One of the most comprehensive tools to show the changing trend in urban ecosystems is by providing periodic State of Environment Report (SoER) for cities in national programs, wherein it is quite essential to have a truthful and realistic view of the current state of the environment as well as significant human impacts. Developing countries like Iran are faced with incoherent and deficient SoER; due to lack of data, which originates from neglecting environmental issues such as poverty, overpopulation, etc. The present study makes a comparative assessment of Tehran and Sydney's SoER in terms of sustainable urban environment indicators with the purpose of recognizing the weaknesses and strengths as well as finding the most important gaps in Tehran's SoER, which can be a useful resource for decision-makers. Results indicate the necessity of establishing integrated urban environmental management. On the whole, this paper recommends programs of environmental development and implementation as suggested strategies to reduce uncertainty and increase the reliability of SoER in the study area.

Green accounting is vital for every economy in the world. Indian manufacturing sectors are regarded as one of the most significant contributors to environmental and socioeconomic problems, and as a result, the country lacks global sustainability and progress. This paper focuses on how these industries can contribute to the sustainability of the environment. The paper aims to analyze how these industries can promote ecopreneurial behavior. Also, the researchers and expert opinions lead to a theoretical framework and conceptual model using a well-defined and explained literature review and the derived model to understand, observe, and analyze various environment awareness concerns. To gather the expert opinions, various calls and surveys were scheduled with chartered accountants, academicians, environmental experts, commerce people, to understand how the identified variables are influenced by each other. Environmental management accounting and green accounting came out as the most significant and vital factors. All the identified variables were complementing. Three levels came out for the model. The authors created an ISM on factors affecting green accounting in the Indian manufacturing sector, emphasizing the context and concept related to the discovered variables that have been tested in the real world.

Microplastics (MPs) are an emerging pollutant and a worldwide issue. A wide variety of MPs and tyre wear particles (TWPs) are entering and spreading in the environment. TWPs can reach waterbodies through runoff, where main contributing particulate matter comes from impervious areas. In this paper, TWPs and other types of MPs that were transported with the runoff of a high populated-impervious urban area were characterised. Briefly, MPs were sampled from sediments in a stormwater detention reservoir (SDR) used for flood control of a catchment area of ∼36 km², of which 73% was impervious. The sampled SDR is located in São Paulo, the most populated city in South America. TWPs were the most common type of MPs in this SDR, accounting for 53% of the total MPs; followed by fragments (30%), fibres (9%), films (4%) and pellets (4%). In particular, MPs in the size range 0.1 mm–0.5 mm were mostly TWPs. Such a profile of MPs in the SDR is unlike what is reported in environmental compartments elsewhere. TWPs were found at levels of 2160 units/(kg sediment·km² of impervious area) and 87.8 units/(kg sediment·km street length); MP and TWP loadings are introduced here for the first time. The annual flux of MPs and TWPs were 7.8 × 10¹¹ and 4.1 × 10¹¹ units/(km²·year), respectively, and TWP emissions varied from 43.3 to 205.5 kg/day. SDRs can be sites to intercept MP pollution in urban areas. This study suggests that future research on MP monitoring in urban areas and design should consider both imperviousness and street length as important factors to normalize TWP contribution to urban pollution.

Water pollution is an urgent problem that needs to be controlled via green transformation and the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). Based on the water pollutant discharge and socio-economic database of prefecture-level cities in the YREB from 2011 to 2015, this study explores the spatiotemporal variations in water pollutant discharge in the YREB via two main indicators: chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia nitrogen (NH₃–N). Further, the spatial effects and determinants of water pollutant discharge are quantitatively estimated. The results show that (1) the water pollutant discharge in the YREB has decreased significantly, with the COD and NH₃–N discharge reduced by 10.46% and 10.79%, respectively, and the discharge reduction in the lower reaches was the most prominent; (2) the spatial pattern of water pollutant discharge in the YREB was generally stable and partially improved, and cities with a high rate of water pollutant reduction in the YREB were distributed in the main stream region of the Yangtze River and the intersection of the main stream and tributaries; (3) spatial effects had a significant impact on water pollutant discharge in the YREB, with regional cooperation and economic radiation through environmental management and control initially showing a combined reduction trend in regional water pollutants; and (4) determinants of population size and agricultural economic share declined to varying degrees at the end of the study period, although the urbanization level continued to increase, indicating that urbanization in the YREB occurred too quickly and that water pollutant discharge reduction was limited. However, economic development leading to the deterioration of the water environment was alleviated. In addition, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and rapid industrialization processes must be monitored to increase the reduction in characteristic water pollutants.

Agricultural activities often lead to nutrient enrichment and habitat modification in rivers, possibly altering macroinvertebrate assemblages and hence ecosystem functioning. For the sake of environmental management and conservation, therefore, assessing the impacts of agricultural activities becomes indispensable, especially when these activities are predicted to be intensified in the future. In this study, the plain river network in the Lake Chaohu Basin was chosen to examine how agricultural activities influence the functioning of rivers by assessing land use, water quality, habitat condition and macroinvertebrate assemblages, followed by calculating the macroinvertebrate-based multimetric index (MMI) to indicate overall ecosystem health of the rivers. We found that agricultural activities lowered the diversity of macroinvertebrates (e.g. total number of taxa and Simpson index) primarily due to elevated ammonium concentrations in water and reduced microhabitat types, thereby impairing the habitat integrity and nutrient cycling of rivers. The macroinvertebrate-based MMI was positively correlated with increasing habitat quality but negatively with increasing nutrient concentrations, suggesting its high reliability for indicating the impacts of agricultural activities, which was further substantiated by classification and regression tree (CART) analysis. We recommend analyzing macroinvertebrate assemblages using both multivariate and multimetric approaches to offer a more comprehensive evaluation of the impacts of agricultural activities on ecosystem health. Some environmental (CODMₙ, NH₄⁺-N and PO₄³⁻-P) and biological parameters (total number of taxa), however, can be used as good proxies for MMI, when time and resources for gathering information to develop MMI are limited.

