Trends In Environmental Quality Research Articles

The impacts and instruments of energy transition regulations on environmental pollution

This study examines the influence of energy transition regulations on environmental pollution, exploring both the impact and instruments employed in regulatory frameworks. Focusing on the global shift towards cleaner energy sources, the research evaluates the effectiveness of regulations in reducing pollution levels. Through a concise analysis of literature and regulatory mechanisms, the study highlights the dual role of regulations as both mitigators of environmental harm and potential sources of unintended consequences. Over the past 17 years, there has been a notable and consistent reduction in average environmental pollution levels, indicating positive trends in environmental quality. The average environmental pollution decreased significantly from 0.0135 in 2005 to 0.0045 in 2021. The energy transition regulation (coal resource tax reform) proves to be effective in reducing environmental pollution. In detail, the energy transition regulation can effectively reduce environmental pollution in the western region, while it has no significant impact on environmental pollution in the eastern and central regions. The optimization of industrial structure, innovation level, and fiscal surplus are crucial pathways through which energy transition regulation inhibits environmental pollution. We provide a brief overview of the study's contribution to understanding the dynamic relationship between energy transition policies and environmental sustainability.

Assessment of the state of the environment of the Russian Far East

Environmental monitoring is a long-term assessment of pollutant levels that helps assess pollution levels and provide information on trends in environmental quality. In addition, the environmental monitoring system supports research by providing scientists with the information they need to conduct long-term studies of the effects of various atmospheric exposures on the population and an overall assessment of the health effects of air pollution. The dynamics and structure of pollutant emissions has changed significantly in recent years. It was revealed that the gross volume of emissions into the atmosphere in 2021 decreased by 0.3% compared to the level of 2015 and amounted to 1592 thousand tons. Emissions from stationary sources in 2021 amounted to 1275.2 thousand tons, increased by 43.7% compared to 2015. The structure of emissions was dominated by CO, the emissions of which amounted to 413 thousand tons (increased by 31.8% since 2015). During the year, there was an increase in emissions of solid substances (by 44%), sulfur dioxide (by 55%), nitrogen oxides (by 56.6%), VOCs (by 77.2%).

Combining High-Throughput Sequencing of sedaDNA and Traditional Paleolimnological Techniques To Infer Historical Trends in Cyanobacterial Communities.

Freshwaters worldwide are under increasing pressure from anthropogenic activities and changing climate. Unfortunately, many inland waters lack sufficient long-term monitoring to assess environmental trends. Analysis of sedimentary ancient DNA ( sedaDNA) is emerging as a means to reconstruct the past occurrence of microbial communities of inland waters. The purpose of this study was to assess a combination of high-throughput sequencing (16S rRNA) of sedaDNA and traditional paleolimnological analyses to explore multidecadal relationships among cyanobacterial community composition, the potential for cyanotoxin production, and paleoenvironmental proxies. DNA was extracted from two sediment cores collected from a northern Canadian Great Plains reservoir. Diversity indices illustrated significant community-level changes since reservoir formation. Furthermore, higher relative abundances in more recent years were observed for potentially toxic cyanobacterial genera including Dolichospermum. Correlation-based network analysis revealed this trend significantly and positively correlated to abundances of the microcystin synthetase gene ( mcyA) and other paleoproxies (nutrients, pigments, stanols, sterols, and certain diatom species), demonstrating synchrony between molecular and more standard proxies. These findings demonstrate a novel approach to infer long-term dynamics of cyanobacterial diversity in inland waters and highlight the power of high-throughput sequencing to reconstruct trends in environmental quality and inform lake and reservoir management and monitoring program design.

HISTOPATHOLOGICAL CHANGES IN THE STOMACH TISSUE OF RATS FED WITH MUSSELS (Mytilus galloprovincialis)

