Jakarta is an Indonesian coastal megacity with over 10 million inhabitants. The rivers flowing through the city receive enormous amounts of untreated wastewaters and discharge their pollutant loads into Jakarta Bay. We utilized a screening approach to identify those site-specific compounds that represent the major contamination of the cities' water resources, and detected a total number of 71 organic contaminants in Jakarta river water samples. Especially contaminants originating from municipal wastewater discharges were detected in high concentrations, including flame retardants, personal care products and pharmaceutical drugs.A flame retardant, a synthetic fragrance and caffeine were used as marker compounds to trace the riverine transport of municipal wastewaters into Jakarta Bay. These markers are also appropriate to trace municipal wastewater discharges to other tropical coastal ecosystems. This application is in particular useful to evaluate wastewater inputs from land-based sources to habitats which are sensitive to changing water quality, like coral reefs.

The objectives of the present study were to evaluate the ecological status of tropical coastal waters using the temperate benthic indices and examine the effect of seasonal variability on the performance of benthic indices. Macrobenthic samples were collected from northwest to southeast coast of India during 2003–2012 and we tested different univariate indices, ecological strategies, indicator species and multimetric indices. AMBI and multimetric indices performed satisfactorily in evaluating the ecological status. Seasonal variability on the biotic indices was observed during the southwest monsoon and fall intermonsoon period due to recruitment. Therefore, we recommended the non-monsoon period (January–May) as a suitable time of the year to use the indices for effective assessment of the Indian coastal waters. Results show that, the temperate benthic indices are efficient in assessing the tropical environmental status. However, complementary use of different indices is suggested for accurate assessment of the environmental status.

This study presents the results of 137Cs and 40K radionuclide concentrations in mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis) samples collected during the period of February–November 2014 from twelve different stations within the border of the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey. Also, these radionuclide concentrations were determined in sea water and sediment samples. The activity concentrations in seawater, sediment and mussel tissue samples were between 1.12–1.69mBqL−1, 3.26–30.74 and 1.61–3.16Bqkg−1 for 137Cs and 231.41–399.49mBqL−1, 215.71–450.07 and 286.84–382.16Bqkg−1 for 40K, respectively. These values are also in accordance with the concentrations reported for similar regions. Additionally, radiological impact parameters such as daily intake of 137Cs and 40K, annual committed effective dose and carcinogenic risk due to the consumption of mussel were calculated and compared with the international data. Lifetime cancer risk values are lower than the limit of 10−3.

Green tides have occurred in Qingdao coast in China for seven consecutive years from 2007 to 2013. To provide information on the genetic structure of these blooms, 210 free-floating green algae samples isolated from the green tide in Qingdao coast on June 19, 2013 were identified based on the ITS, rbcL and 5S sequence, and genetic diversity was investigated by microsatellite markers. According to ITS, rbcL and 5S sequence, all the 210 samples belonged to Ulva prolifera. Nei's genetic diversity and Shannon index estimated using eight microsatellite markers indicated that the genetic diversity of U. prolifera population within Qingdao's green bloom in 2013 was low. Taking into account previous reports about life history and physiology of U. prolifera, we proposed that the limited origin area of the free-floating biomass and asexual reproduction of U. prolifera might be responsible for the lower diversity of free floating U. prolifera.

In this study, Reverse phase dispersive liquid–liquid micro extraction (RP-DLLME) technique have been successfully developed to preconcentrate trace amount of phenol from sediment samples as a prior step to its derivatization with 4-aminoantipyrine and enhanced determination by UV–Vis spectrophotometry after primary ultrasonic extraction. In this procedure, 50μL 0.7M NaOH solution was chosen as extraction solvent and other factors including pH, extraction time, concentration of 4-aminoantipyrine, type and volume of dispersive solvents were optimized. Under selected conditions, the limit of detection, the linearity range, relative standard deviation and enrichment factor of method were obtained 15μg·kg−1, 50–1800μg·kg−1, 4.8% (n=10) and 33, respectively. Finally, using the high sensitivity, low organic solvent consumption and waste generation method, total phenol content in marine sediments from several locations in Chabahar Bay (southeast Iran) was estimated at 55.8–73.2μg·kg−1.

Knowledge of the levels of pollutants to which the occupants of a residential home are exposed is important, because of the potential adverse effect of the pollutants on the occupants' health. This study presents the first indoor-to-outdoor ratio (IOR) prediction models for CO2, NO2, and the lung-deposited nanoparticles (defined as particulate matters of 10–1000 nm in diameter). The IORs of CO2, NO2, and the lung-deposited nanoparticles (LDN) were measured in 20 residential homes in Seoul, South Korea, and meteorological information, building characteristics, and information relating to occupants' indoor activities were collected as predictor candidates. A correlation analysis and a multistep multivariate linear regression analysis were performed to develop the IOR models. Based on the analysis, the selected predictors of the IOR for a home are the number of occupants, the type of stove, and the number of cooking activities for CO2, the temperature and number of cooking activities for NO2, and the number of occupants and floor level on which the home is located for LDN. The accuracies of the models were examined in terms of R2, and were found to be 0.70, 0.54, and 0.79 for CO2, NO2, and LDN models, respectively.

