Rethinking assessment of success of mitigation strategies for elephant-induced crop damage

Crop damage is the most common impact of negative interactions between people and elephants and poses a significant threat to rural livelihoods and conservation efforts. Numerous approaches to mitigate and prevent crop damage have been implemented throughout Africa and Asia. Despite the documented high efficacy of many approaches, losses remain common, and in many areas, damage is intensifying. We examined the literature on effectiveness of crop-damage-mitigation strategies and identified key gaps in evaluations. We determined there is a need to better understand existing solutions within affected communities and to extend evaluations of effectiveness beyond measurement of efficacy to include rates of and barriers to adoption. We devised a conceptual framework for evaluating effectiveness that incorporates the need for increased emphasis on adoption and can be used to inform the design of future crop-damage mitigation assessments for elephants and conflict species more widely. The ability to prevent crop loss in practice is affected by both the efficacy of a given approach and rates of uptake among target users. We identified the primary factors that influence uptake as local attitudes, sustainability, and scalability and examined each of these factors in detail. We argue that even moderately efficacious interventions may make significant progress in preventing damage if widely employed and recommend that wherever possible scientists and practitioners engage with communities to build on and strengthen existing solutions and expertise. When new approaches are required, they should align with local attitudes and fit within limitations on labor, financial requirements, and technical capacity.     

Modeling of a sequencing batch reactor treating municipal wastewater using multi-layer perceptron and radial basis function artificial neural networks

A sequencing batch reactor was modeled using multi-layer perceptron and radial basis function artificial neural networks (MLPANN and RBFANN). Then, the effects of influent concentration (IC), filling time (FT), reaction time (RT), aeration intensity (AI), SRT and MLVSS concentration were examined on the effluent concentrations of TSS, TP, COD and NH₄⁺-N. The results showed that the optimal removal efficiencies would be obtained at FT of 1 h, RT of 6 h, aeration intensity of 0.88 m³/min and SRT of 30 days. In addition, COD and TSS removal efficiencies decreased and TP and NH₄⁺-N removal efficiencies did not change significantly with increases of influent concentration. The TSS, TP, COD and NH₄⁺-N removal efficiencies were 86%, 79%, 94% and 93%, respectively. The training procedures of all contaminants were highly collaborated for both RBFANN and MLPANN models. The results of training and testing data sets showed an almost perfect match between the experimental and the simulated effluent of TSS, TP, COD and NH₄⁺-N. The results indicated that with low experimental values of input data to train ANNs the MLPANN models compared to RBFANN models are more precise due to their higher coefficient of determination (R²) and lower root mean squared errors (RMSE) values.     

垃圾焚烧烟气中HCl与消石灰的反应机理研究

测试了两种消石灰与垃圾焚烧烟气中HCl的反应率,得出了消石灰的反应率与反应时间的反应曲线,分析了消石灰与HCl的反应机理及影响消石灰最终反应率的因素。试验结果表明,消石灰与HCl反应初期按灰层扩散控制进行,两种消石灰的最终反应率分别为16％和36％。     

Male-biassed response of garden chafer, Phyllopertha horticola L., to leaf alcohol and attraction of both sexes to floral plant volatiles

Summary. Field tests were performed to evaluate the response of the garden chafer, Phyllopertha horticola (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) to known scarab attractants and to investigate the influence of trap colour and height on the number of captured beetles. Both sexes were attracted by a lure mixture composed of geraniol, eugenol, and 2-phenylethyl propionate (PEP) (ratio 3:7:3). When testing floral volatiles individually, only geraniol, eugenol and methyl anthranilate but not PEP was attractive. Response of garden chafer to (Z)- 3-hexen-1-ol was strongly male-biassed. Both the response to floral volatiles and (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol was increased by using funnel traps with yellow instead of grey vanes. Traps positioned at 50 and 125 cm above ground captured significantly more garden chafers than those at 200 cm. The strongly male-biassed response to (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol suggests that in P. horticola (subfamily Rutelinae) orientation towards plant volatiles emitted upon mechanical damage of plants is part of the male mate finding strategy as recently demonstrated for cockchafers of the genus Melolontha (subfamily Melolonthinae). Possible application of plant volatiles for control of P. horticola is discussed.     

