Fourteenth National Congress of the Environmental and Cultural Heritage Chemistry Division, “Chemistry in a Sustainable Society,” held in Rimini (Italy) in June 2013

This report briefly presents the aims and the fields of interest of the Environmental and Cultural Heritage Division (Italian Chemical Society) and the issues addressed during its national congress, held in Rimini in June 2013. The broad range of topics raised by different speakers, the variety of affiliations and institutions participating at the conference, the scientific organisations and private companies co-sponsoring the different sessions give a clear picture of the interdisciplinarity which is a hallmark of this division.     

Third European Chemistry Congress “Resources and Environment”

Environmental Science and Pollution Research -     

What determines the success and failure of environmental crowdfunding?

Online crowdfunding can help address the perennial financial shortfalls in environmental conservation and management. Although many online crowdfunding campaigns fail to collect any funds due to not achieving their targets, little is known about what drives success. To address this knowledge gap, we applied a mixed-methods approach to data from 473 successful and failed campaigns hosted on the online crowdfunding platform Readyfor. We found that fundraising performance varied by topic, with campaigns on pet animal management outperforming those focussed on landscape management and sustainable use. We also found that marketing strategies associated with online findability and increased reach through social networks, increased fundraising success. However, the existence of other environmental campaigns running simultaneously, reduced the chance of success, which implies that the selecting popular topics does not always increase the likelihood of success due to increased competition. Wider applications of marketing could enhance the ability of environmental crowdfunding campaigns to raise funds.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01522-0.     

What’s the Problem? River Management,Education, and Public Beliefs

This paper invokes the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a diagnostic tool to explain an existing public education program's limited success at improving river water quality in the City of Perth, Western Australia. A reflective, client-driven research approach was used. A facilitated expert workshop defined an environmental problem (excess nutrients leaving gardens and entering waterways) and a desired behavior (residents purchasing environmentally sensitive fertilizer) to address the problem. A TPB-based belief elicitation survey captured respondents' beliefs regarding the desired behavior. The findings suggest respondents were aware of the links between purchasing environmentally sensitive fertilizer and river water quality. However, this behavior is compromised by the challenges in identifying appropriate products, product quality concerns, and cost. Viewing the content of a public education program through the lens of the TPB reveals insights into how and why the program fell short in achieving one of its key behavioral change goals.     

What is the potential measurement error in occupational exposure studies?

This paper demonstrates statistical methods that estimate measurement error from available industrial hygiene data. Errors in measuring a continuous exposure variable may arise when all individuals in a work area are assigned the same exposure. An example is when the mean of exposure measurements obtained on a sample of individuals is assigned to all workers with similar jobs. This may lead to inaccurate point and interval estimates in exposure-response modeling. A method of simulating the distribution of true (i.e., unobserved) individual exposures is described in order to estimate the mean and variance of measurement error. The minimum variance unbiased estimator approximates the mean of lognormally distributed exposure measurements. The distribution of true individual exposures is approximated by the distribution of simulated estimates of mean exposure. The methodology is illustrated by exposure data from work areas manufacturing refractory ceramic fiber (RCF) and RCF products. Results show that exposure is slightly underestimated in work areas with between 25 and 113 exposure measurements; measurement error variance averages about 1.3% of the total variance.     

Nitrogen Trioxide: Key Intermediate in the Chemistry of Polluted Air?

It is proposed that peroxyacetyl nitrate and its homologues are formed in polluted air via hydrogen abstraction from the corresponding aldehyde by nitrogen trioxide, followed by (a relatively fast) combination of the resulting acyl radical with oxygen and NO₂. This mechanism provides a simple explanation for the formation of nitric acid, HNO3, as well. Nitrogen trioxide should be able to abstract hydrogen atoms from hydrocarbons, since the H-ONO₂ bond strength is about 100 kcal/mole.     

Probabilistic approaches in the effect assessment of toxic chemicals. What are the benefits and limitations?

