COVID-19 and beliefs about tobacco use: an online cross-sectional study in Iran

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - There is mixed evidence surrounding the relationship between tobacco use and COVID-19 infection/progression. The current study investigates beliefs...     

Spatiotemporal analysis of COVID-19, air pollution,climate, and meteorological conditions in a metropolitan region of Iran

The COVID-19 pandemic has a close relationship with local environmental conditions. This study explores the effects of climate characteristics and air pollution on COVID-19 in Isfahan province, Iran. A number of COVID-19 positive cases, main air pollutants, air quality index (AQI), and climatic variables were received from March 1, 2020, to January 19, 2021. Moreover, CO, NO₂, and O₃ tropospheric levels were collected using Sentinel-5P satellite data. The spatial distribution of variables was estimated by the ordinary Kriging and inverse weighted distance (IDW) models. A generalized linear model (GLM) was used to analyze the relationship between environmental variables and COVID-19. The seasonal trend of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), wind speed, solar energy, and rainfall like COVID-19 was upward in spring and summer. The high and low temperatures increased from April to August. All variables had a spatial autocorrelation and clustered pattern except AQI. Furthermore, COVID-19 showed a significant association with month, climate, solar energy, and NO₂. Suitable policy implications are recommended to be performed for improving people’s healthcare and control of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study could survey the local spread of COVID-19, with consideration of the effect of environmental variables, and provides helpful information to health ministry decisions for mitigating harmful effects of environmental change. By means of the proposed approach, probably the COVID-19 spread can be recognized by knowing the regional climate in major cities. The present study also finds that COVID-19 may have an effect on climatic condition and air pollutants.

     

Presentation of a developed sub-epidemic model for estimation of the COVID-19 pandemic and assessment of travel-related risks in Iran

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the contagious diseases involving all the world in 2019–2020. Also, all people are concerned about the future of...     

Spatial and temporal analysis of pharmaceutical concentrations in the upper Tennessee River basin

The behavior of pharmaceutical compounds in aquatic ecosystems is not well defined. In order to determine spatial and temporal variations in concentrations of pharmaceuticals in the Tennessee River, water samples were collected from multiple points along the river and at the inflow of major tributaries. Sampling structure was designed to investigate trends between surface and subsurface samples, seasonal trends (winter, spring, summer, and fall), the direct influence of sewage treatment plants (upstream versus downstream), and the effect of downstream distance on pharmaceutical concentrations. All samples were quantified via solid phase extraction followed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). This method yielded reproducible quantitation at low parts per trillion (ng L(-1)) levels for all 14 analytes (acetaminophen, atorvastatin, caffeine, carbamazepine, ciprofloxacin, diltiazem, fluoxetine, levofloxacin, lovastatin, norfluoxetine, ranitidine, sertraline, sulfamethoxazole, and trimethoprim). Correlation analyses (depth, distance) and repeated-measures ANOVAs (season, sewage treatment plant proximity) were used to determine statistically significant trends for frequently detected pharmaceuticals (caffeine, carbamazepine, sulfamethoxazole). Caffeine and sulfamethoxazole were found to vary by season in subsurface samples; spring exhibited the highest concentrations. Carbamazepine varied in proximity to sewage treatment plant outfall with subsurface samples yielding greater concentrations downstream than upstream. In addition, individual pharmaceuticals displayed positive correlation between surface and subsurface samples and negative correlation with downstream distance from the headwaters.     

Knowledge graph analysis and visualization of AI technology applied in COVID-19

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - With the global outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) all over the world, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is widely used in COVID-19 and...     

Spatial and temporal pattern of eastern U.S. haziness: A summary

One of the key features of the optical environment over the eastern U.S. is the frequent occurrence of regional haziness, particularly during the summer season. Four historical data bases were examined for estimation of the regional trend in haziness over the past 80 years: the surface visibility observations currently operated by the National Weather Service; historical visibility at Blue Hill MA; the NOAA-WMO turbidity network measuring the extinction of solar radiation with a sun photometer since the 1960's; and a set of direct solar radiation monitoring stations operated since 1910.In the 1970's the lowest visibility occurred in the region of the Ohio River. The strongest increase of haziness was noted in the states adjacent to the Smoky Mountains: the average visibility there has decreased from 24 to 10 km since 1948. That region also exhibits the highest turbidity (vertical optical depth of the aerosol). The spatial trends of coal consumption indicate a consistency with the spatial trends in haziness.     

