Anthropic Activities Research Articles

Comparative Study of Microbial Diversity in Different Coastal Aquifers: Determining Factors

Coastal aquifers have been extensively studied from the hydrodynamic and geochemical points of view, but there is still a significant gap in the knowledge of their microbial diversity. The bacterial communities of four coastal aquifers at different depths and salinities were studied in order to infer the anthropogenic and physico-chemical influences on groundwater microbiota. At the physico-chemical level, samples from different aquifers, but with similar salinities, are more similar than those taken within the same aquifer. The microbial community at the phylum level shows the dominance of Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Actinobacteria. Samples from the same aquifer, although having very different salinities, are more similar than samples with similar physico-chemical characteristics. Therefore, the taxa present in these media are resilient to environmental variations. The aquifer preserving the most pristine conditions harbors the lowest values of biodiversity, compared to those affected by anthropic activities. The incorporation of pollutants into the aquifer favors the development of a so-called “rare biosphere”, consisting of a high number of taxa which represent a low percentage (<1%) of the total microbial community. The analysis of microbial biodiversity in a coastal aquifer could be used as an indicator of the degree of anthropic alteration.

Data availability and participatory approach: the right mix for enhancing Mediterranean fisheries’ sustainability

A misalignment between the legislation and the effectiveness of Mediterranean fisheries management has emerged due to the status of the stocks (still largely in overfishing) and the discontent of stakeholders regarding management plans and tools that are not always recognized as appropriate to the characteristics of the concerned fisheries. Stakeholders’ involvement in management processes is one of the main pillars of the Common Fisheries Policy revision. The literature underlines, in an increasingly urgent manner, the importance of stakeholders fully understanding the contents of management plans and, vice versa, necessary for the successful implementation of policies. Focusing on the path towards sustainability endorsed by the BluFish project, the paper tries to provide an answer about the sustainability of some selected Southern Italian fisheries, by adopting the assessment approach of the Marine Stewardship Council. The assessment approach, based on a set of Performance Indicators and on a well-defined scoring scheme, focuses on three dimensions of sustainability. In addition to the classic assessment of the state of the stocks, there is an extensive screening of the impact of anthropic activity such as fishing on the entire ecosystem, including both the impact on accessory species and on vulnerable habitats and species. The evaluation adopted goes even further, with an approach that also includes the management and governance sphere, also trying to evaluate the level of involvement of the operators in the decision-making process. The paper illustrates that the selected fisheries are not fully sustainable but some of them have excellent potential for improvement even in the short term by identifying and implementing the appropriate action. The most relevant weaknesses identified refer to the low scores obtained for sustainability of stocks, mainly around the Harvest Control Rules (HCR) and the Harvest Strategy indicators, highlighting the importance of improving the management of the assessed stocks. The paper highlights how data and scientific knowledge availability is essential for a detailed mapping and evaluation of fishing activities but also that the path towards more sustainable and responsible fisheries does not work without a strong participation of all the key stakeholders.

The pressures and opportunities for coral reef preservation and restoration in the Maldives

The ocean plays a fundamental role in the human wellbeing and development. Therefore, it is vital to preserve and restore the marine ecosystem services that are being damage through climate change and anthropic activities, even more in countries such as the Maldives that has been classified under a high degree of exposure and vulnerability. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the problems facing coral reefs in the Maldives through relevant scientific insights; outline the importance of reef conservation in this area, given their ecosystem services; and briefly discuss policies and mitigation plans for reef conservation in the Maldives against anthropic activities and climate change, including potential funding sources and how best to engage with local communities and other stakeholders in this effort. This will help to achieve several SDGs.

