This work represents an attempt to define a simple method to classify the relative degree of disturbance of sites in lotic
systems on the basis of comparison of their faunistic composition with reference sites. Two ecotypes were selected in northern
Portugal where benthic invertebrates were sampled in reaches with different levels of contamination. As a first stage, previous
Geographic Information System information was used to define reference sites in each ecotype. Afterwards, multivariate techniques
and non linear estimation models were combined to assess biological quality. This method allowed us to quantify sites according
to increasing levels of contamination, after the probabilities of occurrence of taxa along a gradient of contamination taking
into account the reference condition. The results suggest that this method is sensitive to organic pollution, easy to interpret,
namely the species tolerance, and could be a good framework to establish regional rankings depending on the ecological impact
of river sites. 相似文献
This paper examines the determinants of illegal waste dumping at the county level in Slovakia (in 77 of 79 counties), using a truncated regression model. It analyzes a unique data-set composed of illegal dumping data provided by the TrashOut platform and sociodemographic data from the national statistical authority.
This study shows that a higher level of expected overall waste production results in a higher rate of illegally dumped waste and a higher number of illegal dumping sites. More precisely, income has a positive impact on the rate of illegal waste dumping, poverty influences the rate of illegal dumping negatively and a higher level of education does not result in more responsible waste management. On the contrary, higher education has a positive influence on the rate of dumping. A negative relationship between costs of illegal waste disposal and dumping rate, as well as a positive relationship between costs of legal waste disposal and dumping rate has been revealed. 相似文献
While convenient and often used, on-site surveys are biased by the fact that users who visit the site more often are proportionately more likely to be sampled. This so-called avidity or size biased sampling results in over-estimating the visitation patterns of the average user. This analysis develops a rule of thumb method that may easily be applied by recreation site managers to visitation data collected on-site in order to infer behavior of the average user of the site. The key assumption that drives the derivation is that the visitation data of users is logarithmically distributed. To evaluate the methodology, we analyze several data sets of recreational users assuming that they reflect the populations of users and from these construct hypothetical on-site samples. 相似文献
The aim of the present work is the assessment of metal toxicity in runoff, in their contaminated soils and in the groundwater
sampled from two mining areas in the region of Marrakech using a microbial bioassay MetPLATE™. This bioassay is based on the
specific inhibition of the β-galactosidase enzyme of a mutant strain of Escherichia coli, by the metallic pollutants. The stream waters from all sampling stations in the two mines were all very toxic and displayed
percent enzyme inhibition exceeding 87% except SWA4 and SWB1 stations in mine C. Their high concentrations of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) confirm the acute toxicity shown by MetPLATE.
The pH of stream waters from mine B and C varied between 2.1 and 6.2 and was probably responsible for metal mobilization,
suggesting a problem of acid mine drainage in these mining areas. The bioassay MetPLATE™ was also applied to mine tailings
and to soils contaminated by the acidic waters. The results show that the high toxicity of these soils and tailings was mainly
due to the relatively concentration of soluble Zn and Cu. The use of MetPLATE™ in groundwater toxicity testing shows that,
most of the samples exhibited low metal toxicity (2.7–45.5% inhibition) except GW3 of the mine B (95.3% inhibition during
the wet season and 82.9% inhibition during the dry season). This high toxicity is attributed to the higher than usual concentrations
of Cu (189 μg Cu l−1) and Zn (1505 μg Zn l−1). These results show the potential risk of the contamination of different ecosystems situated to the vicinity of these two
metalliferous sites. The general trend observed was an increase in metal toxicity measured by the MetPLATE with increasing
total and mobile metal concentrations in the studied matrices. Therefore, the MetPLATE bioassay is a reliable and fast bioassay
to estimate the metals toxicity in the aquatic and solids samples. 相似文献