Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) antlers are a useful tool for historical biomonitoring because they accumulate potential bone-seeking pollutants (Pb) and are naturally standardized environmental samples. Lead concentrations were measured in 45 antlers of roe deer, shot in the period 1925-2003 in the Upper Meža Valley, Slovenia, where lead production started at the end of the nineteenth century. Extremely high levels of lead were determined in the antlers (mean (SD) 54.7 (33.5) mg/kg, dry weight; range 2.69-554 mg/kg), exceeding previously reported levels of Pb in roe deer antlers from Europe. After the cessation of primary lead production in 1989, lead levels in antlers have been declining but are still high (period 2000-2003: mean (SD) 5.81 (6.60) mg/kg; range 2.69-7.74 mg/kg) compared with other areas of Slovenia. Spatial comparison confirmed that the lead contamination declines with distance from the emission source. The study confirmed the exceptional potential of roe deer antlers as a bioindicator of lead contamination of the environment.

Lura stream flows in the populated and industrialized conurbation North of Milan, Italy. The area suffers a sprawling urbanization which is leading to major alterations in water quality, hydrology and morphology of streams. These water bodies are known as effluent-dominated streams, because most of the baseflow is given by Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) discharges. In this paper, a 5 year long assessment of Lura stream is presented and the collected data is discussed to understand overall ecological quality. Multivariate analysis carried out on macroinvertebrate assemblages and environmental variables suggests that invertebrate communities suffer severe alteration both upstream and downstream WWTP discharges. Results indicate that the high polluting loads coming from WWTP discharges affect seriously the stream water quality, but the most important cause of impairment are pulse perturbations related to the modified hydrology, causing droughts and flash floods, and to the spills of untreated sewage from overflows during rain events.

In Russia in 1950-1960 solutions for the localization and storage of large volumes of liquid radioactive waste produced during defensive tasks were accomplished using natural and man-made water objects. At present, they are non-isolated from the environment and radioactive waste storage facilities constitute a serious potential menace. These objects are not allowed by the current legislation of the Russian Federation on environmental protection and safety. However, they do exist and there are no definite and approved engineering solutions regarding their removal. One of these objects is the Techa Cascade of Reservoirs (TCR) of the Mayak plant. In this article, TCR protection requirements are based on and formalized taking into account the legislation of the Russian Federation and the biospheric approach to the radiation protection of humans and the environment. Special safety requirements are needed because the standard argument “from human exposure to discharge standards” is invalid owing to the fact that the possibility of using water objects that have had contact with the TCR is restricted by law.

Nitrogen removal in wetlands is achieved through two pathways: (a) N cycling and (b) storage. N cycling is a permanent removal pathway. There has been an increasing interest in the development of technologies to alleviate permanent nitrogen removal limitation in constructed wetlands by ensuring prevalence of conditions enhancing N cycling. The purpose of this study is to review an emerging technology of vegetated submerged bed constructed wetland system aimed at improving nitrogen removal in wetlands through rational system design. The design and performance of this system type is evaluated. The oxygen transfer capacity and nitrogen removal mechanisms on system performance are evaluated. Constructed wetland combinations most commonly consist of vertical flow (VF) and horizontal flow (HF) beds where VF and HF are aimed at nitrification and denitrification, respectively. Nitrate nitrogen accumulation is the most limiting factor in typical VF based systems.

Variation of mercury (Hg) in sediments and biota from Coatzacoalcos estuary during the dry, rainy and windy seasons was estimated. In sediments, Hg concentrations ranged from 0.07 μg g⁻¹ in site 13 (Ixhuatepec) located upstream, to 1.06 μg g⁻¹ in site 3 (Coatzacoalcos river), located in the industrialized area. Highest enrichment factor (EF) and index of geoaccumulation (I geo) in surficial sediments were 53 and 5.1 respectively. From EF and I geo, it is considered that Coatzacoalcos estuary is from moderately contaminated to contaminated. In most fish species from Coatzacoalcos estuary, the sequence of Hg concentration was liver>muscle>gills. Average Hg concentrations in soft tissue of bivalves ranged from 0.09 μg g⁻¹ in Corbicula fluminea to 0.18 μg g⁻¹ in Polymesoda caroliniana. Biota-sediment accumulation factor (BSAF) ranged from 0.9 in P. caroliniana during the rainy season (site 4) to 3.8 in P. caroliniana from the same site during the windy season.

This work investigates the solar heterogeneous photocatalytic degradation of three commercial acid dyes: Blue 9 (C.I. 42090), Red 51 (C.I. 45430), and Yellow 23 (C.I. 19140). TiO₂ P25 from Degussa was used as the photocatalyst. The dyes were completely degraded within 120 min of treatment in the following increasing order of removal rate: Blue 9 < Yellow 23 < Red 51. The photocatalytic color removal process was well described by a two-first-order in-series reaction, followed by another first-order reaction. Photolytic experiments showed that this process is quite inefficient and highly selective towards Red 51 only. The dyes' solution was completely decolorized and organic matter removals up to 99% were achieved with photocatalysis. The lack of selectivity and the possibility of using solar light to excite the photocatalyst are promising results regarding the feasibility of this technology.

