Benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylenes in ambient air and Pinus sylvestris L. needles: a comparative study between Belgium, Hungary and Latvia

Concentrations of benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylenes (BTEX) in ambient air and in 1 yr old Pinus sylvestris pine needles were monitored along a busy road, petrol station and rural area of Belgium, Hungary and Latvia in a 1 yr period. To test P. sylvestris as a possible biomonitor for the BTEX concentrations, samples were taken in the four seasons. As the distribution of data was not normal, the level of pollution on different sites and seasons was compared and evaluated by non-parametric tests. The measured air concentrations did not differ significantly from one season to another throughout the year. There were, however, differences between sampling places. The C₂-alkylbenzene and toluene concentrations in the needles were similar in the autumn/winter and spring/summer periods but a significant decrease in their concentration was observed in every place between winter and spring. This effect was less obvious for toluene.     

Farmer knowledge and a priori risk analysis: pre-release evaluation of genetically modified Roundup Ready wheat across the Canadian prairies

Background, aim, and scope  

The controversy over the world’s first genetically modified (GM) wheat, Roundup Ready wheat (RRW), challenged the efficacy of ‘science-based’ risk assessment, largely because it excluded the public, particularly farmers, from meaningful input. Risk analysis, in contrast, is broader in orientation as it incorporates scientific data as well as socioeconomic, ethical, and legal concerns, and considers expert and lay input in decision-making. Local knowledge (LK) of farmers is experience-based and represents a rich and reliable source of information regarding the impacts associated with agricultural technology, thereby complementing the scientific data normally used in risk assessment. The overall goal of this study was to explore the role of farmer LK in the a priori risk analysis of RRW.     

Communicative diagnosis of cost-saving options for reducing nitrogen emission from pig finishing

Reducing nitrogen emission from livestock production is usually perceived as costly. Nevertheless, production process related measures addressing the transformation of input(s) into output(s) may result in a cost-saving reduction of nitrogen emission. This paper explores the separate and combined use of traditional key performance indicators and an environmentally adjusted Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to reveal firm-specific cost-saving mechanisms for pig-finishing farms. Traditional key performance indicators are easy to communicate but have shortcomings when assessing benchmarks for comparative farm analysis. The environmentally adjusted DEA decomposes both cost and environmental efficiencies into technical and allocative efficiency components, separating the physical production analysis from price and nutrient content information. DEA makes efficiency benchmarks and improvement paths explicit, but the practical value of such efficiency scores is low. This paper proposes to take advantage of both methods: concrete benchmarks and eligible improvement paths are assessed using frontier methods, while the decision variables that steer farmers towards changes are described in terms of traditional key performance indicators. This leads to an improved diagnosis that is easy to communicate to farmers and may therefore facilitate decision support. Our pig-finishing case study shows that farms can achieve economic-environmental win–win situations through improving technical, cost allocative and cost efficiencies, which are mainly driven by feed conversion. Less technical efficient farms are found to require a lower delivery weight in order to minimize costs, which shows the farm-specificity of economic-environmental improvement advice.     

Long-term consequences of non-intentional flows of substances: Modelling non-intentional flows of lead in the Dutch economic system and evaluating their environmental consequences

Substances may enter the economy and the environment through both intentional and non-intentional flows. These non-intentional flows, including the occurrence of substances as pollutants in mixed primary resources (metal ores, phosphate ores and fossil fuels) and their presence in re-used waste streams from intentional use may have environmental and economic consequences in terms of pollution and resource availability. On the one hand, these non-intentional flows may cause pollution problems. On the other hand, these flows have the potential to be a secondary source of substances.This article aims to quantify and model the non-intentional flows of lead, to evaluate their long-term environmental consequences, and compare these consequences to those of the intentional flows of lead. To meet this goal, the model combines all the sources of non-intentional flows of lead within one model, which also includes the intentional flows.Application of the model shows that the non-intentional flows of lead related to waste streams associated with intentional use are decreasing over time, due to the increased attention given to waste management. However, as contaminants in mixed primary resources application, lead flows are increasing as demand for these applications is increasing.