The aeolian transport of dust,

Nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) are among the water quality parameters that cannot be easily removed from wastewater. Unfortunately, the excessive accumulation of nutrients in water can lead to numerous health issues for humans and the environment in general (including aquatic life). This study looked into the potential use of polymeric nanofiltration membranes to remove total phosphorus, ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite from poultry slaughterhouse wastewater. The wastewater samples were subjected to three different treatment systems determined by pore sizes (0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 nm) as well as an integrated system composed of ultrafiltration and nanofiltration as the main units. The results of the study showed that pore size can significantly affect a nanofiltration system’s overall performance for removing nutrients from poultry slaughterhouse wastewater. The phenomenon was supported by the analysis of variance (ANOVA) results, which showed that the treated effluent’s concentrations of the investigated water quality parameters at different pore sizes produced p-values that were less than 0.01 (statistically significant). According to the results of the removal efficiency analysis, the combination of ammonia and a 0.8 nm pore size demonstrated the lowest removal efficiency, with a removal rate of around 54.57%. However, the combination of nitrate and a 0.4 nm pore size showed the best removal efficiency of about 90.5%. On the other hand, the integrated treatment was observed to be highly effective in the removal of the investigated parameters with a removal efficiency ranging from 97.8 to 99.71%. The study’s findings offer useful information about the potential use of nanofiltration treatment systems for wastewater from poultry slaughterhouses.

Humans categorize unwanted sounds in the environment as noise. Consequently, noise is associated with negative human and ecological values, especially when it is derived from an anthropogenic source. Although evidence confirms that many machine-generated anthropogenic sounds have negative impacts on animal behavior and communication, natural sources of non-biological sound, such as wind, rain, running water, and sea waves (geophonies) have also been categorized as noise and are frequently dismissed or mischaracterized in acoustic studies as an outside factor of acoustic habitats rather than an integrated sonic component of ecological processes and species adaptations. While the proliferation of machine-generated sound in the Biosphere has become an intrusive phenomenon in recent history, geophony has shaped the Earth’s sonic landscapes for billions of years. Therefore, geophonies have very important sonic implications to the evolution and adaptation of soniferous species, forming essential ecological and semiotical relationships. This creates a need to distinguish geophonies from machine-generated sounds and how species respond to each accordingly, especially given their acoustic similarities in the frequency spectrum. Here, we introduce concepts and terminology that address these differences in the context of ecoacoustics. We also discuss how Acoustic Complexity Indices (ACIs) can offer new possibilities to quantifiably evaluate geophony in relation to their sonic contest.

Electrochemical methods have been increasingly gaining popularity in the field of wastewater treatment. However, the performance of these methods can be highly affected by the polarity direction as determined by the electrodes arrangement (anode to cathode or cathode to anode); as well as the characteristics of the wastewater to be treated as determined by the type of wastewater. The presented research work investigated the relationship between polarity direction and the removal of pollutants from poultry slaughterhouse wastewater using titanium and aluminium electrode materials. In the first case, the wastewater was exposed to the Ti (anode)-Al (cathode) combination, whereas in the second case the wastewater was subjected to the Al (anode)-Ti (cathode) arrangement. The two cases were designed to see if the polarity direction of the chosen electrode materials affected the removal of pollutants. The removal efficiencies were computed as a ratio of the remaining concentration in the treated effluent to the concentration before treatment. It was observed that the production processes generate highly fluctuating wastewater in terms of pollution loading; for instance, 422 to 5340 Pt-Co (minimum to maximum) were recorded from color, 126 to 2264 mg/L were recorded from total dissolved solids, and 358 to 5998 mg/L from chemical oxygen demand. Also, the research results after 40 min of retention time showed that both electrode arrangements achieved relatively high removal efficiencies; Whereby, the aluminium to titanium polarity achieved up to 100% removal efficiency from turbidity while the titanium to aluminium polarity achieved a maximum of 99.95% removal efficiency from turbidty. Also, a similar phenomenon was observed from total dissolved solids; whereby, on average 0 mg/L was achieved when the wastewater was purified using the aluminium to titanium arrangement, while on average 2 mg/L was achieved from the titanium to aluminium arrangement. A little higher removal efficiency discrepancy was observed from ammonia; whereby, the aluminium to titanium arrangement outperformed the titanium to aluminium arrangement with average removal efficiencies of 82.27% and 64.11%, respectively.

В статье приводятся данные по оценке антропогенных факторов на биологическую активность изучаемых почв. Приведены результаты полевых опытов при загрязнении почв тяжелыми металлами на уровне среднего и высокого при внесении минеральных удобрений. Определены накопления и миграция загрязнителей в организме представителей мезофауны почв. Показано влияние тяжелых металлов на сельскохозяйственные растения. Приведены данные групп беспозвоночных в миграции тяжелых металлов по пищевым цепям. Рассчитан индекс биологического накопления тяжелых металлов представителями трофических групп беспозвоночных. Выявлено, что аккумуляция тяжелых металлов представителями различных трофических групп почвенных беспозвоночных осуществляется не однозначно. Выращивание сельскохозяйственных растений, используемых в пищу вблизи этих территорий потенциально опасно, поскольку культурами накапливаются избыточные количества ТМ. Изучение биологической активности и мониторинг изменений в этой важнейшей части почвенного покрова при его сельскохозяйственном использовании является в высшей степени актуальным и практически значимым.