scholarly journals Characteristics and Risk Assessments of Mercury Pollution Levels at Domestic Garbage Collection Points Distributed within the Main Urban Areas of Changchun City

Toxics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 309
Author(s):  
Zhaojun Wang ◽  
Yangjie Zhang ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Xu Li ◽  
Xuhang Zhou ◽  
...  

The mercury that is released from the centralized treatment of municipal solid waste is an important source of atmospheric mercury. We chose the main urban area of Changchun as a representative area. Environmental factors such as total mercury content, temperature, wind speed, and other factors were measured in samples from the trash cans of two types of collection points (trash cans and garbage stations), the topsoil under the selected trash cans, and the ambient air above the selected trash cans. The potential ecological risks of mercury pollution were evaluated. The results showed that the mercury content levels of all sample types in the refuse transfer station were higher than the garbage cans and there were no significant differences observed between soil surface mercury and garbage cans. The mercury content levels in the atmosphere and the surface soil at the garbage collection points were found to increase along the cascade relationship of the garbage collection. However, there were no correlations observed between the atmospheric mercury content levels and the surface soil mercury content levels with the attachments and the sum of the former two. There were no correlations observed between surface soil and the attachments, or among the attachments, surface soil, and the atmospheric mercury content levels. The mercury content levels in the attachments, surface soil, and atmosphere of the garbage collection points in the study area were negatively correlated with the loop lines. Meanwhile, the potential ecological risk indexes of the garbage cans and garbage stations were found to be high. The chronic non-carcinogenic risks of mercury to children and adults were determined to be very low. The risks of mercury to children were higher when compared with adults. The highest non-carcinogenic risks of mercury pollution were determined to be within the central area of Changchun.

2011 ◽  
Vol 383-390 ◽  
pp. 3763-3767
Author(s):  
Jian Ping Qian ◽  
Li Zhang ◽  
Zhan Dong Chi ◽  
Chang Xu Huang ◽  
Wen Ying Jiang ◽  
...  

Atmospheric mercury in Guilin was monitored systematically, the content ranged from 7.69 to 39.93ng/m3. In general, from industrial areas to hospital areas, to commercial areas, to garden greenbelt, to residential areas, to culture and education regions, the average value of atmospheric mercury content decreased successively, it ranged from 22.89 to 9.94 ng/m3. The atmospheric mercury content was influenced by temperature, height, rainfall and circulation of air. The result of the investigation shows that the atmospheric mercury mainly comes from the emission of gaseous mercury of industrial production and special service sector, automobile exhaust, point sources of mercury pollution and transport of gaseous mercury from distance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4933
Author(s):  
Saimar Pervez ◽  
Ryuta Maruyama ◽  
Ayesha Riaz ◽  
Satoshi Nakai

