Determining how coral ecosystems are structured within extreme environments may provide insights into how coral reefs are impacted by future climate change. Benthic community structure was examined within the Persian Gulf, and adjacent Musandam and northern Oman regions across a 3-year period (2008–2011) in which all regions were exposed to major disturbances. Although there was evidence of temporal switching in coral composition within regions, communities predominantly reflected local environmental conditions and the disturbance history of each region. Gulf reefs showed little change in coral composition, being dominated by stress-tolerant Faviidae and Poritidae across the 3years. In comparison, Musandam and Oman coral communities were comprised of stress-sensitive Acroporidae and Pocilloporidae; Oman communities showed substantial declines in such taxa and increased cover of stress-tolerant communities. Our results suggest that coral communities may persist within an increasingly disturbed future environment, albeit in a much more structurally simple configuration.

The inner 1/3 of Isahaya Bay which is a tributary of Ariake Sea in Japan was shut off from the sea by a dike for the reclamation and disaster prevention in 1997. On the other hand, several environmental and fisheries problems occurred in Ariake Sea after 1990s. Some fishermen insisted that the major reason for the decrease of fishing must be the influence of the dike construction and filed lawsuits. Now the court decision is fixed and Japanese government must open the gates to reintroduce sea water into the reservoir. We made numerical simulations of currents, hydrography and sediment transport to assess the influences of the gate opening. To choose the environmentally wise procedure of gate opening, it is needed to reduce the erosion and deposition of bottom sediments caused by the enhanced tidal current and to minimize the occurrence of hypoxia in the reservoir.

This study aims to evaluate the nutrient removal potential and carrying capacity of green mussel cultivation by using the mass balance model. The developed model takes into consideration the green mussel growth rate, density and chlorophyll a concentration. The data employed in this study were based on culture conditions at Sriracha Fisheries Research Station, Thailand. Results show that net nutrient removal by green mussel is 3302, 380, and 124mg/year/indv for carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus respectively. The carrying capacity of green mussel cultivation was found to be 300indv/m2 based on chlorophyll a concentration which will not release phosphorus in the water environment beyond the standard (45μg-PO4−3-P/L). Higher chlorophyll a concentration results in lowered green mussel carrying capacity. This model can assist farm operators with possible management strategies for a sustainable mussel cultivation and protection of the marine environment.

Concentrations of PM10 (particulate matter less than 10 μm in diameter) were measured at sampling points located in the vicinity of the Turów open-pit mine, southwest Poland, in April 2008. The samples were analysed by isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IR-MS) to determine the stable carbon isotope compositions of organic carbon (δ13COC) and elemental carbon (δ13CEC). The daily PM10 concentrations ranged from 15 to 99 μg m−3 with an average value of 50 ± 24 μg m−3. The analysed δ13COC values ranged from −25.1 to −19.9‰ with an average value of −23.1 ± 1.9‰, and the values of δ13CEC ranged from −25.6 to −24.1‰ with an average value of −25.0 ± 0.5‰. Additionally, the average δ13CTC value of lignite from the open-pit mine reached −25.8‰, and calculated δ13COC of lignite using an isotopic mass balance (IMB) value reaches −25.7 ± 0.1‰, whereas lignite δ13CEC value reaches −25.9 ± 0.2‰. The calculated major possible sources indicated that organic carbon (OC) in PM10 are represented probably by primary OC originated from the local lignite open-pit mine, whereas elemental carbon (EC) in PM10 are probably derived from local coal/lignite combustion products. If a data base of δ13COC and δ13CEC values from other possible “pure” sources (coal/gasoline/diesel/biomass/etc) is created, it will be possible to calculate individual isotopic mass balances for OC and for EC, which would yield more information than was obtained for total carbon (TC). The method could be a new and very helpful tool for calculating the percentage input of possible sources of OC and EC in atmospheric particles, and it can be applied to data from locations throughout the whole world.

33 surface sediment samples from the Luanhe River Estuary have been analyzed for heavy metals to evaluate the spatial distribution pattern and their potential ecological risk. Higher metal concentrations were found in the river mouth and southern areas where being covered by fine particulate matters. In comparison with the threshold effect level and the probable effect level, Cu, Pb, Cr, Ni, and As had occasionally adverse biological effects on the aquatic ecosystems. Both the enrichment factor and geoaccumulation index values show that all the regions have been weakly polluted by Pb, Hg, As, and Cd with an exception of being moderately to strongly polluted by Hg in the river mouth and southern areas. The sources of Zn, Ni, Cd, Hg, and Cr were mainly from the river input and coastal discharge, whereas Cu, Pb, and As were mainly derived from vehicle emissions, coal and oil combustion.

Assessing the health risk of PAHs in sediments was quite difficult because sediment occurred in sea floor, and it was very hard to contact with them directly for humans. This study was attempted to reveal the relationship between concentrations of PAHs in surface sediments and health risk of seafood consumers. The transfer (bioaccumulation) of PAHs from surface sediment into benthic organisms was predicted. Source contributions to PAHs and related toxicity and health risks (from intake of PAHs-contaminated benthic organisms) were studied based on PMF model and Monte Carlo simulation, respectively. Total concentrations of PAHs (TPAHs) ranged from 149.40 to 1211.97ngg−1 in sediments of Bohai Sea (BS), China. Petroleum and vehicular emission, coal combustion and coke oven constituted 40.0%, 32.2% and 27.8% of PAHs, respectively, but contributed 53.0%, 22.8% and 24.2% of toxicity posed by PAHs in sediment. For children, teens and adults, the 95th percentile carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risks were below the threshold values of 10−6 and 1.0, respectively, suggesting no potential health risk. Sensitivity analysis suggested that exposure duration (ED) and PAH concentrations (CS) were the two most sensitive parameters in risk assessment. The results provided a method to evaluate the quality of sediments and the potential health risk related to PAHs in marine sediments.

