Nitrate pollutants increase the growth of algal bloom, resulting in fresh water eutrophication. The high nitrogen level in wastewater has become a growing concern, which has risen the necessity to develop efficient nitrogen removal techniques. Biological denitrification, which is the reduction of oxidized nitrogen compounds like nitrate or nitrite to gaseous nitrogen compounds, is the most important and widely used method to treat nitrate wastes as it enables the transformation of nitrogen compounds into harmless nitrogen gas. As such, this study collected samples from Eutrophic Lake, picking isolates of bacterial strain with good growth rates in the nitrate medium. The selected bacterial strains were cultured on media 1and 2 and by means of UV-visible spectrophotometer, the nitrate removal efficiency and growth were detected at 410 nm and 600 nm OD respectively. After comparing three bacterial strains, it was found that RN1 had a higher efficiency in nitrate removal at 1000ppm nitrate concentration. At an optimum temperature of 37°C, pH of 7, and agitation of 121 rpm, after 432 hrs of the treatment, RN1 showed an optimum growth, equal to 0.1859 OD in 1000ppm nitrate solution with dextrose. Also the spectral analysis of RN1 strain showed 85% removal efficiency, thus making this strain the best one. Confirmed and identified as Bacillus species, it can be recommended for the bioremoval process of nitrate from wastewater.

Petroleum-polluted soil samples from Ahvaz oilfield were enriched, using three methods to detect microorganisms with different dibenzothiophene degradation capabilities. Strain NISOC-03, a nitrate-reducing, oxidase negative, catalase, citrate, and urease positive, gram negative rod, showed interesting dibenzothiophene desulfurization behavior, designated as Entreobacter sp. strain NISOC-03 based on phenotype and genotype analyses. Gas chromatography, biomass measurement, and Gibb’s assay showed that in the presence of benzoate as the carbon source, strain NISOC-03 utilized 64% of 0.8 mM dibenzothiophene, producing 0.27 mM phenyl phenol during the exponential growth phase, though the produced phenyl phenol was degraded in the stationary growth phase. In the presence of glucose as the carbon source, however, strain NISOC-03 metabolized only 19.6% of 0.8 mM dibenzothiophene. Furthermore, replacing glucose with ethanol or glycerol led to the same reduction of the dibenzothiophene utilization. It is thus concluded that the chemistry of the potential carbon source(s) in the culture medium has a significant influence on the quality and the rate of dibenzothiophene metablization, and the enrichment designation has a very vital effect on the biodegradation efficiency of the isolated microorganisms.

Water scarcity, its necessity in food production, and environmental protection in the world have forced human beings to seek new water sources. Nowadays, application of unconventional water resources (wastewater) has been proposed in countries facing the crisis of water resources shortage; however, a few studies have dealt with this issue. The present study has evaluated the changes in the elements of the soil, irrigated with wastewater. For so doing, an experiment has been conducted on a randomized complete block design with three replications. Soil samples have been collected from the studied regions at two depths of 0-30 cm and 30-60 cm and the studied parameters have included sodium, total calcium, magnesium, some acidity, and electrical conductivity of the soil. Three regions of study (namely no irrigation, irrigation with treated wastewater, and irrigation with river waters) have been taken into consideration. Results have shown increased calcium, magnesium, and pH of the effluent from Zabol Wastewater Treatment Plant compared to the control; however, electrical conductivity and chloride have decreased in wastewater-irrigated soil. The electrical conductivity in the surface layer of wastewater samples, treated with an amount of 2.25 (ds/m), has had the most significant difference to the control and other treatments. It can be concluded that wastewater increases some soil properties, contributing to its restoration.

Precipitation patterns are influenced by many factors, such as global atmospheric circulations to name but one. Precipitation patterns in Iran have always had great fluctuations even in a smaller scale like the Alburz Mountain Range. The present research has tried to find the relationship between global atmospheric patterns and the pervasive precipitation ones in Alburz. For doing so, 17 climate indices have been chosen with the correlation between these indices and the precipitation data calculated in different lag times, using a backward correlation method (from the present time to 3 months earlier). Based on the obtained correlation results, a regression modeling has been conducted that employs a backward method. As for each lag time, one equation has been offered to estimate the amount of precipitation for every single region. Results have shown that the Bivariate ENSO Time Series (BEST) and the East Pacific Oscillation (EPO) provide the highest correlation with the pervasive precipitation time series. Also, it has been demonstrated that in multivariate correlation, the efficient index to model the relation among these indices as well as precipitation in southern Alburz alters in each lag time. Both MBE and RMSE, employed to evaluate the modeling, show relatively acceptable values, implying that the equations are acceptably capable of predicting the amount of precipitation in both northern and southern Alburz.

The present study aims to analyze the existing indoor environmental conditions of Firozabad City along with its impact on people’s health by going through the correlative index of indoor environment’s determinant and different diseases, faced by the people. In order to measure spatial disparities, the statistical technique, i.e. the standard score additive model (Z- score), has been applied to develop a composite score for each set of indicators in order to arrive at the general environmental and health condition of the study area as a whole. The analysis reveals that high intensity of indoor pollution and disease are reported in peripheral and old parts of the city. Preventive measures, likely to have deleterious health effects and improve such harmful environmental conditions, should be adopted. Enhanced use of clean fuel and national uniform housing codes or guidelines that address factors, affecting indoor air quality, makes up the current need.

