A severe accident occurred in March 2011 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant (FDNPP) operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), causing serious environmental pollution over a wide range covering eastern Japan and the northwestern Pacific. This accident created a large mark in the atmospheric radionuclide chronological record at the Meteorological Research Institute (MRI). T...

Human activity greatly influences nitrogen (N) pollution in urbanized and adjacent areas. We comprehensively studied the N cycling in an urban–rural complex system, the Greater Hangzhou Area (GHA) in southeastern China. Our results indicated that subsurface N accumulation doubled, riverine N export tripled and atmospheric N pollutants increased 2.5 times within the GHA from 1980–2004. Agricultu...

An alternative normalization method was developed for evaluating atmospheric polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) pollution level when using tree bark as a passive sampling medium. Perylene (PER), which mainly stems from natural biogenic processes, was proposed as a "natural internal compound" (NIC) of atmospheric PAHs accumulation processes from air into the bark, and a concentration ratio ...

The Tibetan Plateau is described as the "Roof of the World" averaging over 4000 m above sea level; it is remote, isolated, and presumed to be a pristine region. In order to study the history of atmospheric mercury (Hg) pollution and its spatial variation across the Plateau, lakes were chosen from three areas forming a north to south transect. Sediment cores were taken from three sites in each a...

Understanding variations of heavy metals in atmospheric particles between different functional areas is significant for pollution control and urban planning in cities. To reveal pollution and spatial distribution of heavy metals in atmospheric particles from different urban functional areas in Shijiazhuang in North China, 43 settled dust samples were collected over the main urban area and heavy...

Particulate matter (PM) is one of the most harmful pollution components widely present in the environment. It has been demonstrated that magnetic measurement is an important means in PM pollution study through plant leaves. Plants species are found as effective biomonitors and may act as natural filters by trapping and retaining PM on their surfaces. In the present study, Ficus bengalensis tree...

lichen species (hypogymnia physodes and evernia prunastri) were used for biomonitoring thepossible air pollution with heavy metals in the vicinity of copper mine in the eastern part of the republic ofmacedonia. the contents of 18 elements were analysed by icp-aes and etaas techniques. for dataprocessing basic statistical methods and multivariate exploratory (factor and cluster analysis) techniq...