An application of multivariate analysis to acid rain data in Northern Italy to discriminate natural and man-made compounds

This paper presents the preliminary results of a study, the aim of which was to analyse the pluviometric and chemical rain data, recorded by a wet only network located in Northern Italy.More in detail, precipitations were collected on a weekly basis and chemical analysis was performed on pH, electric conductivity and Ca, Mg, Na, K, NH₄, NO₃, SO₄, Cl concentrations.The Principal Components Analysis pointed out that the first three components are enough to explain more than 90% of the variability of the parameters. Moreover each component may have a different physical interpretation, that is the first one is mainly related to the precipitation amount, while the second to the man made and natural sources and the last one to the sea/soil contribution.     

Information and Willingness to Pay in a Contingent Valuation Study: The Value of S. Erasmo in the Lagoon of Venice

This paper reports on a contingent valuation (CV) study eliciting willingness to pay (WTP) for a public program for the preservation of lagoon, beach and infrastructure in the island of S. Erasmo in the Lagoon of Venice, Italy. We use split samples to investigate the effect of providing a summary of reasons for voting in favor and against the program before the referendum valuation question. Reminding respondents of the reasons for voting for or against the program increases WTP among less highly educated respondents, and decreases WTP among more highly educated respondents.     

Lessons learned for a more efficient knowledge and technology transfer to South American countries in the fields of solid waste and contaminated sites management.

The present paper describes the development, performance and conclusions derived from three know-how and technology transfer projects to South American countries. The first project comprised a collaborative study by European and South American universities to find sustainable solutions for Chilean and Ecuadorian leather tanneries which had underachieving process performances. The second project consisted of investigations carried out in a Brazilian municipality to enhance its municipal solid waste management system. The final collaborative programme dealt with the initial identification, evaluation and registration of suspected contaminated sites in an industrial region of Chile. The detailed objectives, methods and procedures applied as well as the results and conclusions obtained in each of the three mentioned projects are presented, giving special attention to the organizational aspects and to the practical approach of each programme, concluding with their main advantages and disadvantages for identifying a set of qualitative and quantitative suggestions, and to establish transferable methods for future applications.     

Leakage of nitrous oxide emissions within the Spanish agro-food system in 1961–2009

In this paper we examine the trends of nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions of the Spanish agricultural sector related to national production and consumption in the 1961–2009 period. The comparison between production- and consumption-based emissions at the national level provides a complete overview of the actual impact resulting from the dietary choices of a given country and allows the evaluation of potential emission leakages. On average, 1.5 % of the new reactive nitrogen that enters Spain every year is emitted as N₂O. Production- and consumption-based emissions have both significantly increased in the period studied and nowadays consumption-based emissions are 45 % higher than production-based emissions. A large proportion of the net N₂O emissions associated with imported agricultural goods comes from countries that are not committers for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Kyoto Protocol Annex I. An increase in feed consumption is the main driver of the changes observed, leading to a remarkable emission leakage in the Spanish agricultural sector. The complementary approach used here is essential to achieve an effective mitigation of Spanish greenhouse gas emissions.     

Formic and acetic acid as agents for a cleaner fractionation of Miscanthus x giganteus

Miscanthus. x giganteus bark was subjected to acetic and formic acid fractionation. The kinetics of the process were explained by a model of two parallel first-order reactions, for pulp yield and delignification, and by Saeman's kinetics based models, for total polysaccharides and viscosity of pulps. The influence of hydrochloric acid concentration on both organosolv processes was studied at two levels: 0.10 and 0.15% by weight. The models provided a good fit of the experimental data and helped to predict the best set of independent variables to obtain a good fractionation.Both systems achieved similar delignification levels and pulp characteristics, although the evolution in formic acid was faster than in acetic acid, mainly due to the great extent of reactions in the warming up period that accounted for about a third part of the initial dry weight of the raw material.     

Molecular Characterization of Norovirus Circulating in Northwest Mexico During 2013–2014

Food and Environmental Virology - Norovirus (NoV) is an important etiological agent of diarrhea in children and adults. In Mexico, NoV screening is not routinely performed. NoV is highly infectious...     

Effectiveness of aerobic pretreatment of municipal solid waste for accelerating biogas generation during simulated landfilling

Effect of aerobic pretreatment of MSW on landfill gas generation was investigated. Volatile solid (VS) loss of MSW is an effective and comparable indicator. Chinese MSW requires at least a reduction of VS about 27% (w/w) prior to disposal. Aerobic pretreatment of MSW reduced lag phase more than 90% before methanogenesis. Aerobic pretreatment degree influences quantity of gas generation. This study evaluates the effectiveness of aerobic pretreatment of municipal solid waste (MSW) on reducing lag phase and accelerating biogas generation. Aerobic pretreatment degree (APD) was determined on the basis of reduction in volatile solids (VS) on a wet weight basis. In this study, intermittent aeration (IA) was applied to three reactors as a main aeration mode; since a single reactor was operated under continuous aeration mode. However, the purpose of the experiment was to reduce VS content of waste, irrespective of the comparison between aeration modes. Fresh MSW was first pretreated aerobically with different aeration rates (10, 40, 60 and 85 L/min/m³) for the period of 30–50 days, resulting in VS-loss equivalent to 20%, 27%, 38% and 53% on w/w basis for the wastes A1, A2, A3 and A4, respectively. The cumulative biogas production, calculated based on the modified Gompertz model were 384, 195, 353, 215, and 114 L/kg VS for the wastes A0, A1, A2, A3 and A4, respectively. Untreated waste (A0) showed a long lag phase; whereas the lag phases of pretreated MSW were reduced by more than 90%. Aerobically pretreated wastes reached stable methanogenic phase within 41 days compared to 418 days for untreated waste. The waste mass decreased by about 8% to 27% compared to untreated MSW, indicative that even more MSW could be placed in the same landfill. The study confirmed the effectiveness of aerobic pretreatment of MSW prior to landfilling on reducing lag phase and accelerating biogas generation.     

Spatio-temporal analysis of alpine ecotones: A spatial explicit model targeting altitudinal vegetation shifts

There is general agreement in literature that Alpine vegetation belt ecotones have shown a trend of upward migration in the last few decades. Despite the potential of such shifts as indicators of global change effects in mountain ecosystems, there are relatively few works focused on their assessment in a systematic and spatially explicit way. In this work our aim is to quantify the altitudinal shifts and analyse the spatial pattern dynamics of mountain ecotones. We developed a novel procedure to delineate the current and former state of three characteristic mountain ecotones, which we formalised as forest, tree and tundra lines. Our approach is based on the recognition of altitudinal extreme outposts identified with ecotone locations at a slope scale. The integration of multi-temporal datasets allows the identification and quantification of altitudinal advances and retreats in the outpost locations for a given period. We tested the method in a section of the Italian Alps for the period 1957-2003. Results show a general trend of an increase in altitude for the three ecotones, despite the occurrence of occasional decreases. We estimate decadal altitude increments of 25 m for forest line, 13 m for treeline and 11 m for tundra line. We also identified changes in ecotone spatial morphology between the two dates, with significant implications in connectivity and colonisation dynamics.