Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in surface sediments from drinking water sources of Taihu Lake, China: sources, partitioning and toxicological risk

Sources, partitioning and toxicological risk of 15 priority polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in surface sediments from drinking water sources of Taihu Lake, with an area of 2428 km(2) located in the most developed and populated area of China, were studied, and the results were compared with those in other lakes of China and the USA. Concentrations of the 15 PAHs in sediments ranged from 436.6 to 1334.9 ng g(-1) (dw). Gasoline combustion, coal combustion, diesel combustion from shipping and spillage of petroleum were apportioned to be the main sources of PAHs in this area by principal component analysis, which contributed 35.19%, 26.43%, 25.41% and 12.97% to the PAH sources estimated by further multiple linear regression. Levels of PAHs in sediments were negatively correlated with contents of clay and fine silt (<16 μm), while positively with contents of medium silt, coarse silt and sand (>16 μm). Humin with size larger than 16 μm contained the largest part of the burden of PAHs in sediments, but the specific partitioning domain (bound humic acid, lipid or insoluble residue) depended on properties of organic matter reflected by optical absorbance at 465 and 665 nm. Total toxic benzo[a]pyrene equivalent (TEQ(carc)) of the carcinogenic PAHs in sediments varied from 31.8 to 209.3 ngTEQ(carc) g(-1). Benzo[a]pyrene and dibenzo[a,h]anthracene contributed 45.36 and 25.31% to total TEQ(carc), posing high toxicological risk to this area.     

水稻基因类型与生长环境对精米中砷积累的影响

砷(As)是动植物非必需的有毒类金属。水稻是对As有较强吸收和富集能力的大宗粮食作物,大米的食用是我国及东南亚地区人体暴露As的最主要途径,严重威胁人体健康。水稻籽粒中As的积累与水稻的基因型及众多环境因子密切相关,而且表现出复杂的交互作用。在浙江省选择了不同土壤砷背景值的5块水稻田,同时在嘉兴市农科院布置了人工添加As的盆栽实验,比较了20个水稻品种在这6个实验点的精米中As含量。结果表明,水稻基因型与环境及其相互作用对水稻籽粒中As的积累均有极显著影响,并且筛选得到了5个精米中As含量较低的基因型:秀水128、秀水09、秀水134、甬粳16和Y-05-8。     

The abatement of major pollutants in air and water by environmental catalysis

This review reports the research progress in the abatement of major pollutants in air and water by environmental catalysis. For air pollution control, the selective catalytic reduction of NO _x (SCR) by ammonia and hydrocarbons on metal oxide and zeolite catalysts are reviewed and discussed, as is the removal of Hg from flue gas by catalysis. The oxidation of Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by photo- and thermal-catalysis for indoor air quality improvement is reviewed. For wastewater treatment, the catalytic elimination of inorganic and organic pollutants in wastewater is presented. In addition, the mechanism for the procedure of abatement of air and water pollutants by catalysis is discussed in this review. Finally, a research orientation on environment catalysis for the treatment of air pollutants and wastewater is proposed.     

The effect of preparation conditions of Pt/Al2O3 on its catalytic performance for the H2-SCR in the presence of oxygen

Selective catalytic reduction of NO _x by H₂ in the presence of oxygen has been investigated over Pt/ Al₂O₃ catalysts pre-treated under different conditions. Catalyst preparation conditions exert significant influence on the catalytic performance, and the catalyst pre-treated by H₂ or H₂ then followed by O₂ is much more active than that pre-treated by air. The higher surface area and the presence of metallic Pt over Pt/Al₂O₃ pre-treated by H₂ or pretreated by H₂ then followed by O₂ can contribute to the formation of NO₂, which then promotes the reaction to proceed at low temperatures.     

缺氧对贝类的胁迫效应及对其免疫系统的影响

基于缺氧对贝类养殖的危害,从贝类免疫系统角度总结了近年来围绕缺氧胁迫对其细胞免疫和体液免疫系统的相关因子影响的研究。从缺氧对与细胞免疫功能相关的血细胞总数(THC)、吞噬活性和细胞活性氧(ROS)含量、以及参与体液免疫的溶酶体酶、抗氧化物酶、抗氧化因子、酚氧化酶等多种免疫因子的影响,概括了缺氧对贝类免疫系统影响的一般规律。本文不仅能为衡量贝类所在水域的环境变化提供科学依据,还能为围绕贝类在缺氧胁迫下生理适应性机制的相关研究奠定基础。     

A GIS-based moving window analysis of landscape pattern in the Beijing metropolitan area,China

Quantifying landscape pattern and its change is essential for monitoring and assessment of ecological consequences of urbanization. Using the GIS-based land-use data for 2002, we combined moving window analysis along an urban-rural gradient and around the urban centre with landscape metrics to quantify the spatial pattern of urbanization in Beijing. The results of moving window analysis along the urban-rural gradient indicated that, for class-level metrics, the spatial pattern of urbanization could be quantified using landscape metrics, different land-use types exhibited distinctive spatial signatures, and, for landscape-level metrics, the increase in urbanization in the metropolitan Beijing region has resulted in dramatic increases in patch density (PD), edge density (ED), and patch and landscape shape complexity, and sharp decreases in the largest and mean patch size (MPS), agriculture land-use type, and landscape connectivity. The results of moving window analysis around the urban centre showed that the direction of urbanization could be quantified using the class-level metrics, and landscape-level metrics indicated similar results to gradient analysis. In general, moving window analysis showed that the increasingly urbanized landscape became compositionally more diverse, geometrically more complex, and ecologically more fragmented.     

Structural regulation of electroplating sludge by a metal–organic framework synthesis method for an enhanced denitrification activity

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - Electroplating sludge contained multi-metals and organics. In previous reports, electroplating sludges were usually recycled by direct calcination...     

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%.     

Robust Regression with Data-Dependent Regularization Parameters and Autoregressive Temporal Correlations

We introduce robust procedures for analyzing water quality data collected over time. One challenging task in analyzing such data is how to achieve robustness in presence of outliers while maintaining high estimation efficiency so that we can draw valid conclusions and provide useful advices in water management. The robust approach requires specification of a loss function such as the Huber, Tukey’s bisquare and the exponential loss function, and an associated tuning parameter determining the extent of robustness needed. High robustness is at the cost of efficiency loss in parameter loss. To this end, we propose a data-driven method which leads to more efficient parameter estimation. This data-dependent approach allows us to choose a regularization (tuning) parameter that depends on the proportion of “outliers” in the data so that estimation efficiency is maximized. We illustrate the proposed methods using a study on ammonium nitrogen concentrations from two sites in the Huaihe River in China, where the interest is in quantifying the trend in the most recent years while accounting for possible temporal correlations and “irregular” observations in earlier years.     

江苏省水质全要素代表性监测体系的设计

为了评价并进行城市水环境质量考核排名,介绍了江苏省组织开展涵盖地表水、饮用水、地下水、近岸海域和城市内河5种类型"全要素、代表性"水质监测断面(点位)体系建设工作的情况以及全要素断面设置的基本原则和做法。分苏南、苏北、苏中3个区域,对全省地表水监测代表性进行了量化计算,结果表明,调整后全省水质综合指数极差从41.07降至7.17,标准差从3.16降为0.49;采用德尔斐层次分析法分析,设计了水质代表性指数,含1项一级指标、5项二级指标、12项三级指标,计算表明,调整前全省水质代表性指数得分为69.1分,调整后为88.7分。将调整结果进行论证后再与各市环保主管部门交换意见,取得最终一致后正式实施。