Journal: Science of The Total Environment

Abbreviation

Sci. Total Environ.

Publisher

Elsevier

Journal Volumes

ISSN

0048-9697
1879-1026

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Publications 1 - 10 of 347
  • The effect of saline-alkaline and water stresses on water use efficiency and standing biomass of Phragmites australis and Bolboschoenus planiculmis
    Item type: Journal Article
    Liu, Ying; Ding, Zhi; Bachofen, Christoph; et al. (2018)
    Science of The Total Environment
  • Investigating the influence of urban morphology on pluvial flooding: Insights from urban catchments in England (UK)
    Item type: Journal Article
    Zhu, Yue; Burlando, Paolo; Tan, Puay Yok; et al. (2024)
    Science of The Total Environment
    As climate change intensifies, cities globally are experiencing more severe rainfall and frequent pluvial floods. Urban expansion is altering the permeability of the land, thus increasing the risk of flooding. This study investigates the impact of urban morphology on pluvial floodwater distribution in 15 urban catchments across England, UK, to provide an analysis of how urban morphology influences flood magnitude. Using a cellular automata-based model, pluvial flood simulations were conducted for catchments characterized by diverse urban morphologies. Then a series of machine learning models were adopted to reveal the relationships between the morphological characteristics of urban configurations (e.g., building footprints, impervious surfaces, street network, topography) and pluvial flooding. These models were used to identify and quantify the effects of key urban morphological indicators on pluvial flooding. The results indicate that, although the total area of impervious surfaces plays the most significant role in floodwater distribution, the edge density (ED) of building footprints and impervious surfaces also influences this process. Synthetic experiments with an exemplary urban fabric show that decreasing “ED of building footprint” and increasing “ED of impervious surface” can mitigate flood volume by up to 6.3 % at 100 % drainage efficiency and 7.8 % at 50 % efficiency. The results of this study are anticipated to aid urban planners and policymakers in developing strategies for implementing flood-resilient cities.
  • Summer is in winter: Disturbance-driven shifts in macroinvertebrate communities following hydroelectric power exploitation
    Item type: Journal Article
    Gabbud, Chrystelle; Robinson, Christopher T.; Lane, Stuart N. (2019)
    Science of The Total Environment
  • Spectra of high energy electron precipitation and atmospheric ionization rates retrieval from balloon measurements
    Item type: Journal Article
    Mironova, Irina; Bazilevskaya, Galina; Kovaltsov, Gennady; et al. (2019)
    Science of The Total Environment
  • Novel short-term national strategies to promote the use of renewable hydrogen in road transport: A life cycle assessment of passenger car fleets partially fuelled with hydrogen
    Item type: Journal Article
    Candelaresi, Daniele; Valente, Antonio; Iribarren, Diego; et al. (2023)
    Science of The Total Environment
    This work presents an energy analysis combined with a comparative environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) of eight different passenger car fleets that use renewable hydrogen and a conventional fuel (natural gas or gasoline) under the same total energy input and the same hydrogen-to-mixture energy ratio. The fleets under comparison involve vehicles that use the two fuels separately or in a mixture. Using Italy as an illustrative country, this research work aims to help policy-makers implement well-supported strategies to promote the use of hydrogen in road transport in the short term. The proposed strategies achieve a carbon footprint reduction between 7 % and 35 % with respect to their conventional fleet benchmark. Within the current context, the results suggest the energy and environmental suitability of using hydrogen blends as short-term solutions, involving vehicles that require minor modifications with respect to current compressed natural gas vehicles and gasoline vehicles, while paving the way for pure hydrogen mobility.
  • Integrating granular activated carbon (GAC) to gravity-driven membrane (GDM) to improve its flux stabilization: Respective roles of adsorption and biodegradation by GAC
    Item type: Journal Article
    Tang, Xiaobin; Pronk, Wouter; Traber, Jacqueline; et al. (2021)
    Science of The Total Environment
    As a low-maintenance and cost-effective process, gravity-driven membrane (GDM) filtration is a promising alternative for decentralized drinking water supply, while the low flux impedes its extensive application. In order to address such issue, an integrated process consisting of granular activated carbon (GAC) layer and GDM was developed. The performance of virgin (fresh GAC) or preloaded GAC (saturated GAC) was compared. Flux stabilization was observed both in the fresh and saturated GAC/GDM process during long-term filtration and their stable fluxes were both improved by approximately 50% relative to the GDM control. Moreover, integrating GAC with GDM contributed to efficient removals for dissolved organic compounds (DOC), assimilable organic carbon (AOC) and low molecular weight substances both in fresh and saturated GAC/GDM filtration. Compared to GDM control, coupling GAC to GDM could significantly reduce the concentrations of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and total cell counts (TCC) within the biofouling layer, and engineer highly heterogeneous structures of biofouling layer on the membrane surface. In the fresh GAC/GDM process, the improved flux obtained was mainly related to less coverage of biofouling layer and lower EPS concentrations due to efficient removals of membrane foulants by GAC adsorption. The achieved higher stable flux can be maintained during long-term filtration (after GAC saturation) owing to the combined effects of EPS reduction and formation of highly heterogeneous structures of biofouling layer in the saturated GAC/GDM system. Overall, the integrated GAC/GDM process can hopefully facilitate improvements both in the stabilized flux and permeate quality, with practical relevance for GDM applications in decentralized drinking water supply. © 2020 Elsevier
