Effects of organic contaminants in reactive oxygen species, protein carbonylation and DNA damage on digestive gland and haemolymph of land snails

The present study focused on early responses of land snails Eobania vermiculata to organic environmental contaminants, by investigating the use of a newly-established method for the measurement of protein carbonylation as a new biomarker of terrestrial pollution, as well as by measuring the ROS production and the DNA damage. Land snails were exposed to different concentrations of chlorpyrifos, parathion-methyl or PAHs in vivo or in vitro in the laboratory. The susceptibility of exposed snails was increased in relation to oxidative stress induced by contaminants tested. A statistically significant increase in ROS production, protein carbonylation and DNA damage was revealed in the snails treated with pollutants, compared to the untreated ones. The results indicated the effectiveness of measuring ROS production and DNA damage and reinforce the application of the present ELISA method in organic terrestrial pollution biomonitoring studies.     

Salinity increases mobility of heavy metals in soils

The effect of salinity induced by CaCl₂, MgCl₂, NaCl and Na₂SO₄ on the mobility of Cu, Cd, Pb and Zn was studied. An increase of ionic strength by any salts promoted a higher release of Cd than the others metals. When CaCl₂ and NaCl were applied, Cd and Pb showed the highest degree of mobilization. When MgCl₂ was applied, Cd and Cu were mobilized the most. Finally, an increase of Na₂SO₄ also promoted the strongest mobilization of Cd and Cu.As the total heavy metal content was higher, the percentage of Pb and Cu released upon salinization decreased, indicating that these metals are strongly bound to soil constituents. An increase of carbonates in the soil promoted a higher release of Pb for all used salts and for Zn when MgCl₂ and NaCl were used. This indicates that Pb and Zn are adsorbed on the surface of carbonate crystals. An increase of fine particles promoted a decrease of percentage of released Cd for all salts, indicating that Cd is strongly retained in the fine fractions.The main mechanism regulating Pb and Cd mobility was competition with Ca²⁺ for sorption sites followed for metal chloro-complexation, association between the Cd/Pb-sulfates and competition with Mg²⁺. The main mechanism regulating Cu mobility was the formation of Cu-sulfate, followed by competition with cations (Mg > Ca) and chloride. For Zn, competition with Ca²⁺ for sorption sites was the most important process for its mobility; followed by Zn-sulfate association and, finally, chloride and competition with Mg with the same effect.     

Mobility of Cd and Cu in formulated sediments coated with iron hydroxides and/or humic acids: a DGT and DGT-PROFS modeling approach

The diffusive gradients technique in thin films (DGT) was used to investigate the kinetic resupply of Cd and Cu to pore water from the solid phase. For the sake of simplification, experiments were performed using formulated sediments that differed in the presence or absence of humic acids (HA) and/or of iron hydroxides (i.e., goethite and ferrihydrite). The effects of the time after the contamination of the solid phase (aging effect) on formulated sediments that were coated with goethite and HA and spiked with Cd were also evaluated. Kinetic DGT results were interpreted using the newly developed, multi-compartmental model DGT-PROFS.Due to Cu humate formation, the addition of HA slightly increased the Cu concentration in the pore water independent of the effect of the iron hydroxide coating on the formulated sediments and slightly decreased that of Cd. The impact of 8-190 d of aging resulted in a significant decrease in the Cd concentration of the pore water over an increasing incubation time.Modeling our results with DGT-PROFS led to the following conclusions concerning the impact of HA and iron hydroxides on Cd and Cu availability. First, in the presence of HA and absence of iron hydroxides, Cd is associated mainly with weak sites, while Cu is bound to strong sites. Similarly, in the presence of both iron hydroxides and HA, Cu appeared to be more heavily associated with the strong sites than did Cd. When the incubation time increased from 8 to 190 d, a proportion of Cd initially adsorbed onto weak sites transferred to the strong sites, suggesting that the adsorption of Cd on sediments is controlled partially by slow kinetic processes.     

Assessing seasonal and spatial trends of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in Indian agricultural regions using PUF disk passive air samplers

The first survey of persistent organic pollutant (POP) concentrations in air across several Indian agricultural regions was conducted in 2006-2007. Passive samplers comprising polyurethane foam (PUF) disks were deployed on a quarterly basis at seven stations in agricultural regions, one urban site and one background site. The project was conducted as a sub-project of the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) Network. In addition to revealing new information on air concentrations of several organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), the study has demonstrated the feasibility of conducting regional-scale monitoring for POPs in India using PUF disk samplers. The following analytes were detected with relatively high concentrations in air (mean for 2006 and 2007, pg/m³): α- and γ-hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) (292 and 812, respectively); endosulfan I and II (2770 and 902, respectively); p,p′-DDE and p,p′-DDT (247 and 931, respectively); and for the sum of 48 PCBs, 12,100 (including a site with extremely high air concentrations in 2007) and 972 (when excluding data for this site).     

Integrated analysis of the effects of agricultural management on nitrogen fluxes at landscape scale

The integrated modelling system INITIATOR was applied to a landscape in the northern part of the Netherlands to assess current nitrogen fluxes to air and water and the impact of various agricultural measures on these fluxes, using spatially explicit input data on animal numbers, land use, agricultural management, meteorology and soil. Average model results on NH₃ deposition and N concentrations in surface water appear to be comparable to observations, but the deviation can be large at local scale, despite the use of high resolution data. Evaluated measures include: air scrubbers reducing NH₃ emissions from poultry and pig housing systems, low protein feeding, reduced fertilizer amounts and low-emission stables for cattle. Low protein feeding and restrictive fertilizer application had the largest effect on both N inputs and N losses, resulting in N deposition reductions on Natura 2000 sites of 10% and 12%, respectively.     