Ambient air pollution and its exposure has been a worldwide issue and can increase the possibility of health risks especially in urban areas of developing countries having the mixture of different air pollution sources. With the increase in population, industrial development and economic prosperity, air pollution is one of the biggest concerns in Pakistan after the occurrence of recent smog episodes. The purpose of this study was to develop a land use regression (LUR) model to provide a better understanding of air exposure and to depict the spatial patterns of air pollutants within the city. Land use regression model was developed for Lahore city, Pakistan using the average seasonal concentration of NO2 and considering 22 potential predictor variables including road network, land use classification and local specific variable. Adjusted explained variance of the LUR models was highest for post-monsoon (77%), followed by monsoon (71%) and was lowest for pre-monsoon (70%). This is the first study conducted in Pakistan to explore the applicability of LUR model and hence will offer the application in other cities. The results of this study would also provide help in promoting epidemiological research in future.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leni Kang ◽  
Juan Liang ◽  
Chunhua He ◽  
Lei Miao ◽  
Xiaohong Li ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Breastfeeding is important for the physical and psychological health of the mother and child. Basic data on breastfeeding practice in China are out-of-date and vary widely. This study aimed to evaluate the progress of breastfeeding practice in China, as well as to explore the bottlenecks in driving better practice. Methods This was an observational study. We used data from the Under-5 Child Nutrition and Health Surveillance System in China for the period 2013–2018. The prevalence of early initiation of breastfeeding (EIBF) and exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) were calculated for each year for subgroups of China. The Cochran-Armitage test was used to explore the time trends. The annual percent of change (APC) were calculated by log-linear regression followed by exp transformation. Results The prevalence of EIBF increased significantly from 44.57% (95% CI: 44.07, 45.07) in 2013 to 55.84% (95% CI: 55.29, 56.38) in 2018 (Ptrend < 0.001), with an APC of 4.67% (95% CI: 3.51, 5.85). And the prevalence of EBF increased rapidly from 16.14% (95% CI: 15.10, 17.18) to 34.90% (95% CI: 33.54, 36.26) (Ptrend < 0.001), with an APC of 14.90% (95% CI: 9.97, 20.04). Increases were observed in both urban and rural areas, with urban areas showing greater APCs for EIBF (6.05%; 95% CI: 4.22, 7.92 v.s. 2.26%; 95% CI: 1.40, 3.12) and EBF (18.21%; 95% CI: 11.53, 25.29 v.s. 9.43%; 95% CI: 5.52, 13.49). The highest EBF prevalence was observed in the East, but the Central area showed the highest APC. The prevalence of EBF decreased with increasing age within the first 6 months, especially after 3 months. Conclusion The prevalence of both EIBF and EBF in China are improving in recent years. The rural and West China could be the key areas in the future actions. More efforts should be made to protect and promote breastfeeding to achieve near- and long-term goals for child health.


2014 ◽  
Vol 190 ◽  
pp. 166-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Long Wang ◽  
Shuxiao Wang ◽  
Lei Zhang ◽  
Yuxuan Wang ◽  
Yanxu Zhang ◽  
...  

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Lonati ◽  
Federico Riva

The impact of the reduced atmospheric emissions due to the COVID-19 lockdown on ambient air quality in the Po Valley of Northern Italy was assessed for gaseous pollutants (NO2, benzene, ammonia) based on data collected at the monitoring stations distributed all over the area. Concentration data for each month of the first semester of 2020 were compared with those of the previous six years, on monthly, daily, and hourly bases, so that pre, during, and post-lockdown conditions of air quality could be separately analyzed. The results show that, as in many other areas worldwide, the Po Valley experienced better air quality during 2020 spring months for NO2 and benzene. In agreement with the reductions of nitrogen oxides and benzene emissions from road traffic, estimated to be −35% compared to the regional average, the monthly mean concentration levels for 2020 showed reductions in the −40% to −35% range compared with the previous years, but with higher reductions, close to −50%, at high-volume-traffic sites in urban areas. Conversely, NH3 ambient concentration levels, almost entirely due the emissions of the agricultural sector, did not show any relevant change, even at high-volume-traffic sites in urban areas. These results point out the important role of traffic emissions in NO2 and benzene ambient levels in the Po Valley, and confirm that this region is a rather homogeneous air basin with urban area hot-spots, the contributions of which add up to a relatively high regional background concentration level. Additionally, the relatively slow response of the air quality levels to the sudden decrease of the emissions due to the lockdown shows that this region is characterized by a weak exchange of the air masses that favors both the build-up of atmospheric pollutants and the development of secondary formation processes. Thus, air quality control strategies should aim for structural interventions intended to reduce traffic emissions at the regional scale and not only in the largest urban areas.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 2429-2440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Zhao ◽  
Christopher W. N Anderson ◽  
Guangle Qiu ◽  
Bo Meng ◽  
Dingyong Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract. Rice paddy plantation is the dominant agricultural land use throughout Asia. Rice paddy fields have been identified as important sites for methylmercury (MeHg) production in the terrestrial ecosystem and a primary pathway of MeHg exposure to humans in mercury (Hg) mining areas. We compared the source and distribution of Hg species in different compartments of the rice paddy during a complete rice-growing season at two different typical Hg-contaminated mining sites in Guizhou province, China: an abandoned site with a high Hg concentration in soil but a low concentration in the atmosphere and a current-day artisanal site with a low concentration in soil but a high concentration in the atmosphere. Our results showed that the flux of new Hg to the ecosystem from irrigation and atmospheric deposition was insignificant relative to the pool of old Hg in soil; the dominant source of MeHg to paddy soil is in situ methylation of inorganic Hg (IHg). Elevated MeHg concentrations and the high proportion of Hg as MeHg in paddy water and the surface soil layer at the artisanal site demonstrated active Hg methylation at this site only. We propose that the in situ production of MeHg in paddy water and surface soil is dependent on elevated Hg in the atmosphere and the consequential deposition of new Hg into a low-pH anoxic geochemical system. The absence of depth-dependent variability in the MeHg concentration in soil cores collected from the abandoned Hg mining site, consistent with the low concentration of Hg in the atmosphere and high pH of the paddy water and irrigation water, suggested that net production of MeHg at this site was limited. We propose that the concentration of Hg in ambient air is an indicator for the risk of MeHg accumulation in paddy rice.


