Urban transportation is one of the leading causes of air pollution in big cities. In-use emissions of vehicles are higher than the emission control certification levels. The current study uses a roadside remote sensing emission monitoring campaign to investigate (a) fraction of high emitters in the light-duty vehicle (LDV) fleet and their contributions to the total emissions, (b) emission inspection (I/M) programs' effectiveness, and (c) alternate fuel (natural gas) encouragement policy. LDVs consist of passenger or freight transport vehicles with four wheels equivalent to classes M1 and N1 of European union vehicle classifications. The motivation is to assess the current emission inspection program's success rate and study the impact of the increased natural gas vehicle market share policy. It is also meant to present and validate remote sensing as a possible backup method to the current I/M program.The emission remote sensing campaign was conducted to measure emissions of CO, HC, and NO of the LDV fleet. Fleet age, engine size, and fuel type (gasoline or natural gas) were extracted and correlated with emissions. It was found that CO and HC emissions are five times higher for cars more than fifteen years old of age compared to those less than five years old. Analyses of high-emitters showed that almost 20% of the fleet were high-emitters and responsible for roughly half of CO, HC, and NO emissions.The correlation between the I/M program and the remote sensing to identify high-emitters was weak. Which indicates the need for an improved I/M program. It shows that even a limited remote sensing campaign is beneficial as a complementary monitoring tool to the I/M program. The study showed the same fraction of high-emitters in natural gas (methane) vehicles, despite the national policies to increase natural gas vehicle fraction in the market for reduced emissions.

Little is known about effects of maternally transferred contaminants in snakes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate sublethal effects of maternally transferred mercury (Hg) on neonatal northern watersnakes (Nerodia sipedon). We captured 31 gravid females along a historically Hg-contaminated river. Following birth, we measured litter Hg concentrations and assessed locomotor performance, foraging ability (i.e., number of prey eaten, latency to first strike, strike efficiency, and handling time), and learning (i.e., change in foraging measures over time) in their offspring (n = 609). Mercury concentrations in offspring negatively correlated with motivation to feed and strike efficiency. Over time, strike efficiency and latency to strike decreased for all snakes in the study. However, offspring from contaminated areas maintained consistently lower efficiencies than reference individuals. This study is the first to examine sublethal behavioral effects of maternally transferred contaminants in snakes and suggests that maternally transferred Hg negatively affects offspring behavior.

Anthropogenic noise underwater is increasingly recognized as a pollutant for marine ecology, as marine life often relies on sound for orientation and communication. However, noise may not only interfere with processes mediated through sound, but also have effects across sensory modalities. To understand the mechanisms of the impact of anthropogenic sound to its full extent, we also need to study cross-sensory interference. To study this, we examined the effect of boat sound playbacks on olfactory-mediated food finding behaviour of shore crabs. We utilized opaque T-mazes with a consistent water flow from both ends towards the starting zone, while one end contained a dead food item. In this way, there were no visual or auditory cues and crabs could only find the food based on olfaction. We did not find an overall effect of boat sound on food finding success, foraging duration or walking distance. However, after excluding deviant data from one out of the six different boat stimuli, we found that crabs were faster to reach the food during boat sound playbacks. These results, with and without the deviant data, seem to contradict an earlier field study in which fewer crabs aggregated around a food source during elevated noise levels. We hypothesise that this difference could be explained by a difference in hunger level, with the current T-maze crabs being hungrier than the free-ranging crabs. Hunger level may affect the motivation to find food and the decision to avoid or take risks, but further research is needed to test this. In conclusion, we did not find unequivocal evidence for a negative impact of boat sound on the processing or use of olfactory cues. Nevertheless, the distinct pattern warrants follow up and calls for even larger replicate samples of acoustic stimuli for noise exposure experiments.

The Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) is the first programme to tackle carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from a single industry at the global level, to realize the carbon-neutral growth of international flights from 2020 onwards. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a drastic decline in the global aviation industry. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has adjusted the CORSIA by removing 2020 emissions from the baseline, which now will only be based on 2019 emissions. We estimate that the total carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from global international flights decreased by 70 % from February to July 2020 compared to those in 2019. Our analysis suggests that the annual CO₂ emissions from international flights during the pilot stage of CORSIA (2021–2023) will be far below the revised baseline even if the global aviation industry could embrace an optimistic recovery. The major airline companies will have very limited motivations due to the CORSIA scheme to implement mitigation actions proactively. Therefore, more progressive actions are needed to align the industry recovery of global aviation and climate change mitigation during the post-COVID-19 period.

Although fungicides were previously considered to be safe for important agricultural pollinators such as honey bees, recent evidence has shown that they can cause a number of behavioral and physiological sublethal effects. Here, we focus on the fungicide Pristine® (active ingredients: 25.2% boscalid, 12.8% pyraclostrobin), which is sprayed during the blooming period on a variety of crops and is known to affect honey bee mitochondria at field-relevant levels. To date, no study has tested the effects of a field-relevant concentration of a fungicide on associative learning ability in honey bees. We tested whether chronic, colony-level exposure at field-relevant and higher concentrations of Pristine® impairs performance on the proboscis extension reflex (PER) paradigm, an associative learning task. Learning performance was reduced at higher field-relevant concentrations of Pristine®. The reductions in learning performance could not be explained by effects on hunger or motivation, as sucrose responsiveness was not affected by Pristine® exposure. To determine whether Pristine®‘s negative effects on learning performance were mediated at a specific life stage, we conducted a cross-fostering experiment that exposed bees to the fungicide either only as larvae, only as adults, or during both stages. We found that exposure across the entire life was necessary to significantly reduce learning performance, although non-significant reductions occurred when bees were exposed during just one stage. Our study provides strong evidence that Pristine® has significant sublethal effects on learning performance. As associative learning is a necessary ability for foraging, our results raise concerns that Pristine® could impair foraging abilities and substantially weaken colony health.

