How Perceived Exposure to Environmental Harm Influences Environmental Behavior in Urban China

Rapid environmental degradation in China makes understanding how perceived exposure to environmental harm influences environmental attitudes and participation in pro-environmental behaviors among the Chinese people crucial. We used a nation-wide survey dataset in urban China to test two hypotheses: experiencing environmental harm directly affects environmental behavior; environmental attitudes mediate the relationship between experiencing environmental harm and environmental behavior. We found respondents who experienced environmental harm had more pro-environmental attitudes. Experiencing environmental harm positively influenced pro-environmental behavior both directly and indirectly through the mediation of pro-environmental attitudes. Among the pro-environmental behaviors, environmental litigation was most strongly related with exposure to environmental harm. Our results suggest that more participation in pro-environmental behaviors may be expected as rapid economic development increases public exposure to environmental harm in urban China.     

Land Use and Food Intake of Future Inhabitants: Outlining a Representative Individual of the Most Exposed Group for Dose Assessment

The radiation doses to humans resulting from a potential release of radionuclides from a geological repository for long-lived waste are assessed over tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. Ingestion is expected to be the major exposure pathway, and the group with the highest exposures will be those that consume the most contaminated food. In this paper, we characterize the group of individuals with the highest exposures by considering the physical and biological characteristics of the contaminated area and human requirements for energy and nutrients. We then calculate intake rates based on land-use scenarios drawn from self-sustained communities spanning prehistoric times to an industrial-age agrarian culture. The approach is illustrated by simulating groundwater release of four radionuclides to an expected discharge area. We argue that the derived intake rates may serve as credible bounding cases when projected doses are evaluated for compliance with regulatory criteria.     

Climate change effects on the Baltic Sea borderland between land and sea

Coastal habitats are situated on the border between land and sea, and ecosystem structure and functioning is influenced by both marine and terrestrial processes. Despite this, most scientific studies and monitoring are conducted either with a terrestrial or an aquatic focus. To address issues concerning climate change impacts in coastal areas, a cross-ecosystem approach is necessary. Since habitats along the Baltic coastlines vary in hydrology, natural geography, and ecology, climate change projections for Baltic shore ecosystems are bound to be highly speculative. Societal responses to climate change in the Baltic coastal ecosystems should have an ecosystem approach and match the biophysical realities of the Baltic Sea area. Knowledge about ecosystem processes and their responses to a changing climate should be integrated within the decision process, both locally and nationally, in order to increase the awareness of, and to prepare for climate change impacts in coastal areas of the Baltic Sea.     

Uranium contents in plants and mushrooms grown on a uranium-contaminated site near Ronneburg in Eastern Thuringia/Germany

Uranium concentrations in cultivated (sunflower, sunchoke, potato) and native plants, plant compartment specimens, and mushrooms, grown on a test site within a uranium-contaminated area in Eastern Thuringia, were analyzed and compared. This test site belongs to the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena and is situated on the ground of a former but now removed uranium mine waste leaching heap. For determination of the U concentrations in the biomaterials, the saps of the samples were squeezed out by using an ultracentrifuge, after that, the uranium concentrations in the saps and the remaining residue were measured, using ICP-MS. The study further showed that uranium concentrations observed in plant compartment and mushroom fruiting bodies sap samples were always higher than their associated solid residue sample. Also, it was found that the detected uranium concentration in the root samples were always higher than were observed in their associated above ground biomass, e.g., in shoots, leaves, blossoms etc. The highest uranium concentration was measured with almost 40 ppb U in a fruiting body of a mushroom and in roots of butterbur. However, the detected uranium concentrations in plants and mushrooms collected in this study were always lower than in the associated surface and soil water of the test site, indicating that under the encountered natural conditions, none of the studied plant and mushroom species turned out to be a hyperaccumulator for uranium, which could have extracted uranium in sufficient amounts out of the uranium-contaminated soil. In addition, it was found that the detected uranium concentrations in the sap samples, despite being above the sensitivity limit, proved to be too low—in combination with the presence of fluorescence quenching substances, e.g., iron and manganese ions, and/or organic quenchers—to extract a useful fluorescence signal, which could have helped to identify the uranium speciation in plants.     

Omnivory and grazer functional composition moderate cascading trophic effects in experimental <Emphasis Type="Italic">Fucus vesiculosus</Emphasis> habitats

We tested the relative strength of direct versus indirect effects of an aquatic omnivore depending on the functional composition of grazers by manipulating the presence of gastropod and amphipod grazers and omnivorous shrimp in outdoor mesocosms. By selectively preying upon amphipods and reducing their abundance by 70–80%, omnivorous shrimp favoured the dominance of gastropods. While gastropods were the main microalgal grazers, amphipods controlled macroalgal biomass in the experiment. However, strong predation on the amphipod by the shrimp had no significant indirect effects on macroalgal biomass, indicating that when amphipod abundances declined, complementary feeding by the omnivore on macroalgae may have suppressed a trophic cascade. Accordingly, in the absence of amphipods, the shrimp grazed significantly on green algae and thereby suppressed the diversity of the macroalgal community. Our experiment demonstrates direct consumer effects by an omnivore on both the grazer and producer trophic levels in an aquatic food web, regulated by prey availability.     

Safety halls--an evaluation

PROBLEM: In most countries, drivers licensing systems usually include teaching some aspects of using safety equipment (e.g., airbags and seat belts). However, there is now evidence worldwide that such education is inadequate, as indicated by, for example, the overrepresentation of young drivers who do not use seat belts. METHOD: A randomized controlled study was conducted in Sweden to evaluate the effects of visiting a facility known as a "safety hall" in combination with the mandatory skid training. The results were assessed to determine the effects of the knowledge and attitudes of learner drivers in the following subjects: airbags, securing loads, seat belts, sitting posture, speed, and tires. An experimental group and a control group comprising 658 and 668 learners, respectively, answered identical questionnaires on three different occasions (pretest, posttest 1, and posttest 2). RESULTS: The results show that, for most of the topics considered, knowledge and attitudes in both groups were better at posttest 2 than at the pretest, and in general, the best knowledge and attitudes were found in the experimental group. The combined safety/skid training seems to have had the greatest effect on seat belts and loads. The findings also indicate that the safety halls can be further improved to achieve an even better effect. IMPACT ON TRAFFIC SAFETY: The use of safety halls has improved the knowledge and attitudes of learner drivers concerning several important areas related to traffic safety. Since knowledge and attitudes are important predictors of behavior, implementing safety halls can be expected to lead to improvements, especially regarding the use of safety belts and securing loads.