This paper proposes and tests a method of producing macrobenthos habitat potential maps in Hwangdo tidal flat, Korea based on an artificial neural network. Samples of macrobenthos were collected during field work, and eight control factors were compiled as a spatial database from remotely sensed data and GIS analysis. The macrobenthos habitat potential maps were produced using an artificial neural network model. Macrobenthos habitat potential maps were made for Macrophthalmus dilatatus, Cerithideopsilla cingulata, and Armandia lanceolata. The maps were validated by compared with the surveyed habitat locations. A strong correlation between the potential maps and species locations was revealed. The validation result showed average accuracies of 74.9%, 78.32%, and 73.27% for M. dilatatus, C. cingulata, and A. lanceolata, respectively. A GIS-based artificial neural network model combined with remote sensing techniques is an effective tool for mapping the areas of macrobenthos habitat potential in tidal flats.

Sediment from land use increases water turbidity and threatens the health of inshore coral reefs. This study performed experiments with a damselfish, Pomacentrus moluccensis, in four sediment treatments, control (0mgl−1), 10mgl−1(∼1.7NTU), 20mgl−1(∼3.3NTU) and 30mgl−1 (∼5NTU), to determine when sediment triggers a change in habitat use and movement. We reviewed the literature to assess how frequently P. moluccensis would experience sub-optimal sediment conditions on the reef. Preference for live coral declined from 49.4% to 23.3% and movement between habitats declined from 2.1 to 0.4times between 20mgl−1 and 30mgl−1, suggesting a sediment threshold for behavioral changes. Inshore areas of the Great Barrier Reef, P. moluccensis may encounter sub-optimal conditions between 8% and 53% of the time. Changes in these vital processes may have long-term effects on the persistence of populations, particularly as habitat loss on coral reefs increases.

The influence of different concentrations (10–2000μM) of heavy metals (Cu, Mn, Ni, Zn) was analysed in Atriplex halimus and Salicornia ramosissima germination pattern and seedling size. They are two halophyte species that grow in the Estuary of Huelva (Southwest Iberian Peninsula, Spain), one of the most heavy metal-polluted environments in the world.All of the metals tested affected the final germination percentage in A. halimus and only Ni reduced germination in S. ramosissima. The germination rate was unaffected in both species.The study of seedling development shows that S. ramosissima, an intertidal annual species, has a higher tolerance of metals than A. halimus, a bush that inhabits the upper part of the marshes.Taking into account the metal concentrations in the estuary and the effects of these on the seedling development of the species analysed, we conclude that metals might limit plant colonisation in some parts of the marshes.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) methods, either sub-seabed or in ocean depths, introduces risk of CO2 leakage and subsequent interaction with the ecosystem. It is therefore important to obtain information on possible effects of CO2. In situ CO2 exposure experiments were carried out twice for 10days during 2005 using a Benthic Chamber system at 400m depth in Storfjorden, Norway. pCO2 in the water above the sediment in the chambers was controlled at approximately 500, 5000 and 20,000μatm, respectively. This article describes the experiment and the results from measured the biological responses within the chamber sediments. The results show effects of elevated CO2 concentrations on biological processes such as increased nanobenthos density. Methane production and sulphate reduction was enhanced in the approximately 5000μatm chamber.

It can be argued that the intensity of monitoring of coastal marine environments lags behind the equivalent terrestrial environments. This results in a paucity of long-term time series of key environmental parameters such as turbidity. This lack of management information of the sources and sinks, and causes and impacts of stressors to the coastal marine environment, along with a lack of co-ordination of information collection is compromising the ability of environmental impact assessments of major coastal developments to discriminate between local and remote anthropogenic impacts, and natural or background processes. In particular, the quasi outsourcing of the collection of coastal information can lead to a perverse incentive whereby in many cases nobody is actively or consistently monitoring the coastal marine environment effectively. This is particularly the case with regards to the collection of long-term and whole-of-system scale data. This lack of effective monitoring can act to incentivise poor environmental performance.

Concentrations of heavy metals were measured in sediment and water from Málaga Bay (South Spain). In the later twentieth century, cities such as Málaga, have suffered the impact of mass summer tourism. The ancient industrial activities, and the actual urbanization and coastal development, recreation and tourism, wastewaters treatment facilities, have been sources of marine pollution. In sediments, Ni was the most disturbing metal because Ni concentrations exceeded the effects range low (ERL), concentration at which toxicity could start to be observed in 85% of the samples analyzed. The metal bioavailability decreased in the order: Cd>Ni>Pb>Cu>Cr. In the sea water samples, Cd and Pb were the most disturbing metals because they exceeded the continuous criteria concentration (CCC) of US EPA in a 22.5% and 10.0% of the samples, respectively. Statistical analyses (ANOVA, PCA, CA) were performed.

