Journal of Environmental Studies
Year:2014 | Volume:40 | Issue:1 (69)|Papers Count:24

Air pollution is one of the critical challenges in metropolitans around the world. According to World Health Organization (WHO), three millions people die from air pollution annually. In some studies mortality costs by air pollution was estimated. Social cost of air pollution was estimated 28990 billions Rials in Tehran city. The mortality cost by air pollution was estimated about 4.31% of GDP in Singapore.

Thermodynamically, the surface waters in mountain environments are unstable and their chemical composition is a reflection of water-rock interactions. Few studies have also been undertaken on the geochemistry of the surface waters in mountain environments. Hence, this paper deals with the source of elements as well as the chemistry of the stream which drains from the caldera of Bidkhan volcano.

Gotvand-Olia as one of the largest constructional projects in Iran has been constructed on the Karoun River, between Masjed Soleiman and Gotvand Regulatory dam in Khuzestan Province. It is situated in 382.8 km away from the river estuary at a distance of 25 km north of Shoushtar city. This study was conducted to identify and assess the risk of Gotvand-Olia dam on the environment at the operational phase. As a part of the management of water resources, the dam is one of the most important structures playing a major role in the regulation of surface flows, especially in the areas that have poor spatial and temporal distribution of rainfalls. Due to developments in dam construction in the world and particularly in Iran, the need to assess the environmental impacts of dams is very important. Environmental risk assessment is able to establish a relationship between the impacts of unwanted events with those that are not catastrophic. The quantitative risk assessment provides evident objectivity and transparency in the assessment of the impacts.

Several methods have been developed to aid in selecting a network of biodiversity protected areas. One of these methods is artificial intelligence which includes a number of different computer algorithms that use an objective function to find the best solution. An algorithm is a mathematical process or a set of rules used for problem solving. Recently, site selection algorithms have been widely used to identify areas of high conservation value. Two main types of site selection algorithms are optimal algorithms and heuristic ones. In this research, three types of heuristic algorithms, namely, annealing, greedy, and rarity simulated in the selection of the protected areas were compared to find the best regions for efficient environmental protection in Mazandaran Province. The effects of different parameters including conservation goals, scale, algorithms, and compactness of zones on the results were also investigated.

Heavy metal contamination has disastrous effects on plant productivity and threatens human and animal health. Among metals, cadmium (Cd) is commonly released into the environment from industrial processes. Cd is known to cause cellular damage in plants by producing oxidative stress via the over-production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). To combat oxidative damage, plants have developed a defense system consisting of a variety of antioxidant enzymes which can neutralize, convert, and scavenge the ROS. Proline accumulates heavily in several plants under stress providing the plants protection against damage by the ROS. When translocated to the shoots, Cd causes strong oxidative stress and the inhibition of plant metabolism, including photosynthesis by direct and indirect mechanisms.

Nowadays climate changes as one of the major environmental issues have been put forward the most important challenge in sustainable development and poverty elimination. Carbon sequestration is a process in which carbon dioxide absorbs from the atmosphere and accumulates in carbohydrates form in plant tissues, litter, and soil. Rangelands ecosystems have a great potential in carbon sequestration because of including half of the lands on the earth. In addition, their carbon storage is about 10 percent of total biomass carbon storage in terrestrial ecosystems and 30 percent of organic carbon. In a global scale, about 500 billion tons of carbon sequestrate in the rangelands annually. To reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas balance, atmospheric carbon should be captured and sequestrated. Carbon as one of the main greenhouse gases element sequesters by photosynthesis in plant biomass. Carbon sequestration by the rangelands plants is the most simple and the cheapest way to decrease this gas. Therefore identifying the species that have high ability to carbon sequestration can help us in the rangelands rehabilitation and reclamation.

Chainsaw and cable skidder are two main logging machines for wood harvesting in the Caspian forests. Selection cutting is the main silvicultural method in these forests. Harvesting in the Caspian forests has the potential to damage the trees that are left standing. Damages to residual trees during the selection cutting operation may decrease the quality of residual trees and increase stand mortality through insect and disease infestation. The wounds can cause stem deformity and significant losses of the final crop volume and value. The wound characteristics such as size, location, and intensity are the main factors that influence on the future quality of damaged trees. Logging damages to the residual trees increase as the time passes. The literature review shows that minor damage to the stem of residual trees during logging operation can have a major impact on the final stand volume as future saw logs. In the Caspian forests, many studies focused on the primary logging damage (immediately after logging operation) and a few studies were done on the secondary logging damage (after years). The objective of this research was to study the condition of logging wounds on residual trees after 12 years elapsed in the Caspian forests.

