The effects of land use changes on some soil properties in İndağı Mountain Pass – Çankırı, Turkey

Understanding spatial variability of dynamic soil attributes provides information for suitably using land and avoiding environmental degradation. In this paper, we examined five neighboring land use types in Indagi Mountain Pass - Cankiri, Turkey to spatially predict variability of the soil organic carbon (SOC), bulk density (BD), textural composition, and soil reaction (pH) as affected by land use changes. Plantation, recreational land, and cropland were the lands converted from the woodland and grassland which were original lands in the study area. Total of 578 disturbed and undisturbed soil samples were taken with irregular intervals from five sites and represented the depths of 0-10 and 10-20 cm. Soil pH and BD had the lower coefficient of variations (CV) while SOC had the highest value for topsoil. Clay content showed greater CV than silt and sand contents. The geostatistics indicated that the soil properties examined were spatially dependent to the different degrees and interpolations using kriging showed the dynamic relationships between soil properties and land use types. The topsoil spatial distribution of SOC highly reflected the changes in the land use types, and kriging anticipated significant decreases of SOC in the recreational land and cropland. Accordingly, BD varied depending on the land use types, and also, the topsoil spatial distribution of BD differed significantly from that of the subsoil. Generally, BD greatly decreased in places where the SOC was relatively higher except in the grassland where overgrazing was the more important factor than SOC to determine BD. The topsoil spatial distributions of clay, silt, and sand contents were rather similar to those of the subsoil. The cropland and grassland were located on the very fine textured soils whereas the woodland and plantation were on the coarse textured soils. Although it was observed a clear pattern for the spatial distributions of the clay and sand changing with land uses, this was not the case for the silt content, which was attributed to the differences of dynamic erosional processes in the area. The spatial distribution of the soil pH agreed with that of the clay content. Soils of the cropland and grassland with higher amounts of clay characteristically binding more cations and having higher buffering capacities had the greater pH values when compared to the soils of other land uses with higher amounts of sand naturally inclined to be washed from the base cations by the rainwater.     

An assessment of the quality of various bottled mineral water marketed in Turkey

Fifteen bottled mineral waters purchased at random all over Turkey were analyzed for their chemical composition by OPTIMA-2000 ICP-AES Perkin Elmer techniques. Results show a wide spread in the chemical specification of these mineral waters, with differences in chemical composition observed in the regions being due to the geological environment and the majority of bottled mineral waters exceeding the pH limit of Turkish drinking water standards. When the concentrations of elements are evaluated, it can readily be seen that generally there are three types of mineral water in Turkey. The concentrations of Al, B, Ba, Cd, Cu, Cr, Fe, Mn Pb and Zn in mineral water were compared with the limits established by the Turkish Standard for Natural Mineral Waters (Turkish Official Gazette 2004); water standards prepared by World Health Organization (2006) and the United States of America Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) drinking water standards (1993). Such a comparison shows that, except for Ba and Mn, the concentrations of the other heavy metals are lower than the limit of the US.EPA in Turkey. Some parameters examined were found to comprise strong correlations pair-wise.     

Profiling of environmental Legionella pneumophila strains by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA method isolated from geographically nearby buildings

Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila) which is also known as etiologic agent Legionnaires Disease lives in natural water and man made water systems. These bacteria belonging to Legionellaceae family are divided 15 serogroups. Phenotypical methods used for the identification of Legionella isolates are not very discriminatory. In this study we investigated genotypic features of eight L. pneumophila serogroup 1 and 18 L. pneumophila serogroup 2-14 strains isolated from different buildings in Istanbul by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) method. Eight L. pneumophila serogroup 1 strains (37.5%) were similar RAPD profile and they were isolated from buildings located in a short distance (about 500 m). Four L. pneumophila serogroup 2-14 strains (22%) were identical genotypically. Three of these strains were isolated from buildings located in a short distance.     

Determination of organochlorine pesticide concentrations in flathead mullet (Mugil cephalus) caught from the western Black Sea coast of Turkey

The objective of this study was to determine the levels of 14 organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in flathead mullet (Mugil cephalus) caught from the western Black Sea coast of Turkey. The fish samples were caught from five different locations of the western Black Sea coast of Turkey in August 2009. Organochlorine pesticides were extracted from the liver tissues, and then the levels of OCPs were measured using gas chromatography with an electron capture detector. Organochlorine pesticides were detected in all locations. The levels of total OCPs in fish samples ranged between 0.224 and 1.103 μg g^?1 dry weight in the western Black Sea coast of Turkey. DDT, beta-HCH, and endosulfan I were the dominant OCPs in the fish samples. The levels of DDT in fish samples ranged between 0.081 and 0.186 μg g^?1 dry weight. The levels of total HCH in fish samples ranged between 0.007 and 0.376 μg g^?1 dry weight in the western Black Sea coast of Turkey. Although the usage of OCPs was banned in Turkey, the results of this study clearly indicated the presence of OCPs in the western Black Sea coast of Turkey and exposure of living organisms to these chemicals.     