沿海地区城镇化与生态环境协调发展的时空分析

通过构建城镇化与生态环境协调发展的综合评价指标体系,运用熵值法、协调度模型,对2003—2012年中国沿海地区的城镇化与生态环境发展过程及其协调程度进行时空分析。结果表明:(1)沿海地区城镇化综合指数不断提高,空间城镇化年均发展速度快于人口城镇化,而人口城镇化又快于生活城镇化,经济城镇化最低,且呈现出明显的区域集聚性特征。(2)生态环境综合指数呈波动上升趋势,生态环境压力加大,城镇化地区面临的生态环境问题更多。(3)2003—2005年,城镇化与生态环境协调度等级为中度失调,2006—2012年为轻度协调。     

Spatial and temporal analysis of pesticides concentrations in surface water: pesticides atlas

Dutch water boards have a well-established program for monitoring pesticide contamination of surface waters. These monitoring data have been processed into a graphic format accessible online and designed to provide insight into pesticide presence in Dutch surface waters and trends over time: the Pesticides Atlas (http://www.pesticidesatlas.nl). With this tool one can easily get maps of where a pesticide is being measured and where it might possibly constitute an environmental problem over the years. Presently, results of the periods 1997/1998 until 2005/2006 are available at the level of individual active ingredients. At a national level, the percentage of pesticides concentrations that exceed the maximum tolerable risk has declined 30% to 38% over the years 2003/2004 compared with 1997/1998. This means that surface water quality in the Netherlands has improved with respect to pesticides, however there are still many locations at which the measured concentrations exceed the environmental quality standards. The results on linking land use to pesticides concentrations were shown to assist in optimization of monitoring programs. By developing the present Internet tool, many new opportunities for environmental risk assessment and risk management were identified, e.g. optimization of monitoring strategies and communication to policymakers.     

Environmental factors and the epidemics of COVID-19

Environmental Science and Pollution Research -     

The future of sustainability in the context of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis emanating both from a virus (SARS-CoV-2) and from the drastic actions to contain it. Here, we reflect on the immediate responses of most world powers amid the pandemic chaos: totalitarian surveillance and nationalist isolation. Drawing on published literature, we consider measures such as wildlife-use bans, lockdowns and travel restrictions, along with their reverberations for people, economies and the planet. Our synthesis highlights significant shortfalls of applying command-and-control tactics in emergencies. For one, heavy-handed bans risk enormous unintended consequences and tend to fail if they lack legitimacy or clash with people’s values. Furthermore, reactive and myopic strategies typically view the pandemic as a stand-alone crisis, rather than unravelling the complex interplay of nature-society interactions through which zoonotic diseases originate. A return to adaptive management approaches that recognise root causes and foster socio-ecological resilience will be essential to improve human and planetary health and mitigate future pandemics.     

Causes of respiratory failure in COVID-19 patients

Environmental Science and Pollution Research -     

Economic and financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Asia

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The world is facing a COVID-19 pandemic outbreak with an unprecedented and enormous impact on the lives of humankind. The economic engine has suffered...     

长江流域重点断面水质时空变异特征及污染源解析

为明晰长江流域水质时空分布特征并解析污染源,基于长江流域21个水质监测断面2008—2018年的pH、溶解氧(DO)、高锰酸盐指数(COD_Mn)及氨氮质量浓度([NH₃-N])数据,采用M-K趋势检验、相关性分析和层次聚类分析,对流域内水质时空动态变化趋势及特征进行综合识别,并结合绝对主成分回归分析法(APCS-MLR)解析污染物来源。结果表明,研究区内重点断面水质类别以II类为主,占71.39%。在时间上,水质污染程度表现为汛期(5—10月)劣于非汛期(1—4月和11、12月),汛期主要污染指标为DO和COD_Mn,非汛期主要污染指标为[NH₃-N];在空间上,21个监测断面聚类为3组,其水质优劣排序为GⅢ(四川乐山岷江大桥、湖南长沙新港、江西南昌滁搓站点)>GⅡ(中下游及下游)>GⅠ(上游及中上游)。结合主成分分析和多元回归分析得出,在所基于的指标中COD_Mn和NH₃-N是研究区内典型污染物,GⅠ组水体主要受营养盐面源污染和耗氧有机物蓄积污染;GⅡ组水质受工业生产和人类活动影响其营养盐和有机物污染严重,而自然因素影响较弱;GⅢ组站点属局部污染严重,污染源主要是有机物,其次是营养盐。上述研究结果可为长江流域针对性水环境治理、污染控制和改善提供参考。     