An increase in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) pollution poses significant challenges to human and ecosystem health in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) of the Yangtze River. Based on the combination of PAH analysis with qPCR and high-throughput sequencing of bacteria, 32 topsoil samples collected from 16 sites along the TGR were used to investigate the distribution and biodegradation pathways of PAHs in the water-level-fluctuation zone (WLFZ). The results indicated that the concentrations of PAHs were 43.8–228.2 and 30.8–206.3 ng/g soil (dry weight) under the high- and low-water-level (HWL and LWL) conditions, respectively. The PAH concentration in urban areas was higher than that in rural areas. Under both the HWL and LWL conditions, the abundance of the bamA gene, a biomarker of anaerobic PAH biodegradation, was significantly higher than that of the ring-hydroxylating-dioxygenase (RHD) gene, a biomarker of aerobic PAH biodegradation. The abundance of the bamA gene was significantly positively correlated with PAHs (R² = 0.8), and the biodegradation percentage of PAHs incubated anaerobically was greater than that in the aerobically incubated microcosm experiments. These data implicated a key role of the anaerobic pathway in PAH biodegradation. Co-occurrence network analysis suggested that anaerobic Anaerolineaceae, Dechloromonas, Bacteroidetes_vadin HA17 and Geobacter were key participants in the biodegradation of PAHs. The diversity analysis of functional bacteria based on the bamA gene and microcosm experiments further demonstrated that nitrate was the primary electron acceptor for PAH biodegradation. These findings provide a new perspective on the mechanism of PAH biodegradation in the TGR and knowledge that can be used to develop strategies for environmental management.

Radioactive contamination of the natural areas is one of the most long-lasting anthropogenic impacts on the environment. Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is a promising organism for radiation-related research because of its high radiosensitivity, but the genome size of Pinacea species has imposed obstacles for high-throughput studies so far. In this work, we conducted the analysis of the de novo assembled transcriptome of Scots pine populations growing in the Chernobyl-affected zone, which is still today contaminated with radionuclides because of the accident at the nuclear power plant in 1986. The transcriptome profiles indicate a clear pattern of adaptive stress response, which seems to be dose-dependent. The transcriptional response indicates a continuous modulation of the cellular redox system, enhanced expression of chaperones and histones, along with the control of ions balance. Interestingly, the activity of transposable element families is inversely correlated to the exposure levels to radiation. These adaptive responses, which are triggered by radiation doses 30 times lower than the one accepted as a safe for biota species by international regulations, suggest that the environmental management in radiation protection should be reviewed.

In August 2009, a blowout of the Montara H1 well 260 km off the northwest coast of Australia resulted in the uncontrolled release of about 4.7 M L of light crude oil and gaseous hydrocarbons into the Timor Sea. Over the 74 day period of the spill, the oil remained offshore and did not result in shoreline incidents on the Australia mainland. At various times slicks were sighted over a 90,000 km² area, forming a layer of oil which was tracked by airplanes and satellites but the slicks typically remained within 35 km of the well head platform and were treated with 183,000 L of dispersants. The shelf area where the spill occurred is shallow (100–200 m) and includes off shore emergent reefs and cays and submerged banks and shoals. This study describes the increased inputs of oil to the system and assesses the environmental impact. Concentrations of hydrocarbon in the sediment at the time of survey were very low (total aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) ranged from 0.04 to 31 ng g⁻¹) and were orders of magnitude lower than concentrations at which biological effects would be expected.

This study aims to assess the spatial patterns of selected dust-borne trace elements alongside the river Indus Pakistan, their relation with anthropogenic and natural sources, and the potential risk posed to human health. The studied elements were found in descending concentrations: Mn, Zn, Pb, Cu, Ni, Cr, Co, and Cd. The Index of Geo-accumulation indicated that pollution of trace metals were higher in lower Indus plains than on mountain areas. In general, the toxic elements Cr, Mn, Co and Ni exhibited altitudinal trends (P < 0.05). The few exceptions to this trend were the higher values for all studied elements from the northern wet mountainous zone (low lying Himalaya). Spatial PCA/FA highlighted that the sources of different trace elements were zone specific, thus pointing to both geological influences and anthropogenic activities. The Hazard Index for Co and for Mn in children exceeded the value of 1 only in the riverine delta zone and in the southern low lying zone, whereas the Hazard Index for Pb was above the bench mark for both children and adults (with few exceptions) in all regions, thus indicating potential non-carcinogenic health risks. These results will contribute towards the environmental management of trace metal(s) with potential risk for human health throughout Pakistan.

China's economy has grown significantly and concomitantly so has the demand for home and personal care (HPC) products. The detection of chemicals used in HPC products is increasing in profile as China strives to improve its environmental management. China is developing robust exposure models for use in regulatory risk-based assessments of chemicals, including those chemicals used in HPC products. Accurate estimates of chemical emissions play an important role within this. A methodology is presented to derive spatially refined emissions from demographic and economic indicators with large variations in emissions calculated, showing product usage being higher in East and South China. The less affordable a product, the greater the influence per capita Gross Domestic Product has on the product distribution. Lastly, more spatially resolved input data highlights greater variation of product use. Linking product sales data with population density increased the observed variability in absolute usage distribution of HPC products at the county > province > regional > country scale.