Towards integrated pollution control in inland watersheds: addressing multiple challenges through watershed-scale technological systems and targeted control strategies.

Air pollution is the contamination of the internal or external environment of any chemical, physical or biological material and altering the natural properties of the atmosphere. Air pollution is caused by natural causes such as volcanic eruptions, forest fires, or excessive evaporation, as well as by increasing traffic density, especially by artificial causes such as fuel types used by urban inhabitants and industrialization. Each year, countries keep statistics of deaths caused by different types of direct air pollution or indirectly by diseases caused by these different types of pollution. In this study, the impact of countries’ geographical region and population density on mortality rates due to air pollution is analyzed. A dataset of Turkey and the twenty six countries covers information such as the population density, different types of pollution rates, number of deaths caused by each type of pollution and their ratios to current population number throughout a time period between 1990-2017. In the data analysis, air pollution types were examined one by one and it was sought to identify the similarities among countries. As a result of these analysis, it was shown that there are similarities between Turkey and the different neighbour countries on the death cases observed due to different types of air pollution.

Air pollution is the contamination of the internal or external environment of any chemical, physical or biological material and altering the natural properties of the atmosphere. Air pollution is caused by natural causes such as volcanic eruptions, forest fires, or excessive evaporation, as well as by increasing traffic density, especially by artificial causes such as fuel types used by urban inhabitants and industrialization. Each year, countries keep statistics of deaths caused by different types of direct air pollution or indirectly by diseases caused by these different types of pollution. In this study, the impact of countries’ geographical region and population density on mortality rates due to air pollution is analyzed. The data sets of Turkey and the nine neighbour countries in the region that include information for population density, the different types of pollution rates, the number of deaths caused by each type of pollution and their ratios to current population number were studied throughout a time period between 1990-2017. In the data analysis, air pollution types were examined one by one and it was sought to identify the similarities among countries. As a result of these analysis, it was shown that there are similarities between Turkey and the different neighbour countries on the death cases observed due to different types of air pollution. In the upcoming stages of the study, alongside with the natural causes of air pollution in the selected countries, the other factors such as industrialization, traffic, the number of gasoline / diesel / electric cars or the types of fuel used in heating will also be included in the analysis.

The health of urban rivers is threatened by multiple anthropogenic stressors. Bacterial communities in rivers can quickly respond to different types of polluted environments, making them useful for water quality assessments and predictive insights. However, research on river bacterial communities has largely ignored interactions between these communities. Here, 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing analysis is used to comprehensively analyze the bacterial communities in the water and sediments in different types of anthropogenically impacted urban river. The results show that distinct differences occur in the bacterial communities in the river sediment and water with different pollution types. The changes in the bacterial communities in sediments were more pronounced than those in the water. A modular analysis further showed that the microbial co-occurrence network under different types of pollution had a nonrandom modular structure, and this structure was mainly driven by classification correlation and bacterial function. Genes identified for nitrogen cycling in all the river water and sediment samples included major functional genes for nitrogen fixation, assimilatory nitrogen reduction, nitrification, denitrification, and ammonification. Carbon degradation genes were mainly observed in the carbon cycle. Taken together, the above findings provide further insights into microbial communities in urban river ecosystems under anthropogenic contamination. PRACTITIONER POINTS: The physical and chemical indicators of the four types of pollution drive bacterial community structure. Bacterial community has C, N, P metabolic genes indicating its ecological effect. River bacteria were connected more frequently in the same or similar type of pollution in the co-occurrence network. Microbe-environment correlations and microbe-microbe interactions were combined to determine crucial indicators.

A review of domestic and foreign authors publications indicates a polymorphism of adaptive reactions of woody plants assimilation apparatus morphological parameters, identified by researchers in response to various types of industrial pollution. However, in these studies there is no comparative characteristic of the identified adaptive reactions in different types of pollution, and most importantly, there is no qualitative assessment of them, despite the fact that all authors indicate the unconditionally adaptive nature of these reactions. These provisions served as a justification for the purpose of this work. The object of the study is pine, a widespread forest-former of the South Ural region, the needles of which serve as a good all-season bioindicator. Five industrial centers with different types of pollution served as industrial landfills: three with aerotechnogenic pollution and two – dumps of the mining industry. The results of the studies showed that petrochemical pollution and polymetallic pollution on the dumps of the copper-sulfur mining industry suppress the growth processes of pine needles and under these conditions there is a general direction towards a «stress» adaptive reaction, which indicates a low adaptive poten- tial of pine for these types of pollution. In conditions of aerotechnogenic polymetallic contamination and polymetallic pollution on the dumps of the brown-coal mining industry the stimulation of the needles growth and a general direction towards a «tolerant» adaptive reaction are observed, which indicates a high adaptive potential of pine for these types of pollution. Reactions of morphological parameters of shoots are ambiguous compared to needles, but in general we can talk about regularity – the presence of opposite adaptive reactions in needles and shoots to the same type of pollution. The relative independence of needles and shoots morphological parameters adaptive reactions, regardless of the type of pollution both within the organ and between organs, is shown, which characterizes plasticity of pine to different types of pollution.

