Size effect on the mineralogy and chemistry of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Mytilus trossulus</Emphasis> shells from the southern Baltic Sea: implications for environmental monitoring

Mussels have the ability to control biomineral production and chemical composition, producing shells with a range of functions. In addition to biological control, the environment also seems to influence the process of biomineralization; thus, shells can be used as archives of ambient water parameters during the calcium carbonate deposition. Past and present environmental conditions are recorded in the shells in the form of various proxies including Mg/Ca or Sr/Ca ratios. For such proxies to be accurate and robust, the influence of biological effects including the size of studied organism must be examined and eliminated or minimized, so that the environmental signal can be efficiently extracted. This study considers mineralogy and elemental composition of shells representing four size classes of Mytilus trossulus from the Baltic Sea. Obtained results suggest that mineralogy and chemical composition change throughout the shell development due to most likely a combination of environmental and biological factors. The content of aragonite increases with increasing shell size, while the bulk concentrations of Na, Cd, Cu, U, V, Zn and Pb were found to decrease with increasing height of the shells. Therefore, using mussels for environmental monitoring requires analysis of individuals in the same size range.     

Effects of biodiesel made from swine and chicken fat residues on carbon monoxide,carbon dioxide,and nitrogen oxide emissions

The effects of two alternative sources of animal fat-derived biodiesel feedstock on CO₂, CO, NO_x tailpipe emissions as well as fuel consumption were investigated. Biodiesel blends were produced from chicken and swine fat waste (FW-1) or floating fat (FW-2) collected from slaughterhouse wastewater treatment processes. Tests were conducted in an unmodified stationary diesel engine operating under idling conditions in attempt to simulate slow traffic in urban areas. Significant reductions in CO (up to 47% for B100; FW-2) and NO_x (up to 20% for B5; FW-2 or B100; FW-1) were attained when using biodiesel fuels at the expense of 5% increase in fuel consumption. Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to elucidate possible associations among gas (CO₂, CO, and NO_x) emissions, cetane number and iodine index with different sources of feedstock typically employed in the biodiesel industry. NO_x, cetane number and iodine index were inversely proportional to CO₂ and biodiesel concentration. High NO_x emissions were reported from high iodine index biodiesel derived especially from forestry, fishery and some agriculture feedstocks, while the biodiesel derived from animal sources consistently presented lower iodine index mitigating NO_x emissions. The obtained results point out the applicability of biodiesel fuels derived from fat-rich residues originated from animal production on mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. The information may encourage practitioners from biodiesel industry whilst contributing towards development of sustainable animal production.

Implications: Emissions from motor vehicles can contribute considerably to the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The use of biodiesel to replace or augment diesel can not only decrease our dependency on fossil fuels but also help decrease air pollution. Thus, different sources of feedstocks are constantly being explored for affordable biodiesel production. However, the amount of carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), and/or nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions can vary largely depending on type of feedstock used to produce biodiesel. In this work, the authors demonstrated animal fat feasibility in replacing petrodiesel with less impact regarding greenhouse gas emissions than other sources.     

Long-term trends in water chemistry of acid-sensitive Swedish lakes show slow recovery from historic acidification

Long-term (1987–2012) water quality monitoring in 36 acid-sensitive Swedish lakes shows slow recovery from historic acidification. Overall, strong acid anion concentrations declined, primarily as a result of declines in sulfate. Chloride is now the dominant anion in many acid-sensitive lakes. Base cation concentrations have declined less rapidly than strong acid anion concentrations, leading to an increase in charge balance acid neutralizing capacity. In many lakes, modeled organic acidity is now approximately equal to inorganic acidity. The observed trends in water chemistry suggest lakes may not return to reference conditions. Despite declines in acid deposition, many of these lakes are still acidified. Base cation concentrations continue to decline and alkalinity shows only small increases. A changing climate may further delay recovery by increasing dissolved organic carbon concentrations and sea-salt episodes. More intensive forest harvesting may also hamper recovery by reducing the supply of soil base cations.     

The effect of experience on choosing where to go: an application to a choice experiment on forest recreation

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of experience on the choice of visits to forests in a stated discrete choice experiment. Recent literature has indicated that experiences with the environmental services valuated may increase the respondents' certainty in their choice of hypothetical alternatives. We apply two indicators of experiences: the number of visits and the number of different forests visited during the last year. Applying the generalized multinomial logit model, we find that an increase in the number of visits to forests makes respondents' choices more predictable. However, the number of different forests visited reduces the predictability of choices. Furthermore, we investigate the relationship between respondents' experience of forest recreation and the self-reported choice certainty, controlling for respondents' social-demographics and other design characteristics. Finally, we show that self-reported choice certainty is positive correlated with the scale factor, as expected.     

