scholarly journals Assessment of Different Contaminants in Freshwater: Origin, Fate and Ecological Impact

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiziana Di Lorenzo ◽  
Grant C. Hose ◽  
Diana M.P. Galassi

Freshwater ecosystems cover over 15% of the world’s surface and provide ecosystem services that are pivotal in sustaining human society. However, fast-growing anthropogenic activities have deleterious impacts on these ecosystems. In this Special Issue, we collect ten studies encompassing five different factors of freshwater contamination: landfill leaks, nutrients, heavy metals, emerging organic contaminants and marble slurry. Using different approaches, the studies detailed the direct and indirect effects that these contaminants have on a range of freshwater organisms, from bacteria to vertebrates. Although the papers covered here focused on specific case studies, they exemplify common issues that are expanding in groundwaters, hyporheic zones, streams, lakes and ponds around the world. All the aspects of these issues are in dire need of being continuously discussed among scientists, end-users and policy-makers. To this end, the Special Issue presents a new free software suite for the analysis of the ecological risk and conservation priority of freshwater ecosystems. The software can support local authorities in the preparation of management plans for freshwater basins pursuant to the Water Directives in Europe.

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 589-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Neal ◽  
S. J. Ormerod ◽  
S. J. Langan ◽  
T. R. Nisbet ◽  
J. Roberts

Abstract. This paper closes the Special Issue of Hydrology and Earth System Sciences entitled "Sustainability of UK forestry: contemporary issues for the protection of freshwaters" by presenting conclusions from the contributions together with associated research findings. The volume deals largely with issues of upland water quality and biology in the context of environmental research and management. The studies are linked to an array of issues which affect the sustainability of UK forestry in the context of the protection of freshwaters, freshwater ecosystems and freshwater organisms. These issues include atmospheric and climate driven factors (acidification from atmospheric pollutants, critical loads, climate-change and climate variability), forestry practice and hydrobiogeochemical processing both within-catchments and within-rivers. The findings lie within the context of the science and relate to environmental management. Keywords: water quality, forestry, stream ecology, acidification, critical loads, nutrients


2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 136-148
Author(s):  
I. V. Gryb

The concept of an explosion in freshwater ecosystems as a result of the release of accumulated energy, accompanied by the destruction of the steady climax successions of hydrocenoses is presented. The typification of local explosions as well as methods for assessing their risk during the development of river basins are shown. The change in atmospheric circulation, impaired phases of the hydrological regime of rivers, increasing the average temperature of the planet, including in Polesie to 0,6 ºC, deforestation leads to concentration and release of huge amounts of unmanaged terrestrial energy, which manifests itself in the form of disasters and emergencies. Hydroecological explosion is formed as a result of multifactorial external influence (natural and anthropogenic) on the water body in a certain period of time. Moreover, its level at wastewater discharge depends on the mass of recycled impurities and behaved processing capacity of the reservoir, and the mass of dumped on biocides and the possibility of the water flow to their dilution and to the utilization of non-toxic concentrations. In all these cases the preservation of "centers of life" in the tributaries of the first order – local fish reproduction areas contributed to ecosystem recovery, and the entire ecosystem has evolved from equilibrium to non-equilibrium with further restructuring after the explosion and environmental transition to a new trophic level. It means that hydroecological explosion can be researched as the logical course of development of living matter in abiotic environmental conditions, ending abruptly with the formation of new species composition cenoses and new bio-productivity. The buffer capacity of the water environment is reduced due to re-development and anthropic transformation of geobiocenoses of river basins, which leads to a weakening of life resistance. This applies particularly to the southern industrial regions of Ukraine, located in the arid zone that is even more relevant in the context of increased average temperature due to the greenhouse effect, as well as to Polesie (Western, Central and Chernihiv), had been exposed to large-scale drainage of 60-80th years, which contributed to the degradation of peatlands and fitostroma. Imposing the western trace of emissions from the Chernobyl accident to these areas had created the conditions of prolonged hydroecological explosion in an intense process of aging water bodies, especially lakes, change in species composition of fish fauna and the occurrence of neoplasms at the organismal level. Under these conditions, for the existence of man and the environment the vitaukta should be strengthened, i.e. buffer resistance and capacitance the aquatic environment, bioefficiency on the one hand and balanced using the energy deposited - on the other. This will restore the functioning of ecosystems "channel-floodplain", "riverbed-lake", reducing the energy load on the aquatic environment. Hydroecological explosions of natural origin can not be considered a pathology – it is a jump process of natural selection of species of biota. Another thing, if they are of anthropogenic origin and if the magnitude of such an impact is on the power of geological factors. Hydroecological explosions can be regarded as a manifestation of environmental wars that consciously or unconsciously, human society is waging against themselves and their kind in the river basins, so prevention of entropy increase in the aquatic environment and the prevention of hydroecological explosions is a matter of human survival. While the man - is not the final link in the development of living matter, it can develop without him, as matter is eternal, and the forms of its existence are different.


