Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Meaghan E. Quanz, Tony R. Walker, Ken Oakes, Rob Willis
Summary: Macroinvertebrate communities and environmental variables in wetlands near an industrial wastewater treatment facility were examined, and it was found that historical effluents had relatively minor impacts. The Wetland CABIN protocol was suggested as a useful monitoring tool for assessing wetland community structure.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2021)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
M. Dickie, R. S. McNay, G. D. Sutherland, G. G. Sherman, M. Cody
Summary: This study evaluated the effectiveness of silvicultural treatments to reduce predator and prey use of linear features, finding that all four species were less likely to be present at treated sites. Individual moose, bears, and wolves showed a decline in use of treated linear features, particularly with higher intensity treatments, though the reduction did not significantly impact overall line-use within the treatment area. The study emphasizes the complexity of monitoring and evaluating the success of habitat restoration, highlighting the importance of understanding long-term responses for effective restoration.
BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
(2021)
Review
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Roghayeh Sadeghi Pasvisheh, Marie Anne Eurie Forio, Long Tuan Ho, Peter L. M. Goethals
Summary: The Anzali wetland in Northern Iran is an important aquatic ecosystem threatened by human activities, such as deforestation, hunting, tourism, and urbanization. Population growth, intensive agriculture, increased urbanization, and industrialization have led to complex state changes in the wetland system.
Article
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Penghao Ye
Summary: The implementation of Ecological Red Lines (ERL) policy in China addresses the ecological and health impacts caused by excessive exploitation of natural resources over the past 40 years. An evaluation of ERL's pilot scheme in four provinces shows limited effects on industrial upgrading, but significant improvements in residents' health. These empirical findings provide references for the wider extension of the ERL policy in developing economies with consideration of regional industrial characteristics and specific implementation plans.
FRONTIERS IN PUBLIC HEALTH
(2022)
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Faisal Javeed, Aisha Nazir, Firdaus-e-Bareen, Muhammad Shafiq, Miklas Scholz
Summary: This study assesses the potential of constructed wetland systems to treat tannery effluent and mixed industry effluent. The results show that the treated effluent through the constructed wetland system is safe for vegetable cultivation.
JOURNAL OF WATER PROCESS ENGINEERING
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Todd A. Wallace, Susan L. Gehrig, Tanya M. Doody, Micah J. Davies, Richard Walsh, Christopher Fulton, Rose Cullen, Martin Nolan
Summary: The importance of long-lived vegetation in lowland river floodplains and the global phenomenon of vegetation dieback are discussed, along with presenting a range of techniques to aid managers in assessing and understanding tree community condition. The multiple-lines-of-evidence management assessment framework can help improve prioritization of management actions and optimize environmental water delivery planning, ultimately increasing the efficiency of environmental water use.
Article
Ornithology
Jacob C. Cooper, J. Dylan Maddox, Kellie McKague, John M. Bates
Summary: The study reveals that the Afromontane bird species C. reichenowi exhibits regional diversification in geographically disjunct areas, indicating that ecological diversity is shaping populations in Central Africa.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Andrew M. Ray, Blake R. Hossack, William R. Gould, Debra A. Patla, Stephen F. Spear, Robert W. Klaver, Paul E. Bartelt, David P. Thoma, Kristin L. Legg, Rob Daley, P. Stephen Corn, Charles R. Peterson
Summary: This article presents a self-evaluation of a long-term monitoring program for amphibians, aiming to describe the status and trends of these species. The article emphasizes that a one-size-fits-all monitoring approach does not serve all species equally and suggests using emerging statistical approaches and remote sensing/molecular tools to enhance the core work. Additionally, the article highlights the use of climate datasets to study the impact of climate on amphibians and their habitats, allowing the identification of vulnerable species and regions to anticipated climate change. The importance of collaborative monitoring is also emphasized.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2022)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Yuanyuan Cai, Zhiqiang Hu
Summary: This study examines the effects of different types of industrial agglomeration on industrial SO2 emissions, and their inner influence mechanism from two aspects of industrial structure and technological progress, using panel data from 285 cities in China from 2003 to 2013. The study finds that different agglomeration types have different environmental externalities, with industrial density and proximity reducing SO2 emissions significantly, while specialization and unrelated variety are associated with increased emissions. Technological progress plays a greater role in reducing emissions.
