Natural resource management in a protected area of the Indian Himalayas: a modeling approach for anthropogenic interactions on ecosystem

The concept of ecosystem conservation as a broad theme came into existence during the 1970s under the Man and Biosphere Programme (MAB) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Indian Government followed this approach and chose the method to segregate the landscape for conservation of the ecosystem as well as for the development of the local economy and its people. We have examined the effect of this policy and concurrently developed a theoretical modeling approach to understand how human behavior is changing under shifting political, socioeconomic and environmental conditions. A specific focus has been on how the landscape is changing in the mountains of the Indian Himalayan region where about 10% of the total geographical area is converted into protected landscape for conservation of biodiversity. For local people living in the Himalayan mountains in India, agriculture is the main land use activity and is strongly linked to the forests in providing sustainability. There are several branches in the rural ecosystems where the local people's economy was centered. These include agriculture, animal husbandry, medicinal and aromatic plants cultivation, forest resource collection, tourism and other occupations. The greatest proportion of the population was engaged in the agriculture sector, whose contribution is high in the rural economy (61%); followed by animal husbandry (19%), forest resource collection for economic gain (18%), and medicinal and aromatic plants cultivation (1.5%). However, three decades ago the animal husbandry branch of the rural ecosystem was contributing the maximum share towards rural household income (40%) followed by tourism (35.2%), and lastly agriculture (14%). The desire of farmers to secure the optimum output from agricultural land use has resulted in an increase for resource collection from the forests. The people's perception (n = 1,648) regarding overall changes occurring in the region was varied and most showed that the current trend within rural ecosystems has emerged because of the implementation of conservation policies/creation of national park and biosphere reserve (80%), followed by limitation (22%), climate (20%), population growth (7%), national economy (10%) and least by socioeconomic change (5%). The theoretical agent model developed here draws attention to agent/farmer behavior and land resource use for his livelihood in the temporal dimension. The current study would be helpful to introduce new approaches for the development of the methodological and theoretical aspects associated with the complex human and ecosystem interactions in the Himalayan mountains for sustainable landscape development.     

Membrane introduction/laser photoionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Two-photon resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) has been shown to be a unique ionization method for mass spectrometry, exhibiting both high sensitivity and chemical selectivity. Because REMPI is a gas-phase method, its applications have been limited either to direct analysis of vapor phase samples, or in conjunction with an initial laser desorption or other vaporization step. We describe here for the first time a combination of membrane introduction mass spectrometry (MIMS) and REMPI with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS), which allows for the direct analysis of trace amounts of organic compounds in water samples. The objective of our research was the detection of very low levels of aromatic contaminants, particularly benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX), in aqueous solutions without interference due to the water. We have measured limits of detection (LOD) for selected aromatics in water below 1 part-per-trillion with an averaging time of less than 10 s using a continuous sample flow.     

Contaminant transport in a municipal drinking water supply: a steady-state approach to estimate rate and uncertainty

Contaminant transport is generally considered to be a key factor when assessing and classifying the environmental risk of polluted areas. In the study presented here, a steady-state approach was applied to obtain estimates of the transit time and concentration of the pesticide metabolite BAM (2,6-dichlorobenzoamide) at a site where it is contaminating a municipal drinking water supply. A Monte Carlo simulation technique was used to quantify the uncertainty of the results and to evaluate the sensitivity of the used parameters. The adopted approach yielded an estimated median transit time of 10 y for the BAM transport from the polluted site to the water supply. Soil organic carbon content in the unsaturated zone and the hydraulic conductivity in the saturated zone explained 44% and 23% of the uncertainty in the transit time estimate, respectively. The sensitivity analysis showed that the dilution factor due to regional groundwater flow and the soil organic carbon content at the polluted site explained 53% and 31% of the uncertainty of concentration estimates, respectively. In conclusion, the adopted steady-state approach can be used to obtain reliable first estimates of transit time and concentration, but to improve concentration predictions of degrading contaminants, a dynamic model is probably required.     

Cytotoxicity of TBBPA and effects on proliferation, cell cycle and MAPK pathways in mammalian cells

Poly-brominated flame retardants are ecotoxicologically relevant chemicals that can show high persistency in environmental samples and bioaccumulation in marine and fresh water animals. One of the most widely used compound is tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA). Until today, the toxicological data are rather fragmentary. Our studies on acute and sub-acute toxic effects with established cell lines demonstrate that TBBPA interferes with cellular signaling pathways. Cell viability is significantly reduced in a time- and concentration-dependent manner. The observed EC50 for rat kidney cells (NRK) was 52 microM (27 mg/l), 168 microM (90 mg/l) for A549 human lung cells, and 200 microM (108 mg/l) for Cal-62 human thyroid cells, respectively. The comparison of TBBPA with the non-brominated substance bisphenol A (BPA) clearly demonstrates that only the brominated compound exerts these effects on proliferation and cell viability. Cell cycle regulation was influenced considerably in Cal-62 cells, showing an explicit G2/M arrest in the cell cycle at TBBPA concentrations higher than 75 microM. Cellular signaling pathways directly connected to these affected parameters, e.g. the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades, are partly influenced in a cell specific and dose dependent manner. The extracellular-signal regulated kinase (ERK) is deactivated in NRK and A549 cells and activated in Cal-62 cells with increasing TBBPA concentrations.     

