The law on marine environmental protection is a branch of the law on environmental protection and is the basis for the conduct of marine environmental protection. Since its promulgation in 1982, ...China’s Marine Environmental Protection Law has undergone two revisions and three amendments, forming a legal system based on the Constitution, with the Environmental Protection Law as the overarching principle, the Marine Environmental Protection Law as the core, and various laws on the protection of marine elements as the gripping force. The revision of the Marine Environmental Protection Law in 2023 was based on the 2018 supervision and inspection of the enforcement inspection team of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the implementation of the construction of a strong maritime country, and the adaptation to the reform of the ocean governance system. Compared with the previous Marine Environmental Protection Law, the improvements of the newly revised law are mainly reflected in the following: optimizing the institutional mechanism, reflecting the Land and Sea Coordination, strengthening supervision and management, strengthening marine litter pollution prevention and control, enhancing the protection of marine biodiversity, strengthening the regulation of estuaries, and strict liability.
This paper aims to highlight the development of international environmental protection standards with the emergence of environmental management systems aimed at managing the impact of the institution ...and ensuring its commitment to local and international environmental policies and laws. There are several criteria developed by governments and international bodies, as well as other indicators adopted by non-governmental organizations, all of which are considered non-binding but are considered modern mechanisms that contribute to improving environmental performance. So, environment protection has become one of the important factors that should be taken into consideration when making investment decisions.
Scientific research needs to get the most results with the lowest cost, hence how to modify the low-cost material to elevate its value is a valuable subject with both distinct scientific significance ...and extensive potential commercial application. This mini-review reports many achievements on this subject, in which amorphous silica is the starting material. Amorphous silica is a common porous oxide with a relatively low cost, but it can be modified to act as various new functional materials as long as the adopted strategy is smart and accurate. As these achievements are revealed in this review, silica can exert its versatility in environment protection as the efficient trapper of volatile nitrosamines, phenol and organophosphorus pesticide. Besides, silica plays the significant role of a solid strong base and thermal releaser of menthol, providing a clue on how to update the low-cost material into a specific new functional material.
China is considered to be one of the most drought prone countries. This study is dedicated to analyzing the regionalization and spatiotemporal variations of drought based on the Standardized ...Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, which covers the period 1961–2013 across 810 stations in China. Using Spatial “K”luster Analysis by Tree Edge Removal method, China was divided into eight regions: southwest (SW), northeast (NE), north (N), southeast (SE), Yangtze River (YR), northwest (NW), central China (C), and Tibet Plateau (TP). The spatiotemporal variations of drought characteristics indicated that the drought count in NE and C was generally high. Southern China and NW had suffered long drought duration and extreme severity. The MK test results show that stations with significant drying trends mainly locate in SW, N, NW, and C. The severe drought frequency was very high in 1990s and 2000s. Furthermore, more attention should be paid to abnormal less precipitation in summer and abnormal high temperature in spring in SW, NE, N, and C. Besides, abnormal less precipitation is the main factor of drought in SE and YR in whole year. This study is anticipated to support the water resources management, and to promote the realization of environmental protection and agricultural production.
We offer a potential nanocomposite of layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanoparticles and activated carbon (AC) for the elimination of water-soluble dyes from wastewater. The composite was synthesized ...through a hydrothermal treatment of magnesium and aluminum ions in the presence of AC layers which produced from Phoenix dactylifera fruit pits. The impact of different adsorption conditions were tested to collect the best conditions using LDH-AC composite as an adsorbent and methylene blue (MB) as a model of water-soluble dyes. The LDH-AC composite exhibited superior affinity towards the removal of MB molecules. The capacity for adsorption of MB reached 250.2 mg/g at pH 9. The maximum adsorption capacity reached 816 mg/g at room temperature for a monolayer of LDH-AC composites. The recyclability studies showed a five times use of LDH-AC composite as an adsorbent for MB with an efficiency of 70% at the fifth cycle. The existence of interference cations (Mg2+, K+, and Na+) or anions such as (NO3−, SO42−, and Cl−) had a limited influence on the MB adsorption.
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•Synthesis of nanocomposites for wastewater treatment.•Efficient removal of dyes from wastewater.•Adsorption, kinetic and isothermal studies of the nanocomposite.
We demonstrate the hydrothermal synthesis of three dimension (3D) peony-like morphology of zinc gallate (ZnGa2O4), dominated by assembled nanosheets and applied as electrode material in ...electrochemical detection of N,N-dimethylmethanamide chemical. The crystalline, structural and compositional characterizations deduced the formation of high quality ZnGa2O4 with spinal crystal structure. Peony-like 3D ZnGa2O4 was benefited by a high surface area of ~62.3 m2 g−1, good pore distribution (mean pore diameter of ~23.3 nm) and large pore volume of ~0.3622 cm3 g−1. N,N-dimethylmethanamide chemical sensor based on peony-like 3D ZnGa2O4 electrode presented a linear curve in the working dynamic range of 1 nM−10 mM. Significantly improved chemical sensitivity of ~154.2 mA mM−1 cm−2 with low detection limit value of ~0.14 μM were achieved. The fabricated sensor based on peony-like 3D ZnGa2O4 electrode endorsed real sample analysis and ascertained the selectivity towards N,N-dimethylmethanamide chemical by analyzing a range of interfering analytes, viz. ethanol, tetrahydrofuran, methyl amine chemical.
