The aim of the present study was to assess physico-chemical water parameters, granulometric sediment characteristics and concentrations of trace and macroelements in the water and sediments of the Ilova River. Samplings were conducted at three sampling sites (near villages Maslenjača, Ilova and Trebež) along the Ilova River, differing in the source and intensity of the anthropogenic influence. This study indicated disturbed environmental conditions, most pronounced in the downstream part of the river (Trebež village) impacted by the activity of fertilizer factory. Water from the Ilova and Maslenjača villages was of good quality, whereas COD, nitrates and phosphates exceeded the good quality levels in Trebež village. Trace and macroelement concentrations in water were mostly below thresholds set by environmental quality standards at all locations, but levels of Al, As, Cd and Ni were few times higher in Trebež village than at other locations. Metal contamination assessment of sediments (trace and macroelement concentrations, contamination and enrichment factor, pollution load index) confirmed deteriorated environmental quality in Trebež village. However, the overall assessment performed in this study revealed that anthropogenic impact was still not particularly strong in the Ilova River ecosystem. Nevertheless, the observed water and sediment characteristics serve as a warning and suggest that stricter protection measures should be initiated, including continuous monitoring and comprehensive quality assessment of the downstream part of the Ilova River, especially because it is a part of the protected area of the Lonjsko Polje Nature Park.

The influence of farmers’ production experience on pesticide overuse is empirically analyzed by an endogenous switching probit model of pesticide use time, type, and dosage, based on survey data of 836 rice farmers in the Yangtze River Basin of China. We find that farmers’ production experience is an important cause of pesticide overuse, especially for small-scale farmers. Older, self-sufficient, small-scale, non-cooperative members and rice farmers with distant market towns are more likely to use pesticides based on their personal experience. In terms of pesticide use time, type, and dosage, 35.26%, 30.10%, and 28.52% of the samples, respectively, relied on a decision based on “experience.” Among them, farmers’ decision-making based on production experience for pesticide type and dosage are the key causes of pesticide overuse. These results will be helpful for reducing pesticides and correcting farmers’ “bad habits” within agricultural ecosystems.

The deposition of toxic metals in the ecosystem contributes to the exposure and bioaccumulation of metals in the food chain, thus affecting human health. This study aimed to access the distribution of metal pollution emitted from automobiles in the dust, soil, and plant samples collected from the roadsides of national highways. Furthermore, metals were also determined in fuels and vehicular emissions. High contents of Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, and Zn were found in roadsides as compared to control (35 km away from roads). The comparison among plants indicated that Calotropis procera and Rumex dentatus contained significantly higher metals than other plants. The concentrations of Pb, Cd, Cr, and Fe in plants were above the safe limits of the WHO/FAO. Significant and positive correlations were found between Cr, Cu, Fe, Pb, and Zn in the dust and soil samples and Cd and Cr in dust and plants. According to the results of the PCA analysis, all metals formed the first two components explaining 89.5% of the total variance. The source of these metals was attributed to automobile exhaust and dust depositions. The findings of the present study suggest that roadside plants are heavily infested with heavy metals due to vehicular smoke pollution, so the consumption of vegetation facing vehicular pollution may lead to certain physiological disorders and diseases. Graphical abstract

Nowadays, determining the factors influencing carbon dioxide emissions is a crucial issue for policymakers. So, this study examines Porter and pollution haven’s hypothesis via foreign direct investment, financial development, and energy consumption in 14 countries of the MENA region during 2004–2016, using panel quantile regression that estimated the impact of these factors in quantiles of 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 0.9. Also, the effect of population, trade openness, and economic growth variables has been investigated as controlling variables on CO₂ emissions. The results of the research show that the impact of energy consumption, economic growth, and total population on all quantiles of carbon dioxide emission is positive and significant. Still, the effect of direct foreign investment on the amount of CO₂ emissions is negative and only significant at 0.1, 0.5, and 0.75 quantiles, which supports Porter's hypothesis. Based on this hypothesis, the foreign direct investment entrance helps reduce the environmental pollution of the host country. Also, the effect of financial development on 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 0.9 quantile carbon dioxide emissions is negative and significant. Finally, the trade openness variable has a positive and significant effect on the quantiles of 0.1 and 0.9 CO₂ emissions.

