Journal of Natural Environment
Year:2020 | Volume:72 | Issue:4|Papers Count:10

Increasing wastes, especially agricultural waste in recent decades, is a major challenge in human life. To manage and organize waste, composting is an epidemiological approach. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluation of the effect of gypsum application with microbial inoculation on the sugar cane pepper compost produce process and to shorten its arrival time. This research carried out under laboratory conditions with two factors including gypsum application (including 10, 5 and 1% wt. Of gypsum) and microbial inoculation (including four levels of control, insemination with bacterial consortium, inoculation with fungal consortium, and simultaneous inoculation of fungal and bacterial consortium) as a factorial experiment based on completely randomized design with three replications. The results showed that microbial inoculation with gypsum application significantly increased the EC value and degradation percentage (3. 89 ds/m and 49. 14%, respectively, from inoculation with the fungal consortium and bacteria and gypsum 10 percent) and also reduced the pH of the treatments after 90 days of incubation. Microbial inoculation and application of plaster resulted in a significant reduction (P≤ 0. 05) of C/N ratio of cane sugar from 90. 93 in non-microbial treatment with 10% plaster to 19. 17% in gypsum 10% with fungal and bacterial consortium Became. It also enriched the compost from the elements of phosphorus and potassium. In general, the results of this study showed that inoculation of sugarcane pates with feces of Fasarium and Phanerochaete chrysosporium with Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus firmus, with 10% gypsum application, increased the decay rate of sugarcane bith pulp and reduced the time of composting.

The fresh water resources are limited in the world and their distribution is heterogeneous. In the other hand industrial establishment and dam construction decrease the quality of these limited resources, so the monitoring of water quality is necessary and unavoidable. There are different methods for consideration of water quality changes (statistic tests, regression, time series, multivariate methods… ). In this study, monthly time series of water quality parameters (Cl-, HCO3-, pH, EC, SAR, SO4) are used for study of Zayandehrud water quality. For this purpose, procedure presented by Box & Jenkins were used for modeling which contain three stages, including model recognition, parameter estimation and control of estimated parameters. For all parameters in six hydrometric stations, ARIMA, ARMA, AR, MA, multiplicative or seasonal models were obtained. After modeling pH, Cl-and HCO3-were forecasted from August 2005 up to August 2011 and the percentage of error was calculated. The lowest percentage of error was obtained for pH parameter (5%). In additional to modeling, the correlation between the river discharge and other parameters was calculated and it was distinguished that discharge has negative correlation with all parameters except pH in Eskandari station. The mean of discharge in twenty years’ period showed that Ghaleh Shahrokh station with 44. 57 m3/s has the highest and Varzaneh station with 6. 015 m3/s has the lowest mean of discharge.

Nowadays bio-agriculture as an alternative to conventional agriculture with decreasing environmental Nowadays bio-agriculture as an alternative to conventional agriculture with decreasing environmental hazards is one of the solutions to. reduce environmental problems and Community health. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the differentiation of stockholders of a conventional and bio-agricultural system in Alborz province. The statistical population of this research consisted of all farmers in Alborz province (N=8312) which selected by proportional stratified random sampling method and 148 farmers (103traditionaaal farmers and 45 biofarmers) were selected as a sample. Data were collected by a questionnaire including demographic and economic that validity of it was obtained by a panel of experts. The results showed that the majority of biological farmers were urban residents and younger in comparison with conventional farmers. Also, all of the biological farmers were literate. The results of t-test showed that there was a significant difference between two groups of biological and conventional farmers regarding age, education level, cultivated area, income level, and agricultural experience. The results of the discriminant analysis showed that the age and cultivated area respectively were the most important in differentiating between the biological farmers and the conventional farmers. Therefore, encouraging rural youth and carrying out agricultural activities by them should be taken into consideration.

