The use of urban clay-pit ponds for human recreation: assessment of impacts on water quality and phytoplankton assemblages

Artificially created ponds in urban areas may be important biodiversity refugia and may provide recreational services for populations. In order to obtain information on the seasonal development of the environmental conditions, water quality was determined in ten clay-pit ponds situated in the Austrian capital, Vienna. These ponds show high electrical conductivity (up to 3,000 μS cm^???1), indicating elevated levels of salinity, which can be attributed to the geological setting of the underground. Furthermore, the ponds experience a gradient from low to high human pressure resulting from recreational activities (swimming, fishing, urbanisation of the pond boundaries). Results obtained from multivariate statistics methods suggest that ponds were mainly structured by salinity and by algal biomass, which can be attributed to resource supply related with eutrophication. According to their water chemistry, the ponds were classified as meso- to hypereutrophic. Stoichiometric N/P ratios suggest that phytoplankton productivity in hypereutrophic ponds is nitrogen limited, whilst algae in ponds with lower trophic levels experience growth imitation by phosphorus depletion. We eventually related environmental conditions to algal species occurrences and developed a model for algal assemblages indicating the particular trophic state at different seasons.     

Land use impacts on river health of Uma Oya,Sri Lanka: implications of spatial scales

Human actions on landscapes are a principal threat to the ecological integrity of river ecosystems worldwide. Tropical landscapes have been poorly investigated in terms of the impact of catchment land cover alteration on water quality and biotic indices in comparison to temperate landscapes. Effects of land cover in the catchment at two spatial scales (catchment and site) on stream physical habitat quality, water quality, macroinvertebrate indices and community composition were evaluated for Uma Oya catchment in the upper Mahaweli watershed, Sri Lanka. The relationship between spatial arrangement of land cover in the catchment and water quality, macroinvertebrate indices and community composition was examined using univariate and multivariate approaches. Results indicate that chemical water quality variables such as conductivity and total dissolved solids are mostly governed by the land cover at broader spatial scales such as catchment scale. Shannon diversity index was also affected by catchment scale forest cover. In stream habitat features, nutrients such as N-NO₃ ^?, macroinvertebrate family richness, %shredders and macroinvertebrate community assemblages were predominantly influenced by the extent of land cover at 200 m site scale suggesting that local riparian forest cover is important in structuring macroinvertebrate communities. Thus, this study emphasizes the importance of services provided by forest cover at catchment and site scale in enhancing resilience of stream ecosystems to natural forces and human actions. Findings suggest that land cover disturbance effects on stream ecosystem health could be predicted when appropriate spatial arrangement of land cover is considered and has widespread application in the management of tropical river catchments.     

Determining land use changes by radar-optic fused images and monitoring its environmental impacts in Edremit region of western Turkey

Rapid and unplanned urbanization and industrialization are the main reasons of environmental problems. If urban growth is not based on resource sustainability criteria and urban plans are not applied, natural and human resources are damaged dramatically. In this study, land use change and urban expansion in Edremit region of Turkey is determined by means of remote sensing techniques between 1971 and 2002. To improve the accuracy of land use/cover maps, the contribution of SAR images to optic images in defining land cover types was investigated. To determine the situation of land use/cover types in 2002 accurately, Landsat-5 images and Radarsat-1 images were fused, and the land use/cover types were defined from the fused images. Comparisons with the ground truth reveal that land use maps generated using the fuse technique are improved about 6% with an accuracy of 81.20%. To define land use types and urban expansion, screen digitizing and classification methods were used. The results of the study indicate that the urban areas have been increased 1,826 ha across the agricultural fields which are in land use capability classes of I and II, and significant environmental changes such as land degradation and degeneration of ground water quality occurred.     