Protecting Heritage Trees in Weifang City, Shandong Province, Northern China

Heritage trees are long-lived trees or notable trees with great historical significance, scientific value, or commemorative importance. Many heritage trees have been preserved in Weifang City, Shandong Province, Northern China. In this paper, the origin, species diversity, age structure, health, surrounding habitats, distribution, genera floristic composition, and challenges of protecting the heritage trees were investigated using literature analysis, field survey, and interview. There are 864 heritage trees in the city, composed of 49 species, 41 genera, and 25 families. The heritage trees are divided into three original types: religious trees, naturally dispersed and preserved wild trees, and trees with agricultural backgrounds or used as offerings. Particularly, Sophora japonica, Ziziphus jujube, Ginkgo biloba, Sabina chinensis, Platycladus orientalis, and Osmanthus fragrans are the six most common species. There are 208 individuals of 500 years or elder, 293 individuals of 300–499 years old, 359 individuals of 100–299 years old, and 4 individuals of notable trees. Most of them are distributed in low-urbanized areas of the 4 county-level cities and Linqu county, and few are distributed in high-urbanized areas of the 4 districts of Weifang City. There are 14, 12, and 6 genera belonging to the areal-types of Temperate, Cosmopolitan, and Tropic, respectively, similar to that of wild seed plants in Yishan Mountain. There are some challenges in protecting heritage trees, such as urbanization, habitat deterioration, natural disasters, anthropic activities, health decline, and inadequate management. Some protection measures that have been taken previously are summarized, and some measures that should be taken in the future are proposed.

Heat transfer and cold energy capacity properties of crushed-rock layer in cold sandy regions

Addressing the impact of climate warming and anthropic activities, crushed-rock layer (CRL) is a zero-carbon emission technology by using natural cold air to protect infrastructures in permafrost regions. But in cold sandy environment, the issue of its cold energy capacity on account of aeolian sand clogging needs to be solved. Based novel field experiments on Tibet Plateau, the dynamic evolution law and its controlling factors of natural cold energy accumulation of the CRL are quantitatively figured out. Results show that the initially open CRL had a strong forced convection of air in the first two winters, while the cooling effect was failure after the third winter. The filling of aeolian sand caused heat transfer mode of the CRL to change from forced convection to natural convection in cold season, losing the ability of “thermal semiconductor” aimed to mitigate permafrost degradation. The closed CRL represented weak natural convection in cold season and thermal insulation in warm season, which had better long-term cooling effectiveness than other conditions in the aeolian environment. As the thickness of the aeolian sand filling increased, the maximum Rayleigh number and natural convection time of the closed CRL decreased. Accumulation of cooling energy in cold season and thermal insulation in warm season were positive correlation with thickness of porous media layer. It was not recommended to solely adopt crushed rock embankment or crushed rock revetment in aeolian sand environment and regions with higher annual average temperature. The findings solved the scientific evaluation issue of cold energy storage capacity of CRL, and provided constructive engineering implications for its efficient application.

Spatio-temporal Dynamics of the Aquatic Plant Colonisation of Lake Dang in the Sudano-Guinean Zone (Adamaoua-Cameroon)

Very little information exist on lake environment in Northern Cameroon. The objective of this study is to determine the colonisation plant of Lake Dang using field and remote sensing data from LM, Landsat5, Landsat7 and Landsat8 images, over a 45-year period (1975-2020), spaced 15 years apart (1975; 1990; 2005; 2020). The method of diachronic analysis of satellite data was used and the supervised classification approach based on colour compositions and bands were chosen for class discrimination. The overall accuracies obtained ranged from 96.35 to 89.28%, followed by Kappa indices of 74.43 to 90.18% for the years 1975 and 2020 respectively. The results on the spatio-temporal dynamics of water bodies from 1975 to 2020 show an average annual rate of regression of the water surface of -1.35%/year, i.e. 0.099 km2/year, in favour of vegetation. The period from 1987 to 2002 shows a more marked evolution, with a rate of plant colonisation of 1.98%/year, i.e. 0.145 km2/year, compared to the periods from 1975 to 1990 (rate of plant colonisation of 0.85%/year, i.e. 0.062 km2/year) and 2005-2020 (1.23%/year, i.e. 0.090 km2/year). Today, 73% (5.376 km2) of the total surface area (7.365 km2) of the water body is colonised by vegetation. Moreover, bathymetry shows a maximum depth of 2.70 to 2.80 m, which is discriminating for a lake ecosystem in the Sudano-Guinean zone. Consequently, the preliminary results of this study shows that Lake Dang is marked by a strong eutrophication due to anthropic activities caused by agriculture, urbanization and non-rational deforestation which have strongly affected the occupation of the lake banks.

