Environmental Monitoring and Assessment

Soil organic carbon (SOC) tends to form complexes with most metallic ions within the soil system. Relatively few studies compare SOC predictions via portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) measured data coupled with the Cubist algorithm. The current study applied three different Cubist models to estimate SOC while using several pXRF measured data. Soil samples (n = 158) were collected from the Litavka floodplain area during two separate sampling campaigns in 2018. Thirteen pXRF data or predictors (K, Ca, Rb, Mn, Fe, As, Ba, Th, Pb, Sr, Ti, Zr, and Zn) were selected to develop the proposed models...

The Government of the Republic of Armenia (RA) strives to ensure the measures to achieve good ecological status for Armenian surface water bodies. However, the main goal remains unaccomplished, as the hydro-biological monitoring tools are not properly developed. Thus, the current work aims at contributing to the establishment of principles and a relevant and cost-effective biological monitoring tool for the RA aquatic ecosystems, through the development of a simplified multimetric index (MMI). Since the adoption of the decree N° 927-N from 11 Jun 2011, the baseline studies have been initiated in the six river basin management areas established in the RA...

The speed of the sorption reaction alters the bioavailability of herbicides in the soil and, consequently, the transport and transformation processes of the molecule in the environment. In this research, the sorption kinetics of sulfometuron-methyl was evaluated in different Brazilian soils in which sugarcane is grown. The sorption speed was carried out by the batch equilibrium method. The amount of sulfometuron-methyl adsorbed and remaining in the soil solution was used to build kinetic models in fifteen soils...

In large industrialized cities, tons of particles containing heavy metals are released into the environment and accumulate on street surfaces. Such particles cause a potential risk to human health due to their composition and size. The heavy metal contamination levels, main emission sources, and human health risks were identified in 482 samples of street dust. Heavy metal concentrations were obtained by microwave-assisted acid digestion and ICP-OES. The results indicated that street dust in Mexico City is contaminated mainly with Pb, Zn, and Cu, according to the contamination factor and the geoaccumulation index...

In soil and plant tissues, the concentrations and reserves of manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), and lead (Pb) were calculated to measure the heavy metal quantities of the Scots pine afforestation. In the soil and plant tissues, heavy metal concentrations varied. The highest concentration of heavy metal was found in Mn and the lowest concentration in Pb in the soil. Heavy metal stocks followed the order of Mn > Zn > Ni > Cu > Pb in soil, and the order of Zn > Cu > Mn > Ni > Pb in the plant...

Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens) is a key predator of several soft-bodied arthropods across various cropping ecosystems. Biological control is a prime strategy to reduce the harmful effects of pesticides on environment especially plants and arthropods. Collection of lacewings (Field Populations) was made during 2014 and repeated in 2016 from five different districts composed mainly by row and vegetable crops under conventional cropping system. For these populations, resistance level to four insecticides representing different mode of action was measured using topical treatment of 1st -instar larvae with prepared dilutions of commercial formulation...

The River Yamuna in Delhi region, the National Capital Territory (NCT) of India, carries potentially toxic metals such as Cr, Pb, Mn, Mg, Hg, Fe and Zn. These contaminants are discharged mainly from industrial wastes, agricultural and household activities and domestic sewage. A total of 12 stations (2.5 to 3.5 km apart from each other) were selected for the study, covering the upstream and downstream areas of river Yamuna in Delhi. The investigated sites were evaluated for significant difference between upstream and downstream locations of river Yamuna in three different time periods (June, October, February)...

Nitrate contaminant degrades groundwater quality and threatens the health of the humans, livestock, and the environment. Damaneh-Daran aquifer is located at upstream of the Zayandehrood reservoir in west-central Iran. This aquifer has been highly contaminated by nitrate and is still rapidly being contaminated. Thus, its quality needs to be remediated. This paper is focused on the quantity-quality modeling to predict the average nitrate concentration of the aquifer. Several remediation scenarios are presented in a period beginning from fall 2019, ending in spring 2024...

The present research was conducted to study the potential of cotton for the remediation of soils contaminated with Cd, to understand the biochemical basis of its tolerance to, and to investigate the plant-microbe interaction in the rhizosphere for enhancement of phytoextraction of Cd. Cotton (Bt RCH-2) was exposed to four Cd levels (0, 50, 100, and 200 mg/kg soil) in a completely randomised design and found that the plant could tolerate up to 200 mg/kg soil. Cd stress increased the total phenol, proline, and free amino acid contents in the plant leaf tissue compared with control but inhibited basal soil respiration, fluorescein diacetate hydrolysis, and activities of several enzymes viz...

Sandy beaches are challenging ecosystems, in which biota experience extreme physical conditions. We sampled meiofauna in conjunction with environmental factors that are well-known to affect faunal associations to describe the ecological state of sandy beaches that experience natural and human-made disturbances. We applied a random stratified sampling design with monthly collections (1800 cores) at three beaches on the Alexandria, Egypt, coast during two sampling periods over 1 year from November to April and May to September...

