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Official discourses of Development are being redefined. If the key geopolitical contexts shaping the post‐war Development project were decolonisation and the Cold War, the defining world‐historical transformations shaping the emerging vision of Development are the expansion of state capitalism and the rise of China. The IMF, the World Bank, the OECD, the G20, other multilaterals, and bilateral partners are increasingly taking stock of the rise of state capitalism, and acting as ideational vectors of this emerging regime. However, this new “state capitalist normal” is also portrayed as carrying risks. There is anxiety regarding the direction the political form of global capital accumulation is heading: with the unchecked proliferation of state capitalism possibly blunting competition, politicising economic relations, and intensifying geoeconomic tensions. This anxiety underwrites the current re‐articulation of Development, one which embraces the state as promoter, supervisor, and owner of capital; even as it critiques China’s use of similar instruments.

This paper reflects on what materialised during recovery operations following the earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy, on 6 April 2009. Previous critiques have focused on the actions of the Government of Italy and the Department of Civil Protection (Protezione Civile), with little attention paid to the role of local authorities. This analysis sheds light on how the latter used emergency powers, the command-and-control approach, and top-down planning to manage the disaster context, especially in terms of removal of rubble, implementing safety measures, and allocating temporary accommodation. It discusses how these arrangements constituted the mechanism via which ‘disaster capitalism’ took hold at the local and national level, and how it violated human rights, produced environmental and social impacts, hindered local communities from learning, transforming, and building resilience, and facilitated disaster capitalism and corruption. To make the disaster risk reduction and resilience paradigm more effective, a shift from centralised civil protection to decentralised, inclusive community empowerment systems is needed.

Novel building materials were manufactured and analyzed for 226Ra, 232Th and 40K using an HPGe gamma-ray spectrometer. The results show that the highest value of 40K was 4530 Bq per kg which was measured in a sample containing fly ashes from olive stones. The highest values of 226Ra and 232Th activities were 181 and 185 Bq per kg, which were measured in a sample with fly ashes from the co-combustion of coal and coke, respectively. On the other hand, the lowest values of 40K, 226Ra and 232Th activities were obtained for samples incorporating mussel shells. The radiological health hazard parameters, such as radium equivalent activity (Raeq), activity concentration index (I), absorbed and effective dose rates, associated with these radionuclides were evaluated. These values are within the EU recommended limits in building materials, except for samples of concrete containing fly ashes from olive stones, coal and coke. This study has contributed to the inclusion of industrial wastes that have not been collected previously in the Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) databases on radioactivity of building materials.

Providing aid in times of increasing humanitarian need, limited budgets, and mounting security risks is challenging. This paper explores in what organisational circumstances evaluators judge, positively and negatively, the performance of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) in response to disasters triggered by natural hazards. It assesses whether and how, as perceived by expert evaluators, CARE and Oxfam successfully met multiple institutional requirements concerning beneficiary needs and organisational demands. It utilises the Competing Values Framework to analyse evaluator statements about project performance and organisational control and flexibility issues, using seven CARE and four Oxfam evaluation reports from 2005-11. The reports are compared using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The resulting configurations show that positive evaluations of an INGO's internal and external flexibility relate to satisfying beneficiary needs and organisational demands, whereas negative evaluations of external flexibility pertain to not meeting beneficiary needs and negative statements about internal control concerning not fulfilling organisational demands.

Development of selective and sensitive methods for on-site assay of tetracycline (TC) is of great significance for public health and food safety. Herein, a valid ratiometric fluorescence strategy using g-C3N4 nanosheets coupled with Eu3+ is designed for the assay of TC. In this strategy, both Eu3+ and g-C3N4 nanosheets serve as the recognition units of TC. The blue fluorescence of g-C3N4 nanosheets can be quenched by TC via the inner filter effect (IFE); meanwhile, the red fluorescence of Eu3+ can be enhanced by TC through the antenna effect (AE). The synergistic effect of AE and IFE caused by TC makes the developed ratiometric fluorescent sensor display a wide linear range for TC from 0.25 to 80 μM with a detection limit of 6.5 nM and a significant fluorescence color evolution from blue to red. Given its simplicity, free-label, excellent selectivity, high sensitivity, and recognizable color change, point-of-care testing systems, including smartphones and test paper-based assays, are developed for the visual sensing of TC. The integration of smartphones and test paper on a ratiometric fluorescent sensor greatly reduces the detection cost and time, providing a promising method for the qualitative discernment and semi-quantitative assay of TC on-site. Moreover, the potential application of the approach is also verified by detecting TC in milk.

Crisis narratives surrounding Europe's 2015 migration influx fuelled demands for new ways of tracking, mapping and predicting human mobility. We explore how market opportunities for technology firms and data analytics start-ups created by the EU's Global Approach to Migration led to solutionistic approaches to compiling and analysing migration statistics. We show that initiatives such as the rebranding of existing platforms and services as migration prediction systems are consolidating policy conceptualisations of migration as risk. Despite the promise of greater granularity, this "big data approach" cannot offer greater certainty about who is on the move and why. Instead such approaches are ill-suited to understanding the complex dynamics of migration and to offering protection to vulnerable people. The marketisation of migration statistics through big data offers a key case for advancing progressive approaches to both migration statistics and global data justice.Los relatos de crisis en torno a las corrientes migratorias hacia Europa del año 2015 han impulsado la demanda de nuevas formas de seguimiento, mapeo y predicción de la movilidad de personas. Exploramos cómo las oportunidades de mercado para las empresas de tecnología y las nuevas empresas de análisis de datos creadas por el Enfoque Global de la Migración de la UE han causado enfoques simplificadores al compilar y analizar las estadísticas migratorias. Mostramos que iniciativas tales como el cambio de nombre de ciertas plataformas y servicios existentes en los sistemas de predicción migratoria están transformando la conceptualización de las política migratoria como un riesgo. A pesar de la promesa de una mayor granularidad, este “enfoque big data” no logra ofrecer una mayor certeza sobre quién está en movimiento y por qué. Al contrario, estos enfoques no son adecuados para comprender las complejas dinámicas migratorias ni para ofrecer protección a las personas vulnerables. La comercialización de las estadísticas migratorias a través de Big Data ofrece un caso clave para avanzar sobre enfoques más progresivos tanto para las estadísticas migratorias y como para la justicia global de datos.

What do measures of management during this exceptional and volatile time tell us about the regulation of migrant‐driven diversity and its implications in the arrival city? Using the term “differential diversification” from Singapore, I examine how the socio‐political life of the pandemic is deeply entangled with the management of low‐waged labour migrants. Techno‐political discourses and practices of pandemic management accelerated the state’s attempts to differently include migrant workers, revealing the bare viscerality of biopolitics already in place prior to the pandemic. I argue that diversity is ordered through a striking co‐production of migrant management and pandemic management. This paper draws upon government discourses to demonstrate that measures of pandemic management contribute not only to the spatial regime of migrant management. They also articulate and rationalise the subject transformation of the low‐waged migrant to the extent that, on top of being a moral risk, they are also now a medical risk.

