Compartmentation and effects of lead (Pb) in the collembolan,Folsomia candida

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The impact of soil lead (Pb) pollution on survival, growth, and reproduction of the collembolan, Folsomia candida, and Pb compartmentation in its gut...     

Magnetic nanoparticles incorporation into different substrates for dyes and heavy metals removal—A Review

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Substantial discharge of hazardous substances, especially dyes and heavy metal ions to the environment, has become a global concern due to...     

Little Egrets (Egretta Garzetta) and Trace-Metal Contamination in Wetlands of China

The rapidly developing Asian countries may face threatening environmental contamination, that however remains largely unassessed. We studied persistent trace elements in three wetlands, Poyang Lake, relatively unpolluted, and Tai Lake, and Pearl River Delta, selected as hotspots of pollution in Central China. We adopted as indicator the Little Egret, a widespread colonial waterbird, and during 1999 and 2000 we collected and analysed the same samples as for a parallel study we conducted in Pakistan, e.g. eggs, body feathers of chicks, prey spontaneously regurgitated by the chicks, and sediments at the areas most used by foraging egrets. The levels of trace-metals at our three study areas were similar, or within the range, of those found in the few other studies for East Asia, with few exceptions. The concentrations of the various elements were below the threshold that may affect the survival or reproduction of the birds, and even the highest concentrations relative to background, i.e. Se in eggs, and Hg in feathers at Pearl Delta, do not pose toxic hazards. In sediments, the levels of trace elements were lower than the critical levels assumed for contaminated soil, except for alarming high levels of As at Poyang. These results do not confirm our expectation, that Poyang was relatively uncontaminated, while Tai and Pearl were polluted. Although trace metal concentration differed significantly among the three study areas, these differences were minor and were not consistent among elements and samples. The bioaccumulation ratios from sediments through prey, feather and egg, were consistent with our previous findings for Pakistan. Only Hg exhibited high bioaccumulation, while Se and Zn had low accumulation, and the other elements no accumulation. This reasserts that feathers of predators such as egrets, may be more sensitive indicators of environmental contamination for the elements subject to bioaccumulation, whereas the sediments or the organisms low in the food chain are better indicators for the other elements.     

Comparisons of three plant species in accumulating polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from the atmosphere: a review

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Plant leaves play a key role in the accumulation of PAHs, as they are able to capture PAHs from the air. In this paper, the mechanism, including...     

An automated (novel) algorithm for estimating green vegetation cover fraction from digital image: UIP-MGMEP

Green vegetation cover fraction (VCF) is an important indicator of vegetation status in ecology and agronomy. Digital image analysis (DIA) has been widely accepted as a new VCF measurement technique. In this study, we present a novel fully automatic threshold segmentation algorithm for VCF measurements, which is named as upper inflection point plus mean gradient magnitude of edge pixels (UIP-MGMEP). The algorithm performs VCF estimation upon the vegetation index Excess Green (EXG). UIP-MGMEP optimizes the EXG threshold by searching the upper inflection point (UIP) of the M-Et curve (mean gradient magnitude of edge pixels (MGMEP) vs. EXG threshold), based on the assumption that EXG variance of the boundary pixels between vegetation and background is larger than the variance of the background. Five typical sample images are used to illustrate how ground complexity reduces the distinctness of the UIP. Three controlled experiments are illustrated to test the robustness of UIP-MGMEP to resolution, exposure, and ground complexity. The results show that UIP-MGMEP is a promising algorithm for automatic VCF estimation upon digital images. Compared to broad-leaved grass, narrow-leaved grass is more sensitive to resolution and exposure. To reduce ground complexity, smaller footprint size while more images to cover the same area may be better than one image with large footprint size. UIP-MGMEP is fully automatic, making it promising for batch processing of VCF measurements that is very difficult in any wide-range field survey in the past. UIP-MGMEP algorithm can only extract green vegetation and is not suitable for non-green (even grayish-green) vegetation, due to the limits of vegetation index EXG. In addition, UIP-MGMEP is not recommended for images with VCF less than 0.5% or greater than 99.5%.     