Future land use and land cover in Southern Amazonia and resulting greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural soils

Regional Environmental Change - The calculation of robust estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions due to agriculture is essential to support the framing of the Brazilian climate change...     

Multi-criterial evaluation of P-removal optimization in rural wastewater treatment plants for a sub-catchment of the Baltic Sea

Rural wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) are recognized as a significant phosphorous (P)-emission source in the German sub-catchments of the Baltic Sea. But enhancement of P-removal is cost intensive especially for small communities. This study proposes a concept to efficiently reduce P-emissions from WWTP by introducing low-cost non-constructional measures and assessing the resulting change of ambient water quality on a river basin scale. As case study, we choose the Warnow catchment in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany) where 76 % of WWTP-emissions originate from treatment plants without P-discharge limits. For these facilities, we evaluated two modification options: (1) optimization of enhanced biological Phosphorous removal (EBPR) in activated sludge systems (ASS) and/or (2) chemical precipitation (where EBPR is applicable). The total operational optimization potential in the Warnow catchment is about 20 %. Further improvements can only be applied by a chemical precipitation, with the drawback of increasing the wastewater disposal cost up to 6.5 euros CAP^?1a^?1. To prioritize relevant plants for improved P-removal we proposed two evaluation criteria: combining absolute emission, and impact on ambient water quality and costs.     

Fluorescence imaging applied to tracer distributions in variably saturated fractured clayey till

The study of mechanisms controlling preferential flow and transport in variably saturated fractured clayey till is often hindered by insufficient spatial resolution or unknown measuring volume. With the objective to study these mechanisms while circumventing the obstacles, tracer experiments with two fluorescent tracers Acid Yellow 7 (AY7) and Sulforhodamine B (SB) were performed at three different rain events for a fall and a summer season. Irrigated areas were excavated down to depths of 2.8 m and the movement of both tracers in the exposed profiles was delineated simultaneously by high spatial resolution apparent concentration maps (pixel approximately 1 mm(2)) obtained with an imaging device. The device consists of a light source and a CCD camera, both equipped with tracer-specific-filters for fluorescent light. The fluorescence images were corrected for nonuniform lighting, changing surface roughness, and varying optical properties of the soil profile. The resulting two-dimensional apparent concentration distribution profiles of the tracers showed that: (i) relative low water content in the upper 10 cm of the irrigated till in summer had a pronounced retardation effect on the AY7-migration and no effect on the SB-migration; (ii) the dead-end biopores were not activated in the fall season; (iii) only 3D fracture-plans connected to hydraulically active 1D-biopores contributed to the leaching; (iv) the tracer migration primary followed macropores during both seasons, though AY7 also followed a topsoil piston transport in summer; (v) the highest tracer pixel apparent concentrations were often found in macropores and most pronounced in the summer season; and (vi) 3D-dilution in fractures seems to play a dominating role in AY7-migration in the fall season.     

Sensitivity of the DERMA long-range Gaussian dispersion model to meteorological input and diffusion parameters

The Danish Emergency Response Model of the Atmosphere (DERMA) is described and applied to the first ETEX experiment. By using analysed low-resolution numerical weather-prediction data from the global model of the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) as well as higher-resolution data from two versions of the High Resolution Limited Area Model (HIRLAM), which are operational at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), the sensitivity of DERMA to the resolution of meteorological data is analysed by comparing DERMA results with concentration measurements. Furthermore, the sensitivity to boundary-layer height and diffusion parameters is studied. These parameters include the critical bulk Richardson number, which is used to estimate the atmospheric boundary-layer height, the horizontal eddy diffusivity and the Lagrangian turbulence time scale. The parameters, which provide the best performance of DERMA, are 0.25 for the critical bulk Richardson number, 6×10³ m² s^-1 for the horizontal eddy diffusivity, and 3 h for the Lagrangian time scale. DERMA is much more sensitive to boundary-layer parameters when using high-resolution DMI-HIRLAM data than when using data of lower resolution from the ECMWF. Finally, the bulk Richardson number method of boundary-layer height calculation applied to DMI-HIRLAM data is verified directly against routine radiosondes released under the tracer gas plume. The boundary-layer height estimates based on analysed NWP model data agree well with observations, and the agreement deteriorates as a function of forecast length.