The earliest known turtles are from around 215 million years ago, making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups. So far, about 351 turtle species have been reported worldwide, of which about 40% have been introduced as threatened species in the IUCN Red List. Caspian pond turtle (Mauremys caspica) has a relatively wide distribution in the northern and western Iran. Survival of this species has been severely threatened due to habitat destruction, pollution, and water resource mismanagement in Iran. Here, we investigated the genetic diversity and phylogeny of M. caspica in Chaharmahal va Bakhtiari province. A 1040-bp fragment of the cytochrome b gene was sequenced in 12 individuals across the province. A dataset was created using our sequences together with an additional 23 sequences downloaded from GenBank. Based on phylogenetic trees (maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference), the sequences of M. caspica and M. rivulata were separated with the highest bootstrap and posterior probability. All Caspian pond turtle's sequences fell into two clades: Eastern and Western. The findings revealed that turtles from Chaharmahal va Bakhtiari belong to only one haplotype (MCE2) within the eastern clade. The AMOVA analysis, based on Caspian pond turtle's sequences, show that 82. 12% of the overall variation is estimated among the identified clades (Eastern and Western). None of the neutrality indices (Fu’ s FS، Tajima’ s D and Ramos-Onsins and Rozas’ R2) revealed negative and significant values, and thus, the sudden demographic expansion was rejected in the clades of M. caspica. Caspian pond turtle population, based on cytochrome b, in the study area can be regarded to an evolutionarily significant unit.

Oily wastes are the waste that causes environmental pollution and severe damage to the aquatic life. However they have a great potential to be use as preservative (single or combined with synthetic ones) of Biodiesel. Biodiesel as an alternative diesel fuel obtained by transesterification of vegetable fats and oils, using alcohol in the presence of a catalyst, has some advantages such as reduced emissions of unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, sulfates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, but its drawback, of being more prone to oxidation than petroleum-based diesel fuel, can cause the fuel to become acidic (cause fuel system corrosion) and to form insoluble gums and sediments and consequently to increase its viscosity. In this study, in order to increase the stability of biodiesel based on high oleic acid sunflower oil against oxidation process during the storage and distribution, at the presence of natural antioxidants derived from either sewage of olive oil mill or olive oil, and synthetic antioxidant TBHQ. The stability was detected through rancimat test at 110 ° C. The most effective biodiesel formulation in providing higher induction time is for the synergistic effect between natural and synthetic combination. The phenomena were followed and confirmed through FTIR analysis and PCA evaluation.

Agriculture is one important sectors of the economic and impact on the environment. Assessing the environmental impacts of agricultural production is one of the effective ways to achieve sustainable agriculture and preserve natural resources. The present study evaluates environmental impacts of corn production in Khuzestan province as a strategic crop cultivated twice a year. Data were collected from the province's agricultural Jahad, library information and experimental data of farmers in the area. field experiments were carried out in order to determine the irrigation water and yield from March 96 to December 97. Environmental impacts of global warming potentials, acidification potential, Eutrophication potential, fossil fuel consumption, water consumption, phosphate consumption and of potash consumption were investigated. For one ton of corn grain as a functional unit, it was determined that drying Eutrophication and discharging of phosphate sources had the highest potential for damage to the environment, and each of them had a contribution of 18. 73% and 34. 08% in environmental costs of pollutant emissions. In the meantime, the share of water resources consumption in environmental damage impacts was 22. 85%. Environmental index (EcoX) for spring and autumn cultivations was 0. 92 and 0. 70 respectively, and RDI for spring and autumn cultivars respectively was 1. 75 and 1. 29, respectively. So, in order to reduce the pollution of corn production in the region, it is necessary to manage the optimum use of chemical fertilizers, replace them with organic fertilizers and use of biological fertilizers, use of nitrogen supply sources with less pollution potential. It is also recommended to plant early varieties in spring crop with high potential and consistent with the region's hydrological conditions.

