Search

This review describes the main characteristics of common antibiotics, their environmental and health effects, and also their fate in the environment, and furthermore provides insights into the adsorption of antibiotics onto CNTs as promising adsorbents.

Free-ranging domestic dogs Canis familiaris threaten wildlife species through predation, hybridization, competition for resources, and by contributing to the transmission of pathogens. The impacts of predation may be problematic, but in many regions the interactions of free-ranging dogs and wildlife are poorly studied. To determine the extent of the impacts of attacks by free-ranging dogs on Iranian mammals, we reviewed nearly 2 decades of social and traditional media reports and the scientific literature to gather data from across the country. We identified 160 free-ranging dog attacks (79 from academic articles, 14 from social media, and 67 from a variety of news websites) from 22 of the country's 31 provinces. Attacks by dogs were reported on 17 species, including nine Carnivora, six Artiodactyla, one Rodentia, and one Lagomorpha species. Most of the reported attacks on carnivores were on felids, including the Asiatic cheetah Acinonyx jubatus (n = 19), Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx (n = 18), caracal Caracal caracal (n = 10) and Pallas's cat Otocolobus manul (n = 8). Attacks on Artiodactyla were primarily reported for goitered gazelle Gazella subgutturosa (n = 47). Most of these attacks occurred within or adjacent to protected areas (n = 116, 73%), suggesting that free-ranging dogs are one of the most important human-associated threats to wildlife species even in protected landscapes. The impact of free-ranging dogs may be hampering conservation, and therefore we suggest some practical policy guidance for managing the impacts of free-ranging dogs on threatened species.

Methylene blue as a cationic dye is ubiquitously found in aquatic systems and its presence in water resources can be hazardous. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate extensively the efficiency of activated carbon prepared from grapevine for removing Methylene Blue from aqueous solutions because of its outstanding properties such as cost-effectiveness, simple synthesis, availability, and applicational. For this purpose, the effect of the main operational parameters such as Methylene Blue initial concentration (500-100 mg/l), adsorbent dosage (0.25-12.25 g/l), pH (3-11), and contact time (10-90 min) was optimized through surface response method. The obtained results showed that more than 97.8% of MB has been removed. The experimental data were fitted to the Freundlich model (R2=0.99) and the maximum adsorption capacity was 2.23 mg/g. Also, the adsorption kinetics are well explained by the pseudo-second-order (R2=0.91). This study shows grape waste can be used as a potential alternative candidate for adsorption of Methylene Blue from aquatic environments.

In the present research, the coagulation-flocculation (CF) process was used to eliminate highly turbid water in disaster conditions. To better understand the efficiency of the system, the impact of various numerical factors namely; initial turbidity (10–350 NTU), pH (5–9), coagulant dosage (50–250 mg/L), rapid mixing (120–280 rpm), slow mixing (30–50 rpm), and sedimentation time (10–50 min) were optimized through the central composite design (CCD) under response surface methodology (RSM). Based on analysis of variance (ANOVA), the quadratic model was more suitable for the dataset with R2 = 0.85 for removing turbidity. Moreover, the results of the present study revealed that the highest turbidity removal (99.14%) was observed at pH (9), alum dosage (50 mg/L), initial turbidity (350 NTU), rapid mixing (280 rpm), slow mixing (50 rpm), and sedimentation time (50 min). Furthermore, the residual turbidity at the maximum efficiency of the system was 3 NTU.

