Matthewsnance4297

Wetland buffer zones (WBZs) are riparian areas that form a transition between terrestrial and aquatic environments and are well-known to remove agricultural water pollutants such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). This review attempts to merge and compare data on the nutrient load, nutrient loss and nutrient removal and/or retention from multiple studies of various WBZs termed as riparian mineral soil wetlands, groundwater-charged peatlands (i.e. fens) and floodplains. Two different soil types ('organic' and 'mineral'), four different main water sources ('groundwater', 'precipitation', 'surface runoff/drain discharge', and 'river inundation') and three different vegetation classes ('arboraceous', 'herbaceous' and 'aerenchymous') were considered separately for data analysis. The studied WBZs are situated within the temperate and continental climatic regions that are commonly found in northern-central Europe, northern USA and Canada. Surprisingly, only weak differences for the nutrient removal/retention capabiland now unsuitable for conventional farming. V.Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) harbored by plant microbiomes have been implicated as a potential risk to public health via food chain, especially directly edible fruits and vegetables. Here, we investigated the microbiome and antibiotic resistome in soil-strawberry ecosystem using shotgun metagenomic sequencing. The results showed that the enterobacterial population dominated the endophytes of strawberry fruits. Moreover, 85 subtypes of ARGs, including several clinically important ARGs, were detected in the strawberry fruit metagenomes. Additionally, host tracking analysis in combination with antibiotic-resistant bacterial isolate screening suggested that fruit-borne ARGs were mainly carried by members of the Enterobacteriaceae family. Unexpectedly, most of fruit-borne isolates were found to be resistant to several clinically important antimicrobials, e.g., erythromycin and cephalexin. Our findings provide broad insights into endophytic antibiotic resistomes of direct edible strawberry fruits and their potential hosts, and highlight the potential exposure risks of plant microbiomes to the human food chain. The biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) emissions are influenced by ambient ozone (O3) concentrations and vegetation cover. In most studies, however, the interaction between O3 and plants has not been considered and there are uncertainties in land cover input and emission factors (EFs) in BVOCs emission estimation, particularly at the regional scale. In this study, an O3 exposure-isoprene (ISOP) response function was developed using meta-analysis, and the EFs of ISOP and land cover inputs were updated by integrating local measurement and investigation data in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region. Five different cases were developed to explore the impacts of O3 and input variables on the BVOCs emissions using the Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN). The impacts of those variables on O3 simulation were further examined with air quality modeling. We found that the ISOP emissions were restrained in the city cluster along the Yangtze River during the growing season due to their negative feedback to O3 exposure for deciduous broadleaf forests. The estimation of BVOCs emissions strongly depended on EFs, and the global EFs underestimated the ISOP emissions in July by 37%, mostly in southern YRD. Different land cover datasets with various fractions and spatial distributions of plant function types resulted in a variation of 200-400 Gg in ISOP emissions in July across YRD. Air quality modeling indicated that BVOCs contributed 10%, 12%, and 11% to the 1-h mean, the maximum daily 1-h average, and the maximum daily 8-h average O3 concentrations, respectively, for July across the YRD region. Due to the NOx restriction, the spatial distribution of BVOCs emissions was inconsistent with that of their contribution to O3 formation. The O3 simulation was more sensitive to the changed BVOCs emissions in the area with relatively large contribution of BVOCs to O3 formation. It is still a great challenge to find an eco-friendly, easy-to-synthesize, and cheap adsorbent to rapidly remove Cr(VI) to ppb level in the Cr(VI)-polluted water. Herein, a new layered double hydroxide nanocage intercalated with diethyldithiocarbamate (DDTC-LDH) was fabricated via a facile calcination-rehydration method. The DDTC-LDH rapidly decreased Cr(VI) concentration from 5 to less then 0.05 mg/L within 35 min, and only a few seconds were required to completely remove it at an initial concentration of 0.5-1 mg/L, primarily attributed to the effective adsorption-reduction of Cr(VI) to Cr(III) by sulfur atoms in CS and CS groups. Attractively, the generated Cr(III) was also quickly removed to below 0.1 mg/L via an opportune Lewis hard-hard interaction with C-SOx groups produced through CS oxidation. Additionally, Cr(VI) could be removed by DDTC-LDH at a wide pH application range (3.17-10.78) and with weak effects by coexisting anions (Cl-, NO3-, CO32-, SO42-, and PO43-). We systematically analyzed and proposed the mechanisms for Cr(VI) removal by the DDTC-LDH, orderly containing electrostatic attraction, Cr(VI) complexation by sulfur atoms in CS and CS groups, reduction of the Cr(VI) to Cr(III) by the CS and CS groups, and Cr(III) complexation by sulfur atoms in C-SOx groups. Our results provide new insights into the Cr(VI) removal using organosulfur compounds, that is to say, the organosulfur group Lewis hardness increased (from C-S to C-SOx) as the Cr species Lewis hardness increased (from Cr(VI) to Cr(III)), so as to opportunely ensure fast and efficient capture of both Cr(VI) and Cr(III) via Lewis acid-base interactions. V.The aim of this study is to investigate whether eliminating plastics entirely under existing waste infrastructure and management practices could have an adverse effect on climate change, using a case study on the hypothetical substitution of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) with glass as the material for bottling liquids in the