Groundwater makes up an important part of global freshwater resources, though it is often threatened by overuse of natural resources along with abundant production of wastes in modern society. This study aims to investigate the removal of three heavy metals including nickel, cadmium, and lead from groundwater via electrocoagulation, a suitable method for treatment of water-soluble compounds, dealing with the impact of this process on three major groundwater parameters, namely TDS (Total Dissolved Solid), TH, and EC at a laboratory scale. The experiments have been performed using four aluminum electrodes. In this research, the efficiency of contaminants removal and the parameters of interest have been investigated under several conditions such as the distance among the electrodes, potential difference among the electrodes, and different initial concentrations of heavy metals with a detention time of 20 min. Afterwards both results and observations have been analyzed, using diagrams and data tables. Results indicate that this method has had no significant effect on TDS and EC; however, in case of TH, the removal has increased by up to 29.17%. As for the heavy metals, all three contaminants have achieved an increase of the potential difference to 15 V, a decrease in the distance among the electrodes to 2.2 cm, as well as a removal of over 90%. Furthermore, result analysis shows that this process has had a better removal efficiency, concerning lead.

The present paper has determined the radioactivity concentrations, which are due to natural occurrence of radionuclides along with heavy metal concentration in water, sediment, and fish from 2 reservoirs in Ghana. Heavy metal concentrations in all samples were generally within the WHO safe limits with the average activity concentrations of 238U, 232Th, and 40K in water being respectively 0.42±0.20, 0.33±0.31, and 1.59±1.07 Bq/L in case of Lake Bosomtwe and 0.26±0.14, 0.67±0.34 and 1.47±0.62 Bq/L for Bui Dam in Ghana. The average annual effective dose due to ingestion of radionuclides in water ranged from 20.5 to 156 for Lake Bosomtwe and 26.5 to 162 μSv/year for Bui dam and the absorbed dose rate and annual effective dose, measured for Lake Bosomtwe, was 15.45±2.00 nGy/year and 18.95±2.95 mS/year respectively while in case of Bui dam it accounted to 10.44±4.11 nGy/year and 12.88±5.01 mS/year respectively, found to be within the UNSCEAR recommended limits of 59 nGy/year and 100 mS/year respectively. The observed metal concentrations, within safety limits, imply that metal-associated diseases cannot be expected among patrons of these reservoirs. Therefore, radionuclides and heavy metals levels in the reservoirs are not expected to cause any significant health problem for humans.

Predicting the quality of water and air is a particular challenge for forecasting systems that support them. In order to represent the small-scale phenomena, a high-resolution model needs accurate capture of air and sea circulations, significant for forecasting environmental pollution. Data assimilation is one of the state of the art methods to be used for this purpose. Due to the importance of thermal structure in monitoring the variations of environmental phenomena, the present study has used Sea Surface Temperature (SST) in data assimilation method to optimize this parameter. SST is one of the most important factors to conduct researches on the ocean, the atmosphere, and their interaction, not to mention monitoring and forecasting air and ocean phenomena as well as commercial and fishing communities and weather forecasts. This study has aimed to present a satellite-derived SST based on pathfinder advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) data assimilating in FVCOM (finite volume community ocean model) on the Persian Gulf to examine the effect of data assimilation by using the Cressman scheme. The performance of this method has been compared to the optimal interpolation SST (OISST) data, via both visual comparisons and statistical parameters. Applying assimilation method improves correlation coefficient of the model from 0.92 to 0.99. Results demonstrate that the modeled SST has been completely reconstructed by the data assimilated experiment via the Cressman scheme for this region. The spatial and temporal pattern of SST reveals a significant improvement in the entire domain during the investigated period in the gulf.

Owing to environmentally-destructive impact of aromatic hydrocarbons, such as benzene, benzene ethyl, toluene, and xylenes or BTEXs, these materials are classified as hazardous pollutants in the air. This study studies cancer and non-cancer risk in District 12 of Tehran Municipality, through these components for two groups of employees or storekeepers and gas station customers. By measuring pollutant concentrations along with doing related calculations, the areas and gas stations of the study area with the highest risk have been found. Results show that Station 7, located in Zone 4, is one of the most dangerous spots in terms of cancer and non-cancer risk to employees or storekeepers in the area. Additionally, there is no risk of non-cancerous disease for the customers, using these stations, during their lifetime. Finally, the study proposes some solutions for making appropriate decisions, concerning the sustainable management plan.

The management of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in Nigeria and most developing countries has remained a major public health challenge, thus creating the need for reliable and environmentally-acceptable alternatives. This study focuses on composting assessment as a viable recovery alternative for MSW in six States of Southwest Nigeria, namely: Ekiti, Osun, Ondo, Ogun, Oyo, and Lagos. Extensive literature review has been carried out to understand the waste generation patterns in these states. Reported literature data has been assessed for sustainability of composting strategy in terms of organic waste streams, amenable of biotransformation as well as in terms of return through energy saving and material recovery. A life-cycle framework has been used to estimate GHG emissions, available nutrients, and potential compost production, instead of landfill in each region. Results show significant potential compost production of 895,659-, 255,267-, 153,423-, 117,468-, 113,094- and 112, 397-m3/yr for Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo, and Ekiti, respectively. It has been deduced from the study that composting would be very beneficial to the economy as its product would boost agriculture production while reducing the budget spent on fertilizer annually.