The health impacts of transformative infrastructure change: Process matters as much as outcomes

BackgroundMajor infrastructure development is often transformative for society, including its health. In this realm, there is a growing trend to view airports as drivers for health. By linking airport, urban and health planning, airports can become settings for health. Engaging stakeholders and those affected by such major change in health assessments is essential. This paper demonstrates that health and health equity impacts of major infrastructure developments such as airports extend to the planning processes for these developments; it argues that building a Healthy Airport requires greater consideration of how communities are engaged in these processes.MethodsWe carried out a Health Impact Assessment of community engagement practices for the planning processes of a new greenfield airport in Australia. The standard step-wise process for completing an HIA was followed.Results151 stakeholders participated in the study. Overall, participants were dissatisfied with community engagement for the proposed airport. While there were some unanticipated positive community level impacts resulting from the engagement process (community members becoming involved in community activism), by and large community members identified mostly negative impacts including anxiety, disempowerment, poor social connection, lack of trust and aggravation of health inequities.ConclusionPotentially affected individuals and communities may feel disenfranchised by transformative infrastructure change ‘over their heads’. Missed opportunities to achieve benefits of well-executed community engagement not only lead to feelings of disempowerment and frustration among stakeholders but can potentially negatively impact on individual and community health and well-being. Health impact assessments that effectively assess planning and engagement processes can play a role in mitigating these impacts.     

Economic valuation of health impacts of air pollution in Mumbai

Air pollution leads to serious negative impacts on health. Thephysical evidence is compelling. An attempt has been made inthis paper to establish dose-response relationship of AmbientAir Quality Index and human health, based on time spent by anindividual in different microenvironments during one day.Economic valuation of morbidity and mortality has been attemptedthrough lost salary approach. The results show that theavoidance cost is 29% of the total health damage cost.     

Estimating the environmental and economic impacts of widespread adoption of potential technology solutions to reduce water use and pollution: Application to China's textile industry

Numerous technologies are emerging to reduce water use and pollution in China's textile industry, including several that are promoted by the China National Textile and Apparel Council as cleaner technologies in their five-year development guideline published in 2016. Though these technologies appear promising, the complexity of the industry makes it difficult to predict and compare the environmental and economic impacts of widespread adoption of these technologies. We draw on existing studies to estimate the potential scale of applicability of these technologies, and then estimate the potential economic and environmental benefits of encouraging their widespread adoption. Several of them, if implemented on a large scale, could drastically reduce water use and pollution with a payback of less than a year. Our approach to estimating the environmental and economic impacts of widespread adoption of promising technologies is also relevant for impact assessment in other complex industries with a wide range of products and processes.     

城市大气中颗粒物的研究现状及健康效应

综述了大气尘(TSP、PM10、PM2.5)的研究现状,重点围绕TSP、PM10、PM2.5的物理特征、化学组成(有机组成、重金属元素的总含量及其各化学形态分布)及其源解析进行描述,也提及了大气颗粒物与健康的关系.     

New insight into defining the lakes of the southern Baltic coastal zone

There exist many classification systems of hydrographic entities such as lakes found along the coastlines of seas and oceans. Each system has its advantages and can be used with some success in the area of protection and management. This paper aims to evaluate whether the studied lakes are only coastal lakes or rather bodies of water of a completely different hydrological and hydrochemical nature. The attempt to create a new classification system of Polish coastal lakes is related to the incompleteness of lake information in existing classifications. Thus far, the most frequently used are classifications based solely on lake basin morphogenesis or hydrochemical properties. The classifications in this paper are based not only on the magnitude of lake water salinity or hydrochemical analysis but also on isolation from the Baltic Sea and other sources of water. The key element of the new classification system for coastal bodies of water is a departure from the existing system used to classify lakes in Poland and the introduction of ion-“tracking” methods designed to identify anion and cation distributions in each body of water of interest. As a result of the work, a new classification of lakes of the southern Baltic Sea coastal zone was created. Featured objects such as permanently brackish lakes, brackish lakes that may turn into freshwater lakes from time to time, freshwater lakes that may turn into brackish lakes from time to time, freshwater lakes that experience low levels of salinity due to specific incidents, and permanently freshwater lakes. The authors have adopted 200 mg Cl^? dm^?3 as a maximum value of lake water salinity. There are many conditions that determine the membership of a lake to a particular group, but the most important is the isolation lakes from the Baltic Sea. Changing a condition may change the classification of a lake.     

