Under rapid urban sprawl in Northeast China, land conversions are not only encroaching on the quantity of cultivated lands, but also posing a great threat to black soil conservation and food security. This study's aim is to explore the spatial relationship between comprehensive cultivated soil ...

The present work is the first systematic and large scale study on radioactive materials and heavy metals in surface soil around the Bayanwula prospective uranium mining area in China. In this work, both natural and anthropogenic radionuclides and heavy metals in 48 surface soil samples were...

Yixing, known as the "City of Ceramics", is facing a new dilemma: a raw material crisis. Cadmium (Cd) exists in extremely high concentrations in soil due to the considerable input of industrial wastewater into the soil ecosystem. The in situ technique of diffusive gradients in thin film (DGT), the...

In Charleston, SC, the planned expansion of the Port of Charleston may add to the cumulative impact of environmental pollution in communities already overburdened by Superfund sites, brownfields, leaking underground storage tanks, toxic release inventory facilities, a coal-fired plant, an old...

The presence of metals in agricultural soils from anthropogenic activities such as mining and agricultural use of metals and metal-containing compounds is a potential threat for human health through the food chain. In this study, the concentration of heavy metals in 83 agricultural soils irrigated...

The TiO₂ based photocatalyst has great potential for the disinfection/inactivation of harmful pathogens (such as E.coli in aqueous media) along with its well-known usefulness on various chemical pollutants. The disinfection property of TiO₂ is primarily attributed to surface generation of reactive...

Tree bark has proved to be a useful bioindicator for trace elements in the atmosphere, however it reflects an exposure occurring during an unidentified period of time, so it provides spatial information about the distribution of contaminants in a certain area, but it cannot be used to detect...

Background Heavy rare earth elements (HREEs) have been scarcely studied for their toxicity, in spite of their applications in several technologies. Thus HREEs require timely investigations for their adverse health effects. Methods: Paracentrotus lividus and Arbacia lixula embryos and sperm were...

Characterization of the airborne particulate matter (PM) emitted from cooking components including cooking oil, and additives like salt has not been carefully investigated. This study provides new data on the concentration, composition, and emission rates/fluxes of PM (less than 3.3 µm) generated...

To identify the sources of PM_2.5 pollutants in work environments and determine whether the air quality inside an office was affected by a change in outdoor pollution status, concurrent indoor and outdoor measurements of PM_2.5 were conducted at five different office spaces in the urban center of...