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Metallothionein (MT) is established as a potentially useful biomarker for monitoring aquatic pollution. This paper addresses widespread inconsistencies in storage conditions, tissue type selection and pre-treatment of samples before MT and metal analysis in biomarker studies. This variation hampers comparability and so the widespread implementation of this monitoring approach. Actively sampled Mytilus edulis in Southampton Water, UK were exposed to different storage temperatures, a variety of tissue types were analysed, and various pre-treatments of transportation on ice, transportation in seawater, depuration, and rapid dissection in the field were examined. Storage temperatures of − 20 °C were found to be adequate for periods of at least ten weeks, as MT was not reduced by protein degradation compared with samples kept at − 80 °C. Whole tissue and digestive gland concentrations of MT and metals were significantly positively correlated and directly relatable. MT in the digestive gland appeared to be more responsive to metals than in whole tissue, where it may be diluted, masking MT responses. However, longer study periods may suffer the effects of mass changes to the digestive gland, which alters MT concentration, and it may therefore be advisable to measure whole tissue. Depuration and transportation in seawater reduced both MT and metal concentrations in the digestive gland, and few correlations between MT and metals were identified for these treatments. It is therefore recommended that: i) samples are transported to the laboratory on ice and dissected as soon as possible thereafter, ii) depuration should not be used when examining MT response to metal exposure until further research clarifying its utility is reported, iii) either whole tissue or the digestive gland can be used to measure MT, though whole tissue may be preferable on long-term studies, and iv) organisms can be stored at − 20 °C before analysis for up to ten weeks. These practices can be applied to future biomonitoring studies and will improve the comparability and repeatability of using MT as a biomarker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Water Framework Directive and its daughter directives recognize the urgent need to adopt specific measures against the contamination of water by individual pollutants or a group of pollutants that present a significant risk to the quality of water. Probability maps showing that the nitrate concentrations exceed a legal threshold value in any location of the aquifer are used to assess risk of groundwater quality degradation from intensive agricultural activity in aquifers. In this paper we use Disjunctive Kriging to map the probability that the Nitrates Directive limit (91/676/EEC) is exceeded for the Nitrate Vulnerable Zone of the River Tagus alluvium aquifer. The Tagus alluvial aquifer system belongs to one of the most productive hydrogeological unit of continental Portugal and it is used to irrigate crops. Several groundwater monitoring campaigns were carried out from 2004 to 2006 according to the summer crops cycle. The study reveals more areas on the west bank with higher probabilities of contamination by nitrates (nitrate concentration values above 50mg/L) than on the east bank. The analysis of synthetic temporal probability map shows the areas where there is an increase of nitrates concentration during the summers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Reactions involving iron play a major role in the environmental cycling of a wide range of important organic, inorganic and radioactive contaminants. Consequently, a range of environmental clean-up technologies have been proposed or developed which utilise iron chemistry to remediate contaminated land and surface and subsurface waters, e.g. the use of injected zero zero-valent iron nanoparticles to remediate organic contaminant plumes; the generation of iron oxyhydroxide-based substrates for arsenic removal from contaminated waters; etc. This paper reviews some of the latest iron-based technologies in contaminated land and groundwater remediation, their current state of development, and their potential applications and limitations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The past decades have witnessed some efforts in point source water pollution controls in China. However, adequate abatement efforts have not been implemented on non-point source control, and non-point source contributions remain and have increased as a share of surface water degradation. It has been noted that conventional command-and-control regulations are ineffective for agricultural non-point source pollution, and watershed abatement trading between point and non-point sources may serve as a cost-effective way to deal with it. In this paper, the feasibility of point-non-point sources effluent trading in China and cost-effectiveness of the trading system on water pollution control are evaluated using a stochastic programming model and a combined probabilistic watershed simulation of a representative agricultural watershed in the Taihu Lake area. The method and model can be used to assess economic and environmental opportunities of trading in similar watersheds in China. The use of explicit emission target and reliability decision rules in the chance-constrained programming model is a practical simplification to convert a stochastic program into a solvable deterministic problem. Based on the simulation, suggestions on development and implementation of point-non-point sources abatement trading scheme in China were discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council 2000/60/EC: Establishing a Framework for Community Action in the Field of Water Policy, states that it is necessary to consider human activities within a river basin in order to prevent and reduce the spreading of pollutants and to achieve good water status. This paper shows a simple method to estimate the environmental pressure from the deicing of roads as steady state chloride concentration in water. The data processed are presented using GIS. The result showed that the contribution of deicing salt is of importance for the chloride concentration on a regional scale. The increase in chloride concentration is also compared to the background concentration and other sources of chloride within the river basin. Road salt applied by the Swedish National Road Administration (SNRA) accounts for more than half of the total chloride load for the river basin investigated. The method presented may easily be generalised to a national scale for monitoring the environmental effects of deicing salt application. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]