Air emission inventories in North America: a critical assessment

Although emission inventories are the foundation of air quality management and have supported substantial improvements in North American air quality, they have a number of shortcomings that can potentially lead to ineffective air quality management strategies. Major reductions in the largest emissions sources have made accurate inventories of previously minor sources much more important to the understanding and improvement of local air quality. Changes in manufacturing processes, industry types, vehicle technologies, and metropolitan infrastructure are occurring at an increasingly rapid pace, emphasizing the importance of inventories that reflect current conditions. New technologies for measuring source emissions and ambient pollutant concentrations, both at the point of emissions and from remote platforms, are providing novel approaches to collecting data for inventory developers. Advances in information technologies are allowing data to be shared more quickly, more easily, and processed and compared in novel ways that can speed the development of emission inventories. Approaches to improving quantitative measures of inventory uncertainty allow air quality management decisions to take into account the uncertainties associated with emissions estimates, providing more accurate projections of how well alternative strategies may work. This paper discusses applications of these technologies and techniques to improve the accuracy, timeliness, and completeness of emission inventories across North America and outlines a series of eight recommendations aimed at inventory developers and air quality management decision-makers to improve emission inventories and enable them to support effective air quality management decisions for the foreseeable future.     

Taking Action Against Ocean Acidification: A Review of Management and Policy Options

Ocean acidification has emerged over the last two decades as one of the largest threats to marine organisms and ecosystems. However, most research efforts on ocean acidification have so far neglected management and related policy issues to focus instead on understanding its ecological and biogeochemical implications. This shortfall is addressed here with a systematic, international and critical review of management and policy options. In particular, we investigate the assumption that fighting acidification is mainly, but not only, about reducing CO₂ emissions, and explore the leeway that this emerging problem may open in old environmental issues. We review nine types of management responses, initially grouped under four categories: preventing ocean acidification; strengthening ecosystem resilience; adapting human activities; and repairing damages. Connecting and comparing options leads to classifying them, in a qualitative way, according to their potential and feasibility. While reducing CO₂ emissions is confirmed as the key action that must be taken against acidification, some of the other options appear to have the potential to buy time, e.g. by relieving the pressure of other stressors, and help marine life face unavoidable acidification. Although the existing legal basis to take action shows few gaps, policy challenges are significant: tackling them will mean succeeding in various areas of environmental management where we failed to a large extent so far.     

Reductive dechlorination of chlorinated methanes in cement slurries containing Fe(II)

Degradative solidification/stabilization (DS/S) is a novel remediation technology that combines chemical degradation with conventional solidification/stabilization. The applicability of the Fe(II)-based DS/S to treating chlorinated alkanes was tested by characterizing degradation reactions of carbon tetrachloride (CT) and its daughter products in cement slurries containing Fe(II). Degradation kinetics of CT and chloroform (CF) were generally very rapid with reaction rates comparable to rates that can be obtained with zero-valent iron. Dechlorination reactions of CT proceeded primarily via a hydrogenolysis pathway, which yielded CF and methylene chloride (MC) as major products and chloromethane and methane as minor products. However, reaction pathways other than hydrogenolysis also appeared to be important at very high pH conditions. MC apparently was resistant to dechlorination reactions over a period of about two months. Kinetics of CT and CF transformation were strongly dependent on pH with an optimal value around 13, which was higher than found previously for PCE. When the initial CF concentration varied between 0.01 and 1 mM, and the Fe(II) dose was 104 mM, pseudo-first-order kinetics generally described the degradation reactions of CF. However, there was also some indication of substrate saturation kinetics in these experiments. This suggests that a saturation model would better describe the kinetics in systems with higher concentration of substrates or lower concentration of the reactive surfaces.     

PREDICTING BASE FLOW USING HYDROGEOLOGIC PARAMETERS1

ABSTRACT: A method is presented for predicting base flow using easily measured, or estimated, hydrogeologic parameters. A mathematical model based upon the theory of subsurface flow to parallel drains is applied to a small watershed in Oklahoma. An example of model application is presented for a five-year period of record from this small watershed. Three years of data are used to calibrate the model, and two years of data are used for model validation. Hydrographs of observed and predicted base flow are presented for the five-year period of record. We concluded from this limited application of the model, on a small watershed, that the modeling techniques discussed herein were valid and should be tested for longer time periods on a larger watershed to determine their general applicability.     

EFFECTS OF HYDRILLA AND GRASS CARP ON WATER QUALITY IN A FLORIDA LAKE1

ABSTRACT Changes in water chemistry, water clarity, and planktonic chlorophyll a were measured as hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata) abundance increased and then decreased in Lake Baldwin, Florida. Grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) were used to eliminate submersed macrophytes. No major trends in lake pH, conductivity, or total nitrogen concentrations occurred in association with changes in hydrilla levels. Increased Secchi disc transparency and reductions in total alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, potassium, total phosphorus, and chlorophyll a concentrations occurred as hydrilla abundance increased. Large increases in the chemical parameters and a reduction in Secchi disc transparency occurred as hydrilla decreased and was eliminated from the lake by grass carp. The effects of hydrilla on lake water chemistry are related to the percentage of the lake's volume infested with hydrilla and macrophyte standing crop.     

Surface sequestration of chemical feeding deterrents in the Antarctic sponge<Emphasis Type="Italic"> Latrunculia apicalis</Emphasis> as an optimal defense against sea star spongivory

Latrunculia apicalis is a spherically shaped demosponge that previous investigations have shown is rarely preyed upon by sea stars which are the dominant spongivores in antarctic benthic communities. Prior studies have also demonstrated that L. apicalis produces organic compounds that elicit a tube foot retraction response in the keystone spongivorous sea star Perknaster fuscus that can be used as a reliable assay for feeding deterrence. L. apicalis is known to contain discorhabdin alkaloids which serve, among other roles, as the source of its green coloration. To assess the defensive nature of the discorhabdin alkaloids toward P. fuscus, we have determined discorhabdin G concentrations in discrete sponge layers and evaluated those concentrations in the P. fuscus bioassay. In discorhabdin G-bearing sponges, we found a gradient of discorhabdin G that falls off rapidly toward the center of the sponge. On average, 52% of total discorhabdin G in a given sponge was found within 2 mm of the sponge surface. Tube foot retraction responses to extracts from the surface tissues (0–2 mm depth) of L. apicalis were compared to those of an inner layer (8–10 mm depth) and to a sample comprised of the same inner layer spiked with discorhabdin G at a concentration equivalent to that of the surface tissues. Tube foot retraction response times to extracts of the surface layers and the spiked inner layers were not statistically different, but were significantly greater than responses to the unaltered inner layer and controls. These results support the predictions of the optimal defense theory as L. apicalis sequesters its defensive chemistry (discorhabdin G) in its most vulnerable surface tissues, where the likelihood of predation from sea stars is highest. As antarctic sponges are generally preyed upon by extraoral feeding sea stars rather than deeper biting predators such as fish, surface sequestration may be uniquely adaptive in sessile macroinvertebrates occurring in antarctic marine benthic environments.Communicated by P.W. Sammarco, Chauvin