Engineering ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mengmeng Zhong ◽  
Tielong Wang ◽  
Wenxing Zhao ◽  
Jun Huang ◽  
Bin Wang ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-147
Author(s):  
Wieteke Conen ◽  
Karin Schulze Buschoff

In a number of European countries there is a clear trend towards increased multiple jobholding. As things stand, however, little is known about the structure and the potential consequences of this increase, notably in terms of quality of work and social protection. This special issue focuses on contemporary forms of multiple jobholding in Europe. Have the structure, nature and dynamics of multiple jobholding changed over time? What are the roles of labour market flexibility, technological change and work fragmentation in the development of multiple jobholding? And do multiple jobholders benefit from similar and adequate employment terms, conditions and protections compared with single jobholders, or are they worse off as a consequence of their (fragmented) employment situation? What implications do these findings have for unions, policy-makers and the regulation of work? The collection of articles in this special issue adds to the literature on emerging forms of employment in the digital age and challenges for social protection, also in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This introduction initiates a discussion of central debates on multiple jobholding and presents a synopsis of the articles in this issue.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 711-722
Author(s):  
Katherine E. Greenstein ◽  
Matthew R. Nagorzanski ◽  
Bailey Kelsay ◽  
Edgard M. Verdugo ◽  
Nosang V. Myung ◽  
...  

Electrospun carbon nanofibers with integrated titanium dioxide nanoparticles are used for water treatment in a photoactive membrane filtration system.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1077
Author(s):  
Ana M. Córdova López ◽  
Althiéris de Souza Saraiva ◽  
Carlos Gravato ◽  
Amadeu M. V. M. Soares ◽  
Renato Almeida Sarmento

The present study aims to use behavioral responses of the freshwater planarian Girardia tigrina to assess the impact of anthropogenic activities on the aquatic ecosystem of the watershed Araguaia-Tocantins (Tocantins, Brazil). Behavioral responses are integrative and cumulative tools that reflect changes in energy allocation in organisms. Thus, feeding rate and locomotion velocity (pLMV) were determined to assess the effects induced by the laboratory exposure of adult planarians to water samples collected in the region of Tocantins-Araguaia, identifying the sampling points affected by contaminants. Furthermore, physicochemical and microbiological parameters, as well as the presence of inorganic compounds (dissolved aluminum, total barium, total chloride, dissolved iron, total fluoride, total manganese, nitrates, nitric nitrogen, total sulfate, total zinc) and surfactants, were determined on each specific sampling point. The behavioral biomarkers (feeding rate and pLMV) of the freshwater planarians were significantly decreased when organisms were exposed to water samples from four municipalities (Formoso do Araguaia, Lagoa da Confusão, Gurupi and Porto Nacional), sites of the Tocantins-Araguaia hydrographic region—TAHR. Both behavioral biomarkers decreased up to ~37–39% compared to organisms in ASTM medium only. Our results showed that these behavioral biomarkers can be used for fast screening monitoring of environmental samples of freshwater ecosystems, since a decrease in feeding rate and locomotor activity was observed in sites impacted by anthropogenic activities. However, the absence of effects observed in some sampling points does not represent the absence of contamination, since several other classes of contaminants were not determined. In these negative results, the absence of deleterious effects on behavioral biomarkers might only be indicative that the potential presence of contaminants on such sites does not significantly affect the performance of planarians. This fast screening approach seems to be useful to determine contaminated sites in freshwater ecosystems for biomonitoring purposes. This knowledge will help to develop biomonitoring programs and to decide appropriate sampling sites and analysis.


2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-476
Author(s):  
TAKASHI INOGUCHI

This special issue focuses on the role of civil society in international relations. It highlights the dynamics and impacts of public opinion on international relations (Zaller, 1992). Until recently, it was usual to consider public opinion in terms of its influence on policy makers and in terms of moulding public opinion in the broad frame of the policy makers in one's country. Given that public opinion in the United States was assessed and judged so frequently and diffused so globally, it was natural to frame questions guided by those concepts which pertained to the global and domestic context of the United States.


2012 ◽  
Vol 722 ◽  
pp. 8-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Víctor Matamoros ◽  
Diana Calderón-Preciado ◽  
Carmen Domínguez ◽  
Josep M. Bayona

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