The present study examined the seasonal cycling of phosphorous (P) along the southwest coast of India (SWCI) based on two cruises during the southwest monsoon (SWM) and northeast monsoon (NEM) of 2018. During SWM, the entire SWCI experienced intense upwelling manifested by the incursion of cold, nutrient-rich, and hypoxic waters. During NEM, the region was transformed into a warm, well-oxygenated and nutrient-deplete environment. Dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP) was significantly high in the subsurface during SWM due to its release from sediments...

Cypermethrin, a member of the synthetic pyrethroids group, is a popular insecticide used to eliminate a broad range of common bugs in agricultural lands and households. However, studies of farmers' exposure to this insecticide are limited. The present study aimed to measure the respiratory exposure to cypermethrin among farmers and farm workers of Shiraz, as one of the biggest cities in Fars province, Iran. Totally, nine target regions were selected, where 42 individual samples were taken using XAD-2 sorbents and were analyzed by gas chromatography-electron capture detector (GC-ECD)...

Inherent statistics of the surface temperature pattern were used to categorize urban heat islands (UHIs) for a tropical mega city and its satellite towns. Application of flexible threshold values for UHI zoning made this procedure independent of seasonal or locational influences. UHI zones for the years 1999, 2009, and 2019 were mapped from Landsat thermal bands by applying the mono-window algorithm. The parameters affecting the UHI intensity were rigorously investigated. Dynamics of land use land cover patterns provided in-depth insight into the spatiotemporal variability of UHI...

In a world where pristine water is becoming scarcer, the need to reuse water becomes imperative. In this context explaining the water quality, purpose fitness and the parameters or conditions of the water body to adjust so as to improve its quality, are of great relevance. The goal of the present study was the use of water, riverine, and biodiversity quality indices to assess the condition of the studied urban wetland, since no single index can provide a complete health assessment of a water body. Decision trees were also used to elucidate the best water parameters to mend in order to recover the overall health of the urban wetland...

Several studies have evaluated the impact of climate change on the alluvial aquifers; however, no research has been carried out on a small-scale aquifer without any human influences and pumping wells. The object of this study is to assess the response of such an aquifer to the climate change to observe if it can preserve its storage or not. Pali aquifer, southwest Iran, is solely discharged by Taraz-Harkesh stream and geological formations. On the other hand, it is recharged by precipitation and geological formations...

Coastal wetlands along migratory flyways are crucial in supporting staging or wintering waterbirds, yet they are often targeted for wind energy development. Potential conflicts are likely to be strong in densely populated East and Southeast Asia, where many bird species along the flyway are endangered, and wind energy projects are just flourishing. We investigated waterbird abundance and flight behavior at a coastal wind farm at the mid of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. For shorebirds roosting in the aquacultural ponds, the abundance showed no significant change in the study area compared with the control area across all development stages of the wind farm...

In this paper, Eichhornia Crassipes stems were used as biomass feedstock, and Fe2+ was used as the precursor solution to prepare Fe3 O4 -modified magnetic mesoporous biochar (Fe3 O4 @BC). By using Box-Behnken design (BBD) response surface methodology, the influences of three preparation parameters (X1  = Fe2+ concentration, X2  = pyrolysis temperature and X3  = pyrolysis time) on the adsorption of methyl orange (MO) by Fe3 O4 @BC were investigated, and a reliable response surface model was constructed...

Microplastics are widely detected in wastewater treatment plants. They can remove microplastics from wastewaters with a high yield, but it means that microplastics are transferred and accumulated to sewage sludge. Lately, increasing attention has been paid to microplastics in raw and treated wastewaters. However, studies about quantification and identification of microplastics in sewage sludge are very scarce and need to be further investigated. Since the sludge-based microplastics are newly studied and are a challenging matrix due to high organic content, there is limited knowledge of sampling, pre-treatment methods, identification techniques, and expression units...

Konya, which is located within the Konya Closed Basin, is the most important agricultural production region in Turkey. The future of agriculture is threatened in this region due to the decline in groundwater levels and the intensive agricultural activities that require high water consumption and are not suitable to the climate conditions of the region. In addition to these parameters, the geological structure of Konya also poses various environmental problems such as land subsidence and sinkhole formation. This study aimed to investigate the causes of the land subsidence problem in Konya and its surroundings with the help of the interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technique and auxiliary data, namely optic, Coordination of Information on the Environment (CORINE), and groundwater monitoring station data...

Floods are one of the most common natural phenomena and represent a serious hazard when they affect human activities. Structural measures are commonly used to mitigate them; however, these do not always give good results, mainly in plain areas with scarce slope. In this sense, the generation of a flood hazard map contributes to adequate hazard management and disaster prevention. The aim of this work is to evaluate the flood hazard areas in hydrological plain basins with scarce slope, taking as a case study the Samborombón river basin located in the Pampean Plain, Argentina...