Toxicity and ecological risk assessment for two AhR agonistic pesticides mepanipyrim and cyprodinil and their metabolites.

Mepanipyrim and cyprodinil are widely used to control and/or prevent fungal diseases in fruit culture. They are frequently detected in the aquatic environment and some food commodities. Different from TCDD, mepanipyrim and cyprodinil are more easily metabolised in the environments. However, the risk of their metabolites to the ecological environment is unclear and needs to be further confirmed. In this study, we investigated the temporal pattern of mepanipyrim- and cyprodinil-induced CYP1A and AhR2 expression and EROD enzyme activity at different time frames during zebrafish embryonic and larval development. Then, we assessed the ecological risk of mepanipyrim, cyprodinil, and their metabolites to aquatic organisms. Our results showed that mepanipyrim and cyprodinil exposure could increase the expression level of cyp1a and ahr2 genes and EROD activity by a dynamic pattern in different developmental stages of zebrafish. Besides, their several metabolites showed strong AhR agonistic activity. Importantly, these metabolites could cause potential ecological risks to aquatic organisms and should be paid more attention to. Our results would provide an important reference value for environmental pollution control and the use management of mepanipyrim and cyprodinil.

Coastal reservoirs as a source of nitrous oxide: Spatio-temporal patterns and assessment strategy.

Coastal reservoirs are widely regarded as a viable solution to the water scarcity problem faced by coastal cities with growing populations. As a result of the accumulation of anthropogenic wastes and the alteration of hydroecological processes, these reservoirs may also become the emission hotspots of nitrous oxide (N2O). Hitherto, accurate global assessment of N2O emission suffers from the scarcity and low spatio-temporal resolution of field data, especially from small coastal reservoirs with high spatial heterogeneity and multiple water sources. In this study, we measured the surface water N2O concentrations and emissions at a high spatial resolution across three seasons in a subtropical coastal reservoir in southeastern China, which was hydrochemically highly heterogeneous because of the combined influence of river runoff, aquacultural discharge, industrial discharge and municipal sewage. Both N2O concentration and emission exhibited strong spatio-temporal variations, which were correlated with nitrogen loading from the river and wastewater discharge. The mean N2O concentration and emission were found to be significantly higher in the summer than in spring and autumn. The results of redundancy analysis showed that NH4+-N explained the greatest variance in N2O emission, which implied that nitrification was the main microbial pathway for N2O production in spite of the potentially increasing importance of denitrification of NO3--N in the summer. The mean N2O emission across the whole reservoir was 107 µg m-2 h-1, which was more than an order of magnitude higher than that from global lakes and reservoirs. Based on our results of Monte Carlo simulations, a minimum of 15 sampling points per km2 would be needed to produce representative and reliable N2O estimates in such a spatially heterogeneous aquatic system. Overall, coastal reservoirs could play an increasingly important role in future climate change via their N2O emission to the atmosphere as water demand and anthropogenic pressure continue to rise.

Quantifying the electron-donating and -accepting capacities of wastewater for evaluating and optimizing biological wastewater treatment processes.

Biological processes have been widely used for the treatment of both domestic and industrial wastewaters. In such biological processes, pollutants are converted into pollution-free substances by microorganisms through oxidation-reduction reactions. Thus, how to quantify the internal oxidation-reduction properties wastewaters and seek out targeted countermeasures is essential to understand, operate, and optimize biological wastewater treatment systems. So far, no such approach is available yet. In this work, a novel concept of electron neutralization-based evaluation is proposed to describe the internal oxidation-reduction properties of wastewater. Pollutants in wastewater are defined as electron donor substances (EDSs) or electron acceptor substances (EASs), which could give or accept electrons, respectively. With such an electron neutralization concept, several parameters, i.e., electron residual concentration (R), economy-related index (E and Er), and economical evaluation index (Y and Yr), are defined. Then, these parameters are used to evaluate the performance and economic aspects of currently applied wastewater treatment processes and even optimize systems. Three case studies demonstrate that the proposed concept could be effectively used to reduce wastewater treatment costs, assess energy recovery, and evaluate process performance. Therefore, a new, simple, and reliable methodology is established to describe the oxidation-reduction properties of wastewater and assess the biological wastewater treatment processes.

[Distribution and assessment of mercury in the ambient soil of a municipal solid waste incinerator].

The emission of mercury (Hg) from the municipal solid waste incineration has inspired widespread attention, especially regarding to the deposition of Hg in the surrounding soil, which is issued to be the potential negative factor of ambient environment and human health. This study mainly focused on the distributions of Hg in the ambient soil of a municipal solid waste incinerator located in North China. The pollution of the mercury and its risks to the local environment and human health were assessed. Results showed that Hg levels were in the range of 0.015-0.25 mg x kg(-1), with an average (0.088 +/- 0.064) mg x kg(-1). The concentrations of Hg in the soil were obviously influenced by wind direction and they were relatively higher in the northwest (downwind) comparing with that in the southeast (upwind). The Kriging interpolation method was adopted to create a contour map, which intuitively displayed a spatial mercury distribution in the soil. The regions with a higher Hg concentration are mainly distributed in the north northwest, the north northeast and the west southwest of the municipal solid waste incinerator. According to the evaluation results of single factor pollution index and geoaccumulation Index, some ambient soil samples were polluted by the mercury emission from the municipal solid waste incinerator; however, the results of the health risk assessment showed that the mercury in the soil had not pose a health hazard to the local population.

Assessment of heavy metal contents in surface soil in the Lhasa-Shigatse-Nam Co area of the Tibetan Plateau, China.

Eight important heavy metals (As, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn, Mn, and Hg) were investigated in surface soil samples collected from the Lhasa-Shigatse-Nam Co region, Tibetan Plateau, China. The mean contents of As, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn, Mn, and Hg in the samples were 39.5, 57.4, 28.5, 48.2, 15.7, 79.2, 637 and 0.0175 mg/kg, respectively. All metals were divided into three clusters by cluster analysis. The results of geoaccumulation index indicated that no samples were polluted by Cr, Pb, Zn, and Mn, and samples were polluted with As, Cu, Ni, and Hg to different degrees. All surface soils had a low ecological risk with potential ecological risk index below 150, indicating a low ecological risk. As, Pb, and Hg were the primary contributors to potential ecological risk.