Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region is one of the most important political, economic and cultural centers of China. The rapid development of economy in last decades has caused severe air pollution problems, which has resulted in considerable harm to local ecological environment and human health. In this study, total 671 air samples were collected from Beijing, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang (the capital city in Hebei province), one reference site and four background sites in four seasons. Particulate matters (PMs) with different sizes, elements and dissolvable ions in PMs were analyzed. Pollutant concentrations, characteristics and seasonal variations were discussed in order to describe the pollution status and the possible sources in this region. Enriched factors of K, Ca, Cr, Fe, Cu, Zn, As, Cd and Pb were all higher than 10. Concentrations of dissolvable ions were in the order of NO3–, SO42–>NH4+>Cl–>Ca2+, K+, Na+>Mg2+, F–. NO3–, SO42–, NH4+, Cl– were the most important ion pollutants in the three cities which accounted for 90.3–92.3% of total 9 ion concentrations. Ion concentrations in the PMs were in the order of PM1>PM1–2.5>PM2.5–10>PM10>TSP. More than 50% of the dissolvable ions exist in PM1 and the percentage increases to 73.9–94.8% in PM2.5. Human activities should be the main sources of the metallic pollutants, among which coal combustion was identified as the primary one.

In this work, we aimed to identify the contribution of a municipal solid waste incinerator (MSWI) to the air contamination of a complex urbanized area of N Italy using lichen transplants as biomonitors, and to compare the values of contamination with the data of socio-economic deprivation of the population living in the area. The method adopted allowed the identification of the elements of atmospheric origin that contaminate the study area. Although not distinguishable from the background, the contribution of the MSWI could be apportioned and mercury emerged as atmospheric tracer. Although not posing immediate risk, it is advisable to monitor in time the accumulation of Hg in biological systems. Consistently with similar studies, in the surrounding of the MSWI, we observed also the highest socio-economic deprivation. Overall, we found a close correlation between socio-economic deprivation and air pollution, clearly showing that the most disadvantaged population is clustered in the most polluted areas.

In this study, road dust samples from state roads D-100 and D-655 passing through the city of Düzce, Turkey were analyzed using ICP-MS to ascertain heavy metal pollution, and also to evaluate possible risks to human health. Some pollution indices such as enrichment factors (EFs), geo-accumulation index (Igeo) and integrated pollution index (IPI) were calculated to determine the pollution levels of metals. According to the mean EF values, Zn, Mo, and Pb exhibited significant enrichment, while enrichment of As, Cd, Sn, and Sb was very high. The Igeo values for Pb, Ba, Mo, Zn, Cu, Mn, and Cr indicated an extremely polluted environment whereas those for Sc, V, Fe, As, Cd, Sn, and Sb indicated moderate to strong pollution of the environment. The IPI values of Pb and Mo were also at extreme levels due to vehicle traffic related contamination along the roads. Analysis of the road dust matrix indicated the mixed effect of the fossil fuel combustion for residential heating and industrial activities within the studied area as well as traffic originated pollution. Cluster analysis revealed that sampling area has been influenced by mainly three pollution sources: (i) traffic and industrial activities, (ii) polluted soil due to accumulation, and (iii) fossil fuel combustion. According to human health risk assessment studies, a level lower than 1.0 has been determined to be a non-cancer health risk. However, a total hazard index level of 1.4 poses a significant non-cancer health risk for children. Fortunately, a total lifetime cancer risk value of 8.8 × 10−8 was found, and this is considered safe.

ABSTRACTThe topography of southern China is mainly comprised of farmlands, woodlands, and rivers around the mining areas. Edible bamboo woodland soil and water may be the main focus of the potential metal risk to food safety and human health in the typical southern mining areas, at the source of the Qujiang River. A total of 24 samples from 12 farmland and woodland sites (around the mine area) were collected to measure the concentrations of nine trace elements (Cu, Cd, Cr, Mn, Pb, Zn, Ca, Mg, and Al). These elements are toxic to human health. The results showed that most of the metal concentrations in both woodland and farmland study areas exceeded the reference value for the soils of Zhejiang Province. The correlation, cluster, and multiple principal (F. Chen et al., 2010) component analyses revealed that the enrichment of metals like Pb, Cd, Zn, and Cu were a result of mixed inputs from agrochemical sources, tailing heaps, and mining transportation into farmland. In woodland soils, Cr might be defined as a natural component, and Mn concentration was dominated by both natural and anthropogenic factors. Especially in the Q12 study area the highest metal concentrations might be influenced by anthropogenic mining activities. Heavy metal contamination was evaluated through risk assessment (Nemero synthesis index). For the farmland soils, almost all the areas were polluted except the Q4 area. In addition, four areas could be marked as severely polluted. Moreover, 75% of the woodland study areas were severe in pollution. The results highlight that environmental impact assessment of mining will provide a basis for the effective governance of the polluted areas in the future.

