[1] During the Asian Pacific Regional Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE-Asia), samples of carbonaceous aerosols were collected on board the Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS) De Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft. The samples were analyzed to determine their total carbon (TC) and water-soluble organic compound (WSOC) contents as well as to identify t...

1 Benaki Phytopathological Institute, Department of Pesticides Control and Phytopharmacy, Laboratory of Pesticides’ Toxicology, 8 St. Delta Street, Kifissia, 14561 Athens, Greece, 2 Istanbul Technical University Faculty of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 34469, Maslak, Istanbul/Turkey 2 Department of Agriculture, Crop production and Rural Environment Analytical Chemistry and Pesticides...

In this issue Sree Devi and coworkers1 report the results of a cytogenetic investigation on traffic policemen from an Indian metropolitan area. The study shows a distinct excess of cytogenetic damage in peripheral blood lymphocytes of policemen compared to indoor workers, highlighting the genotoxic consequences of the exposure to urban air pollutants. Genetic damage, for the severity and irreve...

background: in the past few decades, indoor air pollution (iap) has become a primary concern to the point. it is increasingly believed to be of equal or greater importance to human health compared to ambient air. however, due to the lack of comprehensive indices for the integrated assessment of indoor air quality (iaq), we aimed to develop a novel, fuzzy-based indoor air quality index (fiaqi) t...

Although water and land pollution are very dangerous, air pollution has its own peculiarities due to its transboundary dispersion of pollutants over the entire world. In any well planned urban set up, industrial pollution takes a back seat and vehicular emissions take precedence as the major cause of urban air pollution. In the present study, Air pollution tolerance index was calculated for var...

Sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, persistent organic pollutants, particulate matter, and heavy metals---air pollutants once thought to be problems that could be solved locally, where the effects occur---are all currently being discussed in international forums. A spate of meetings and agreements in recent months has shown many international governments to be more will...

The temporal-spatial interaction of land cover and non-point source (NPS) nutrient pollution were analyzed with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate the temporal-spatial features of NPS nutrient loading in the upper stream of the Yellow River catchment. The corresponding land cover data variance was expressed by the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) that was calcula...

The paper evaluates the contents of total forms of selected heavy metals (Zn, Cu, Ni and Pb) as well as the activity of catalase (CAT), dehydrogenases (DEH), alkaline phosphatase (AlP) and acid phosphatase (AcP) in mineral surface horizons of forest soils exposed to the effect of road traffic pollutions. The sampling locations (n = 24) were determined in the area covered by the Szubin Forest al...

Human land uses and population growth represent major global threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services. Understanding how biological communities respond to multiple drivers of human-induced environmental change is fundamental for conserving ecosystems and remediating degraded habitats. Here, we used a replicated 'real-world experiment' to study the responses of invertebrate communities to ...

The objective of the study was to determine whether long-term metal pollution affects communities of epigeal spiders (Aranea), studied at three taxonomic levels: species, genera, and families. Biodiversity was defined by three indices: the Hierarchical Richness Index (HRI), Margalef index (D(M)) and Pielou evenness index (J). In different ways the indices describe taxa richness and the distribu...