A comparative study of US EPA 1996 and 1999 emission inventories in the west Gulf of Mexico coast region, USA

Emission inventory is one of the required inputs to air quality models. To assist in the urban and regional modeling efforts, United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has compiled a National Emission Inventory (NEI) for criterion pollutants, and the precursors of ozone and particulate matter (PM). In December 2002, EPA released the 1999 NEI estimates (NEI99), which represent the most recent national emission data. However, the data sets are not in model-ready format for air quality simulations. This present work converts the NEI99 Final Version 2 data sets into Inventory Data Analyzer (IDA) format and processes the data using the Sparse Matrix Operator Kernel Emissions (SMOKE) modeling system to generate a gridded emission inventory in a domain covering the west Gulf Coast Region, USA. The spatial and diurnal emission characteristics of the gridded emission inventories are then assessed and compared with those of the National Emission Trend 1996 (NET96). The NEI99 database contains more complete emission records in both area and point sources. It is also found that NEI99 data exhibit greater emissions with respect to point and mobile sources but smaller emissions with respect to area sources when compared to the corresponding gridded NET96 data in the same study domain. The most distinct differences between the NEI99 and NET96 databases are CO emission of mobile sources, SO2 emissions of point sources, and VOC/PM/NH3/NOx emissions of area and non-road sources. The gridded NEI99 data show low VOC/NOx ratios (<2-5) in the urban areas of the study domain.     

Emerging technology for increasing glucosinolates in arugula and mustard greens

Two plant species, arugula (Eruca sativa) and mustard (Brassica juncea) were field-grown under four soil management practices: soil mixed with municipal sewage sludge (SS), soil mixed with horse manure (HM), soil mixed with chicken manure (CM), and no-mulch bare soil (NM) to investigate the impact of soil amendments on the concentration of glucosinolates (GSLs) in their shoots. GSLs, hydrophilic plant secondary metabolites in arugula and mustard were extracted using boiling methanol and separated by adsorption on sephadex ion exchange disposable pipette tips filled with DEAE, a weak base, with a net positive charge that exchange anions such as GSLs. Quantification of GSLs was based on inactivation of arugula and mustard myrosinase and liberation of the glucose moiety from the GSLs molecule by addition of standardized myrosinase (thioglucosidase) and spectrophotometric quantification of the liberated glucose moiety. Overall, GSLs concentrations were significantly greater (1287 µg g^?1 fresh shoots) in plants grown in SS compared to 929, 890, and 981 µg g^?1 fresh shoots in plants grown in CM, HM, and NM soil, respectively. Results also revealed that mustard shoots contained greater concentrations of GSLs (974 µg g^?1 fresh shoots) compared to arugula (651 µg g^?1 fresh shoots).     

Facile Preparation of Chitosan Films for High Performance Removal of Reactive Blue 19 Dye from Aqueous Solution

This study aimed at finding effective strategies for high-performance removal of reactive blue 19 (RB19) dye from aqueous solution. Chitosan (CS) films had been prepared by using solvent casting with mild drying for this purpose. The CS films were characterized by X-ray diffraction, field-emission scanning electron microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The performance of RB19 removal using CS were evaluated by varying contact time, solution pH, initial dye concentration, and adsorbent dosage. Adsorption isotherms, kinetics, and desorption were investigated by batch experiments. Results showed that CS films exhibited the optimal adsorption performance for RB19 removal and high maximum adsorption capacities of RB19, which were 799 and 822.4 mg g^?1 at 20 and 40 °C, respectively. Adsorption kinetic data were well described by the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. FTIR analyses further indicated that interactions between RB19 and the CS film occurred during adsorption. The CS films also exhibited satisfactory desorption of RB19 at about 80 % after 30 min of desorption at pH 11. Our study demonstrated that the CS films can be easily prepared and applied for effective removal of RB19 in treatment of wastewater.     

Report on the fifth meeting of INRA’s national network of ecotoxicologists,ECOTOX

The fifth meeting of INRA’s national network of ecotoxicologists took place on 25 to 27 November 2014 in Biarritz, France. The main aim of the meeting was to bring together ecotoxicologists from INRA and associated partners, providing them ample opportunity to share and discuss their latest scientific results as well as the national policy of research in ecotoxicology and to precise perspectives for the network.     

The temporal stability and developmental differences in the environmental impacts of militarism: the treadmill of destruction and consumption-based carbon emissions

This study examines the relationship between national-level militarism and consumption-based carbon dioxide emissions. We analyze panel data from 1990 to 2010 for 81 nations to determine whether the magnitude of the effects of (1) military expenditures as percent of total gross domestic product and (2) military personnel as percent of total labor force on carbon emissions change over time. Results of two-way fixed effects models highlight the temporal stability of the environmental impacts of both national-level military characteristics. The findings also reveal that the effect of military expenditures on emissions is larger in the more developed OECD nations than in the developing non-OECD nations. Overall, the results support the treadmill of destruction perspective, which suggests that the nations’ militaries are an important social institution to consider in sustainability science research on the human drivers of global environmental change.     

Carbon dioxide emissions,output, and energy consumption categories in Algeria

This study examines the relation between CO₂ emissions, income, non-renewable, and renewable energy consumption in Algeria during the period extending from 1980 to 2011. Our work gives particular attention to the validity of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) with break point method outcome demonstrates the positive effect of non-renewable type of energy on CO₂ emissions consumption. On the contrary, the results reveal an insignificant effect of renewable energy on environment improvement. Moreover, the results accept the existence of EKC hypothesis but the highest gross domestic product value in logarithm scale of our data is inferior to the estimated turning point. Consequently, policy-makers in Algeria should expand the ratio of renewable energy and should decrease the quota of non-renewable energy consumption.