Improve Compliance with Limited Resources by a Three-Group Inspection Regime

Frequent monitoring and relatively high fines are usually necessary to bring about improvements in environmental quality, but more challenging for many countries with limited human, material, and financial resources is to put them into practice. This paper developed a three-group model of a state-dependent enforcement in a repeated game to improve the policy implementation under limited inspection capacities. A certain number of firms are grouped (group 1, group 2, group 3) for different supervision intensity (e.g., the order of inspection probability corresponding to each group is p ₁?<?p ₂?<?p ₃) based on their environmental performance. The optimal policy parameters, such as inspection probability of each group and the probability that a firm found in compliance is moved to a better reputation group, were obtained as the basis for regulator’s policy making. Numerical simulations indicated that the three-group inspection regime can significantly increase compliance rate as compared with static enforcement with the same monitoring probability. Among the number of firms in each group under steady state conditions, group 2 had the most, group 1 was the second, and group 3 had the smallest. Analysis and prediction of a three-group reputation example provided a good experiment for the model. The results give a practical reference for the policy makers with inspection capacity constraints to achieve higher compliance rate.     

Diffusion pollution from livestock and poultry rearing in the Yangtze Delta,China

BACKGROUND: The Yangtze Delta is one of the most developed regions in China and includes Shanghai, eight cities in Jiangsu province and eight cities in Zhejiang province. Meat consumption in this region has increased with economic growth, and most of the consumed meat is produced locally. The water quality of surface waters has deteriorated in recent years. An example was the huge blue-green algae bloom in Tai Lake in late May 2007, which affected millions of people's daily drinking water. However, animal husbandry is considered to be one of the main pollution sources. METHODS: Pollutants (NH3-N, total phosphorus (TP), and total nitrogen (TN)) excreted by livestock and poultry, and the resultant COD (chemical oxygen demand) and BOD (biochemical oxygen demand), were estimated using two different methods based on different data sets. RESULTS: The number of livestock and poultry has remained stable in the Yangtze Delta over the four years from 1999 to 2002, with the average number of pigs, cattle, sheep and poultry being 21.1 M, 0.4 M, 7.7 M and 597.6 M, respectively. Pollutants in livestock and poultry excreta estimated by Method I were: 0.12 Mt NH3-N, 0.11 Mt TP and 0.29 Mt TN, resulting in COD and BOD of 1.34 Mt and 1.30 Mt, respectively, while the estimations based on Method II were: 0.18 Mt NH3-N, 0.15 Mt TP and 0.40 Mt TN, resulting in COD and BOD of 1.95 Mt and 1.80 Mt, respectively. DISCUSSION: Pollutants excreted annually by livestock and poultry in the Yangtze Delta are estimated to be: 0.17 Mt NH3-N, 0.16 Mt TP and 0.42 Mt TN, giving rise to a COD of 1.86 Mt and a BOD of 1.72 Mt. Approximately 25% of this pollution was estimated to enter water bodies, which means that the annual pollutant load is 43,700 t NH3-N, 39,400 tTP, 104,600t TN with a COD of 465,000 tand a BOD of 430,100 t. Pollutants from animal husbandry were similar in magnitude to those from industrial wastewater. Pigs produced the most pollution, followed by poultry, cattle and sheep. The pollution load from animal husbandry in the Yangtze Delta is about twice the average level of the whole of China. CONCLUSIONS: Domestic wastewater was the main pollution source in the Yangtze Delta, followed by pollution from raising livestock and poultry and from industrial wastewater. The pollution load in Shanghai and Jiaxing were the greatest, followed by 7 cities of Jiangsu province (except Suzhou) and other cities of Zhejiang province and Suzhou. Pigs and poultry produced about 90% of the total pollutants from animal husbandry. RECOMMENDATIONS AND PERSPECTIVES: The local governments, especially in Shanghai and Jiaxing, should focus their attention on the pollution produced by livestock and poulrry. Controlling pollution from pigs and poultry will have the greatest impact in this region. Control of pollution will be facilitated by the development of large-scale livestock and poultry farming units and a shift away from small scale husbandry.     