Thirty-five surface sediment samples collected from Beibu Gulf and its tributary rivers, China were analyzed for DDTs, HCHs and chlordanes. Total concentrations of DDTs, HCHs and chlordanes in sediments ranged from 0.59 to 126ngg−1, ND to 2.65ngg−1 and 0.27 to 3.41ngg−1 based on dry weight (dw), respectively. Concentrations of DDTs were higher than those reported in the sediments from other regions of the world, while concentrations of HCHs and chlordanes were relatively low. High concentrations of DDTs were observed in the harbor region and aquaculture bases and high concentrations of HCHs were found in the Qin River Estuary. The ratios of (DDE+DDD)/DDTs reflected a mixed input of weathered and fresh DDTs. The predominant β-HCH indicated that HCHs in the study area mainly originated from the historical usage of technical HCH. The residues of DDTs would pose adverse biological effects on the study area.

It is unclear whether habitat degradation correlates with tolerance of marine invertebrates to abiotic stress. We therefore tested whether resistance to climate change-related stressors differs between populations of the green mussel Perna viridis from a heavily impacted and a mostly pristine site in West Java, Indonesia. In laboratory experiments, we compared their oxygen consumption and mortality under lowered salinity (−13 and −18 units, both responses), hypoxia (0.5mg/l, mortality only) and thermal stress (+7°C, mortality only). Mussels from the eutrophied and polluted Jakarta Bay showed a significantly smaller deviation from their normal oxygen consumption and higher survival rates when stressed than their conspecifics from the unaffected Lada Bay. This shows that human induced habitat degradation correlates with mussel tolerance to environmental stress. We discuss possible mechanisms – e.g. the selection of tolerant genotypes or habitat-specific differences in the nutritional status of the mussels – that could explain our observation.

In this paper, we develop a bi–level transferable air pollutant price (TAPP) model, and use the model to find ways to mitigate China’s interprovincial air pollution control problem. In this model, the leader is China’s central government and the followers consist of China’s 31 provinces. The leader aims to decrease the nation’s total pollutant control costs, whereas each province attempts to minimize its pollution control costs by balancing its own pollutant reduction cost with transfer payments to or from other provinces, in the context of a transfer price set by the leader. We chose a Karush–Kuhn–Tucker approach with an embedded bisection algorithm to solve the model. We then applied the TAPP model to the seriously polluted Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei area of China. Compared with the current command–and–control regulation approach, the TAPP model for the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei area decreased the total environmental cost by US$ 3 964.61×103 (10.5% of the current command–and–control regulation cost). This demonstrated that the TAPP model was superior because it both mitigated the problem of air pollution transport across regional boundaries and utilized the available resources of the study area more efficiently.

Tibouchina pulchra (Cham.) Cogn. (Melastomataceae) is a native tree species from the southeast region of Brazil. This early successional species significantly contributes to the characteristic physiognomy and structure of the Atlantic Rain Forest. Saplings were exposed to carbon filtered air (CF), ambient non–filtered air (NF), and ambient non–filtered air +40 ppb ozone (NF+O3), 8 h per day during two months, using open top chambers (OTC). The AOT40 values at the end of the experiment were 48, 910 and 12 895 ppb h–1, respectively for each treatment. After 25 days of exposure, interveinal red stippling appeared in plants in the NF+O3 chamber (AOT40=3 871 ppb h–1). In the NF chamber, symptoms were observed only after 60 days of exposure (AOT40=910 ppb h–1). No changes were observed for total phenolic contents when comparing ozone treatments. However, amounts of tannins and flavonoids were different among treatments. NF+O3 and NF treatment showed enhanced contents of flavonoids, when tannins seem to be reduced after ozone fumigation (p<0.01). Results suggest alteration on phenolic metabolism when saplings are ozone fumigated; those responses, considered T. pulchra, seem to occur before leaf injury appeared, once contents of flavonoids and tannins are also altered by NF treatment (AOT40=910 ppb h–1). This study demonstrates that total phenolic and tannins contents of saplings of T. pulchra also decreased when exposed to ozone. The same alterations were observed for T. pulchra after industrial air pollution, suggesting the reduction on total phenolic and tannins probably is a characteristic response of T. pulchra to presence of any kind of pollutant.