An Integration Method for Regional PM2.5 Pollution Control Optimization Based on Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review

PM2.5 pollution in China is becoming increasingly severe, threatening public health. The major goal of this study is to evaluate the mortality rate attributed to PM2.5 pollution and design pollution mitigation schemes in a southern district of China through a two-objective optimization model. The mortality rate is estimated by health effect evaluation model. Subjected to limited data information, it is assumed that the meta-analysis method, through summarizing and combining the research results on the same subject, was suitable to estimate the percentage of deaths caused by PM2.5 pollution. The critical parameters, such as the total number of deaths and the background concentration of PM2.5, were obtained through on-site survey, data collection, literature search, policy analysis, and expert consultation. The equations for estimating the number of deaths caused by PM2.5 pollution were established by incorporating the relationship coefficient of exposure to reaction, calculated residual PM2.5 concentration of affected region, and statistical total base number of deaths into a general framework. To balance the cost from air quality improvement and human health risks, a two-objective optimization model was developed. The first objective is to minimize the mortality rate attributable to PM2.5 pollution, and the second objective is to minimize the total system cost over three periods. The optimization results demonstrated that the combination of weights assigned to the two objectives significantly influenced the model output. For example, a high weight value assigned to minimizing the number of deaths results in the increased use of treatment techniques with higher efficiencies and a dramatic decrease in pollutant concentrations. In contrast, a model weighted more toward minimizing economic loss may lead to an increase in the death toll due to exposure to higher air pollution levels. The effective application of this model in the Nanshan District of Shenzhen City, China, is expected to serve as a basis for similar work in other parts of the world in the future.

ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF ANTHROPOGENIC AND TECHNOGENIC FACTORS ON THE CONTAMINATION OF THE SOIL COVER OF THE CITY

The aim of the study is to assess the ecological state of the territory of an industrial city based on moni-toring the soil cover. In the winter period, the study of the soil cover of the urbanized territory for the con-tent of sulfates, nitrates, chlorides was carried out, and the pH values were determined. Analysis of the spatial distributions of the studied substances in the soil cover in the area of influence of a large industrial center show the variation of the content of pollutants due to the impact of anthropogenic sources; there is an excess of the background concentration for all tested ingredients. In the course of the research, it has determined that it is advisable to use data on soil pollution in the study area as a means of control-ling the impact of anthropogenic sources on the environment.

Tidally Driven Dispersion of a Deep-Sea Sediment Plume Originating from Seafloor Disturbance in the DISCOL Area (SE-Pacific Ocean)

The purpose of the study was to measure in situ the background suspended particulate matter concentration (SPMC) in the DISCOL area (SE Pacific) and its increase due to mechanical mobilization of the seabed. The disturbance experiment imitated future manganese nodule exploitations and was designed to measure the sediment plume generated by such activities. In the direct vicinity of the disturbance, landers equipped with acoustic and optical sensors measured the current velocities and the SPMC. The SPMC at the disturbance was easily up to 10 mg/L and thus about 200 times higher than the background concentration. The downstream sediment plume, measured by the lander, had a SPMC of about 1 mg/L. After tide reversal, the sediment plume was recorded a second time. A sediment transport model reproduced the plume dispersion. After rapid settling of the coarser fraction, a plume of hardly settling fine particles remained in suspension (and no deposition–resuspension cycles). The transport was controlled by the tides and by the vertical velocity component that resulted from bathymetrical differences. The plume may continue to disperse up to 100+ days (up to hundreds of km) depending on the particle size and until background concentration is reached.

Risks for Using FeCl3 Under a Submerged Condition, and Different Water Management to Reduce Uptake of Antimony and Cadmium in a Rice Plant