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Tengfei Yang, Jibo Xie, Peilin Song, Guoqing Li, Naixia Mou, Xinyue Gao, Jing Zhao
Summary: The ecological environment is crucial for human survival and development, and effective monitoring methods are essential for human settlements. Traditional data and methods have limitations, while social media data can supplement them. This paper proposes a framework that integrates social media, remote sensing, and other data to monitor the ecological environment. The study extracts relevant information from social media data and constructs a social semantic network for comprehensive analysis.
Article
Business
Shuhai Niu, Kexin Zhang, Juan Zhang, Yanchao Feng
Summary: This study analyzes data from 284 cities in China and finds that upgrading industrial structure can significantly improve urban ecological efficiency. However, low-quality GDP and financial development models hinder the improvement of ecological efficiency, while industrial structure rationalization has a negligible impact on ecological efficiency. In addition, industrial upgrading does not mediate the promotion of eco-efficiency through technological innovation and the reduction of pollutant emissions. Furthermore, officials' turnover negatively moderates the role of industrial upgrading in increasing ecological efficiency, while environmental regulation plays a positive role. This study also conducts triple heterogeneity tests, providing a feasible approach for implementing relevant policies.
EMERGING MARKETS FINANCE AND TRADE
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Hassimi Abu Hasan, Dheenesh Sai Annanda Shanmugam, Siti Rozaimah Sheikh Abdullah, Mohd Hafizuddin Muhamad, Setyo Budi Kurniawan
Summary: The coffee processing industry produces toxic and low biodegradable effluent, which can pollute water bodies. This study investigated the use of a dual-media biofilm reactor for real coffee effluent treatment, and compared it with a control biofilm reactor using sand media. The results showed that the dual-media biofilm reactor had the highest removal of chemical oxygen demand and NH4+-N, and the combination of sand and HEX media encouraged the growth of various bacterial species.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Liang Wan, Qiaoqiao Zheng, Jie Wu, Zhengyun Wei, Shanyong Wang
Summary: The ecological compensation mechanism is an innovative institutional arrangement that promotes the coordinated development of social-economic growth and ecological protection by optimizing and upgrading industrial structure, with technological innovation playing a crucial role. Higher levels of compensation input and assessment intensity lead to better ecological compensation effects.
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
(2022)
Article
Development Studies
Kunying Niu, Wei He, Luyi Qiu
Summary: This paper aims to systematically identify and evaluate the symbiotic relationship between industrial development and ecological environment, build a theoretical framework of complex symbiotic system, propose a set of symbiotic coordination evaluation systems and a symbiotic security pre-warning mechanism. Taking the Three Gorges Ecological Economic Corridor of the Yangtze River in China as an example, the feasibility of this method is demonstrated, and suggestions are given to optimize the symbiosis development between industrial development and ecological environment, confirming the practicability of the proposed Dimensionality Enhancement Plan to achieve sustainable development.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
(2023)
Article
Computer Science, Information Systems
Ziqing Deng, Xiaofang Chen, Yongfang Xie, Zhong Zou, Hongliang Zhang
Summary: In this paper, a multiple structured latent double dictionary pair learning (MSLdDPL) method is proposed to address the issue of inconsistent distribution between acquired offline training set and online testing data in cross-domain industrial process monitoring. The method learns the rich data knowledge in the source domain to monitor the target domain with insufficient label information of data. With the latent projective double reconstruction strategy, transfer learning and latent space mining are integrated into a unified framework to bridge the distribution divergence between different domains. The proposed method performs better in the property and application of cross-domain process monitoring, as verified by extensive experiments.
INFORMATION SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Zhe Liu, Weslynne S. Ashton, Michelle Adams, Qing Wang, Raymond P. Cote, Tony R. Walker, Lu Sun, Peter Lowitt
Summary: This study aims to fill the gap in the literature by analyzing a selection of cases representing a range of jurisdictions, financing sources, strategies, and associated operational mechanisms in industrial symbiosis (IS) financing.