Encerrada Bay (EB) is located in the far south of Argentina, on the north coast of the Beagle Channel and is artificially connected with Ushuaia Bay (UB). This study was carried out between 2004 and 2005; and assesses the impact of Ushuaia city to the nutrient dynamics in EB. It was focused on physical and chemical characterization of discharges, water and sediment quality, nutrient benthic fluxes, and water exchange with UB. The average ammonium, nitrate, phosphate and silicate concentrations in the water bay were 99.5 ± 30.7; 10.0 ± 4.2; 2.0 ± 0.7; 23.5 ± 2.9 µM, respectively. Benthic fluxes showed a consumption of oxygen (50-450 mg m⁻² h⁻¹) and nitrate (20-416 µmol m⁻² h⁻¹) by sediment and release of ammonium (79−4,772 µmol m⁻² h⁻¹) and phosphate (27-36 µmol m⁻² h⁻¹) into the water column. The daily contributions of nitrogen and phosphate from the effluents to EB were between 102 and 517 kg day⁻¹ and between 4 and 22 kg day⁻¹ respectively, while the net average export fluxes to UB were 41.7 kg day⁻¹ of nitrogen and 15.7 kg day⁻¹ of phosphate. The difference between received and exported nutrients is consumed in EB by primary producers, partially buffering the impact of wastewater in UB at its own eutrophication risk.

A factorial-design-based fuzzy-stochastic modeling system (FFSMS) was developed in this study to systematically investigate impacts of uncertainties associated with hydrocarbon contaminant transport in subsurface through integration of a compositional model, factorial design method, fuzzy modeling approach and Monte Carlo simulation technique. The goodness of fit of the numerical model was analyzed by means of a pilot-scale experimental system. Once the model was calibrated, it was used in order to predict the contaminant concentration depending on values of several parameters including intrinsic permeability, porosity, and longitudinal dispersivity. These parameters were imprecisely known, and such an imprecision was handled by means of both fuzzy sets and/or stochastic theory. The individual and joint effects of these uncertain parameters were analyzed by modeling the dependence between the prediction and the imprecise parameters (factors) through factorial design analysis. The study results indicated that the uncertainties associated with input parameters had significant impacts on modeling outputs; the degree of influence of each model input varied significantly with the level of its imprecision. The study results demonstrated that proposed FFSMS can efficiently analyze the impact of different uncertainty sources associated with different hydrogeological parameters on the prediction of the hydrocarbon concentrations in groundwater. Such studies would provide strong basis for performing successful risk assessment and efficient remediation design for the management of contaminated site.

The objective of this study was to investigate the changes in the chemical partitioning of Cu, Pb, Cr and Zn within a column of soil incubated with an anaerobic sewage sludge (ANSS) for 2.5 months. The soil was irrigated during the incubation period. A sequential extraction method was used to fractionate these metals into exchangeable, weakly adsorbed, organic, Al oxide, Fe-Mn oxide, and residual, respectively. ANSS was applied at a loading rate of 69 Mg ha⁻¹. The soil is a Dystric Cambisol with low pH (<3.8), low CEC [<10 cmol(+) kg⁻¹ below the first 4 cm depth], and low base saturation (<7%). The addition of the ANSS caused a decrease in concentrations of Cu, Pb, and Cr in the A1 horizon, and an increase in the concentrations with depth. Below the A1 horizon, concentrations of Cu increased uniformly (~1 mg cm⁻¹), and the greatest increases were observed in the residual, Fe-Mn oxides, and weakly adsorbed fractions. Maximum increases in Pb occurred at 4-9 cm of depth (1.6 mg cm⁻¹), and mainly affected the weakly adsorbed fraction. Chromium essentially accumulated at the limit between the A2 and the Bw horizons (1.1-1.5 mg cm⁻¹) as residual and organic bound forms, probably through particulate transport. Zinc mainly accumulated in the A1 horizon (2.9 mg cm⁻¹) as exchangeable Zn. At depth, Zn increments were predominantly observed in the residual fraction. The results of this study thus demonstrate the redistribution of contaminants into different chemical pools and soil layers after sludge amendment.

The removal of naphthalene from aqueous solutions by filtration using columns filled with sand and natural vermiculite and sand and hydrophobic vermiculite in different proportions of 2%, 5%, and 10% was evaluated. Batch experiments had shown that the removal was higher than 90% when the filled adsorbent was constituted by 10% of hydrophobic vermiculite. When vermiculite was in lower concentration, that is, 2% and 5%, the removal percentage was lower than 74%. The removal of the naphthalene by the column filled with sand and natural vermiculite did not exceed 25%. The capacity of the columns was tested passing four volumes of aqueous solution of 0.01 mol L⁻¹ naphthalene. After the third volume, the capacity dropped but still retained the major part of pollutant. However, the removal can be reached in higher levels (higher than 90%) when it is filled with 10% of modified vermiculite and increasing the length of the column. With 5% of vermiculite, it is possible to remove 94%, increasing the length of column by a factor of 1.1 times, that is, increasing the original length of 25 to 27.5 cm. The results had demonstrated that the columns are efficient in the removal of the naphthalene and bring speculations to remove other possible organic compounds.