Assessing Ecological Vulnerability under Climate Change and Anthropogenic Influence in the Yangtze River Estuarine Island-Chongming Island, China.

Understanding and assessing ecological vulnerability for estuarine islands are important for maintaining estuarine island ecosystem services and its sustainable development. However, due to its complex fresh water-sea-land interaction mechanism and multiple stressors from both climate change and anthropogenic influence, a comprehensive evaluation of ecological vulnerability for estuarine islands has been limited. Therefore, taking the typical estuary island of Chongming Island as an example, we developed a comprehensive evaluation system of ecological vulnerability for an estuarine island ecosystem based on the pressure-state-response (PSR) conceptual model, and explored the spatial and temporal distribution of ecological vulnerability in 2005 and 2015.

Three-dimensional biofilm electrode reactors (3D-BERs) for wastewater treatment.

Three-dimensional biofilm electrode reactors (3D-BERs) are highly efficient in refractory wastewater treatment. In comparison to conventional bio-electrochemical systems, the filled particle electrodes act as both electrodes and microbial carriers in 3D-BERs. This article reviews the conception and basic mechanisms of 3D-BERs, as well as their current development.

Ecological wetland paradigm drives water source improvement in the stream network of Yangtze River Delta.

Jiaxing created a precedent using bypass riparian marshes to purify micro-polluted water sources in China. Pond-wetland complex with constructed root channel technology becomes a paradigm which can be analogized as "human-body wetland model" based on bionics or biomimetics. Heterogeneous plant-bed/ditch system with highly active land/water ecotone interfaces, especially meandering boundaries, breeds many biochemical reactions "living areas".

Quantitative source apportionment of dissolved organic matters in wet weather overflows of storm drainage systems based on degradation potential index and end member mixing model.

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) in wet weather overflows (WWFs) of storm drainage systems mainly originates from anthropogenic sources, such as paved runoff, illegally discharged domestic sewage and the retained sediment. This study provides a promising method to quantitatively apportion the WWF DOM of storm drainage systems using degradation potential index (DPI) and end member mixing (EMM) model. DPI is derived from excitation-emission matrix parallel factor analysis (EEM-PARAFAC), which can endow the end members and itself of WWF DOM with numerical features, and thus help quantify the source contributions of WWF DOM in EMM model.

Abiotic reductive removal of organic contaminants catalyzed by carbon materials: A short review.

Since the observation that carbon materials can facilitate electron transfer between reactants, there is growing literature on the abiotic reductive removal of organic contaminants catalyzed by them. Most of the interest in these processes arises from the participation of carbon materials in the natural transformation of contaminants and the possibility of developing new strategies for environmental treatment and remediation. The combinations of various carbon materials and reductants have been investigated for the reduction of nitro-organic compounds, halogenated organics, and azo dyes.

Effect of overlying water pH, temperature, and hydraulic disturbance on heavy metal and nutrient release from drinking water reservoir sediments.

How environmental factors impact the release of pollutants from sediment is critical to ensure the safety of drinking water, especially when the seasons change. Here, we investigated the effect of water pH, temperature, and hydraulic disturbance on the release of heavy metals and nutrients from the sediment of drinking water reservoir. The results show that lower initial water pH promoted the Zn release, while low temperature enhanced the Mn flux after 15 days.

Simultaneous remediation and fertility improvement of heavy metals contaminated soil by a novel composite hydrogel synthesized from food waste.

Soil contamination by heavy metals constitutes a serious global environmental problem, and numerous remediation technologies have been developed. In this study, a novel soil remediation agent, namely composite hydrogel (leftover rice-g-poly(acrylic acid)/montmorillonite/Urea, LR-g-PAA/MMT/urea), was prepared based on free radical polymerization cross-linking technology. Experimental results indicated that the LR-g-PAA/MMT/urea dosage increased from 0% to 10%, the oxidizable state proportions of Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn in contaminated soil increased from 8.

Refined water security assessment for sustainable water management: A case study of 15 key cities in the Yangtze River Delta, China.

Water security represents ecological security and a policy priority for sustainable development; however, un-gridded assessment results cannot be used to support urban environmental management decisions. This study proposes a systematic framework to obtain a gridded regional water security assessment, which reflects the regional natural resource, based on the index system derived from the Pressure-State-Response (PSR) model and the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model. The results were applied to sustainable water management.

Picophytoplankton identification by flow cytometry and high-throughput sequencing in a clean reservoir.

Understanding picophytoplankton variations that play important roles in the material circulation and energy flow are critical to assessing overall status of waterbody, especially for clean reservoirs which remain a relatively stable community structure and high species diversity due to lower nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients. However, their response to key environmental factors and tightly acting microbial remains poorly understood. Traditional quantification methods are limited, such as chlorophyll-a, turbidity and microscope.

One Heat Shock Transcription Factor Confers High Thermal Tolerance in Clematis Plants.

Clematis plants play an important role in botanical gardens. Heat stress can destroy the activity, state and conformation of plant proteins, and its regulatory pathway has been well characterized in and some crop plants. However, the heat resistance response mechanism in horticultural plants including has rarely been reported.

Exploring the formulation of ecological management policies by quantifying interregional primary ecosystem service flows in Yangtze River Delta region, China.

Ecosystem services (ESs) play an important supporting role in the development of human society and the economy. Despite the increasing number of ESs quantitative evaluation studies that have been conducted at different scales, the assessment of ESs flows between different administrative regions, which provides valuable implications for ecological protection and compensation, has drawn little attention. The aim of this study is to fill in this gap by providing a comprehensive ES interregional flow analysis method that evaluates ecosystem service values (ESVs) and quantifies the interregional flows in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), which is home to one of the largest urban agglomerations in China.

Indicator Compounds Representative of Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) Found in the Water Cycle in the United States.

