Global warming is one of the gravest threats to crop production and environmental sustainability. Rice, the staple food of more than half of the world’s population, is the most prominent cause of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in agriculture and gives way to global warming. The increasing demand for rice in the future has deployed tremendous concerns to reduce GHG emissions for minimizing the negative environmental impacts of rice cultivation. In this review, we presented a contemporary synthesis of existing data on how crop management practices influence emissions of GHGs in rice fields. We realized that modifications in traditional crop management regimes possess a huge potential to overcome GHG emissions. We examined and evaluated the different possible options and found that modifying tillage permutations and irrigation patterns, managing organic and fertilizer inputs, selecting suitable cultivar, and cropping regime can mitigate GHG emissions. Previously, many authors have discussed the feasibility principle and the influence of these practices on a single gas or, in particular, in the whole agricultural sector. Nonetheless, changes in management practices may influence more than one gas at the same time by different mechanisms or sometimes their effects may be antagonistic. Therefore, in the present attempt, we estimated the overall global warming potential of each approach to consider the magnitude of its effects on all gases and provided a comprehensive assessment of suitable crop management practices for reducing GHG emissions in rice culture.

Incorporation of organic materials into soil improves the soil sorption capacity, while limiting the mobility of metals in soil and their availability to plants. These effects can be taken advantage for remediation of soils polluted with heavy metals. The objective of this study is to assess the remediatory potential of peat applied to soils with concomitant pollution with Cd, Pb, and Zn. Two 1-year experiments were run in microplots in which maize was grown as the test plant. The following treatments were compared on two soils (sandy soil and loess): (1) control, (2) heavy metals (HM), (3) HM + peat in a single dose, and (4) HM + peat in a double dose. Maize was harvested in the maturity stage; the biomass of roots and aerial parts, including grain and cobs, was measured. Besides, concentration of metals in all those plant parts and the net photosynthetic rate and transpiration rate were determined. The approach of using peat in soil remediation led to satisfactory results on sandy soil only. The application of peat to sandy soil caused significant changes in the accumulation of the metals and their translocation from roots to other parts of plants, which resulted in a higher intensity of photosynthesis and an increase in the maize biomass compared to the HM treatment.

Spatial and seasonal variations of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the sediment of Liaohe River were investigated in this study. A total of 29 surface sediment samples were collected in May and September in 2013. Results showed that levels of the two classes of compounds were higher in September than in May. The total concentration of PBDEs (∑8PBDEs) ranged from 0.30 to 5.09 ng g⁻¹in May and from 0.17 to 13.73 ng g⁻¹in September, respectively, and BDE 209 was the dominant compound. The total concentration of PCBs (∑33PCBs) was in the range of 4.92–76.86 and 11.69–179.61 ng g⁻¹in May and September, respectively, with tri- and tetra-CBs dominated in the total PCBs in the sediments. According to the congener profiles and the principal component analysis, the major sources of PCBs and PBDEs in sediments of Liaohe River were from the usage of commercial products and industrial activities, and the degradation of high brominated BDEs also contributed to the current PBDEs in the sediments. The mass inventories of PBDEs and PCBs in the sediments of Liaohe River were 1.74 and 21.96 t, respectively, indicating that Liaohe River sediments may act as the potential sources of PBDEs and PCBs to the downstream coastal areas.

To develop an effective phytoremediation approach to purify soils polluted by decabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-209) in e-waste recycling area, pot experiments were conducted through greenhouse growth of seven plant species in BDE-209-polluted soils. The hygrocolous rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivars (XiuS and HuangHZ) and the xerophyte ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) were found to be as the most effective functional plants for facilitating BDE-209 dissipation, with the removal of 52.9, 41.9, and 38.7 % in field-contaminated soils (collected directly from field, with an average pollution concentration of 394.6 μg BDE-209 kg⁻¹ soil), as well as 21.7, 27.6, and 28.1 % in freshly spiked soils (an average pollution concentration of 4413.57 μg BDE-209 kg⁻¹ soil, with additional BDE-209 added to field-contaminated soils), respectively. Changes in soil phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) profiles revealed that different selective enrichments of functional microbial groups (e.g., arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and gram-positive bacteria) were induced due to plant growth under contrasting water management (flooded-drained sequentially, flooded only, and drained only, respectively). The abundance of available electron donors and acceptors and the activities of soil oxido-reductases were also correspondingly modified, with the activity of catalase, and the content of NO₃ ⁻ and Fe³⁺ increased generally toward most of the xerophyte treatments, while the activity of dehydrogenase and the content of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and NH₄ ⁺ increased toward the hygrophyte treatments. This differentiated dissipation of BDE-209 in soils as function of plant species, pollution doses and time, and water-dependent redox condition. This study illustrates a possibility of phytoremediation for BDE-209-polluted soils by successive cultivation of rice followed by ryegrass coupling with suitable water management, possibly through dissipation pathway of microbial reductive debromination and subsequent aerobic oxidative cleavage of benzene ring.

