Vorschl?ge zur Charakterisierung und quantifizierung pfadübergreifender Schadstoffexpositionen

Zusammenfassung  Um zu einer sachgerechten und nachvollziehbar quantifizierbaren Beurteilung der m?glichen Gesundheitsbelastungen des Menschen durch Schadstoffe zu gelangen, ist es von grundlegender Bedeutung dessen ?u?ere Schadstoffexposition absch?tzen zu k?nnen. Um die Durchführung derartiger Absch?tzungen zu erm?glichen, werden nutzergruppen- und expositionsszenariospezifisch orale, inhalative und dermale Aufnahmeraten für die Kontaktmedien Boden, Pflanzen aus Haus- und Schreberg?rten, Trinkwasser, Staub, Hausstaub und Innenraumluft vorgeschlagen. Diese Aufnahmeraten dienen, gemeinsam mit gemessenen oder berechneten Schadstoffkonzentrationen in den entsprechenden Kontaktmedien, zur Absch?tzung der von Menschen aufgenommenen Schadstoffdosen und erm?glichen durch einen Vergleich mit tolerierbaren Schadstoffdosen eine stoff-, nutzungs- und standortbezogene Beurteilung von Schadstoffexpositionen, auch für komplexe Nutzungen.      

Oil price scenarios and climate policy: welfare effects of including transportation in the EU emissions trading system

The stringency of policies needed to meet a climate target is influenced by uncertain oil prices because price changes cause emission changes, making the robustness of climate policy instruments important. As a result of its dependence on oil, emissions from the transport sector are particularly sensitive to oil price changes. We use a computable general equilibrium model to study the effects of including the transport sector in the EU??s emissions trading scheme under three future oil price scenarios. Our results show that there are potentially significant welfare gains from including transportation in the emissions trading scheme because the system as a whole helps absorb required changes in climate policy to meet the overall EU cap on emissions. There is, however, a cost in terms of somewhat greater permit price uncertainty.     

Raumbezug und Repräsentativität in der Ökologischen Flächenstichprobe

The quality of regionalizations can only be evaluated with regard to its specific purposes. In environmental monitoring, regionalizations, besides being an analysis tool, has a great importance on the selection of monitoring sites. The article describes the relationship between regionalization, selection procedure and representativeness using the example of Ecological Area Sampling (EAS) and presents the regionalization which was tested in an EAS pilot study.     

How to assess exposure of aquatic organisms to manufactured nanoparticles?

Ecological risk of chemicals is measured by the quotient of predicted no-effect concentrations and predicted exposure concentrations, which are hard to assess for manufactured nanomaterials (NMs). This paper proposes modifications to currently used models, in order to make them suitable for estimating exposure concentrations of NMs in the aquatic environment. We have evaluated the adequacy of the current guidance documents for use with NMs and conclude that nano-specific fate processes, such as sedimentation and dissolution need to be incorporated. We have reviewed the literature on sedimentation and dissolution of NMs in environmentally relevant systems. We deduce that the overall kinetics of water-sediment transport of NMs should be close to first order. The lack of data on dissolution of NMs under environmentally realistic conditions calls for a pragmatic decision on which rates to be used in modeling. We find that first order removal kinetics for dissolution seems adequate. Based on limited data from literature, probable removal rates range from 0 to 10(-4)s(-1) for sedimentation, and from 0 to 10(-5)s(-1) for dissolution. Further experimental data at environmentally relevant conditions for sedimentation and dissolution of NMs is needed.     

Reconnecting to the Biosphere

Humanity has emerged as a major force in the operation of the biosphere, with a significant imprint on the Earth System, challenging social-ecological resilience. This new situation calls for a fundamental shift in perspectives, world views, and institutions. Human development and progress must be reconnected to the capacity of the biosphere and essential ecosystem services to be sustained. Governance challenges include a highly interconnected and faster world, cascading social-ecological interactions and planetary boundaries that create vulnerabilities but also opportunities for social-ecological change and transformation. Tipping points and thresholds highlight the importance of understanding and managing resilience. New modes of flexible governance are emerging. A central challenge is to reconnect these efforts to the changing preconditions for societal development as active stewards of the Earth System. We suggest that the Millennium Development Goals need to be reframed in such a planetary stewardship context combined with a call for a new social contract on global sustainability. The ongoing mind shift in human relations with Earth and its boundaries provides exciting opportunities for societal development in collaboration with the biosphere--a global sustainability agenda for humanity.     