In this study, positive matrix factorization models (PMFx) were used to analyze the sources of sedimentary PAHs in Yangtze River Estuary (YRE) using 120 data samples from 30 sites collected over four seasons. Three sources were defined for the PAHs: coal and gasoline combustion was the dominant source, accounting for approximately 50%; coke plant emissions and wood or grass combustion each contributed approximately 25%. The coal tar origin was the major source in summer; wood or grass combustion dominated in autumn; coal combustion was the primary source of PAHs in spring and winter. More than 90% of the coke plant emissions were from summer, while pollutants from wood or grass combustion were discharged primarily in autumn. These three sources distributed in different primary regions, the spatial patterns of coal combustion presented an increasing trend in the seaward direction.

Pre-spill background concentrations of TPH and PAH in water samples from the Gulf of Mexico are compared with samples (over 20,000) collected during and after the Deepwater Horizon incident (13,000 stations). Samples were collected by multiple response agencies, trustees and BP and reported in the Gulf Science Data. The samples were collected from a few m to over 800km in all directions from the wellhead. During the incident, samples with the highest concentrations of hydrocarbons were collected proximal to the wellhead or in samples collected from surface slicks and dispersant use. Of the 13,172 water sample TPH concentrations reported, 84% were below 1μg/L (background). Of the 16,557 water sample PAH concentrations reported, 79% were below 0.056μg/L (the median field blank, background). The percentage of samples below background increased rapidly after the well was capped. The spatial and temporal distributions of these hydrocarbon data are presented.

PM10 and PM2.5 were collected during spring at East (“Gangneung”) and West (“Taean”) coastal sites of the Korean peninsula to investigate chemical characteristics and likely formation routes of their water-soluble inorganic species. The Gangneung site is inland, about 4.5–5.0 km from the East Sea; the Taean site is about 200 m from the coastline and about 400 km from eastern China. The total water-soluble ionic species contributions to PM10 and PM2.5 were respectively 28.8 and 37.4% at the Gangneung site and 46.8 and 53.1% at the Taean site. Concentrations of SO42−, NH4+, and NO3− in both PM10 and PM2.5 were found to be two times higher at the Taean site than at the Gangneung site. The potential source contribution function (PSCF) maps indicate that the enhancement of PM10 and its secondary aerosol species concentrations at two sites were primarily the result of atmospheric processing during long-range transport from the polluted regions of eastern China. Also upwind sources (“the capital region of Korea”) and local emissions influenced the concentration levels of secondary inorganic species at Gangneung.SO42− events, defined by PM10SO42− concentrations exceeding the average by one standard deviation, were identified at the two sites – six at Gangneung and four at Taean – to investigate possible mechanisms for the formation of SO42− and NO3−. High SO42− and high NO3− at the Gangneung site were strongly associated with either high RH (89–94%) and low wind speed or high O3 (62–103 ppb), suggesting that either gas-phase oxidation or aqueous phase oxidation played a critical role in the enhanced SO42− production. On the other hand, at the Taean site the association was with both high RH (76–92%) and high O3 (53–79 ppb), indicating that these conditions trigger aqueous-phase and gas-phase reactions to produce secondary SO42− and NO3− particles. Also long-range transport of air masses could be one possible factor for enhanced SO42− and NO3− concentrations during the events at the two coastal sites, as evidenced by PSCF maps.

This work improves atmospheric emissions of particulate matter in Bogotá Colombia, and provides a tool applying this technique around the world. Bogotá's air pollution is largely impacted by particulate matter, and specifically by re-suspended particulate matter (RPM). RPM sources include paved and unpaved roads, agricultural tilling, construction activities, mining and quarrying. RPM emissions are frequently estimated using annual emission factors, time-varying vehicle traffic activity, a time/space invariant meteorological scaling factor, and a time/space invariant correction factor. This work updates the meteorological factors to be hour-specific, and replacing the correction factor with land use-specific local deposition factors. These techniques are codified in a flexible Python tool based on EPA's AP42 methods and the broader emission literature.Meteorology inhibits RPM emission directly via precipitation scavenging and indirectly by accumulation of road surface moisture. The effects of precipitation and surface moisture are parameterized as mitigation factors differently for paved and unpaved roads due to their porosity and drainage characteristics.These estimates of hourly mitigation factors (on average for paved roads: 0.86 and for unpaved roads: 0.61) agree well with annual factors previously used (paved: 0.90; unpaved: 0.60), however hourly factors have clear diurnal patterns that reduce emissions more significantly latter in the day for paved roads (00–12: 0.95; 12–24: 0.78), and to a lesser extent for unpaved roads (00–12: 0.64; 12–24: 0.58).Emissions are also significantly reduced by vehicle induced turbulence and local deposition. The transportable fraction (0.59 ± 0.22), parameterized based on land use, significantly reduced emissions and correlates with unpaved roads (r = 0.30) more so than with paved roads (r = 0.02). These fractions were used to construct a new inventory, which might improve air pollution predictions compared to the raw inventory, as well as new efforts to simulate exposure fields in Bogotá and our understanding of local particulate sources and sinks.