Greenhouse soils and arable (wheat field) soil samples were collected to identify the effects of greenhouse cultivation on the accumulation of six heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Zn, Pb, Cr, and Ni) and to evaluate the likely sources responsible for heavy metal accumulation in the irrigated desert soils of Wuwei District, China. The results indicated that the mean concentrations of Cd, Cu, Zn, Pb, Cr, and Ni were 0.421, 33.85, 85.31, 20.76, 53.12, and 28.59 mg kg⁻¹, respectively. The concentrations of Cd, Cu, and Zn in greenhouse soils were 60, 23, and 14 % higher than those in arable soils and 263, 40, and 25 % higher than background concentrations of natural soils in the study area, respectively. These results indicated that Cd, Cu, and Zn accumulation occurred in the greenhouse soils, and Cd was the most problematically accumulated heavy metal, followed by Cu and Zn. There was a significant positive correlation between the concentrations of Cd, Cu, and Zn in greenhouse soils and the number of years under cultivation (P < 0.05). Greenhouse cultivation had little impact on the accumulation of Cr, Ni, or Pb. Correlation analysis and principal component analysis suggested that the accumulation of Cd, Cu, and Zn in greenhouse soils resulted mainly from fertilizer applications. Our results indicated that the excessive and long-term use of fertilizers and livestock manures with high heavy metal levels leads to the accumulation of heavy metals in soils. Therefore, rational fertilization programs and reductions in the concentrations of heavy metals in both fertilizers and manure must be recommended to maintain a safe concentration of heavy metals in greenhouse soils.

The water quality in South Africa’s river systems is rapidly deteriorating as a consequence of increased discharge of wastewater effluents. The natural ability of rivers and reservoirs to trap toxic chemicals and nutrients in their sediments enables these systems to accumulate contaminants, altering the natural balance in environmental water quality, thereby raising a plethora of public and environmental health concerns. Impaired water quality has been linked to an array of problems in South Africa including massive fish mortalities, altered habitat template leading to the thinning of riverine macroinvertebrate diversity, shifts in microbial community structures with drastic ecological consequences and evolvement of antibiotic resistance genes that, under natural conditions, can be transferred to waterborne pathogens. Urban wastewater discharge has also been implicated in increased bioaccumulation of metals in edible plant parts, elevated concentrations of endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs), which are blamed for reduced fertility and increased cancer risk, excessive growth of toxic cyanobacteria and an increase in concentrations of pathogenic microorganisms which constitute a potential health threat to humans. However, despite the ecotoxicological hazards posed by wastewater effluents, ecotoxicological studies are currently underutilised in South African aquatic ecosystem assessments, and where they have been done, the observation is that ecotoxicological studies are mostly experimental and restricted to small study areas. More research is still needed to fully assess especially the ecotoxicological consequences of surface water pollution by urban wastewater effluents in South Africa. A review of the effects of urban effluent discharges that include domestic effluent mixed with industrial effluent and/or urban stormwater run-off is hereby presented.

Pesticide biopurification systems contain a biologically active matrix (biomixture) responsible for the accelerated elimination of pesticides in wastewaters derived from pest control in crop fields. Biomixtures have been typically prepared using the volumetric composition 50:25:25 (lignocellulosic substrate/humic component/soil); nonetheless, formal composition optimization has not been performed so far. Carbofuran is an insecticide/nematicide of high toxicity widely employed in developing countries. Therefore, the composition of a highly efficient biomixture (composed of coconut fiber, compost, and soil, FCS) for the removal of carbofuran was optimized by means of a central composite design and response surface methodology. The volumetric content of soil and the ratio coconut fiber/compost were used as the design variables. The performance of the biomixture was assayed by considering the elimination of carbofuran, the mineralization of ¹⁴C-carbofuran, and the residual toxicity of the matrix, as response variables. Based on the models, the optimal volumetric composition of the FCS biomixture consists of 45:13:42 (coconut fiber/compost/soil), which resulted in minimal residual toxicity and ∼99 % carbofuran elimination after 3 days. This optimized biomixture considerably differs from the standard 50:25:25 composition, which remarks the importance of assessing the performance of newly developed biomixtures during the design of biopurification systems.