Participation has long been considered important for post‐disaster recovery. Establishing what constitutes participation in post‐disaster shelter projects, however, has remained elusive, and the links between different types of participation and shelter programme outcomes are not well understood. Furthermore, recent case studies suggest that misguided participation strategies may be to blame for failures. This study analysed 19 shelter projects implemented in the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013 to identify the forms of participation employed. Using fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis, it assessed how household participation in the planning, design, and construction phases of shelter reconstruction led to outcomes of household satisfaction and safe shelter design. Participation was operationalised via eight central project tasks, revealing that the involvement of households in the early planning stages of projects and in construction activities were important for satisfaction and design outcomes, whereas engagement during the design phase of projects had little impact on the selected outcomes. National Science Foundation, United States Agency for International Development Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, Nicolas R. and Nancy D. Petry Fellowship in Construction Engineering and Management

This article is based on the analysis of the practices and representations of publishers who attend the fairs of printed art held in the city of São Paulo in recent years. Our goal is to understanding the sociotechnical vectors that organize these practices and the materialities of the editorial objects published and marketed there. At the heart of the analysis is the relationship between the technicities (codex, paper, and print) mobilized by these publishers and certain conceptions of the past, present, and future that are inscribed in their individual and collective investments, between the "return to the artisanal" and the pretension to build a viable future for the publication. It is concluded that the new forms of fetishization of the printed book are conditioned by both the technical evolutions provided by digital technologies and by the programmatic denial of the conventional book identified with the mainstream publishing market., O presente artigo parte da análise das práticas e representações de publicadores que frequentam as feiras de arte impressa realizadas na cidade de São Paulo nos últimos anos para compreender os vetores sociotécnicos que organizam essas práticas e as materialidades dos objetos editoriais que aí se publicam e comercializam. Coloca-se, no centro da análise, a relação entre as tecnicidades (o códice, o papel e a impressão) mobilizadas por esses publicadores e certas concepções de passado, presente e futuro inscritas em seus investimentos individuais e coletivos, com destaque para a tensão entre o “retorno ao artesanal” e a pretensão de construir um futuro viável para a publicação. Conclui-se que as novas formas de fetichização do livro impresso estão condicionadas tanto pelas evoluções técnicas proporcionadas pelas tecnologias digitais como pela negação programática do livro convencional, identificado com o mercado editorial mainstream.

Numerous resilience measurement frameworks for climate programmes have emerged over the past decade to operationalise the concept and aggregate results within and between programmes. Proxies of resilience, including subjective measures using perception data, have been proposed to measure resilience, but there is limited evidence on their validity and use for policy and practice. This article draws on research on the Decentralising Climate Funds project of the Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters programme, which supports communities in Mali and Senegal to improve climate resilience through locally controlled adaptation funds. It explores attributes of resilience from this bottom‐up perspective to assess its predictors and alignment with food security, as a proxy of well‐being. We find different patterns when comparing resilience and the well‐being proxy, illustrating that the interplay between the two is still unclear. Results also point to the importance of contextualising resilience, raising implications for aggregating results.

Climate extremes and longer‐term climate change impacts threaten the achievement of development goals (Damania et al., 2017; IBRD, 2018). In 2030, up to 319 million extremely poor people will be living in the 45 countries most exposed to floods, droughts and heat extremes (Shepherd et al., 2013). According to the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on 1.5°C global warming, a 2°C increase in temperature will double 1 the number of people exposed to drought through water stress (IPCC, 2018). To eradicate extreme poverty by 2030, development cooperation and domestic action in the developing world is increasingly concerned with building resilience to these climate hazards (SDG Goal 1.5). Amid lively critical debates, the resilience‐building agenda has sparked a proliferation of projects in recent years. Resilience programmes are being implemented in some of the most climate‐vulnerable, institutionally fragile and unstable settings around the world. Often, they focus on improving people's access to climate and weather information, resources or markets, helping them plan ahead and navigate environmental change and uncertainty in the future. Importantly, resilience‐building is anticipated to give greater agency to vulnerable people and produce more co‐benefits or ‘dividends’ than conventional international development approaches (Rodin, 2014; Tanner et al., 2015a, 2015b; Bond et al., 2017; Cabot Venton, 2018; Cabot Venton et al., 2012). Building resilience from the ground up is critical because of the context‐specific nature of climate change and disaster impacts and the need to ensure the engagement of vulnerable groups. The five‐year, £100m UK Department for International Development (DFID) programme on Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters (BRACED) is one example of this intervention logic. Alongside the implementation of 15 projects in 13 countries, research and monitoring and evaluation, knowledge‐sharing activities that have taken place under BRACED present a unique opportunity to learn about how poor people and communities deal with climate shocks and other hazards in different contexts, their vulnerabilities and the kinds of interventions that can help strengthen their resilience. Similarly, the Action on Climate Today (ACT) programme funded by DFID for five years to provide technical and financial support to governments across five South Asian countries had a lesson‐learning function to share experiences and knowledge across the programme and with the outside world. This special issue of Disasters reflects on resilience‐building supported via BRACED and ACT in some of the world's most climate‐vulnerable countries and contexts. These programmes have focused on scaling up action to build resilience, 2 principally through the expansion and replication of good practices by influencing government policies, plans and investments. The papers provide insights that are each grounded in different contexts and understandings of local realities and the factors that support and undermine people's resilience. The BRACED articles emphasise the importance of this ground‐level engagement. They also highlight a range of different opportunities for intervening in the broader social structures and decision‐making processes that shape these local realities. The focus of the ACT article is explicitly and exclusively concerned with national and local government policy‐making and how this can be influenced. Each of the seven papers selected for this special issue was written by teams of researchers and practitioners engaged in the BRACED and ACT programmes, based in the Global South and North in a range of country contexts from the Sahel to Southeast Asia. Each brings a different perspective on the significance and operationalisation of efforts to build resilience to climate extremes and disasters. The contributing authors describe resilience‐building at different scales, for different types of projects and interventions: from gender‐differentiated perspectives within households in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Chad (Le Masson et al., 2019; McOmber et al., 2019), to devolved community planning and financing in Mali and Senegal (Beauchamp et al., 2019); from sector‐wide agricultural extension support in Sudan (Young and Ismail, 2019), to early warning systems in Ethiopia and Nicaragua (Ewbank et al., 2019), national social protection programmes in Ethiopia (Ulrichs et al., 2019) and advocacy for mainstreaming into government policy in South Asia (Tanner et al., 2019). It is important to understand that the projects of the BRACED and ACT programmes, which inspired the articles in this special issue, did not and could not invest in long‐term studies of the kind that could test the hypotheses of the resilience‐building programmes – that, through these sets of interventions, people's resilience could be enhanced and hence the negative impact of climate extremes and longer‐term climate change be reduced. This was because of the brief implementation time frames of both programmes. This is a common challenge with project‐based interventions, where the assessment of potential impacts needs to be done simultaneously with the investments intended to achieve these impacts. As such, these articles are not based on routine evidence of results produced through monitoring, learning and evaluation activities, but rather are selected expert reflections on the projects. They are intended for scientific peer review and journal publication, not project evaluation. The articles present rich and detailed descriptions and reflections from their respective fields and contexts, which we do not exhaustively or definitively summarise in this overview. Rather, this overview paper aims to gently pique the curiosity of readers, and to reflect briefly on the critical questions that the articles help address, which have hereto remain largely unresolved in resilience debates. We select and draw out insights from this special issue that feed into these debates, and highlight their significance for the wider community of humanitarian and development practitioners. Following a brief overview of how the term ‘resilience’ is being used in each of the articles, we then examine how each has approached the challenge of understanding and measuring bottom‐up interventions. We consider the multiple benefits or resilience dividends that make some of these projects unique, and reflect on what the authors consider are the prospects for effecting deeper structural, or transformative changes.