Abstract: The study is devoted to a qualitative assessment of the adaptive reactions of water exchange of birch leaves (a widespread forest-former of the research area) under the conditions of exposure to industrial centers of the South Ural region with different types of pollution (three with mainly aerotechnogenic and two – mining dumps) and their comparative characteristics. The transpiration intensity, relative water content, and water saturation deficit were analyzed. It has been shown that polymetallic, polymetallic with an admixture of sulfur anhydride and petrochemical types of aerotechnogenic pollutions inhibit the water exchange of birch leaves, causing “moderately-stressful” and “stressful” adaptive reactions, which indicates a low adaptive poten tial of birch to these types of pollution, while polymetallic pollution in the conditions of copper-pyrite and brown coal dumps of the mining industry stimulates increased water exchange of leaves, causing “moderately-tolerant” and “tolerant” adaptive reactions, which indicates a high adaptive potential of birch to these types of pollution. In conditions of polymetallic with an admixture of sulfurous anhydride and petrochemical types of aerotechnogenic pollutions, the daily dynamics of water exchange is disturbed, which is accompanied by a “moderately-stressful” adaptive reaction; other types of pollution do not violate the daily dynamics of water exchange, which is accompanied by “moderately-tolerant” and “tolerant” adaptive reactions. The relative independence between the parameters of water exchange is shown, when there are differences in their adaptive reactions to the same type of industrial pollution are observed. This indicates the ecological plasticity of birch in relation to different types of pollution.

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>This paper develops a new cooperative dynamic time consistent model for studying regional air pollution management issues in a cooperative game framework for formulating pollution control policies and dynamically consistent compensation mechanisms. As air pollution is a transboundary issue, unilateral response on the part of one region is generally ineffective. Regional cooperation is essential to resolve serious environmental problems. In addition, the long-term environmental impacts are closely related to the building up existing air pollution stocks in Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Respirable suspended particulates (RSP) and Ozone (O3). A cooperative dynamic game with different types of pollutants is developed. We characterize the non-cooperative outcomes, and examine the cooperative arrangements, group optimal actions, and individually rational imputations. In particular, an air pollution levy consisting of four components involving damage charges on emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, respirable suspended particulates and ozone depletion materials. Cooperative games offer the possibility of socially optimal and group efficient solutions to the lack of cooperation among different regions involving decision problems among strategic actors. This paper makes a valuable contribution to the literature as this is the first cooperative dynamic time consistent model for regional management of different types of air pollutants.

Background. The spectrum of cytogenetic abnormalities in the apical root meristem of Elodea сanadensis Michx. (elodea) from the Yenisei River was studied depending on the type of anthropogenic pollution. We compared elodea samples from areas with radiation-contaminated sediments (area affected by Rosatom Mining and Chemical Combine, MCC, Zheleznogorsk) and areas with chemical pollution (Krasnoyarsk). Materials and methods. The apical root meristem of elodea was fixed in acetic alcohol (96 % ethanol and glacial acetic acid, 3 : 1) and stained with 1 % aceto-orcein. The cytogenetic analysis of metaphase and ana-telophase elodea cells was carried out with temporal squashed preparations using an Olympus CX31 microscope. Results. At metaphase stage, the predominant types of abnormalities in elodea cells were disoriented chromosomes (up to 9 % of total metaphase cells) and chromosome agglutination (6 %). In the area affected by the MCC an increased content of ring chromosomes in elodea cells was detected, but in terms of frequency of their occurrence no significant differences were revealed between samples from areas with different types of pollution. Among abnormalities at ana-telophase stage, bridges (to 20% of dividing cells) and disoriented chromosomes (up to 8%) dominated. The following abnormalities were also detected: multipolar and asymmetrical mitoses, agglutination and cells with multiple chromosome abnormalities. It was shown that in areas with the highest content of 137Cs in bottom sediments the frequency of cells with bridges and multiple chromosome abnormalities significantly increased as compared to samples from other areas. Conclusion. In the radioactive contamination area of the Yenisei River the spectrum of abnormalities was dominated by chromosome aberrations (bridges, agglutination, chromosome fragmentation) and multiple abnormalities in one and the same cell. In areas with non-radioactive (chemical) contamination of sediments, mitotic spindle irregularities prevailed.

Over the decades, the scarcity of fresh water has emerged as the most significant obstacles facing human societies. Many water sources have become threatened by contamination with different types of life-threatening pollutants, representing a major challenge to humans and leading to a shortage of getting safe drinking water. Therefore, many countries and researchers worldwide are trying to unite and overcome these challenges to identify innovative eco-friendly materials and techniques with considerable effectiveness for water purification. Recently, cellulose-based materials have shown considerable results in this field, which have attracted the attention of many scientists due to their unique and promising characterizations, which makes cellulosic material is an excellent substrate to develop attractive materials to treat wastewater. This review focuses on the new approaches in the modification and applications of biodegradable cellulose-based materials in treatment of wastewater and explains the advantages and disadvantages of such materials. On the other hand, this work highlighted the utilization of modified cellulose-based materials on the remediation of wastewater from different heavy metal ions (such as Cu(I,II), Pb(II), Tl, and F(− 1)), oil/water separation, removal of dyes, and removal of other organic pollutants. The review illustrated that cellulose-based materials are promising and effectiveness nanomaterials in its various forms to treat wastewater from different types of pollutants. Moreover, this work highlights the advantages and disadvantages of some applied characterization techniques in addition to the future challenges and prospect of value added of cellulosic-based materials for wastewater remediation.