The process of urbanism in countries that are developing, like Islamic Republic of Iran with increasing in the number and the size of cities and the fast population admission have caused problems including in-official economics and in-official settlement led to high population concentration in main and old places of city and increase in air pollution in cities (Pazhouhian and MoradHasel, 1386). The most atmospheric pollution of the big cities of Iran has direct relation with the kind and the rate of the pollutants in crowded places and full of population.

NO2 is not only a potential air pollutant in urban and industrial environments but also a precursor for smog of urban environment that is another ozone pollutant as well. Some of the urban environments in Iran have high tropospheric and near surface NO2 which requires research attentions especially in these years. That is the issue of concern in the present study using satellite data of OMI from 2004 to 2012. Here, we compare the trends of NO2 for some cities of Iran while looking at the correlation between the near surface values of NO2 and that of the tropospheric column values.

Because of expansion of agricultural activities, of excessive use of chemical fertilizers, and of location of the municipal and industrial wastewater of Andimeshk, it is possible for this aquifer to be polluted. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to assess the aquifer vulnerability of Andimeshk plain and to recognize the sensitive areas against pollution. This work can be conducted using the DRASTIC and SINTACS models. Although, these models are among the most used models for the assessment of aquifer vulnerability, these models should be corrected on the basis of local hydrological conditions to obtain correct results. Therefore, the main aim of this study is correction of the DRASTIC and SINTACS models according to the local hydrological conditions and finally determining the best aquifer vulnerable model for the plain.

Quality of urban life is known as one of the major elements of urban development. Thus, evaluation urban environmental quality has much importance in the planning of urban development. Cities are complex ecosystems affected by social, economic, environmental, and cultural factors. Inefficient urban planning and management and lack of coherent environmental policies have led to many urban environmental problems in a lot of modern cities. The number and scope of these problems are significant and they are becoming serious threats to the health and safety of residents.

Common pool water resources (CPWRs) face overuse and congestion due to increased competition for the non-excludability and subtract ability nature of their use. In the CPWRs conflicts, beneficiaries base their actions on individual rationality which negatively affect all users eventually due to the lack of trust between them, their self-optimizing tendencies, and inadequate information about the consequences of their actions. Game theory provides a formal mathematical framework to strategic analysis of such conflict and to able presenting some institutions to prevent tragedy of commons. Lake Urmia is the most valuable ecosystem located in the same name basin in Iran. In the recent years, the basin's upstream water resources faced to overuse due to an increase in the attitudes of parties to gain more economic benefits from agriculture activities which led to conflicts as well as threats to Lake Urmia's life. The literatures which studied this environmental crisis are limited with respect to understanding strategic interactions between the actors and how such interactions may affect the results of the Lake Urmia water conflict.

Heavy metals are largely found in dispersed form in rock formations. Industrialization and urbanization have increased the anthropogenic contribution of heavy metals in the biosphere. Heavy metal pollution not only affects the production and the quality of crops, but also influences the quality of the atmosphere and water bodies, and threatens the health and life of human beings. Clean-up technologies have been developed for the removal of heavy metals but often these are expensive or have some environmentally deleterious consequences. Phytoremediation emerged in the early 1980s is an important technology for remediation of contaminated sites. One of the most promising phytoremediation technologies is phytoextraction using hyperaccumulators to remove heavy metals from contaminated soils. However, the known hyperaccumulator plants usually accumulate only a specific element and are usually small. Recently, most attention is focused to the plants that produce high biomass and are tolerant to the soils pollutted with heavy metals.