Historical Evolution and Multidimensional Characterisation of the Butia Palm Landscape: A Comprehensive Conservation Approach

The Butia odorata palm grove in southeast Uruguay forms a particular landscape of the Pampa biome, which has been inhabited and transformed since the early Holocene. The forms and meanings of this contemporary landscape are the result of the historical interaction between culture and nature. The conservation of its natural and cultural heritage has been compromised by anthropic activities, leading to conservation proposals from different disciplinary perspectives that are partial and do not consider the landscape’s integrity. In this article, we propose a comprehensive approach, integrating the ecological, cultural and socioeconomic aspects through a historical look at the domestication process of this landscape. This approach is based on a transdisciplinary narrative aimed at generating a multidimensional and diachronic characterisation of the palm grove landscape on which to base a participatory definition of the most appropriate instrument for conservation through sustainable use.

Using Numerical Reservoir Simulation to Assess CO2 Capture and Underground Storage, Case Study on a Romanian Power Plant and Its Surrounding Hydrocarbon Reservoirs

During current times, it is acknowledged that there is the often presence of extreme meteorological phenomena including floods and landslides, due to heavy rains, large wildfires, due to heat or droughts, permafrost melting, etc. At this stage, the world admits that anthropic activities have an important impact on these phenomena and considers that greenhouse gases are at the core of this climate change. The most common greenhouse gasses have general formulae COX and/or NOX, and they are released during different energy generating/conversion processes such as electric energy generation from fossil fuels or mechanical energy obtained from by-products of fossil fuels. Once acknowledged, the world’s countries have developed long-term strategies to eliminate gradually the release of these gases directly into Earth’s atmosphere. E.g., the EU aims to be climate-neutral by 2050; i.e., its economy will have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. For this to happen, different effective methodologies have been drafted and implemented with underground gas storage in hydrocarbon depleted geological formations and/or saline aquifers being ones of significance when it comes to electric energy generation from fossil fuels in controlled spaces. The paper presents the simulation of capturing and injecting of these greenhouse gases through injection wells in neighboring depleted natural gas reservoirs using commercial numerical simulators for the Iernut natural gas (CH4) burning power plant which is one of Romania’s most important gas plants. Within this simulation study, the total CO2 quantity that can be stored via the proposed carbon capture and sequestration study and the proportion of each of the three CO2 storage mechanisms involved in the process (physical trapping, hydrodynamic trapping, and geochemical trapping) were determined and presented. Even though previous local studies investigated the potential of CO2 storage and sequestration into the Romanian underground reservoirs, none of it considered using the depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs surrounding the Iernut power plant for this process.

Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction for the Last 3500 Years in the Southern Pyrenees from a Peat Bog Core in Clots de Rialba

Vegetation landscape dynamics are derived from the relationships established between anthropic activities and climate conditions over time. Paleoenvironmental research in the Pyrenees range (north-eastern Iberian Peninsula) has revealed what these dynamics were like in some regions during the Holocene. However, some fields of biogeography still present questions that need to be addressed, such as the patterns of Fagus sylvatica and Abies alba and the importance of the fire regime during the Meghalayan (late Holocene). We present a multiproxy study performed in a sedimentary record from the Clots de Rialba peat bog, located at 2093 m a. s. l. (Lleida, southern slope of the Pyrenees mountain range), that covers the last c. 3500 years. Analyses were performed on the organic matter content, pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, and sedimentary charcoals larger than 150 μm. The palynological spectra revealed a maximum extension of Abies alba at about 3500 cal yr BP in the Bronze Age, while Fagus sylvatica showed its maximum extent between 3300 and 2800 cal yr BP. A dominance of Pinus was detected throughout the studied period. Other taxa such as cereals, herbaceous plants, aquatic plants, and coprophilous fungi have also been discussed to identify anthropic pressure and climate pulses. In addition, the study of sedimentary charcoals reveals the main forest fire episodes and their recurrences, some of them linked to anthropogenic activities and/or climate variations. These anthropogenic activities would include the use of opening and maintaining forest fires in deforestation in order to obtain pastures and spaces dedicated to cereal agriculture and the appearance of some taxa linked to or introduced by human communities.