Impact of different types of anthropogenic pollution on bacterial community and metabolic genes in urban river sediments

Modeling and analysis of the effects of barrier height on automobiles emission dispersion

Abstract. The effects of pollution by organic wastes were compared with those caused by dumping of coarse metalliferous residues on the benthic faunas in two areas in Greece. The efficiency of several univariate and multivariate methods in describing these effects was evaluated. Both types of pollution caused a decline in the number of species and diversity, except when dumping of solid wastes took place on finer sediments. There, the above parameters increased due to the increased heterogeneity of the sediment. Pollution by organic matter resulted in increased densities of opportunistic species. Conversely, lack of organic matter in the solid wastes did not enhance settlement of opportunists, with the exception of two species which were thought to benefit indirectly from the slag. The effects of organic pollution were described successfully by all mathematical methods used, while diversity and species abundance curves were not very adequate in describing solid waste pollution. Classification was not very helpful in distinguishing between polluted and clean sites, while ordination proved useful in separating polluted and unpolluted stations as well as the two different types of pollution.SummarySeveral univariate and multivariate statistical methods were used to compare the effects of organic pollution on the benthic fauna with those caused by dumping of coarse metalliferous residues. Organic pollution was studied in Saronikos Gulf in the vicinity of the Athens sewer outfall, while the effects of tailings were examined at Larymna in the N. Evoikos Gulf; both sites are in Greece.Organic pollution in Saronikos caused a decline in the number of species and diversity and an increase in the density of opportunistic species such as Capitella capitata, Cirratulus cirratus, Polydora antennata, Prionospio malmgreni, Scolelepis fuliginosa, and Scolelepis girardi. At the dumping site in Larymna the number of species and individuals also decreased with increased level of pollution, except when the coarse wastes were dumped over finer sediments. In the latter case, the above parameters increased due to sediment heterogeneity.The low level of organic carbon in Larymna did not increase the number of opportunistic species. The density of two otherwise rare molluscan species – the bivalves Kellyella miliaris and Leptaxinus ferruginosus– did increase there. It is speculated that these bivalves obtain their nutrition from symbiotic autotrophic bacteria which in turn are favoured by the inorganic compounds found in the tailings.The absence of oppurtunistic species at the dumping site was reflected in the species abundance curves; they proved unsuitable to detect pollution by solid wastes in this oligotrophic area.Similarly, the k‐dominance curves were sensitive only in the organically enriched area of Saronikos.Of the three ordination techniques applied (Principal Component Analysis, Correspondence Analysis, and Multidimensional Scaling), the MDS was better in distinguishing polluted and clean stations as well as the two different types of pollution.

Effect of external resistance on the sensitivity of microbial fuel cell biosensor for detection of different types of pollutants

While an ambitious point source control program has yielded measurable improvements in water quality of the Upper Potomac River Estuary, the degree to which additionally strict point source controls are needed is the subject of current investigations by Washington, D.C. metropolitan area local jurisdictions. Indications are strong that eutrophication trends and periodic events of low dissolved oxygen will continue in the Estuary despite public expenditures for advanced wastewater treatment. Contributing to poor water quality conditions are significant uncontrolled loadings of oxygen demanding material and nutrients estimated to come from natural sources, unregulated agricultural activities, urban stormwater and other nonpoint pollution sources generated locally and upstream of the Washington region. Area jurisdictions are beginning to reappraise the region’s water quality control program with the intent of developing a more comprehensive program that considers pollutant loadings from all sources. Investigations will involve an assessment of the costs of achieving desired water quality levels, and a study of possible mixes of point source, nonpoint source and combined sewer overflow controls. Studies will involve use of refined prediction models of the Estuary which employ new information on the magnitude and fluctuation of pollution loadings.

Damage caused to pine forests by industrial pollution is observed even several decades after emissions have stopped down. A simple morphological feature – the leaf fluctuating asymmetry – was used for assessing the condition of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) stands growing in a heavily degraded area. In 2011, a study was performed on the developmental instability of needles in four naturally reforested Polish populations of P. sylvestris. Studies were conducted within the protective zone at a zinc smelter, a copper smelter, a cement plant and train tracks. All selected areas manifested a high extent of anthropogenic pollution‐induced environmental degradation until the end of the 90s. Currently, a reduced level of environmental pollution is recorded at these sites. Control group was a natural population of Scots pine from the region of National Park of Wielkopolska. The results confirm the usefulness of fluctuating asymmetry as a highly sensitive indicator of non‐specific stress. Also, it was shown that in areas degraded by human activity, poor condition of Scots pine persists that the stress factor has been eliminated. This tendency occurs particularly to areas contaminated by heavy metals.

Characteristics of bioaerosols under high-ozone periods, haze episodes, dust storms, and normal days in Xi’an, China