Malachite green (MG) has been used as a food coloring agent, food additive, medical disinfectant as well as a dye in silk, wool, jute, leather, cotton, paper, and acrylic industries. It is also extensively used as a topical fungicide and ectoparasiticide in aquaculture industries throughout the world. The findings reveal that this dye has now become one of the most controversial compounds used in aquaculture due to the risks it poses on the consumers, including its effects on the immune and reproductive systems as well as its genotoxic and carcinogenic potentials. Despite being banned in several countries, the dye is still being used in many parts of the world due to lack of a proper alternative. Thus, we must also focus our attention on ways for reducing malachite green from aquaculture and industrial wastewaters. Different methods are available for the remediation of dye wastewaters. These include physicochemical methods such as chemical oxidation, precipitation, coagulation, filtration, electrolysis, and photodegradation.

Wastewater treatment using activated sludge process (ASP) produces huge amounts of sludge that must be treated by efficient methods. Wastewater sludge handling is one of the most important economic-technical challenges of wastewater treatment projects. Conventional methods for this purpose are very time consuming, expensive and in lots of cases have limited success. In recent years the electrochemical oxidation techniques have been progressively used for water and wastewater treatment process. Many reports showed that these methods are very effective to eliminate or decrease the organic loading content of wastewater and sludge. Combination of electrochemical reactions and Fenton process has widely been studied for the destruction of organics and bio-refractory pollutants contained in industrial wastewater by highly oxidative hydroxyl radicals formed from reaction of H2O2 with Fe2+.

Industrialization and urbanization of societies have caused many environmental problems. Therefore, environmental protection has recently become highly important. Water resources are particularly of high risk of pollution from industrial waste disposal to river, surface, and ground water, and also from discharge of water to municipal waste water collection systems. These effluents usually contain a high concentration of heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, copper, and zinc which create many environmental problems due to their high toxicity.

The problem of solid waste management is one of the most critical environmental issues because of rapid population and economic growth, urbanization, and industrialization. Furthermore, global attitudes are bent on accessing sustainable agriculture and conserving a clean and green environment. Vermicomposting is a process to convert organic waste by the use of earthworms to produce peat-like material which has an added advantage of possessing the potential for improving plant growth as soil conditioner. Earthworms eat, grind, and digest organic waste combined with aerobic and some anaerobic microflora converting it into stable and homogenous biofertilizer.

Water is consumed in almost all industries. Consequently the used water is turning to a waste that usually should be treated to meet the regulated standard level prior to reuse or discharge into the environment. Cutting oil wastewater is an emulsion normally comprised of1-10% oil and the remainder water. The main functions of this oil in industry are lubrication, friction reduction, and cooling of instrument’s parts. This wastewater is classified as a toxic waste according to the existence of some additive material to prevent corrosion and bacterial growth. Breakage of the emulsion and separation of the water and the oil can alone reduce more than about 90% of the aqueous phase pollution and prepare it for treatment.

Groundwater level is strongly falling due to dependence of agricultural, industrial, and urban water on this resource. The increasing population growth, industrialization progress, and agriculture intensification have all resulted in ever-increasing water demand for various purposes. Artificial recharge and discharge optimum management can recover the groundwater resource. The artificial recharge to the groundwater aims at augmentation of ground water reservoir by modifying the natural movement of surface water through suitable civil construction techniques.

Air pollution has harmful effect on human health and the environment. Accordingly, considerable effort has been put to analyze the air pollutants. One important issue is the spatial distribution of these pollutants. Dispersion of the pollutants released from sources on the ground is mostly driven by the planetary boundary layer where turbulent flow causes mixing of the content of the stationary ground layer of atmosphere with higher moving layers and thereby clears out the pollutants rapidly. To predict the dispersion of air pollution in the atmosphere, researchers investigate the behavior of plume rise under certain conditions.

Along with increasing population, technology has had more developments for raising the efficiency of agricultural production. Modern agriculture must keep its production against destruction risk by pests. Then, for maintaining the production and crops against pests and diseases, large amounts of pesticides are used each year. Addition to the environment, this also threats consumers' health. Pollution resulting from pesticides in the water due to long term effects and the high toxicity of pesticides as an environmental problem in the recent decades has been led to concerns about public health and non-target species. It should be considered that some insects and funguses will become resistant against chemical compounds over the time and therefore, farmers use ever more concentration after a while of use, so it causes to worry about toxins residues and its effects on the environment.