Soil pollution by multiple metal(loid)s is a common problem, and it is not easy to synchronously reduce their uptake in crops. Compounds containing iron (Fe) are often used to efficiently remediate soil metal(loid) pollution; however, its associated risks did not receive much attention especially under unsuitable soil water conditions. Pot experiments were set up using an antimony (Sb) and cadmium (Cd) co-contaminated soil treated with a continued submergence condition plus 5, 10, or 20 mg kg−1 FeCl3 (Experiment I), or treated with different water management including submergence, intermittent irrigation, and dry farming (Experiment II). Our results showed that the continued submergence resulted in excessive accumulation of arsenic (As) in different tissues of rice plants even if the soil As background concentration is low. High soil moisture content increased the available concentrations of Sb and As, but reduced that of Cd in rhizosphere soils, which was in line with their concentrations in different tissues of rice plants (Experiment II). Under a continued submergence condition, FeCl3 significantly stimulated As concentration in the shoots, roots (excluded Fe20 treatment), and husks, but reduced it in the grains. FeCl3 reduced Sb concentration only in the roots and grains, and reduced Cd concentration only in the husks, suggesting a limited efficiency of FeCl3 to reduce Cd uptake under a submergence condition. In this study, the dynamic changes of As, Sb, and Cd concentrations in soil solution, their available concentrations in rhizosphere soils, their accumulation in root iron/manganese plaques, and the relationships among the above parameters were also discussed. We suggested that if FeCl3 would be used to remediate the contaminated soils by Sb and Cd, dry farming for a short time is needed to avoid As accumulation, and intermittent irrigation is a potential choice to avoid the excessive accumulation of As, Sb, and Cd in the edible parts of rice plants.

Deriving CO2 emissions of localized sources from OCO-3 XCO2 and TROPOMI NO2 satellite data

<p>Carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas and the main driver of global warming. Its atmospheric concentrations have risen more than 40% since pre-industrial times. Almost 90% of this increase results from fossil fuel combustion, emitting CO<sub>2</sub> predominantly from localized sources. In order to track the reduction efforts to comply with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, emissions need to be monitored. For this purpose, bottom-up emission estimates are regularly reported in the national greenhouse gas inventories. Top-down observation-based estimates can complement and verify these inventories. Satellite observations have an important role in this context, since they can provide global information.</p> <p>Due to CO<sub>2</sub>'s long lifetime and large fluxes of natural origin, the column-average concentrations resulting from anthropogenic emissions from individual source points are usually small compared to the background concentration, and these enhancements are often barely larger than the satellite's instrument noise. This makes the detection of CO<sub>2</sub> emission plumes and the quantification of anthropogenic fluxes challenging.</p> <p>NO<sub>2</sub> is co-emitted with CO<sub>2</sub> in the combustion of fossil fuels. It has a much shorter lifetime, and as a result, its vertical column densities can exceed background values and sensor noise by orders of magnitude in emission plumes. This makes it a suitable tracer for recently emitted CO<sub>2</sub>.</p> <p>The objective of this study is to quantify the CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from localized sources such as power plants by using XCO<sub>2</sub> (the column-averaged dry air mole fraction of CO<sub>2</sub>) retrievals from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3) in its snapshot area mode. Our presentation describes a plume detection method using NO<sub>2</sub> as a tracer for recently emitted CO<sub>2</sub> and an inversion technique to quantify CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from detected CO<sub>2</sub> plumes.</p>

Spatial Distribution of Available Trace Metals in Four Typical Mediterranean Soils: The Caia Irrigation Perimeter Case Study

There is a small sample of edaphic geochemistry studies over large geographic areas, especially studies that consider major reference soil groups (RSG) that evaluate both native concentrations of elements and anthropogenically contaminated soils in agricultural settings, considering the long-term effect of agricultural practices on landscape sustainability. In this study, four RSGs were analyzed for the available trace elements Ni, Cr, Cd, Pb, Cu, Mn, and Zn, including other edaphic properties from 2002 to 2012. The main objectives were to assess the range of concentrations of the selected elements in the four typical Mediterranean soils, Cambisols, Luvisols, Calcisols, and Fluvisols, with heavy anthropogenic input (HAI) and compare them to minimal anthropogenic input (MAI). For MAI, the background levels of Pb, Ni, Cd, and Cr were highest in Calcisols, differing from those of Cambisols, Luvisols, and Fluvisols (p < 0.01), Cu is highest both in Calcisols and Luvisols while Mn is higher in Cambisols and Fluvisols (p < 0.05). The background concentration of Zn was the same in all RSGs (p > 0.05). For HAI, the reference levels of Pb, Ni, Cd, Mn, and Cr were highest in the Calcisols, and Cu was high in all RSGs except Fluvisols, while Zn presented the lowest concentrations in the Luvisol RSG, with all these results considering a confidence interval of 95%. Predictive maps for the sampled elements, as well as the edaphic bioavailability, are provided. This environmental impact assessment suggests that the land use is departing from sustainable ecosystem service development and that territorial management practices, with conservation goals in mind, should be adopted.

