This study collected agricultural surface soil samples from 200 sites in the district of Braničevo, located in the Carpathian Mountains – Pannonian Basin south of the Danube River (Serbia). The main objective was to determine the soil contamination by ten potentially toxic elements (As, B, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Zn) and evaluate the associated ecological risk via different indices. The physicochemical parameters, pH, organic carbon, water content, and soil texture were also analyzed. The mean values of most metal concentrations remained below their corresponding national target values, except for Mo and Ni. The main soil texture types were silt loam (40.5 %) and silty clay loam (34.5 %). According to the mean values, pollution load index (PLI) and potential ecological risk (RI) demonstrated that the soil in the study area was exposed to moderate pollution and moderate ecological risk, while enrichment factor (EF), geoaccumulation index (Igeo), and contamination factor (CF) revealed very high enrichment and contamination with Mo, implying the impact of anthropogenic activities. There was a lack of strong correlations among elements and soil properties, except for Cd and Corg, while moderate to strong positive inter-metal relationships suggested their common sources. The chemometric analysis illustrated the classification of sampling sites into two distinct clusters of spatial similarities according to higher and lower metal concentrations. Geospatial mapping identified a few areas of considerable ecological risk.

Landslide disaster is increasingly receiving severe attention because of their devastating effects on the environment and people's economic interests despite the mitigative efforts made by stakeholders to minimize their impacts. The study assesses the effectiveness of several interventions to reduce the adverse effects of landslides in parts of southeastern Nigeria. Data were collected from purposively sampled locations, including Boki, Obanliku, Calabar and Biase in Cross River State, using a questionnaire survey, participatory rural appraisal, field inventory and measurement. The study used both descriptive and inferential statistics for data analyses. Results revealed that climate change and human activities were the primary causes of landslides attracting 98% and 95%, respectively. Results further show that landslide occurrence has significantly affected socio-economic activities in the areas and is the primary cause of biophysical degradation. Also, the study indicated that the efforts of various stakeholders in terms of financial support (65%), building materials (60%), and food items (64%), were not yielding sustainable results. The one-way analysis of variance of the results of stakeholders' involvement in landslide risk reduction measures shows an F-ratio of 2.02, which is less than the calculated value of 2.87 at 0.05 levels of significance. Therefore, there is no statistical difference in the effectiveness and commitment of stakeholders. Furthermore, the empirical results obtained from ANOVA on the efficacy of landslide risk reduction measures produce an F-ratio of 1.171, which is less than the tabulated value of 2,69 at 0.05 level of significance. This result confirms that the effectiveness of landslide reduction measures across the sample communities does not vary significantly. This implies that all the respondents gave an almost equal rating of the risk reduction measures. It is recommended that environmental awareness activities be promoted, and human activities that are likely to enhance occurrence in vulnerable areas should be discouraged.

The Terminos Lagoon is a region of great environmental and economic importance, due to its biodiversity, abundance of natural resources and proximity to the Campeche Sound. These characteristics encourage the development of numerous human activities in its surroundings, including oil, agricultural, industrial, urban and sanitary activities. We evaluated the concentration of Cr, Ni, Pb and V in surface sediment samples from Laguna de Terminos, Campeche, Mexico. The results obtained show that the concentrations of Cr and Pb remained below the ecological criteria of the minimum and maximum adverse ERL and ERM conditions for the biota, as well as within the ranges reported for other coastal lagoons in the Gulf of Mexico, with the exception of Pb, which decreased by almost 100%. Ni recorded values above the ERL and ERM, which have shown fluctuations in concentrations depending on the rainy and dry seasons. V maintained its concentrations below 27.73 mg/kg. High correlations were found between metals Cr – V, Cr – Ni and Ni – V, suggesting that these elements share the same source of origin. The statistics show that there are significant differences between the sampling sites PLZ and C, and PLZ and CDL. The reduction may be due to a decrease in urban, tourist, fishing and agricultural activities.

This study presents micro-morphological characters and anatomical modifications detected in black pine needles collected from urban polluted areas in order to propose new biomarkers useful in air pollution biomonitoring. The plant samples were collected during the July 2021 from 10 different polluted sites from Bucharest and analyzed using light and scanning electron microscopy. When compared with the samples collected from less polluted sites, needle micromorphology and structure have showed significant alterations such as injured stomatal complex, eroded forms of tubular wax type and complete degradation of wax crystalline structure, raised peristomatal areas, early wax plugs perforations and abnormal epidermal teeth. The loads of heavy metal of samples were assessed by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and the results showed a positive correlation between structural alteration incidence and needle heavy metal surface depositions.

