Group Findings from the Lake States,USA

In 2012, focus groups were organized with individuals owning 20+ acres in the Lake States region of the United States (Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) to discuss various issues related to forest carbon offsetting. Focus group participants consisted of landowners who had responded to an earlier mail-back survey (2010) on forest carbon offsets. Two focus groups were held per state with an average of eight participants each (49 total). While landowner participant types varied, overall convergence was reached on several key issues. In general, discussion results found that the current payment amounts offered for carbon credits are not likely, on their own, to encourage participation in carbon markets. Landowners are most interested in other benefits they can attain through carbon management (e.g., improved stand species mix, wildlife, and trails). Interestingly, landowner perceptions about the condition of their own forest land were most indicative of prospective interest in carbon management. Landowners who felt that their forest was currently in poor condition, or did not meet their forest ownership objectives, were most interested in participating. While the initial survey sought landowner opinions about carbon markets, a majority of focus group participants expressed interest in general carbon management as a means to achieve reduced property taxes.     

Facilitating disaster preparedness through local radio broadcasting

The 2008 Disaster Mitigation Preparedness (DMP) study took place in Aceh province, Indonesia. It sought to help develop radio programmes and messages to increase resilience to disasters. The role of radio was evaluated during and after the 2004 Asian tsunami disaster. The study team interviewed 984 tsunami survivors from nine sub-districts of Banda Aceh, and local nongovernmental organisations convened eight focus groups around the area of Aceh Besar. Six key informant interviews were held with government disaster management agencies. The DMP survey is the first of its kind to interview a representative random sample of Banda Aceh residents. It reveals the importance of community and social networks, during disaster situations, when essential communications are down. A disaster warning information system based on a multi-media approach needs to be developed. The wider community should be involved in the planning, education and training of Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar residents to facilitate appropriate personal and community survival strategies.     

Establishment of permit limits for mill effluent

Various governmental regulatory agencies are responsible for establishing regulations on the discharge of chlorinated organic compounds from pulp and paper mills. The procedures for setting permit limits are the basic topic of this article. Different methods of determining permit limits are set forth and discussed in a number of references, including documents of the Environmental Protection Agency. This paper discusses in detail the application of one particular methodology—the lognormal model approach. In this paper we utilize a real data set and include the necessary calculations required to set up permit limits. The basic tenets of the permit process are such that if limits are set too low, operators who are in full regulatory compliance will still be frequently cited, and if limits are set too high, operators who are not in compliance will seldom if ever be cited. Thus there is a great need for these effluent limits to be determined with great care, both to protect the environment receiving the wastewater and the industry producing the wastewater.     

Visitor payback: panacea or pandora's box for conservation in the UK?

This paper assesses the efficacy and relevance of visitor payback as a tool for recreation management in the UK. Visitor payback is essentially a voluntary payment made by visitors towards conservation, differing significantly from the compulsory tourist or bed tax practised in other countries. Attention has recently focused on this technique as a means to supplement the limited funds available for conservation work. However, whilst there are several schemes operating in the UK, there is a dearth of published research that has critically reviewed the concept and operationalization of visitor payback. The research reported here utilizes primary and secondary data to include case studies, semi-structured interviews and focus groups. The findings reveal that visitor payback is a complex concept to evaluate, both in theory and practice, involving a range of benefits and disbenefits. Financial benefits appear less prevalent than the more esoteric ‘feel good’ factor, increased awareness about conservation and partnerships that are evident in payback schemes. Support for visitor payback varies considerably with visitors strongly receptive, whilst the tourism business interests are more cautious. It is concluded that visitor payback needs to be re-conceptualized in more positive terms as a ‘visitor investment scheme’ where conservation takes precedence over financial considerations. Further research is required to try and demystify the tourism business resistance to visitor payback as its potential seems somewhat constrained in the present climate.     

California's graduated driver license law: Effect on teenage drivers' deaths through 2005

PROBLEM: While many researchers believe Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) laws save lives by imposing restrictions and delayed licensure on drivers under age 18, longer term effects on older teenagers have not been studied. METHOD: The effects of California's strict GDL law on deaths of drivers ages 16-19 were analyzed for 1995-2005 using Incidence Rate Ratios (IRR) and Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) time series analysis of Fatality Analysis Reporting System mortality data. RESULTS: The two methods yielded similar results. IRR analysis found California 16-year-old drivers subject to the GDL experienced a 15% fatality decline (95% CI, 0.70-0.99), while 18 year-old drivers experienced a 15% increase (95% CI, 1.02-1.27). ARIMA analysis found 16 year-old drivers experienced a near-significant 20% fatality decline (p=0.07), while 18 year-olds experienced a 24% increase (p=0.01). Unlicensed teenage drivers and older teen drivers driving alone and transporting teenage passengers suffered significant fatality increases. SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION: California's GDL may negatively affect older teenagers and other driver subpopulations and merits reevaluation.     

Development and testing of a micro wind tunnel for on-site wind erosion simulations

Wind erosion processes affect soil surfaces across all land uses worldwide. Understanding the spatial and temporal scales of wind erosion is a challenging undertaking because these processes are diverse and highly variable. Wind tunnels provide a useful tool as they can be used to simulate erosion at small spatial scales. Portable wind tunnels are particularly valued because erosion can be simulated on undisturbed soil surfaces in the field. There has been a long history of use of large portable wind tunnels, with consensus that these wind erosion simulation tools can meet real world aerodynamic criteria. However, one consequence of striving to meet aerodynamic reality is that the size of the tunnels has increased, making them logistically difficult to work with in the field and resulting in a tendency to homogenise naturally complex soil surfaces. This homogenisation is at odds with an increasing awareness of the importance that small scale processes have in wind erosion. To address these logistical and surface homogenisation issues we present here the development and testing of a micro wind tunnel (MWT) designed to simulate wind erosion processes at high spatial resolution. The MWT is a duct-type design—0.05 m tall 0.1 m wide and with a 1.0 m working section. The tunnel uses a centrifugal motor to suck air through a flow‐conditioning section, over the working section and then through a sediment collection trap. Simulated wind velocities range from 5 to 18 m s^?1, with high reproducibility. Wind speeds are laterally uniform and values of u _* at the tunnel bed (calculated by measuring the pressure gradients within the MWT) are comparable with those of larger tunnels in which logarithmic profiles can be developed. Saltation sediment can be added. The tunnel can be deployed by a single person and operated on slopes ranging from 0 to 10°. Evidence is presented here that the MWT provides new and useful understanding of the erodibility of rangelands, claypans and ore stockpiles.