Darfur farming and pastoralist livelihoods are both adaptations to the environmental variability that characterises the region. This article describes this adaptation and the longer‐term transformation of these specialised livelihoods from the perspective of local communities. Over several decades farmers and herders have experienced a continuous stream of climate, conflict and other shocks, which, combined with wider processes of change, have transformed livelihoods and undermined livelihood institutions. Their well‐rehearsed specialist strategies are now combined with new strategies to cope. These responses help people get by in the short term but risk antagonising not only their specialist strategies but also those of others. A combination of factors has undermined the former integration between farming and pastoralism and their livelihood institutions. Efforts to build resilience in similar contexts must take a long‐term view of livelihood adaptation as a specialisation, and consider the implications of new strategies for the continuity and integration of livelihood specialisations.

Cost-effectiveness analysis is increasingly relevant in humanitarian action. The cost of response has increased exponentially in the past decade, alongside concurrent donor budget restrictions. However, there remains limited comprehension and application of these methods in this field. This paper documents methods developed for use within Action Against Hunger, an international humanitarian organisation, in response to a lack of understanding of this topic within the humanitarian community and limited evidence of the cost-effectiveness of humanitarian action. These methods encompass costs to both implementing institutions and participating communities. Activity-based cost analyses are conducted to assess resources per programme activity. Cost-effectiveness is evaluated using successful programme outcomes, and uncertainty is appraised via sensitivity analysis. This paper aims to advance knowledge, stimulate discussion, and promote the adoption of cost-effectiveness methods for building the evidence base for humanitarian action, including consideration of community costs, to enable analytical outputs that are useful for managers and policymakers alike.

What consequences does ‘everyday violence’ have on the abilities of survivors to protect themselves from further risks? This paper seeks to establish the linkages between violence and people's resilience capacities to survive and adapt to environmental changes, particularly those living in fragile economic and political contexts such as Chad. It investigates not only how the adverse consequences of violence against women and girls affect the health status and livelihoods of survivors, but also their capacities, and those of their household and community members, to further protect themselves from other risks. Empirical evidence collected in Chad as part of the BRACED (Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters) programme shows that ‘everyday violence’ undermines resilience‐building at the individual, household, and community level. These results have serious implications for development programmes and the role they need to play to better promote both gender equality and resilience to shocks and stresses.

This article analyses the role of social protection programmes in contributing to people's resilience to climate risks. Drawing from desk-based and empirical studies in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, it finds that social transfers make a strong contribution to the capacity of individuals and households to absorb the negative impacts of climate-related shocks and stresses. They do so through the provision of reliable, national social safety net systems-even when these are not specifically designed to address climate risks. Social protection can also increase the anticipatory capacity of national disaster response systems through scalability mechanisms, or pre-emptively through linkages to early action and early warning mechanisms. Critical knowledge gaps remain in terms of programmes' contributions to the adaptive capacity required for long-term resilience. The findings offer insights beyond social protection on the importance of robust, national administrative systems as a key foundation to support people's resilience to climate risks.

Researchers from academia and the corporate-sector rely on scholarly digital libraries to access articles. Attackers take advantage of innocent users who consider the articles' files safe and thus open PDF-files with little concern. In addition, researchers consider scholarly libraries a reliable, trusted, and untainted corpus of papers. For these reasons, scholarly digital libraries are an attractive-target and inadvertently support the proliferation of cyber-attacks launched via malicious PDF-files. In this study, we present related vulnerabilities and malware distribution approaches that exploit the vulnerabilities of scholarly digital libraries. We evaluated over two-million scholarly papers in the CiteSeerX library and found the library to be contaminated with a surprisingly large number (0.3-2%) of malicious PDF documents (over 55% were crawled from the IPs of US-universities). We developed a two layered detection framework aimed at enhancing the detection of malicious PDF documents, Sec-Lib, which offers a security solution for large digital libraries. Sec-Lib includes a deterministic layer for detecting known malware, and a machine learning based layer for detecting unknown malware. Our evaluation showed that scholarly digital libraries can detect 96.9% of malware with Sec-Lib, while minimizing the number of PDF-files requiring labeling, and thus reducing the manual inspection efforts of security-experts by 98%.

Humanitarian governance is usually understood according to the classic, Dunantist paradigm that accords central importance to international humanitarian agencies. However, this is increasingly paralleled by 'resilience humanitarianism' that focuses, among other things, on including national actors in humanitarian governance. This article views humanitarian governance as emerging through interactions between authorities, implementing agencies and communities. It is based on interactive ethnography in five countries by Partners for Resilience (PfR). Using the Theory of Change (ToC) tool, it analyses the various interpretations and priorities of actors involved in humanitarian problems, solutions and programme governance. For example, PfR had a 'software' focus, aiming to unlock communities' potential for resilience, whereas communities and authorities preferred to receive tangible 'hardware' support. The findings highlight the crucial role of local authorities in shaping humanitarian aid. This is especially pertinent in view of the international agenda to localise aid, which requires the understanding and support of national actors in order to responsibly protect the vulnerable.