Effects of metal contamination with physicochemical properties on the sediment microbial communities in a tropical eutrophic-hypereutrophic urban reservoir in Brazil.

We investigated the effects of metals and physicochemical variables on the microbes and their metabolisms in the sediments of Guarapiranga reservoir, a tropical eutrophic-hypereutrophic freshwater reservoir located in a highly urbanized and industrialized area in Brazil. The metals cadmium, copper, and chromium showed minor contribution to changes in the structure, composition, and richness of sediment microbial communities and functions. However, the effects of metals on the microbiota are increased when taken together with physicochemical properties, including the sediment carbon and sulfur, the bottom water electrical conductivity, and the depth of the water column. Clearly, diverse anthropic activities, such as sewage discharge, copper sulfate application to control algal growth, water transfer, urbanization, and industrialization, contribute to increase these parameters and the metals spatially in the reservoir. Microbes found especially in metal-contaminated sites encompassed Bathyarchaeia, MBG-D and DHVEG-1, Halosiccatus, Candidatus Methanoperedens, Anaeromyxobacter, Sva0485, Thermodesulfovibrionia, Acidobacteria, and SJA-15, possibly showing metal resistance or acting in metal bioremediation. Knallgas bacteria, nitrate ammonification, sulfate respiration, and methanotrophy were inferred to occur in metal-contaminated sites and may also contribute to metal removal. This knowledge about the sediment microbiota and metabolisms in a freshwater reservoir impacted by anthropic activities allows new insights about their potential for metal bioremediation in these environments.

Evaluation of nitrate concentrations in groundwater of Llío and San Pablo, Guano – EC

This paper analyzes the groundwater of the Chambo aquifer in the Llío and San Pablo sector, with emphasis on the temporary alternation of nitrate concentration, identifying the anthropogenic activities that may influence this area. This from the cartographic definition of the areas of begging influence the crossing of geological, hydraulic and anthropic activities. The temporality of the geochemical data is 5 years (2016-2020), these results show that water quality meets the requirements of the Ecuadorian national standard, and that the main composition of water is bicarbonated type of calcium-magnesium. Even if the groundwater in this sector meets the standard, variation in nitrate concentration is evident. This type of concentration is presented by the effect of agricultural activities on the surface of the soil, where nitrates occur naturally due to the nitrogen cycle, and that are dragged into the water table by infiltration when the rainy season occurs. In addition, it was found that the type of rock found underground cannot naturally generate nitrates.

Preliminary endophytic fungi richness index of the Rio de Janeiro restinga

The preservation of the Restinga biome is of great importance, both ecologically and socially, and this ecosystem is threatened mainly by anthropic actions, with little known about its fungal diversity. Endophytic fungi, besides contributing to the prospecting of new efficient compounds in industry and agriculture, can indicate the richness and abundance of species in the areas where they are found. Thus, the objective of this work was to carry out an inventory of endophytic fungi prospecting from plant species in the Açu, Gargaú, Grussaí, and Jurubatiba restingas, located in the north of Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. Leaves of 78 plant species were collected, from which 1787 isolates were obtained in culture medium, identified in 36 different genera. After analyzing the data of richness and abundance of the fungi found, the biodiversity of the four restingas was estimated, indicating a high diversity in the ecosystem, being the restinga of Açu the most preserved and the restinga of Gargaú the most degraded when evaluated by Margalef Richness Index.

