Biogeochemistry of iron in wetlands is inextricably linked with chemical ecology of aquatic biota impacting the ecology of wetland plants and human health. Therefore, its bio-accumulation in plants is of extreme eco-technological relevance in quest of potential phytoremediation tools. To this end, the Fe concentrations in water and four invasive alien macrophytes (Eichhornia crassipes, Lemna minor, Pistia stratiotes and Salvinia cucullata) of Loktak lake (a Ramsar Site) were measured. Further, the outcome of the present research can assess the efficiency of these plants in Fe-phytoremediation. Concomitantly, to get an explicit Fe-macrophyte’s chemical ecology scenario of Loktak lake, physicochemical parameters as well as biodiversity attributes were also investigated. Results revealed that among the four plant species, Pistia stratiotes accumulated the highest amount of Fe concentration and thus act as the best bio-accumulator of Fe. Further, the extent of Fe bio-accumulation was as Pistia stratiotes>Lemna minor>Eichhornia crassipes>Salvinia cucullata. The study revealed the importance of the selected invasive wetland plants as the potential bio-agents of Fe accumulation.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first noticed over Wuhan, China during December 2019. The spreading characteristics of COVID-19 infection from one person to another are resulting in a growing number of infected cases and created massive stresses across the world. The rapid dissemination of COVID-19 infection declares it as a pandemic. In India, till the mid of May 2020, there were around 75,048 confirm with 2440 number of death cases, specifically due to COVID-19. To break the chain of COVID-19, the Government of India had decided to implement the lockdown, first implemented on 23rd March 2020. Some of the significant benefits of lockdown resulted in the reduction in atmospheric pollutants of the cities across the world. The study is based on the fine and coarse particulate matters (PM) data corresponding to before lockdown and during lockdown periods. The efforts were made over Delhi (DEL) and one of the neighbouring cities, i.e. Gurgaon (GW) considering the duration 1st January 2020 to 15th May 2020 to understand the impact of lockdown on the particulate matter, i.e. PM (PM1.0, PM2.5 and PM10). Our investigation shows the decline in PM concentration during the lockdown period. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the rapid increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in DEL, India, and the inhabitants of about 14 million people. The significance of the particulate matter, temperature (°C) and relative humidity (%) on the dispersal of COVID-19 virus and its association to the total number of cases (TC), active cases (AC), recovered cases (RC) and death cases (DC) with special reference to DEL were also discussed.

Long-term sewage irrigation can cause accumulation of contaminants in soil, which imposes severe damages to soil and plants and further triggers many chronic diseases in human bodies via the food chain. In this paper, the effect of sewage irrigation on changes in concentration of contaminants in soil and its relationship with the concentration of contaminants in the main agricultural plants are discussed, and a health risk assessment is performed on the contaminant exposure suffered by people in the sewage irrigation area. Based on this, an environmental pollution risk model for the soil-plant-human system was established for research on the acceptable irrigation concentration of contaminants in sewage and the safe service period of sewage irrigation. A practical example adopted in this paper proves that arsenic pollution caused by sewage irrigation to soil-plant-human body system in the irrigation area imposes a comprehensive risk degree of 0.40, the acceptable arsenic irrigation concentration is 0.086mg/L and the safe service period for this irrigation area is 150 years. Thus, the reclaimed water shall be subject to innocuous disposal under scientific guidance for agricultural irrigation.

The potential oil-degrading isolate Staphylococcus argenteus MG2 was used for bioremediation of oil-contaminated soil. Hydrocarbon degradation by the soil microorganisms was evaluated in a soil experimentally contaminated with diesel oil. The effects of six different biological treatments on hydrocarbon degradation were determined during a 50 days incubation period to evaluate biostimulation via inorganic fertilizers (NPK) or manure (compost) with and without inoculum of Staphylococcus argenteus MG2. Eight soil samples were used: (S) uncontaminated control soil; (CS) contaminated soil; (CSF) contaminated soil + N-P-K fertilizer; (CSC) contaminated soil + compost; (CSI) contaminated soil + Inoculum; (CSFI) contaminated soil + N-P-K fertilizer + Inoculum; (CSCI) contaminated soil + compost + Inoculum; (SCSCI) sterile (oil) contaminated soil + compost + Inoculum. Percentage of oil degradation during bioremediation treatment of 50 days was found to be (CS) - 32%, (CSF) - 70.80%, (CSC) - 75%, (CSI) - 84.40%, (CSFI) - 91%, (CSCI) - 93%, (SCSCI) - 94% respectively. Results showed that not only inorganic nutrients NPK and compost stimulated hydrocarbon biodegradation but inoculation of Staphylococcus argenteus MG2 also enhanced hydrocarbon degradation. The microbial count was found to be higher in SCSCI soil sample. The germination percentage and growth of leguminous plant (Vigna radiata) in the treated soil was also notably greater. It may be concluded that the Staphylococcus argenteus MG2 bacteria possess remarkable oil-degrading properties and can be effectively employed in the bioremediation of oil-contaminated soils and can be used for agriculture purpose.

