Environmental Science Research – serie

The rapid deterioration of the environment in many countries around the world, or of segments and aspects of the environment in specific locations, made it necessary that immediate - even if only short term - solutions be found to as many of these problems as possible. Nevertheless, in the long run, long range and long term solutions must be found taking into account the effects of one country or region on another as well as of the inter-action between the different types of pollution over extended periods of time. It was the purpose of the Tel Aviv meeting on Pollution: Engineering and Scientific Solutions, to address presently known or foreseeable "environmental insults;" that is, to focus on those aspects of air, noise, land, water or any other environmental quality for which there already exist engineering, scientific, legal or other solutions. Consequently, people from all disci­ plines which are relevant to environmental problems and their solutions were invited to participate.

This volume is intended for the professional who is a newcomer to the area of environmental radon. It marks the first time that chapters on these subjects have been brought together in a single volume, and it is arranged so that anyone with some basic university-level chemistry and physics can develop a clear understanding of the different aspects involved. The volume is intended to serve as a supplementary textbook in public health, environmental, and health physics courses. It also can be used by the professional to get "up to speed" in this rapidly evolving field. The chapters are not necessarily a discussion of the latest research in this fast-moving field, but are intended to bring the reader to a level at which he can easily understand the current literature. At the back of this volume the reader will find the references for the individual chapters, a general list of reading materials, a glossary, an appendix describing the equations for radioactive decay for a series of progeny, a table of often used conversion factors, and the addresses and brief biographies of the authors and editors. Both historical and SI (International System) units are used throughout the book to provide information for the widest range of readers. Thanks go to Tom Hess for the idea for this volume and to Jessica Barron for help in editing.

Biological processes in the oceans play a crucial role in regulating the fluxes of many important elements such as carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen, phosphorus, and silicon. As we come to the end of the 20th century, oceanographers have increasingly focussed on how these elements are cycled within the ocean, the interdependencies of these cycles, and the effect of the cycle on the composition of the earth's atmosphere and climate. Many techniques and tools have been developed or adapted over the past decade to help in this effort. These include satellite sensors of upper ocean phytoplankton distributions, flow cytometry, molecular biological probes, sophisticated moored and shipboard instrumentation, and vastly increased numerical modeling capabilities. This volume is the result of the 37th Brookhaven Symposium in Biology, in which a wide spectrum of oceanographers, chemists, biologists, and modelers discussed the progress in understanding the role of primary producers in biogeochemical cycles. The symposium is dedicated to Dr. Richard W. Eppley, an intellectual giant in biological oceanography, who inspired a generation of scientists to delve into problems of understanding biogeochemical cycles in the sea. We gratefully acknowledge support from the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Electric Power Research Institute, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Special thanks to Claire Lamberti for her help in producing this volume.

Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Conference of the Air Resources Information Clearinghouse held in Washington, D.C., December 5-6, 1991

The world is getting warmer. Among scientists concerned with global climate change this is the broad consensus. How fast and by how much, are questions which cannot be answered quantitatively, but the probability of rising temperatures must be faced in a prudent manner - there is enough certainty of change so that we must anticipate and prepare before irreparable damage is done to our world. Even if it isn't going to be as bad as some people think, the actions we propose will benefit the earth and give us a kind of insurance. The root of the change is population growth, and its attendant demand for energy. While the developed world expects to hold future emissions relatively steady, the developing countries, where population growth is most rampant, will expand the use of energy as they aspire to a better quality of life. H greater energy use is inevitable it behooves us to produce that energy in the least objectionable manner, and to produce it where the cost is lowest in dollars, GNP, and environmental change.

