Researchers in Spain present an interesting critical review focusing on ways to assess the impact of fish farming waste waters on the environment in which they are situated.
The group outline the important environmental contaminants to be considered, including particulate waste and treatment products. As most fish farms are located on rocky coasts, the authors highlight the need for tools that are not affected by strong hydrodynamics and a lack of sediment. The review evaluates the suitability of various experimental and analytical procedures that can be used to evaluate the contamination, possible trophic and toxic effects, and changes to the ecological integrity.
Designing an integrated environmental monitoring plan for land-based marine fish farms located at exposed and hard bottom coastal areas
C. Carballeira, J. Ramos-Gómez, M. L. Martín-Díaz, T. A. DelValls and A. Carballeira
DOI: 10.1039/C2EM10839A
William Selbig, Amanda Cox and Roger Bannerman discuss the development of a new water sample collection system, to improve representation of solids entrained in urban stormwater by integrating water-quality samples from the entire water column, rather than a single, fixed point. They report that development of this new depth-integrated sample arm (DISA) was able to mitigate stratification bias resulting in a more accurate representation of stormwater-borne solids than traditional fixed-point sample collection methods.
Bojeong Kim and colleagues from Virginia Tech and Duke University have investigated the characterization and environmental implications of nano- and larger TiO2 particles in sewage sludge and soils amended with sewage. They examined the most likely route of engineered TiO2 particles entering the soil environment by using analytical electron microscopic techniques, and provided detailed information regarding their occurrence, fate and behaviour in the sewage sludge materials and in mesocosm soils that had been amended with biosolid products.
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On the outside front cover of JEM 
On the inside front cover is a HOT article from Alexandra Steffen and colleagues from Environment Canada and the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) at the University of Illinois, reporting on a comparison of their data quality control protocols for the measurement of atmospheric mercury species. The protocols RDMQ™ and AMQC were developed independently by Environment Canada and the NADP respectively, and have been assessed by the criteria on which the data is quality controlled and comparability of the final data products.