Do plant traits help to design green walls for urban air pollution control? A short review of scientific evidences and knowledge gaps

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - It is often claimed that green walls (GW) and living wall systems (LWS) have a positive effect on urban air pollution problems if their plants...     

Feather mercury levels in beached Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) in northern Argentina during the non-breeding season

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Mercury (Hg) is a great concern for marine environments. Bird feathers have been widely used to assess Hg pollution. In this study, we determine...     

Correction to: Keeping pace with forestry: Multi-scale conservation in a changing production forest matrix

Ambio - In the original published article, the sentence “Nevertheless, semi-natural forest remnants continue to be harvested and fragmented (Svensson et al. 2018; Jonsson et al. 2019), and...     

Biomass yield and carbon abatement potential of banana crops (Musa spp.) in Ecuador

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Banana is one of the most important agricultural products of Ecuador. It relies on intensive monoculture cropping systems with a large volume of...     

The use of Odonata species for environmental assessment: a meta-analysis for the Neotropical region

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The order Odonata has been regularly used as an indicator of the ecosystem’s condition. The objective of this review was to analyze the...     

Alternative methods for the pilot-scale production and characterization of chitosan nanoparticles

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This work describes the production/characterization of low molar mass chitosan nanoparticles derived from waste shrimp shells (SSC), as well as from a...     

Evidence of reproductive disturbance in Astyanax lacustris (Teleostei: Characiformes) from the Doce River after the collapse of the Fundão Dam in Mariana,Brazil

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The Fundão Dam collapsed, on November 5th, 2015, dumping more than 50 million/m3 of iron ore tailings, enriched with metals, into the Doce River...     

Ecotoxicology of alpine streams in the West Carpathians—Alpine Bullhead (Cottus poecilopus) and high mountain flash flood effects

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Flash floods represent a serious threat to wildlife, water biota, and human life in pre-alpine regions, particularly in recent historical memory. The...     

Legacy and alternative halogenated flame retardants in Lake Geneva fish

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Legacy (i.e., polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD)) and alternative halogenated flame retardants (HFRs) were...     

The photocatalytic disinfection of urban waste waters

In this paper we present the results of the photocatalytic disinfection of urban waste water. Two microbial groups, total coliforms and Streptococcus faecalis, have been used as indexes to test disinfection efficiencies. Different experimental parameters have been checked, such as the effect of TiO2, solar or UV-lamp light and pH. Disinfection of water samples has been achieved employing both UV-lamp and solar light in agreement with data shown by other authors. The higher disinfection rates obtained employing an UV-lamp may be explained by the stronger incident light intensity. Nevertheless no consistent differences have been found between TiO2-photocatalysis and direct solar or UV-lamp light irradiation at natural sample pH (7.8). At pH 5 the presence of TiO2 increases the relative inactivation rate compared with the absence of the catalyst. After the photocatalytic bacterial inactivation, the later bacterial reappearance was checked for total coliforms at natural pH and pH 5, with and without TiO2. Two h after the photocatalytic treatment, CFU increment was almost nill. But 24 and 48 h later an important bacterial CFU increment was observed. This CFU increment is slower after irradiation with TiO2 at pH 5 in non-air-purged samples.