During the past five years increased awareness of environmental contamination by nitroaromatic compounds has led to a dramatic increase in research on their biodegradation. The resulting discoveries have markedly extended our understanding of degradation mecha­ nisms and pathways in bacteria and fungi. Futhermore, this new basic knowledge promises the development of field applications of biodegradation systems for nitroaromatic com­ pounds. In May of 1994, an International Symposium on the Biodegradation of Nitro aromatic Compounds was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. This symposium brought together the scientists at the frontiers of research into the biodegradation of nitro aromatic compounds. The invited speakers were asked to review their area of expertise and write a critical, comprehensive synthesis of their work and related work by others. This book is the result of their efforts. The emphasis of the reviews is on basic research in biodegradation and biotransfor­ mation. Therefore, the reactions of nitroaromatic compounds in plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, soil, and even nonbiological systems are considered. The goal of the work is to provide the reader with an appreciation of the tremendous range of possibilities for metabolism of aromatic nitro compounds and the experimental approaches used to understand them. This volume should be of interest to biochemists, microbiologists, engineers, toxicologists, and anyone interested in the behavior of synthetic chemicals in the environment or in living systems. Furthermore, a variety of commercial applications can be envisioned for some of the reactions described here.

Proceedings of the 37th Conference of the International Association for Great Lakes Research held in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, June 5-9, 1994

The 25 years up to 1999 have seen a tremendous growth in the application of statistical and modelling techniques to ecological problems. This expansion has been accelerated by the increasing availability of software, books and computing power. However, the suitability of some of these approaches to data analysis, in a relatively knowledge-poor discipline such as ecology, can be questioned on grounds of appropriateness and robustness. One reason for these concerns is that many ecological problems are at best poorly defined and most lack algorithmic solutions. Machine learning methods offer the potential for a different approach to these difficult problems. One definition of machine learning is that it is concerned with inducing knowledge from data, where the data could be patterns in a game of chess or patterns in the species composition of natural communities. Unfortunately ecologists have little experience of these relatively recent and novel approaches to understanding data.This is a problem that is made more complex because there is no simple taxonomy of machine learning methods and there are relatively few examples in the mainstream ecological literature to encourage exploration. This text is aimed at introducing machine learning methods to a readership of professional ecologists. All but one of the chapters have been written by ecologists and biologists who highlight the application of a particular method to a particular class of problem. Examples include the identification of species, optimal mate choice, predicting species distributions and modelling landscape features. A group of experienced machine learning workers, who have become interested in environmental problems, have written a chapter that demonstrates how machine learning methods can be used to discover equations that describe the dynamic behaviour of ecological systems. The final chapter reviews "real learning", offering the potential for greater dialogue between the biological and machine learning communities.

Monitoring the environment is absolutely essential if we are to identify hazards to human health, to assess environmental cleanup efforts, and to prevent further degradation of the ecosystem. Biomonitors and biomarkers combined with chemical monitoring offer the only approach to making these assessments. Based on an International Association of Great Lakes Research conference, this book is intended for researchers who want to incorporate new and different technologies in their development of specifically-crafted monitors; students who are learning the field of biomonitoring; and regulatory agencies that want to consider newer technologies to replace inadequate and less powerful test regimes.

Based on a symposium sponsored by the Environmental Division of the American Chemical Society, "Perchlorate in the Environment" addresses perchlorate as a potable water contaminant. The two main topics are: analytical chemistry (focusing on ion chromatography and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry), and treatment or remediation. Also included are topics such as ion exchange, phytoremediation, bacterial reduction of perchlorate, bioreactors, and in situ bioremediation. To provide complete coverage, background chapters on fundamental chemistry, toxicology, and reulatory issues are also included. The authors are environmental consultants, government researchers, industry experts, and university professors from a wide array of disciplines.

Industrial and urban growth have resulted in growing volumes of non-degradable wastes, and the papers in this volume focus on the technologies related to recycling and material reuse which are now being favoured over land disposal. There is an overview on waste utilization in industrial facilities, particularly cement kilns, from an ecological as well as technological aspect, and some innovative solutions of pyrolitic and plasma reactors, used for hazardous wastes combustion.