Decomposition of NaBH4 with self-regeneration of carbon-supported CoCl2 catalyst

In this study, economically favorable CoCl₂ catalysts at four different amounts were supported on activated carbon (AC) for NaBH₄ dehydrogenation. Supported catalyst could achieve hydrogen release for 2,060 cycles, which is equivalent to 103 days of uninterrupted operation. Slow and continuous hydrogen release was observed in all experiments. Even 1 g of NaBH₄ can carry 1.2 L of hydrogen, and in hydrolysis process, it liberates 2.5 L of hydrogen that indicates the decomposition of water. EDX analysis and reverse burette measurements show that CoCl₂ could be homogeneously distributed on and permanently joined to the support surface. Kinetic investigation of the dehydrogenation reaction fits zero order kinetics, and activation energy was calculated to be 48 kJ/mol.     

Synthesis and characterization of antibacterial bio-nano films for food packaging

This study prepared antibacterial nanocomposite films for food packaging from Montmorillonite, which was modified by quaternary ammonium salts such as cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CT), hexadecyl-tributyl phosphonium bromide (HD) and corn starch (CS). After this, it determined the antimicrobial activity of CS nanofilms against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria. Dispersion of silicate layers and starch nanocomposite films was analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the results indicated that presence of quaternary ammonium salts enhanced clay dispersion, and the starch films incorporated with quaternary ammonium salts would provide potential use in food packaging as nanostructural materials. The nanofilms that were obtained based on the results of the antibacterial analysis were confirmed to have much stronger antibacterial properties than those in similar studies in the literature.     

Urban soil quality of Raipur,Chhattisgarh, India

Soil quality in urban areas in India is degraded due to multiple anthropogenic activities. The objectives of this work are to determine the concentration variations, toxicity, and sources of carbons, metals, and ions in the surface soil of Raipur, the industrialized capital city of Chhattisgarh state, India. High concentrations of Al, K, Ca, Ti, Fe, and elemental carbon (EC) were registered. Relatively lower concentrations of V, Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, Sr, Ba, Pb, organic carbon (OC), and carbonate carbon (CC), as well as ions (viz. F^–, Cl^–, NO₃^–, SO₄^2–, Na⁺, K⁺, Mg²⁺, and Ca²⁺), were also recorded. EC was found to be one of the major pollutants, although enrichment factors pointed to high contamination with SO₄^2–, K⁺, Mg²⁺_, Cr, Mn, and Pb; and extreme contamination with NO₃^– and Ca²⁺. The spatial and temporal variations, enrichment factors, toxicity, and sources of the chemical species detected in the soil are discussed.     

Metal Concentrations in Fish Species from the Northeast Mediterranean Sea

Samples of Mugil cephalus and Mullus barbatus were collected in the Northeast Mediterranean coast of Turkey the contents of cadmium, copper, iron, zinc and lead in the liver, gill and muscle tissues were determined by atomic absorption flame spectrophotometry.Except for lead, highest levels of each metal were found in the liver and this was followed by the gill and muscle in both species. Among the metals analyzed, Cu, Zn and Fe were the most abundant in the different tissues while Cd and Pb were the least abundant both in M. cephalus and M. barbatus. Seasonal changes in metal (Cd, Cu, Pb, Fe and Zn) concentration were observed in the tissues of both species, but these seasonal variations may not influence consumption advisories. In general, the highest concentrations were detected for all metals in summer.     

Surface Ozone Concentrations and its Relation to Wind Field in Istanbul

In this study, an assessment has been made on the wind speed; temperature and atmospheric pressure were analyzed by considering meteorological variables for selected high ozone cases. The Systems Applications International Meso-scale Model (SAIMM), a prognostic meteorological model was used to develop the 3-dimensional meteorological inputs to a chemical model. Meteorological conditions favorable for high ozone concentrations appear when Istanbul and the surrounding region is dominated by an anticyclonic pressure system. During the ozone favorabledays, south and southwesterly winds with low wind speed influence Istanbul. We presented wind field simulations for a case study in explaining the ozone formation mechanism over Istanbul.