Drills are an important element of disaster management, helping to increase preparedness and reduce the risk of real-time failure. Yet, they are not applied systematically to slow-onset disasters such as a drought, which causes damage that is not instantly apparent and thus does not solicit immediate action. This case study evaluates how drills inform institutional responses to slow-onset disasters. It spotlights Guatemala, a country where drought has severe impacts on livelihoods and the food security of small farmers. By implementing part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food's institutional response plan for drought, it explores how drills can help to detect issues in emergency response and to foster an institutional focus on improvements in preparedness. The results reveal that drills alone do not trigger institutional improvements if unsupported by a wider strategy that seeks to enhance capacities and protocols. These findings are valuable, however, in making problems transparent and in creating the space for discussion.

In recent years, increasing efforts have focused on production of organic-inorganic compound fertilizers using ammonium sulfite pulping waste liquor. However, their ecological effects on soil have not been studied. In this study, earthworm Eisenia fetida was exposed to various doses (0, 0.13, 0.26 and 0.52 kg/m2) for different time (7, 14, 21, and 28 d) to evaluate the effects of fertilizers made from pulping waste liquor, including reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, antioxidant enzymes activities, glutathione S-transferase enzyme (GST) activity, malondialdehyde (MDA) content and DNA damage. Results showed that there were significant increase of ROS and MDA levels after 14 d, inducing production of antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD) and catalase (CAT)) as well as GST. Before 14 d, excess ROS and MDA caused damage to the DNA of earthworms, leading to gradual increase of Olive tail moment (OTM) in the comet assay. With the exposure time extended to 28 d, owing to the combined effects of elimination of free radicals by antioxidant enzymes and detoxification enzymes as well as self-repairing function of cells, ROS and MDA levels declined slightly and OTM gradually decreased. In summary, this study indicated that there was a toxicological effect on earthworms when fertilizers made from pulping waste liquor were applied to soil, which needs more attention.

This paper reflects critically on the results of a vulnerability assessment process at the household and community scale using a quantitative vulnerabilities and capacities index. It validates a methodology for a social vulnerability assessment at the local scale in 62 villages across four agro-ecological/livelihood zones in Sindh Province, Pakistan. The study finds that the move from vulnerability narratives to numbers improves the comparability and communicational strength of the concept. The depth and nuance of vulnerability, however, can be realised only by a return to narrative. Caution is needed, therefore: the index can be used in conjunction with qualitative assessments, but not instead of them. More substantively, the results show that vulnerability is more a function of historico-political economic factors and cultural ethos than any biophysical changes wrought by climate. The emerging gendered vulnerability picture revealed extremes of poverty and a lack of capacity to cope with contemporary environmental and social stresses.

This multi‐authored contribution explores what the COVID‐19 pandemic demands of critical inquiry with a focus on the more‐than‐human. We show how COVID‐19 is a complex series of multispecies encounters shaped by humans, non‐human animals, and of course viruses. Central to these encounters is a politics of difference in which certain human lives are protected and helped to flourish while others, both human and animal, are forgotten if not sacrificed. Such difference encompasses practices of racialisation and racism, healthcare austerity, the circulation of capital, border‐making, intervention into non‐human nature, wildlife trade bans, anthropocentrism, and the exploitation of animal test subjects. The contributions highlight how COVID‐19 provides a needed opportunity to unite new materialist and anti‐racist, anti‐colonial scholarship as well as reimagine more radically sustainable multispecies futures. This requires embracing anti‐colonial humility, confronting debts owed to lab animal frontline workers, and rethinking economic systems that helped unleash COVID‐19 and ensured it became a disaster.

Lake Van fish (Alburnus tarichi Guldenstadt 1814) is the only fish that can adapt to the extreme conditions (pH 9.8 salinity 0.2% and alkalinity 151.2 meq/L) of Lake Van. In this study, it was aimed to determine the cytotoxic and genotoxic effects of chlorpyrifos (CPF) on Lake Van fish primary gill cell culture. Gill epithelium from Lake Van fish was isolated enzymatically and grown in primary culture on Leibovitz’s L-15 medium. After different doses (0.01, 0.1, 1, and 10 μM) of CPF were applied to the gill cells, the total oxidant status (TOS), total antioxidant status (TAS), malondialdehyde (MDA), and DNA damage levels (8-hydroxyguanine (8-OHdG)) were examined at the end of 24 and 48 h. It was determined that the TOS, MDA, and 8-OHdG levels increased in the cells exposed to high doses (1 and 10 μM) of CPF and the TAS was decreased (P

One of the main issues in the present and upcoming decades is the improvement of natural resource use efficiencies. The industrial use of water is preferred as a target for the implementation of sustainable models of water management with the purpose of reducing the use of this resource and generates less waste. This study aims the application of the Water Source Diagram (WSD) method in paper industry, typology associated to high wastewater generation, as a potential strategy to achieve sustainable industrial processes through wastewater reuse. Operational data from paper industry were provided by previous works. Two scenarios of freshwater consumption were generated to model the system. Both cases showed that the freshwater consumption may be reduced over 30.22%, in relation to the baseline of no reuse. The efficiency of the WSD was also compared to other results reported in the literature. Although economic evaluation has not been addressed in this work, the method could be considered as a strategic tool for decision making. Uno de los principales problemas de la presente y las próximas décadas es la mejora de la eficiencia en el uso de los recursos naturales. Se prefiere el uso industrial del agua como objetivo para la implementación de modelos sostenibles de gestión del agua con el propósito de reducir el uso de este recurso y generar menos residuos. Este estudio tiene como objetivo la aplicación del método Diagrama de fuente de agua (DFA) en la industria papelera, tipología asociada a alta generación de aguas residuales, como una estrategia potencial para lograr procesos industriales sostenibles a través de la reutilización de aguas residuales. Los datos operativos de la industria del papel fueron proporcionados por trabajos anteriores. Se generaron dos escenarios de consumo de agua dulce para modelar el sistema. Ambos casos mostraron que el consumo de agua dulce puede reducirse más del 30,22%, en relación con la línea de base de no reutilización. La eficiencia del DFA también se comparó con otros resultados reportados en la literatura. Si bien la evaluación económica no se ha abordado en este trabajo, el método podría considerarse como una herramienta estratégica para la toma de decisiones. Um dos principais problemas nas décadas atuais e nas próximas é a melhoria da eficiência do uso dos recursos naturais. O uso industrial da água é preferido como alvo para a implantação de modelos sustentáveis de gestão da água com o objetivo de reduzir o uso desse recurso e gerar menos resíduos. Este estudo visa à aplicação do método Diagrama de Fontes de Água (DFA) na indústria de papel, tipologia associada à alta geração de efluentes, como uma estratégia potencial para alcançar processos industriais sustentáveis por meio do reuso de efluentes. Os dados operacionais da indústria de papel foram fornecidos por trabalhos anteriores. Dois cenários de consumo de água doce foram gerados para modelar o sistema. Ambos os casos mostraram que o consumo de água doce pode ser reduzido em mais de 30,22%, em relação à linha de base de não reutilização. A eficiência do DFA também foi comparada com outros resultados relatados na literatura. Embora a avaliação econômica não tenha sido abordada neste trabalho, o método pode ser considerado uma ferramenta estratégica para a tomada de decisões.