An integrated human health risk assessment framework for alkylphenols due to drinking water and crops' food consumption

The increasing overexploitation and pollution of freshater resources are potential threats for public health, causing cross-contamination among the interconnected environmental compartments (freshwater, soil, crops). In particular, contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) originating from anthropic activities are not completely removed by wastewater treatments plants. This leads to their presence in drinking water (DW) sources, soil and crops intended for human consumption due to discharges of treated wastewater in surface waters and direct wastewater reuse practices. Currently, health risk assessments are limited to single exposure sources without considering the multiple exposure routes to which humans are subjected. For instance, among CECs, bisphenol A (BPA) and nonylphenol (NP), respectively, adversely affect immune and renal systems and have been frequently detected in DW and food, their major exposure sources for humans. Here, an integrated procedure is proposed to quantitatively assess health risk from CECs due to multiple exposure from the consumption of both DW and food, considering the relevant inter-connected environmental compartments. This procedure was applied to BPA and NP to calculate their probabilistic Benchmark Quotient (BQ), showing its potential in quantitatively apportioning the risk between contaminants and exposure sources, and its use as a decision support tool for prioritizing mitigation measures. Our results indicate that, even though the human health risk due to NP is not negligible, the estimated risk due to BPA is significantly higher, and the consumption of food from edible crops determines a higher risk compared to tap water. Hence, BPA is undoubtedly a contaminant to be prioritized, especially through mitigation actions aimed at its prevention and removal from food.

Modeling hydrological non-stationarity to analyze environmental impacts on drought propagation

Climate variation and anthropic activities are two key driving forces that impact the hydrologic cycle as well as the relationships between different drought types. Thus, it is essential to evaluate the impacts of environmental variations on the relationship between meteorological and hydrological droughts. In this study, abrupt changes in the yearly hydrological time series (streamflow) of the Han River Basin (HRB) were detected using a non-linearity-based empirical segmentation approach. The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) was employed to model meteorological drought, while the Generalized Additive Model for Location, Scale and Shape (GAMLSS) algorithm was adopted to model the non-linear hydrological time series to obtain the non-stationarity based Standardized Runoff Index (SRINS). Correlation analyses were conducted on meteorological droughts (as presented by SPEI) and the hydrological drought data (as presented by the SRINS). A Bayesian network model (BNM) was employed to calculate the propagation likelihood of different categories of meteorological droughts resulting in hydrological droughts. Change points in the hydrological regime were identified based on the empirical segmentation analysis after the 1990s. Significant increasing trends in urbanization, gross domestic product, and population were observed after the change points. The correlation analysis showed that the seasonal (3-month) timescale of SPEI corresponded best to the three-month SRINS. The BNM revealed that the average propagation likelihoods of severe and extreme categories of meteorological drought resulting in severe and extreme categories of hydrological drought were 23.6% and 18.2%, respectively, due to the influence of climate change. These probabilities were increased by 53.9% and 70.8%, respectively, in the human impacted era due to high pressure on water resources caused by increased population, industrialization, water extraction, etc. In conclusion, the likelihood of extreme conditions of meteorological drought resulting in extreme hydrological drought was increased significantly after the change points.

Neoctangium travassosi (Digenea: Microscaphidiidae) in sea turtles from South America

ABSTRACT Sea turtles are endangered animals that present cosmopolitan distribution. Anthropic actions have been considered important causes for the reduction of sea turtle population, but natural aspects such as parasitism may also contribute to their decline. This study aimed to report the occurrence of parasites in stranded dead sea turtles found in an area known as Potiguar Basin, northeastern Brazil, from 2010 to 2019. They were identified and classified according to the carapace length. At post-mortem analyses all organs were examined, parasites collected and morphologically identified. Ecological parasitic indexes as prevalence (P), mean intensity (MI) and mean abundance (MA) were calculated. A total of 80 Chelonia mydas and 5 Eretmochelys imbricata were assessed. Neoctangium travassosi was detected in both species presenting P = 20%, MI = 4.19 and MA = 0.84 for C. mydas and P = 60%, MI = 1.67 and MA = 1.0 for E. imbricata. This is the first report of N. travassosi parasitizing E. imbricata in South America. Finally, the retrieval of these parasites is a warning regarding the need for further studies to assess the impact of this parasitism on the health and conservation of sea turtles.