Estimating impacts of land use on groundwater quality using trilinear analysis

Groundwater is connected to the landscape above and is thus affected by the overlaying land uses. This study evaluated the impacts of land uses upon groundwater quality using trilinear analysis. Trilinear analysis is a display of experimental data in a triangular graph. Groundwater quality data collected from agricultural, septic tank, forest, and wastewater land uses for a 6-year period were used for the analysis. Results showed that among the three nitrogen species (i.e., nitrate and nitrite (NO_x), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), and total organic nitrogen (TON)), NO_x had a high percentage and was a dominant species in the groundwater beneath the septic tank lands, whereas TON was a major species in groundwater beneath the forest lands. Among the three phosphorus species, namely the particulate phosphorus (PP), dissolved ortho phosphorus (PO ₄ ^3?? ) and dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP), there was a high percentage of PP in the groundwater beneath the septic tank, forest, and agricultural lands. In general, Ca was a dominant cation in the groundwater beneath the septic tank lands, whereas Na was a dominant cation in the groundwater beneath the forest lands. For the three major anions (i.e., F^?, Cl^?, and SO ₄ ^2?? ), F^? accounted for <1 % of the total anions in the groundwater beneath the forest, wastewater, and agricultural lands. Impacts of land uses on groundwater Cd and Cr distributions were not profound. This study suggests that trilinear analysis is a useful technique to characterize the relationship between land use and groundwater quality.     

The health of the Oceans and the need for its monitoring

Information contained in the recent Review of the Health of the Oceans carried out by the UN Joint Group of Experts on Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution (GESAMP) is used in formulating monitoring requirements together with different aims of monitoring defined within the framework of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES).The development is largely based on the concept of an interfaceflux model, which defines zones of interaction between oceanic processes and human activities. This is supplemented by consideration of biogeochemical cycles which describe the cycling of substances and may help elucidate specially important processes and fluxes. A definition of specific monitoring needs is obtained. Consideration is given separately to a series of waste or contaminant categories: sewage, organochlorines, petroleum, metals and radionuclides. Implications in relation to the design of an integrated monitoring scheme include: the need to take into account interactions between land, sea, and atmosphere; the desirability to combine monitoring type observations with scientific studies, e.g. for the determination of fluxes; the necessity to take into account the frequencey of occurrence and rate of natural processes.This note is to a large extent based on the first GESAMP Review of the Health of the Oceans, with my own interpretation in some cases, and with additional input from other sources. An attempt has been made to bring out information from the Review relevant in relation to monitoring considerations.     

Apportionment of the airborne PM10 in Spain. Episodes of potential negative impact for human health

The particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less than or equal to 10 and 2.5 microns respectively (PM10 and PM2.5) constitutes one of the main air pollutants, which is currently regulated in Europe through Directive 2008/50/EC due to its proven harmful effects on human health. In this paper, the airborne PM10 samples collected in Zaragoza city during 2001-2009 were apportioned by statistical tools based on principal component analysis with absolute principal component scores (PCA-APCS). PM10 samples were characterized regarding their concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and water-soluble ions. PAH were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-mass spectrometry detection (GC-MS-MS) and ions were analyzed by ion chromatography. A total of five factors were identified by PCA-APCS corresponding to different anthropogenic and natural sources. This work was focused on analyzing in more detail those samples involving higher negative impact on human health, in particular, PM10 samples exceeding the daily PM10 limit value of 50 μg m(-3) according to Directive 2008/50/EC and samples with concentrations of benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) higher than the upper assessment threshold (BaP > 0.6 ng m(-3)) established by the Directive 2004/107/EC. Most of the exceedances of the daily PM10 limit value were associated with direct and indirect North-African long-range transport. During these exceedances, it was observed that anthropogenic pollution sources slightly decreased with regard to the natural sources. This indicated that episodes of high PM10 could have a natural origin associated with long-range transport from the African continent. On the contrary, those exceedances with regional contribution and samples with BaP concentrations higher than 0.6 ng m(-3) showed an important contribution of anthropogenic pollution sources increasing their negative impact on human health.     