The origin of high hydrocarbon groundwater in shallow Triassic aquifer in Northwest Guizhou,China

Original high hydrocarbon groundwater represents a kind of groundwater in which hydrocarbon concentration exceeds 0.05 mg/L. The original high hydrocarbon will significantly reduce the environment capacity of hydrocarbon and lead environmental problems. For the past 5 years, we have carried out for a long-term monitoring of groundwater in shallow Triassic aquifer in Northwest Guizhou, China. We found the concentration of petroleum hydrocarbon was always above 0.05 mg/L. The low-level anthropogenic contamination cannot produce high hydrocarbon groundwater in the area. By using hydrocarbon potential, geochemistry and biomarker characteristic in rocks and shallow groundwater, we carried out a comprehensive study in Dalongjing (DLJ) groundwater system to determine the hydrocarbon source. We found a simplex hydrogeology setting, high-level water–rock–hydrocarbon interaction and obviously original hydrocarbon groundwater in DLJ system. The concentration of petroleum hydrocarbon in shallow aquifer was found to increase with the strong water–rock interaction. Higher hydrocarbon potential was found in the upper of Guanling formation (T₂g³) and upper of Yongningzhen formation (T₁yn⁴). Heavily saturated carbon was observed from shallow groundwater, which presented similar distribution to those from rocks, especially from the deeper groundwater. These results indicated that the high concentrations of original hydrocarbon in groundwater could be due to the hydrocarbon release from corrosion and extraction out of strata over time.

     

Efficient microwave degradation of humic acids in water using persulfate and activated carbon

Environmental Chemistry Letters - Humic acids are complex mixtures of organic molecules of different sizes, molecular weights and functional groups such as phenols, carboxyls, quinones and amino...     

Heterologous overexpression of Populus euphratica BAK1;1 gene enhanced resistance to Pst DC3000 in tobacco北大核心CSCD

BRI1-ASSOCIATED RECEPTORKINASE1(BAK1), a leucine-rich repeat (LRR) receptor protein kinase, plays a significant role in brassinosteroid (BR) signaling. Furthermore, it combines with other LRR-RLKs protein to initiate immune response in plants. The objective of this study was to (1) investigate the function of the Populus euphratica BAK1;1 gene in the resistance of transgenic tobacco to Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (Pst DC3000) and (2) discuss the regulation pathway of PeBAK1;1 involved in the resistance to plant pathogen. We cloned the cDNA sequence of the P. euphratica PeBAK1;1 gene, constructed the pBI121-35S::PeBAK1;1 over-expression vector, and then transformed it into wild-type tobacco by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation to obtain PeBA K 1;1-overexpressing transgenic tobacco plants. The bioinformatic analysis showed that the PeBAK1;1 protein contained all the structural features of the plant SERK family. The phylogenetic tree showed that PeBAK1;1 has the highest sequence homology with PtBAK1. The gene expression profile results indicated that the expression of PeBAK1;1 in the root was higher than that in the leaf and stem. The wild-type tobacco plants showed an obvious susceptibility to Pst DC3000, whereas the transgenic plants exhibited enhanced resistance to Pst DC3000. Compared with that of the wild-type (WT), the real-time PCR and quantitative real-time PCR analysis revealed that the expression of pathogenesis-related genes (including PR1, PR3, PR4, and PR5), BAK1-interacting receptor kinase 1 gene, and BONZAI1 gene was upregulated in 35S::PeBAK1;1 transgenic tobacco plants. In conclusion, the PeBAK1;1 gene plays a positive regulatory role in 35S::PeBAK1;1 transgenic tobacco against Pst DC3000, which can enhance the resistance of plants to pathogen. © 2018 Science Press. All rights reserved.     

