Search results for "WASTE"
showing 10 items of 2580 documents
The role of plant species on runoff and soil erosion in a Mediterranean shrubland.
2021
Shrubland is a Mediterranean biome characterized by densely growing evergreen shrubs adapted to fire events. To date, scientific research has focused on the impact of vegetation on soil erosion mainly through the control that plant biomass or plant cover exerts on sediment delivery and runoff discharge, being the individual plant species influence on hydrological and erosional processes not achieved in detail. The objective of this research is to determine: i) runoff and soil losses in a shrubland-covered rangeland at Sierra de Enguera, Spain; and ii) how four plant species affect soil and water losses. We measured soil cover, soil properties, runoff discharge and sediment yield under natur…
Pioneer trees of Betula pendula at a red gypsum landfill harbour specific structure and composition of root-associated microbial communities.
2020
The study of root-associated microbial communities is important to understand the natural processes involved in plant recolonisation at degraded areas. Root associated bacterial and fungal communities of woody species colonising a red gypsum landfill (a metal-enriched environment) were characterised through metabarcoding. Among trees naturally growing on the landfill, Betula pendula is the only tree species in the centre of the area, whereas companion tree species such as Populus nigra, P. tremula and Salix purpurea were present on the edges. The bacterial community was dominated by Proteobacteria (38%), Actinobacteria (35%) and Bacteroidetes (20%) and the most abundant bacterial OTU belong…
Life Cycle Assessment of electricity production from refuse derived fuel: A case study in Italy
2020
Biomasses and bio-waste have an important role in decarbonizing the European energy mix, the latter contributing to the transition towards a circular economy. In particular, Refuse Derived Fuel (RFD) - a biofuel obtained from dry residue of waste - appears a really interesting energy option. In this framework this study aims at assessing the environmental profile of electricity generation from RDF in Italy, comparing two different kinds of RDF production and combustion plants. The functional unit is 1 kWh of net electricity from RDF delivered to the grid. Two Italian plants are examined: one located in Ravenna (RDF is produced in a direct flow treatment plant) and the other one in Bergamo (…
A novel ensemble computational intelligence approach for the spatial prediction of land subsidence susceptibility.
2020
Land subsidence (LS) is a significant problem that can cause loss of life, damage property, and disrupt local economies. The Semnan Plain is an important part of Iran, where LS is a major problem for sustainable development and management. The plain represents the changes occurring in 40% of the country. We introduce a novel-ensemble intelligence approach (called ANN-bagging) that uses bagging as a meta- or ensemble-classifier of an artificial neural network (ANN) to predict LS spatially on the Semnan Plain in Semnan Province, Iran. The ensemble model's goodness-of-fit (to training data) and prediction accuracy (of the validation data) are compared to benchmarks set by ANN-bagging. A total …
PM2.5-bound oxygenated PAHs, nitro-PAHs and parent-PAHs from the atmosphere of a Chinese megacity: Seasonal variation, sources and cancer risk assess…
2014
Polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) in air particulate matter contribute considerably to the health risk of air pollution. The objectives of this study were to assess the occurrence and variation in concentrations and sources of PM2.5 bound PACs [Oxygenated PAHs (OPAHs) nitro PAHs and parent PAHs] sampled from the atmosphere of a typical Chinese megacity (Xi'an) to study the influence of meteorological conditions on PACs and to estimate the lifetime excess cancer risk to the residents of Xi'an (from inhalation of PM2.5 bound PACs). To achieve these objectives we sampled 24 h PM2.5 aerosols (once in every 6days from 5 July 2008 to 8 August 2009) from the atmosphere of Xi'an and measured the…
Climate change and reindeer management in Finland: Co-analysis of practitioner knowledge and meteorological data for better adaptation.
2020
Abstract We studied interannual variability and changes over time in selected climate indices in the reindeer management area (RMA) in northern Finland. We present together the knowledge possessed by reindeer herders with information from meteorological measurements over three decades. The practitioner knowledge was gathered via a survey questionnaire addressing herder observations of long-term changes (approximately during the past 30 years) in climatic conditions and their impacts on herding during the four seasons. A set of temperature-, precipitation- and snow-related indices relevant for herding within the RMA was derived from spatially interpolated daily meteorological data (1981–2010…
Inter-basin water transfer conflicts. The case of the Tagus-Segura Aqueduct (Spain)
2020
Since its inauguration in 1979, the Tagus-Segura Aqueduct has become one of the hydraulic infrastructures that have given rise to the highest number of inter-regional conflicts in Spain during recent decades. The aim of this paper is to analyse the political, social, environmental and economic conflicts presented in the donor (Tagus) and recipient (Segura) basins of this infrastructure. To this end, through the holding of interviews with the main stakeholders and an analysis of the regulations, an assessment has been made of the results (for and against) of those who defend maintaining this infrastructure, owing to its far-reaching social and economic impact, and those who advocate its imme…
Measurement report of the change of PM2.5 composition during the COVID-19 lockdown in urban Xi'an: Enhanced secondary formation and oxidation
2021
Enhanced secondary aerosol formation was observed during the COVID-19 lockdown in Xi'an, especially for polluted episodes. More oxidized‑oxygenated organic aerosol (MO-OOA) and sulfate showed the dominant enhancements, especially in large particle-mode. Meanwhile, relative humidity (RH) showed a positive promotion on the formation of sulfate and MO-OOA during the lockdown, but had no obvious correlation with less oxidized‑oxygenated organic aerosol (LO-OOA) or nitrate. Organosulfurs (OS) displayed a higher contribution (~58%) than inorganic sulfate to total sulfate enhancement in the polluted episode during the lockdown. Although the total nitrate (TN) decreased during the lockdown ascribin…
Benchmarking energy efficiency of water treatment plants: Effects of data variability
2019
This study evaluates, for the first time, the energy efficiency of a sample of drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) tolerance method, which is based on the simulation of scenarios to integrate data variations. The integration of data uncertainty in energy efficiency estimation changes drastically results for approximately one-third of the DWTPs evaluated. The results showed that, even in the best-case scenario, most of the DWTPs evaluated are inefficient and may therefore, be able to reduce the energy used to treat raw water. From a policy perspective, the findings of this study reveal that omitting data variability in benchmarking would involve …
Bias of library preparation for virome characterization in untreated and treated wastewaters
2020
The use of metagenomics for virome characterization and its implementation for wastewater analyses, including wastewater-based epidemiology, has increased in the last years. However, the lack of standardized methods can led to highly different results. The aim of this work was to analyze virome profiles in upstream and downstream wastewater samples collected from four wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) using two different library preparation kits. Viral particles were enriched from wastewater concentrates using a filtration and nuclease digestion procedure prior to total nucleic acid (NA) extraction. Sequencing was performed using the ScriptSeq v2 RNA-Seq (LS) and the NEBNext Ultra II RNA …