Background & Aims of the Study: One of the most important harmful factors in big cities is noise, and traffic is regarded as the most important source of noise pollution. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the level of knowledge, attitude, and practice of people in Kermanshah, Iran, regarding the potential effects of noise pollution on their health. Materials and Methods: A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect data from 340 respondents residing in 34 identified stations in the city that were considered urban areas. The questionnaire sought information about knowledge, attitude, and practice level of people in Kermanshah, Iran, regarding the effects of traffic noise pollution on human health in spring 2017. Results: According to the results, 3.57% of the participants believed that mass media notification could be effective in controlling noise pollution (relatively high and positive); however, only 3.27% of the respondents utilized sound control methods (poor level of performance). Furthermore, 5.21% of the cases highlighted the effectiveness of the first floor of the buildings as a noise reduction factor for other blocks in a building complex (low level of awareness). Conclusion: Citizens in Kermanshah, Iran, obtained a low level of awareness and performance about the effects of noise pollution; however, they had a much higher and better attitude toward this issue. Accordingly, educational programs should be implemented to increase their levels of awareness and performance.

The present study aimed to investigate the feasibility of applying recovered water treatment sludge (WTS) as a low-cost coagulant using the acidification/sonification method for turbidity removal. The WTS was completely characterized by BET, XRD FTIR, and FE-SEM observation. The effects of the main variables including WTS dosage (50–250 mg/l), sedimentation time (10–50 min), initial turbidity (10–350 NTU), and pH values (5–9) have been assessed and optimized using central composite design through response surface methodology. The developed empirical model significantly predicts and supports the results. The results showed that the turbidity removal was approximately completed at pH 9, initial turbidity of 350 NTU, and sedimentation time of 10 min by applying 250 mg/l WTS. The turbidity removal at the optimum condition was 85.83%. The results of this study indicated a high potential for recycled WTS as a low-cost coagulant, which can be used in the full-scale application.

Southern Iran is a conservation priority area for the endangered Persian onager (Equus hemionus onager), which is threatened by habitat fragmentation and conflict with local communities. To better understand factors that influence onager conservation, we administered a questionnaire in local communities to survey their ecological knowledge, personal experience related to onager, and attitudes toward traditional solutions for reducing crop damage by onager. In addition, we used resistant kernel and factorial least-cost path analyses to identify core areas and corridors for onager movement, and spatial randomization of vehicle collisions and crossing locations to test the predictive ability of resistant kernel and factorial least-cost path predictions of movement. We found that local communities that were knowledgeable about onagers experienced less crop damage from onager compared with those who used traditional methods. Habitat connectivity models revealed that core areas of movement are highly concentrated at the center of protected areas. Some sections of core areas have been cut off by roads where most vehicle collisions with onagers occurred. We propose that effective onager conservation will require integrated landscape-level management to reduce mortality risk, protection of core areas and corridors, development of mitigation strategies to reduce vehicle collisions, and conflict mediation between local communities and onagers.

The main treatment unit in conventional systems for surface water is coagulation-flocculation (CF) process, which consumes huge quantities of coagulant, and produces large volume of sludge. The produced sludge is known as one of the components of water treatment sludge (WTS), which is considered as a global issue and hot topic require careful attention from the plant operators and sludge managers to be managed sustainably with applying an ecofriendly method. Among the suggested technologies, recovery and reuse of coagulants from WTS show the potential to decrease the waste disposal and chemicals usage for drinking water treatment significantly. So, this comprehensive review provides a useful insight into environmental and health problems of WTS, reports the sources, physicochemical properties of sludge, describes different sludge management methods by more focus on coagulant recovery (CR), which significantly point out the different aspects of WTS recovery and reuse, and eventually, economic evaluation of the CR process was also discussed. The results of this review confirm that coagulants can be recovered from WTS by different methods and also will be reused for multiple times in the removal of pollutants from water and wastewater. Moreover, the recovered coagulants can be used as building and construction materials, constructed wetlands substrate and other aims.

