Die Organisation der Früherkennung von Umweltproblemen im Rahmen der wissenschaftlichen Beratung der Umweltpolitik

This study is based on the theses that

1. early diagnosis is indispensable in the context of precautionary policy for the management of environmental problems which have the character of a “creeping disaster” and that
2. the public must play the active role that is adequate within a democratic society. In the context of the study, three existing advisory committees for environmental policy as well as two concepts which have not been put into effect are investigated.

In the fourth part the work of the oldest of the committees, the SRU, is examined with respect to the three most important environmental problems of the last 15 years. In part I, the concept of the Picht commission from 1972, which has never been realized in this form, was introduced. In part II, the concepts and the working method of the three existing advisory committees (SRU, WBGU, TAB) were presented. Part III deals with the critique of these committees and an alternative concept of early diagnosis which has not yet been put into effect.     

Die Organisation der Früherkennung von Umweltproblemen im Rahmen der wissenschaftlichen Beratung der Umweltpolitik

This study is based on the theses that

1. early diagnosis is indispensable for the management of environmental problems in the context of precautionary policy, which have the character of a “creeping disaster” and that
2. the public must play the active role that is adequate within a democratic society.

In the context of the study, three existing advisory committees for environmental policy as well as two concepts which have not been put into effect are investigated. In the second part of the study the concepts and the working method of the three existing advisory committees are portrayed: the Council of Experts for Environmental Questions (SRU), the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), and the Office of Technology Assessment of the Federal Parliament (TAB). In part I, the concept of the Picht commission from 1972, which has never been implemented in this form was introduced. Part III deals with the critique of these committees and with an alternative concept of early diagnosis which has not yet been put into effect. In part IV, the work of the oldest of the committees, the SRU, is examined with respect to the three most important environmental problems of the last 15 years.     

Die Organisation der Früherkennung von Umweltproblemen im Rahmen der wissenschaftlichen Beratung der Umweltpolitik

This study is based on the theses that

1. early diagnosis is indispensable in the context of precautionary policy for the management of environmental problems, which have the character of a “creeping disaster”; and that
2. the public must play the active role that is adequate within a democratic society. In the context of the study, three existing advisory committees for environmental policy as well as two concepts which have not been put into effect are investigated.

In the first part presented here, the concept of the Picht commission from 1972, which has never been realized in this form is introduced. In part II, the concepts and the working method of the three existing advisory committees (SRU, WBGU, TAB) are presented. Part III deals with the critique of these committees and an alternative concept of early diagnosis which has not yet been put into effect. In part IV, the work of the oldest of the committees, the SRU, is examined with respect to the three most important environmental problems of the last 15 years.     

Die rolle der umweltprobenbank in der Umweltüberwachung am beispiel von chlorierten kohlenwasserstoffen in ausgewählten matrizes

For precautinary environmental protection the Environmental Specimen Bank (ESB) has been successfully established as a permanent environmental surveillance tool in Germany. The presented monitoring results on chlorinated hydrocarbons (CHC) show very clearly the effects of political decisions and can be used for the identification of pollutant sources. The CHC burden of breams (Abramis brama) from five German rivers (Elbe, Rhein, Saar, Mulde, Saale) gives an current overview of the pollution situation of different limnic ecosystems in Germany. A calculation model about the distribution of organic pollutants between different tissues offers the possibility to predict concentrations in liver and muscle of breams. Legislative emission restrictions have led to a significant decrease of dioxin levels in herring gull (Larus argentatus) eggs between 1988–1996.     

Wirkungsabschätzungsmethoden und Querverbindungen im Rahmen der Ökobilanz – Unterschiede zum Risk Assessment

This review defines the differences between impact assessment as component of life cycle assessment (LCA) and risk assessment. From the early LCAs, the article describes the development to the LCAs in the current meaning, deals with today’s practice of impact assessment, reviews the philosophy of impact assessment and ends with the “new” impact categories which have not yet found their way into the practice of LCA.     