This study aims to determine toxic effects of polyester-based polymers (polycarbonate (PC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and, polybutylene terephthalate (PBT)) depending on physiological change in life cycle of Daphnia magna Straus (1820) (Cladocera, Crustacea). As a result of acute toxicity test, it was observed that although the rates of immobilized/dead organisms were low, damage started occurring in organisms. According to the results of 72th, the median effective concentration (EC50) values of PC, PET and PBT were determined as 2.604 mg L-1, 4.694 mg L-1 and >100 mg L-1, respectively. In consequence of chronic toxicity test, in the experiment set in which the water where daphnids were cultivated was used, it was observed that there was a high rate of deformation on daphnids which were exposed to ester-based polymers. The possible effect of polyester-based polymers on the daphnids deformation might be consequence of reaction between urea and ester groups of PC, PET, and PBT. Especially in the sets where microalgae existed and the natural conditions were simulated, it was determined that the toxicity response of daphnids varied in accordance with different microplastic types in terms of their chemical structure.

Air pollution is a major environmental problem in Indonesia. Potentially toxic elements (PTEs) which bounded to particulate matter (PM) samples were collected from Maros karst area, the second largest karst in the world. The seasonal levels of PTEs and ecological risk assessment were used to investigate the pollution levels near the residential areas using pollution load index (PLI) and potential ecological risk index (PERI). Spatial distributions of ecological risks based on the PTEs concentration have been explored with Empirical Bayesian Kriging method. The result indicated the mean concentration of PTEs (Cr, Pb, Cu, As and Zn) were significantly higher in dry season than wet season. Based on the PERI and PLI values, the PTEs accumulation are more severe near industrial activities and traffic roads. Hotspots of the PTEs were located in the East and Southeast area. The implications of this study could be used to optimize the management strategies in controlling the PTEs pollution and become a scientific reference for taking environmental protection policies

Pollution can occur in any environment, but the way the pollutants spread over depends on the environmental features. Some pollutants remain more or less confined to the contamination site, others do not. This paper proposes a territory zoning showing lands susceptibility for possible groundwater pollution through leaching in Romania, if pollution occurs. The method uses a GIS technique and takes into account soil permeability and texture, relief type, depth to groundwater and climatic water deficit. Six land susceptibility classes were obtained for the whole territory. The highest vulnerability to groundwater pollution was assessed for the most permeable sandy soils, or near - river soils, whereas the most resilient environment was assessed for the low permeable clayey soils. This land classification is aimed at drawing attention to stakeholders in order to rank and take the most appropriate measures to prevent and control pollution, if occurring. The regions that are most vulnerable to pollution should be managed with more care than the most resilient regions. If global warming continues, more severe rainfall events are expected to happen, thus enhancing the leaching of pollutants toward groundwater, specifically for the most vulnerable classes.

The Cairo-Suez Province (CSP) is one of the highly deformed settings in northern Egypt that includes a complex structures and drainage network. The scope of this paper is to present the results of investigation as how far can geological structures control and/or affect the distribution of drainage networks based on insights from several selected sites along CSP. High resolution satellite images are used with field extracted structural data in order to clarify the structural setting of the studies areas. Moreover, hill shaded digital elevation maps (DEMs) are set up for the studied sites in order to compare the structural features with the resulted structural maps. Additionally, GIS based tools are used for extracting drainage network from DEMs. Trend analysis is used for comparing the drainage network to the main resulted structural elements. As a result, nine different structural models are suggested to control the drainage pattern along CSP. These models are placed under main three structural categories which are; simple fault(s), linked faults and fault-related folds. Additionally, the resulted structural models show main controls on sedimentation as well as groundwater accumulation. The findings of the research are helpful as preliminary step for groundwater studies, sedimentation, and geo-hazard assessment.

Plastic pollution is becoming a serious environmental concern because of extensive plastic use worldwide. Before being dumped into the marine environment, these anthropogenic polymers also af-fect freshwater ecosystems. Although extensive research has been done to evaluate the level and distri-bution of these anthropogenic polymers but the effect of physical structures like barrages has never been accounted so far. This study is the first of its kind to highlight the role of river barrages in determining the distribution of microplastics (MPs) and affecting their ingestion among different fish species. This study was conducted on Balloki Barrage located on Ravi River, receiving sewage water from different populous cities of Pakistan including Lahore and Sheikhupura. Water (n=6), sediment (n=6) and fish (n=28) sam-ples were collected from both the upstream and downstream of the barrages to establish the relationship between MPs ingestion, fish feeding habit and the pollution level in environmental matrices. On the other hand, the relative abundance of fibers in all the fish species was 57% followed by sheets 34% and fragments 8%. Omnivore fish species were found to have more MPs than herbivores and carnivores irrespective of their size and weight. This study proved that the barrages serve an important function in determining the MPs distribution and their consequent ingestion in fish. A proper consideration must be given to the effects of these structures when evaluating plastic pollution in any riverine body.

