Biodegradability of plastics: the issues,recent advances,and future perspectives

Environmental Science and Pollution Research -     

China's natural wetlands: past problems, current status, and future challenges

Natural wetlands, occupying 3.8% of China's land and providing 54.9% of ecosystem services, are unevenly distributed among eight wetland regions. Natural wetlands in China suffered great loss and degradation (e.g., 23.0% freshwater swamps, 51.2% costal wetlands) because of the wetland reclamation during China's long history of civilization, and the population pressure and the misguided policies over the last 50 years. Recently, with an improved understanding that healthy wetland ecosystems play a vital role in her sustainable economic development, China started major efforts in wetland conservation, as signified by the policy to return reclaimed croplands to wetlands, the funding of billions of dollars to restore degraded wetlands, and the national plan to place 90% of natural wetlands under protection by 2030. This paper describes the current status of the natural wetlands in China, reviews past problems, and discusses current efforts and future challenges in protecting China's natural wetlands.     

Production of butanol from biomass: recent advances and future prospects

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - At present, diminishing oil resources and increasing environmental concerns have led to a shift toward the production of alternative biofuels. In the...     

Lake Borullus of the Nile Delta: a short history and an uncertain future

Borullus, the most centrally situated of the Nile Delta lakes, probably evolved around the eighth century AD from a preexisting salt marsh by fluviatile deposition of sand dunes north of the lake and subsidence of the preexisting tidal swamp behind this barrier. It was flooded yearly (September-December) by the Sebennytic branch of the Nile, and evacuated water through an exit, Bughaz. At low river levels, this process reversed and Bughaz functioned as a marine inlet. Because of this switch, its fauna and flora contained a mix of marine, freshwater, and brackish-water species. Around the mid-nineteenth century, damming of the Nile began, culminating with the high Aswan Dam (1964) that brought the yearly flood fully under control. As a result, a steady flow of Nile water, used for irrigated delta agriculture, began to drain to the lake and became a constant evacuator to the Mediterranean. It turned almost fresh, and its fishery, formerly marine and mullet-based, became cichlid-catfish based. However, rice and other new delta crops caused huge amounts of nutrients to wash down the drains, and currently the lake is eutrophied and only resists hypertrophication because of the low residence time of its water. Finally, the damming of the Nile terminated the influx to the delta of a yearly sediment layer, but subsidence and coastal erosion continue and are now consuming the sand bar that separates the lake from the sea.     

The Sulu-Sulawesi Sea: environmental and socioeconomic status, future prognosis and ameliorative policy options

The Sulu-Sulawesi Sea, with neighboring Indonesian Seas and South China Sea, lies at the center of the world's tropical marine biodiversity. Encircled by 3 populous, developing nations, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, the Sea and its adjacent coastal and terrestrial ecosystems, supports ca. 33 million people, most with subsistence livelihoods heavily reliant on its renewable natural resources. These resources are being impacted severely by rapid population growth (> 2% yr-1, with expected doubling by 2035) and widespread poverty, coupled with increasing international market demand and rapid technological changes, compounded by inefficiencies in governance and a lack of awareness and/or acceptance of some laws among local populations, particularly in parts of the Philippines and Indonesia. These key root causes all contribute to illegal practices and corruption, and are resulting in severe resource depletion and degradation of water catchments, river, lacustrine, estuarine, coastal, and marine ecosystems. The Sulu-Sulawesi Sea forms a major geopolitical focus, with porous borders, transmigration, separatist movements, piracy, and illegal fishing all contributing to environmental degradation, human suffering and political instability, and inhibiting strong trilateral support for interventions. This review analyzes these multifarious environmental and socioeconomic impacts and their root causes, provides a future prognosis of status by 2020, and recommends policy options aimed at amelioration through sustainable management and development.     

Measuring carbon in forests: current status and future challenges

To accurately and precisely measure the carbon in forests is gaining global attention as countries seek to comply with agreements under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Established methods for measuring carbon in forests exist, and are best based on permanent sample plots laid out in a statistically sound design. Measurements on trees in these plots can be readily converted to aboveground biomass using either biomass expansion factors or allometric regression equations. A compilation of existing root biomass data for upland forests of the world generated a significant regression equation that can be used to predict root biomass based on aboveground biomass only. Methods for measuring coarse dead wood have been tested in many forest types, but the methods could be improved if a non-destructive tool for measuring the density of dead wood was developed. Future measurements of carbon storage in forests may rely more on remote sensing data, and new remote data collection technologies are in development.     

Evolution in mitigation approaches for petroleum oil-polluted environment: recent advances and future directions

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Increasing petroleum consumption and a rise in incidental oil spillages have become global concerns owing to their aquatic and terrestrial toxicity....     

Air quality modeling of hazardous pollutants: current status and future directions

The current requirements and status of air quality modeling of hazardous pollutants are reviewed. Many applications require the ability to predict the local impacts from industrial sources or large roadways as needed for community health characterization and evaluating environmental justice concerns. Such local-scale modeling assessments can be performed by using Gaussian dispersion models. However, these models have a limited ability to handle chemical transformations. A new generation of Eulerian grid-based models is now capable of comprehensively treating transport and chemical transformations of air toxics. However, they typically have coarse spatial resolution, and their computational requirements increase dramatically with finer spatial resolution. The authors present and discuss possible advanced approaches that can combine the grid-based models with local-scale information.     

Research status,challenges and future prospects of renewable synthetic fuel catalysts for CO2 photocatalytic reduction conversion

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In recent years, with global climate change, the utilization of carbon dioxide as a resource has become an important goal of human society to achieve...     

