No abstract

No abstract

The practice of raw material extraction has a high impact on the environment and represents a potential threat to the health and thriving of local communities. The concept of Extractive Essential Variables (EEVs) are explored in order to propose variables that can be used to quantify the environmental footprint of mineral extraction. Considering the interdependence of mining activities with social, economic and environmental issues, the variables target the development of monitoring tools for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The identification of EEVs is based on the use of Earth Observation products in the field of mineral resources exploitation. A list of variables is proposed based on three classes of Essential Variables (EVs): installation and exploration phase, mineral extraction, and ore processing. These variables take into account the impacts of mining on the hydrology, land, water resources and the atmosphere of the area subjected to mineral exploitation. One of the variables is implemented as an operational workflow addressing SDG15, "life on land". The workflow is intended to assess the area of forest ecosystem lost due to the presence of a mining site. Geospatial data on the extent of mining concessions and forest cover are combined using ArcGIS TM. The workflow is successively translated into a Unix script to automatize the process of data treatment. The script is developed using the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL). The use of a Virtual Laboratory Platform (VLab), a web-service-based access platform, increases the accessibility of data and resources and the re-use of the script. This work is a first attempt to propose a framework of EEVs, derived data workflows, while the underlying methodology, partially based on scientific publications and on personal reasoning, still needs to be tested and, improved based on expertise in the sector.

No abstract

Nitrogen (N) inputs to developed coastlines are linked with multiple ecosystem and socio-economic impacts worldwide such as algal blooms, habitat/resource deterioration, and hypoxia. This study investigated the microbial and biogeochemical processes associated with recurrent, seasonal bottom-water hypoxia in an urban estuary, western Long Island Sound (WLIS), that receives high N inputs. A 2-year (2020–2021) field study spanned two hypoxia events and entailed surface and bottom depth water sampling for dissolved nutrients as inorganic N (DIN; ammonia-N and nitrite + nitrate (N + N)), organic N, orthophosphate, organic carbon (DOC), as well as chlorophyll a and bacterial abundances. Physical water quality data were obtained from concurrent conductivity, temperature, and depth casts. Results showed that dissolved organic matter was highest at the most-hypoxic locations, DOC was negatively and significantly correlated with bottom-water dissolved oxygen (Pearson’s r = −0.53, p = 0.05), and ammonia-N was the dominant DIN form pre-hypoxia before declining throughout hypoxia. N + N concentrations showed the reverse, being minimal pre-hypoxia then increasing during and following hypoxia, indicating that ammonia oxidation likely contributed to the switch in dominant DIN forms and is a key pathway in WLIS water column nitrification. Similarly, at the most hypoxic sampling site, bottom depth bacteria concentrations ranged ~ 1.8 × 10 4 –1.1 × 10 5 cells ml −1 pre-hypoxia, declined throughout hypoxia, and were positively and significantly correlated (Pearson’s r = 0.57; p = 0.03) with ammonia-N, confirming that hypoxia influences N-cycling within LIS. These findings provide novel insight to feedbacks between major biogeochemical (N and C) cycles and hypoxia in urban estuaries. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10533-023-01021-2.