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•Peony-like 3D ZnGa2O4 is applied as electrocatalytic material for N,N-dimethylmethanamide detection.•Peony-like 3D ZnGa2O4/SPE chemical sensor shows a good sensing behavior of ~154.2 mA mM−1 cm−2.•Fabricated sensor exhibits a high selectivity, reproducibility, and a long-term stability.
Trees are the main sources of paper production, in most of the cases, as far as the intellectual usages are concerned. However, our planet is lacking in that particular natural resource due to rapid ...growth of population, urbanization, and increased pollution, more importantly non-judicial utilization of such kind. Indian education sectors (schools, colleges, universities) utilize a major part in consumption of papers as a classical practice for conducting examinations and other documentation activities. Our attempt in this article is to investigate and provide an optimal estimate of the number of pages actually required in answer booklet in higher education sector. Truncated Poisson distribution is found to be the best fit for the data on number of pages left blank in an answer booklet after conduction of semester end examinations. To predict the outcome based on various factors such as, lines per pages, words per line, types of examinations etc. suitable regression modelling is performed. A real data set, collected over a period of one month, has been analysed to illustrate the methods and conclusion is accomplished in the direction of cost reduction, saving of papers, and in turn, logical uses of natural resource to protect environmental interests.
At the 62nd Meeting (2011) of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (henceforth MEPC), the IMO had adopted the proposed amendment adding to the MARPOL Annex Chapter Ⅵ making it mandatory the ...EEDI (Energy Efficiency Design Index) for new ships as well as the SEEMP (Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan) for all ships. This was eventually for reducing GHG emissions from international shipping vessels, and has been effective since the 1st of January 2013 for ships weighing 400GT.
Notably, at the 70th MEPC, the plan to develop a roadmap for the comprehensive IMO strategy on reducing GHGs from ships was approved, and as such, the plans including its short-term, mid-term and long-term measures have been arranged in order to adopt the pertinent strategy by 2023.
Following the approved roadmap, at the 72
nd
MEPC (April, 2018), the first stage of reducing GHG emissions from ships was selected/passed as the Initial IMO strategy for the reduction of GHGs from ships (henceforth Initial IMO GHG Strategy), and at the 73
rd
MEPC (October, 2018), subsequent programs following the Initial IMO GHG Strategy were arranged.
In this paper, the following issues will be introduced and discussed 1) the initial IMO strategy for the reduction of GHG from ships, 2) the contents of the 73 ~ 74 MEPC meeting regarding the follow-up actions related GHG reduction programs until 2023 to be executed (including specific matters concerning the execution of potential short-term, mid-term and long-term measures) 3) the GHG reduction strategies, GHG response policies of IMO member states and 4) finally, trends in technological developments for GHG reduction from ships.
Over the past few decades, numerous concerns have been raised in China over the issue of environmental sustainability. Various soil survey and monitoring programs have been carried out in China to ...study soil quality, and to provide a scientific basis for environment policy making. This paper provides an overview of past and current soil quality surveys and monitoring activities in China. This paper includes a summary of concerns over background concentrations of elements in soil, and soil environmental standards and guidelines in China. Levels of pollution in urban soil, agricultural soil, and soil in mining and smelting areas were compared using the concentrations and pollution indexes. In addition to soil surveys, soil monitoring is essential to study the data and to examine the effects of contaminants in soils. However, the current soil quality monitoring system was insufficient to accurately determine the soil quality status of soils across China. For accurate soil monitoring in China, it will be necessary to set up routine monitoring systems at various scales (national, provincial, and local scales), taking into consideration monitoring indicators and quality assurance. This is currently an important priority for the environmental protection administration of China.
•The main soil survey and monitoring programs in China were summarized.•Levels of pollution in different land types were widely compared and discussed.•The data of soil background value and soil pollution survey was provided.•The technology roadmap of soil environmental quality monitoring was proposed.
In this article, a new homogeneous liquid-liquid microextraction alternative, based on the use of switchable hydrophilicity solvents (SHS), is presented for the first time. The extraction technique ...makes use of a water-immiscible solvent (N,N-Dimethylcyclohexylamine) that can be solubilised in 1:1 ratio using CO2 as reagent. After the extraction, phases׳ separation is induced by the addition of sodium hydroxide, which produces a change on the ionisation state of the amine, centrifugation not being necessary. The extraction technique has been optimised and characterised using the determination of benzaanthracene by fluorimetric measurements in water samples as model analytical problem. Although the native fluorescence of the compound is quenched in the organic phase, this attenuation is reduced by diluting the extractant (1:1) in acetic acid. The fluorescence intensity is 35% higher in the SHS-acetic acid mixture than that obtained in pure methanol. The proposed method allows the determination of the target analyte with limit of detection of 0.08μg/L and good precision (relative standard deviation of 6.7% at the limit of quantification level). The recoveries were in the range of 72–100% fulfilling the Environmental Protection Agency criterion. Finally, the potential use of this microextraction technique in combination with gas chromatography is shown for several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
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•Switchable hydrophilicity solvents are evaluated in the microextraction context.•Carbon dioxide induces the solubilisation of the extractant in the aqueous phase.•Sodium hydroxide induces phase´s separation.•The technique has been evaluated using benzaanthracene as model analyte.•The potential combination of the microextraction technique with GC/MS is shown.