The potential use of Atlantic silverside (Menidia menidia) for monitoring estuarine pollution

Monitoring chronic impacts of nearshore pollution on fish in Atlantic marine systems is challenging due to the mobility and seasonal nature of most habitat use. We evaluated Atlantic silverside (Menidia menidia) as a potential indicator of pollution across a gradient of contaminated sites in the Saint John River Estuary, New Brunswick, Canada. Fish returning from offshore in the spring showed no differences in length, weight, or condition factor between sites, but a graded response in condition factor appeared gradually, consistent with levels of contamination. Gonad size peaked in early June, however no differences in GSI were found among sites. By September, most fish collected were young of the year, with a significant bias towards female juveniles at the exposed site. These results indicate that Atlantic silverside are locally resident during their onshore period, and demonstrates their potential as a sentinel species. Sampling should focus on early June prior to the full moon to ensure maximal exposure periods before spawning, or in late October to evaluate growth as fish grow rapidly prior to offshore movement.     

Adapting social impact assessment to address a project's human rights impacts and risks

We address the weaknesses inherent in the social risk assessments undertaken for business, especially in the extractive industries. In contrast to the conventional approach that considers consequence to the company rather than to impacted communities, conformance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights requires that consequence to affected communities has precedence. In order for social risks to be properly assessed, we consider that: companies need to know and understand the human rights impacts of their activities; contemporary approaches to project impact and risk assessment need to be adapted to consider human rights; and environmental impact assessment (EIA) and social impact assessment (SIA) methods need to be adapted to give greater attention to impacts on human rights. Using an example from the mining, oil and gas sector, we provide a method that differentiates social risks from business risks, and we position impact assessment as an instrument that actively facilitates the improved identification, analysis and management of social risks. Practical adaptations to SIA activities and risk assessment processes are provided. Taking human rights impacts into account and using the dimensions of gravity, extent, vulnerability and remediability, we nominate criteria to assess the significance of negative social impacts.     

Evaluating impacts of marine governance on human communities: Testing aspects of a human impact assessment model

A human impact assessment (HIA) model was developed to guide research to understand how changes in a fishery can impact fishermen and fishing communities. Path analysis demonstrates that job satisfaction is an important variable intervening between marine governance and well-being. Individual-level variables in the demographic latent variable influence aspects of job satisfaction as well as well-being. It is variance in management that influences satisfaction with fishing which has a direct effect on well-being. In the HIA model, the three components of job satisfaction (self-actualization, income, and psycho-social) have the greatest total impact on well-being. The model also indicates complex relationships between management, fishing activity attributes, job satisfaction, and individual and social attributes. Relationships between community context and differences in job satisfaction in the Northeast and Alaska regions confirmed that these factors, also included in the HIA model, are important aspects of impact assessment. Results help to show that changes in ocean governance have impacts on the human communities who use these important resources. To anticipate and ameliorate potential impacts on human well-being as indicated by tools such as the HIA model, research needs to be accomplished to appropriately design and account for these impacts.     

