Metal pollution biomonitoring in mining areas using perennial ryegrass (lolium perenne)

The uptake of metals (Pb, Cu, Cd, Zn, Ni, Cr) by perennial ryegrass (Loliumperenne), grown on tailings situated in Central and NW Romania, was investigated by calculating the transfer factors (TFs). The mean TFs decreased as follows: TFPb>TFCd>TFZn>TFNi>TFCr>TFCu. The metal concentrations in tailings ranged between 19.9-2640 mg/kg Cu, 11.4-5156 mg/kg Pb, 9.10-5328 mg/kg Zn, 0.200-89.6 mg/kg Cd, 3.15-77.6 mg/kg Cr, 1.90-58.9 mg/kg Ni and in ryegrass between 2.25-58.6 mg/kg Cu, 0.129-4815 mg/kg Pb, 5.12-174 mg/kg Zn, 0.010-3.50 mg/kg Cd, 0.410-6.20 mg/kg Cr and 0.440-3.71 mg/kg Ni. The linear relationship between the metal content in ryegrass and tailings indicated a significant correlation for Pb and Zn. Metal concentrations in ryegrass differ in the three areas (Certej, Baia Mare and Aries) and can be used as a biomonitor forPb, Zn pollution

SADA and DESYRE DSSs descriptive classification criteria (main issues related to DSS's)

Brownfield rehabilitation is an essential step for sustainable land-use planning and management in the European Union. In brownfield regeneration processes, the legacy contamination plays a significant role, firstly because of the persistent contaminants in soil or groundwater which extends the existing hazards and risks well into the future; and secondly, problems from historical contamination are often more difficult to manage than contamination caused by new activities. Due to the complexity associated with the management of brownfield site rehabilitation, Decision Support Systems (DSSs) have been developed to support problem holders and stakeholders in the decision-making process encompassing all phases of the rehabilitation. This paper presents a comparative study between two DSSs, namely SADA (Spatial Analysis and Decision Assistance) and DESYRE (Decision Support System for the Requalification of Contaminated Sites), with the main objective of showing the benefits of using DSSs to introduce and process data and then to disseminate results to different stakeholders involved in the decision-making process. For this purpose, a former car manufacturing plant located in the Brasov area, Central Romania, contaminated chiefly by heavy metals and total petroleum hydrocarbons, has been selected as a case study to apply the two examined DSSs. Major results presented here concern the analysis of the functionalities of the two DSSs in order to identify similarities, differences and complementarities and, thus, to provide an indication of the most suitable integration options

Keep Them Engaged: Romanian County Inspectorates for Emergency Situations’ Facebook Usage for Disaster Risk Communication and Beyond

Nowadays, the use of social media by public institutions involved in disaster management is starting to become common practice. However, despite scientific interest in the effect of social media on disaster risk and crisis communication, data exploring emergency management agencies’ round-the-clock Facebook usage and the impact of their content and media choices on stakeholder engagement is limited. This study set out to investigate Romanian local emergency agencies’ Facebook usage patterns and stakeholders’ engagement with their content. The data is comprised of 7810 messages posted between the 1st January and 25th October 2017 by 32 County Inspectorates for Emergency Situations. First, using content analysis techniques, the topics of the posts were summarized to illustrate how these agencies use Facebook. Second, stakeholder engagement was investigated using social media marketing techniques. Third, messages related to natural hazards were analyzed in greater depth to reveal disaster risk communication patterns. The results suggest that Romanian emergency agencies mainly promote transparency and their institutional image on Facebook. Stakeholders were most likely to engage with brand-oriented posts, especially if these also offered rich multimedia feature. Meanwhile, stakeholders were less likely to interact with messages about natural hazards, particularly if they incorporated educational content. These observations suggest that, while at the moment Romanian local emergency management agencies take advantage of Facebook to create and maintain relationships with their stakeholders, they bypass opportunities to implement communication strategies for effective disaster risk reduction

Comparative Life Cycle Impact Assessment between the Productions of Zinc from Conventional Concentrates versus Waelz Oxides Obtained from Slags

(1) Background: The importance of Zinc in today’s world can hardly be exaggerated—from anticorrosion properties, to its durability, aesthetic, and even medicinal uses—zinc is ever-present in our daily lives ever since its discovery in ancient times. The natural, essential, durable, and recyclable features of zinc make it a prized material with uses in many applications across a wide array of fields. The purpose of this study was to compare two life cycle impact assessments of zinc production by using two different main raw materials: (A) zinc concentrates (sulfide ore) and (B) Waelz oxides (obtained through recycling existing imperial smelting process furnace slags). The Waelz oxide scenario was based on a case study regarding the existing slag deposit located in Copsa Mica town, Sibiu county, Romania. (2) Methods: consequential life cycle impact assessment methods were applied to each built system, with real process data obtained from the case study enterprise. (3) Results: Overall, the use of slags in the Waelz kiln to produce zinc oxides for use in the production of zinc metal is beneficial to the environment in some areas (acidification, water, and terrestrial eutrophication), whereas in other areas it has a slightly larger impact (climate change, photochemical ozone formation, and ozone depletion). (4) Conclusions: The use of slags (considered a waste) is encouraged to produce zinc metal, where available. The results are not absolute, suggesting the further need for fine-tuning the input data and other process parameters

A Comparative View of Agri-Environmental Indicators and Stakeholders’ Assessment of Their Quality