Chemistry for the Protection of the Environment 4 focuses on: - Environmental aspects of agricultural practices- Field characterization and quantification of chemical constituents- Fate of contaminants in the environment/environmental monitoring- Thermal treatment technologies- Remediation of contaminated sites- Wastewater treatment and sludge management- Environmental Security- Risk Assessment and Environmental ManagementThis volume is the proceedings of the first CPE conference in the new millennium and the thirteenth in a well-established series of conferences on Chemistry for the Protection of the Environment, first established in 1976. With support of the U.S. EPA, the series of conferences provides an opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange of ideas among international specialists, from diverse fields and backgrounds, on the chemical aspects of environmental protection. Over the years, the CPE conferences have gathered participants from more and more countries, and the scope of interests has been broadened. Held in Hilo, Hawaii, this was the first of these international conferences to take place in the United States. The Organizing Committee attracted a wide range of talented scientists and engineers to the conference, who have useful ideas to contribute on how to clean our environment.Any pollution control or pollution cure action today must take into consideration not only one element of the environment, like water, air or soil but also proper environmental handling and related problems. In all cases, chemical processes play a highly significant role. In recent years there has been a shift from wastewater technologies and pollutant monitoring problems to environment management and solid wastes issues. This book provides a forum for chemical scientists and engineers who are dedicated to the worthy mission of making a cleaner, healthier world for everyone. The central goals of Chemistry for the Protection of the Environment are to improve technology transfer and scientific dialogue, thereby leading to better comprehension of and solution to a broad spectrum of environmentally related problems.

Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Conference of the Air Resources Information Clearinghouse held in Washington, D.C., December 5-6, 1991

Chemistry for the Protection of the Environment 4 focuses on: - Environmental aspects of agricultural practices- Field characterization and quantification of chemical constituents- Fate of contaminants in the environment/environmental monitoring- Thermal treatment technologies- Remediation of contaminated sites- Wastewater treatment and sludge management- Environmental Security- Risk Assessment and Environmental ManagementThis volume is the proceedings of the first CPE conference in the new millennium and the thirteenth in a well-established series of conferences on Chemistry for the Protection of the Environment, first established in 1976. With support of the U.S. EPA, the series of conferences provides an opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange of ideas among international specialists, from diverse fields and backgrounds, on the chemical aspects of environmental protection. Over the years, the CPE conferences have gathered participants from more and more countries, and the scope of interests has been broadened. Held in Hilo, Hawaii, this was the first of these international conferences to take place in the United States. The Organizing Committee attracted a wide range of talented scientists and engineers to the conference, who have useful ideas to contribute on how to clean our environment.Any pollution control or pollution cure action today must take into consideration not only one element of the environment, like water, air or soil but also proper environmental handling and related problems. In all cases, chemical processes play a highly significant role. In recent years there has been a shift from wastewater technologies and pollutant monitoring problems to environment management and solid wastes issues. This book provides a forum for chemical scientists and engineers who are dedicated to the worthy mission of making a cleaner, healthier world for everyone. The central goals of Chemistry for the Protection of the Environment are to improve technology transfer and scientific dialogue, thereby leading to better comprehension of and solution to a broad spectrum of environmentally related problems.

During the early 1930s, when I was a graduate student and later a post-doctoral researcher at the National Research Council for the University of Wisconsin at Madison, we had the opportunity to get acquainted with many graduate students from China who were sent to the University for training in modern basic sciences as well as social sciences. The University of Wisconsin continues to graduate a large number of Chinese students. Economic conditions in the 1930s were very precarious for the United States and other parts of the world. Many of us students grew closer together because we were living on similarly tight budgets. As a matter of fact, we subleased a part of our apartment in Madison to some Chinese graduate students. This was a very nice opportunity for us to learn about the scientific and cultural back­ ground of our Chinese friends. Many of them came from the interior of China and had had very little opportunity to become acquainted with people from a western culture. Living with these students was a very pleasant and educational experience which gave us a good pic­ ture of the cultural life and educational system of China at that time--an intimate picture that one normally would not see without travelling in that country.