This paper presents an open-source software package, rSCA, which is developed based upon a stepwise cluster analysis method and serves as a statistical tool for modeling the relationships between multiple dependent and independent variables. The rSCA package is efficient in dealing with both continuous and discrete variables, as well as nonlinear relationships between the variables. It divides the sample sets of dependent variables into different subsets (or subclusters) through a series of cutting and merging operations based upon the theory of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The modeling results are given by a cluster tree, which includes both intermediate and leaf subclusters as well as the flow paths from the root of the tree to each leaf subcluster specified by a series of cutting and merging actions. The rSCA package is a handy and easy-to-use tool and is freely available at http://cran.r-project.org/package=rSCA . By applying the developed package to air quality management in an urban environment, we demonstrate its effectiveness in dealing with the complicated relationships among multiple variables in real-world problems.

The effects of algal bloom (AB) on the physicochemical and biochemical properties of water and sediment in lakes have been widely studied. However, limited attention has been directed toward the effects of the processes of AB formation, outbreak, and extinction on heavy metal fractionation in sediment. In this study, water and sediment samples were collected from the AB and free algal bloom (FAB) regions of Chaohu Lake from May to September in 2012. The chemical fractionation of seven heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Fe, and Pb) in sediment was determined by using a modified three-step sequential procedure. Evident processes of AB formation, outbreak, and extinction were observed in the AB region, but not in the FAB region. The TN and TP concentrations in water and sediment in the AB region were significantly higher than those in the FAB region. The water DO concentration was higher in the AB region than that in the FAB region before the early stage of the AB outbreak, but an opposite trend was observed in the stages that followed. Metal fractionation in sediment showed that except for Mn and Cu, the majority of metals were in the residual fraction regardless of the AB process. The AB process slightly altered the concentrations of metal fractions, except for reducible Fe and oxidizable Cu. The result showed that AB formation, outbreak, and extinction slightly affected heavy metal fractionation in sediment though water properties were significantly different among AB processes.

Levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in sediments from the sandy flat system of Shuangtaizi Estuary, the highest-latitude estuary in China, were investigated to identify their possible sources and potential ecological risk. The concentrations of 28 PCBs and 18 OCPs ranged from 1.83 to 36.68 ng g⁻¹ dw (mean 10.53 ng g⁻¹ dw) and from 0.02 to 14.57 ng g⁻¹ dw (mean 5.65 ng g⁻¹ dw), respectively. Generally, these organic pollutants showed an obvious spatial distribution, and relatively high levels were found at the high-tidal zone near river mouths. Compositional analyses indicated that tetra-PCBs were dominant for PCBs, whereas heptachlor was identified to be prevalent for OCPs in surficial sediment in the sand flats of Shuangtaizi Estuary. Overall, Shuangtaizi Estuary had moderate PCB and OCP levels in the sand flat sediments and posed a low ecological hazard to aquatic biota. Our results indicated that the sediment PCBs came from nonpoint deposition, such as atmospheric contribution and river input, for light chlorinated congeners and point source deposition, such as the industrial sources along river flow, for highly chlorinated congeners, whereas OCPs originate mainly from old residuals and new usage of pesticides in agriculture and aquaculture.

It is common knowledge that soils irrigated with wastewater accumulate heavy metals more than those irrigated with cleaner water sources. However, little is known on metal concentrations in soils and cultivars after the cessation of wastewater use. This study assessed the accumulation and health risk of heavy metals 3 years post-wastewater irrigation in soils, vegetables, and farmers’ hair. Soils, vegetables, and hair samples were collected from villages previously irrigating with wastewater (experimental villages) and villages with no history of wastewater irrigation (control villages). Soil samples were digested in a mixture of HCL/HNO₃/HCLO₄/HF. Plants and hair samples were digested in HNO₃/HCLO₄ mixture. Inductive coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) was used to determine metal concentrations of digested extracts. Study results indicate a persistence of heavy metal concentration in soils and plants from farms previously irrigated with wastewater. In addition, soils previously irrigated with wastewater were severely contaminated with cadmium. Hair metal concentrations of farmers previously irrigating with wastewater were significantly higher (P < 0.05) than farmers irrigating with clean water, but metal concentrations in hair samples of farmers previously irrigating with wastewater were not associated with current soil metal concentrations. The study concludes that there is a persistence of heavy metals in soils and plants previously irrigated with wastewater, but high metal concentrations in hair samples of farmers cannot be associated with current soil metal concentrations.

Ultrafine particles, PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀ mass concentration, NOₓ, Ozone, SO₂, back-trajectories of air masses and meteorological parameters were studied in a small city over the period February, 2013 to June, 2014. The profiles of PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀ particles are provided, showing averaged values of 16.6 and 21.6 μg m⁻³, respectively. The average number concentration of particles in the range of diameters 5.6–560 nm was 1.2 × 10⁴#/ cm³ with contributions of 42, 51 and 7 % from the nucleation, Aitken, and accumulation modes, respectively. The average number concentration of ultrafine particles was 1.1 × 10⁴#/ cm³. The results obtained are evidence for some differences in the pollution of ambient air by particles in the studied town in comparison to bigger cities. Nucleation events due to emissions from the city were not observed, and traffic emissions amount to a small contribution to PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀ particles which are mainly due to crustal origin from the arid surroundings and long-range transport from the Sahara Desert.