Abstract About half of the world's population now lives in urban areas because of the opportunity for a better quality of life. Many of these urban centers are expanding rapidly, leading to the growth of megacities, which are often defined as metropolitan areas with populations exceeding 10 million inhabitants. These concentrations of people and activity are exerting increasing stress on the natural environment, with impacts at urban, regional and global levels. In recent decades, air pollution has become one of the most important problems of megacities. Initially, the main air pollutants of concern were sulfur compounds, which were generated mostly by burning coal. Today, photochemical smog—induced primarily from traffic, but also from industrial activities, power generation, and solvents—has become the main source of concern for air quality, while sulfur is still a major problem in many cities of the developing world. Air pollution has serious impacts on public health, causes urban and regional haze, and has the potential to contribute significantly to global climate change. Yet, with appropriate planning megacities can efficiently address their air quality problems through measures such as application of new emission control technologies and development of mass transit systems. This review is focused on nine urban centers, chosen as case studies to assess air quality from distinct perspectives: from cities in the industrialized nations to cities in the developing world. This review considers not only megacities, but also urban centers with somewhat smaller populations, for while each city—its problems, resources, and outlook—is unique, the need for a holistic approach to complex environmental problems is the same. There is no single strategy to reduce air pollution in megacities; a mix of policy measures will be needed to improve air quality. Experience shows that strong political will coupled with public dialogue is essential to effectively implement the regulations required to address air quality. 相似文献
Environmental magnetic proxies provide a rapid means of assessing the degree of industrial heavy metal pollution in soils and sediments. To test the efficiency of magnetic methods for detecting contaminates from a Fe-smelting plant in Loudi City, Hunan Province (China) we investigated river sediments from Lianshui River. Both magnetic and non-magnetic (microscopic, chemical and statistical) methods were used to characterize these sediments. Anthropogenic heavy metals coexist with coarse-grained magnetic spherules. It can be demonstrated that the Pollution Load Index of industrial heavy metals (Fe, V, Cr, Mo, Zn, Pb, Cd, Cu) and the logarithm of saturation isothermal remanent magnetization, a proxy for magnetic concentration, are significantly correlated. The distribution heavy metal pollution in the Lianshui River is controlled by surface water transport and deposition. Our findings demonstrate that magnetic methods have a useful and practical application for detecting and mapping pollution in and around modern industrial cities. 相似文献
One hundred Cu-resistant-endophytic bacteria were isolated from Cu-tolerant plants grown on Cu mine wasteland, of which, eight Cu-resistant and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) deaminase-producing endophytic bacteria were obtained based on the ACC deaminase activity of the bacteria and characterized with respect to metal resistance, production of ACC deaminase, indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) as well as siderophores and mineral phosphate solubilization. Ralstonia sp. J1-22-2, Pantoea agglomerans Jp3-3, and Pseudomonas thivervalensis Y1-3-9 with higher ACC deaminase activity (ranging from 213 to 370 μM α-ketobutyrate mg(-1)h(-1)) were evaluated for promoting plant growth and Cu uptake of rape grown in quartz sand containing 0, 2.5, and 5 mg kg(-1) of Cu in pot experiments. The eight bacteria were found to exhibit different multiple heavy metal resistance characteristics, to show different levels of ACC deaminase activity and to produce indole acetic acid. Seven bacteria produced siderophores and solubilized inorganic phosphate. Pot experiments showed that inoculation with the strains (J1-22-2, Jp3-3, and Y1-3-9) was found to increase the biomass of rape. Increases in above-ground tissue Cu contents of rape cultivated in 2.5 and 5 mg kg(-1) of Cu-contaminated substrates varied from 9% to 31% and from 3 to 4-fold respectively in inoculated-rape plants compared to the uninoculated control. The maximum Cu uptake of rape was observed after inoculation with P. agglomerans Jp3-3. The results show that metal-resistant and plant growth promoting endophytic bacteria play an important role in plant growth and Cu uptake which may provide a new endophytic bacterial-assisted phytoremediation of Cu-contaminated environment. 相似文献
