Adapting ecological risk valuation for natural resource damage assessment in water pollution

Using US Natural Resource Damage Assessment to understand the environmental consequences of the war in Ukraine

Military conflict has led to large-scale environmental changes throughout recorded human history. Pollution from war contaminates surface water and soil, releases large volumes of greenhouse gases into the air, and directly harms wildlife and biodiversity. Although much is understood about the human toll of war, numerous examples of postwar reconstruction suggest that underestimating the severity of wartime damages to ecosystems and natural resources results in prolonged or incomplete recovery of the environment. A data-driven scientific approach closely aligned with the evidentiary rules standard in western legal systems is needed to quantify the injury, destruction, or loss of natural resources and inform the estimation of the reparations necessary to restore the environment fully. The US Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process and the European Union environmental liability directive are well-suited for a systematic and science-based analysis of the ecological injuries incurred during armed conflicts. Both approaches include a preliminary damage assessment process, which could be initiated during wartime to document and predict the likely severity of the injuries and prioritize, in advance, rehabilitation activities after the cessation of hostilities. In this article, we refer to news reporting of Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine as an example of how a preliminary damage assessment could be conducted remotely and later modified by in-country inspections and analysis to verify and refine the scale of injuries and to develop reparation proposals. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2023;19:366-375. © 2022 SETAC.

Mesoporogen free synthesis of CuO/TiO2 heterojunction for ultra-trace detection of catechol in water samples

Creating mesoporous architecture on the surface of metal oxides without using pore creating agent is significant interest in electrochemical sensors because these materials act as an efficient electron transfer process between the electrode interface and the analytes. Recent advances in mesoporous titanium dioxide (TiO₂)-based materials have acquired extraordinary opportunities because of their interconnected porous structure could act as a host for doping with various transition metals or heteroatoms to form a new type of heterojunction. Herein, a simple method is developed to synthesize mesoporous copper oxide (CuO) decorated on TiO₂ nanostructures in which homogenous shaped CuO nanocrystals act as dopants decorated on the mesoporous structure of TiO₂, resulting in p-n heterojunction nanocomposite. The TiO₂ particles exhibit a mesoporous structure with a pore volume of about 0.117 cm³/g is capable to load CuO nanocrystals on the surface. As a result, large pore volume 0.304 cm³/g is obtained for CuO-TiO₂ heterojunction nanocomposite with the loading of uniform-shaped CuO nanocrystals on the mesoporous TiO₂. The resulting CuO-TiO₂ nanocomposite on modified glassy carbon (GC) electrode exhibits good electrochemical performance for oxidation of catechol with the observation of strong enhancement in the anodic peak potential at +0.36 V. The decrease in the overpotential for the oxidation of catechol when compared to TiO₂/GC is attributed to the presence of CuO nanocrystals providing a large surface area, resulting in wide linear range 10 nM to 0.57 μM. Moreover, the resultant modified electrode exhibited good sensitivity, selectivity and reproducibility and the sensor could able to determine the presence of catechol in real samples such as lake and river water. Therefore, the obtained CuO-TiO₂ nanocomposite on the modified GC delivered good electrochemical sensing performance and which could be able to perform a promising strategy for designing various metal oxide doped nanocomposites for various photochemical and electrocatalytic applications.

The Construction of the Evaluation Index for the Outgoing Auditing of the Natural Resource Assets of Local Leading Cadres Based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process

As the foundation of human survival and development, natural resources affect every aspect of our lives, including life and health, financial security, and overall social security. This article describes building a system for valuing the assets of good NR in operation for local executives who employ analytic hierarchy process. Based on his bibliographic data, he has a deep understanding of the theoretical issues associated with the process of analytical hierarchy and the uncontrollable control of natural resource assets. In addition, he uses an analytic hierarchy process to create a system of metrics for the external management of local leaders' NR and analyzes examples through the newly established metrics system. As a result, the current mayor of this case is more than the responsibility of the previous mayor. During the period, natural and environmental conditions improved, especially in the areas of water and air resources, which are more relevant than they are today.

