Changes in extreme events and the potential impacts on human health

Extreme weather and climate-related events affect human health by causing death, injury, and illness, as well as having large socioeconomic impacts. Climate change has caused changes in extreme event frequency, intensity, and geographic distribution, and will continue to be a driver for change in the future. Some of these events include heat waves, droughts, wildfires, dust storms, flooding rains, coastal flooding, storm surges, and hurricanes. The pathways connecting extreme events to health outcomes and economic losses can be diverse and complex. The difficulty in predicting these relationships comes from the local societal and environmental factors that affect disease burden. More information is needed about the impacts of climate change on public health and economies to effectively plan for and adapt to climate change. This paper describes some of the ways extreme events are changing and provides examples of the potential impacts on human health and infrastructure. It also identifies key research gaps to be addressed to improve the resilience of public health to extreme events in the future.

Implications: Extreme weather and climate events affect human health by causing death, injury, and illness, as well as having large socioeconomic impacts. Climate change has caused changes in extreme event frequency, intensity, and geographic distribution, and will continue to be a driver for change in the future. Some of these events include heat waves, droughts, wildfires, flooding rains, coastal flooding, surges, and hurricanes. The pathways connecting extreme events to health outcomes and economic losses can be diverse and complex. The difficulty in predicting these relationships comes from the local societal and environmental factors that affect disease burden.     

Effects of beach tourists on bathing water and sand quality at Puerto Velero,Colombia

Fragile coastal areas suffer from human activities. Environmental quality is one of the most important aspects in a tourist destination of sun and sand. The quality of bathing water and sand became indicators in the worldwide competition of beach destinations. We studied the water and sand quality along the beach of Puerto Velero, in northern Colombia. Water and sand beach quality were monitored during thirteen months. This allowed identifying the most significant sources of pollution along the beach, and understanding the interrelationship between tourism and the effects on the environment. Linear correlations allow assessing the association between the number of visitors and the physicochemical and microbiological parameters. The number of visitors was directly correlated with the presence of grease and oils, both in water and sand, as well as with fecal coliforms in water. A relation between the suspended solids and the presence of fecal coliforms in water and sand was observed. This statistical approach allows understanding the origin of beach sand and swimming water pollution at tourist beaches. Overall, sand quality has an important influence and is directly related to the water quality of the beach. Both the number of tourists and their activities are main factors explaining the contamination of the water and sand. This shows the importance of management of waste and wastewater in combination with awareness raising initiatives. More research should include monitoring and evaluating of both water and sand beach and provide data to revise the existing legal framework.     

Land cover effects on water balance partitioning in the Colombian Andes: improved water availability in early stages of natural vegetation recovery

Regional Environmental Change - Vegetation actively affects different components of the water budget in multiple spatial and temporal scales. Changes in vegetation cover and structure—such as...     

Voltammetric detection of trifluralin in tap water,fruit juice,and vegetable extracts in the presence of surfactants

This study describes a novel electrochemical method to determine the herbicide trifluralin in samples of water, fruit juice, and vegetable extracts in the presence of surfactants, using a glassy carbon electrode (GCE). In acidic media, trifluralin was irreversible on the glassy carbon electrode surface at ?0.5 V vs. Ag/AgCl. Surfactant presence on the electrode–solution interface modified current intensities and shifted the reduction peak potential of trifluralin. Different types of surfactant and their concentrations were investigated. The anionic surfactant significantly enhanced the peak current intensity of trifluralin. Under optimal analytical conditions, an analytical curve was obtained in the concentration range of 0.48–32.20 µM. The limits of detection and quantification were estimated at 0.031 and 0.104 µM, respectively. The method was successfully applied to quantify trifluralin in samples of water, orange and tomato juice, and green pepper, carrot, and onion extracts, with recovery rates of 97.9–102.1%. The results were in good agreement with those obtained using high-performance liquid chromatography, indicating that the proposed electrochemical method can be employed to quantify trifluralin in various types foods, with sensitivity, specificity, selectivity and reproducibility.     

Environmental risk assessment in five rivers of Parana River basin,Southern Brazil,through biomarkers in Astyanax spp.

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In the current study, water quality of five river sites in Parana River basin (Brazil), utilized for public water supply, was assessed through a set...     

Distribution and human health risk assessment of PAHs in four fish species from a SW Atlantic estuary

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The aim of this study is to assess—for the first time—the concentration of the 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the muscle...     

Monitoring of genetically modified Escherichia coli in laboratory wastewater

Containment of genetically modified (GM) microorganisms such as Escherichia coli is a legal requirement to protect the environment from an unintended release and to avoid horizontal gene transfer (HGT) of recombinant DNA to native bacteria. In this study, we sampled the laboratory wastewater (LWW) at a large Swiss university from three sources over 2 years and cultured ampicillin-resistant, presumptive GM E. coli. From a total of 285 samples, 127 contained presumptive GM E. coli (45%) at a mean concentration of 2.8 × 10² CFU/ml. Plasmid DNA of 11 unique clones was partially or entirely sequenced. All consisted of cloning vectors harboring research-specific inserts. To estimate the chance of HGT between GM E. coli and native bacteria in LWW, we identified taxa representative for the bacterial community in LWW using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and measured conjugation frequencies of E. coli with five LWW isolates. At optimal conjugation conditions, frequencies were between 3.4 × 10⁻³ and 2.4 × 10⁻⁵. Given the absence of transferable broad-host range plasmids and suboptimal conjugation conditions in the LWW system, we conclude that the chance of HGT is relatively low. Still, this study shows that the implementation of robust containment measures is key to avoid the escape of GM microorganisms.

     

Service quality evaluation in the context of a technology laboratory

The intent of this research is to investigate how the customers of a technological control laboratory for civil construction materials perceived the quality of the services delivered by the lab, specifically in regard to the service of concrete compression testing. The popular SERVQUAL scale, a multidimensional instrument used to capture customer expectations and perceptions, was used as a model for the application of a survey. Exploratory factor analyses were employed to evaluate customers’ perceptions and experiences of service quality in regard to the dimensions and accompanying attributes of the SERVQUAL scale. Twenty attributes, which were grouped within five dimensions (Reliability, Assurance, Tangibles, Responsiveness, and Empathy), were identified, explaining 80.417% of the variance between customer expectations and perceptions and characterizing these dimensions on a modified SERVQUAL scale. Analysis of the results allowed us to identify discrepancies in perceived service quality compared with customers’ expectations. Most of the identified gaps between expectations and perceptions resulted in negative values.