As a result of the industrial revolution, man's technological achievements have been truly great, increasing the quality of life to almost unimagined proportions; but all this progress has not been accomplished without equally un imagined health risks. Sufficiently diagnostic short-term assay procedures have been developed in recent years for us to determine that there are mutagenic agents among thou­ sands of chemicals to which the human population is exposed today. These chemicals were not significantly present prior to the indus­ trial revolution. As of today, there are no procedures available which have been adequately demonstrated to assess individual sus­ ceptibility to genotoxic exposures, and as a result we have had to rely on extrapolating toxicological data from animal model systems. The question is can we afford to allow such an increased environ­ mental selection pressure via mutagenic exposures to occur without expecting adverse long-term effects on our health. It is apparent from this line of reasoning that what is lacking and immediately needed are test procedures that can be applied to humans to assess genotoxic exposure as well as individual susceptibility to it. There have already been two conferences which have focused at­ tention on this research area. "Guidelines for studies of human populations exposed to mutagenic and reproductive hazards" (A. D. Bloom, ed., March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, White Plains, New York, 1981) and "Indicators of genotoxic exposure in humans" (Banbury Report 13, B. A. Bridges, B. E. Butterworth, and I. B.

There are many areas on this world which might lend themselves to agricultural development and which are, at the present, not used for this purpose. Two of the most obvious are desert areas where the salt concentration is very high, both land and water areas. With the development of new approaches and careful research, considerably more productive capability could be developed in these. This volume points out some of the possible approaches as well as results ob­ tained by a combination of creative research, practical understanding of the problems involved and inventive ways to overcome some of the handicaps of utilizing biosaline areas. This volume grew out of the "International Workshop on Biosaline Research" organized by Mr. Gilbert Devey of the Division of Interna­ tional programs of the National Science Foundation and directed by Dr. Anthony San Pietro of the Department of Biology of Indiana Uni­ versity. Since the proceedings of the workshop appeared somewhat limited, it was thought to broaden the spectra of chapters and in­ clude several topics briefly discussed at the Kiawah workshop.

This is the twelfth in a series of conferences on environmental toxicity sponsored by the Department of Radiation Biology and Bio­ physics. The topics selected are intended to be of timely interest with a focus somewhat different from those with with similar titles. I would like to share with you some of the thought which went into the development of this year's program. Everyone here is aware of the great amount of publicity being given to some phase of this year's topic of "Polluted Rain", but I wonder how many of the younger generation realize how the entire world got into this kind of predicament. I can remember as a young­ ster that precipitation from the sky in the form of rain or snow was considered one of the ultimates in purity. That was in the era when a small number of automobiles were in use and the airplane was more of a curiosity in the developmental stage than anything of commer­ cial significance. Many homes used iceboxes for refrigeration, and summer cooling was accomplished by electric fans by the more afflu­ ent families.

For at least 40 years there has been a great interest in the problems created by infectious airborne agents and other toxic sub­ stances transported through the air. During the Second World War, this problem grew out of the very high incidence of upper respira­ tory infections appearing in new military recruits who were brought together in very large, open quarters. As a result, very interest­ ing methods were developed to measure these airborne agents, espe­ cially bacteria, and some important methods were refined for their control. These methods primarily concentrated on ultraviolet radia­ tion, propylene glycol and other means to reduce the dust in an en­ vironment. Because of the specialized circumstances at that time the whole consideration of airborne particles became prominent. Now, with the new strides in the recognition of mutagenic and carcinogenic effects attributed to exposure to airborne chemicals from today's technology, the problem has again become quite promi­ nent. The development of experimental chambers has made it possible to conduct studies under carefully controlled conditions.