Supplementing politics-based with risk-based management in the COVID-19 outbreak

Environmental Science and Pollution Research -     

Spatial and temporal distribution of solute leaching in heterogeneous soils: analysis and application to multisampler lysimeter data

Accurate assessment of the fate of salts, nutrients, and pollutants in natural, heterogeneous soils requires a proper quantification of both spatial and temporal solute spreading during solute movement. The number of experiments with multisampler devices that measure solute leaching as a function of space and time is increasing. The breakthrough curve (BTC) can characterize the temporal aspect of solute leaching, and recently the spatial solute distribution curve (SSDC) was introduced to describe the spatial solute distribution. We combined and extended both concepts to develop a tool for the comprehensive analysis of the full spatio-temporal behavior of solute leaching. The sampling locations are ranked in order of descending amount of total leaching (defined as the cumulative leaching from an individual compartment at the end of the experiment), thus collapsing both spatial axes of the sampling plane into one. The leaching process can then be described by a curved surface that is a function of the single spatial coordinate and time. This leaching surface is scaled to integrate to unity, and termed S can efficiently represent data from multisampler solute transport experiments or simulation results from multidimensional solute transport models. The mathematical relationships between the scaled leaching surface S, the BTC, and the SSDC are established. Any desired characteristic of the leaching process can be derived from S. The analysis was applied to a chloride leaching experiment on a lysimeter with 300 drainage compartments of 25 cm2 each. The sandy soil monolith in the lysimeter exhibited fingered flow in the water-repellent top layer. The observed S demonstrated the absence of a sharp separation between fingers and dry areas, owing to diverging flow in the wettable soil below the fingers. Times-to-peak, maximum solute fluxes, and total leaching varied more in high-leaching than in low-leaching compartments. This suggests a stochastic-convective transport process in the high-flow streamtubes, while convection dispersion is predominant in the low-flow areas. S can be viewed as a bivariate probability density function. Its marginal distributions are the BTC of all sampling locations combined, and the SSDC of cumulative solute leaching at the end of the experiment. The observed S cannot be represented by assuming complete independence between its marginal distributions, indicating that S contains information about the leaching process that cannot be derived from the combination of the BTC and the SSDC.     

Spatial and temporal distributions of airborne sulfate in parts of the United States

The current knowledge of the spatial and temporal distribution of airborne, water soluble sulfate is surveyed for two “scales” of atmospheric activity. The “urban” scale with episodes extending over a day or two over distances of about 100 km is illustrated for two comparable American cities, Los Angeles and New York. The regional scale with episodes extending up to several days over distances of 1000 km is exemplified by case studies in the greater eastern United States. Examination of available data reveals several features of the spatial and temporal variation in sulfate occurrence, including seasonal changes, and correlations with aerometric parameters. The importance of water vapor and air mass character on sulfate concentrations is assessed in both the urban and regional conditions. The results of initial attempts to simulate the impact of sulfur oxide emissions on ambient sulfate distributions are compared with an episode case extending over several days in July 1974.     

Current trends in diagnosis and treatment strategies of COVID-19 infection

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Coronaviruses are terrifically precise and adapted towards specialized respiratory epithelial cells, observed in organ culture and human volunteers...     

Association between meteorological indicators and COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This study was designed to investigate the impact of meteorological indicators (temperature, rainfall, and humidity) on total COVID-19 cases in...     

Determining the COVID-19 effects on spillover between oil market and stock exchange: a global perspective analysis

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This paper investigates volatility spillovers between the global crude oil market and the stock markets of the global oil stock markets (Russian,...     

Spatial and temporal variability of ambient air toxics data

This paper summarizes information on the spatial and temporal variability of selected air toxics pollutants collected on a national basis primarily for a period encompassing 1990-2003. Spatial information on pollutant concentrations is characterized in terms of within-city and between-city variability. Temporal information is summarized as diurnal and seasonal variability and in multiyear trends. The information on variability is presented in the framework of a larger need for systematic documentation of information on air toxics pollutants to assess progress in air pollution control programs.