Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts blog

This HOT paper from 2010 Emerging Investigator Hans Peter Arp investigates levels of some lesser-studied brominated fire retardants.

Recent years have seen an increase in pressure to find ‘new’ fire retardants, that are less stringently regulated than their polybrominated biphenyl and polybrominated diphenyl ether cousins.  Arp and colleagues looked at three brominated monoaromatics that have been in use for several decades and have been found in environmental samples, but have received far less overall attention.

Their findings indicate, that although there is not yet any cause for concern, the levels of the BFRs in samples (in particular hexabromobenzene) certainly warrant further study.  The group are careful to point out that it is difficult at this stage to determine whether the levels reported suggest an increase in production levels, transformation products or interest by researchers, and that more information could be obtained through dated sediment or ice core studies.

This interesting article is currently free to access until April, so download the full paper today:

Presence and partitioning properties of the flame retardants pentabromotoluene, pentabromoethylbenzene and hexabromobenzene near suspected source zones in Norway
Hans Peter H. Arp, Thomas Møskeland, Patrik L. Andersson and Jenny Rattfelt Nyholm
J. Environ. Monit., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0EM00258E

Many of us have suffered a sleepless night from wailing sirens or been distracted at work by incessant drilling from a construction site, and we all know that annoying noises have the capacity to drive us round the bend.  The European Environmental Noise Directive requires member states to draw up ‘strategic noise maps‘ so that noise pollution  can be monitored and the problem tackled in the longer term.

However creating these noise maps is not a cheap or easy task – most are estimates from calculations, the input of which are predictions from traffic models  and limited geometrical acoustics approaches.  As is always the case,  the more complex the calculation, the higher the computing time and cost, so  a comprise is often made between cost and accuracy.  Although the technology exists for more accurate noise measurement networks, their application is very limited due to the high cost of logging units and sensors (microphones) found on the commercial market.

Timothy Van Renterghem (Ghent University)  and co-workers have now come up with a solution – the surge in microphones used in laptops, mobile phones, mp3 players etc has driven down their cost, but not at the expense of quality – the technology is very similar to high-quality measurement microphones.  Logging the raw microphone signal
has also shifted from dedicated hardware to PC-based systems, with significant cost reductions.

In this paper Van Renterghem and team have shown that the cheap consumer microphones perform well against their more expensive dedicated monitoring cousins, with only small level differences compared to reference equipment.

The study is part of a longer term project on affordable environmental noise monitoring – read the full paper online here, the article is free to access until April.

On the ability of consumer electronics microphones for environmental noise monitoring
Timothy Van Renterghem, Pieter Thomas, Frederico Dominguez, Samuel Dauwe, Abdellah Touhafi, Bart Dhoedt and Dick Botteldooren
J. Environ. Monit., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0EM00532K, Paper

Those of us who take the moral high-ground and struggle to work every day on two wheels instead of four will know that cycling through traffic isn’t the most pleasant experience.  Given the choice we would probably prefer a leafy, quiet path away from the congestion – but how do we persuade town planners to invest in off-road cycle routes when there are already perfectly good cycle lanes in place through many towns and cities?

Well now we have a lobbying tool – cold, hard facts.   Researchers from the University of York have collaborated with the City of York Council Environmental Protection Unit to monitor the exposure of cyclists to NO₂ on both on-road and off-road cycle routes.  They have showed for the first time that the total inhaled dose of NO₂ is reduced by 7-35% when cycling on off-road routes, and mean exposure is reduced by 29-41%.  The method they used is a cost effective extension of previous diffusion tube networks, providing an affordable way of assessing NO₂ exposure, with minimal extra effort.

Although Tom Bean and co-workers are careful to point out that the current levels of NO₂ exposure on-road are still unlikely to present a health risk, they believe the overall benefits of the study will be greater than that of NO₂ exposure alone, given the large number of pollutants associated with vehicular traffic and their approach  could easily be used to aid the selection of cycle routes.

The article is free to access for one month – so take a look  and let us know what you think!

How does exposure to nitrogen dioxide compare between on-road and off-road cycle routes?
T. Bean, N. Carslaw, M. Ashmore, A. Gillah and C. Parkinson
J. Environ. Monit., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0EM00332H, Paper

An extensive study of the long-term environmental effects of the 2002 Prestige oil spill has been undertaken by a group from The University of the Basque Country, headed by Miren Cajaraville and Ionan Marigomez.  These HOT articles describe a series of biomarkers for monitoring the response of mussel populations to the disaster off the northern coast of Spain.

Mussels are often used to assess the impact of various alterations in marine ecosystems, from climate change to chronic pollution.  Here, changes in lysomal response and histopathology of digestive gland tissues were analysed to build a picture of the long-term effects of the oil spill. These, combined with others, form a battery of biomarkers which the group use to infer the health of the overall ecosystem.

The group found severe disruption of biological processes in the mussel populations studied, but promisingly many of the mussel populations returned to a state of relatively good health within a few years of the disaster.  It is hoped that future studies can use similar batteries of biomarkers to monitor ecological disaster recovery.

You can read the full papers online here – they’re free to access for 4 weeks:

Application of a battery of biomarkers in mussel digestive gland to assess long-term effects of the Prestige oil spill in Galicia and the Bay of Biscay: Lysosomal responses
Larraitz Garmendia, Urtzi Izagirre, Miren P. Cajaraville and Ionan Marigómez
J. Environ. Monit., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0EM00409J, Paper

Application of a battery of biomarkers in mussel digestive gland to assess long-term effects of the Prestige oil spill in Galicia and Bay of Biscay: Tissue-level biomarkers and histopathology
Larraitz Garmendia, Manu Soto, Unai Vicario, Yungkul Kim, Miren P Cajaraville and Ionan Marigómez
J. Environ. Monit., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0EM00410C, Paper

Also in the same series of work check out the group’s previous paper:

Effects of the fuel oil spilled by the Prestige tanker on reproduction parameters of wild mussel populations
Maren Ortiz-Zarragoitia, Larraitz Garmendia, María Carmen Barbero, Teresa Serrano, Ionan Marigómez and Miren P. Cajaraville
J. Environ. Monit., 2011, 13, 84-94
DOI: 10.1039/C0EM00102C, Paper

It goes without saying that the impact of building a new nuclear power plant on the surrounding area must be monitored, and the new Kudankulam plant on the south eastern tip of India is no exception.

M. Feroz Khan and colleagues from Sadakathdulla Appa College, India, have carried out a careful study into the current activity levels of certain radionucleotides in edible crabs to establish baseline data for the Kudankulam coast.  Crabs have been studied comparatively little in comparison to other marine animals but are extremely relevant study specimen given the proximity to a major Indian tourist destination and the popularity of seafood.

The study highlighted significant differences in accumulated concentrations of the two radionucleotides  and notably found that the concentrations of both were reduced in the crab meat – well within international standards for safe consumption.

So for now we can chow down happily on our crab cakes – but it will be interesting to see how this data compares to future studies, once the new plant is operational.

To read the full report download the paper – it’s free to access until the end of February!

Biomonitoring 210Po and 210Pb in marine brachyuran crabs collected along the coast of Kudankulam, Gulf of Mannar (GOM), India
M. Feroz Khan, S. Umarajeswari and S. Godwin Wesley
J. Environ. Monit., 2011
DOI: 10.1039/C0EM00723D