State and potential management to improve water quality in an agricultural catchment relative to a natural baseline

Land use change and the expansion of dairying are perceived as the cause of poor water quality in the 1881 km² Pomahaka catchment in Otago, New Zealand. A study was conducted to determine the long-term trend at four sites, and current state in 13 sub-catchments, of water quality. Drains in 2 dairy-farmed sub-catchments were also sampled to determine their potential as a point source of stream contamination. Data highlighted an overall increase in the concentration of phosphorus (P) fractions at long-term sites. Loads of contaminants (nitrogen (N) and P fractions, sediment and Escherichia coli) were greatest in those sub-catchments with the most dairying. Baseline (without human influence) contaminant concentrations suggested that there was considerable scope for decreasing losses. At most sites, baseline concentrations were <20% of current median concentrations. Contaminant losses via drainage were recorded despite there being no rainfall that day and attributed to applying too much effluent onto wet soil. Modelling of P concentrations in one dairy-farmed sub-catchment suggested that up to 58% of P losses came from point sources, like bad effluent practice and stock access to streams. A statistical test to detect “contaminated” drainage was developed from historical data. If this test had been applied to remove contaminated drainage from samples of the two dairy-farmed sub-catchments, median contaminant concentrations and loads would have decreased by up to 58% (greater decreases were found for E. coli, ammoniacal-N and total P than other contaminants). This suggests that better uptake of strategies to mitigate contamination, such as deferred effluent irrigation (and low rate application), could decrease drainage losses from dairy-farmed land and thereby improve water quality in the Pomahaka catchment.     

Gastric bioaccessibility and human health risks associated with soil metal exposure via ingestion at an E-waste recycling site in Kumasi,Ghana

Environmental Geochemistry and Health - Over 1000 people make a living by processing electronic and electrical waste (E-waste) and scrap metals for the recovery of valuable metals and integrated...     

Insights into effects of algae on decay and distribution of bacterial pathogens in recreational water: Implications for microbial risk management

The decay and distribution of bacterial pathogens in water is an important information for the health risk assessment to guide water safety management, and suspended algae might affect bacterial pathogens in water. This study established microcosms to investigate the effects of algae-related factors on the representative indicators and opportunistic pathogen species in water. We found that suspended algae increased the persistence of targeted species by 1-2 orders of magnitude of concentrations ...     

Assessing the impact of household participation on satisfaction and safe design in humanitarian shelter projects

Participation has long been considered important for post‐disaster recovery. Establishing what constitutes participation in post‐disaster shelter projects, however, has remained elusive, and the links between different types of participation and shelter programme outcomes are not well understood. Furthermore, recent case studies suggest that misguided participation strategies may be to blame for failures. This study analysed 19 shelter projects implemented in the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013 to identify the forms of participation employed. Using fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis, it assessed how household participation in the planning, design, and construction phases of shelter reconstruction led to outcomes of household satisfaction and safe shelter design. Participation was operationalised via eight central project tasks, revealing that the involvement of households in the early planning stages of projects and in construction activities were important for satisfaction and design outcomes, whereas engagement during the design phase of projects had little impact on the selected outcomes.     

Path forward: Emerging issues and challenges

The NIOSH Construction Program worked with industry stakeholders to develop a National Occupational Safety and Health Construction Agenda to target future research and activities. The Program and its partners are also cognizant that new developments can emerge over time and that research can play an important role in helping to understand and address these emerging issues. Examples of emerging issues relevant to construction safety and health are described. These include: (a) climate change and energy considerations; (b) green construction developments and opportunities; (c) new materials; (d) changes in industry structure and practice; (e) workforce developments and disparities; (f) injury underreporting and cost and risk shifting; and (g) increased interest in addressing root causes. Responding to emerging issues while maintaining a focus on fundamental longstanding issues represents an ongoing challenge for researchers and industry organizations. Additional research to understand the diffusion and adoption of research by the industry is also needed. Research accomplished to date provides a strong foundation for addressing future industry needs and trends.     

The Importance of Participatory Virtues in the Future of Environmental Education

Participatory approaches to environmental decision making and assessment continue to grow in academic and policy circles. Improving how we understand the structure of deliberative activities is especially important for addressing problems in natural resources, climate change, and food systems that have wicked dimensions, such as deep value disagreements, high degrees of uncertainty, catastrophic risks, and high costs associated with errors. Yet getting the structure right is not the only important task at hand. Indeed, participatory activities can break down and fail to achieve their specific goals when some of the deliberators lack what we will call participatory virtues. We will argue for the importance of future research on how environmental education can incorporate participatory virtues to equip future citizens with the virtues they will need to deliberate about wicked, environmental problems. What is the role of education for deliberative skills and virtues relative to other aspects of environmental education, such as facts and values education? How important is it relative to careful design of the deliberative process? What virtues really matter?     

Concurrent and Complete Anaerobic Reduction and Microaerophilic Degradation of Mono‐, Di‐, and Trichlorobenzenes

Bio‐Trap^®–based in situ microcosm studies were conducted to evaluate EHC‐M^® stimulated degradation of mono‐, di‐, and trichlorobenzenes in anaerobic groundwater at a site in Michigan. The data show that the EHC‐M^® amendment stimulated an overall increase in microbial activity and a shift in the microbial community structure, indicating more reduced conditions. Stable isotope probing with ¹³C₆‐chlorobenzene demonstrated attenuation of chlorobenzene and subsequent separation and characterization of the ¹²C‐ and ¹³C‐deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) fractions were used to identify the attenuating microbes. These data clearly show the participation of an obligate aerobe in the chlorobenzene biodegradation process. Decreases in concentrations of trichlorobenzenes were also observed in comparison to a control. Due to the thermodynamically favorable reducing conditions stimulated by EHC‐M^®, the mechanism of degradation of the trichlorobenzenes is presumed to be reductive dehalogenation. However, on the strength of the DNA‐based analysis of microbial community structure, concurrent microaerophilic degradation of chlorobenzene or its metabolites was definitively demonstrated and cannot be ruled out for the other chlorobenzenes. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Relationship of Hydrocarbons to Oxidants in Ambient Atmospheres

The relation of ambient levels of hydrocarbons to the products of atmospheric photochemistry has proved to be an elusive problem. Models to account for the photochemical processes are available based on laboratory examination of simulated atmospheres. Likewise, dispersion models are available which, for nonreacting species, can predict air quality given knowledge of emission rates and meteorological variables. However, integration of the dispersion model with the photochemical model is as yet an unsolved problem. In this study an empirical approach was applied in which the only assumption made was that there exists a relationship between early morning average hydrocarbon concentrations and subsequent maximum hourly average oxidant concentrations. A direct examination of all available days in several cities shows that, at any given hydrocarbon level, there exists a limit on the amount of oxidant which can be generated. Specifically it shows that the average 6:00–9:00 A.M. concentration of 0.3 ppm C nonmethane hydrocarbon can be expected to produce a maximum hourly average oxidant concentration of up to 0.1 ppm.     

The Epa Program to Assess the Public Health Significance of Diesel Emissions

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's program to assess the public health significance of diesel emissions is described. The reasons for the EPA concern over diesel exhaust products are discussed. Some results of EPA research efforts over the last nine months are summarized and preliminary conclusions are drawn. Finally, the planned future health experiments which will hopefully fill some remaining gaps in our knowledge are identified.