Sustainability or collapse: what can we learn from integrating the history of humans and the rest of nature?

Understanding the history of how humans have interacted with the rest of nature can help clarify the options for managing our increasingly interconnected global system. Simple, deterministic relationships between environmental stress and social change are inadequate. Extreme drought, for instance, triggered both social collapse and ingenious management of water through irrigation. Human responses to change, in turn, feed into climate and ecological systems, producing a complex web of multidirectional connections in time and space. Integrated records of the co-evolving human-environment system over millennia are needed to provide a basis for a deeper understanding of the present and for forecasting the future. This requires the major task of assembling and integrating regional and global historical, archaeological, and paleoenvironmental records. Humans cannot predict the future. But, if we can adequately understand the past, we can use that understanding to influence our decisions and to create a better, more sustainable and desirable future.     

Variation of Solar Attenuation with Height over an Urbanized Area

The information presented in this paper is directed to environmental scientists who are concerned about the quality of air over an urban area. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to show quantitatively the magnitude of solar attenuation for individual air layers in the lowest 1000 m of an urban atmosphere. This reveals dramatically the diverse variation of mass concentration with height. The information is useful in urban planning, in site selection, and in air quality control.

The data were gathered on different roof top levels and on helicopter flights using modified Volz sun photometers, psychrometers, hot-wire anemometers, and an electric thermometer. The results show that, for instance, on a "polluted" day the lowest 1000 m of air attenuate about 65% of the solar beam, whereas on a “clean” day the contribution to the total solar attenuation is still 30%. Shallow air layer increments of 45 m near the ground were found to contribute up to 21% to the total solar attenuation. Aerosols form the dominant attenuation component in polluted air layers near the ground, whereas the extinction due to air molecules becomes dominant in higher and relatively cleaner atmospheric air layers.

Significance tests show that turbidity variations with height over widely spaced locations are relatively homogeneous. This may indicate a rather uniform spread of the urban dust dome over the neighboring countryside. No significant change in the vertical turbidity structure was found between data collected in 1961–62 and 1969.

For an effective control of the ambient air quality, conclusive information on the lateral and vertical spread of pollution is necessary. Turbidimetric studies based on scattering theory can economically supply this information.     

Occurrence of antimicrobials in animal manure-amended soils around the breeding farms: The case of the Saigon River (southern Vietnam)

The excessive use of antimicrobials in animal rearing and the associated environmental hazards have become a pressing issue. Animal agriculture is often viewed as a significant contributor to environmental degradation due to the residues of antimicrobials. It is a common practice to use livestock waste as a soil enhancer in farming. Despite some research into antimicrobials, there is room for more comprehensive data regarding these pollutants in animal farming environments. A handful of earlier studies have identified antimicrobials in animal waste. This research undertook the task of examining and evaluating soils amended with animal waste (from chickens, cows, and pigs) for the presence of seven specific antimicrobials. The antimicrobials under scrutiny included trimethoprim (TRI), ormethoprim (ORM), ofloxacin (OFL), norfloxacin (NOR), tetracycline (TET), chlortetracycline (CTE), and tylosin (TLS). Soil samples were collected from areas surrounding breeding farms located upstream of the Sai Gon River. These samples were then subjected to laboratory analysis, which involved solid-phase extraction using ultrasonic waves and the application of high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LCMS/MS) to identify the antimicrobials. TRI, which had the highest average concentration (2.603–91.304 μg/kg), and OFL, with the second highest average concentration (1.815–15.832 μg/kg), were detected in all soil samples amended with manure. CTE, with the third highest average concentration, was found in soils amended with cow and pig waste (1.625–15.486 μg/kg). ORM and TE, with lower average concentrations (0.595–1.318 μ and 11.537–13.569 μg/kg, respectively), were only detected in soils amended with chicken waste, while NOR was only found in soils amended with cow waste. These findings indicate that the use of antimicrobials in animal farming can negatively impact the soil ecosystem. Consequently, these results can contribute to the creation of guidelines for monitoring antimicrobial residues in agricultural ecosystems.