2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (7) ◽  
pp. 3663-3671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Peckham ◽  
Mae Sexauer Gustin ◽  
Peter J. Weisberg

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (10) ◽  
pp. 1527-1532 ◽  
Author(s):  
YuanJun Zhu ◽  
YunQiang Wang ◽  
MingAn Shao

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne L. Soerensen ◽  
Henrik Skov ◽  
Matthew S. Johnson ◽  
Marianne Glasius

Environmental context Mercury is a neurotoxin that bioaccumulates in the aquatic food web. Atmospheric emissions from urban areas close to the coast could cause increased local mercury deposition to the ocean. Our study adds important new data to the current limited knowledge on atmospheric mercury emissions and dynamics in coastal urban areas. Abstract Approximately 50% of primary atmospheric mercury emissions are anthropogenic, resulting from e.g. emission hotspots in urban areas. Emissions from urban areas close to the coast are of interest because they could increase deposition loads to nearby coastal waters as well as contribute to long range transport of mercury. We present results from measurements of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) and reactive gaseous mercury (RGM) in 15 coastal cities and their surrounding marine boundary layer (MBL). An increase of 15–90% in GEM concentration in coastal urban areas was observed compared with the remote MBL. Strong RGM enhancements were only found in two cities. In urban areas with statistically significant GEM/CO enhancement ratios, slopes between 0.0020 and 0.0087 ng m–3 ppb–1 were observed, which is consistent with other observations of anthropogenic enhancement. The emission ratios were used to estimate GEM emissions from the areas. A closer examination of data from Sydney (Australia), the coast of Chile, and Valparaiso region (Chile) in the southern hemisphere, is presented.


2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (suppl.) ◽  
pp. 79-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogdana Vujic ◽  
Srdjan Vukmirovic ◽  
Goran Vujic ◽  
Nebojsa Jovicic ◽  
Gordana Jovicic ◽  
...  

In the recent years, artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been used to predict the concentrations of various gaseous pollutants in ambient air, mainly to forecast mean daily particle concentrations. The data on traffic air pollution, irrespective of whether they are obtained by measuring or modelling, represent an important starting point for planning effective measures to improve air quality in urban areas. The aim of this study was to develop a mathematical model for predicting daily concentrations of air pollution caused by the traffic in urban areas. For the model development, experimental data have been collected for 10 months, covering all four seasons. The data about hourly concentration levels of suspended particles with aerodynamic diameter less than 10 ?m (PM10) and meteorological data (temperature, air humidity, speed and direction of wind), measured at the measuring station in the town of Subotica from June 2008 to March 2009, served as the basis for developing an ANN-based model for forecasting mean daily concentrations of PM10. The quality of the ANN model was assessed on the basis of the statistical parameters, such as RMSE, MAE, MAPE, and r.


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