Climate change is increasing the severity and the frequency of natural hazards and associated disasters worldwide, yet there is little data tracking how and whether it is being addressed by humanitarian assistance initiatives. Drawing on publicly available United Nations programme data and vulnerability indexes, this study pilots a novel approach to identifying and quantifying the prevalence of climate change-related humanitarian programmes from 2016-18 in five disaster-affected countries. The funding levels of proposed and undertaken interventions were analysed within specific programmatic sub-areas and across clusters. The study found that 1.8 per cent (99 of 5,558) of projects included in humanitarian proposals reviewed during the research have a climate change-related component. Of 1,361 funded projects, 40 of these were climate change-related and received funding. The methodologies tested here to assess and classify climate change-related humanitarian programmes could be expanded to support further tracking of humanitarian responses to climate change across operational contexts.

The aromatic compounds substituted with sulfonate groups, being xenobiotic, resist biodegradation in the environment and tend to accumulate up to toxic levels. The hydrophilic sulfonated group makes these compounds highly water soluble and they tend to pass through water-treatment plants. The release of untreated effluents from these industries results in pollution of water bodies affecting aquatic fauna. Thus, the toxicity regarding these compounds is of major concern. The 2-naphthalene sulfonate is a sulfonated aromatic compound being widely used in textile industries. Being non-biodegradable concern regarding its toxicity has risen. Thus in the light of above facts, the present study was undertaken to determine the toxicity of 2-naphthalene sulfonate in blood cells of Channa punctatus. For this, LD50 was determined and after selection of sublethal doses oxidative stress, genotoxicity and bioaccumulation were studied. For oxidative stress determination, biochemical markers such as malondialdehyde content and activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione-S-transferase were studied. Genotoxicity was studied using comet and micronucleus assay. Significant increase in oxidative stress and DNA damage in the exposed groups as compared to control group (P ≤ 0.05) was observed till 96 h. However, decreased values of all the studied parameters at 720 h (30 days) indicate repair capacity of fish. Further, the bio accumulative potential of 2-naphthalene sulfonate was assessed in blood plasma using high-performance liquid chromatography. The study revealed the toxic potential of 2-naphthalene sulfonate to aquatic organisms thus stressed on the need for the implementation of stringent policies regarding the management of such toxic compounds.

Due to the high demand of paper and related items, pulp and paper industry is flourishing day by day. With increased production, come the hazards associated with the toxic elements present in the effluents. Various microorganisms are currently employed in the remediation of these toxic effluents. In addition, various techniques like ozonation, electrocoagulation, UV treatment, Fenton's reagent, and photo-Fenton based techniques are used in advanced oxidation processes to reduce these toxins from effluents. This review highlights various above mentioned advanced techniques and innovative processes along with the biological remediation of these toxic effluents with the help of some potential microbial consortia or their combinatory effects. Moreover, the present review will also disclose the ideas on utilizing the tools of metabolic engineering, systems biology, and artificial intelligence towards microbial engineering for relatively better bioremediation processes. In the future, these techniques might be helpful in increasing the capability of microbial consortia towards detoxification of effluents to make them environmentally safe. Finally, this review gives well-synchronized approaches to get more insights into these innovative methodologies and techniques and their use for various industrial applications.

The research reported in this paper was carried out as part of the CARISMAND project, which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (2014–20), Grant Agreement Number 653748. This exploratory study investigates the relationships between the disaster preparedness of citizens and cultural factors in Romania and Malta. With regard to methodology, quantitative and qualitative data were collected during two Citizen Summits, which consisted of a real-time survey and focus group discussions. The results point to two specific cultural factors that may bridge this ‘gap’ and be operationalised to enhance people's readiness for a disaster event. In Malta, the findings reveal how community cohesion is altered from a personal to a cultural value, which has the potential to encourage the transformation of preparedness intentions into actual preparedness behaviour. In Romania, meanwhile, the findings highlight the ambivalent aspects of trusting behaviour as a cultural norm on the one hand, and distrust in authorities based on experience and unmet expectations on the other hand. Social media use may reduce this tension between trust and distrust, and thus foster successful disaster risk-related communication. Publisher PDF

This paper investigates empirically how the international aid community (IAC)—donors and practitioners—considers and implements disaster resilience in a specific country setting, Nepal, and throughout the rest of the world. A key finding is that there is ambivalence about a concept that has become a discourse. On a global level, the IAC utilises the discourse of resilience in a cautiously positive manner as a bridging concept. On a national level, it is being used to influence the Government of Nepal, as well as serving as an operational tool of donors. The mythical resilient urban community is fashioned in the IAC's imaginary; understanding how people create communities and what type of linkages with government urban residents desire to develop their resilience strategies is missing, though, from the discussion. Disaster resilience can be viewed as another grand plan to enhance the lives of people. Yet, regrettably, an explicit focus on individuals and their communities is lost in the process.

The efficiency of combining iron sulfate and organic amendments (paper mill sludge, olive mill waste compost and olive tree pruning biochar) for the remediation of an As- and Cu-contaminated soil was evaluated. Changes in As and Cu fractionation and solubility due to the application of the amendments was explored by leachate analysis, single and sequential extractions. Also, the effects on Arrhenatherum elatius growth, germination of Lactuca sativa and toxicity to the bacteria Vibrio fischeri were assessed. The combination of iron sulfate and the organic amendments efficiently reduced As solubility and availability through the formation of amorphous iron oxides, while organic matter did not seem to mobilize As. At the same time, copper fractionation was strongly affected by soil pH and organic matter addition. The soil pH significantly influenced both As and Cu mobility. Within all the amendments tested, FeSO4 in combination with compost showed to be the most suitable treatment for the overall remediation process, as it reduced As and Cu availability andenhanced soil nutrient concentrations and plant growth. In sipte of contradictory trends between chemical analyses and ecotoxicity tests, we can still conclude that the application of organic amendments in combination with reactive iron salts is a suitable approach for the remediation of soils contaminated by Cu and As.

The humanitarian sector is increasingly aware of the role that good quality evidence plays in the underpinning of effective and accountable practice. This review addresses the need for reliable evidence by evaluating current knowledge about the intersection of two key outcome targets of post-disaster shelter response: supporting shelter self-recovery and building back safer. Evidence about post-disaster shelter programmes that aim to improve hazard resistance while supporting shelter self-recovery has been systematically analysed and evaluated. Technical support, especially training in safer construction techniques, was found to be a central programme feature, but the impact of this and other programme attributes on building safety was largely not ascertainable. Programme reports and studies lack sufficient detail, especially on the hazard resistance of repaired houses. Accounts of shelter programmes need to include more reliable reporting of key activities and assessment of outcomes, in order to contribute to the growing evidence base in this field.

