Environmentally relevant bisphenol A concentrations effects on the seagrass Cymodocea nodosa different parts elongation: perceptive assessors of toxicity

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Toxicity data on bisphenol A (BPA) effects on aquatic macrophytes remain scarce. Therefore, environmentally relevant BPA concentrations (0.03, 0.1,...     

A Socio-Ecological Assessment Aiming at Improved Forest Resource Management and Sustainable Ecotourism Development in the Mangroves of Tanbi Wetland National Park, The Gambia, West Africa

Although mangroves dominated by Avicennia germinans and Rhizophora mangle are extending over 6000 ha in the Tanbi Wetland National Park (TWNP) (The Gambia), their importance for local populations (both peri-urban and urban) is not well documented. For the first time, this study evaluates the different mangrove resources in and around Banjul (i.e., timber, non-timber, edible, and ethnomedicinal products) and their utilization patterns, including the possibility of ecotourism development. The questionnaire-based results have indicated that more than 80% of peri-urban population rely on mangroves for timber and non-timber products and consider them as very important for their livelihoods. However, at the same time, urban households demonstrate limited knowledge on mangrove species and their ecological/economic benefits. Among others, fishing (including the oyster—Crassostrea cf. gasar collection) and tourism are the major income-generating activities found in the TWNP. The age-old practices of agriculture in some parts of the TWNP are due to scarcity of land available for agriculture, increased family size, and alternative sources of income. The recent focus on ecotourism (i.e., boardwalk construction inside the mangroves near Banjul city) received a positive response from the local stakeholders (i.e., users, government, and non-government organizations), with their appropriate roles in sharing the revenue, rights, and responsibilities of this project. Though the guidelines for conservation and management of the TWNP seem to be compatible, the harmony between local people and sustainable resource utilization should be ascertained.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-012-0248-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Advanced Oxidation Processes for Water and Wastewater Viral Disinfection. A Systematic Review

Food and Environmental Virology - Water and wastewater virological quality is a significant public health issue. Viral agents include emerging and re-emerging pathogens characterized by extremely...     

Benefits of protected areas for nonbreeding waterbirds adjusting their distributions under climate warming

Climate warming is driving changes in species distributions and community composition. Many species have a so-called climatic debt, that is, shifts in range lag behind shifts in temperature isoclines. Inside protected areas (PAs), community changes in response to climate warming can be facilitated by greater colonization rates by warm-dwelling species, but also mitigated by lowering extirpation rates of cold-dwelling species. An evaluation of the relative importance of colonization-extirpation processes is important to inform conservation strategies that aim for both climate debt reduction and species conservation. We assessed the colonization-extirpation dynamics involved in community changes in response to climate inside and outside PAs. To do so, we used 25 years of occurrence data of nonbreeding waterbirds in the western Palearctic (97 species, 7071 sites, 39 countries, 1993–2017). We used a community temperature index (CTI) framework based on species thermal affinities to investigate species turnover induced by temperature increase. We determined whether thermal community adjustment was associated with colonization by warm-dwelling species or extirpation of cold-dwelling species by modeling change in standard deviation of the CTI (CTI_SD). Using linear mixed-effects models, we investigated whether communities in PAs had lower climatic debt and different patterns of community change than communities outside PAs. For CTI and CTI_SD combined, communities inside PAs had more species, higher colonization, lower extirpation, and lower climatic debt (16%) than communities outside PAs. Thus, our results suggest that PAs facilitate 2 independent processes that shape community dynamics and maintain biodiversity. The community adjustment was, however, not sufficiently fast to keep pace with the large temperature increases in the central and northeastern western Palearctic. Our results underline the potential of combining CTI and CTI_SD metrics to improve understanding of the colonization-extirpation patterns driven by climate warming.     

Removal of faecal indicator pathogens from waters and wastewaters by photoelectrocatalytic oxidation on TiO2/Ti films under simulated solar radiation

Purpose

The disinfection efficiency of water and secondary treated wastewater by means of photoelectrocatalytic oxidation (PEC) using reference strains of Enterococcus faecalis and Escherichia coli as faecal indicators was evaluated. Operating parameters such as applied potential (2?C10?V), initial bacterial concentration (10³?C10⁷?CFU/mL), treatment time (up to 90?min) and aqueous matrix (pure water and treated effluent) were assessed concerning their impact on disinfection.

Methods

PEC experiments were carried out using a TiO₂/Ti film anode and a zirconium cathode in the presence of simulated solar radiation. Bacterial inactivation was monitored by the culture method and real-time SYBR green PCR.

Results

A 6.2 log reduction in E. faecalis population was achieved after 15?min of PEC treatment in water at 10?V of applied potential and an initial concentration of 10⁷?CFU/mL; pure photocatalysis (PC) led to only about 4.3 log reduction, whilst negligible inactivation was recorded when the respective electrochemical oxidation process was applied (i.e. without radiation). PEC efficiency was generally improved increasing the applied potential and decreasing initial bacterial concentration. Regarding real wastewater, E. coli was more susceptible than E. faecalis during treatment at a potential of 5?V. Wastewater disinfection was affected by its complex composition and the contained mixed bacterial populations, yielding lower inactivation rates compared to water treatment. Screening the results obtained from both applied techniques (culture method and real-time PCR), there was a discrepancy regarding the recorded time periods of total bacterial inactivation, with qPCR revealing longer periods for complete bacterial reduction.

Conclusions

PEC is superior to PC in terms of E. faecalis inactivation presumably due to a more efficient separation and utilization of the photogenerated charge carriers, and it is mainly affected by the applied potential, initial bacterial concentration and the aqueous matrix.     