Rural nonpoint source (NPS) pollution caused by agricultural wastes has become increasingly serious in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA), significantly affecting the reservoir water quality. The grim situation of rural NPS pollution in the TGRA indicated that agrochemicals (chemical fertilizer and pesticide) were currently the highest contributor of rural NPS pollution (50.38 %). The harmless disposal rates of livestock excrement, crop straws, rural domestic refuse, and sewage also cause severe water pollution. More importantly, the backward agricultural economy and the poor environmental awareness of farmers in the hinterland of the TGRA contribute to high levels of rural NPS pollution. Over the past decade, researchers and the local people have carried out various successful studies and practices to realize the effective control of rural NPS pollution by efficiently utilizing agricultural wastes in the TGRA, including agricultural waste biogas-oriented utilization, crop straw gasification, decentralized land treatment of livestock excrement technology, and crop straw modification. These technologies have greatly increased the renewable resource utilization of agricultural wastes and improved water quality and ecological environment in the TGRA.

Biogeochemical cycles of bromine (Br) and its quantitative requirements for different plant species are still studied poorly. There is a need to examine Br pathways in plants and evaluate the factors important for Br accumulation in a plant. In the present work, the effects of different Br compounds on an uptake of Br by two plant species (wheat and pea) that tolerate Br differently (pea is more sensitive to Br compared with wheat) have been studied. The growth medium was spiked with either KBr or NaBr at concentrations 0, 10, 50 and 100 mg/L. Elemental analysis of the plants was performed using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and ICP-MS analytical techniques after leaching of the samples with tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide at mild temperature (60 °C). The experimental results have shown that wheat and pea seedlings can accumulate rather large amounts of Br. An increase of Br concentration in a plant was not always directly proportional to the variations in the Br concentration in the growth medium. In wheat, the greater part of Br was accumulated during first 7 days. In pea, the uptake of Br lasted until the end of the experiment. Certain differences in the ability of plants to accumulate Br were observed when the plants were grown in a medium spiked with different Br compounds. In most cases, Br accumulation was higher in the leaves of the plants grown in the medium spiked with KBr. The same tendency was observed for another halogen, chlorine (Cl).

Jizan fishers are the major fish source for more than 1.5 million populations in the southern region in Saudi Arabia. Despite the overgrowing of various man-made activities in Jizan City, no recent study on environmental monitoring was reported. In the current study, heavy metals were quantified in muscle tissues of 12 fish species, as the most edible, from Jizan fisheries. Electrothermal atomic absorption spectrophotometry was used for quantification after microwave wet digestion. Acceptable recovery values (83.46–97.48 %) for spiked fish samples with standard solutions were obtained. The following wide ranges of heavy metal concentrations (μg/g, wet weight) in studied fish species were recorded: V (0.004–0.561), Cr (0.013–0.477), Mn (0.073–0.128), As (0.002–0.935), Se (0.083–3.058), Sn (2.835–5.540), and Pb (0.150–0.386). Comparing with international permissible limits, lower levels were recorded in the current study. For total metal accumulation, the relationship between species was examined by cluster analysis, which showed that Epinephelinae was the farthest species from others. The principal component analysis shows one component indicating normal distribution of heavy metals in fish species. Different metal pollution indices (1.35–0.30), which shows the distribution of the total heavy metal concentrations in each species, were recorded. The hazard indices for muscle consumption were less than 1.0 for all studied metals at both ingestion rates except Sn which showed a marginal value of 28.9.