Competitive and synergistic effects of phosphate and cadmium coadsorbed on goethite

Soil acidification in southern China increases the environmental risk posed by heavy metals, especially cadmium (Cd), and has been accelerated by anthropic activities. Long-term fertilizer use increases the quantity of phosphate (P) in soils, which affects the biogeochemistry of heavy metals in soil environments. In this study, various analytical methods were used to investigate the critical mechanisms controlling P(V)–Cd(II) interactions with goethite (α-FeOOH, a typical iron oxide widely distributed in red soil areas) with added P(V)/Cd(II) in different molar ratios (to simulate the annual P fertilizer surplus). After excluding pH interference by using organic buffers, Cd(II) adsorption processes on α-FeOOH were found to be enhanced by the presence of P(V), whereas the Cd(II) adsorption type changed from single inner-sphere complexation to both inner- and outer-sphere complexation. The results of a zeta potential analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) showed different dominant mechanisms underlying the promotion of Cd(II) adsorption by P(V) at different P(V)/Cd(II) molar ratios. Electrostatic adsorption and the formation of ternary complexes were proven to be the critical mechanisms controlling the reactivity of Cd(II), where coprecipitation occurs at high P(V)/Cd(II) molar ratios and considerably enhances the fixation of Cd(II) and P(V). The mechanism for Cd(II) and P(V) coadsorption onto α-FeOOH under stable pH conditions was found to include both competitive and synergistic effects, and the results in this study show that more attention should be given to the impact of anthropic activities on the reactivity of heavy metals in the soil environment, especially farmland.

Improving the efficiency of machine learning in simulating sedimentary heavy metal contamination by coupling preposing feature selection methods

Sediment cores were collected from Taihu Lake in China. The chronology was determined by radionuclide. Heavy metals and magnetic properties of each core slice were assessed, respectively. The concentrations of most heavy metals in sediments surged at 20 cm from the surface, accompanying the increase in the concentrations of single-domain magnetic particles. This may be resulted from the influence of anthropic activities on the lake's environment after the 1970s. Two feature selection methods, random forest (RF) and maximal information coefficient (MIC), were combined with support vector machine (SVM) model to simulate heavy metals, with the inclusion of selected magnetic and physicochemical parameters. Compared with the modeling results obtained with the full set of parameters, a reasonable simulation performance was obtained with RF and MIC. RF performed better than MIC by increasing the R2 of simulation models for Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, and Sb. For heavy metals with high ecological risks (As, Cd, Cr, Hg, Pb, Sb), the correlation coefficients for observed and predicted data ranged from 0.73 to 0.97 with only 14–27% of the parameters selected by RF as input variables. The RF-RBF-SVM enabled heavy metal predictions based on the magnetic properties of the lake sediments.

Assessment of Water Ecosystem Integrity (WEI) in a Transitional Brazilian Cerrado–Atlantic Forest Interface

Although healthy ecosystems are vital to sustaining human society, the Brazilian Cerrado and Atlantic Forest biomes have suffered from disorderly human development and the intense use of natural resources. Thus, cost-effective studies are needed to develop tools to assess environmental conservation and the integrity of water courses to inform decisions for ensuring their recovery where ecosystem maintenance is deficient. This study sought to develop a methodology in which the Watershed Habitat Evaluation and Biotic Integrity Protocol (WHEBIP) and Rapid Assessment Protocol for Habitat Diversity (RAP) could be used in an integrated, adaptive manner to evaluate the Water Ecosystem Integrity (WEI) in courses of rivers and streams in tropical regions of the Brazilian Cerrado–Atlantic Forest interface undergoing intense agricultural exploitation. Accordingly, a spatial assessment using geographic information systems was followed by a field visit to apply the methodology. A preliminary assessment of the soil conditions in the Lobo Reservoir Hydrographic Basin was conducted, identifying stretches of rivers and streams that were suitable for payment for environmental services and for recovery from the impact of anthropic activities. Such activities were present in 50.23% of the basin’s total area, and intensive degradation was found in stretches of the water courses, primarily where the head springs of the Itaqueri River and Lobo Stream, the principal tributaries of the Lobo Reservoir, lie. Native vegetation, Brazilian Cerrado, and reforestation occupy a total of 38.5% of the basin, comprising areas of intense conservation activity by the Brazilian government.