化工园区空气中非甲烷总烃与挥发性有机物的定量关系

采用美国环保署(EPA)推荐的TO14/15方法和自动监测测定了某化工园区空气中挥发性有机物(VOC)以及非甲烷总烃,测定结果显示化工园区空气中非甲烷总烃与VOC的定量关系可以通过有效碳质量浓度建立,即非甲烷总烃有效碳质量浓度和VOC有效碳质量浓度之和相等。并藉此定义总有效碳解析度(R)以表征空气自动监测选定项目对空气有机污染的覆盖率指标,计算结果表明该空气自动监测选定的11项指标平均可表征该区域空气有机污染的71%。     

超临界水氧化法处理造纸黑液

采用自制的超临界水氧化反应装置,对造纸工业排放的黑液进行处理。考察了反应温度、反应压力、反应时间、过氧量(初始反应时所加氧气的量与废水完全氧化所需氧气的理论量的比,%)等对黑液中COD去除率的影响。实验结果表明,处理黑液的最佳反应条件为:反应温度500℃,压力26M Pa,过氧量500%,反应时间120s。在此最佳条件下处理COD为85 000m g/L的造纸黑液,COD去除率可达99.9%。     

滨海新区能源消费环境库兹涅茨曲线的实证分析

利用滨海新区2000—2007年人均GDP、单位GDP能耗及能源消费总量等指标的时间序列数据,拟合现状滨海新区能源消费环境库兹涅茨曲线(EKC)。基于情景分析法,预测了2006—2020年滨海新区经济发展与能源消耗响应关系及发展趋势,并对其EKC曲线形状做了进一步分析。结果表明,现阶段滨海新区能源消费总量与人均GDP相关关系不存在EKC假说,并且按目前发展态势,未来能源消费总量仍趋于不断增长。通过强有力的技术进步、结构调整、可再生能源开发利用以及相关法律、政策干预等措施,滨海新区可以在较低的人均GDP水平实现能源消费总量与经济增长的完全"脱钩"。     

Aquatic biomonitoring of Giardia cysts and Cryptosporidium oocysts in peninsular Malaysia

An aquatic biomonitoring of Giardia cysts and Cryptosporidium oocysts in river water corresponding to five villages situated in three states in peninsular Malaysia was determined. There were 51.3 % (20/39) and 23.1 % (9/39) samples positive for Giardia and Cryptosporidium (oo)cysts, respectively. Overall mean concentration between villages for Giardia cysts ranged from 0.10 to 25.80 cysts/l whilst Cryptosporidium oocysts ranged from 0.10 to 0.90 oocysts/l. Detailed results of the river samples from five villages indicated that Kuala Pangsun 100 % (9/9), Kemensah 77.8 % (7/9), Pos Piah 33.3 % (3/9) and Paya Lebar 33.3 % (1/3) were contaminated with Giardia cysts whilst Cryptosporidium (oo)cysts were only detected in Kemensah (100 %; 9/9) and Kuala Pangsun (66.6 %; 6/9). However, the water samples from Bentong were all negative for these waterborne parasites. Samples were collected from lower point, midpoint and upper point. Midpoint refers to the section of the river where the studied communities are highly populated. Meanwhile, the position of the lower point is at least 2 km southward of the midpoint and upper point is at least 2 km northward of the midpoint. The highest mean concentration for (oo)cysts was found at the lower points [3.15?±?6.09 (oo)cysts/l], followed by midpoints [0.66?±?1.10 (oo)cysts/l] and upper points [0.66?±?0.92 (oo)cysts/l]. The mean concentration of Giardia cysts was highest at Kuala Pangsun (i.e. 5.97?±?7.0 cysts/l), followed by Kemensah (0.83?±?0.81 cysts/l), Pos Piah (0.20?±?0.35 cysts/l) and Paya Lebar (0.10?±?0.19 cysts/l). On the other hand, the mean concentration of Cryptosporidium oocysts was higher at Kemensah (0.31?±?0.19 cysts/l) compared to Kuala Pangsun (0.03?±?0.03cysts/l). All the physical and chemical parameters did not show significant correlation with both protozoa. In future, viability status and molecular characterisation of Giardia and Cryptosporidium should be applied to identify species and genotypes/subgenotypes for better understanding of the epidemiology of these waterborne parasites.     

碳纳米管电极原位产生过氧化氢及其对亚甲基蓝脱色效果简

将碳纳米管固定化制成多孔疏水性导电薄膜构建电化学阴极还原体系,实现过氧化氢在阴极的原位产生。电极特性研究表明,电极在较宽的电压范围内均具有较好的活性。考察了阴极电位、电极成分、氧气流量和电解质浓度对过氧化氢原位产生的影响,在优化条件下经过120 min后过氧化氢达到66.17 mg/L,并探讨过氧化氢原位产生的机理。在此基础上考察原位过氧化氢氧化工艺下对亚甲基蓝的脱色效果,并分析其脱色机理。