Dardanelles is exposed to environmental pollution for many years. The strait is important in terms of fish migration and shellfish farming. Fish and shellfish obtained from the strait is frequently consumed by local people. Mussels serve as useful indicators of temporal trends in environmental quality because they accumulate some contaminants in their tissues at levels many time higher than in the surrrounding water and quickly to changes in contamination. Although there are few data about the toxicity of seafood that is exposed to environmental pollution, there are no animal studies about the gastric toxicity of mussels grown in the Dardanelles. Our previous studies demonstrated that the water and mollusc from certain regions of the Dardanelles contained heavy metal salts. The purpose of the study is to demonstrate the histopathologic changes in the gastric tissues of rats which are fed with mussels that are collected from the Çamburnu region of the Dardanelles. Four groups of rats are included in the study, group 1 (n=6), control group fed with standard rat food, group 2 (n=6), 75% mussels and 25% standard rat food daily, group 3 (n=6), 75% mussels and 25% standard rat food every two days, group 4 (n=6), 75% mussels and 25% standard rat food every three days. After the routine histopathologic processing all gastric tissue samples are evaluated in terms of 8-hydroxy-2' -deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) immunoreactivity with light microscopy and image analysis software. No histopathologic differences found in standard hematoxylin-eosin (H.E.) stained gastric tissue samples of the control group. In the second and third groups, a small amount of mononuclear cell infiltration was detected. In the fourth group, no significant difference was observed in mononuclear cells. In immunohistochemical staining, 8-OHdG immunoreactivity in gastric epithelial cells. 8-OHdG immunoreactivity was negative in gastric tissues in all groups. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups that were fed every day, every other day and every three days with clam (p>0.05).

Reconstructing diatom and chironomid assemblages to infer environmental spatiotemporal trends within Lake Diefenbaker, a narrow river-valley reservoir on the Canadian Prairies

Lake Diefenbaker (Saskatchewan, Canada) is a large reservoir in the southern Canadian Prairies. However, limited monitoring data were available to assess long-term trends in environmental quality. Therefore, a paleolimnological study was conducted to investigate temporal trends in the trophic status of the reservoir. Sediment cores were collected along the length of Lake Diefenbaker, and sediment subsections were analyzed for sub-fossil remains of diatoms and chironomid larvae. The compositions of diatom and chironomid communities were consistent over approximately the previous decade at up-reservoir locations, with a meso-eutrophic species, Stephanodiscus parvus, dominating the diatom communities. This taxon also dominated the early down-reservoir diatom communities along the main flow of the reservoir. However, during the 1980s, dominance of the diatom assemblage shifted from S. parvus to a combination of Aulacoseira ambigua and Tabellaria flocculosa in the majority of down-reservoir regions. Based on total phosphorus concentration optima for these species, this shift suggests a reduction in total phosphorus both spatially and temporally. However, these observed shifts could also have been due to increased water clarity or changes to thermal stratification regime both spatially (from up- to down-reservoir) and over time down-reservoir. An increase in relative abundance of the chironomid tribe Tanytarsini, both with distance down-reservoir and over time, was likely due to spatial and temporal changes in benthic habitat (i.e., sediment character). Results highlight the need to interpret temporal trends within the context of spatial gradients in physical processes, chemistry, and biology along the longitudinal axis of narrow river valley reservoirs.

Family-level AMBI is valid for use in the north-eastern Atlantic but not for assessing the health of microtidal Australian estuaries

Analysis of benthic macroinvertebrate samples at a higher taxonomic level than species, e.g. family, potentially provides a more cost-effective protocol for environmental impact assessments and monitoring as it requires less time, funds and taxonomic expertise. Using the AMBI database, species ecological group scores are shown to be coherent within families. Faunal data from a wide range of environmental impact scenarios in the north-eastern Atlantic demonstrate that AMBI, calculated from mean values for families, exhibits a strong linear relationship with species-level AMBI, the correlation improving by using square-root transformed rather than untransformed abundances. In many regions of the world, however, the sensitivity of benthic macroinvertebrates to environmental perturbations is unknown, precluding the use of AMBI for environmental assessments. Yet the families are essentially the same as in the AMBI database. The utility of family-level AMBI is tested using data for four south-western Australian estuaries previously subjected to environmental quality assessments, but where only 17 species of the 144 taxa are included in the AMBI database. Although family-level AMBI scores reflect differences in environmental quality spatially and temporally within an estuary, they do not follow variations in environmental quality among estuaries. Indeed, south-western Australia estuaries are numerically dominated by families with high AMBI scores, probably due to the detrimental effects of natural accumulations of organic material in estuaries with long residence times. As taxonomic distinctness follows trends in environmental quality among estuaries, as well as temporally and spatially within a system, it provides an appropriate substitute for assessing the ‘heath’ of microtidal estuaries.

Evaluating Public Responses to Environmental Trend Indicators

Indicators of trends in environmental conditions have been touted as ways to inform the public and provide a “report card” on environmental agency performance, but no quantitative analysis of such claims has been done. A small study of New Jersey residents’ reactions to indicators as presented by the state environmental agency found that these indicators were deemed understandable, credible, and useful. However, actual comprehension was not related to perceived understanding, and many in this well-educated sample exhibited the ecological fallacy of inferring local environmental conditions or priority-setting uses that these indicators could not possibly provide. Prior beliefs about statewide trends in environmental quality, accuracy in extracting information from the indicator presentations, and demographic variables had varying but significant effects on reactions to and interpretations of the indicators. These findings have implications for preparation and evaluation of institutional communications about science in general.

