Erasmus+ Project «Integrated Doctoral Program For Environmental Policy, Management And Technology – Intense»: Progress Information And Planned Activity

Erasmus+ project “Integrated Doctoral Program for Environmental Policy, Management and Technology – INTENSE” (586471-EPP-1-2017-1-EE-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP) stated in 2017. The project addresses such root causes of environmental problems in Mongolia, Ukraine and Vietnam, as poorly formulated policies, inadequate selection of management actions and the lack of suitable technology, by building capacity for academic excellence in doctoral training in environmental studies in partner countries (PCs) and beyond. Consortium consists of universities and research institutions from Ukraine, Estonia, Austria, Latvia, Mongolia and Vietnam

Identifying an indoor air exposure limit for formaldehyde considering both irritation and cancer hazards

Formaldehyde is a well-studied chemical and effects from inhalation exposures have been extensively characterized in numerous controlled studies with human volunteers, including asthmatics and other sensitive individuals, which provide a rich database on exposure concentrations that can reliably produce the symptoms of sensory irritation. Although individuals can differ in their sensitivity to odor and eye irritation, the majority of authoritative reviews of the formaldehyde literature have concluded that an air concentration of 0.3 ppm will provide protection from eye irritation for virtually everyone. A weight of evidence-based formaldehyde exposure limit of 0.1 ppm (100 ppb) is recommended as an indoor air level for all individuals for odor detection and sensory irritation. It has recently been suggested by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the National Toxicology Program (NTP), and the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) that formaldehyde is causally associated with nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) and leukemia. This has led US EPA to conclude that irritation is not the most sensitive toxic endpoint and that carcinogenicity should dictate how to establish exposure limits for formaldehyde. In this review, a number of lines of reasoning and substantial scientific evidence are described and discussed, which leads to a conclusion that neither point of contact nor systemic effects of any type, including NPC or leukemia, are causally associated with exposure to formaldehyde. This conclusion supports the view that the equivocal epidemiology studies that suggest otherwise are almost certainly flawed by identified or yet to be unidentified confounding variables. Thus, this assessment concludes that a formaldehyde indoor air limit of 0.1 ppm should protect even particularly susceptible individuals from both irritation effects and any potential cancer hazard

Ecological Consequences from Forest Burning in the Northern Hemisphere in 2020: Results of Modeling and Quantitative Calculations

Purpose is quantitative estimation of the mass of emissions of combustion products, chemical elements, the energy and power of acoustic and thermal radiation caused by the forests large tracts burning in the Northern Hemisphere. Methods. Analytical review of investigation problem, theoretical and computational, numerical modeling, system analysis. Results. It was found that large-scale fires in the Northern Hemisphere in 2020 had catastrophic ecological consequences. The greatest contribution was made by the burning of forests in Russia and the USA. Ecosystems were affected on an area of about 15 million hectares. About 3,5 Gt of wood was irretrievably lost. About 140 Mt of smoke and more than 10 Mt of soot were emitted into the atmosphere. The mass of the injected CO gas was about 350 Mt. The mass of hydrocarbons emitted into the atmosphere was about 140 Mt. About 7,8 Gt of CO2 gas was additionally emitted into the atmosphere. Hundreds of megatons of atomic nitrogen, hundreds of tons of potassium and calcium, as well as from units to tens of tons of such chemical elements as Fe, Zn, Cr, Br, Mn, Pb, Rb, Sr and Se have been emitted into the atmosphere. The energy of acoustic radiation was about 100 PJ, which is almost a thousand times higher than its energy under normal conditions. The energy of weakly damped infrasonic radiation was 1–10 PJ. The thermal radiation flux density reached 56–160 kW/m2. Even after the distribution of forest combustion products around the globe, their concentration exceeded the concentration under normal conditions. This primarily applies to smoke, soot and carbon monoxide. The economic damage amounted to about 750 billion US Dollars. Dozens of people died and were injured. Material and moral damage has been caused to many thousands of people. Material and moral damage caused to many thousands of people.    Conclusions. The ecological consequences of the forests large tracts burning of Northern Hemisphere in 2020 for the planet became a kind of record