The Legacy of Potential Environmental Soil Contamination in an Antimony Mining Heritage Area

In the Valongo Belt, with an extension of about 90 km, located very close to Porto, northern Portugal, dozens of ore deposits of various metallic minerals and coal were exploited in the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the metals most intensely exploited was antimony, with or without associated gold mineralization. This research intends to verify the extent of the current environmental legacy of ancient antimony mining. A typical old mine was selected. The main objectives were to verify whether the environmental legacy still manifests today, how natural processes contributed to an environmental dispersion of the mining footprint and whether the environmental legacy was absorbed by developments in a new landscape modified by anthropic activities. The topography of the area was captured using a Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) based drone system. The regional background was characterized by the geo-referenced chemical analysis of 157 soil samples, collected in a 35 × 35 m grid. The former mining area was characterized by 58 supplementary samples. The mining area is distinct from the background by higher antimony and zinc levels, constituting two distinct populations, as confirmed by statistical tests. In the samples collected in the industrial zone, six elements were considered contaminants: As, Cu, Mo, Sb, Sn and Zn. The concentrations of these elements were statistically examined using multivariate statistical analyses (principal component analysis and correspondence analysis). The main conclusions are: (a) the mining heritage area is discernible from the highly mineralized background; (b) in the mining zone, it is possible to distinguish the processing industrial area from the waste rock storage; (c) the natural processes of environmental dispersion were of little relevance; (d) the environmental legacy was smoothed and mostly incorporated into the new post-industrial landscape created by anthropic activities.

Excessive presence of Nitrogen and Phosphorus in the Drini River and their impact on the Kune-Vain lagoon ecosystem: how anthropization can affect biodiversity

In the western part of Albania there are various examples of lagoons and wetlands ecosystems; the object of this manuscript is addressing the environmental conditions of The Kune-Vain Lagoon, located in proximity of the city of Lezhë and south of the Drini River and its delta and providing suggestions about its preservation: it has been calculated that about 10 million m3 of polluted water are released, in many ways, every year into the Drini River. Because of its biodiversity this land has both national and international protection status. However, the flux of contaminants and pollutants derived from anthropic activities is strongly affecting this transitional body of water which is located at the interface of the river and the Adriatic Sea. Due to human activities, mobile aqueous species of nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) have become an actual environmental issue because high levels of such chemical elements are linked to the eutrophication of the lagoon’s waters, causing the proliferation of invasive species (mostly microorganisms, plants and crustaceans). As mentioned above a very high quantity of N and P from anthropogenic sources can infiltrate the ecosystem in many ways, like from mining activity, liquid and solid wastes from the urban aera of Lezhë, from farms and livestock, from fires and more. But the main cause of this problem is associated with the use that people make with soils and lands: the increment of fallow uncultivated areas from abandoned agricultural sites contribute indeed to the surface runoff, erosion and subsequent transport of N and P chemical species to the actually cultivated territory in which cultivation and managements practices for forage and cereals are present; this leads to ulterior release of soil particles that are rich in N and P chemicals compounds into the aqueous phase of the land. A very big portion of those aforementioned particles have been and still are depositing in the main area of the Kune-Vain Lagoon. The Lagoon is part of the coastal area, thus it is very important for economy, industry and tourism and it also act as a ‘buffer zone’ between the sea and the agricultural areas because of its biological function as natural filter for nutrients overload through its characteristic vegetation. Nevertheless, the Kune-Vain lagoon waters show a clear tendency toward degradation and something must be done to prevent heavy ecological issues. It would be useful to constantly monitor the chemical composition and the state of the waters. Also, the employment of meanings of phytoremediation would represent a practical, cheap and environmental-friendly way to help the process of recovery toward better environmental conditions of the Kune-Vain Lagoon.