Analytik von Mineralölkohlenwasserstoffen: Die Problematik der Probenaufbereitung

For the determination of mineral oil hydrocarbons in water and soil, IR-as well as GC/FID-methods (DEV H-18, ISO/TR 11046, NEN 5733) are used. Independent of the measurement method, different clean-up procedures are prescribed in these standard methods. Aluminium oxide, silica gel and magnesium silicate (Florisil^®) are used as adsorbents. This article describes the problems of clean-up occurring in mineral oil analysis using selected substances. Tests concerning the type of adsorbent, extract medium, clean-up-technique and extract/adsorbent-ratio are presented. It will be shown that the clean-up procedure has to be counted as a significant factor of influence in the determination of mineral oil hydrocarbons. The sources of errors resulting from clean-up as well as the possibilities to avoid them are presented. An extraction solvent for soils which is simple to handle and optimally adjustable to the requirements of the clean-up procedure is presented.     

Schwermetallmonitoring mit der Standardisierten Graskultur im Untersuchungsgebiet München

For the pilotproject ?Effect Monitoring — Biomonitoring of Immission Effects in the Testing Area of Munich”, standardized grass cultures were exposed at 19 locations during 10 series for two weeks each. The grass was analyzed for the accumulation of lead, antimony arsenic, cadmium, and copper. Highest accumulation was observed with antimony near traffic situations. The comparison of the results from the different sampling points identifies motor vehicle traffic as the source of antimony. First examinations of brake linings support this conclusion. Lead is only slightly increased near traffic. Immission-caused copper contents in the grass were found near the overhead tramway cables. The accumulation detection limits for arsenic and cadmium were not exceeded at any of the measuring points.     

Neue Aspekte in der Behandlung von Siedlungsabflüssen

The surface runoff from urban areas is one of the most important sources of pollutants emitted into surface waters. Suspended solids which act as a transport vehicle for many anthropogenic pollutants (e.?g. heavy metals, PAH) are a key factor in this regard. The development of efficient measures of storm water runoff treatment thus requires a further differentiation of suspended solids in a fine (clay and silt) and coarse (sand and gravel) fraction. Both fractions show distinctly different characteristics in pollutant loading, transport and retention on urban surfaces and sewer systems. The primary aim of storm water runoff treatment is the reduction of the fine particles which are always highly loaded with anthropogenic pollutants. In contrast the coarse particles are almost unpolluted especially if they have a low organic share. The widespread sedimentation tanks with surface loadings between 10 and 2?m/h are very inefficient. A significant, save and lasting reduction of the emitted load of fine particles requires a considerable reduction of the surface loads. That can be achieved with the installation of lamellar settler or the utilization of the very large volumes of flood management tanks frequently present in urban areas. Filtration plants are highly efficient but there application in urban areas is limited due to their high space demands.     

Die Bedeutung von Krabben (Brachyura) bei der Regeneration von kohlenwasserstoffkontaminierten subtropischen Flachküsten am Beispiel des Arabisch Persischen Golfs

Objectives

The second Gulf War (1991) led to the largest oil spill in human history. Over 770 km of coastline from southern Kuwait to Abu Ali Island (Saudi Arabia) were smothered with oil and tar, erasing most of the local plant and animal communities. This long term study was designed to reveal the processes of natural regeneration within the salt marsh ecosystems as well as the processes counter productive to regeneration.

Methods

Field data were collected along permanent transect lines during annual visits from 1994 to 2004. Soil analysis included grain size, carbonate, pH and total hydrocarbon (Soxhlet extraction). Heavy metals were determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy. Hydrocarbons were analysed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography.

Results

The dominant processes of regeneration are characterized by four types of indicators. These are 1) the composition of hydrocarbon compounds remaining in the soil, 2) the hardness of the soil surface, 3) the abundance of laminated cyanobacterial mats, and 4) the abundance and diversity of macrofauna. Cyanobacteria turned out to conserve the oil within the soil where they built laminated mats sealing the surface and thus, preventing oxygen from penetrating the substrate. On the other hand, crustaceans were the first macrofauna returning to contaminated soils. Following bioturbation by the crustaceans significantly accelerates the biodegradation of the hydrocarbons. Since the occurrence of the crabs (mainly Cleistostoma dotilliforme) is primarily restricted to tidal channels the density of the channel network between the affected salt marshes determines the time which is needed for regeneration.