There is an ongoing discussion whether in the environmental risk assessment for chemicals the so called 'deterministic' approach using point estimates of exposure and effect concentrations is still appropriate. Instead, the more detailed and scientifically sounder probabilistic methods that have been developed over the last years are widely recommended. Here, we present the results of a probabilistic effect assessment for the aquatic environment performed for the pesticide methyl parathion and compare them with the results obtained with the common deterministic approach as described in the EU Technical Guidance Document. Methyl parathion was chosen because a sufficient data set (acute toxicity data for about 70 species) was available. The assumptions underlying the probabilistic effect assessment are discussed in the light of the results obtained for methyl parathion. Two important assumptions made by many studies are: (i) a sufficient number of ecologically relevant toxicity data is available, (ii) the toxicity data follow a certain distribution such as log-normal. Considering the scarcity of data for many industrial chemicals, we conclude that these assumptions would not be fulfilled in many cases if the probabilistic assessment was applied to the majority of industrial chemicals. Therefore, despite the well-known limitations of the deterministic approach, it should not be replaced by probabilistic methods unless the assumptions of these methods are carefully checked in each individual case, which would significantly increase the effort for the assessment procedure.     

What is the relationship between land use and surface water quality? A review and prospects from remote sensing perspective

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Good surface water quality is critical to human health and ecology. Land use determines the surface water heat and material balance, which cause...     

Where is the gray side of green growth? Theoretical insights,policy directions,and evidence from a multidimensional approach

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Addressing the geographical relocation of the pollution-intensive gray side of low-carbon green production, our study analyzes potential determinants...     

What Do the Occurrences of Migratory Fishes in the Upper Mekong Mean?

This paper examines the recent appearance of four migratory species in the Upper Mekong: Dasyatis laosensis, Anguilla bicolor, Anguilla marmorata, and Chitala ornata. Since 2006 these species have been continually sampled in an area below Jinghong Dam in Xishuangbanna, China. This region is far beyond their historical upstream distribution, and the reasons for these appearances and their subsequent impact on river ecosystem are considered.     

Is Green Chemistry a feasible tool for the implementation of a circular economy?

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The main goal of this research is to evaluate the contributions of Green Chemistry as a potential tool to drive the transition to circularity. For...     

What factors drive copepod community distribution in the Gulf of Gabes,Eastern Mediterranean Sea?

The spatial and temporal variations in copepod communities were investigated during four oceanographic cruises conducted between July 2005 and March 2007 aboard the R/V Hannibal. A close relationship was observed between the temperature, salinity, hydrographic properties and water masses characterising the Gulf of Gabes. Indeed, water thermal stratification began in May–June, and a thermocline was established at a 20-m depth, but ranged from 25 m in July to more than 30 m in September. The zooplankton community is dominated by copepods representing 69 % to 83 % of total zooplankton. Spatial and temporal variation of copepods in relation to environmental factors shows their close relationship with the hydrodynamic features of the water column. Thermal stratification in the column, established in summer, supports copepod development. In fact, copepod abundance increases gradually with rising water temperature and salinity, starting from the beginning of thermal stratification (May–June 2006) and lasting until its completion (July 2005 and September 2006). When the water column is well mixed (March 2007), copepod abundance decreased. Our finding shows that temperature and salinity seem to be the most important physical factors and thus strongly influence the taxonomic diversity and distribution of the copepod population. They are characterised by the dominance of Oithona nana, representing 75–86 % of total cyclopoid abundance. The most abundant species during the stratification period were O. nana, Acartia clausi and Stephos marsalensis in July 2005 and September 2006. However, during the mixing period, Euterpina acutifrons was more abundant, representing 21 % of the total. Unlike the copepod community, which is more abundant during the period of high stratification, phytoplankton proliferates during semi-mixed conditions.     

Correction to: Where is the gray side of green growth? Theoretical insights,policy directions,and evidence from a multidimensional approach

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13479-4