Increasing international concern is being expressed regarding the contamination of the environment with polychlorinated dibenzo-p­ dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans because certain of these chemicals have been shown to be highly toxic to animals and are ubiquitous in the environment. They are known to be distributed as contaminants of commercial products and as by-products from com­ bustion processes. A considerable volume of information has accumulated on these chemicals in the past two decades, particularly for the most toxic of them, 2,3,7,8-tetrach1orodibenzo-p-dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD). However, this body of knowledge has not succeeded in resolving genuine judgmental differences among experts in the field as to the degree of hazard to human health and the environment. In light of the widespread public concern, it is clearly imperative to come to grips with the continuing scientific controversy, to review the data, assess the issues, to see where areas of agreement exist, and where further research is needed to resolve remaining areas of disagree­ ment. This volume represents an effort to contribute to these goals.

In the four years since the 1978 Symposium on the Application of Short-Term Bioassays in the Fractionation and Analysis of Complex Environmental Mixtures the use of short-term bioassays to evaluate potential health hazards of complex environmental mixtures has substantially increased. Increased research activity has been particularly noticeable in mobile source emissions, where initial observations on the mutagenic activity of diesel particulate extracts reported at the 1978 symposium stimulated the development of major research programs in government and industry. In the absence of appropriate reference materials, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initiated comparative genotoxicity studies to determine the relative mutagenic and carcinogenic activity and, ultimately, the potential human health risk due to exposure to various complex emission products. Among the materials investigated were those of known health risk, such as coke oven and roofing tar emissions and cigarette smoke condensates, and those of unknown hazard, such as exhaust from diesel-and gasoline-powered vehicles. Studies on diesel emission products proved useful in short­ term bioassay development, as the diesel exhaust extracts were genetically active with low cellular toxicity and could be obtained in relatively large quantities. Availability of such samples aided chemical characterization, and it was eventually determined that the nitro-polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons were among the mutagenic components of diesel exhaust particulate.

The magnitude of the threat to the human genetic material posed by environmental agents has not as yet been fully determined. Never­ theless, the potential hazards of many chemicals have been identi­ fied by studies on lower organisms. However, too little is known regarding the comparability or lack of it between the metabolic pathways available in such organisms and those in man. Although at present there is great public concern for what is considered by some as the excessive use of laboratory animals in toxicological testing, it seems clear that the usage of mammalian systems may be deemed necessary. It has been proposed that cell culture systems might suffice to meet this need, however, such approaches cannot match the complexity of physiological occurances that are present in the intact animal. For studies of genetic effects, some non-invasive human test systems are presently available. These do not, however, meet the re­ quirements for extensive laboratory studies. In order to assess the risks to humans of environmental factors such laboratory investiga­ tions are essential. Therefore, for the forseeable future reliance on experiments using laboratory animals will be necessary. This Volume, which contains the proceedings of a workshop which was held at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, March 29-31, 1982, explores the existing methodologies and their utility for risk estimations. It covers the most well developed human systems, as well as the most widely used animal tests.

The principal emphasis of the Department of Radiation Biology and Biophysics is on biological problems. Techniques for measuring are considered very necessary but the development of them is usual­ ly left to someone else. Therefore it is a little unusual for the department to sponsor a conference which is devoted mostly to methodology. Environmental Pollution is a very popular topic now, and one notices that there are a number of scientific conferences devoted to the topic. Furthermore, part of every conference is devoted to measurements of pollutants. So the question becomes one of what should be different about our conference. To start with there are two unique features here: The first is the limited attendance which should provide more meaningful discussion; the second is the availability to the world of all the information in book form after the conference. We gave considerable thought to the contents of the conference which would take advantage of the unique features. Therefore, we decided to look to the future and present material here that is not in routine use. The search for pollutants has just begun, and their presence cannot be established without some means of detection. Many substances are not known to be toxic be­ cause no one has studied them. The necessary information can only be obtained if techniques for detection and measurement are avail­ able.