N deposition as a threat to the World's protected areas under the Convention on Biological Diversity

This paper combines the world’s protected areas (PAs) under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), common classification systems of ecosystem conservation status, and current knowledge on ecosystem responses to nitrogen (N) deposition to determine areas most at risk. The results show that 40% (approx. 11% of total area) of PAs currently receive >10 kg N/ha/yr with projections for 2030 indicating that this situation is not expected to change. Furthermore, 950 PAs are projected to receive >30 kg N/ha/yr by 2030 (approx. twice the 2000 number), of which 62 (approx. 11,300 km²) are also Biodiversity Hotspots and G200 ecoregions; with forest and grassland ecosystems in Asia particularly at risk. Many of these sites are known to be sensitive to N deposition effects, both in terms of biodiversity changes and ecosystem services they provide. Urgent assessment of high risk areas identified in this study is recommended to inform the conservation efforts of the CBD.     

Variability of dust iron solubility in atmospheric waters: Investigation of the role of oxalate organic complexation

Atmospheric dust deposition is a major external iron source for remote surface ocean waters. Organic complexation is known to play a role in the dissolution of iron-containing minerals. In this paper, we present our study on the effect of oxalate on dust iron solubility in simulated rainwater. Our results reveal that the solubility of iron carried by analogs of different African dusts varies with the dust source. Our experiments indicate a positive linear correlation between iron solubility and oxalate concentration. Soluble iron (SFe) increases from 0.0025(±0.0005)% to 0.26(±0.01)% of total iron, considering all dust sources and with oxalate concentrations ranging from 0 to 8 μM. These results show that the observed variability of iron solubility in aerosols collected over the Atlantic Ocean is, at least partly, due to an increase in dust iron solubility, with the presence of oxalate complexation, rather than to the presence of more soluble anthropogenic iron. Considering the mineralogical composition of those particles, experiments with pure minerals (hematite, goethite and illite) were performed to study the dissolution process. We found that oxalate promotes the solubility of iron contained in clay and hence confirmed that more than 95% of SFe from soil dust is provided by clay (illite). This experimental work enables us to establish a parameterization of iron solubility in dust as a function of oxalate concentration and based on the individual iron solubility of pure iron-bearing minerals usually present in dust particles. Finally, our results emphasize that oxalate contributes to iron solubility on the same order of magnitude as the acid processes. Organic complexation appears to be a process that increases iron solubility and likely enhances the bioavailability of iron from dust.     

An ecotoxicological approach for hazard identification of energy ash

Within the EU, ash should be classified by its inherent hazardous effects under criterion H-14 (ecotoxic) in the Directive on waste (2008/98/EC). Today, however, there are no harmonized quantitative criterions for such a classification, but it is stated that biological test systems can be used. In this study seven ash materials were leached and characterized, both biologically and chemically. The objectives were to evaluate if (a) clear concentration-response relationships could be achieved for the selected toxicity tests (bacteria, algae, crustacean and fish), (b) some test(s) are generally more sensitive and (c) the toxic responses were consistent with the chemical analyzes. Interestingly, our results indicate that high concentrations of non-hazardous components (Ca, K) influenced the toxicity of almost all ash eluates, whereas hazardous components (e.g. Zn, Pb) only influenced the toxicity of the eluates ranked as most hazardous. If considering both hazardous and non-hazardous substances, the observed toxic responses were relatively consistent with the chemical analyzes. Our results further showed that the (sub)chronic tests were much more sensitive than the acute tests. However, the use of extrapolation factors to compensate for using the less sensitive acute tests will likely lead to either over- or underestimations of toxicity. Our recommendation is therefore that classification of waste according to H-14 should be based on (sub)chronic test data. Finally, given that treatment of the eluates prior to toxicity testing has a major significance on the concentration and speciation of released substances, further studies are needed in order to propose a relevant testing scheme.     

Mass balances and life cycle inventory of home composting of organic waste

A comprehensive experimental setup with six single-family home composting units was monitored during 1 year. The composting units were fed with 2.6-3.5 kg organic household waste (OHW) per unit per week. All relevant consumptions and emissions of environmental relevance were addressed and a full life-cycle inventory (LCI) was established for the six home composting units. No water, electricity or fuel was used during composting, so the major environmental burdens were gaseous emissions to air and emissions via leachate. The loss of carbon (C) during composting was 63-77% in the six composting units. The carbon dioxide (CO(2)) and methane (CH(4)) emissions made up 51-95% and 0.3-3.9% respectively of the lost C. The total loss of nitrogen (N) during composting was 51-68% and the nitrous oxide (N(2)O) made up 2.8-6.3% of this loss. The NH(3) losses were very uncertain but small. The amount of leachate was 130 L Mg(-1) wet waste (ww) and the composition was similar to other leachate compositions from home composting (and centralised composting) reported in literature. The loss of heavy metals via leachate was negligible and the loss of C and N via leachate was very low (0.3-0.6% of the total loss of C and 1.3-3.0% of the total emitted N). Also the compost composition was within the typical ranges reported previously for home composting. The level of heavy metals in the compost produced was below all threshold values and the compost was thus suitable for use in private gardens.