Assessing the impact of the Indian Ocean tsunami on households: a modified domestic assets index approach

This paper offers a potential measurement solution for assessing disaster impacts and subsequent recovery at the household level by using a modified domestic assets index (MDAI) approach. Assessment of the utility of the domestic assets index first proposed by Bates, Killian and Peacock (1984) has been confined to earthquake areas in the Americas and southern Europe. This paper modifies and extends the approach to the Indian sub‐continent and to coastal surge hazards utilizing data collected from 1,000 households impacted by the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004) in the Nagapattinam district of south‐eastern India. The analyses suggest that the MDAI scale is a reliable and valid measure of household living conditions and is useful in assessing disaster impacts and tracking recovery efforts over time. It can facilitate longitudinal studies, encourage cross‐cultural, cross‐national comparisons of disaster impacts and inform national and international donors of the itemized monetary losses from disasters at the household level.     

Evaluation of an activated carbon filter for the retention of selected pesticide vapours

Abstract

An activated charcoal bed unit (ACBU) was constructed using teflon stock. The unit duplicated the flow and bed design of a commercially available tractor mounted filter for removing pesticides from the air.

Eight pesticides (4 herbicides and 4 insecticides) were used to test the retention efficiency of ACBU over a 12–48 h period with the ACBU in place. Polyurethane foam (PUF) plugs in series trapped any residual pesticide that came through the ACBU.

The ACBU retained 93–100% of the pesticides tested. The unit thus provides an efficient mechanism for removing airborne pesticides.     

Effect of green network and emission tax on consumer choice under discrete continuous framework

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - The paper considers a discrete continuous model where consumers choose quality of the product they buy as well as its usage. The product has two quality...     

Preparation and characterization of bio-composite films obtained from coconut coir and groundnut shell for food packaging

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - A great deal of focus has been given to finding a bio-composite film to substitute petroleum-based synthetic plastic in recent years. Many animals...     

The measurement of fine particulate semivolatile material in urban aerosols

Ammonium nitrate and semivolatile organic material (SVOM) are significant components of fine particles in urban atmospheres. These components, however, are not properly determined with methods such as the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) Federal Reference Method (FRM) or other single filter samplers because of significant losses of semivolatile material (SVM) from particles collected on the filter during sampling. The R&P tapered element oscillating microbalance (TEOM) monitor also does not measure SVM, because this method heats the sample to remove particle bound water, which also results in evaporation of SVM. Recent advances in monitoring techniques have resulted in samplers for both integrated and continuous measurement of total PM2.5, including the particle concentrator-Brigham Young University organic sampling system (PC-BOSS), the real-time total ambient mass sampler (RAMS), and the R&P filter dynamics measurement system (FDMS) TEOM monitor. Results obtained using these samplers have been compared with those obtained with either a PM2.5 FRM sampler or a TEOM monitor in studies conducted during the past five years. These studies have shown the following: (1) the PC-BOSS, RAMS, and FDMS TEOM are all comparable. Each instrument measures both the nonvolatile material and the SVM. (2) The SVM is not retained on the heated filter of a regular TEOM monitor and is not measured by this sampling technique. (3) Much of the SVM is also lost during sampling from single filter samplers such as the PM2.5 FRM sampler. (4) The amount of SVM lost from single filter samplers can vary from less than one-third of that lost from heated TEOM filters during cold winter conditions to essentially all during warm summer conditions. (5) SVOM can only be reliably collected using an appropriate denuder sampler. (6) A PM2.5 speciation sampler can be easily modified to a denuder sampler with filters that can be analyzed for semivolatile organic carbon (OC), nonvolatile OC, and elemental carbon using existing OC/elemental carbon analytical techniques. The research upon which these statements are based for various urban studies are summarized in this paper.     

Environmental concentrations of agricultural herbicides in Saskatchewan, Canada: bromoxynil, dicamba, diclofop, MCPA, and trifluralin

Herbicides are the most commonly used group of agricultural pesticides on the Canadian Prairies and, in 1990, more than 20000 Mg of herbicides were applied in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The present paper reports on environmental concentrations of five herbicides currently used in the prairie region. The herbicides bromoxynil [3,5-dibromo-4-hydroxy-benzonitrile], dicamba [3,6-dichloro-o-anisic acid], diclofop [(RS)-2-[4-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy)-phenoxy]propanoic acid], MCPA [(4-chloro-2-methylphenoxy)acetic acid], and trifluralin [alpha,alpha,alpha-trifluoro-2,6-dinitro-N,N-isopropyl-p-toluidine] were measured in the atmosphere, bulk atmospheric deposits, surface film, and dugout (pond) water at two sites near Regina, Saskatchewan, during 1989 and 1990. All five herbicides were detected in air and surface film and all but trifluralin were detected in the bulk atmospheric deposits and dugout water. Trifluralin was most frequently detected in air (79% of samples) whereas bromoxynil was present in maximum concentration (4.2 ng m(-3)). MCPA was present in maximum levels in bulk atmospheric (wet plus dry) deposits (2350 ng m(-2) d(-1)), surface film (390 ng m(-2)), and dugout water (330 ng L(-1)), whereas dicamba was most frequently detected in surface film (47%) and dugout water (97%). The highest quantities of the herbicides tended to be present during or immediately after the time of regional application.     