Climate change is a worldwide problem that is facing the globe in different aspects. To investigate this phenomenon, research has been conducted to check whether climate change is affecting the western part of Jerusalem Governorate or not. Long-term data on annual, seasonal and monthly rainfall were collected from different sources and analyzed for long-term monthly and annual trends. Results showed significant (p< 0.05) decrease in the annual rainfall, with about 7.3 mm decadal reduction during 1850-2018. The highest and significant decrease in decadal rainfall occurred during 1890-1939 and 1980-2018, with a decadal decrease of 50.9 mm and 55.9 mm, respectively. The decrease corresponds to 84 mm reduction in annual rainfall since 1850, which could be attributed to the extended effect of the GHG from the industrial revolution on Palestine since the beginning of the 20th century. A significant and increasing trend in drought periods was also obvious, with 1.7 years of drought/ decade and an increasing drought recurrence during 1920-1930 and 1998-2018 periods (69% of the drought years occurred in the two periods). Winter season showed highest and significant reduction in rainfall than spring season (1.7 mm/decade and 0.7 mm/decade, respectively), whereas autumn season showed a non-significant decadal decrease in rainfall of about 0.04 mm/decade. The reduction in rainfall and the recurrence of more drought periods, especially the last 20 years, might be the cause for the concurrent reduction in rainfed agricultural areas in Palestine; about 38% reduction in the total rainfed areas (1515 km2 in 2000 to 929 km2 in 2017/2018).

Flash floods have been in the centre of attention for numerous hydrological studies recently and their magnitude and frequency are projected to increase due to the changing climate. This is especially important in small catchments where a local storm event can cause rapid increase in damage causing discharges. To estimate the possible impacts of a rainfall event, it is necessary to understand the precipitation/runoff conditions. Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS CN) method is widely used and discussed to estimate the effect of land cover and soil moisture conditions on runoff. In this paper, we implement this standard method in the Tajovský brook catchment in Central Slovakia. The individual land cover classes were identified, and weighted CN numbers were established. Forest accounted for 67% of the entire area, grasslands for 19% and built-up areas for 10%. The final CNII number was computed as 60.8. Seven initial abstraction ratio values were tested on a monthly hydrograph data and optimal value was set to 0.01. This suggests the possible most suited regional value of the abstraction ratio that could be used for this type of small (<50 km) forested catchments, but further testing on other catchments and precipitation events would be beneficial.

The Ediacaran Dengying Formation dolostones were the crucial carrier of the co-evolution between the biota and environment before the Cambrian Explosion and the solid mineral and petroleum resources. Based on the petrological and mineralogical analyses, the Dengying Formation at the Liaojiacao Section consists of micritic, fine-crystalline and medium-crystalline dolostones and algal-bonded or algal-clastic dolostones. Moreover, the micritic and algal-bonded dolostones mostly retain the original sedimentary structure with widespread microbial mats, algal spots, algal traces, and other microbial fossils. Recrystallization, dissolution, and other diagenetic alterations occurred in the fine-crystalline and medium-crystalline dolostones as well as algal-clastic dolostones, and their original sedimentary structures had been significantly altered. Furthermore, in situ geochemical analysis shows that the micritic and algal-bonded dolostones of the Dengying Formation, which retain the original sedimentary structure, have Mg/Ca ratios close to the ideal primary dolomite; Na, Fe, Mn, and Sr concentrations located in the distribution range of calcites and dolomites formed in a normal marine environment, negative Ce anomaies and positive Eu anomaies with the patterns of light rare earth element depletion and medium and heavy rare earth element enrichment. In addition, the whole-rock stable isotopic analyses show that the δ13Cdol values of dolostones that retain the original sedimentary structure are consistent with the distribution range of the original marine carbonate rocks, but the δ18Odol values are slightly lower than those of the original marine carbonate rocks. Therefore, we infer that the dolostones of the Dengying Formation at the Liaojiacao Section with original sedimentary structure are the products of mimetic dolomitization and formed in an environment with extensive microbial activity, calcite as the preexisting mineral, normal salinity, and oxidized seawater as the dolomitization fluid. Moreover, the fine- and medium-crystalline dolostones were the results of recrystallization that retained the original sedimentary structures during diagenesis.

The concentration of heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Cr, Fe, Hg, Pb, Zn) and arsenic was determined in water, soil and alfalfa samples in three sites (Congata, Uchumayo and Vitor) located along the Quilca - Vitor - Chili River, near the city of Arequipa, Peru. The content of these elements was also analysed in samples of alfalfa at different times of being planted (1 to 3 months) in Congata. Alfalfa planted in three other locations (Quiscos, Yarabamba and La Joya) upstream and downstream of the first three was also analysed. To determine the concentration of heavy metals in sheep, measurements were made on liver and kidney samples from animals farmed in the first three sites. The concentration of metals and arsenic in the water samples was lower than the Peruvian environmental quality standards, except for Hg in Vitor (0.0001 mg L-1). The Cd content in the soil at all three sites (62.01 - 381.94 mg kg-1) was well above the EQS for agricultural, commercial or industrial soils. The Cd content in the alfalfa samples grown in the same soils was higher than that observed in the samples from Quiscos, Yarabamba and La Joya. The estimated daily intake values (EDI) for metals detected in sheep kidneys and liver (Fe, Cu, Zn) were below the provisional maximum tolerable daily intakes (PMTDI) for children and adults, while the target hazard quotient (THQ) and total THQ of these elements were less than 1, indicating that their consumption would not have an adverse health effect.