Pyroligneous acids can be used in herbicides, but the dosage used often more than 1000 kg ha⁻¹. Five treatments including the application of bamboo, wood, straw vinegar, acetic acid and sulphuric acid at high dosages sprayed once every 6 days, for a total of 3 times. We then continuously monitored the changes in soil pH, moisture content and the activities of three soil hydrolase enzymes involving in urease, protease and sucrase. We found that after 1~3 days of spraying with all 5 kinds of acid, the soil pH was not immediately reduced, but from 3 days after application onward it was reduced by a maximum of 1.54~1.75, which showed that the soil had some buffering capacity. Over time, the pH began to return to the water control pH value, which showed that the soil also had good restorative capacity. After the second and third times of spraying, the pH change measured showed no cumulative effect, which demonstrated that the soil had adaptive capacity. We accidentally found that bamboo vinegar could improve the soil pH by a maximum of 0.65~1.02, while the other four acids reduced its pH. Bamboo vinegar was found to contain the 6 compounds while wood and straw vinegar contained none of these compounds. These compounds may be a new potential reagent(s) for improving the pH. Three soil sample processing methods tested for determining pH, including the moist soil test, oven-dry soil test and air-dried soil test, all produced extremely and significantly different pH values. Five acids were unable to significantly improve the water holding capacity of the soil; they had adverse effects on the activity of the urease enzymes while beneficial effects on the protease and sucrase enzymes. Therefore, pyroligneous acid and acetic acid have no effects on soil health as herbicides.

The singlet and triplet potential energy surfaces of the HO₂ with CF₂ClO₂ reaction have been probed at the BMC-CCSD/cc-pVTZ level according to the B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) level obtained geometrical structure. On the singlet PES, the association/dissociation, direct H- abstraction, and SN2 displacement mechanisms have been taken into account. On the triplet PES, SN2 displacement and indirect H- abstraction reaction mechanisms have been investigated and the H- abstraction channel makes more contribution to the CF₂ClO₂ with HO₂ reaction. The rate constants have been computed at 10⁻¹⁰ to 10¹⁰ atm and 200–3000 K by RRKM-TST theory. The results show that at T ≤ 600 K, the generation of IM1 (CF₂ClO₄H) by collisional deactivation is dominant pathway; at high temperatures, the production of P8 (CF₂ClOOH + O₂(³Σ)) becomes predominate. The predicted data for CF₂ClO₂ + HO₂ agrees closely with available experimental value. Moreover, OH radicals act as inhibitors in the CF₂ClOOH→CF₂O + HOCl and CF₂ClOOH→CFClO + HOF reactions. The dominant products for the reaction of CF₂ClOOH + OH are CF₂ClO₂ + H₂O.

This article presents a bibliometric study of 200 European publications released between 2001 and 2016, about the contamination of mushrooms by selected elements. The analysis includes figures on the type of analyte, its concentration, the species of fungi, and its country of origin. In the literature review, 492 species of mushrooms (wild-growing and cultured) found in 26 European countries and their concentration of 74 associated elements were analysed. The papers, which dealt mainly with the heavy metal (Cd, Cu, Fe, Pb, and Zn) concentrations of mushrooms, primarily came from Turkey, Poland, Spain, and the Czech Republic. More than 50% of the publications provided data about edible mushrooms. The results of the bibliometric analysis showed that over the 16 years, European research on fungal contamination by selected analytes has not lessened in popularity and is ongoing. Many of the studies underlined the need to assess the risk to human health arising from the consumption of contaminated mushrooms taken from various habitats. These results were the effect of, among other things, the strong interest in studies carried out on edible species, in which concentrations of mainly heavy metals that are dangerous to health and are marked were indicated (Cd, Pb, and Hg).

