Characterization and assessment of “Kullar Domestic Wastewater Treatment Plant” wastewaters

We investigated conventional characterization of wastewaters of the "Kullar Domestic Wastewater Treatment Plant." In the study of conventional characterization; 23 composite samples, which were taken during 10 months, were used and analysed as COD, BOD5, TKN, NH3-N, SS, VSS, TP, RP, TS, Alkalinity, oil and grease, detergent, chloride parameters. For determine of the plant efficiency, 8 output grab samples were taken. The COD and BOD5 values of influent, respectively, ranging from 37 to 1,056 mg/L and 8 to 140 mg/L in total wastewater. The meanly BOD5/COD ratio was calculated as 0.34 in total wastewaters.     

Monitoring the impacts of urbanization and industrialization on the agricultural land and environment of the Torbali, Izmir region, Turkey

The aim of this research is to determine agricultural land loss and environmental pollution caused by industrialization and urban sprawl using the Geographical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing technique (RS). Remotely sensed data is the most powerful tool for monitoring land use changes and GIS is the best way to store and reproduce various kinds of integrated data. Considering the rapid increase of population the loss of fertile agricultural soils is a very dangerous situation for the future of the country. Thus, people are living in the cities in (with adverse) conditions of insufficient drinking water, infrastructure problems, inadequate landscape and many unsolved (extreme) environmental problems. During the last 36 years, unplanned urbanization and industrialization have led to the use of agricultural areas for non-agricultural purposes in the Torbali (Izmir) region, which has the most fertile soils of the Aegean Region. Within this study, a database was created on the parameters of land loss and environmental pollution by means of field observation, interpretation of satellite images (ASTER), aerial photos(1/25.000 scale), topographic map ,soil map, and 1/5.000 scale cadastral map. Results of previous researches and the archives of Torbali municipality were used as ancillary data. In the research, urbanization and industrialization of the town was studied by (using) GIS and RS between 1965 and 2001. Since 1965, 4.742.357 m² agricultural land, mostly of first and second land use capability classes, has been lost due to unplanned urban and industrial developments. Urbanization and industrialization involved an area of which 58% was being used as irrigated lands, 25 % rain feed (rain fed lands)and 17 % for olive growing.     

Environmental effects of maritime traffic on the İstanbul Strait

The Istanbul Strait, which separates the European and the Asian parts of Istanbul, is one of the narrowest straits in the world that is used for international shipping. The Strait has very special ecological conditions in terms of marine environment (atmospheric/oceanographic conditions, plant and animal diversity) and terrestrial environment. It also has roles as biological corridor and biological barrier between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea and form an acclimatization zone for migrating species. Due to being the only maritime access for the neighboring Black Sea states and the Central Asian Turki Republics, the Istanbul Strait has been exposed to dense marine traffic for centuries and substantial increase has occurred in size and tonnage of the ships passing through the Strait with hazardous cargo varieties and amounts they carry. Increase in the number of vessels that navigates on the Strait and being on the transportation way of hazardous and dangerous materials pose serious environmental and safety hazards for the Istanbul Strait, Marmara Sea and the surrounding residential areas. Geographic and oceanographic features of the Istanbul Strait makes the navigation on the Strait rather difficult and consequently the Strait has faced many casualties that caused severe environmental problems due to thousands tons of oil spill occurring in recent decades.     

Distributions of 210Pb around a uraniferous coal-fired power plant in Western Turkey

In the present study the spatial and the vertical distributions of 210Pb were investigated in the soils around a uranifereous coal fired power plant (CPP) in Yatagan Basin, in Western Turkey. The variation of 226Ra activity along the soil profiles was studied to assess the unsupported 210Pb distribution in the same samples. 226Ra was measured by gamma spectroscopy and 210Pb activities were determined from 210Po activities using radiochemical deposition and alpha spectroscopy. The total 210Pb activity concentrations in bulk core samples varied in the range of 38-250 Bq kg(-1) in the study sites and of 22-78 Bq kg(-1) in reference site. In the sectioned cores sampled from the study areas the ranges for activity concentrations of 226Ra, total 210Pb and unsupported 210Pb are 24-77; 39-344 and 4-313 Bq kg(-1), respectively. Corresponding ranges for reference site are 37-39; 39-122 and 1-83 Bq kg(-1).     