The effect of short-time aerobic digestion on bioflocculation of extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs) from waste activated sludge (WAS) was investigated. Bioflocculation of the EPS was found to be enhanced by 2∼6 h of WAS aerobic digestion under the conditions of natural sludge pH (about 7), high sludge concentration by gravity thickening, and dissolved oxygen of about 2 mg/L. With the same EPS extraction method, the total suspended solid content reduction of 0.20 and 0.36 g/L and the volatile suspended solid content reduction of 0.19 and 0.26 g/L were found for the WAS samples before and after aerobic digestion of 4 h. It indicates that more EPS is produced by short-time aerobic digestion of WAS. The scanning electron microscopy images of the WAS samples before and after aerobic digestion of 4 h showed that more EPS appeared on the surface of zoogloea by aerobic digestion, which reconfirmed that WAS aerobic digestion induced abundant formation of EPS. By WAS aerobic digestion, the flocculating rate of the EPS showed about 31 % growth, almost consistent with the growth of its yield (about 34 %). The EPSs obtained before and after the aerobic digestion presented nearly the same components, structures, and Fourier transform infrared spectra. These results revealed that short-time aerobic digestion of WAS enhanced the flocculation of the EPS by promoting its production.

Accidental release of nuclides into the ocean is causing health risks to marine organisms and humans. All life forms are susceptible to gamma radiation with a high variation, depending on various physical factors such as dose, mode, and time of exposure and various biological factors such as species, vitality, age, and gender. Differences in sensitivity of gamma radiation are also associated with different efficiencies of mechanisms related to protection and repair systems. Gamma radiation may also affect various other integration levels: from gene, protein, cells and organs, population, and communities, disturbing the energy flow of food webs that will ultimately affect the structure and functioning of ecosystems. Depending on exposure levels, gamma radiation induces damages on growth and reproduction in various organisms such as zooplankton, benthos, and fish in aquatic ecosystems. In this paper, harmful effects of gamma-irradiated aquatic organisms are described and the potential of marine copepods in assessing the risk of gamma radiation is discussed with respect to physiological adverse effects that even affect the ecosystem level.

Even early life in utero cannot provide a safe place for newborns. The first acquaintance with chemicals takes place in utero and/or with mother’s milk after delivery. Besides legislations and bans to persistent organic pollutants (POPs), these chemicals are still affecting the general population especially the children as they are one of the populations most susceptible to chemicals, and also the health problems may arise in the future. Our objective is to collect the first data in newborns in Turkey to determine baseline levels of POPs in the general population and estimate the potential cancer risk related to exposure. Twenty-nine organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and 18 polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners in blood samples of newborn boys (0–1 month old) who were born in İstanbul, Turkey, in 2010–2012 were evaluated with high-resolution gas chromatography–high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRGC/HRMS). Results for analyzed chlorinated compounds are as follows: hexachlorocyclohexane (ΣHCH) 1828 ± 3650 pg/g lipid, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (ΣDDT) 10,000 ± 15,398 pg/g lipid, and ΣPCB 1068 ± 1823 pg/g lipid. 4,4′-DDT, 4,4′-dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (4,4′-DDE), hexachlorobenzene, and PCB 138 and 153 are the major contaminants. New POPs as lindane 61 ± 268 pg/g lipid, pentachlorobenzene 13 ± 74 pg/g lipid, and endosulfan 29 ± 106 pg/g lipid are also detected in blood. Estimated total risk for lifetime PCB exposure is less than 1 × 10⁻⁵, an acceptable risk. Blood concentration levels will be important base data in the assessment of health concerns of newborns as well as for studies about how endocrine disruptors affect humans.

This study analyses the seasonal trend of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) concentrations in air and soil from a high-altitude mountain pasture in the Italian Alps. PCB concentrations in soil were generally comparable to background levels and were lower than those previously measured in the same area. Only CB-209 unexpectedly showed high concentrations with respect to the other congeners. GC-MS-MS identification was very clear, rising a new problem of increasing PCB contamination concerning only CB-209, which is not present in commercial mixtures used in the past in Italy and Europe. Considering all of the congeners, seasonal PCB trends were observed both in air and in soil that were related to the temperature and precipitation measured specifically in the study area. Highly significant relationships were found between the temperature-normalised concentrations in soil and the precipitation amounts. A north/south enrichment factor was present only in soil with rapid early summer re-volatilisation kinetics from soil to air and autumn re-deposition events from air to soil. Fugacity ratio calculations confirmed these trends. Surface soils respond rapidly to meteorological variables, while subsurface soils respond much more slowly. Seasonal trends were different for the northern and southern sides of the mountain. A detailed picture of the interactions among temperature, precipitation, mountain aspects and soil features was obtained.