The present study aimed to investigate the possible mitigating effect of L-carnitine (LC) and/or α-tocopherol (Vit. E) administration against tilmicosin (TIL)-induced cardiotoxicity in rats. Fifty-six male albino rats were divided into seven groups according to LC, Vit. E, and/or TIL administration. Control, LC, and Vit. E groups were given saline, 150 mg LC/kg body weight (BW)/day and 100 mg Vit. E/kg BW/day, respectively, orally once daily for 15 days. The TIL group was administered saline orally once daily for 15 days and a single dose of TIL (75 mg/kg BW) subcutaneously (SC) on day 14 from the starting of the experimental period (15 days). The TIL-LC, TIL-Vit. E, and TIL-LC-Vit. E groups received 150 mg LC/kg BW/day, 100 mg Vit. E/kg BW/day, and 150 mg LC/kg BW pulse 100 mg Vit. E/kg BW, respectively, orally once daily for 15 days with TIL as described above. The results revealed that the administration of TIL significantly (P ≤ 0.05) raised serum activities of heart injury indicators, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine kinase (CK), and CK-MB with substantial increase (P ≤ 0.05) in the cardiac contents of malondialdehyde (MDA) and decreased in antioxidants. The pathological changes appeared in the form of necrotic muscle fibers and massive inflammatory cellular infiltrations in the cardiac muscle and increased the caspase-3 immunohistochemical expression in the heart tissues as well. These changes were ameliorated by LC and/or Vit. E administration. In conclusion, supplementation of LC and/or Vit. E ameliorated the cardiotoxicity of the TIL SC injection in the rat.

The main objective of this study is to examine the impacts of globalization, financial development, government expenditures, and institutional quality on CO₂ emissions, incorporating energy consumption, and GDP per capita in the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) model for 47 Emerging Market and Developing Economies (EMDEs) between 1990 and 2014. Owing to the presence of cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity in the panel data, CADF and CIPS unit root tests are employed to validate the stationarity of the variables. Westerlund (Oxf Bull Econ Stat 69:709–748, 2007) and Banerjee and Carrion-i-Silvestre (J Time Ser Anal 38:610–636, 2017) cointegration tests denote the occurrence of cointegration among the variables. We employed CCEMG, AMG, and DCCE estimators to estimate heterogeneous parameters. The findings demonstrate that globalization, financial development, and energy consumption increase CO₂ emissions. Besides, the EKC hypothesis is affirmed in EMDEs. The accrual of governments’ financial and governance activities also boosts carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, the analysis of Dumitrescu and Hurlin causality provides evidences for the feedbacks among the variables and CO₂ emissions. From the aforementioned results, there exists the trade-off effect between economic growth and environmental quality in EMDE countries. Finally, the empirical findings of this study indicate profound implications for policy makers, which recommend governments to consider the role of finance and governance in order to ensure that energy consumption, financial development, and sustainable economic growth are in harmony with the environment in the globalization era.

Multi-elemental C-Br-Cl compound-specific isotope analysis was applied for characterizing abiotic and biotic degradation of the environmental pollutant 1-bromo-2-chloroethane (BCE). Isotope effects were determined in the model processes following hydrolytic dehalogenation and dihaloelimination pathways as well as in a microcosm experiment by the microbial culture from the contaminated site. Hydrolytic dehalogenation of BCE under alkaline conditions and by DhaA enzyme resulted in similar dual isotope slopes (ɅC/Bᵣ 21.9 ± 4.7 and 19.4 ± 1.8, respectively, and ɅC/Cₗ ~ ∞). BCE transformation by cyanocobalamin (B12) and by Sulfurospirillum multivorans followed dihaloelimination and was accompanied by identical, within the uncertainty range, dual isotope slopes (ɅC/Bᵣ 8.4 ± 1.7 and 7.9 ± 4.2, respectively, and ɅC/Cₗ 2.4 ± 0.3 and 1.5 ± 0.6, respectively). Changes over time in the isotope composition of BCE from the contaminated groundwater showed only a slight variation in δ¹³C values and were not sufficient for the elucidation of the BCE degradation pathway in situ. However, an anaerobic microcosm experiment with the enrichment cultures from the contaminated groundwater presented dual isotope slopes similar to the hydrolytic pathway, suggesting that the potential for BCE degradation in situ by the hydrolytic dehalogenation pathway exists in the contaminated site.