The degree to which economic goals have been prioritized over environmental and social objectives has caused dissatisfaction with conventional agricultural practices and stimulated the adoption of sustainable farming methods. One way to consider the multidimensionality of sustainable agriculture is to refer to indicators, more precisely, to agri-environmental indicators (AEIs). This study provides a comparative overview of the 28 AEIs of the European Union (EU) and those of the OECD and FAO, additionally revealing how these 28 indicators are reflected in the literature regarding agri-environmental indicators. Furthermore, since much of human behavior is influenced by perceptions, it was critical to reveal the stakeholders’ assessment of the 28 AEIs based on four criteria (“Availability”, “Relevance”, “Target-oriented”, and “Operational simplicity”). The stakeholders’ opinions of the 28 AEIs were assessed using the evaluation matrix. The highest overall evaluation considering the four criteria was received by “Irrigation” and “Soil quality indicators”. The study concludes that tripartite cooperation between stakeholders—farmers, agri-environmental researchers, and policymakers—is needed to successfully implement the AEIs of the EU

Damages associated to 1995-2006 floods and flash-floods in the east of the Apuseni Mountains

During 1995–2006, the Eastern Apuseni Mountains was affected by floods which generate damages almost every year, observing an increase of their frequency towards the end of the mentioned period, when, in only two years (2004–2005), there were manifested nine episodes of such phenomena. The damages analysis was achieved by direct questioning, based on the observation data and reports of the County Inspectorates for Emergency Situations and other competent authorities during the period 1995–2006. Counting the direct damages generated by the floods in the region during the above mentioned period, the total summed 75.624 million US dollars. Among the main socio-economic objectives, traffic infrastructure proved to be by far the most susceptible to the unfavorable action of the floods (72.1% of the damages overall)

GROUNDWATER QUALITY AND ITS SUITABILITY FOR DRINKING AND AGRICULTURAL USE IN A RURAL AREA FROM CLUJ COUNTY (FLORESTI VILLAGE)

In the present study, a hydrochemical investigation was conducted in a rural area from Cluj County, Romania, inorder to determine the chemical composition of groundwater and to evaluate if the investigated water sources canbe used for drinking or agriculture purposes. Several groundwater samples were collected from fifteen wells inorder to analyze the major dissolved ions (Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+, F-, Cl-, Br-, NO2-, NO3-, PO43- and SO42-). Theanalyzed waters proved to have a low level of sodium (0.27 - 41.87 mg/l), magnesium (0.11 – 25.17 mg/l), calcium(0.59 – 117.30 mg/l), chloride (3.33 – 97.68 mg/l) and sulphate (4.42 – 132.80 mg/l), and a high level of potassium(0.22 – 22.59 mg/l), nitrites (detected only in one sample - 1.36 mg/l), nitrate (6.58 – 92.96 mg/l), fluoride (0.24 –1.40 mg/l) and phosphate (12.44 –18.26 mg/l). The possibility of using these waters for agricultural purposes hasbeen assessed by calculating the sodium adsorption ratio (SAR). The results of the present study indicate that theuse for agricultural purposes of some of the analyzed groundwater represent no threat for vegetation, as the SARlevel was lower than 3.0

Resilient society: multidisciplinary contributions from economic, law, policy, engineering, agriculture and life sciences fields

The human imprint on the environment is clearly visible under globalization, whatever is about resources extraction, goods production, or consumption. All these deeply impact on every environmental component, such as forests, agricultural land resources, freshwater, and air quality, because of the need to provide shelter, food, water, or energy to a population of more than seven billion people. How to manage the trade-offs between immediate human needs and to maintain the environment capacity to provide goods and services in the long term seems to be the Earth’s epic “neverending story”. Therefore, the book “Resilient Society” is intended as an attempt to find several answers to the quest of how to become more resilient to environmental, social, or economic pressure. In this context, resilience is understood as the ability to adapt to or tolerate disturbance without collapsing into a qualitatively different state. The volume articulates within a multidisciplinary approach the study of resilience and vulnerability of socio-ecological systems in an effort to disclose the conditions that lead to changes in environmental and resource regimes. This first volume entitled “Resilent Society” of the series “Environment and Human Action” gathers contributions presented at the “International Conference Environmental Legislation, Safety Engineering and Disaster Management” (ELSEDIMA), held on May 26-28, 2016, in Cluj-Napoca (Romania), as well as other papers. This editorial activity aims at contributing to the enlargement of multidisciplinary knowledge and collaborations among researchers working in different fields that can contribute to increasing resilience of socio-ecological systems. The book covers diverse but partially overlapping research areas across natural sciences, social sciences, and engineering, thus capturing insights from economic, law, policy, engineering, agricultural, and life sciences areas. Such knowledge enables to gain a holistic view on the environmental and social challenges that shall constitute a common ground for stakeholders and policy-makers. The editors have confidence that this volume dedicated to resilience will serve as a roadmap for future research and as a catalyst for dialog within scientific community about how to address the environmental interrogations where human actions play a crucial role in shaping the environment

Comparative analysis of technological and Natech risk for two petroleum product tanks located in seismic area

The failure of process equipment due to the impact of natural hazards, the so-called Natech events, have generated several industrial accidents, such as Fukushima, Japan - 2011, Ichihara, Japan - 2011, Tupras, Turkey - 1999, Northridge, US - 1994 etc., causing the release of large quantities of hazardous materials in the environment. Earthquakes occupy a leading position in the list of natural hazards with Natech potential, causing serious damage and the loss of containment in process equipment. The present study reveals the importance of Natech risk analyses for industrial sites. The aim of the study is to compare the Individual Risk (IR) and Societal Risk (SR) results between conventional technological risk and Natech risk, related to a possible Natech event triggered by an earthquake for two petroleum products storage tanks, located in an urban area in the South-Eastern part of Romania. The results show an increase of approximately one order of magnitude in the Natech risk compared to technological risk for the selected study area. Results highlight the fact that Natech scenarios should be included in the risk analysis process for technological sites located in natural hazard prone areas and applied for land-use planning purposes as well