Quantity and quality modelling of groundwater to manage water resources in Isfahan-Borkhar Aquifer

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Groundwater resources are increasingly exposed to significant overexploitation in many parts of the world, markedly in Iran, one of the most arid...     

Phytoextraction of heavy metals from contaminated soil,water and atmosphere using ornamental plants: mechanisms and efficiency improvement strategies

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Accumulation of heavy metals (HMs) in soil, water and air is one of the major environmental concerns worldwide, which mainly occurs due to...     

Evaluating the relationship between the respiratory exposure to the benzene with the primary damages of deoxyribonucleic acid and total antioxidant capacity in one of the oil companies in Iran

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Benzene is a carcinogenic chemical substance which causes the injuries and damages through producing the free radicals in DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)...     

Mapping air quality zones for coastal urban centers

This study presents a new method that incorporates modern air dispersion models allowing local terrain and land–sea breeze effects to be considered along with political and natural boundaries for more accurate mapping of air quality zones (AQZs) for coastal urban centers. This method uses local coastal wind patterns and key urban air pollution sources in each zone to more accurately calculate air pollutant concentration statistics. The new approach distributes virtual air pollution sources within each small grid cell of an area of interest and analyzes a puff dispersion model for a full year’s worth of 1-hr prognostic weather data. The difference of wind patterns in coastal and inland areas creates significantly different skewness (S) and kurtosis (K) statistics for the annually averaged pollutant concentrations at ground level receptor points for each grid cell. Plotting the S-K data highlights grouping of sources predominantly impacted by coastal winds versus inland winds. The application of the new method is demonstrated through a case study for the nation of Kuwait by developing new AQZs to support local air management programs. The zone boundaries established by the S-K method were validated by comparing MM5 and WRF prognostic meteorological weather data used in the air dispersion modeling, a support vector machine classifier was trained to compare results with the graphical classification method, and final zones were compared with data collected from Earth observation satellites to confirm locations of high-exposure-risk areas. The resulting AQZs are more accurate and support efficient management strategies for air quality compliance targets effected by local coastal microclimates.

Implications: A novel method to determine air quality zones in coastal urban areas is introduced using skewness (S) and kurtosis (K) statistics calculated from grid concentrations results of air dispersion models. The method identifies land–sea breeze effects that can be used to manage local air quality in areas of similar microclimates.     

Toxic heavy metals and nutrient concentration in the milk of goat herds in two Iranian industrial and non-industrial zones

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This work aimed to explore the concentration of nickel, manganese, iron, copper, chromium, and lead in the milk of goat herds in the industrial area...     

Molecular and serological study on congenital toxoplasmosis in newborn of Shiraz,Southern Iran

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Toxoplasmosis is a zoonotic disease caused by an obligatory intracellular parasite, Toxoplasma gondii. The congenital form of the disease is a...     

Selection and performance estimation of Green Lean Six Sigma Projects: a hybrid approach of technology readiness level,data envelopment analysis,and ANFIS

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Nowadays budget and schedule constraints have forced organizations to select six sigma projects based on pre-defined success criteria. Also,...     

Mercury pollution in the coastal Urmia aquifer in northwestern Iran: potential sources,mobility, and toxicity

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The concentration of total dissolved mercury (HgT) in surface and groundwater resources in the coastal parts of Urmia aquifer (NW of Iran) was...     

Salt marsh restoration: an overview of techniques and success indicators

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Coastal wetlands including salt marshes are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth. They are known for improving the quality of coastal water...     

Consumption-based CO2 emissions accounting and scenario simulation in Asia and the Pacific region

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This study uses a consumer-based accounting approach to evaluate the CO2 emission factors of 17 countries in Asia and the Pacific region by including...