Seawater, sediment and fish (anchovy) samples consumed in the Rize province of the Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey were collected from five different stations. The radioactivity levels (226Ra, 232Th, 40K and 137Cs) were determined in all the samples using a high-purity germanium detector. While 226Ra, 232Th and 40K radionuclides were detected in all samples, the radionuclide concentration of 137Cs, except for the sediment samples (mean activity is 9±1.4Bqkg−1), was not detected for the seawater and fish samples. The total annual effective dose rates from the ingestion of these radionuclides for fish were calculated using the measured activity concentrations in radionuclides and their ingested dose conversion factor. Also, the concentrations of some heavy metals in all the samples were determined. The activity and heavy metal concentration values that were determined for the seawater, sediment and fish samples were compared among the locations themselves and with literature values.

A 3D coupled physical-biogeochemical model is developed and applied to Bizerte Lagoon (Tunisia), in order to understand and quantitatively assess its hydrobiological functioning and nutrients budget. The biogeochemical module accounts for nitrogen and phosphorus and includes the water column and upper sediment layer. The simulations showed that water circulation and the seasonal patterns of nutrients, phytoplankton and dissolved oxygen were satisfactorily reproduced. Model results indicate that water circulation in the lagoon is driven mainly by tide and wind. Plankton primary production is co-limited by phosphorus and nitrogen, and is highest in the inner part of the lagoon, due to the combined effects of high water residence time and high nutrient inputs from the boundary. However, a sensitivity analysis highlights the importance of exchanges with the Mediterranean Sea in maintaining a high level of productivity. Intensive use of fertilizers in the catchment area has a significant effect on phytoplankton biomass increase.

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Although anthropogenic oil spills vary in size, duration and severity, their broad impacts on complex social, economic and ecological systems can be significant. Questions pertaining to the operational challenges associated with the tactical allocation of human resources, cleanup equipment and supplies to areas impacted by a large spill are particularly salient when developing mitigation strategies for extreme oiling events. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the application of advanced oil spill modeling techniques in combination with a developed mathematical model to spatially optimize the allocation of response crews and equipment for cleaning up an offshore oil spill. The results suggest that the detailed simulations and optimization model are a good first step in allowing both communities and emergency responders to proactively plan for extreme oiling events and develop response strategies that minimize the impacts of spills.

This study reports the occurrence of some endocrine disrupting chemicals in red mullet samples and sediments collected in two representative sites of the northern Sicilian coast (Italy). For this purpose, an improved method, using solid extraction and high-performance liquid chromatography analyses for the simultaneous determination of bisphenol A (BPA), 4-nonylphenol (4-NP) and 4-t-octylphenol (4-t-OP) in fish tissues and sediments, has been developed and validated. Method performance was demonstrated over the concentration range 0.1–200ng/mL, with detection limits from 0.06 to 0.1ng/mL. Recoveries ranged from 83.4% to 102.6%, with relative standard deviations of 7.7–14.0% for the entire procedure.Results showed that BPA, 4-t-OP and 4-NP were detected in all fish samples and sediments from two sampling sites, indicating that these chemicals have contaminated Mediterranean aquatic ecosystem and have accumulated in fish. The study provided more comprehensive fundamental data for risk assessment and contamination control of phenolic EDCs in aquatic environment.

Under the background of growing greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting global warming, researches about the spatial-temporal variation analysis of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the regional and global scale has become one of the most important topics in the scientific community. Simulating and analyzing the spatial-temporal variation of the carbon dioxide concentration on a global scale under limited observation data has become one of the key problems to be solved in the research field of spatial analysis technology. A new research approach based on high accuracy surface modeling data fusion (HASM-DF) method was proposed in this paper, in which the output of the CO2 concentration of the GEOS-Chem model were taken as driving field, and the observation values of CO2 concentration at ground observation station were taken as accuracy control conditions. The new approach's objective is to fulfill the fusion of the two kinds of CO2 data, and obtain the distribution of CO2 on a global scale with a higher accuracy than the results of GEOS-Chem. Root mean square error (RMSE) was chosen as the basic accuracy index, and the experimental analysis shows that the RMSE of the result of the proposed approach is 1.886 ppm, which is significantly lower than that of the GEOS-Chem's 2.239 ppm. Furthermore, compared with the results created by the interpolation methods used the observation values at stations; the fusion results keep a good spatial heterogeneity similar to the results of GEOS-Chem. This research analyzed the spatial distribution and time series variation of the near-surface CO2 based on the fusion result on a global scale. And it can found that areas such as East Asia, Western North American, Central South America and Central Africa and other region show a relatively high value of the near-surface CO2 concentration. And we also found that the near-surface CO2 concentration changes with season, especially in North America and Eurasia, the near-surface CO2 in summer was significantly lower than winter in these areas.

Intense blooms of the toxic dinoflagellate Ostreopsis have been a recurrent phenomenon along several Mediterranean coasts. Blooms have been associated with noxious effects on human health and mortality of marine organisms, due to the production of palytoxin-like compounds. We analyzed the toxin concentrations throughout an O. cf. ovata bloom to highlight their relationships with environmental parameters in the Conero Riviera, northern Adriatic Sea. High temperature and balanced nutrient conditions were the optimal environmental conditions to start and sustain blooms as well as to maximize toxin production. Ostreopsis showed a gradual decrease of toxin content throughout the bloom ascribed to the occurring of the same non-optimal conditions that led to the bloom decline. Moreover, our results suggest that toxin fraction released during bloom could be higher than that released in batch culture. Results from this study pointed out that the first bloom phase is potentially the most dangerous to human health.

To constrain organic matter compositions and origins, elemental (TOC, TN, C/N) and stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen isotope (δ15N) compositions are measured for surface sediments collected from muddy deposit along the Zhejiang coast, East China Sea. The results showed that the TOC, TN, C/N, δ13C, and δ15N were 0.19–0.67%, 0.03–0.09%, 6.76–9.22, −23.43 to −20.26‰, and 3.93–5.27‰, respectively. The δ13C values showed that the mixing inputs of terrigenous and marine organic matter generally dominated sedimentary organic matter in the west part, and the sedimentary organic matters were mainly influenced by the marine organic matter in the east part of the study area. A stable carbon isotope two end member mixing model estimates ~38% terrestrial -derived and ~62% marine-derived inputs to sedimentary organic matter. Microbial mineralization strongly controls δ15N values, and therefore cannot be used to identify the provenance of organic matter for the Zhenjiang coast.