Robust inference concerning recent trends in US environmental quality

AbstractUnderstanding trends in environmental quality is important for individuals and policymakers. Typically, trends in environmental quality are determined solely through comparisons of unconditional or conditional mean pollution levels. However, reaching unambiguous conclusions on the basis of only the first moment of the (unconditional or conditional) distribution is problematic since it ignores what is occurring in different regions of the distribution. Even relying on indices that incorporate both mean and variance is suspect to the extent that relative rankings are not typically robust to index choice. Addressing these concerns, we adapt recent developments in the stochastic dominance literature to test for unambiguous relations between current and past distributions of toxic releases. Using EPA data from 1988–1999, we find statistically significant evidence that the unconditional 1999 distributions of air, land, underground and total toxic releases dominate in a first‐degree sense their respective 1988 distributions. While some of this improvement is explained by economic growth, pollution net‐of‐income improved over the sample period as well. Finally, we document robust differences in the distribution of pollution across regions in the US. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Community needlestick accident data and trends in environmental quality

New health-based indicators of environmental quality are being sought. In this search a retrospective analysis was undertaken for all persons in England and Wales who, during 1988-91, were given Hepatitis B Immune Globulin (HBIG) in prophylaxis against Hepatitis B infection after accidental percutaneous or permucosal exposure, and for whom a surveillance form was returned to the Public Health Laboratory Service Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre, England and Wales (PHLS CDSC). Although the number of adult HBIG doses issued during 1988-90 increased annually from 1,907 to 2,850, the percentage for which completed forms were returned fell during this time from 55% (1,043/1,907) to 31% (894/2,850). In 1991, 2,049 doses were issued and completed forms returned for 32% (653/2,049). From data on the completed and returned forms for 1988-91, 51% (1,805/3,535) of accidental exposures occurred in the community and 45% (1,604/3,535) in hospitals. Of the community exposures, 958 (53%) were needlestick accidents; 16% of them occurred 'in the street', 12% from 'contact with rubbish', 6% 'in the park', and 4% 'on the beach'. The findings confirm that discarded hypodermic syringe needles in the general environment are causing new public health problems. As the percentage of completed and returned forms has declined, and because HBIG is not recommended for needlestick accidents in the community where the source of the needle is unknown, HBIG surveillance forms are thought not to be a suitable source of data for continued monitoring of environmental quality.

How to measure preferences for photographs of natural landscapes

Shafer Jr, E.L. and Brush, R.O., 1977. How to measure preferences for photographs of natural landscapes. Landscape Plann., 4: 237–256. A regression model is described that predicts preference scores for black and white photographs of natural landscapes. Examples are presented on how the model can be applied to individual and groups of landscape photographs; and theory development suggested by the model's terms are discussed. Decision makers can use the model: to help plan and manage natural landscapes for an optimum range of scenic preferences; to prepare environmental impact statements related to the aesthetic quality of the landscape; and to monitor trends in environmental quality.

The Future of Salmonid Communities in the Laurentian Great Lakes

The effects of human population growth, industrialization, and the introduction of marine fishes have reduced the suitability of each of the Great Lakes for oligotrophic fish communities. The ultimate consequence has been a reduction of fishery productivity that has ranged from extreme in Lake Ontario to moderate in Lake Superior. If measures are not taken to alleviate the adverse effects of marine invaders and trends in environmental quality, a major reduction in fishery productivity can eventually be expected throughout the Great Lakes.Prospects for the next century will be improved if the lakes can be intensively managed. More stringent control of the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), and subsequent reduction of the alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus), by the reestablishment of populations of large piscivores, should permit the recovery of some of the previous predator and prey species, or the development of populations of new species that are more compatible with a reduced number of lampreys. Even if marine species can be reduced greatly, the full restoration of the former fishery productivity remains uncertain and will require a high degree of coordination among all management and research agencies that have responsibilities on the Great Lakes.Unfavorable trends toward progressive degradation of water quality pose the greatest threat to restoration of the fishery resources of the Great Lakes. Where changes in water quality have been the greatest, oligotrophic species have become scarce or absent, and in the deepwater regions no other species have reoccupied the vacated niches.