Research progress in microbial cytochrome P450 and xenobiotic metabolism北大核心CSCD

Cytochrome P450 (CYP450s) is a type of heme-mercaptide protein superfamily, which is distributed widely in animals, plants, and microorganisms. CYP450s can oxidize and degrade many exogenous compounds such as drugs, herbicides, pesticides, some persistent organic pollutants, and so on. Based on recent researches, this paper reviews the nomenclature, classification, structure, and catalytic mechanism of P450 enzymes, and summarizes the research progresses in the metabolism and biodegradation of xenobiotics using P450 enzymes from microorganisms. The nomenclature and classification of the P450 gene superfamily mainly rely on the similarities of amino acid sequences. Although the structures of P450 are conserved, their recognition sites towards to the substrates are variable. This is also the structural basis for the catalytic diversities of P450 enzymes. Few P450 enzymes from bacteria and fungi can metabolize and degrade xenobiotics such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, herbicides, and so on. However, these P450 enzymes are less likely be used in practical applications because of their low catalytic activities. In the future, more P450 enzymes with high degradable efficiencies towards xenobiotics are needed to be obtained using multiple omics tools or modifying the existing P450 enzymes, to achieve the bioremediation of the environment. © 2018 Science Press. All rights reserved.     

超高效气溶胶净化系统有效性现场检验研究

各类超高效气溶胶净化系统普遍存在的较为突出的问题是:缺乏系统工作有效性现场检测手段,难以判断系统防护是否失效。根据超高效滤料过滤特性和测试原理,并在分析了大气气溶胶对过滤效率测试影响的基础上,提出大气气溶胶背景下,基于粒数浓度测量和使用发生的高浓度单分散气溶胶作为实验气溶胶的净化系统防护有效性现场检验测试技术及系统组成,并进行了验证。     

Emission factors and particulate matter size distribution of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from residential coal combustions in rural Northern China

Coal consumption is one important contributor to energy production, and is regarded as one of the most important sources of air pollutants that have considerable impacts on human health and climate change. Emissions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from coal combustion were studied in a typical stove. Emission factors (EFs) of 16 EPA priority PAHs from tested coals ranged from 6.25 ± 1.16 mg kg^?1 (anthracite) to 253 ± 170 mg kg^?1 (bituminous), with NAP and PHE dominated in gaseous and particulate phases, respectively. Size distributions of particulate phase PAHs from tested coals showed that they were mostly associated with particulate matter (PM) with size either between 0.7 and 2.1 μm or less than 0.4 μm (PM_0.4). In the latter category, not only were more PAHs present in PM_0.4, but also contained higher fractions of high molecular weight PAHs. Generally, there were more than 89% of total particulate phase PAHs associated with PM_2.5. Gas-particle partitioning of freshly emitted PAHs from residential coal combustions were thought to be mainly controlled by absorption rather than adsorption, which is similar to those from other sources. Besides, the influence of fuel properties and combustion conditions was further investigated by using stepwise regression analysis, which indicated that almost 57 ± 10% of total variations in PAH EFs can be accounted for by moisture and volatile matter content of coal in residential combustion.     

辉县市城区环境空气质量现状及污染防治对策

对辉县市城区2006—2011年间环境空气质量监测数据进行了评价,并对城区污染物浓度时空变化进行了分析。结果表明,辉县市城区大气污染主要表现为可吸入颗粒物污染严重,主要是能源结构不合理、锅炉废气污染严重、城区道路保洁方式落后等原因造成的,由此提出了合理规划城市布局、减少结构性污染等对策。     

有机化学品生物富集因子定量结构-活性关系模型

依据经济合作与发展组织(OECD)关于定量结构-活性关系(QSAR)模型构建和使用导则,将780个有机化合物,以4:1的比例随机划分为训练集(624个化合物)和验证集(156个化合物),通过多元线性回归(MLR)方法构建了一个包含12个描述符的有机化合物鱼类生物富集因子(BCF)的QSAR模型。QSAR模型的调整决定系数R2ad j=0.809,去一法交叉验证系数Q2LOO=0.803,外部验证系数Q2EXT=0.732,表明模型具有较好的拟合优度、稳健性和预测能力。采用欧几里德距离方法表征模型应用域,通过威廉姆斯图分析模型离群点,并对模型进行机理解释。所构建的模型,可以用于预测应用域内有机化学品的生物富集因子。