Modelling built-up land take in Europe to 2020: an assessment of the Resource Efficiency Roadmap measure on land

Land taken by artificial surfaces has an impact on the quality of life and ecosystems. To reduce possible negative impacts of land take, the European Commission proposed setting a milestone objective for 2020 in terms of future rates of land take.

This paper describes a methodology to model the impacts of the 2020 land-take milestone proposed in the RERM in the European Union 27 MS. An integrated modelling framework was configured to assess the spatial impact of two land-take scenarios: a ‘Reference’ scenario, which is driven by demographic and economic trends, and a ‘Target 0’ scenario that follows the 2020 land-take milestone proposed in the RERM. We conclude that the implementation of the 2020 land-take milestone, by reducing future land take in Europe, will foster more efficient use of land (less land taken for the same activity levels) and minimise negative impacts on non-artificial land uses.     

Nitrogen source effects on soil nitrous oxide emissions from strip-till corn

Nitrogen (N) application to crops generally results in increased nitrous oxide (NO) emissions. Commercially available, enhanced-efficiency N fertilizers were evaluated for their potential to reduce NO emissions from a clay loam soil compared with conventionally used granular urea and urea-ammonium nitrate (UAN) fertilizers in an irrigated strip-till (ST) corn ( L.) production system. Enhanced-efficiency N fertilizers evaluated were a controlled-release, polymer-coated urea (ESN), stabilized urea, and UAN products containing nitrification and urease inhibitors (SuperU and UAN+AgrotainPlus), and UAN containing a slow-release N source (Nfusion). Each N source was surface-band applied (202 kg N ha) at corn emergence and watered into the soil the next day. A subsurface-band ESN treatment was included. Nitrous oxide fluxes were measured during two growing seasons using static, vented chambers and a gas chromatograph analyzer. All N sources had significantly lower growing season NO emissions than granular urea, with UAN+AgrotainPlus and UAN+Nfusion having lower emissions than UAN. Similar trends were observed when expressing NO emissions on a grain yield and N uptake basis. Loss of NO-N per kilogram of N applied was <0.8% for all N sources. Corn grain yields were not different among N sources but greater than treatments with no N applied. Selection of N fertilizer source can be a mitigation practice for reducing NO emissions in strip-till, irrigated corn in semiarid areas.     

Major shifts in Amazon wildlife populations from recent intensification of floods and drought

In the western Amazon Basin, recent intensification of river‐level cycles has increased flooding during the wet seasons and decreased precipitation during the dry season. Greater than normal floods occurred in 2009 and in all years from 2011 to 2015 during high‐water seasons, and a drought occurred during the 2010 low‐water season. During these years, we surveyed populations of terrestrial, arboreal, and aquatic wildlife in a seasonally flooded Amazonian forest in the Loreto region of Peru (99,780 km²) to study the effects of intensification of natural climatic fluctuations on wildlife populations and in turn effects on resource use by local people. Shifts in fish and terrestrial mammal populations occurred during consecutive years of high floods and the drought of 2010. As floods intensified, terrestrial mammal populations decreased by 95%. Fish, waterfowl, and otter (Pteronura brasiliensis) abundances increased during years of intensive floods, whereas river dolphin and caiman populations had stable abundances. Arboreal species, including, macaws, game birds, primates, felids, and other arboreal mammals had stable populations and were not affected directly by high floods. The drought of 2010 had the opposite effect: fish, waterfowl, and dolphin populations decreased, and populations of terrestrial and arboreal species remained stable. Ungulates and large rodents are important sources of food and income for local people, and large declines in these animals has shifted resource use of people living in the flooded forests away from hunting to a greater reliance on fish.     

Plastics and microplastics,effects on marine coastal areas: a review

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Plastics have become strong environmental stressors of coastal marine ecosystems. Their introduction into the marine ecosystem is subjected to...     

Statistical models for evaluating suspected artefacts in long-term environmental monitoring data

Long-term water quality monitoring is of high value for environmental management as well as for research. Artificial level shifts in time series due to method improvements, flaws in laboratory practices or changes in laboratory are a common limitation for analysis, which, however, are often ignored. Statistical estimation of such artefacts is complicated by the simultaneous existence of trends, seasonal variation and effects of other influencing factors, such as weather conditions. Here, we investigate the performance of generalised additive mixed models (GAMM) to simultaneously identify one or more artefacts associated with artificial level shifts, longitudinal effects related to temporal trends and seasonal variation, as well as to model the serial correlation structure of the data. In the same model, it is possible to estimate separate residual variances for different periods so as to identify if artefacts not only influence the mean level but also the dispersion of a series. Even with an appropriate statistical methodology, it is difficult to quantify artificial level shifts and make appropriate adjustments to the time series. The underlying temporal structure of the series is especially important. As long as there is no prominent underlying trend in the series, the shift estimates are rather stable and show less variation. If an artificial shift occurs during a slower downward or upward tendency, it is difficult to separate these two effects and shift estimates can be both biased and have large variation. In the case of a change in method or laboratory, we show that conducting the analyses with both methods in parallel strongly improves estimates of artefact effects on the time series, even if certain problems remain. Due to the difficulties of estimating artificial level shifts, posterior adjustment is problematic and can lead to time series that no longer can be used for trend analysis or other analysis based on the longitudinal structure of the series. Before carrying out a change in analytic method or laboratory, it should be considered if this is absolutely necessary. If changes cannot be avoided, the analysis of the two methods considered, or the two laboratories contracted, should be run in parallel for a considerable period of time so as to enable a good assessment of changes introduced to the data series.     