  • Characterization, sources and transport of dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen from a glacier in the Central Asia
    Item type: Journal Article
    Gao, Tanguang; Kang, Shichang; Zhang, Yulan; et al. (2020)
    Science of The Total Environment
  • On biological evolution and environmental solutions
    Item type: Journal Article
    Matthews, Blake; Jokela, Jukka; Narwani, Anita; et al. (2020)
    Science of The Total Environment
    Drawing insights from multiple disciplines is essential for finding integrative solutions that are required to tackle complex environmental problems. Human activities are causing unprecedented influence on global ecosystems, culminating in the loss of species and fundamental changes in the selective environments of organisms across the tree of life. Our collective understanding about biological evolution can help identify and mitigate many of the environmental problems in the Anthropocene. To this end, we propose a stronger integration of environmental sciences with evolutionary biology. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.
  • What is the utility of measuring gaseous Hgᴵᴵ dry deposition using Aerohead samplers?: A review
    Item type: Review Article
    Gustin, Mae Sexauer; Dunham-Cheatham, Sarrah M.; Osterwalder, Stefan; et al. (2024)
    Science of The Total Environment
    The most efficient way to quantify HgII inputs to ecosystems is to measure wet and dry deposition. Wet deposition of HgII is determined by measuring Hg concentrations and the volume of precipitation. Dry deposition of HgII is determined through direct measurement and/or determined indirectly by measuring air concentrations and using model-generated deposition velocities. Here, data collected using an Aerohead sampler holding cation exchange membranes are summarized, and the utility of this method for understanding dry deposition, and other measurements and processes is discussed. This analysis includes information from publications, and recent data collected at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas, USA, and Amsterdam Island, Southern Indian Ocean. This method primarily measures gaseous HgII and little particulate-bound Hg. The Aerohead method is useful for looking at large-scale trends in deposition, verifying Hg depletion events, calculating dry deposition velocities for compounds with specific chemistry, and identification of sources of HgII. At numerous locations in the western USA, deposition rates were greater at higher elevations due to elevated concentrations associated with long-range transport of atmospheric pollution. When used in tandem with the Reactive Mercury Active System or a dual-channel system, more accurate deposition velocities – that vary as a function of GOM compound chemistry – can be calculated.
  • Diverse pollen nutrition can improve the development of solitary bees but does not mitigate negative pesticide impacts
    Item type: Journal Article
    Schwarz, Janine M.; Knauer, Anina C.; Alaux, Cedric; et al. (2024)
    Science of The Total Environment
    Floral resource loss and pesticide exposure are major threats to bees in intensively managed agroecosystems, but interactions among these drivers remain poorly understood. Altered composition and lowered diversity of pollen nutrition may reinforce negative pesticide impacts on bees. Here we investigated the development and survival of the solitary bee Osmia bicornis provisioned with three different pollen types, as well as a mixture of these types representing a higher pollen diversity. We exposed bees of each nutritional treatment to five pesticides at different concentrations in the laboratory. Two field-realistic concentrations of three nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) modulating insecticides (thiacloprid, sulfoxaflor and flupyradifurone), as well as of two fungicides (azoxystrobin and tebuconazole) were examined. We further measured the expression of two detoxification genes (CYP9BU1, CYP9BU2) under exposure to thiacloprid across different nutrition treatments as a potential mechanistic pathway driving pesticide-nutrition interactions. We found that more diverse pollen nutrition reduced development time, enhanced pollen efficacy (cocoon weight divided by consumed pollen weight) and pollen consumption, and increased weight of O. bicornis after larval development (cocoon weight). Contrary to fungicides, high field-realistic concentrations of all three insecticides negatively affected O. bicornis by extending development times. Moreover, sulfoxaflor and flupyradifurone also reduced pollen efficacy and cocoon weight, and sulfoxaflor reduced pollen consumption and increased mortality. The expression of detoxification genes differed across pollen nutrition types, but was not enhanced after exposure to thiacloprid. Our findings highlight that lowered diversity of pollen nutrition and high field-realistic exposure to nAChR modulating insecticides negatively affected the development of O. bicornis, but we found no mitigation of negative pesticide impacts through increased pollen diversity. These results have important implications for risk assessment for bee pollinators, indicating that negative effects of nAChR modulating insecticides to developing solitary bees are currently underestimated.
Publications 1 - 10 of 347