The toxicity of a chemical substance in a workplace depends on both its physical and chemical properties, the level of concentration in the breathing air, as well as, the duration of the exposure. In order to ensure healthy conditions at workplace, international organizations, such as the World...

According to the actual European context, including the development of risk free residential and industrial areas, the main demand lies in instant, accurate and elaborated information regarding environment quality and pollution risks. This paper presents a conceptual architecture for a versatile...

The objective of this study was to provide a quantitative description of the impact of converting tropical forests into pastures for cattle grazing in terms of the sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations at the outlet of a river basin located in North West Costa Rica. The Soil and Water...

Chlorination disinfection by-products (DBPs) are formed when water is chlorinated and the organic matter in the water reacts with chlorine to form these by-products. There have been concerns about the potential health effects of these by-products, including cancer and reproductive effects. Here we...

Chloroform and other bromochlorotrihalomethanes were first identified as disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in chlorinated water in 1970s. Since then, many other DBPs have been identified such as haloacetonitriles, haloacetaldehydes, cyanogen halides, aldehydes, ketoacids, chlorite, bromate and other...

Effluents from five major textile industries in Kaduna (Nigeria) were characterized for a proposed central effluent treatment plant. Seven of the measured parameters exceeded the limit set by the Federal Ministry of Environment. Colour intensity exceeded it in all the samples (Mills 1 – 5) by about...

Major environmental problems in metallic mining areas come from the hazard of metal pollution of surrounding areas. Therefore, an appropriated management of these soils is necessary for minimizing the associated risks. Some properties of mining soils, such as elevated metal concentrations, pH and...

Metal pollution can have adverse effects on human health but also on environment. Usually, risk is assessed on the basis of the total concentration of a trace metal in soils and sediments. Nevertheless, for checking the short and long-term true environmental impact of a trace element, one of the...

The podzolic soils of the Kola Peninsula, Russia, have in localised areas been highly contaminated with copper and nickel from smelting activities. Migration and retention of these metals were investigated in undisturbed soil columns irrigated with simulated background and polluted precipitation in...