domestic sector in Cornwall, England. A life cycle environmental impacts-based model was created using high resolution local data on household waste and current management practices in combination with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) datasets. The model allows users to define key system parameters such as masses of materials, transport options and end-of-life processes and produces results for 11 environmental impact categories including the Global Warming Potential (GWP). The results from the application of this model on the case study of Cornwall have shown that the substitution of PET with glass as the material for bottling under the current waste infrastructure and management practices could lead to significant increases in GWP and hinder efforts to tackle climate change. A sensitivity analysis of the glass/PET mass ratio suggests that in order to achieve equal GWP the glass bottles need to become approximately 38% of the weight they are now. Increasing the recycled content and decreasing losses during the recycling processes could also help lower the GWP by 18.9% and 14.5%, respectively. This model can be expanded further to include more types of plastics and other regions to evaluate designs of new regional circular economy with less plastics waste and pollution. Our study suggests that it is necessary and crucial to consider the specific waste infrastructure and management practices in place and use science-based models that incorporate life cycle thinking to evaluate any solutions to plastics pollution in order to avoid problem shifting. The global use of agricultural plastic films, which provide multiple benefits for food production, is expected to grow by 59% from 2018 to 2026. Disposal options for agricultural plastics are limited and a major global concern, as plastic fragments from all sources ultimately accumulate in the sea. Biodegradable plastic mulches could potentially alleviate the disposal problem, but little is known about how well they degrade under different environmental conditions. We quantified the degradation of biodegradable plastic mulches in compost and in soil at warm and cool climates (Tennessee and Washington). Mulch degradation was assessed by Fourier-transformed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, molecular weight analysis, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), nuclear-magnetic resonance (NMR), and mulch surface-area quantification. Biodegradable plastic mulches degraded faster in compost than in soil degradation, as assessed by surface-area reduction, in compost ranged from 85 to 99% after 18 weeks, and in soil from 61 to 83% in Knoxville and 26 to 63% in Mount Vernon after 36 months. FTIR analyses indicate that hydrolytic degradation of ester bonds occurred, and a significant reduction of molecular weight was observed. TGA and NMR confirmed degradation of biodegradable polymers. Our results indicate that biodegradable plastic mulches degrade in soil, but at different rates in different climates and that degradation occurs over several years. Faster degradation occurred in compost, making composting a viable disposal method, especially in cool climates, where mulch fragments in soil may persist for many years. According to the World Health Organization, >360 million people worldwide suffer from mental diseases such as depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder, for which psychotropic drugs are frequently prescribed. selleck products Despite being highly metabolized in the human organism, non-metabolized portions of these drugs are excreted, subsequently reaching wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), where they may be incompletely removed during treatment, leading to the contamination of surface waters. In this work, ten psychotropic drugs widely consumed in Brazil (alprazolam, amitriptyline, bupropion, carbamazepine, clonazepam, escitalopram, fluoxetine, nortriptyline, sertraline, and trazadone) were monitored at five WWTPs located in the metropolitan region of Campinas (São Paulo State, Brazil). The drugs were determined in the influents, at different stages of the treatments, and in the effluents. Surface waters from the Atibaia River and the Anhumas Creek were also monitored. Quantitation of the pharmaceuticals was carried out by online solid-phase extraction coupled with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry. The method was validated and presented a limit of quantitation of 50 ng L-1 for all the drugs assessed. Six of the substances monitored were quantified in the samples collected from the different treatment processes employed at the WWTPs. These technologies were unable to act as barriers for these psychotropics drugs. The concentrations ranged from 50 to 3000 ng L-1 in the WWTP effluents, while the main contaminants were found in surface waters at concentrations from 25 to 3530 ng L-1. The levels of the psychotropic detected in this work did not appear to present risks to the aquatic biota. Biofuel stoves are an important source of black carbon (BC) emissions, which have adverse effects on the environment and human health, especially in rural areas. However, there have been only limited studies of BC emissions from residential biofuel stoves based on real-time measurements. In this study, a photo-acoustic extinctiometer (PAX)-based real-time measurement system was employed to monitor the emission characteristics of corncobs, corn stalks, cotton stalks and poplar branches in simple or improved stoves (with a total of 16 units) in Hebei Province, China. The real-time and phased emissions of BC, fine particulate matter (PM2.5), carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) were assessed, and the effects of stove type and fuel on emissions were analyzed. Under the same conditions, polar branches were associated with the highest BC emission factors (EFs) of up to 2.64 ± 0.42 g kg-1, while the EFs for improved stoves were higher than those for simple stoves. During the ignition phase, BC emissions were found to be low, while the later addition of fuel dramatically increased emissions, followed by a gradual decrease until the next fuel addition.