Conclusions

The re-setrlement of crabs is the key process initiating fast and effective biodegradation of the oil residues in the intertidal soils. Because dense laminated cyanobacterial mats and tar covered surface substrates often delay the re-settlement of crabs — even 13 years after the impact — tidal channels are the initial paths of re-colonisation.

Recommendations and Perspectives

Therefore it is recommended that if any restoration measures are to be undertaken, it would be most effective to create a network of artificial channels within the salt marshes in order to bring the pioneer species into the most affected ecosystems.     

Elimination des Zytostatikums Ifosfamid während der simulierten Zersetzung von Hausmüll im Labormaßstab

Drugs are emitted into the environment by hospitals, private households, veterinary and human practices. Remnants of these products are primarily disposed of in landfill sites. At the present, there is no information available about the behaviour of pharmaceutical drugs, like their anaerobic biodegradation or adsorption, in sanitary landfills. Some of these drugs, e.g. antineoplastic substances such as ifosfamide, are supposed to be cancerogenic, mutagenic, fetotoxic or embryotoxic. Therefore, we investigated the behaviour of ifosfamide during waste decomposition in a laboratory-scale lysimeter. Up to 50% of the ifosfamide was eliminated under methanogenic conditions; but the mechanism applying for the elimination remains unclear. As far as present day knowledge is concerned, the risk for the environment through the emission of emitting ifosfamide from sanitary landfills should be negligible.     

Die Rolle der Globalisierung und Klimaveränderung auf die Entwicklung von Stechmücken und von ihnen übertragenen Krankheiten in Zentral-Europa

Mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases know no borders, and their spread is a consequence of globalization related to high mobility of humans and international trade as well as on climate change. Higher temperatures and precipitation favour the development of mosquitoes as well as the pathogens and parasites which are transmitted by mosquitoes. An increase of about 2?°C would shorten the time for the development of larvae and pupae of Anopheles messeae (vector of malaria) by almost three days resulting in an increase of gonotrophic cycles and number of generations. The higher numbers of breeding sites for Anopheles species such as An. plumbeus in cess pools due to the change of agricultural practises increase the contact with potential vectors of malaria as well. However, at least in Germany, malaria will not play an important role anymore. The invasion of new species such as Stegomyia albopicta (formerly Aedes albopictus) is enhanced by human migration and international trade. St. albopicta was first discovered in Germany in 2007. Nowadays, this species, originally from Southeast Asia, occurs in 13 European states. Thus, the risk for outbreaks of arboviroses is increased.     

HPLC-MS/MS in der Rückstandsanalytik von Pflanzenschutzmitteln

Goal and Scope

Increasing demands from the regulatory authorities of plant protection products for residue analytical methods on the one hand and the need for cost reduction by shorter development times on the other hand have led to a significant displacement of conventional methods (e.g. HPLC-UV or GC-MS) by HPLC-MS/MS with atmospheric pressure ionization (API) in residue analysis since the mid of the 1990s. This development started in the pharmaceutical industries where HPLC-MS/MS had already been used for the quantitation of drugs and their metabolites in plasma since the late 1980s.

Methods

The reason for the high acceptability of HPLC-MS/MS with electrospray ionisation (ESI) or chemical ionization at atmosheric pressure (APCI) compared with alternative methods are shown with respect to analytical quality parameters, compliance with international registration guidelines and economic reasons.

Results and Conclusion

HPLC-MS/MS is being applied for solving ca. 75% of all analytical problems occuring in modern residue analytical laboratories. This technique offers convincing advantages for the determination of plant protection products and their metabolites in various matrices. These are a reduced number of or no clean-up steps after extraction of the samples, high throughput besides high ruggedness, low limits of detection and a large linear measuring range. In addition, several analytes of various chemical classes can be determined within one chromatographic run. Due to the high selectivity there is only little need for additional confirmatory methods. For enforcement purposes HPLC-MS/MS is accepted by the European authorities since 2002. However, due to high costs for instrumentation and specially skilled personnel only few enforcement laboratories have invested into this technology, so far.