This paper examines the vulnerability of households to disasters, using an asset vulnerability framework to represent livelihoods. Such frameworks are widely employed to analyse household poverty and focus on living conditions and well-being rather than money-metric measures of consumption and income. The conceptualisation of household vulnerability is a challenge in current studies on coping with disasters. The paper considers whether a capital assets framework is useful in identifying and assessing household vulnerability in the context of the Wenchuan earthquake in China in 2008. The framework has five categories of assets (financial, human, natural, physical, and social capital) and attempts to measure the resilience and vulnerability of households. When applied to a major disaster, asset-based methods face the problem of heterogeneity of the population, such as with regard to livelihood type or residence. Moreover, the effect of external interventions, such as the provision of relief assistance, must be taken into account.

Prospective, community-based surveillance systems for measuring birth, death, and population movement rates may have advantages over the 'gold-standard' retrospective household survey in humanitarian contexts. A community-based, monthly surveillance system was established in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, in partnership with a local implementing partner and the national ministry of health. Data were collected on the occurrence of births, deaths, arrivals, and departures over the course of one year, and a retrospective survey was conducted at the end of the period to validate the information. Discrepancies between the two approaches were resolved by a third visit to the households with discordant records. The study found that the surveillance system was superior in terms of its specificity and sensitivity in measuring crude mortality and birth rates as compared to the survey, demonstrating the method's potential to measure accurately important population-level health metrics in an insecure setting in a timely, community-acceptable manner.

One way to make development pathways more resilient in the face of a changing climate has been through mainstreaming adaptation into government policies, planning and sectoral decision-making. To date, many of the transferable lessons have taken the form of technical approaches such as risk assessments and toolkits. This article instead draws on evidence from South Asia to emphasise some of the more tacit and informal approaches used to influence adaptation policy. Despite their apparent significance in policy processes, such tactics are often neither planned for nor well reported in resilience-building projects and programme documents. Using evidence to populate a typology of influencing strategies, this article looks particularly at the role of policy entrepreneurs who navigate the political complexity of both formal and informal governance systems to promote successful adaptation mainstreaming. It concludes with recommendations for adaptation and resilience programming that can more effectively harness the breadth of influencing strategies.

Forecast-based drought early warning/early action has been hampered by both inadequate decision-making frameworks and a lack of appropriate funding mechanisms. Rural communities in Nicaragua and Ethiopia that have participated in resilience-building interventions of varying durations demonstrate the value of community-based actions informed by early warning, forecasts and drought management advice, both before and during the agricultural season. While drought affected all crops negatively, participants were better able to mitigate impacts, were more organised in accessing relief and recovered more effectively. These results are consistent with other research on the cost/benefit of anticipatory actions, use of climate services and appropriate drought management advice. They also confirm the importance of embedding short-term early action in long-term resilience-building. Despite this, formal systems, national and local, remain essentially unimplemented. Systems being developed at global level now need to be operationalised and translated into effective local drought management standard operating procedures for the most vulnerable.

Resilience is a complex phenomenon whereby a multitude of social and environmental factors, including gender, combine to shape the ways that shocks affect people. Looking at two BRACED (Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters) projects, in Burkina Faso and in Ethiopia, this article uses a desk review and primary data from partners and people at risk to explore how a gender-transformative approach can be an integral part of resilience-building projects, particularly those implemented by multi-stakeholder consortia. It also suggests ways to incorporate a stronger gender component in similar future projects. The article argues that donors and programme managers must provide clear principles and guidelines for achieving gender equity within resilience-building efforts. However, these must allow flexibility to adapt to norms, needs and resources as determined by implementing partners. The right balance can be achieved by facilitating spaces for individual and collective goal-setting; assessing current capacity and trajectories; and lesson-sharing as an iterative process for institutional learning.

This paper reflects on contemporary studies of and responses to disasters, highlighting the importance of historical, spatial, and intersectional modes of analysis, and draws on the author's ongoing research on Southern‐led and local community responses to displacement in the Middle East. Acknowledging the plurality of ‘international communities of response’, it begins by critiquing the depiction of selected responses to disasters as ‘positive’ ‘paradigm shifts’, including in reference to the ‘localisation of aid, and the United Nations’ Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan for Syria. Next it turns to three key themes that are central to disasters studies: migration; forced displacement; and Southern‐led responses to disasters. Among other things, the paper argues that exploring the principles and modalities of South–South cooperation, rather than promoting the incorporation of Southern actors into the ‘international humanitarian system’ via the localisation agenda, presents a critical opportunity for studies of and responses to disasters.

Submitted by Vivian Rosa Storti (vivian.storti@unesp.br) on 2019-08-23T15:03:10Z No. of bitstreams: 1 fraceto_lf_preprint_soro_ecodesignedpaper.pdf: 1703375 bytes, checksum: 0750647a29c04919959a376041b2d4d3 (MD5) Approved for entry into archive by Luana Priscila Costa (luana@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2019-08-23T17:53:29Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 fraceto_lf_preprint_soro_ecodesignedpaper.pdf: 1703375 bytes, checksum: 0750647a29c04919959a376041b2d4d3 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2019-08-23T17:53:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 fraceto_lf_preprint_soro_ecodesignedpaper.pdf: 1703375 bytes, checksum: 0750647a29c04919959a376041b2d4d3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019-07 Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) In this study we reported the development of a paper-based algal biosensor for the optical detection of nanoencapsulated-atrazine, a forefront nanoformulated herbicide with a high effective postemergence herbicidal activity. In particular, the unicellular green photosynthetic algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii was immobilised on a paper substrate soaked with an agar thin film and placed in a glass optical measurement cell, obtaining a totally environmental-friendly device. Nanoencapsulated-atrazine was detected by following the variable fluorescence (1-VJ) parameter, which decreased inversely proportional to the herbicide concentrations, in a range between 0.5 and 200 nM, indicating a linear relationship in the measured dose-response curves and a detection limit of 4 pM. Interference studies resulted in a very slight interference in presence of 0.5 ppm copper and 10 ppb arsenic at safety limits, as well as a slight matrix effect and a satisfactory recovery value of 96 ± 5 % for 75 nM nanoencapsulated-atrazine in tap water. Stability studies were also performed obtaining a good storage stability up to 3 weeks. Results demonstrated the suitability of the proposed paper-based optical biosensor as a valid support in smart agriculture for on site, environmentally friendly, cost effective and sensitive nanoencapsulated-atrazine analysis Preprint Institute of Crystallography, National Research Council, Department of Chemical Sciences and Materials Technologies Department of Chemical Science and Technologies, Università di Roma Tor Vergata São Paulo State University (UNESP), Institute of Science and Technology of Sorocaba, Laboratory of Environmental Nanotechnology FAPESP: 2017/21004-5

