Too much of a good thing Sutton, Mark A; Oenema, Oene; Erisman, Jan Willem ...
Nature (London),
04/2011, Letnik:
472, Številka:
7342
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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All biological systems need reactive nitrogen, but historically it has been in short supply. ... the end of the nineteenth century, the main agricultural source was fixation of N2 by symbiotic ...bacteria in legumes planted for that purpose, combined with careful recycling of the limited amount of nitrogen in manure.
In late 2019, a novel infectious disease with human to human transmission (COVID-19) was identified in Wuhan China, which now has turned into a global pandemic. Countries all over the world have ...implemented some sort of lockdown to slow down its infection and mitigate it. Lockdown due to COVID-19 has drastic effects on social and economic fronts. However, this lockdown also has some positive effect on natural environment. Recent data released by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and ESA (European Space Agency) indicates that pollution in some of the epicenters of COVID-19 such as Wuhan, Italy, Spain and USA etc. has reduced up to 30%. This study compiled the environmental data released by NASA and ESA before and after the coronavirus pandemic and discusses its impact on environmental quality.
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•Half of the world population is under some form of lockdown due to COVID-19.•Environmental pollution is reduced up to 30%.•Mobility is reduced up to 90%.
In the methodological context of the interpretation of environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) results, a normalisation study was performed. 15 impact categories were accounted for, including ...climate change, acidification, eutrophication, human toxicity, ecotoxicity, depletion of fossil energy resources, and land use. The year 2000 was chosen as a reference year, and information was gathered on two spatial levels: the global and the European level. From the 860 environmental interventions collected, 48 interventions turned out to account for at least 75% of the impact scores of all impact categories. All non-toxicity related, emission dependent impacts are fully dominated by the bulk emissions of only 10 substances or substance groups: CO2, CH4, SO2, NOx, NH3, PM10, NMVOC, and (H)CFCs emissions to air and emissions of N- and P-compounds to fresh water. For the toxicity-related emissions (pesticides, organics, metal compounds and some specific inorganics), the availability of information was still very limited, leading to large uncertainty in the corresponding normalisation factors. Apart from their usefulness as a reference for LCA studies, the results of this study stress the importance of efficient measures to combat bulk emissions and to promote the registration of potentially toxic emissions on a more comprehensive scale.
The linear production and consumption of plastics today is unsustainable. It creates large amounts of unnecessary and mismanaged waste, pollution and carbon dioxide emissions, undermining global ...climate targets and the Sustainable Development Goals. This Perspective provides an integrated technological, economic and legal view on how to deliver a circular carbon and plastics economy that minimizes carbon dioxide emissions. Different pathways that maximize recirculation of carbon (dioxide) between plastics waste and feedstocks are outlined, including mechanical, chemical and biological recycling, and those involving the use of biomass and carbon dioxide. Four future scenarios are described, only one of which achieves sufficient greenhouse gas savings in line with global climate targets. Such a bold system change requires 50% reduction in future plastic demand, complete phase-out of fossil-derived plastics, 95% recycling rates of retrievable plastics and use of renewable energy. It is hard to overstate the challenge of achieving this goal. We therefore present a roadmap outlining the scale and timing of the economic and legal interventions that could possibly support this. Assessing the service lifespan and recoverability of plastic products, along with considerations of sufficiency and smart design, can moreover provide design principles to guide future manufacturing, use and disposal of plastics.
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•Chemical, physical, biological and magnetic harvesting methods are summarized.•Charge neutralisation, patching, bridging and swapping mechanisms are analyzed.•Application of magnetic ...nanomaterials can realize the microalgae harvesting.•The microalgae production can be combined with environmental pollution control.
Biodiesel is one of the best promising candidates in response to the energy crisis, since it has the capability to minimize most of the environmental problems. Microalgae, as the feedstock of third-generation biodiesel, are considered as one of the most sustainable resources. However, microalgae production for biodiesel feedstock on a large scale is still limited, because of the influences of lipid contents, biomass productivities, lipid extraction technologies, the water used in microalgae cultivation and processes of biomass harvesting. This paper firstly reviews the recent advances in microalgae cultivation and growth processes. Subsequently, current microalgae harvesting technologies are summarized and flocculation mechanisms are analyzed, while the characteristics that the ideal harvesting methods should have are summarized. This review also summarizes the environmental pollution control performances and the key challenges in future. The key suggestions and conclusions in the paper can offer a promising roadmap for the cost-effective biodiesel production.
The purpose of this paper is to integrate the concepts of ecosystem services and disservices when assessing the efficacy of using urban forests for mitigating pollution. A brief review of the ...literature identifies some pollution mitigation ecosystem services provided by urban forests. Existing ecosystem services definitions and typologies from the economics and ecological literature are adapted and applied to urban forest management and the concepts of ecosystem disservices from natural and semi-natural systems are discussed. Examples of the urban forest ecosystem services of air quality and carbon dioxide sequestration are used to illustrate issues associated with assessing their efficacy in mitigating urban pollution. Development of urban forest management alternatives that mitigate pollution should consider scale, contexts, heterogeneity, management intensities and other social and economic co-benefits, tradeoffs, and costs affecting stakeholders and urban sustainability goals.
Environmental managers should analyze ecosystem services and disservices when developing urban forest management alternatives for mitigating urban pollution.
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