In this study, two composting strategies (not turned and turned windrows) of pig slurry solid fraction (SF) were evaluated and compared in terms of their suitability to obtain a composted manure appropriate for further pelletizing (i.e., moisture content <40%). The effect of the two composting strategies on carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and ammonia (NH3) emissions were also investigated.Six identical SF windrows of approximately 4 m3 and 1800 kg were set up outside, on a concrete pad in an open-sided, roofed facility, and composted for a period of 72 days. During the experimental period, three SF windrows were composted unturned (NTW), while the others three SF windrows were turned (TW) six times: at day 7, 16, 28, 35, 50 and 57. Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ammonia emissions were measured three times a week for the first 3 weeks and twice per week thereafter for the 72 days of composting. In correspondence of each turning operation, gases emissions rates from TW, were evaluated two times: before and immediately after turning. Due to the production of heat generated during the composting process, high losses of water occurred from both NTW and TW. However, at the end of the trial the average moisture content in composted manure from NTW and from TW resulted, respectively, 46.7% and 34.6%. Therefore, under the specific conditions adopted in this study, composting of pig slurry SF in NTW did not give a suitable product for further pelletizing. In addition, composted manure from NTW resulted in significantly (p < 0.05) lower total nitrogen (2.9% vs 3.4%) and NO3–N (714 mg kg−1 vs 1358 mg kg−1) content. However, in terms of CO2-eq, total gaseous emissions recorded over 72 days of trial from TW (120.4 kg CO2-eq. t−1) were approximately 95% higher as compared to those (64.7 kg CO2-eq. t−1) obtained from NTW.

Although pollutant emission is the main cause of environmental quality deterioration, regional environmental quality may not be consistent with pollutant emission volume. To investigate the relationship between environmental quality and pollutant emission in Chinese provinces, a spatial mismatch index model and a barycenter model were established. NOx emissions and NO2 concentrations for the period 2006–2012 were used to verify the models. Results showed that regional differences in emission intensity were found; total NOx emissions for the nine highest-emission provinces accounted for 61.7% of the national total. Spatial distributions of NO2 pollution remained stable. Areas below Grade II of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (GB 3095-2012) were mainly in the eastern coastal region, especially the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area. Spatial mismatches could be found between NOx emission and NO2 concentration, with the spatial mismatch index ranging 29.6–32.7, while barycenter distance for these two variables ranged 45.4–138.5 km. Spatial mismatches between NOx emission and NO2 concentration have decreased gradually over time. Our findings enhance understanding of the link between environmental quality and pollutant emission and should be taken into account when establishing regional environmental goals.

The wide occurrence of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and heavy metals in coastal waters has drawn global concern, and thus their removal efficiencies in sewage treatment processes should be estimated. However, low concentrations coupled with high temporal fluctuations of these pollutants present a monitoring challenge. Using semi-permeable membrane devices (SPMDs) and Artificial Mussels (AMs), this study investigates a novel approach to evaluating the removal efficiency of five EDCs and six heavy metals in primary treatment, secondary treatment and chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT) processes. In general, the small difference between maximum and minimum values of individual EDCs and heavy metals measured from influents/effluents of the same sewage treatment plant suggests that passive sampling devices can smooth and integrate temporal fluctuations, and therefore have the potential to serve as cost-effective monitoring devices for the estimation of the removal efficiencies of EDCs and heavy metals in sewage treatment works.

Bacterioplankton communities in a semi-closed bay (Jangmok Bay, South Korea) were analysed using a 16S rDNA multiplex 454 pyrosequencing approach. Diversity and operational taxonomic units of bacterioplankton communities in the Jangmok Bay are highest in cold water seasons and lowest in warm water ones. During cold seasons, α-proteobacteria respond rapidly to pulses of the concentration of inorganic nutrients, while γ-proteobacteria during warm water seasons are the most active type of bacterioplankton resent in the prevailing conditions, which include high dissolved organic carbon, chemical oxygen demand and primary production. Cyanobacteria, a minor group constituting 4.58% of the total bacterioplankton, are more abundant at low temperature. Flavobacteria are more abundant in nutrient-rich conditions and the abundance of this group also demonstrated a delayed decline following summer phytoplankton blooms. The pronounced seasonal oscillations in phosphorus concentration and temperature exert strong selection pressure on bacterioplankton communities.