Libraries and archives house a majority of cultural heritage objects. The main purpose of libraries and archives is to provide suitable indoor climate conditions for preservation of their collection. In general, a large bulk of hygroscopic material is present which aids stable indoor climate conditions. Limited disturbances due to visitor presence occur in repositories and excludes to a large extent thermal comfort requirements. Library archives show potential of more tolerant setpoint control with permissible fluctuations. Little research is present into dynamic setpoint control and intermittent conditioning in libraries and archives. The aim of this study is to explore the possibility for intermittent conditioning and dynamic setpoint control on the energy impact and microclimate behavior in a library case study in The Netherlands. By means of a hygrothermal monitoring campaign from August 2016 to August 2017 the current indoor climate has been assessed under regular conditions and intervention periods (summer and winter) where the air handling unit was turned off. Both temporal and spatial measurements provided important information on microclimate behavior of the investigated repositories. A validated multi-zone model was used to investigate multiple setpoint strategies. Results show the potential of intermittent conditioning depending on whether dynamic setpoint conditions are used during operational hours (e.g. ASHRAE climate classes). If static conditions are applied, energy demand increases significantly, however, under dynamic setpoint control significant energy savings are possible. The lifetime multiplier is used to assess the chemical risks. The majority of investigated setpoint strategies show increased chemical risk.

Epidemics such as viral haemorrhagic fevers, severe acute respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus or yet unknown ones have few chances of disappearing. Globalization, worldwide travel, climate change, social conflicts and wars, among others, are likely to favor the emergence of epidemics. Preparedness of hospitals to prevent the spread of these outbreaks is among the prioritized political programmes of many countries. The EuroNHID network has in the past drawn a map of features and equipment of hospitals across Europe to take care of highly contagious patients. We update the data regarding isolation capabilities and recommendations, with an emphasis on Mediterranean countries., peer-reviewed

Plastic and polythene as hydrophobic materials become a grave concern due to their non-biodegradable nature, cumbersome recycling and waste management. Cuticular wax derived from Calotropis procera is explored as an eco-friendly and safe hydrophobic material. The effects of duration of exposure to solvent, solvent type, size and side of the leaf on cuticular wax yield have been studied. Leaf with the smallest area (10 cm2–25 cm2) was found to be the most suitable to isolate the wax. GC–MS analysis of the wax revealed that the wax consists of mainly esters, alkane and alkene. Mitochondrial reductase (MTT) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) assay have been carried out on M5S cell line at various concentrations and the results indicate that up to 1 μg/ml (acetone as solvent) and 3 μg/ml (chloroform as solvent) use of wax has no toxic effect. To evaluate the hydrophobic potential of the wax in developing hydrophobic paper water regains and contact angle has been measured. The gain in hydrophobicity of the paper is evident from the rise in contact angle (≥90˚) of paper coated with wax. Scanning electron micrograph and FTIR spectra generated physical and chemical evidence of coating of wax on paper.

Lime mud is a kind of solid waste in the papermaking industry, which has been a source of serious environmental pollution. Ceramsites containing anorthite and gehlenite were prepared from lime mud and fly ash through the solid state reaction method at 1050°C. The objective of this study was to explore the efficiency of Ca 2 + and OH − release and assess the phosphorus and copper ion removal performance of the ceramsites via batch experiments, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results show that Ca 2 + and OH − were released from the ceramsites due to the dissolution of anorthite, gehlenite and available lime. It is also concluded that gehlenite had stronger capacity for Ca 2 + and OH − release compared with anorthite. The Ca 2 + release could be fit well by the Avrami kinetic model. Increases of porosity, dosage and temperature were associated with increases in the concentrations of Ca 2 + and OH − released. Under different conditions, the ceramsites could maintain aqueous solutions in alkaline conditions (pH = 9.3–10.9) and the release of Ca 2 + was not affected. The removal rates of phosphorus and copper ions were as high as 96.88% and 96.81%, respectively. The final pH values of both phosphorus and copper ions solutions changed slightly. The reuse of lime mud in the form of ceramsites is an effective strategy.

Risk assessment and technical feasibility of brick formation from exhausted paper mill sludge derived biochar obtained after its use as an adsorbent for the treatment of effluent containing pentachlorophenol was studied. The bricks were prepared by geopolymerization mechanism in presence of sodium hydroxide, and the extent of geopolymerization was determined on the basis of crystal structure, surface functionalities, and surface morphology of the bricks. The preparation parameters (sodium hydroxide dosage, initial water and calcium carbonate content and curing temperature) were optimized and the results were analyzed in terms of compressive strength, water absorption, and abrasion index. Risk assessment of heavy metals was performed to determine the contamination level and overall hazard index of the biochar-based geopolymer bricks. Hazard quotient and hazard index were calculated to assess the overall non-carcinogenic risk posed by selected heavy metals via ingestion and dermal contact. The leaching potential of heavy metal and pentachlorophenol from the biochar-based geopolymer bricks was also determined. The results showed that the biochar-based geopolymer bricks showed good mechanical properties and the concentration of heavy metals in the leachate falls within the permissible limits prescribed by Indian Standards for Industrial and Sewage Effluents Discharge (inland surface water).

Accidental events in manufacturing industries can be caused by many factors, including work methods, lack of training, equipment design, maintenance and reliability. This study is aimed at determining the contribution of failures of commonly used industrial equipment, such as machines, tools and material handling equipment, to the chain of causality of industrial accidents and incidents. Based on a case study which aimed at the analysis of an existing pulp and paper company's accident database, this paper examines the number, type and gravity of the failures involved in these events and their causes. Results from this study show that equipment failures had a major effect on the number and severity of accidents accounted for in the database: 272 out of 773 accidental events were related to equipment failure, where 13 of them had direct human consequences. Failures that contributed directly or indirectly to these events are analyzed.

Instrument-free, portable and direct read-out mini-devices have wider application prospects in various fields, especially for real-time/on-site detection in environmental science. Herein, a colorimetric fluorescent sensor for detecting cadmium ions (Cd2+) based on aggregation-induced emission (AIE) was established, fluorescent paper strips integrated with smartphone platform was further designed for the visualization, on-site and quantitative detection of Cd2+. The colorimetric fluorescent sensor was prepared by mixing orange emission glutathione-stabilized gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) with blue emission ethylenediamine functionalized graphene oxide (EDA-GO), and introducing copper ions (Cu2+) to quench the orange emission of AuNCs while the blue emission served as a background reference without color change. The Cd2+ can induce Cu2+-GSH-AuNCs to aggregation and emit orange fluorescence, causing the fluorescent color of the sensor changed from blue to red with the limit of detection (LOD) as low as 33.3 nM in solution. Moreover, fluorescent paper strips integrated with smartphone platform has a sensitive detection of Cd2+ with the LOD of 0.1 μM in rice samples. The method reported here might have great application prospects in real-time monitoring of foods safety and environmental protection.