Measurements of the background methane concentration with a remote lidar on kilometer routes in the Moscow region.

Local path measurements of the background methane concentration in the northeast of the Moscow Region were carried out using a remote active lidar based on a powerful Raman amplifier of optical radiation in the wavelength range of ~ 1650 nm. The radiation power in the pulse was about 3 W. The trasses were selected taking into account possible anomalous deviations of the background of atmospheric methane and included forests, gasified buildings with natural gas, a peat lake, a road with heavy traffic, a livestock farm and a solid waste landfill. The length of the distances ranged from ~ 0.6 km to ~ 3.15 km. The highest background concentration of methane was observed over a livestock farm, over a highway and a solid waste landfill, which confirms the fact of an increase in gas emissions over these facilities. Also higher methane levels were observed above of the gasified homes and the heavy traffic road, indicating a possible increase in the number of vehicles using methane as fuel and a possible leak of natural gas from pipelines supplying buildings with natural gas.

Different Heterotrimeric G Protein Dynamics for Wide-Range Chemotaxis in Eukaryotic Cells

Chemotaxis describes directional motility along ambient chemical gradients and has important roles in human physiology and pathology. Typical chemotactic cells, such as neutrophils and Dictyostelium cells, can detect spatial differences in chemical gradients over a background concentration of a 105 scale. Studies of Dictyostelium cells have elucidated the molecular mechanisms of gradient sensing involving G protein coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling. GPCR transduces spatial information through its cognate heterotrimeric G protein as a guanine nucleotide change factor (GEF). More recently, studies have revealed unconventional regulation of heterotrimeric G protein in the gradient sensing. In this review, we explain how multiple mechanisms of GPCR signaling ensure the broad range sensing of chemical gradients in Dictyostelium cells as a model for eukaryotic chemotaxis.

An Integrated Investigation of Atmospheric Gaseous Elemental Mercury Transport and Dispersion Around a Chlor-Alkali Plant in the Ossola Valley (Italian Central Alps)

We present the first assessment of atmospheric pollution by mercury (Hg) in an industrialized area located in the Ossola Valley (Italian Central Alps), in close proximity to the Toce River. The study area suffers from a level of Hg contamination due to a Hg cell chlor-alkali plant operating from 1915 to the end of 2017. We measured gaseous elemental Hg (GEM) levels by means of a portable Hg analyzer during car surveys between autumn 2018 and summer 2020. Moreover, we assessed the long-term dispersion pattern of atmospheric Hg by analyzing the total Hg concentration in samples of lichens collected in the Ossola Valley. High values of GEM concentrations (1112 ng m−3) up to three orders of magnitude higher than the typical terrestrial background concentration in the northern hemisphere were measured in the proximity of the chlor-alkali plant. Hg concentrations in lichens ranged from 142 ng g−1 at sampling sites located north of the chlor-alkali plant to 624 ng g−1 in lichens collected south of the chlor-alkali plant. A north-south gradient of Hg accumulation in lichens along the Ossola Valley channel was observed, highlighting that the area located south of the chlor-alkali plant is more exposed to the dispersion of Hg emitted into the atmosphere from the industrial site. Long-term studies on Hg emission and dispersion in the Ossola Valley are needed to better assess potential impact on ecosystems and human health.

Background concentration of indoor air quality in hostel rooms during varying conditions

The indoor air pollutants in student hostel room during eight different conditions were evaluated.One minute interval of TVOC, CO2, CO, O3 concentrations, temperature and relative humidity weremeasured inside a vacant hostel room of Universiti Sains Malaysia. Four fan speeds of 0, 1, 3 and5 and the installed window being open and close were selected as the basis to determine thecondition inside the hostel room. Result suggested that the concentrations of indoor air pollutantswere below the maximum permissible values outlined by Industrial Code of Practice on Indoor AirPollutants except for O3, with maximum concentration are 576 ppb (TVOC), 666 ppm (CO2), 4.4ppm (CO) and 90 ppb (O3). The hourly trend of TVOC and CO2 concentrations with peakconcentrations were observed in the morning (8 a.m.) due to outdoor traffic emission which greatlyinfluenced the indoor pollutants variation. Meanwhile, O3 showed some delay in time to reach peakconcentrations that were observed at 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Result indicate that the conditions set upwere incapable in the regulation of indoor pollutants variation since these pollutants are moredependent with the source of emission and destruction factors.