Phytoremediation is a method to refine heavy metals from soil. Using chelators can increase the efficiency of phytoremediation. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Nitrilo Triacetic Acid (NTA) on growth indexes and the efficiency of phytoremediation by maize in Cd-contaminated soils under leaching condition. In this way, in the greenhouse, an experiment was conducted consisting three levels of Cd contamination (0, 25 and 50 mgkg-1 soil) and three levels of NTA (0, 15 and 30 mmolL-1 in pot). According to the results, the most amount of Cd in the shoot and root of the plant was observed in Cd50NTA30 (50 mgCd/kg soil and 30 mmolNTA/L in pot) by 2 and 1. 8 times, respectively, than Cd50NTA0 (non-application of NTA). Also, the amount of Cd in drainage water in both of Cd25 and Cd50 with apply NTA30 were the maximum amount. In Cd50NTA30 toxicity symptoms were observed in the form of yellowish leaves, decreased chlorophyll index, necrosis and a significant decrease in dry weight of plant organs, leaf area, and plant height. In Cd50NTA30 the amounts of BAC and BCF were increased by 2. 8 and 2. 4 times, respectively, than Cd50NTA0. In the case of similar treatments, the amount of TI was decreased by 33%. TF could only show a significant increase in Cd50NTA30 than Cd50NTA0. According to the results, the use of NTA as a chelator that has the least environmental damage can significantly increase the efficiency of phytoremediation by maize.

The role of artificial recharge projects has always been considered in the sustainability of the region development. In this study, this role has been indicated as sustainability evaluation of Kal project by IUCN method, Classic Delphi method (in classification Verdenburg, with 3 phases and questionnaire) and Snowball method in the pre and post implementation of the artificial recharge project (2009-2016). This method could compare the current and ideal situations of a region. In this research, 6 criteria and 14 indicators have been indicated for the ecosystem and human dimensions (3 indicators for both water and vegetation criteria, and 2 indicators for each of soil, population, poverty and land use criteria). In research, use 16 exports. The results showed that the ecosystem sustainability is in the moderate situation with a slight upward trend (50. 07 – 51. 03). And, the sustainability of human dimension has improved to relatively stable (50. 47 – 61. 13). Also, the trend of EC (26 to 21. 8), national lands (92 to 83. 6) grabbing and changing the land use of rangelands (80 to 65) have been decreased. In general, the study area has been in a moderate sustainability situation in both periods.

Development of an integrated industrial solid waste management plan, taking into account economic and environmental aspects, can help to optimal use of resources. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the existing solid waste management system in Nazarabad Industrial Estate and to propose scenarios to enhance the current waste management system. After waste quantity and composition determined, new scenarios were defined and each scenario was compared using an approach based on MFA. Proposed waste management scenarios were: 1: collection of waste and transfer to a material recovery facility. 2: collection of waste and disposal of waste in landfill. Considering a 5-year time frame for waste management, the MFA and uncertainty analysis was implemented in STAN software. In the next step, using results obtained from MFA, environmental burdens of each scenario was calculated using life cycle assessment method. The results of this study revealed that, except for acid gas emission impact category, scenario one will result in lower environmental impacts. It is conjectured that the RDF process incorporated into scenario one may resulted in higher acid gas emissions. A preliminary economic analysis also showed that the capital cost of implementing scenario one is higher but the revenue from the sale of RDF will return back the capital cost within 5 years. Due to an increase of public opposition to the sitting of new landfills, the cost of current waste management, which relied totally on landfilling of waste, will even increase significantly in the future. Therefore, we propose to implement scenario one in order to move towards a more sustainable way of waste management in this industrial city.

Ecological Niche Models (ENMs) are commonly used in ecology, conservation and biogeography. ENMs use occurrence data and environmental variables to calculate probabilities of the species’ presence in the defined geographic space. In the present study, we used Maxent, 107 occurrence records and nine environmental variables (six bioclimatic variables, altitude, slope and the normalized difference vegetation index) to develop a country level distribution model for Western Rock Nuthatch, Sitta neumayer in Iran. We determined the most important environmental predictors of species distribution in Iran. Results showed that Zagros Mountains and Alborz Mountains are the most suitable habitats for the species in Iran. Results also revealed that Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), altitude, annual precipitation were the most important environmental variables effecting distribution of the species in Iran. In this study, we also modeled past distribution of the species during the Last Glacial Maximum. Results showed that potential distribution of Eastern Rock Nuthatch was different from its current distribution, however, most of the Zagros was suitable for the species during Last Glacial Maximum. Since our results showed that NDVI is the most important predictor of the species’ s distribution in Iran and strongly affect its presence, we suggest protection of vegetation cover in the habitat of the species for conservation of Western Rock Nuthatch.