Nanoscale zero-valent iron (nZVI) is an effective arsenic (As) scavenger. However, spent nZVI may pose a higher environmental risk than our initial thought in the presence of As-reducing bacteria. Therefore, our motivation was to explore the As redox transformation and release in spent nZVI waste residue in contact with Pantoea sp. IMH, an arsC gene container adopting the As detoxification pathway. Our incubation results showed that IMH preferentially reduce soluble As(V), not solid-bound As(V), and was innocent in elevating total dissolved As concentrations. μ-XRF and As μ-XANES spectra clearly revealed the heterogeneity and complexity of the inoculated and control samples. Nevertheless, the surface As local coordination was not affected by the presence of IMH as evidenced by similar As-Fe atomic distance (3.32–3.36 Å) and coordination number (1.9) in control and inoculated samples. The Fe XANES results suggested that magnetite in nZVI residue was partly transformed to ferrihydrite, and the IMH activity slowed down the nZVI aging process. IMH distorted Fe local coordination without change its As adsorption capacity as suggested by Mössbauer spectroscopy. Arsenic retention is not inevitably enhanced by in situ formed secondary Fe minerals, but depends on the relative As affinity between the primary and secondary iron minerals.

To protect and improve water quality in the Great Barrier Reef, the Queensland Government's Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan targets that 90% of sugarcane, horticulture, cropping and grazing lands in priority areas be managed using best management practices for sediment, nutrient and pesticides by 2025. Progress towards this target is insufficient and variable across catchments and industries. The motivation to adopt improvements in management practices is heavily influenced by social, economic, cultural and institutional dimensions. In this paper we synthesise the literature on how these human dimensions influence decision making for land management practice and highlight where future investment could be focussed. We highlight that focussing on —1) investigating systems to support landholder decision making under climate uncertainty (risk); 2) generating a better understanding of the extent and drivers of landholder transaction cost; 3) understanding if there are competing ‘right’ ways to farm; and 4) improving understanding of the social processes, trust and power dynamics within GBR industries and what these means for practice change— could improve practice change uptake in the future.

In the Pacific region, community engagement, participation and empowerment are key to effective and sustainable marine resource management at the local level. With the prevalence of a local marine tenure systems and the widespread decline of coastal resources, communities need to be part of the solution to facilitate recovery. A novel marine monitoring toolkit was developed in Vanuatu with the participation of community resource monitors to inform local management actions. The Toolkit includes simplified versions of established monitoring methods for marine habitats and resources to achieve a balance between robust science and methods appropriate for communities. Key to its success is that it was developed in response to community needs using a participatory approach and implemented through a series of training workshops with local environmental leaders. Of particular note, the Toolkit includes a standardised process for communities to use monitoring results instantly, without the need for complex data analyses or external support. Using the Toolkit, communities are able to adapt their traditional management to address immediate and medium-term issues in their local marine environment. The observed benefits of the Toolkit include increased local awareness through community-led environmental outreach, increased ownership of and motivation for local monitoring and management, implementation of local management actions, expansion of traditional marine managed areas, and new local ecotourism initiatives to generate revenue to support environmental stewardship.

Being regarded as a problem of global dimensions, marine litter has been a growing concern that affects human beings, wildlife and the economic health of coastal communities to varying degrees. Due to its involvement with human behavior, marine littering has been regarded as a cultural matter encompassing macro and micro level aspects. At the micro or individual level, behavior and behavioral motivation of an individual are driven by perception of that person while at the macro or societal level, aspects including policies and legislations influence behavior. This paper investigates marine littering through the macro-micro level lenses in order to analyze and recommend how anti-littering behavior can be improved and sustained. Using Coleman's model of micro-macro relations, research questions are formulated and investigated through a social survey. Results showed important differences in perceptions among participating groups and to address key issues, potential actions are proposed along with a framework to sustain anti-littering behavior.

In this study an algal bloom event in fall 2013 in the Strait of Hormuz was thoroughly investigated using satellite remote sensing and hydrodynamic modeling. The motivation of this study is to deduce ambient conditions prior to and during the bloom outbreak and understand its trigger. Bloom tracking was achieved by sequential MODIS imagery and numerical simulations. Satellite observations showed that the bloom was initiated in late October 2013 and dissipated in early June 2014. Trajectories of bloom patches were simulated using a Lagrangian transport model. Model-based predictions of bloom patches' trajectories were in good agreement with satellite observations with a probability of detection (POD) reaching 0.85. Analysis of ancillary data, including sea surface temperature, ocean circulation, and wind, indicated that the bloom was likely caused by upwelling conditions in the Strait of Hormuz. Combined with numerical models, satellite observations provide an essential tool for investigating bloom conditions.