The potential of different bio adsorbents for removing phenol from its aqueous solution

The use of natural resources for the removal of phenol and phenolic compounds is being looked upon by researchers in preference to other prevailing methods. In the present study, different biosorbents, brown algae (Padina pavonia), fresh water macrophyta (Ceratophyllum demersum), and black tea residue, were tested as adsorbent for the removal of phenol from aqueous solutions. The optimum conditions for maximum adsorption in terms of concentration of the adsorbate and pH were identified. The results show that the initial concentration increases as the removal of phenol increases in C. demersum; in the case of the other two adsorbents, the initial concentration increases as the removal of phenol decreases, especially for an initial concentration lower than 100 and 1,000 μg/L for P. pavonia and black tea residue, respectively. Maximum percentage removal of phenol by each adsorbent is 77, 50.8, and 29 % for C. demersum, P. pavonia, and black tea residue, respectively. Also, the biosorption capacity was strongly influenced by the pH of the aqueous solution with an observed maximum phenol removal at pH of around 6–10. The first biosorbent (black tea residue) displays the maximum adsorption capacity at a pH of 10 with a percentage sorption capacity of 84 %; P. pavonia revealed a greater adsorption percentage at pH?10, reaching 30 %, while for C. demersum, the removal of phenol increases with the increase in initial pH up to 6.0 and decreases drastically with further increase in initial pH. The Freundlich, Langmuir, and Brauner–Emmet–Teller adsorption models were applied to describe the equilibrium isotherms. The results reveal that the equilibrium data for all phenol adsorbents fitted the Freundlich model which seemed to be the best-fitting model for the experimental results with similar values of coefficient of determination.     

Shoreline change and potential sea level rise impacts in a climate hazardous location in southeast coast of India

Climate change impact on the environment makes the coastal areas vulnerable and demands the evaluation of such susceptibility. Historical changes in the shoreline positions and inundation based on projected sea-level scenarios of 0.5 and 1 m were assessed for Nagapattinam District, a low-lying coastal area in the southeast coast of India, using high-resolution Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data; multi-dated Landsat satellite images of 1978, 1991, 2003, and 2015; and census data of 2011. Image processing, geographical information system, and digital shoreline analysis system methods were used in the study. The shoreline variation indicated that erosion rate varied at different time scales. The end point rate indicated the highest mean erosion of ??3.12 m/year, occurred in 73% of coast between 1978 and 1991. Weighted linear regression analysis revealed that the coast length of 83% was under erosion at a mean rate of ??2.11 m/year from 1978 to 2015. Sea level rise (SLR) impact indicated that the coastal area of about 14,122 ha from 225 villages and 31,318 ha from 272 villages would be permanently inundated for the SLR of 0.5 and 1 m, respectively, which includes agriculture, mangroves, wetlands, aquaculture, and forest lands. The loss of coastal wetlands and its associated productivity will severely threaten more than half the coastal population. Adaptation measures in people participatory mode, integrated into coastal zone management with a focus on sub-regional coastal activities, are needed to respond to the consequences of climate change.     

Assessment of potential health risk for inhabitants living near a former lead smelter. Part 2: site-specific human health risk assessment of Cd and Pb contamination in kitchen gardens

Metal contamination of urban soils and homegrown products has caused major concern. In Part 1, we investigated the long-term effects of a former smelter on the degree of kitchen garden-soil contamination and the quality of the homegrown vegetables from these gardens. The results showed that the soils retained a high level of contamination and that a large proportion of the vegetables produced did not comply with the legislation on the levels of metals allowed for human consumption. The present study aims to assess the associated potential health risk to local inhabitants through consumption of homegrown vegetables and ingestion of soil particles using a land use-based approach. For lead (Pb), the standard hazard quotient (HQ)-based risk assessment method was used to determine the HQ. For cadmium (Cd), the approach consisted of calculating the HQs and then deriving site-specific assessment criteria (SSAC) using the SNIFFER method. The results suggested that the exposure pathways considered should not engender any form of deleterious health effects for adults. For children, Pb was the main concern and induced a relatively high health risk through soil particle ingestion, and most total soil Cd concentrations exceeded the derived SSAC, in particular, through consumption of vegetables. The metal bioaccessibility in soils was incorporated into the methods to establish more realistic risk assessment measures. This study proposes an approach to integrate different human health risk assessment methods. Further investigations should complete the assessment to improve risk determination, e.g., the determination of metal bioaccessibility in vegetables.