ENVIRONMENT DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Monica Ragan, Tony R. R. Walker, Melanie Zurba
Summary: Small craft harbors (SCHs) in Canada are vital economic centers for rural coastal communities, providing essential support for users and communities' livelihoods. However, the level of importance varies among different SCHs, and some face challenges due to lack of federal funding and harbor authorities.
COASTAL MANAGEMENT
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Hao Wu, Hui Wang, Tony R. Walker, Xiaoxu Wang, Yinggang Wang, Lina Sun
Summary: This study assessed the in-situ co-remediation of PAH contaminated agricultural soil using blood meal and celery. The results showed that this method significantly increased the dissipation rates of PAHs and had a vital role in the degradation of PAHs without disturbing crop production, which has important practical implications.
SOIL & SEDIMENT CONTAMINATION
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Zhe Liu, Yueying Xu, Michelle Adams, Weili Liu, Tony R. Walker, Teresa Domenech, Raimund Bleischwitz, Yong Geng
Summary: Waste generation and disposal have been a global issue for decades. This study investigates the potential contribution of municipal solid waste (MSW) management to greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, using four 'zero-waste' cities in China as case studies. Results show that Shenzhen city achieved significant progress in reducing GHGs.
WASTE MANAGEMENT & RESEARCH
(2023)
Review
Environmental Sciences
Md. Refat Jahan Rakib, Aniruddha Sarker, Kirpa Ram, Md. Giash Uddin, Tony R. Walker, Tanzin Chowdhury, Jamal Uddin, Mayeen Uddin Khandaker, Mohammed M. Rahman, Abubakr M. Idris
Summary: Microplastics are prevalent pollutants that can be found in aquatic ecosystems globally. They can be ingested by aquatic species and transferred through higher trophic level food webs. However, most studies on microplastic aquatic toxicity have been conducted in laboratory settings, and the impact of microplastics on aquatic species and higher trophic level consumers in natural ecosystems is still relatively unknown. This study provides an overview of microplastic transport pathways, ecotoxicology, food web transfer, and examples of toxic pollutants sorbed onto microplastics in aquatic food webs, aiming to guide future research priorities in understanding microplastic toxicity through aquatic food webs.
WATER AIR AND SOIL POLLUTION
(2023)
Review
Fisheries
Megan E. Rector, Ramon Filgueira, Megan Bailey, Tony R. Walker, Jon Grant
Summary: The effectiveness of eco-certification in improving aquaculture sustainability outcomes faces challenges such as determining which aspects of sustainability to include, avoiding limited improvements by labeling products as 'sustainable', accounting for different spatial scales of aquaculture effects, and designing adaptable sustainability criteria. Potential approaches include applying an ecosystem services framework, supporting industry best practices, considering far-field effects, and recognizing the impact of local conditions. While other governance approaches might be better suited, improving eco-certification criteria and processes presents opportunities to match its success in creating a market for eco-certified farmed seafood with positive sustainability outcomes.
REVIEWS IN AQUACULTURE
(2023)
Review
Chemistry, Analytical
Tony R. Walker, Lexi Fequet
Summary: Unsustainable plastic production, use and mismanagement have caused widespread plastic pollution and the accumulation of micro(nano)plastics in the environment, posing a threat to sustainability. Micro(nano)plastic pollution has global ecological impacts and contributes to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions. Despite existing strategies to combat plastic pollution, they are inadequate due to the ongoing increase in plastic production and waste generation. A more comprehensive approach is needed to address the issue and achieve reduction targets.
TRAC-TRENDS IN ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Gianina Giacosa, Daniel G. Rainham, Tony R. Walker
Summary: Three industrial facilities in Pictou County, Canada, have raised concerns about the environmental and human health impacts of air and effluent pollution. Studies focused on wastewater effluent discharge from a pulp mill, with limited investigation of air pollution. This study analyzed PM2.5 concentrations in Pictou between 2004 and 2021, and found that the pulp mill was likely the primary source of high PM2.5 concentrations. The installation of an electrostatic precipitator in 2015 led to improved air quality.
ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Reza Pashaei, Reda Dzingeleviciene, Ieva Putna-Nimane, Donata Overlinge, Agata Blaszczyk, Tony R. Walker
Summary: We evaluated the acute toxicity of triclosan, caffeine, nanoplastics, microplastics, and their combinations on Daphnia magna. However, limitations of this study included the use of a single species, acute toxicity testing instead of chronic toxicity testing, examination of single substances and their mixtures, and laboratory conditions that may not represent real-world scenarios. Our results showed that triclosan was more toxic than caffeine, and nanoplastics were more toxic than microplastics. Combining triclosan with nanoplastics or microplastics resulted in varying mortality rates, with higher rates at higher concentrations. Similar results were observed with caffeine, nanoplastics, and microplastics mixtures. These findings indicate the potential hazards of these pollutants to marine ecosystems and highlight the need for further studies to understand chronic effects, interactive effects of multiple substances, and the impact under more environmentally relevant conditions.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Vinko Zadjelovic, Robyn J. Wright, Tony R. Walker, Vladimir Avalos, Paula E. Marin, Joseph A. Christie-Oleza, Carlos Riquelme
Summary: Plastic pollution is a critical environmental issue, and this study reveals the significant contribution of misused expanded polystyrene (EPS) in a construction site near Antofagasta, Chile. The study found a staggering number of EPS spheres that have the potential to be released into the environment, leading to chronic pollution. The observations also highlight the presence of EPS microplastic pollution and the accumulation of litter, exacerbating the pollution problems within the region and posing a potential threat to marine and terrestrial organisms.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Tony R. Walker
Summary: This paper discusses the issue of littered plastic dog waste bags in the environment, which is controversial and unpleasant. These bags contribute to plastic and microplastic pollution, and the dog feces they contain also pose risks to human and ecological health. The confusion among pet owners, who may mistakenly believe that these 'biodegradable' bags are compostable, leads to the littering. However, without industrial composting facilities, these bags do not degrade and continue to pollute the environment. It is important for all pet owners to dispose of plastic dog waste bags in appropriate waste bins, instead of littering them in the environment.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Medicinal
Zahra Gharari, Parichehr Hanachi, Hanie Sadeghinia, Tony R. Walker
Summary: Scutellaria multicaulis is a medicinal plant used in traditional medicine for thousands of years. Its leaf extract was used to synthesize silver nanoparticles (SmL-Ag-NPs), which showed potential antioxidant and anti-proliferative activity against MDA-MB231 breast cancer cells. The SmL-Ag-NPs could be a bio-friendly and safe strategy for developing new cancer therapies.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Anna C. Ryan, Deonie Allen, Steve Allen, Vittorio Maselli, Amber LeBlanc, Liam Kelleher, Stefan Krause, Tony R. Walker, Mark Cohen
Summary: The study shows that North Atlantic hurricanes have an impact on the transport and deposition of ocean-sourced microplastics in the atmosphere. Hurricane Larry deposited substantial amounts of microplastic particles over Newfoundland, Canada in 2021.
COMMUNICATIONS EARTH & ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Review
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Shahida Anusha Siddiqui, Sipper Khan, Mohammad Mehdizadeh, Nur Alim Bahmid, Danung Nur Adli, Tony R. Walker, Rosa Perestrelo, Jose S. Camara
Summary: Designing and manufacturing functional bioactive ingredients and pharmaceuticals have become an international trend. Consumer demand for safe ingredients and concerns over harmful synthetic additives have led food manufacturers to seek safer and sustainable alternatives. Consumers increasingly prefer natural bioactive agents over synthetic compounds, leading to the importance of naturally derived phytochemicals and bioactive compounds with antimicrobial and antioxidant properties in food packaging.
Review
Environmental Sciences
Avalon Diggle, Tony R. Walker
Summary: The mismanagement of plastic waste has become a global pollution concern with ecological, social, and economic impacts. Government intervention and the adoption of circular economy principles are necessary to address the challenges posed by the high rates and volumes of plastic waste generation. Efforts are underway at the global level to combat plastic pollution and mitigate its environmental and socio-economic risks.
