Showing papers in "Environmental Pollution in 2008"

TL;DR: Air pollution has both acute and chronic effects on human health, affecting a number of different systems and organs, and ranges from minor upper respiratory irritation to chronic respiratory and heart disease, lung cancer, acute respiratory infections in children and chronic bronchitis in adults.

TL;DR: It is highlighted that both adults and children consuming food crops grown in wastewater-irrigated soils ingest significant amount of the metals studied, however, health risk index values of less than 1 indicate a relative absence of health risks associated with the ingestion of contaminated vegetables.

TL;DR: Analytical electron microscopy revealed that TiO(2) particles are detached from new and aged facade paints by natural weather conditions and are then transported by facade runoff and are discharged into natural, receiving waters.

TL;DR: Two lead (Pb)-resistant endophytic bacteria were isolated from rape roots grown in heavy metal-contaminated soils and characterized and could colonize the root interior and rhizosphere soil of rape after root inoculation.

TL;DR: Pb, Zn and Cu mainly originated from traffic contaminants; soil Ni was associated with natural concentration; Cd largely came from point-sourced industrial pollution; and Cr, Ni in dust were mainly related to atmospheric deposition.

TL;DR: This paper reviews current remediation technologies that use chelating agents for the mobilization and removal of potentially toxic metals from contaminated soils and the possible impact of abiotic and biotic soil factors on the toxicity of metals left after the washing of soil and enhanced phytoextraction.

TL;DR: Levels of glyphosate were determined in water, soil and sediment samples from a transgenic soybean cultivation area located near to tributaries streams of the Pergamino-Arrecifes system in the north of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

TL;DR: Given the arsenic levels measured in food and water and consumption of these items, cooked rice and vegetables are a substantial exposure pathway for inorganic arsenic.

TL;DR: Recommendations were suggested concerning both the microbial-plant selection and the implementation of bioaugmentation to enhance the microbial survival and the use of microbial consortia associated with plant was discussed notably for multi-contaminated soils.

TL;DR: The study concludes that atmospheric depositions can elevate the levels of heavy metals in vegetables during marketing having potential health hazards to consumers.

TL;DR: The modified BCR three-step sequential extraction procedure was used to examine the temporal dynamics of trace elements in soils contaminated by an accidental spill from an opencast mine in south-west Spain, and was useful in identifying different sources of contamination and in obtaining additional information on the solubility of secondary minerals formed by pyrite oxidation.

TL;DR: The role of ammonia in the development of agricultural science and air chemistry is considered, showing how these arose out of foundations in 18th century chemistry and medieval alchemy, and the original environmental sources from which the ancients obtained ammonia are identified.

TL;DR: Investigation of the distribution and sources of Hg, Pb, Cd, Zn and Cu in the surface sediments of Wuli River, Cishan River, and Lianshan River and assessed heavy metal toxicity risk with the application of two different sets of Sediment Quality Guideline (SQG) indices showed that Hg contamination was originated from previous sediment contamination of the chlor-alkali producing industry.

TL;DR: Through the pollution evaluation, it was found that only 30.8% of the study area did not suffer from moderate or severe pollution, indicating that the source of these elements was mainly controlled by soil-forming factors.

TL;DR: Higher chlorinated biphenyls therefore are potentially fully biodegradable in a sequence of reductive dechlorination followed by aerobic mineralization of the lower chlorinated products.

TL;DR: Overall, the PAH's source for road runoff mainly reflected that for road dust, and the findings at the study area provided a general picture of PAHs sources for the road runoff system in urban area of Beijing.

TL;DR: There has recently been a trend emerging in modelling the behavior of the footprint functions using a less idealized, more realistic description of inhomogeneities, vegetation structure and topography, ultimately for reactive compounds.

TL;DR: It was shown that manure alone has a stimulating effect on microbial activity, but only potential nitrification was negatively influenced by manure application, and the addition of SDZ to the manure reduced microbial activity.

TL;DR: In the present experiment, the seeds of Cicer arietinum (L.) cv.

TL;DR: Surface water qualities in urban and suburban areas were improved by strengthening the environmental policies and management, but were worsening in rural areas, suggesting that decision makers and city officials should be more aware of the recent pollution increases in Shanghai.

TL;DR: In a metal-polluted stream in the Riou Mort watershed in SW France, periphytic diatom communities were affected by the metal but displayed induced tolerance, seen through structural impact (dominance of small, adnate species) as well as morphological abnormalities particularly in the genera Ulnaria and Fragilaria.

TL;DR: The agricultural soils in the peri-urban area of Guangzhou city were moderately polluted by PAEs, and both pH and texture of soils are found to be important factors affecting the level of PAEs.

TL;DR: PAHs source analysis suggested that, in the Yangtze Estuary, PAHs at locations far away from cities were mainly from petrogenic sources, and in the Huangpu and Suzhou Rivers, pyrogenic input outweighed other sources.

TL;DR: Sulfamethazine and chlortetracycline were additionally determined in manure of a control treatment in the experimental feedlot where cattle never received antibiotics, attributed to runoff from upslope pens.

TL;DR: Statistical analysis indicated that different species showed different bioaccumulation of metals depending on study site and season, and the relationships between metal concentration and season in each species showed very similar annual profiles.

TL;DR: Results suggest that DOC plays an important role in promoting the mobility, transport and bioavailability of inorganic Hg in these environments and elevated porewater concentrations in marine and brackish wetlands suggest coastal wetlands along the Gulf Coast are key sites for mercury production and may be a principal source of MeHg to foodwebs in the Gulf of Mexico.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that the lack of trends for xNO3 in air at least partly can be attributed to a shift in the equilibrium between nitric acid and ammonium nitrate towards particulate phase, caused by reductions in the sulfur dioxide emissions.

TL;DR: Results indicate that poplars are suitable for phytoremediation purposes, and underscore the importance of appropriate combinations of plant genotypes and fungal symbionts.

TL;DR: In this article, a neighbor voting algorithm is proposed to learn tag relevance by accumulating votes from visually similar neighbors, which can be used to improve the performance of social image retrieval in Flickr images.

TL;DR: An inverse relationship was found between the AF of some metals and the percentage of <10 microm particles that could be of use in risk assessment or remediation practices.