Effects of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation on urban ecological efficiency: evidence from 269 cities in China

The ecological environment and economic development are double-edged swords. Nevertheless, we can still achieve green and coordinated development through environmental regulations and industrial agglomeration. Based on the panel data from 269 cities in China from 2008 to 2017, using the SBM-DEA model, the Malmquist-Luenberger (ML) index, and the spatial Durbin model (SDM) under different weight matrices, this paper explored the spatial pattern of ecological efficiency, the internal evolution mechanism, and the spillover effects of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation on ecological efficiency. The results demonstrated that China's urban ecological efficiency had an obvious spatial pattern of "high in the east and low in the west." Due to the different life cycles of cities, the internal evolution mechanism of urban ecological efficiency had significant differences. Pure technological efficiency (PEFFCH), technological progress (TECH), and scale efficiency (SECH) have contributed the most to the ecological efficiency of the eastern, central, and western regions, respectively. Furthermore, a significant U-shaped relationship existed between industrial agglomeration and ecological efficiency. In particular, urban ecological efficiency will be improved when the industrial agglomeration level exceeds a certain scale. However, the spillover effects of industrial agglomeration were more sensitive to distance factors, leading to failure of the significance test under the economic distance and asymmetric economic distance matrix. The "innovation compensation effect" of environmental regulation was greater than the "compliance cost," which verified the applicability of the "Porter Hypothesis" in urban ecological efficiency to a certain extent. Finally, the geographical detector showed that each variable had a certain impact on the urban ecological efficiency, and the impact of the interaction term was greater than that of a single variable.

Effective water/wastewater treatment methodologies for toxic pollutants removal: Processes and applications towards sustainable development

Release of pollutants due to inflating anthropogenic activities has a conspicuous effect on the environment. As water is uniquely vulnerable to pollution, water pollution control has received a considerable attention among the most critical environmental challenges. Diverse sources such as heavy metals, dyes, pathogenic and organic compounds lead to deterioration in water quality. Demand for the pollutant free water has created a greater concern in water treatment technologies. The pollutants can be mitigated through physical, chemical and biological methodologies thereby alleviating the health and environmental effects caused. Diverse technologies for wastewater treatment with an accentuation on pre-treatment of feedstock and post treatment are concisely summed up. Pollutants present in the water can be removed by processes some of which include filtration, reverse osmosis, degasification, sedimentation, flocculation, precipitation and adsorption. Membrane separation and adsorption methodologies utilized to control water pollution and are found to be more effective than conventional methods and established recovery processes. This audit relatively features different methodologies that show remarkable power of eliminating pollutants from wastewater. This review describes recent research development on wastewater treatment and its respective benefits/applications in field scale were discussed. Finally, the difficulties in the enhancement of treatment methodologies for pragmatic commercial application are recognized and the future viewpoints are introduced.

Study involving removal of azo dye Direct Orange 34 by adsorption in zeolite–clay system

Recently, dyes have procured a wide range of application in the textile industry. These organic compounds possess toxic agents and act as water pollutants. Such dyes can be extracted by adsorption to prevent water pollution. The present work proposes removal of azo dye Direct Orange 34 from the aqueous solution using mixtures of sodalite zeolite (Si/Al ratio 2.5) and clay (vermiculite in 1.0, 2.5, 5.0 g). The methodology involves a system with different stages of separation, considering specified retention time (72, 48, 24, 12, 6 h) of adsorbate and dye concentrations (100, 50, 25, 10, 5 mg/L). The zeolite–vermiculite mixture has a high potential of dye removal due to extensive surface area and porosity with excellent cation exchange capacity conferring its adsorbent property. High concentrations (50 and 100 mg/L) and longer retention times than 48 h results in 50% removal of dyes, whereas a low concentration level (25, 10, 5 mg/L) increases the removal efficiency (74%). Henceforth, the experiment concluded that the zeolite–clay mixtures are capable of azo dye extraction.

