Impacts of two best management practices on Pb weathering and leachability in shooting range soils

This study investigated the impacts of two best management practices (BMPs) recommended by US Environmental Protection Agency on Pb weathering and leachability in shooting range soils. The two BMPs included replacing soil berm with sand berm and periodically removing bullets or shot from a berm. A column experiment corresponding to the first BMP was conducted by mixing the bullets with sand/soil, or placing bullets on the surface of sand/soil. After a 16–18-week incubation under high or low rainfall simulations, total Pb concentrations in sand were lower than that in soil. Total leachable Pb in sand (8.48 and 5.52 μg?kg^?1) was also lower than that in soil (60.0 and 30.4 μg?kg^?1) when bullets were mixed with sand/soil; however, they were comparable when bullets were placed on the sand/soil surface. These results indicate that lower Pb concentration in the sand than in soil may be attributed to reduced weathering of bullets. Mechanical removal of Pb bullets in the field transferred Pb from large to finer particles, increasing total Pb in the soil (<2 mm) from 2,170 to 5,000 mg?kg^?1. In contrast, mechanical removal of Pb shot effectively reduced the shot in the soil by 86–92 %. Thus, we concluded that, while replacing soil berm with sand berm can slow down Pb weathering, it may increase Pb leachability in the long term. Removal of Pb bullets and Pb shot can be effective, but caution needs to be exercised to minimize the adverse impacts, especially in pistol/rifle ranges because of increased total Pb content in the soil.     

Remediation aspect of microbial changes of plant rhizosphere in mercury contaminated soil

Phytoremediation, an approach that uses plants to remediate contaminated soil through degradation, stabilization or accumulation, may provide an efficient solution to some mercury contamination problems. This paper presents growth chamber experiments that tested the ability of plant species to stabilize mercury in soil. Several indigenous herbaceous species and Salix viminalis were grown in soil collected from a mercury-contaminated site in southern Poland. The uptake and distribution of mercury by these plants were investigated, and the growth and vitality of the plants through a part of one vegetative cycle were assessed. The highest concentrations of mercury were found at the roots, but translocation to the aerial part also occurred. Most of the plant species tested displayed good growth on mercury contaminated soil and sustained a rich microbial population in the rhizosphere. The microbial populations of root-free soil and rhizosphere soil from all species were also examined. An inverse correlation between the number of sulfur amino acid decomposing bacteria and root mercury content was observed. These results indicate the potential for using some species of plants to treat mercury contaminated soil through stabilization rather than extraction. The present investigation proposes a practical cost-effective temporary solution for phytostabilization of soil with moderate mercury contamination as well as the basis for plant selection.     

A GIS-based Study for Optimizing the Total Emission Control Strategy in Lanzhou City

A geographic information system (GIS)-based approach with spatial analysis advantages was developed to optimize the total emission control scheme on air pollution in Lanzhou, combined with Models-3 modeling system and a linear programming model. GIS system is mainly used for establishing a multifactor assessment model to quantitatively divide environmental functional zone, and also used for selecting control sites in linear programming model. The results show that most of the urban area belongs to the second type of function, which is 122.8 km² occupying about 76.5% and the third type of about 32.9 km² occupying 20.5%. To reach the air quality up to the national standard in the entire control area, some large-emission factories need to cut emissions from 19% to 27%. For small but low-emission height sources, the cut may be as high 40%. The improvement of the ecological environment is urgently needed for controlling the background particle pollution in Lanzhou city.     

Probability of misclassifying biological elements in surface waters

Measurement uncertainties are inherent to assessment of biological indices of water bodies. The effect of these uncertainties on the probability of misclassification of ecological status is the subject of this paper. Four Monte-Carlo (M-C) models were applied to simulate the occurrence of random errors in the measurements of metrics corresponding to four biological elements of surface waters: macrophytes, phytoplankton, phytobenthos, and benthic macroinvertebrates. Long series of error-prone measurement values of these metrics, generated by M-C models, were used to identify cases in which values of any of the four biological indices lay outside of the “true” water body class, i.e., outside the class assigned from the actual physical measurements. Fraction of such cases in the M-C generated series was used to estimate the probability of misclassification. The method is particularly useful for estimating the probability of misclassification of the ecological status of surface water bodies in the case of short sequences of measurements of biological indices. The results of the Monte-Carlo simulations show a relatively high sensitivity of this probability to measurement errors of the river macrophyte index (MIR) and high robustness to measurement errors of the benthic macroinvertebrate index (MMI). The proposed method of using Monte-Carlo models to estimate the probability of misclassification has significant potential for assessing the uncertainty of water body status reported to the EC by the EU member countries according to WFD. The method can be readily applied also in risk assessment of water management decisions before adopting the status dependent corrective actions.     