Investigating global surface temperature from the perspectives of environmental,demographic, and economic indicators: current status and future temperature trend

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Anthropogenic activities have increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions, which have observably increased global temperature....     

北京市近12年空气污染变化特征及其与气象要素的相关性分析

以北京市近12年空气污染指数(API)为数据基础,首先分析了2001—2012年北京市API、污染等级、首要污染物的变化特征以及污染天数年度值、季度值、月值的变化特征;然后根据API转换得到PM10质量浓度,对其变化特征进行分析;最后采用相关系数法分析了北京市API、PM10质量浓度与气象因素的相关性。结果表明,北京市近12年空气污染天数有明显下降趋势,首要污染物主要为可吸入颗粒物;空气污染主要集中于春季,优良天气主要集中于夏季;PM10质量浓度年度最大值出现在2006年,季度最大、最小值分别出现在春、夏季,月值最大、最小值分别出现在3月和7月;气象因素与空气污染关系密切,气温、相对湿度、降雨量与污染天数和PM10质量浓度均呈显著负相关,而风速与污染天数和PM10质量浓度则呈显著正相关。     

Current status and future needs for biological and environmental reference materials certified for methylmercury compounds.

A good quality control/quality assurance programme should be implemented in all environmental or health related studies on mercury and its organic compounds, particularly, for monomethylmercury (MeHg) which is the most toxic mercury compound. This can be achieved initially by analysing suitable certified reference materials (CRMs), which are available from various producers such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from USA, National Institute of Environmental Studies (NIES), National Research Council of Canada (NRCC), Standards, Measurements and Testing programme (SM&T) of the European Commission, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It is well understood that these materials are not covering present needs, as most of them are of the marine origin, while many laboratories are conducting research and monitoring in terrestrial ecosystems and fresh water environment. In addition, CRMs for human exposure assessment, such as blood, urine, and hair at several levels of concentrations are still lacking. Therefore, many other actions should be undertaken to achieve, improve and/or maintain quality of data, including participation in interlaboratory studies, proficiency testing and production of laboratory reference materials. A review of these actions has shown that MeHg compounds determination in samples such as soil, sediment and water is rather difficult and the results are also method dependent. In addition, it has been shown that some of the most frequently employed analytical methods may be a subject to spurious MeHg formation in the presence of high concentrations of inorganic mercury and organic matter. These findings have put a number of previous data on MeHg in question and consequently prompt actions were undertaken by a number of well experienced laboratories and producers of CRMs. So far, it is shown that the results obtained by various laboratories using different analytical techniques agree well with certified values in all RMs certified for MeHg. This suggests that comparability of data can be achieved, which however is not a guarantee of the true values.     

Contamination status of persistent organochlorines in human breast milk from Japan: recent levels and temporal trend

Contamination levels of persistent organochlorines (OCs) such as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), dibenzofurans (PCDFs), biphenyls (PCBs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and its metabolites (DDTs), hexachlorocyclohexane isomers (HCHs), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), and chlordane compounds (CHLs) was examined in human breast milk collected during 2001-2004 from Fukuoka prefecture in Japan. The concentrations of OCs such as dioxins and related compounds, DDTs, CHLs and HCB in human breast milk from primiparae were comparable to or slightly higher than the data obtained during 1998, indicating that the levels of these contaminants in Japanese human breast milk have not decreased since 1998 and Japanese are continuously exposed to these chemicals, presumably via fish intake. In addition, OC levels in human breast milk from primiparae were significantly higher than those from multiparae, implying elimination of OCs via lactation. Furthermore, significant positive correlations were observed between levels of OCs in human breast milk and the age of primiparae. These results indicate that the mothers with higher age may transfer higher amounts of OCs to the first infant than to the infants born afterwards through breast-feeding, and hence the first born children might be at higher risk by OCs.     

Blockchain technology-based sustainable management research: the status quo and a general framework for future application

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The problems of data leakage and unreliable information transfer in the management process make sustainability management an inevitable need for...     

Research status and future challenge for CO2 sequestration by mineral carbonation strategy using iron and steel slag

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Mineral carbonation can simultaneously realize the effective treatment of CO2 and iron and steel slag; thus, it is of great significance for the low...     

Energy supplies and future engines for land, sea, and air

The years 2012 and beyond seem likely to record major changes in energy use and power generation. The Japanese tsunami has resulted in large countries either scaling back or abolishing the future use of nuclear energy. The discovery of what seems like vast amounts of economically deliverable natural gas has many forecasting a rapid switch from coal- to gas-fired generating plants. On the other hand, environmentalists have strong objections to the production of natural gas and of petroleum by hydraulic fracturing from shale, or by extraction of heavy oil. They believe that global warming from the use of fossil fuels is now established beyond question. There has been rapid progress in the development of alternative energy supplies, particularly from on-shore and off-shore wind. Progress toward a viable future energy mix has been slowed by a U.S. energy policy that seems to many to be driven by politics. The author will review the history of power and energy to put all of the above in context and will look at possible future developments. He will propose what he believes to be an idealized energy policy that could result in an optimum system that would be arrived at democratically.     

北京市交通道路空气中NOx的污染现状及时空变化规律研究

基于2008年及2009年分4个季节对北京市3种类型道路（开阔型、交叉路口型和峡谷型）空气中的NOx的现场监测结果,分析了3种类型道路空气中NOx的污染现状和时空变化规律及影响因素。实验结果表明,昼间北京市各类型街道空气中NOx浓度呈早晚浓度高、中午浓度低的变化规律,NOx浓度随季节和车流量变化较明显。交通道路空气中NO占NOx的分担率高,且有较好的相关性,而NO2分担率较低,与NOx相关性较差。