Lignite coke moving bed adsorber for cement plants – BAT or beyond BAT?

The IPPC Directive requires permits which must contain emission limit values and other conditions based on BAT. The BAT are characterised and the terms ‘conditional BAT’ and ‘beyond BAT’ are defined and explained. The borderline between BAT and beyond BAT is explained by means of an outstanding example which is the lignite coke moving bed adsorber for the abatement of the waste gas from a cement plant where waste for co-incineration is fed to a considerable extent is described in detail. Worldwide, this technique has been successfully applied at one cement plant for sixteen years.     

Polychlorinated biphenyls in polysulfide sealants--occurrence and emission from a landfill station

Approximately 80,000 kg polysulfide sealant containing 10,000-18,000 kg polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) was deposited at a Swedish municipal landfill station during 1965-1973. Investigations during 1994 showed that soil layers underneath the landfill had concentration of PCB not alarmingly high. The concentration of PCB congeners in ground water samples was elevated 4-750 times compared to a reference sample. Based on samples of ground water, leachate water, and flux chambers measuring evaporation of PCB from the landfill surface, the emission of PCB was estimated to be 1 g sigmaPCB/yr. This very low rate was attributed to the high sorptive capacity of the sealant. Compared to a reference site, the evaporation flux was elevated for the most volatile congeners, but factors 20-1400 lower than from another landfill which was contaminated with PCB in paper-pulp fibres.     

Metallakkumulation in Moosen: Standörtliche und regionale Randbedingungen des Biomonitoring von Luftverunreinigungen

Goal and Scope

Several studies show that the concentration of metals in mosses depends not only on metal deposition but also on factors such as moss species, canopy drip, precipitation, altitude, distance to the sea and the analytical technique used. However, contrasting results have been reported and the interpretation of the spatial variability of the metal accumulation in mosses remains difficult. In the presented study existing monitoring data from the European Heavy Metals in Mosses Surveys together with surface data on precipitation, elevation and land use are statistically analysed to assess factors other than emissions that have an influence on the metal accumulation in the mosses.

Main Features

Inference statistics and Spearman correlation analysis were applied to examine the association of the metal accumulation and the distance of the monitoring sites to the sea as well as the altitude. Whether or not significant differences of the metal loads in the mosses exist at national borders was examined with help of the U-test after Mann and Whitney. In order to identify and rank the factors that are assumed to have an influence on the metal uptake of the mosses Classification and Regression Trees (CART) were applied.

Results

No clear tendency could be derived from the results of the inference statistical calculations and the correlation analyses with regard to the distance of the monitoring site to the sea and the altitude. According to the results of the CART-analyses mainly the moss species, potential emission sources around the monitoring sites, canopy drip and precipitation have an effect on the metal bioaccumulation. Assuming that each participating country followed strictly the manual for sampling and sample preparation the results of the inference statistical calculations furthermore suggest that in most cases different techniques for digestion and analysis bias the measurements significantly.

Discussion

For the first time a national monitoring data base consisting of measurement data and metadata as well as surface information on precipitation, land use and elevation was applied to examine influence factors on the metal bioaccumulation in mosses. The respective results mirror existing knowledge from other national studies to a large extend, although further analyses are necessary to affirm the findings. These analyses should include data from other national monitoring programmes and should additionally be carried out with other decision tree algorithms than CART.

Conclusions

The local variability in the metal concentration in mosses can be uncovered in terms of predictors or underlying hidden causes by using CART. Ideally, such an approach should be applied across the whole of Europe. This will only be feasible if all participating countries provide additional information about site characteristics as currently is done in for example the German moss surveys.

Recommendations

The UNECE Metals in Mosses Survey experimental protocol should be improved in order to reduce the observed influences, to enhance standardisation, and to strengthen the quality control. This implies the integration of sampling site describing metadata into the assessment. Furthermore, basis research is needed to test the hypothesis concerning moss species-specific accumulation of depositions.

Perspectives

Provided that the presented results hold true in further analyses correction factors should be applied on the moss data in order to get the depicted spatial patterns and temporal trends of metal bioaccumulation unbiased. Such factors should be calculated for natural landscape units or ecoregions that are homogeneous with regard to climate, vegetation and altitude.