利用悬浮填料附着生物膜同步去除碳氮磷

采用移动床生物膜反应器（MBBR）处理配制模拟废水,实验结果表明,水力停留时间为6h、悬浮填料填充率为40％时,在不同C／N／P比率条件下,MBBR对COD、NH4＋-N和TN去除性能好且稳定,平均去除率分别达到90％、94．8％和62．39％以上,而TP的去除率受C／N／P值影响较大,当C／N／P的比值为100／10／1．8时,平均去除率达到58．03％。一定的溶解氧（DO）质量浓度能保证反应器中COD、NH4-N高效稳定的去除,同时是TN和TP同时去除的重要影响因素,在MBBR中最佳DO值约为3mg／L。由于附着在悬浮填料生物膜内部存在厌氧、缺氧微环境条件,在反应器中存在少量的反硝化聚磷菌。     

Differences between carbon dioxide levels over suburban and rural sites in Northern Spain

Purpose  

A comparison between suburban and rural atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in Northern Spain is made.     

SBR中SRT对总细菌群落结构的影响研究

为了揭示序批式反应器不同污泥停留时间(SRT)下总细菌群落结构的异同及SRT变化对总细菌群落结构的影响,应用聚合酶链式反应-变性梯度凝胶电泳(PCR-DGGE)进行研究。通过克隆测序发现,不同的SRT条件下生物多样性和种群结构会有所差异,既存在各SRT条件下相同的优势菌群(Escherichia coli和Aeromonas sp.),也存在某些SRT下特有的优势菌群(Uncultured Peptostreptococcaceae),SRT为40 d时检测到以降解硫酸盐获得能源的优势微生物。研究还表明,SRT为40 d时多样性指数取得最大值,各SRT条件下微生物的种群相似性差别较大。     

鄂尔多斯气田泥浆池防渗层对有害物质的阻滞作用评价

随着天然气勘探开发速度的加快,鄂尔多斯气田井场废泥浆产生量越来越大,固化处理后将其填埋于有防渗层的泥浆池中是目前该区域最常用的方法,但国内外就气田井场泥浆池防渗层对池内污染物实际阻滞效果的研究报道较少。为研究上述处理方法的实际环境效应,以2010年盆地内正在开发气井井场泥浆池内预固化处理沉淀物的分析结果为参照,选择其中污染程度较为严重的石油类、COD、硫化物和砷、钡、镍、铅、铜4种为重点污染物,选择2005—2009年分别投入使用的5个气田井场废弃泥浆池为考察对象,分析研究了防渗层投运时间对不同污染物阻滞作用的影响。结果表明,投运1年的防渗层可阻留污染物90%以上,投运2年以上的防渗层对污染物的阻滞作用有不同程度下降,投运5年的防渗层对所监测污染物的阻滞作用最好的是钡(40.14%)、最差的为硫化物(10.89%),结合不同时间防渗层破损状况和其对污染物的阻滞效率的变化情况,说明机械刺穿和不均匀降是导致防渗层在研究区域的环境下阻滞功能退化较快的主要原因。     

Volatile Organic Compounds in Ambient Air at Four Residential Locations in Seoul, Korea

To investigate the environmental behavior of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in urban areas, their concentrations were measured at four urban monitoring sites (namely, N, S, E, and W) in Seoul, Korea (February to December 2009). A total of 27 compounds were quantified that consist of four chemical groups: aromatic (AR), halogenated aromatic, halogenated paraffin, and halogenated olefin. Results were evaluated by focusing on these four functional groups just mentioned and their summation term as total VOC (TVOC) along with several individual species (mainly AR species, that is, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene). The highest concentration of chemical groups was found from AR (71.1±42.1?ppbC), while that for individual species confirmed the dominance of toluene (7.48±3.88?ppb). The analysis of spatial distribution indicated that high TVOC levels were recorded at sites N and W, while it was not so significant such as S and E in terms of TVOC budget. Seasonal variation of these VOCs was characterized by the peak values in December to reflect the combined effects of pronounced source activities and meteorological conditions. Analysis of spatial variations in VOC levels between the four urban sites indicated that their distributions are tightly affected by local source processes in each area.