Due to recent technological progress, maps have become more popular than ever before. This is especially true for young people, who interact with these technologies on a daily basis. Therefore, it is essential that these potential map users possess sufficient knowledge and skills to process the content of cartographic products. A user study was conducted during which pupils (aged 11-18years) and geography students (>18years) had to solve a number of cartography questions using topographic maps. The data were analyzed statistically, taking into account a number of potentially influencing factors (user characteristics) on the participants' results: age, gender, youth club membership, knowledge about the area, among others. The results show a rising trend in the pupils' scores with increasing age, which can be explained by education in cartography at school. Geography students perform much better, but no influence of any other user characteristics was detected. For pupils, knowledge about the area and gender might be considered as influencing factors. However, the detected influence of gender depends on the scoring system.

A study about the influence of polyaxial (true-triaxial) stresses on the permeability of a three-dimensional (3D) fractured rock layer is presented. The 3D fracture system is constructed by extruding a two-dimensional (2D) outcrop pattern of a limestone bed that exhibits a ladder structure consisting of a “through-going” joint set abutted by later-stage short fractures. Geomechanical behaviour of the 3D fractured rock in response to in-situ stresses is modelled by the finite-discrete element method, which can capture the deformation of matrix blocks, variation of stress fields, reactivation of pre-existing rough fractures and propagation of new cracks. A series of numerical simulations is designed to load the fractured rock using various polyaxial in-situ stresses and the stress-dependent flow properties are further calculated. The fractured layer tends to exhibit stronger flow localisation and higher equivalent permeability as the far-field stress ratio is increased and the stress field is rotated such that fractures are preferentially oriented for shearing. The shear dilation of pre-existing fractures has dominant effects on flow localisation in the system, while the propagation of new fractures has minor impacts. The role of the overburden stress suggests that the conventional 2D analysis that neglects the effect of the out-of-plane stress (perpendicular to the bedding interface) may provide indicative approximations but not fully capture the polyaxial stress-dependent fracture network behaviour. The results of this study have important implications for understanding the heterogeneous flow of geological fluids (e.g. groundwater, petroleum) in subsurface and upscaling permeability for large-scale assessments., Hydrogeology Journal, 25 (8), ISSN:1431-2174, ISSN:1435-0157

This paper quantitatively investigates the compositions of the gaseous pollutants in the ambient air of a secondary fiber paper mill. Total volatile organic compounds (TVOC), formaldehyde (HCHO), sulfur compounds (H2S), and hydrocarbon compounds (CxHy) were analyzed on six sampling sites with photo-ionisation detector, acetylacetone spectrophotometric method, and gas detector. The results revealed that, the high levels of TVOC and CxHy were detected at the wet end of paper machine and the office area, respectively; all the H2S contents on the six sites exceeded the limit (0.06 mg m(-3)) seriously; the HCHO concentrations at other five sites were out of the limit (0.10 mg m(-3)) except for the wastewater treatment plant. Furthermore, the necessary discussions about the possible pollution sources were considered on the process flow, the chemical agents used, and the ambient conditions in the paper mill. For the sake of air pollution control in paper mills, these remarkable results and analysis lay some technical basis in the following researches that should attract more attentions.

The water demand for human activities is rapidly increasing in developing countries. Under these circumstances, preserving aquatic ecosystems should be a priority which requires the development of quality criteria. In this study we perform a preliminary prioritization of the risky substances based on reported ecotoxicological studies and guidelines for the Biobio watershed (Central Chile). Our specific aims are (1) reviewing the scientific information on the aquatic pollution of this watershed, (2) determining the presence and concentration of potential toxic substances in water, sediment and effluents, (3) searching for quality criteria developed by other countries for the selected substances and (4) prioritizing the most risky substances by means of deterministic ecotoxicological risk assessment. We found that paper and mill industries were the main sources of point pollution, while forestry and agriculture were mostly responsible for non-point pollution. The most risky organic substances in the water column were pentachlorophenol and heptachlor, while the most relevant inorganic ones were aluminum, copper, unionized ammonia and mercury. The most risky organic and inorganic substances in the sediment were phenanthrene and mercury, respectively. Our review highlights that an important effort has been done to monitor pollution in the Biobio watershed. However there are emerging pollutants and banned compounds—especially in sediments—that require to be monitored. We suggest that site-specific water quality criteria and sediment quality criteria should be developed for the Biobio watershed, considering the toxicity of mixtures of chemicals to endemic species, and the high natural background level of aluminum in the Biobio.

Heavy metals are among the major contaminants of vegetables. A study was conducted at Wonji Gefersa farms where paper wastewater is used for cultivation of vegetable crops. Four vegetable samples, namely Swiss chard, carrot, tomato, green pepper, as well as paper wastewater were examined for heavy metal [Lead (Pb), Zinc (Zn), Cadmium (Cd), Iron (Fe), Copper (Cu), Chromium (Cr) and Cobalt (Co)] contamination using atomic absorption spectroscopy. The levels of Pb, Cd and Cr in paper wastewater were all above the safe limit for FAO standards for wastewater quality for irrigation. The concentration of Pb in Swiss chard and Green peeper was exceeded the permissible limits. The study reveals that Pb metal contamination in the study area which poses health risk with time unless an urgent step is taken by relevant agencies to address this issue.

This article describes a study on the viability of using waste from the paper industry: biomass boiler ash and green liquor dregs to fabricate mortars and concretes. Both types of ash were characterized by obtaining their chemical and mineralogical composition, their organic matter content, granulometry, adsorption and other common tests for construction materials. Seven different mortars were fabricated, one for reference made up of cement, sand, and water, three in which 10, 20, or 30% of the cement was replaced by biomass ash, and three others in which 10, 20, or 30% of the cement was replaced with dregs. Test specimens were fabricated with these mortars to conduct flexural and compression tests. Flexural strength is reduced for all the mortars studied. Compressive strength increases for the mortars fabricated with biomass ash and decreases for the mortar with dregs. Finally, 5 concretes were made, one of them as a reference (neither biomass ash nor dregs added), two of them with replacements of 10 and 20% of biomass ash instead of cement and another two with replacements of 10 and 20% of dregs instead of cement. The compressive and tensile splitting strength increase when a 10% of ash is replaced and decrease in all the other cases. The modulus of elasticity always decreases.