Characterization of the variability of soil moisture, salt content and organic matter content (SOM) is of great significance in agricultural production management and sustainable soil utilization. We present a case study of the variability and modelling with the depth of soil moisture, salt and SOM in a gravelsand mulched jujube orchard, using Geostatistics and Kriging interpolation. Soil moisture, salt and SOM were measured in 256 samples collected from a gravel-sand mulched jujube orchard in the 0-10, 10-20, 20-30 and 30-50 cm. Soil moisture, salt and SOM were more variable in the surface soil, due to several environmental factors, the coefficients of variation (CV) of soil were lower than 23%, indicating weak to moderate variation. The coefficient of variation of moisture and organic matter decreased with the depth and the salinity increased with the depth. There is a significant correlation between each soil layer, which decreases with the increase of the soil layer. The accuracy of the function model with depth as an independent variable and soil properties as a dependent variable is higher than 0.88. To master the relationship among soil depth, salinity, soil moisture and organic matter content can provide theoretical value for agricultural comprehensive management.

The effective technique of RAD7 has been applied to determine the concentrations of radon and annual effective dose of mineral water samples collected from Iraqi local markets. The results show that the level of radon concentrations in mineral water samples ranged between 0.035 and 0.248 Bq/L with an average value of 0.120 Bq/L. In addition to the annual effective dose ranged from 0.129 to 0.905 ?Sv/y with an average value of 0.440 ?Sv/y. It was found that the mean value of radon concentration and annual effective dose in all the studied mineral water samples were within the acceptable limits according to the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and World Health Organization (WHO).

Heavy metal poisoning means an excess of the required concentration that is found naturally on earth. In the present experiment, it has been observed that the natural water source surrounded by mountains is also polluted with arsenic because these heavy metals like arsenic are naturally contained in rocks that accumulate in the water source with soil erosion and rain. In this experiment arsenic was found in the water of Chhilpura pond, in which the haematology and biochemistry of catfish (Clarias batrachus) were studied, it was found that the RBC, haemoglobin, PCV, MCV, MCH, platelets, glucose and protein contents of catfish were found to be relatively low as compared to the control, whereas the WBC was observed to be higher to control and differential leucocyte count fluctuations were observed. It can be inferred from this experiment that heavy metals such as arsenic alter the haematology and biochemistry of catfish (Clarias batrachus).

Backyard chicken production is an integral part among rural families in the tropics like the Philippines. However, it has been declining as it continues to suffer low productivity with its small-scale operations. Among its production inputs, feeds remain to be the top cost driver, as well as the top contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that result in global warming potential (GWP). In a prior experiment, 50% inclusion of Azolla Pinna was recommended in feed ration due to its favourable and comparable growth performance of Dominant DZ backyard chickens. Hence, this study further evaluated the inclusion in terms of environmental performance. The 50% inclusion resulted in reductions of CO2 by 35%, N2O by 22.32%, and CH4 by 4.74%. The gross effect of this reduction of conventional feeds is a climate change mitigation equivalent 28.47% of GWP kg CO2 -eq./1,000 birds. The potential impacts indicate that Azolla Pinnata can be a cost-effective and sustainable feedstuff in backyard chicken rearing system especially that it requires simple propagation method. The environmental impacts and savings can encourage more livelihood activities in rural.

The occurrence of microplastics in the environment, together with increasing temperatures as a result of climate change, has become a global concern. However, few reports are available on microplastic ingestion in lower benthic marine animals sampled from their natural environment during different seasons of the year. This study investigated microplastic uptake in Dotilla fenestrata (Hilgendorf 1869), Holothuria cinerascens (Brandt 1835) and Pyura stolonifera (Heller 1878) sampled from their natural environment during winter and summer. Animals sampled were cleaned of sand and attached animals and transported on ice to the laboratory. D. fenestrata, H. cinerascens (guts), and P. stolonifera (soft tissues) were digested in 10% potassium hydroxide (KOH) solution for 24 hours at 60°C and analysed for microplastics. The per cent occurrences of microplastics found in sampled animals were more than 95 % in both seasons, and fibres were the most predominant microplastic types found. Season significantly affect microplastic uptake in Dotilla fenestrata (t-test: t-value = 2.915, df = 58, p = 0.01) while it had no effect in H. cinerascens and P. stolonifera sampled. A significantly higher number of microplastics were found in D. fenestrata than H. cinerascens (ANOVA HSD: df = 2, p = 008) and P. stolonifera (ANOVA HSD: df = 2, p = 000) in winter while H. cinerascens had a higher number of microplastics than P. stolonifera in summer (ANOVA HSD: df = 2, p = 002). These results show that microplastic uptake in some ectotherms may be season-dependent and that feeding method impacts the accessibility of marine invertebrates to microplastics in their environment.

The study gives the elimination of two kinds of antibiotics, tetracycline (TC) and cefradine (CF) by adsorption process, on the biochar derived from cornstalk. Dense, multifaceted and thick fragments of raw cornstalk almost all vanished at a pyrolytic temperature above 400°C. The carbon content increased from 60.48% of the raw cornstalk to 75.5% of the cornstalk biochar pyrolyzed at 600°C (BC600), while the oxygen content decreased from 17.31% to 6.94%. The uptake of each TC and CF on the cornstalk biochar was highly pH-dependent. The maximum adsorption capacities of TC and CF at 298 K calculated from the Langmuir mannequin have been 28.0 and 38.0 mg/g, respectively. The Columbic interaction and ?–? electron-donor-acceptor interaction between cornstalk biochar and CF/TC molecules played the main role. The experimental records were well outfitted by way of the ability of the pseudo-second-order kinetics model, indicating a possible chemisorption process to some extent. Isotherm result implied that both adsorption and partitioning contributed to the uptake of TC and CF onto BC600.