Iran lies at the southernmost range limit of brown bears globally. Therefore, understanding the habitat associations and patterns of population connectivity for brown bears in Iran is relevant for the species’ conservation. We applied species distribution modeling to predict habitat suitability and connectivity modeling to identify population core areas and corridors. Our results showed that forest density, topographical roughness, NDVI and human footprint were the most influential variables in predicting brown bear distribution. The most crucial core areas and corridor networks for brown bear are concentrated in the Alborz and Zagros Mountains. These two core areas were predicted to be fragmented into a total of fifteen isolated patches if dispersal of brown bear across the landscape is limited to 50,000 cost units, and aggregates into two isolated habitat patches if the species is capable of dispersing 400,000 cost units. We found low overlap between corridors, and core habitats with protected areas, suggesting that the existing protected area network may not be adequate for the conservation of brown bear in Iran. Our results suggest that effective conservation of brown bears in Iran requires protection of both core habitats and the corridors between them, especially outside Iran’s network of protected areas., We would like to thank provincial offices of Iranian Department of Environment for supporting the study. J.V.L.B. was supported by a Ramon & Cajal research contract (RYC-2015-18932) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness. V.P. was supported by (1) the Excellence Project CGL2017-82782-P financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER, EU), and by (2) a GRUPIN research grant from the Regional Government of Asturias (Ref.: IDI/2018/000151).

1. De Araujo et al. (Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13516) described the development and application of a wire foot snare trap for the capture of jaguars Panthera onca and cougars Puma concolor. Snares are a commonly used and effective means of studying large carnivores. However, the article presented insufficient information to replicate the work and inadequate consideration and description of animal welfare considerations, thereby risking the perpetuation of poor standards of reporting. 2. Appropriate animal welfare assessments are essential in studies that collect data from animals, especially those that use invasive techniques, and are key in assisting researchers to choose the most appropriate capture method. It is critical that authors detail all possible associated harms and benefits to support thorough review, including equipment composition, intervention processes, general body assessments, injuries (i.e. cause, type, severity) and post-release behaviour. We offer a detailed discussion of these shortcomings. 3. We also discuss broader but highly relevant issues, including the capture of non-target animals and the omission of key methodological details. The level of detail provided by authors should allow the method to be properly assessed and replicated, including those that improve trap selectivity and minimize or eliminate the capture of non-target animals. 4. Finally, we discuss the central role that journals must play in ensuring that published research conforms to ethical, animal welfare and reporting standards. Scientific studies are subject to ever-increasing scrutiny by peers and the public, making it more important than ever that standards are upheld and reviewed. 5. We conclude that the proposal of a new or refined method must be supported by substantial contextual discussion, a robust rationale and analyses and comprehensive documentation.

The aim of this study was to produce activated carbon derived from corn stalk (AC-CS) with suitable characteristics as inexpensive, nontoxic adsorbent with good efficiency for elimination of Methylene Blue (MB) as cationic dye from aqueous solution in batch adsorption process. The morphology and functional groups of adsorbent were characterized by SEM and FTIR in this dataset. In addition, the influence of MB concentration, pH, adsorbent dosage, and contact time on the removal of dye using AC-CS was tested by central composite design (CCD) under response surface methodology (RSM). Based on results, the parameters adsorbent dose and initial dye concentration for this investigation play an important role in the adsorption studies of methylene blue. The experimental values were in good agreement with the model predicted values also the results of the study showed that maximum absorbance efficiency at initial concentration of 10 mg/l, absorbent dose of 1.4 g, contact time of 50 min and pH 11 was 90%. Keywords: Methylene blue, Adsorption, Response surface methodology, Waste corn

The conventional water and wastewater treatment methods are unable to provide up-to-data organized standards for drinking water and discharging effluents into natural ecosystems. Therefore, developing advanced and cost-effective methods to achieve published standards for water and wastewater and population needs are nowadays necessity. The important parts of this article are providing literature information about dyes and their effects on the environment and human health, adsorption properties and mechanism, adsorbent characteristics, and recent information on various aspects of modified activated carbons with nanosized metal oxides (AC- NMOs) in the removal of dyes. This review also summarized the effect of main environmental and operational parameters such as adsorbent dosage, pH, initial dye concentration, contact time, and temperature on the dye adsorption using AC-NMOs. Furthermore, the applied isotherm and kinetic models have been discussed.