The presence of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in the aquatic environment has recently become a global issue. The very large number of CECs reported in the literature makes it difficult to interpret potential risks as well as the removal efficiencies, especially for the more recalcitrant compounds. As such, there is a need for indicator compounds that are representative of CECs detected in systems worldwide.

Novel cyanotoxin-producing Synechococcus in tropical lakes.

Picocyanobacteria are small cyanobacteria, being about 0.8-1.5 µm in size.

Identifying the driving factors of NO pollution of One Belt One Road countries: satellite observation technique and dynamic spatial panel data analysis.

To recover the global economy, China in 2013 called for a new global strategy, namely, "One Belt and One Road Initiative" (BRI), which aims at reinforcing regional economic cooperation, enhancing regional collaboration of economic policy, and realizing the goal of rapid economic development of member countries. Accelerating industrialization not only has been recognized as an effective way to stimulate economic development, but also lead to the serious issue of environmental pollution, which challenges the environmental sustainability. In this study, we focus on the industrializing region as a study area to investigate the driving factors of environmental pollution.

[Surface water change characteristics of Taihu Lake from 1984-2018 based on Google Earth Engine].

Lakes are important fresh water resources. Accurate understanding of lake dynamic changes benefits the sustainable development of water resources and socio-economic development. Based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE), we analyzed the dynamics of Taihu Lake from 1984 to 2018 by adopting the dataset of Joint Research Centre's Global Surface Water and Landsat imagery.

Simultaneous recovery of ammonium and total phosphorus from toilet tail water by modified palygorskite-bentonite clay.

Suitable treatment of toilet sewage is a worldwide challenge. The anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR)-microbial fuel cell (MFC)-microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) (AMM) coupling treatment system has been constructed achieving effective removal of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus from toilet sewage and resource recovery; however, ammonium (NH -N) and total phosphorus (TP) accumulation in tail water is a found problem of the system. In this study, acid-modified and alkali-heat modified palygorskite-bentonite (Pal-Ben) were used to recover NH -N and TP from the AMM toilet tail water simultaneously.

Simply closing the reactor improves the electron efficiency of zerovalent iron toward various metal(loid)s removal.

The controlled corrosion of zerovalent iron (ZVI) is crucial for the favorable performance of ZVI toward metal(loid)s removal, and dissolved oxygen (DO) plays an important role in the process of ZVI corrosion. However, few efforts have been made to control the concentration of DO in real practice. In this study, we found that the electron efficiency and the specific removal capacity of ZVI toward the removal of four metal(loid)s were increased by 1.

Rapid Increase in Cement-Related Mercury Emissions and Deposition in China during 2005-2015.

The cement industry has become the largest mercury (Hg) emission source in China. Better understanding Hg emission and deposition characteristics and drivers of Hg emission changes can increase the awareness of related risks and support effective policy making. The results show that due to the substantial increase in the use of new suspension preheater and precalciner (NSP) technology in China, an approximate two-fold increase from 80.

Quantifying wind-induced impacts on particulate Cu footprint in the Yangtze Estuary.

Under two wind conditions, a polar coordinated segmented quantification method (PCSQM) taking the easternmost point of Chongming Island (121°59'20″E, 31°29'38″N) as the origin of the coordinate was proposed to quantify wind-induced impacts on the heavy metal footprint emitted from four simulation sites on the main waterway of the Yangtze Estuary. One wind condition was that of a real wind field in 2019 called Case 1; the other one was a combination of monthly maximum wind speed selected from 1989 to 2019 called Case 2. In the comparison of these two conditions, the PCSQM was used to calculate the footprint excursion of four simulation sites mentioned, including three major urban sewage outlets and the upstream pollution source, represented by Xuliujing (XLJ) during the biological sensitive aggregation period of the Yangtze Estuary (BAPYE).

An impact assessment of energy undesirable output on climate-carrying capacity: a case study of Shanghai.

It is important to evaluate the impact of undesirable energy output on the climate-carrying capacity of the power grid-based economy to promote the green development. Three indicators-climate natural capacity, urban climate pressure, and urban coordinated development capacity-are used as input factors to study the climate-carrying capacity. The Nemerow index method and comprehensive evaluation method based on entropy weight are employed to calculate inputs.

Responses of Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaea and Bacteria in Malodorous River Sediments to Different Remediation Techniques.

In this study, the joint use of high throughput sequencing, real-time quantitative PCR, and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB)-inhibiting allylthiourea was used to differentiate between the contributions of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) vs AOB to ammonia oxidation and ascertain how AOA and AOB responded to two widely used river remediation techniques (aeration and Ca(NO) injection). Results showed that ammonia oxidation was largely attributed to ATU-sensitive AOB rather than AOA and Nitrosomonas was the predominant AOB-related genus (53.86%) in the malodorous river.

Ecological restoration is not sufficient for reconciling the trade-off between soil retention and water yield: A contrasting study from catchment governance perspective.

Ecological restoration program (ERP) is widely recognized as an effective measure to combat land degradation and improve environmental quality. However, inappropriate ERPs lead to trade-offs between soil retention and water yield as well as conflicts of soil and water resources between the midstream and the downstream of catchment. This study aims to assess the efficiency of ERPs in soil erosion control and identify the trade-offs between soil retention and water yield through the lens of runoff and sediment regimes in contrasting catchments of the Loess Plateau (LP) and the Karst Plateau (KP).

The occurrence, characteristics, transformation and control of aromatic disinfection by-products: A review.

With the development of analytical technology, more emerging disinfection by-products (DBPs) have been identified and detected. Among them, aromatic DBPs, especially heterocyclic DBPs, possess relatively high toxicity compared with regulated DBPs, which has been proved by bioassays. Thus, the occurrence of aromatic DBPs is of great concern.