Evaluation of different wastewater treatment techniques in three WWTPs in Istanbul for the removal of selected EDCs in liquid phase

Endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs) are exogenous substances that cause adverse health effects in an intact organism, or its progeny, subsequent to the changes in endocrine function. Recent studies have shown that wastewater treatment plant effluents play an important role in the release of EDCs into aquatic environments. Therefore, in this study, influent and effluent samples from three different wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Istanbul were analysed for the presence of the principal EDCs. These chemicals include steroids and synthetic organic chemicals. Thus, the occurrence and fate of EDCs of great health concern were monitored at three WWTPs in Istanbul. Furthermore, these WWTPs are employing different treatment processes. Therefore, the EDC removal performances of different treatment regimes were also evaluated. Phytosterol was the most abundant EDC in the influent samples. Second group of compounds at high influent levels were alkyl phenols. Pesticide levels of all three WWTP influent samples were low. Pasakoy Advanced WWTP is more effective at eliminating EDCs. Kadikoy Primary WWTP exhibits the lowest EDC elimination efficiencies. To the best of our knowledge, this work comprises the first detailed report on the occurrence and behaviour of both natural and synthetic EDCs in WWTPs of Istanbul and Turkey. The steroid estrogen levels of this study are higher than the previously documented values, except the levels given for Gaobeidian WWTP in Beijing, China. This is attributed to higher population densities of Beijing and Istanbul and as well as to lower individual water consumption rates in the two cities.     

Analysis of terrains suitable for tourism and recreation by using geographic information system (GIS)

The use and utilization areas of geographic information system (GIS) increase every day due to both enabling easiness in storing, updating, grouping, analyzing, correlating, and mapping of data about evaluation factors in planning studies and having quite low error margin depending on the accuracy of data stored. In fact, GIS is also used both in visualization and in various analyses in planning tourism terrains. In this study, the effectiveness of GIS on holistic evaluation of natural and cultural resources in planning tourism terrains was analyzed. Natural and cultural resources in Kayseri Yahyal? were quantified by using ArcGIS 9.3 software from GIS software; data were analyzed and potential tourism and recreation terrains, level of suitability, and rate of coverage were determined. As a result of the analyses, it was determined that 11.847 ha area (6,53 %) was quite suitable for such kind of activities, 103.010 ha (56,77 %) was suitable, 39.278 ha (21,65 %) was less suitable, and 27.314 ha area (15,05 %) was not suitable. In the next stage, landscape properties which are suitable for tourism and recreation were evaluated and landscape types were classified in the sense of their tourist attraction. It was determined that the water resources and valley landscapes were the basic sources of the tourism and recreation activities of Yahyal?, and it was determined that the landscape of the forest and mountain was important for variety of the tourism and recreation activities of Yahyal?.     

Characterization and validation of a Portuguese natural reference soil to be used as substrate for ecotoxicological purposes

This study describes the first attempt to validate a Portuguese natural soil (PTRS1) to be used as reference soil for ecotoxicological purposes, aimed to both: (i) obtain ecotoxicological data for the derivation of Soil Screening Values (SSVs) with regional relevance, acting as a substrate to be spiked with ranges of concentrations of the chemicals under evaluation and (ii) act as control and as substrate for the dilution of contaminated soils in ecotoxicological assays performed to evaluate the ecotoxicity of contaminated soils, in tier 2 of risk assessment frameworks, applied to contaminated lands. The PTRS1 is a cambisol from a granitic area integrated in the Central Iberian Zone. After chemical characterization of the soil in terms of pseudo-total metals, PAHs, PCBs and pesticide contents, it was possible to perceive that some metals (Ba, Be, Co, Cr and V) surpass the Dutch Target Values (Dtvs) corrected for the percentage of organic matter and clay of the PTRS1. Nevertheless, these metals displayed total concentrations below the background total concentrations described for Portuguese soils in general. The same was observed for aldrin, endosulfan I, endosulfan II, heptachlor epoxide, and heptachlor; however the Dtvs corrected become negligible. The performance of invertebrate and plant species, commonly used in standard ecotoxicological assays, was not compromised by both soil properties and soil metal contents. The results obtained suggest that the PTRS1 can be used as a natural reference soil in ecotoxicological assays carried out under the scope of ecological risk assessment.