This paper investigates the changes in bioavailable phosphorus (P) within the hyporheic zone of a groundwater-dominated chalk stream. In this study, tangential flow fractionation is used to investigate P associations with different size fractions in the hyporheic zone, groundwater and surface water. P speciation is similar for the river and the chalk aquifer beneath the hyporheic zone, with ‘dissolved’ P (<10 kDa) accounting for ~90% of the P in the river and >90% in the deep groundwaters. Within the hyporheic zone, the proportion of ‘colloidal’ (<0.45 μm and >10 kDa) and ‘particulate’ (>0.45 μm) P is higher than in either the groundwater or the surface water, accounting for ~30% of total P. Our results suggest that zones of interaction within the sand and gravel deposits directly beneath and adjacent to river systems generate colloidal and particulate forms of fulvic-like organic material and regulate bioavailable forms of P, perhaps through co-precipitation with CaCO3. While chalk aquifers provide some degree of protection to surface water ecosystems through physiochemical processes of P removal, where flow is maintained by groundwater, ecologically significant P concentrations (20–30 μg/L) are still present in the groundwater and are an important source of bioavailable P during baseflow conditions. The nutrient storage capacity of the hyporheic zone and the water residence times of this dynamic system are largely unknown and warrant further investigation.

Industries on the island of Mauritius are under increasing pressure from the regulatory authority and from the general public to control the air pollution from their boilers and particularly that of sulfur dioxide emissions from fuel oil combustion. The measures taken by industry are usually “ad hoc” in nature, and there has been yet no proper scientific methodology to justify the nature of the pollution control interventions. Air modeling as a planning tool provides a scientific methodology to industries and to the regulatory authority to select the optimum option(s) among various scenarios such as raising stack heights, changing fuels, implementing cleaner production opportunities or installation of wet scrubbers. The aim of this project was to use an air dispersion model for the selection of air pollution control systems for industrial boilers in an industrial estate. Given a number of constraints on small island developing states like Mauritius, it is recommended to start using established and simple modeling methods, as the complexity of the more refined models requires a relatively long learning curve to be able to use the model correctly. The Industrial Source Complex Short Term (ISCST3) is recommended for that purpose. The application of the ISCST3 model to the multiple-source case study helped in the identification of the most cost-effective options.

The presented study deals with the interpretation of soil quality monitoring data using hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal components analysis (PCA). Both statistical methods contributed to the correct data classification and projection of the surface (0–20 cm) and subsurface (20–40 cm) soil layers of 36 sampling sites in the region of Burgas, Bulgaria. Clustering of the variables led to formation of four significant clusters corresponding to possible sources defining the soil quality like agricultural activity, industrial impact, fertilizing, etc. Two major clusters were found to explain the sampling site locations according to soil composition—one cluster for coastal and mountain sites and another—for typical rural and industrial sites. Analogous results were obtained by the use of PCA. The advantage of the latter was the opportunity to offer more quantitative interpretation of the role of identified soil quality sources by the level of explained total variance. The score plots and the dendrogram of the sampling sites indicated a relative spatial homogeneity according to geographical location and soil layer depth. The high-risk areas and pollution profiles were detected and visualized using surface maps based on Kriging algorithm.

The Illinois River Watershed is a multi-facet basin with ecological and economic importance to its local stakeholders in northwest Arkansas and northeast Oklahoma, USA. The numbers, transport and sources of fecal bacteria in streams was identified as a research priority of the USDA NRI Water and Watershed Program in 2006, and the objective of this study was to evaluate the relation between fecal bacteria and other measured physicochemical parameters in water samples collected from selected sites throughout the Illinois River Watershed. An existing database (i.e., National Water Information Systems, NWIS) from the US Geological Survey (USGS) was used in this project. The data obtained includes discharge, pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, Escherichia coli (E. coli), fecal coliform, and fecal streptococci among several other physic-chemical parameters. A synthetic model, based on multi-regression analysis, was developed to predict fecal bacteria numbers at these selected sites based on available USGS NWIS data, and the multiple regressions were significant at almost every site for all three bacteria groups. However, the physicochemical parameters used in the equations were very different across sites and fecal bacteria groups, suggesting that the development of such predictive models is site and bacteria group specific even within one watershed.

The aim of the present work was to determine peculiarities of accumulation of ionic state 137Cs in model experiments with seedlings of spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L., “Nandu”) using laboratory experiments and to evaluate the complex effect of 137Cs ionizing radiation and geochemical factors on the growth of this plant. 137Cs accumulation in seedlings is influenced by the presence of mineral substances in the nutritional medium and by the conditions of illumination. Mineral substances (K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Cu2+, NH4 +, P5+, Fe3+) reduced the 137Cs accumulation coefficient of seedlings approximately three times. Addition of heavy metals as well as anionic group NO3 − to the growth medium caused insignificant changes in the level of radionuclide accumulation. In the model systems of RNA synthesis with wheat seedling cells nuclei isolated after complex treatment (in vivo) by 137Cs and HM showed clear inhibition of the RNA-polymerase II. This inhibition manifested itself as a complex effect of 137Cs ionizing radiation and heavy metals.