Recommendation and Perspective

The importance of HPLC-MS/MS in residue analysis will further increase, as new ionization techniques will enable the analysis of more analytes and as the investment costs will decrease in the future. However, proven conventional methods will still survive in some cases. New concepts, such as parallel HPLC-MS/MS or on-line purification of extracts by column switching which are already widely used in the pharmaceutical industry could help to further increase the throughput. However, for a sound evaluation with respect to their applicability in residue analysis there is so far too little experience.     

Bestimmung von Nitrodiphenylaminen und verwandten Verbindungen im Sickerwasser einer Rüstungsaltlast

Goal, Scope and Background

Nitrodiphenylamines can be found at abandoned military sites where the explosive 2,2′,4,4′,6,6′-hexanitrodiphenylamine (hexyl) or diphenylamine as a stabilizer of smokeless powder was handled. Aim of the present study is the development of HPLC methods for the analysis of contaminants which can be expected in particular under aerobic conditions at premises which are contaminated by nitrodiphenyl-amines and related compounds.

Methods

A list of 13 compounds which can be expected at these explosives factories was deduced from literature studies. HPLC methods were developed for the analytes. Water samples from the unsaturated zone of a former hexyl-producing factory were collected by suction cups and the material was analysed according to these procedures to demonstrate the practicability of the new methods and to verify the existence of the postulated compounds in the environment of the former nitration plant.

Results and Conclusion

The new HPLC methods are suitable for the exploration of sites contaminated by nitrodiphenylamines. Beside some hexyl its intermediates 1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene, 2,4-dinitrodiphenylamine und 2,2′,4,4′-tetranitrodiphenylamine were identified in the leachate water.

Recommendation and Perspective

It is advisable to include at least these 4 compounds in the examination of former hexyl-producing plants. Several unknown peaks were observed in the HPLC-chromatogram. It is recommendable to perform further investigations of the unidentified compounds to compile a final list of analytes for military sites polluted by nitrodiphenylamines.     

Verbleib von spurenschadstoffen bei der methylesterherstellung aus altspeisefett im technikumsmaßstab

Aims and Scope

In Germany, 120,000 tons per year of waste edible fats are collected from the catering and the food industry Until recently, these fats have widely been used as a nutritional additive for poultry and other animals fodder. Due to the BSE crisis and some affairs based on dioxins in feeding stuff, waste fats are now barely used as fodder. Currently, these fats substitute fresh vegetable oils in the chemical industry and are used as raw material for the production of biodiesel. Therefore, alternative fields of application are required. In this context, the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU) is sponsoring a joint research project which deals with the production and testing of cooling lubricants based on monoesters made from waste edible fats.

Methods

In a first step, characteristics and quality of wasteedible fats of different origins were chemically analysed and monitored. The investigations covered the following fat specific parameters: total contamination, sulphate ash, water content, peroxide number, iodine value, kinematical viscosity, neutralisation number (free fatty acids) and fatty acid spectra. In the next step, a process development/optimisation was carried out for the production of methylesters based on the raw material waste fat, leading to the construction of a pilot plant. To investigate the fate of trace pollutants during the production process of waste-fat methylester, samples were systematically contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls, polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, polychlorinated dibenzofurans and the elements Al, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, P, Pb, Sn, and Zn. These contaminated fat samples were transesterified in laboratory scale. The primary and by-products were analysed subsequently.