Effect of Feed Concentrate Intake on the Environmental Impact of Dairy Cows in an Alpine Mountain Region Including Soil Carbon Sequestration and Effect on Biodiversity

Several studies on the environmental impacts of livestock enterprises are based on the application of life cycle assessments (LCA). In Alpine regions, soil carbon sequestration can play an important role in reducing environmental impacts. However, there is no official methodology to calculate this possible reduction. Biodiversity plays an important role in the Alpine environment and is affected by human activities, such as cattle farming. Our aim was to estimate the carbon footprint (CF) of four different dairy production systems (different in breeds and feeding intensity) by using the LCA approach. The present study included 44 dairy Alpine farms located in the autonomous province of Bolzano in northern Italy. Half of the farms (n = 22) kept Alpine Grey and the other half (n = 22) Brown Swiss cattle. Within breeds, the farms were divided by the amount of concentrated feed per cow and day into high concentrate (HC) and low concentrate (LC). This resulted in 11 Alpine Grey low concentrate (AGLC) farms feeding an average amount of 3.0 kg concentrated feed/cow/day and 11 Alpine Grey high concentrate (AGHC) farms with an average amount of 6.3 kg concentrated feed/cow/day. Eleven farms kept Brown Swiss cows with an average amount of 3.7 kg concentrated feed/cow/day (BSLC) and another 11 farms feeding on average 7.6 kg concentrated feed/cow/day (BSHC). CF for the four systems was estimated using the LCA approach. The functional unit was 1 kg of fat and protein corrected milk (FPCM). Furthermore, two methodologies have been applied to estimate soil carbon sequestration and effect on biodiversity. The system with the lowest environmental impact in terms of CF was BSHC (1.14 kg CO2-eq/kg of FPCM), while the most impactful system was the AGLC group (1.55 kg CO2-eq/kg of FPCM). Including the CF reduction due to soil carbon sequestered from grassland, it decreased differently for the two applied methods. For all four systems, the main factor for CF was enteric emission, while the main pollutant was biogenic CH4. Conversely, AGLC had the lowest impact when the damage to biodiversity was considered (damage score = 0.41/kg of FPCM, damage to ecosystem diversity = 1.78 E-07 species*yr/kg FPCM). In comparison, BSHC had the greatest impact in terms of damage to biodiversity (damage score = 0.56/kg of FPCM, damage to ecosystem diversity = 2.49 E-07 species*yr/kg FPCM). This study indicates the importance of including soil carbon sequestration from grasslands and effects on biodiversity when calculating the environmental performance of dairy farms.

A Green, Rapid and Efficient Dual-Sensors for Highly Selective and Sensitive Detection of Cation (Hg2+) and Anion (S2-) Ions Based on CMS/AgNPs Composites

Detection of mercury (Hg²⁺) and sulfide (S²⁻), universal and well-known toxic ions, is crucial in monitoring several diseases. How to design and fabricate the high-performance sensor for simultaneously and accurately detecting the Hg²⁺ and S²⁻ is critical. Herein, we proposed a novel and convenient strategy for optical detection of Hg²⁺ and S²⁻ by employing a carboxymethyl cellulose sodium/silver nanoparticle (CMS/AgNPs) colloidal solution, in which AgNPs were used as monitor for Hg²⁺ and S²⁻, and the CMS was utilized as both the stabilizer and the hydrophilic substrate for AgNPs. Well-identifiable peaks for Hg²⁺ and S^2– were obtained in water based on UV–VIS absorption spectra, the absorbance intensity and/or position of nano-silver vary with the addition of Hg²⁺ cation and S^2– anion, accompanying with color change. Impressively, the optimal AgNPs anchored CMS exhibited a high sensitivity and selectivity toward Hg²⁺ and S²⁻, the change in absorbance was linear with the concentration of Hg²⁺ (0–50 μM) and S²⁻ (15–70 μM), and the lowest limits of detection (LOD) were 1.8 × 10⁻⁸ M and 2.4 × 10⁻⁷ M, respectively. More importantly, owing to the superior properties in testing Hg²⁺ and S²⁻, the fabricated sensor was successfully applied for detection of target ions in lake and tap water samples. All these good results implied that the designed strategy and as-designed samples is promising in detecting cation (Hg²⁺) and anion (S²⁻) ions and open up new opportunities for selecting other kinds of ions.