Sampling and handling artifacts can bias filter-based measurements of particulate organic carbon (OC). Several measurement-based methods for OC artifact reduction and/or estimation are currently used in research-grade field studies. OC frequently is not artifact-corrected in large routine sampling networks (e.g., U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s Chemical Speciation Network). In some cases, the OC artifact has been corrected using a regression method (RM) for artifact estimation. In this method, the gamma-intercept of the regression of the OC concentration on the fine particle (PM2.5) mass concentration is taken to be an estimate of the average OC sampling artifact (net of positive and negative artifacts). This paper discusses options for artifact correction in large routine sampling networks. Specifically, the goals are to (1) articulate the assumptions and limitations inherent to the RM, (2) describe other artifact correction approaches, and (3) suggest a cost-effective method for artifact correction in large monitoring networks. The RM assumes a linear relationship between measured OC and PM mass: a constant slope (OC mass fraction) and a constant intercept (RM artifact estimate). These assumptions are not always valid. Additionally, outliers and other individual data points can have a large influence on the RM artifact estimates. The RM yields results within the range of measurement-based methods for some datasets and not for others. Given that the adsorption of organic gases increases with atmospheric concentrations of organics, subtraction of an average artifact from all samples (e.g., across multiple sites) will underestimate OC for lower-concentration samples (e.g., clean sites) and overestimate OC for higher-concentration samples (e.g., polluted sites). For relatively accurate, simple, and cost-effective artifact OC estimation in large networks, the authors suggest backup filter sampling on at least 10% of sampling days at all sites with artifact correction on a sample-by-sample basis as described herein. 相似文献
This study evaluated the hydrolysis and photolysis kinetics of pyraclostrobin in an aqueous solution using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography–photodiode array detection and identified the resulting metabolites of pyraclostrobin by hydrolysis and photolysis in paddy water using high-resolution mass spectrometry coupled with liquid chromatography. The effect of solution pH, metal ions and surfactants on the hydrolysis of pyraclostrobin was explored. The hydrolysis half-lives of pyraclostrobin were 23.1–115.5?days and were stable in buffer solution at pH 5.0. The degradation rate of pyraclostrobin in an aqueous solution under sunlight was slower than that under UV photolysis reaction. The half-lives of pyraclostrobin in a buffer solution at pH 5.0, 7.0, 9.0 and in paddy water were less than 12?h under the two light irradiation types. The metabolites of the two processes were identified and compared to further understand the mechanisms underlying hydrolysis and photolysis of pyraclostrobin in natural water. The extracted ions obtained from paddy water were automatically annotated by Compound Discoverer software with manual confirmation of their fragments. Two metabolites were detected and identified in the pyraclostrobin hydrolysis, whereas three metabolites were detected and identified in the photolysis in paddy water. 相似文献
Phthalates (PAEs) in drinking water sources such as the Yangtze River in developing countries had aroused widespread concern. Here, the water, suspended particulate matter (SPM), and sediment samples were collected from 15 sites in wet and dry seasons in Zhenjiang, for the determination of six PAEs (DMP, DEP, DIBP, DBP, DEHP, and DOP) using the solid-phase extraction (SPE) or ultrasonic extraction coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The total concentrations of six PAEs (Σ6PAEs) spanned a range of 2.65–39.31 μg L?1 in water, 1.97–34.10 μg g?1 in SPM, and 0.93–34.70 μg g?1 in sediment. The partition coefficients (Kd1) of PAEs in water and SPM phase ranged from 0.004 to 3.36 L g?1 in the wet season and from 0.12 to 2.84 L g?1 in the dry season. Kd2 of PAEs in water and sediment phase was 0.001–9.75 L g?1 in the wet season and 0.006–8.05 L g?1 in the dry season. The dominant PAEs were DIBP, DBP, and DEHP in water and SPM, DIBP, DEHP, and DOP in sediment. The concentration of DBP in water exceeded the China Surface Water Standard. The discharge of domestic sewage and industrial wastewater might be the main potential sources of PAEs. The risk quotient (RQ) method used for the risk assessment revealed that DBP (0.01 < RQ < 1) posed a medium risk, while DIBP and DEHP (RQ > 1) posed a high environmental risk in water, DIBP (RQ > 1) also showed a high risk in sediment.