Results

Valuable hints on the design of the technical process of fatty adid methylester production based on waste edible fats were gained by regarding the fat specific parameters. For example, filtration and dewatering of the waste fats proved necessary. The saturated fatty acids, most wanted for the production of cooling lubricants due to their high oxidation stability, were present in the range of 11,3% to 31,6%. Due to the low content of free fatty acids, a base catalysed process occurred more suitable for the transesterification of the waste edible fats. Trace analytical investigations concerning inorganic and organic pollutants proved a low basic contamination of the waste edible fats. Experiments with systematic contamination of the fats indicated an accumulation of the heavy metals in the glycerol phase during the transesterification process, whereas the organic pollutants were detected in the methylester fraction by amounts of 80% to 95%.

Outlook

In a next step, the further processing of the methylesters to monoesters with alcohols of the chain length C2 to C8 will be presented. Associated results of chemical-analytical investigations on the process and the application of the cooling lubricants will also be given.     

Prüfung der Auswirkungen von Pflanzenschutzmitteln auf Laufkäfer

The testing procedure for the effects of pesticides on carabid beetles is described and examples are given for important factors, e.g. temperature, type of soil, testing method and physiology of the test animal, which can influence the results of such tests. Risk assessment for pesticides, therefore, has to be carried out by experts. Additionally, a monitoring of effects should be carried out after the registration process in certain cases.     

Teil III: Die Verkehrsbilanz der Universität Osnabrück

One central aspect of the environmental management system for universities developed in Osnabrück is the environmental audit of universities, realized by an ecobalance. This article deals with modelling the material and energy flows caused by the University’s commuters (staff and students), and by the business trips of employees, using the software Umberto^®. The result is the University’s traffic balance. 10,000 MWh of energy are consumed yearly by the University’s traffic. 94% of the consumption is caused by commuters (1,300 employees and 11,500 students) and only 6% by business trips. Compared with the whole energy consumption of the University, the traffic’s share is 32% and therefore lies between the electricity’s share (25%) and that of heat (43%). Similarly related are the CO₂ emissions, caused by traffic (3,160 tons per anno). Compared with the whole CO₂ emissions of the University the traffic’s share is 31%, thus putting it between the heat’s share (27%) and that of electricity (42%). Although the average weekly distance the University’s commuters drive (79 km/student and 84 km/employer) is at the bottom of the range for other comparable universities, a transportation demand management for a further reduction of the traffic-caused CO₂ emissions should be implemented.     

Teil II: Die Energiebilanz der Universität Osnabrück

One central aspect of the environmental management system for universities developed in Osnabrück is the environmental audit of universities as realized by an ecobalance. This article deals with modelling of the material and energy flows caused by the energy supply of the University in Osnabrück using the software Umberto^®. The result is the university’s energy balance. 37% of the primary energy gets lost in the pre-processes of energy production, mainly during electricity generation. The final energy consumption of the university can be split into 37% electricity and 63% heat, whereas the relation of CO₂ emissions is almost the opposite. Related to this area, the electricity consumption in the different buildings is partially above that seen in similar university buildings in Germany, but below that of all the other values observed for universities located in Lower Saxony. Both the electricity and heat consumption, and therefore also the climate-damaging emissions of CO₂, have increased over the past years. Without further measures the university will not be able to achieve the CO₂-reduction target of the federal government. Recommended are the increased use of district heating power stations to produce the university’s own electricity with lower emissions and energy saving measures, especially in the field of electricity which is responsible for high CO₂-emissions.     

Untersuchungen zur Eignung von Neutralsalzen als Referenzmittel bei der mikrobiologisch-ökotoxikologischen Bewertung von Pflanzenschutzmitteln im Boden

Goal and Scope

The information value of microbiologicalecotoxicological investigations of pesticides in soil increases if reference compounds with known biocidal effects are included. But those reference compounds used until now often are of remarkable environmental and human toxicity and therefore are difficult to handle. Inorganic neutral salts sometimes were discussed as alternatives, but their suitability needs to be tested before.

Methods

For laboratory experiments some microbial activities in soil were selected whose effects had been proved in several microbiological-ecotoxicological investigations. They include the mineralization of carbon and nitrogen (+ nitrification) as well as the biomass-related parameters dehydrogenase activity and substrate-induced short-term respiration. Several agricultural soils were used to confirm the results.