Effects of anthropogenic disturbance on primate density at the landscape scale

Accurate estimations of the abundance of threatened animal populations are required for assessment of species’ status and vulnerability and conservation planning. However, density estimation is usually difficult and resource demanding, so researchers often collect data at local scales. However, anthropogenic pressures most often have landscape-level effects, for example, through habitat loss and fragmentation. We applied hierarchical distance sampling (HDS) to transect count data to determine the effect of habitat and anthropogenic factors on the density of 3 arboreal primate species inhabiting 5 distinct tropical forests across a landscape of 19,000 km² in the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania. We developed a novel, multiregion extension of HDS that allowed us to model density and detectability jointly across forests without losing site-specific information. For all species, the effect of anthropogenic disturbance on density was overwhelmingly negative among metapopulations: −0.63 Angolan colobus (Colobus angolensis palliatus) (95% Bayesian CI −1.03 to −0.27), −0.54 Udzungwa red colobus (Procolobus gordonorum) (−0.89 to −0.22), and −0.33 Sykes' monkey (Cercopithecus mitis monoides) (−0.63 to −0.07). Some responses to habitat factors were shared, notably the negative effect of elevation and the positive effect of climber coverage. These results are important for conservation science and practice because: the among-populations negative responses to anthropogenic disturbance provides a foundation for development of conservation plans that hold at the landscape scale, which is a comprehensive and cost-efficient approach; the among-species consistency in responses suggests conservation measures may be generalized at the guild level, which is especially relevant given the functional importance of primates in tropical rainforests; and the greater primate densities in areas at low elevation, which are closer to human settlements, point to specific management recommendations, such as the creation of buffer zones and prioritization of areas for protection.     

Analysis of organophosphorus pesticides in whole milk by solid phase microextraction gas chromatography method

Solid phase microextraction (SPME) was used for the extraction of residual coumaphos and dichlorvos in whole milk. The residues were analyzed by capillary gas chromatography equipped with nitrogen phosphorus detector (GC-NPD). A manual SPME holder with a 100-microm polyacrylate fiber was used. The optimized conditions for extraction by SPME method were: sample agitation, absorption temperature of 30 degrees C, absorption time of 40 min, desorption time of 10 min, and sample volume was 16.0 mL in the vial. Under these conditions, the calibration graphs were linear in the range of 0.17 microgL-1 to 1.75 microgL-1 for coumaphos and 0.69 microgL-1 to 6.90 microgL-1 for dichlorvos. Precision was good with RSD values of 13% for coumaphos and 14% for dichlorvos. The detection limits (LOD) were 0.060 microgL-1 for dichlorvos and 0.052 for coumaphos. The quantification limits (LOQ) were 0.086 microgL-1 for dichlorvos and 0.066 microgL-1 for coumaphos. The results obtained in this study suggest that SPME is a suitable technique for residual pesticide analysis of milk. The data demonstrate that particular OP pesticides used in dairy farming in the region of Minas Gerais were found to contaminate cow whole milk, and the residues are not removed by treating the milk by boiling.     

An experiment in the electrokinetic removal of copper from soil contaminated by the brass industry

The feasibility of electrokinetic remediation of copper-contaminated soil was evaluated following eight days of electroreclamation. The results indicate that electrokinetic reclamation of Cu is totally ineffective in soil composed primarily of clay minerals and organic matter. The strong absorption of copper by this kind of soil, in our view mainly a result of retention by the clay component, makes it resistant to mobilization by the electrogenerated acidic front as well as by citrates (the competitors of natural chelating agents, i.e., humates). Such conditions, while adverse for the electroremediation process, may cause this kind of soil to act as a natural barrier to the leaching of copper ions.     

Determining the role of the method used to recycle polypropylene waste materials from automotive industry using sepiolite and zeolite fillers

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - In this work, the effectiveness of a rapid recycling method of waste polypropylene (WPP) with the addition of inorganic fillers was investigated....     

Effects of pH and manure on transport of sulfonamide antibiotics in soil

Sulfonamide antibiotics are a commonly used group of compounds in animal husbandry. They are excreted with manure, which is collected in a storage lagoon in certain types of confined animal feeding operations. Flood irrigation of forage fields with this liquid manure creates the potential risk of groundwater contamination in areas with shallow groundwater levels. We tested the hypothesis that-in addition to the soil characteristics-manure as cosolute and manure pH are two major parameters influencing sulfonamide transport in soils. Solute displacement experiments in repacked, saturated soil columns were performed with soil (loamy sand) and manure from a dairy farm in California. Breakthrough of nonreactive tracer and sulfadimethoxine, sulfamethazine, and sulfamethoxazole at different solution pH (5, 6.5, 8.5) with and without manure was modeled using Hydrus-1D to infer transport and reaction parameters. Tracer and sulfonamide breakthrough curves were well explained by a model concept based on physical nonequilibrium transport, equilibrium sorption, and first-order dissipation kinetics. Sorption of the antibiotics was low ( K? ≤ 0.7 L kg) and only weakly influenced by pH and manure. However, sulfonamide attenuation was significantly affected by both pH and manure. The mass recovery of sulfonamides decreased with decreasing pH, e.g., for sulfamethoxazole from 77 (pH 8.5) to 56% (pH 5). The sulfonamides were highly mobile under the studied conditions, but manure application increased their attenuation substantially. The observed attenuation was most likely caused by a combination of microbial transformation and irreversible sorption to the soil matrix.