The Ecological Situation in Contaminated Areas of Oil and Gas Exploration in Atyrau Region

Askarova, Maulken; Mussagaliyeva, Aizhan N.

doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.02.124

Cited by 11 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…During recent decades the unique ecosystem and biodiversity of the Caspian Sea has been under enormous pressure of numerous anthropogenic stressors and is encountering a multitude of ecological challenges such as industrial and biological contamination [ 28 – 31 ], sea level fluctuation [ 32 – 34 ], fisheries overexploitation, management failure and collapse of commercial fish stocks [ 35 – 37 ], illegal fishing and poaching [ 35 , 38 , 39 ], invasion of Mnemiopsis leidyi [ 39 – 42 ], eutrophication [ 43 , 44 ], loss of biodiversity [ 45 , 46 ], environmental mismanagement [ 47 , 48 ], etc. On top of these pressures, the Caspian Sea environment and bio-resources have been—and will be—inevitably exposed to on-going global climatic changes (like other marine ecosystems); nevertheless, climate is still a largely-ignored issue in marine resources management in this region.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qualitative assessment of climate-driven ecological shifts in the Caspian Sea

2017

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The worldwide occurrence of complex climate-induced ecological shifts in marine systems is one of the major challenges in sustainable bio-resources management. The occurrence of ecological environment-driven shifts was studied in the Southern Caspian Sea using the “shiftogram” method on available fisheries-related (i.e. commercially important bentho-pelagic fish stocks) ecological and climatic variables. As indicators of potential environmentally driven shift patterns we used indices for the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Southern Oscillation, the Siberian High, the East Atlantic-West Russia pattern, as well as Sea Surface Temperature and surface chlorophyll-a concentration. Given the explorative findings from the serial shift analyses, the cascading and serial order of multiple shift events in climatic-ecologic conditions of the southern Caspian Sea suggested a linkage between external forces and dynamics of ecosystem components and structures in the following order: global-scale climate forces lead to local environmental processes, which in turn lead to biological components dynamics. For the first time, this study indicates that ecological shifts are an integral component of bentho-pelagic subsystem regulatory processes and dynamics. Qualitative correspondence of biological responses of bentho-pelagic stocks to climatic events is one of the supporting evidences that overall Caspian ecosystem structures and functioning might have–at least partially–been impacted by global-scale climatic or local environmental shifts. These findings may help to foster a regional Ecosystem-based Approach to Management (EAM) as an integral part of bentho-pelagic fisheries management plans.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qualitative assessment of climate-driven ecological shifts in the Caspian Sea

2017

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Potentially toxic elements in soil of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Tribal areas, Pakistan: evaluation for human and ecological risk assessment

Saddique

Muhammad

Tariq

et al. 2018

Environ Geochem Health

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Potentially toxic elements (PTEs) contaminations in the soil ecosystem are considered as extremely hazardous due to toxicity, persistence and bioaccumulative nature. Therefore, this study was aimed to summarize the results of published PTEs in soil of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Tribal areas, Pakistan. Results were evaluated for the pollution quantification factors, including contamination factor (CF), pollution load index (PLI), ecological risk index (ERI) and human health risk assessment. The highest CF (797) and PLI (7.35) values were observed for Fe and ERI (857) values for Cd. Soil PTEs concentrations were used to calculate the human exposure for the risk assessment, including chronic or non-carcinogenic risks such as the hazard quotient (HQ) and carcinogenic or cancer risk (CR). The values of HQ were > 1 for the Cd, Co and Cr in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Tribal areas. Tribal areas showed higher values of ERI, HQ, and CR as compared to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that were attributed to the mining activities, weathering and erosion of mafic and ultramafic bedrocks hosting ophiolites. This study strongly recommends that best control measures need to be taken for soil PTEs with the intent to alleviate any continuing potential threat to the human health, property and environment, which otherwise could enter ecosystem and ultimately the living beings. Further studies are recommended to combat the soil PTEs concentrations and toxicity in the Tribal areas for a best picture of understanding the element effects on human, and environment can be achieved that will lead to a sustainable ecological harmony.

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