Toxicological Assessment of Wastewater and Runoff from the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill

Russian Journal of Ecology -     

电感耦合等离子体质谱法在环境监测中的应用

针对ICP-MS技术的使用特点及其近年来在环境监测领域的应用进行综合阐述，并对ICP-MS技术的发展前景作出简单的评述。     

硫化亚铁处理含砷废水中砷的形态变化

本文对用硫化亚铁处理含砷废水时，在气相、液相和固相中砷的形态进行了研究结果表明，在气相中无ＡａＨ３，但在Ａｓ（Ｖ）废水的液相中有Ａｓ（Ｖ）和Ａｓ（Ⅲ）共同存在，在固相中有Ａｓ（０），ＦｅＡｓＯ４（ＦｅＡｓＯ３），Ａｓ２Ｓ３（Ａｓ２Ｓ５）和吸附砷，砷的形态变化表明，硫化亚铁处理含砷废水能取得良好的效果，是沉淀、沉淀转化、氧化还原、吸附共沉淀和中和五种反应共同作用的结果。     

焦化废水处理过程中固相物质的形成及处置方法评价

焦化废水处理过程中产生的焦油、污泥和结晶杂盐等固相物质,既有资源属性,又有污染特性,但目前缺乏基于能源、经济及环境影响方面的评估.本研究阐述了3类固相物质的形成机制,建立了质量当量计算及处置方法评价模型.以宝武集团韶关钢铁股份有限公司焦化厂（二期）焦化废水处理工程的A/O/H/O（厌氧/好氧/水解/好氧）流化床工艺作为考察对象,利用工程运行参数和水质统计数据进行固相物质的产量推算,结果发现,焦油、物化污泥、生物污泥（含水率为80%）和工业杂盐的产率分别为0.186、5.80、4.24和1.97 kg·m^-3.通过处置方法评价模型明确了焦油焚烧、污泥热解、结晶杂盐分盐提纯后工业应用是最佳处置方案,在60 m³·h^-1废水处理规模的固相物质处置过程中,每年约产生1177 MWh的能源,获得135.0万元的经济效益,排放627.0 t CO₂,表明能源回收、经济效益和环境影响的协同存在.     

固定化微藻流化床反应器去除低碳污水中氨氮的潜力

以固定化微藻颗粒为原料,通过搭建流化床反应器强化微藻对氨氮（NH₄⁺-N）的去除,设计了藻种、污水上升流速、光周期和光照强度四组单一变量实验,系统地研究了不同条件下微藻去除NH₄⁺-N的能力.结果表明,当以固定化斜生栅藻为原料、污水上升流速为6.8m/h、光周期为8：16h和光照强度为4800Lux时,NH₄⁺-N去除效果最优（96.7%）.在最优操作条件下,探究了COD为200mg/L时微藻去除NH₄⁺-N的潜力,结果表明,当NH₄⁺-N初始浓度不高于50mg/L时,NH₄⁺-N去除率高于95%.本实验建立了一套半连续微藻流化床实验方法,该方法显著减弱了微藻在生物同化过程中对有机碳源的依赖性,为低COD条件下微藻生物脱氮工艺的设计提供了技术参考和理论基础.     

模拟土壤淋洗废液中重金属的选择性去除与淋洗液的回收研究

土壤淋洗废液中污染物的选择性去除是实现淋洗液回收的关键.本文以硫化钠（Na₂S）、乙基黄原酸钾（PEX）、二甲基二硫代氨基甲酸钠（DTC）作为重金属沉淀剂处理电子垃圾污染土壤模拟淋洗废液,在筛选出Na₂S作为理想重金属沉淀剂的基础上,研究初始pH值、反应温度、沉淀剂浓度等因素对Na₂S分离络合态重金属的影响,并通过软件模拟和产物表征等方式推测反应机理.结果表明：Na₂S对柠檬酸络合态重金属的分离顺序依次为Cu、Pb、Cd,符合硫化物溶度积原则;反应温度、初始pH值对Na₂S处理络合态重金属无显著影响,重金属去除率均保持在90%以上,柠檬酸的回收率约为95%;Visual MINTEQ模拟结果显示,S^2-投加前液相中重金属主要以H₂CA^-、HCA^2-和CA^3-结合形式存在,S^2-投加后液相中重金属则以HS^-和S^2-结合形式存在;扫描电镜及能谱（SEM-EDS）表明,S^2-与金属阳离子按物质的量比1：1生成硫化物沉淀物,沉淀主要呈团聚、成簇和圆片状存在;X射线衍射（XRD）分析结果表明,沉淀产物中存在CuS、CdS、PbS和CuPbS₂.本研究结果可为化学沉淀法处理重金属污染土壤淋洗废液提供技术参考.