This study was conducted to determine the potential of in situ biodegradation and identify the geochemical and microbial processes of the petroleum-contaminated subsurface environment using integrated hydro-bio-geochemical markers so that the risk of contamination to subsurface environment can be better understood. The contamination process and corresponding bio-geo-chemistry were analysed in parallel with geochemical and multi-variant statistical modelling at a petroleum-contaminated site in the northeast China. The total petroleum hydrocarbon analysed in the monitoring wells and soil profile demonstrated heavy contamination with potential risk to human health and eco-environment. Further detailed analysis of petroleum fractions revealed a clear spatial variation of organic compositions in groundwater. It was evident that biodegradation and preferential biodegradability contributed considerably to the fraction distribution pattern, which can also be implicated by carbon and microbial respiration in the subsurface environment. The steady decrease in SO4 2- concentration, detection of S2-, and increase in pH and alkalinity (HCO3 -) in groundwater during the monitoring period demonstrated that sulphate reduction was the dominant biodegradation process in most contaminated zones. The results of statistical analysis further suggested that the hydro-geochemical environment was mainly controlled by the regional hydro-geochemical and sulphate reduction process associated closely with the total petroleum hydrocarbon. Knowledge from the comprehensive study provides useful insight on fate, transport and risk assessment of the petroleum contaminants in the shallow subsurface environment.

Bacterial associations with plant roots are thought to contribute to the success of phytoremediation. We tested the effect of addition of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon contaminated soil on the structure of the rhizosphere microbial communities of wheat (Triticum aestivum), lettuce (Lactuca sativa var. Tango), zucchini (Cucurbita pepo spp. pepo var. Black Beauty), and pumpkin (C. pepo spp. pepo var. Howden) 16S rDNA terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) profiles of rhizosphere microbial communities from different soil/plant combinations were compared with a pairwise Pearson correlation coefficient. Rhizosphere microbial communities of zucchini and pumpkin grown in the media amended with highest degree of contaminated soil clustered separately, whereas communities of these plants grown in unamended or amended with lower concentrations of contaminated soil, grouped in a second cluster. Lettuce communities grouped similarly to cucurbits communities, whereas wheat communities did not display an obvious clustering. The variability of 16S rDNA T-RFLP profiles among the different plant/soil treatments were mostly due to the difference in relative abundance rather than presence/absence of T-RFLP fragments. Our results suggest that in highly contaminated soils, the rhizosphere microbial community structure is governed more by the degree of contamination rather than the plant host type.

This study investigated pyrene adsorption on two contrasting Brazilian soils: a Kandiudult and a Vertisol. It was found that the time taken to reach thermodynamic equilibrium depended on the soil type. The curves for different pyrene-to-soil mass ratios for Vertisol soil showed significant differences. This is probably related to the presence of 2:1 clays that may increase the adsorption of pyrene due to the resulting interlamellar space. The adsorption of pyrene on the Kandiudult showed, in general, good agreement with the Langmuir isotherm. In the case of the Vertisol, there was good agreement with the linear isotherm. The kinetic model that best explains the adsorption in Kandiudult was the pseudo second-order model. For the Vertisol, the Morris Weber model best explains the behavior of pyrene.

Methylibium petroleiphilum PM1, which is capable of degrading of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), was immobilized in calcium alginate gel beads. Various applications were explored to increase the mechanical strength of these gel beads. The introduction of 0.3 mol/L calcium chloride into the crosslinking solution, 0.002 mol/L calcium chloride into the growth medium, and 0.2% polyethyleneimine (PEI) as chemical crosslinking agent increased the stability of the Ca-alginate gel beads under the operation conditions of the bioreactor. The degradation rates of MTBE by the immobilized cells in the bioreactor system operated in batch and continuous mode , respectively, were compared. A MTBE biodegradation rate of 5.79 mg/L·h was reached for over 400 h (50 batches), and the immobilized cells in the bioreactor removed >96% MTBE during 50 days of operation. Molecular analysis of the PM1 cells revealed that microbial growth occurred predominantly as microcolonies in the outer area of the beads during the first 20 days of operation. The results of this study show that a continuous-mode, fixed-bed bioreactor reactor coupled with PM1-immobilized cells is a promising technology for remediating MTBE-contaminated groundwater.

Wastewater land application is a cost-effective method to treat and dispose wastewater; however, it may cause soil salinization. Salt mass balance and the potential soil salinization caused by the wastewater land application were investigated in the crop root zone in a wastewater land application system at the City of Littlefield, TX, USA from October 7, 2005 to September 28, 2007 using a lysimeter system. This study showed that, after 2 years of wastewater land application, the ranges of soil salinity were still lower than the threshold (8,500 μS/cm) for Bermuda grass assuming a 10% yield reduction. The leached salt mass showed large spatial and temporal variation. The average values of electrical conductivity of the saturated paste extract of the soil samples increased from 1,433 μS/cm in June 2006 to 1,840 μS/cm in June 2007. The average values of the soil sodium adsorption ratio between June 2006 and June 2007 increased from 11 to 14 resulting in a potential risk of soil dispersion and decreasing the soil infiltration rate. Although the measured leaching fractions in nearly all sampling periods, except one, were higher than the leaching requirement, salt accumulations in the root zone were still found with only two exceptions. Since the time required for reaching equilibrium between cumulative salt mass input and cumulative salt mass output varies from 1 year to a few years, or even longer, the long-term investigation is recommended for the study of salt mass balance in the root zone of this wastewater land application system.