ABSTRACTIdentification of oil spills from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images is a complex task that has recently come into use. Existing oil spill detection methods have been found to be expensive and complex and require high processing power and time. Also, noise removal and extracting the features of oil-spill images are major issues. To overcome these drawbacks, a novel segmentation technique, adaptive edge and texture clustering (AETC), is proposed in this article to detect and classify the oil-spill area in a given image. The proposed technique contains four main stages: preprocessing, segmentation, feature extraction, and classification. Initially, the input image is preprocessed to eliminate speckle noise and to enhance the quality of the image by using the Gaussian distribution function. After that, the preprocessed image is segmented with the help of the linear edge weighted (LEW) clustering technique. In this stage, the boundary region is identified and the contour is segmented. The features of the segmented image are extracted using the convoluted horizontal vertical (CHV) pattern extraction technique. Finally, the relevance vector machine (RVM) classification technique is applied to classify the oil spill portions from the given image. The experimental results evaluate the performance of the proposed system in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, Jaccard, Dice, and Hausdorff distance. Here, the existing back scatter-gradient-artificial neural network technique is compared with the proposed CHV-RVM technique. From this analysis, it is proved that the proposed techniques provide the best results.

ABSTRACTThis study analyzes the concentrations of ambient fine particulates and particulate-bound mercury Hg(p) at sampling sites in various areas in central Taiwan during a sampling period from January to April 2015. A Wilbur PM2.5 sampler was used to collect PM2.5 from ambient air and a DMA-80 direct mercury analyzer was used to analyze the concentration of mercury Hg(p) that was attached to PM2.5. The results show that the mean PM2.5 and Hg(p) concentrations were highest in March. The Chinese Lantern Festival and the “Faithful Pilgrims Who Follow Matsu through Taiwan” are hosted in this month. Many fireworks and firecrackers are let off at this time, releasing particulate matter into the atmosphere, increasing the concentrations of atmospheric particulate pollutants. The highest average PM2.5 concentrations were measured in January. A dust storm in Mainland China may have been responsible for this result. February saw the lowest mean PM2.5 recorded in this study, possibly because commercial districts and factories were closed in February for Chinese Lunar New Year. April saw the highest mean wind speed, diluting particulate pollutants in ambient air.

ABSTRACTThis article presents important facts on food safety in milk consumed in Nigeria that are in agreement with NAFDAC plan regarding the safety of food in Nigeria. The radioactivity con-centrations in powdered and liquid milk consumed in Nigeria were investigated using a sodium iodide (NaI(Tl)) detector. The activity concentrations of the three naturally occurring radionuclides, 226Ra, 232Th, and 40K, were measured in 10 brands of powdered milk and 11 brands of liquid milk. The results show that the mean activity concentration of 40K in the powder and liquid samples was 468.0 ± 72.7 Bq kg−1and 317.6 ± 58.5 Bq kg−1, respectively. The mean values for 226Ra for powdered and liquid milk were 19.2 ± 7.2 Bq kg−1 and 16.6 ± 6.3 Bq kg−1, respectively, while for 232Th it is 12.1 ± 4.8 Bq kg−1 and 10.6 ± 4.3 Bq kg−1, respectively. The average value of 40K in the powdered milk was found to be slightly above the standard value set by UNSCEAR for foodstuffs. The values of the calculated hazard indices and the radium equivalent of all milk samples were within the permissible limit set by UNSCEAR and other international regulatory bodies. However, the consumption of powdered and liquid milk by infants and children at the rate of 14 to 15 kg/year, from this analysis may result in radiation doses to vital organs above standard values. It is recommended that the amount of powdered milk consumed per year by infants and children should not exceed 7 and 11 kg/year while for liquid milk it should not exceed 8 and 13 kg/year, respectively. The cost-benefit analysis shows a low collective effective dose equivalent with a mean radiological index ratio of 1:30,839 for infants, 1:50,909 for children, and 1:247,145 for adults. The computed values of the total cost of the health detriment of consuming these examined milk products revealed that the child age group has the highest cost health detriment per capita dose, with an estimated total cost of health detriment of US$17.256 million, followed by adults, with an estimated cost implication of US$11.864 million; infants have the least, with an estimated cost implication of US$10.192 million. The overall results show that the powdered and liquid milk consumed in Nigeria are radiologically safe and may not cause any immediate radiation health hazard to consumers of the examined milk brands, while optimizing radiation protection using cost-benefit analysis is recommended.

ABSTRACTAn analytical gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method was investigated for the determination of trace butyltin compounds (BTs) (tributyltin [TBT] and its derivatives dibutyltin [DBT] and monobutyltin [MBT]) in seawater collected from some west Algerian harbors. BTs were detected in all samples from all investigated sites. Levels of total BT concentrations detected in seawater ranged from 0.045 to 0.798 μg Sn L−1. Higher concentrations of BTs were found in seawater collected from Bethioua (0.798 μg Sn L−1), an oil terminal, and Mers El Kébir shipyard (0,585 μg Sn L−1). This suggested that maritime activities close to the harbors play a major role as the source of BTs. Indeed, the harbor of Bethioua is frequented by many tankers. TBT was the predominant compound in seawater collected from almost all the sampling locations, indicating the fresh input of TBT in the harbors.