Levels of dioxins, furans and PCBs in human serum and milk of people living in Greece

In an attempt to evaluate the background levels of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), non-ortho, mono-ortho and indicator polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in people living in an urban (Athens) and a rural (Kozani) area of Greece, blood serum and mother milk samples were analyzed. Analytical results are reported in this study. Statistically significantly differences were observed between regions, sexes and ages. Contamination levels in blood and human milk from Greece reported here are low compared to the previously reported dioxin data from other European countries and give no indication of particular health risk.     

Protected area characteristics that help waterbirds respond to climate warming

Protected area networks help species respond to climate warming. However, the contribution of a site's environmental and conservation-relevant characteristics to these responses is not well understood. We investigated how composition of nonbreeding waterbird communities (97 species) in the European Union Natura 2000 (N2K) network (3018 sites) changed in response to increases in temperature over 25 years in 26 European countries. We measured community reshuffling based on abundance time series collected under the International Waterbird Census relative to N2K sites’ conservation targets, funding, designation period, and management plan status. Waterbird community composition in sites explicitly designated to protect them and with management plans changed more quickly in response to climate warming than in other N2K sites. Temporal community changes were not affected by the designation period despite greater exposure to temperature increase inside late-designated N2K sites. Sites funded under the LIFE program had lower climate-driven community changes than sites that did not received LIFE funding. Our findings imply that efficient conservation policy that helps waterbird communities respond to climate warming is associated with sites specifically managed for waterbirds.     

A Combined MOIP–MCDA Approach to Building and Screening Atmospheric Pollution Control Strategies in Urban Regions

This article presents a methodological approach for the formulation of control strategies capable of reducing atmospheric pollution at the standards set by European legislation. The approach was implemented in the greater area of Thessaloniki and was part of a project aiming at the compliance with air quality standards in five major cities in Greece. The methodological approach comprises two stages: in the first stage, the availability of several measures contributing to a certain extent to reducing atmospheric pollution indicates a combinatorial problem and favors the use of Integer Programming. More specifically, Multiple Objective Integer Programming is used in order to generate alternative efficient combinations of the available policy measures on the basis of two conflicting objectives: public expenditure minimization and social acceptance maximization. In the second stage, these combinations of control measures (i.e., the control strategies) are then comparatively evaluated with respect to a wider set of criteria, using tools from Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis, namely, the well-known PROMETHEE method. The whole procedure is based on the active involvement of local and central authorities in order to incorporate their concerns and preferences, as well as to secure the adoption and implementation of the resulting solution.     

Effect of clarification process on the removal of pesticide residues in red wine and comparison with white wine

The aim of this study was to determine the potential of seven clarifying agents to remove pesticides in red wine. The presence of pesticides in wine consists a great problem for winemakers and therefore, results on pesticide removal by clarification are very useful for taking a decision on the appropriate adsorbent. The selection of an efficient adsorbent can be based on data correlating pesticide removal in red wine to pesticides' properties, given the great number and variety of pesticides used. So, this experimental work is focused on the collection of results with regard to pesticide removal by clarification using a great number of pesticides and fining agents. A Greek red wine, fortified with single solutions and mixtures of 23 or 9 pesticides was studied. The seven fining agents, used at two concentrations, were activated carbon, bentonite, polyvinylpolypyrrolidone (PVPP), gelatin, egg albumin, isinglass-fish glue, and casein. Pesticides were selected with a wide range of properties (octanol–water partition coefficient (log K_ow) 2.7–6.3 and water solubility 0.0002–142) and belong to 11 chemical groups. Solid phase extraction (SPE) followed by gas chromatography (GC) with electron capture detector (ECD) were performed to analyze pesticide residues of the clarified fortified wine. The correlation of the clarifying agents' effectiveness to pesticide's chemical structure and properties (log K_ow, water solubility) was investigated. The antagonistic and/or synergistic effects, occurring among the pesticides in the mixtures, were calculated by indices. Pesticide removal effectiveness results of the red wine were compared to those obtained from a white wine under the same experimental conditions and discussed. The order of decreasing adsorbent effectiveness (mixture of 23 pesticides) was: activated carbon 40% > gelatin 23% > egg albumin 21% > PVPP 18% > casein 12% > bentonite 7%. Isinglass showed 12% removal at the highest permitted concentration. In the case of 9 pesticides mixture, the effectiveness was quite higher but the order remained the same compared to 23 pesticides mixture. The removal of each pesticide from its single solution was generally the highest (particularly for hydrophobic pesticides). Adsorption on fining agents is increased by increasing hydrophobicity and decreasing hydrophilicity of organic pesticide molecules.     

Adsorption of pesticides on resins

The objective of this work was to assess the capability of organic hydrophobic polymeric resins Amberlite XAD-4 and XAD-7 to remove the pesticides alachlor and amitrole from water. The pesticides adsorption on the two different adsorbents was measured by batch equilibrium technique and isotherm types and parameters were estimated. Two theoretical models were applied based on a Freundlich and a Langmuir isotherms. The effect of pesticides chemical composition and structure as well as the nature of solid surface on the efficiency of adsorption was evaluated. The influence of pH also was studied. In low pH solutions adsorption of amitrole was higher upon the nonionic aliphatic acrylic ester copolymer XAD-7 in comparison to the nonionic, crosslinked macroreticular copolymer of styrene divinylbenzene XAD-4. In neutral and intermediate pH solutions the polar acrylic ester copolymer XAD-7 was more effective to the retention of alachlor. The acrylic ester copolymer showed at pH 3 the lower effectiveness in alachlor removal from water. The data of the adsorption isotherms of pesticides upon the examined polymeric resins seemed to conform to both the Freundlich and the Langmuir isotherm models.