Assessing the impact of irrigation treatments on thiram residual trends: Correspondence with numerical modelling and field-scale experiments

The present study was undertaken to study the trends of transport of thiram, a dithiocarbamate pesticide, at different time and depth in the fields under real field conditions for wheat crop. Numerical simulations were carried out by solving the coupled soil–water content movement and mass transport equations using HYDRUS- 1D. The supplementary data used for paramaterization of HYDRUS-1D comprise of irrigation treatments, climatic conditions, and soil characteristics. Results focus on the effects and influence of irrigation treatments on pesticide persistence and mobility. Modelling results were in good agreement with the experimentally determined thiram concentrations. Application of the model to measured field data of thiram movement indicates that the modelling approach can provide reliable and useful estimates of the mass flux of water and non-volatile pesticide in vadose zone. For policy-makers and planners, some regulation strategies are suggested for controlling inappropriate pesticide application under deficit irrigation or rain-fed conditions.     

Assessment of genotoxic effects of lead in occupationally exposed workers

The genotoxicological effects in 200 lead acid storage battery recycling and manufacturing industry workers in Hyderabad along with matched 200 controls were studied. The genetic damage was determined by comet, micronucleus (MN), and chromosomal aberration (CA) test in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL). The MN test was also carried out in buccal epithelial cells (BECs). Pb in ambient air, blood Pb (B-Pb) concentrations, and hematological parameters were measured. The superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and malondialdehyde (MDA) formed were also studied. The results of the present study showed that there was a statistically significant (P?P?GPx, and CAT levels were significantly decreased while GSH and MDA levels increased in exposed group when compared to control group. The present study suggests that environmental health standards should be enforced to control Pb contamination from battery industries to reduce human health risk.     

Residues of 2,4‐D in air samples from Saskatchewan: 1966–1975

Abstract

Residues of 2,4‐D (2,4‐dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) in air samples from several sampling sites in central and southern Saskatchewan during the spraying seasons in the 1966–68 and 1970–75 periods were determined by gas‐liquid Chromatographic techniques. Initially, individual esters of 2,4‐D were characterized by retention times and confirmed further by co‐injection and dual column procedures. Since 1973, however, only total 2,4‐D acid levels in air samples have been determined after esterification to the methyl ester and confirmed by gc/ms techniques whenever possible.

Up to 50% of the daily samples collected during the spraying season at any of the locations and during any given year contained 2,4‐D, with butyl esters being found most frequently. The daily 24‐hr mean atmospheric concentrations of 2,4‐D ranged from 0.01 to 1.22 μg/m³, 0.01 to 13.50 μg/m³, and 0.05 to 0.59 μg/m for the iso‐propyl, mixed butyl and iso‐octyl esters, respectively. Even when the samples were analysed for the total 2,4‐D content, i.e. from 1973 onwards, the maximum level of the total acid reached only 23.14 μg/m. In any given year and at any of the sampling sites, about 30% of the samples contained less than 0.01 μg/m³ of 2,4‐D. In another 40% of the samples, the levels of 2,4‐D ranged from 0.01 to 0.099 yg/m. Only about 30% of the samples contained 2,4‐D concentrations higher than 0.1 μg/m³, with only 10% or less exceeding 1 μg/m³.

None of the samples, obtained with the high volume particu‐late sampler, showed any detectable levels of 2,4‐D, indicating little or no transport of 2,4‐D adsorbed on dust particles or as crystals of amine salts.     

Comparative Toxicity of Prymnesium parvum in Inland Waters1

Brooks, Bryan W., Susan V. James, Theodore W. Valenti, Jr., Fabiola Urena-Boeck, Carlos Serrano, Jason P. Berninger, Leslie Schwierzke, Laura D. Mydlarz, James P. Grover, and Daniel L. Roelke, 2010. Comparative Toxicity of Prymnesium parvum in Inland Waters. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 46(1):45-62. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2009.00390.x Abstract: Numerous studies have examined the impacts of Prymnesium parvum to aquatic life, but the majority of information available is from experiments or field studies performed at salinities of marine and coastal ecosystems. Ambient toxicity of P. parvum has been characterized with in vitro and in vivo models because reliable quantitation of P. parvum toxins in environmental matrices is often precluded by a lack of available analytical standards. Hemolytic activity and fish mortality assays have been used most frequently to characterize toxic conditions; however, relatively few in vivo studies employed standardized methods. Because the relative sensitivities of different taxa to P. parvum toxins in inland waters were undefined, we assessed the comparative toxicity of P. parvum filtrate from a laboratory study (20°C, 12:12 light:dark cycle, f/8 media, 2.4 psu) to several common standardized in vitro and in vivo models. After exposure to cell-free filtrate hemolytic activity (1 h EC₅₀ = 13,712 cells/ml) and juvenile fish (Pimephales promelas) survival (48 h LC₅₀ = 21,754 cells/ml) were the most sensitive assay responses examined, followed by rotifer (Brachionus calyciflorus) population growth rate [48 h no observable adverse effect levels (NOAEL) = 19,072 cells/ml] and cladoceran (Daphnia magna) reproduction (10-day NOAEL = 47,680 cells/ml). Green algae (Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata) growth (96 h) was not adversely affected but was instead significantly stimulated by P. parvum toxins. We further propose an initial species sensitivity distribution approach for P. parvum, which may be used to support future environmental management decisions. Our findings from these laboratory studies indicate that although fish kills are increasingly associated with P. parvum blooms occurring in inland waters, further study is required to define the influences of toxin sensitivities of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish communities on P. parvum bloom initiation and termination.