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Honey, produced by honeybees (Apis mellifera) through nectar plants processing, has a distinct composition depending on the floral sources, regional and climatic conditions. Heavy metals in honey are of interest mainly for quality control and nutritional aspect along with the estimation of the potential environmental contamination. In order to estimate the impact of air pollution on the honey quality, the level of some selected heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, chromium, iron, zinc and manganese in honey was ass...

A major factor which affects the structure, function, and dynamics of forest ecosystems can be beyond climate, the use of the land, respectively land-cover change and pollution loading. The forest ecosystems can be affected by pollution, by alteration of biotic and abiotic properties even if they are at a great distance from the urban area. Human socio-demographic changes are the primary drivers of urbanization, and pollution and in turn, these patterns are influenced by the climate change and geography. Also, hum...

Environmental pollution represents one of the serious problems of our society. During anthropogenic activities (mining and ore processing, metal processing industry) toxic compounds and heavy metals are introduced into our environment. Their accumulation in ecosystems creates a huge environmental load and it threats environment and human health. Another emerging environmental threat is a genetic pollution. Genetic pollution is an uncontrolled gene (usually antibiotic resistance gene) flow into populations of non-t...

Environmental pollution represents one of the serious problems of our society. During anthropogenic activities (mining and ore processing, metal processing industry) toxic compounds and heavy metals are introduced into our environment. Their accumulation in ecosystems creates a huge environmental load and it threats environment and human health. Another emerging environmental threat is a genetic pollution. Genetic pollution is an uncontrolled gene (usually antibiotic resistance gene) flow into populations of non-t...

In the polluted area with emissions from Zlatna metallurgical plant, more than 50,000 ha of agricultural and forestry land has been affected by pollution over a time period of 200 years. Approximately 5,000 ha from these lands were severe and extremely polluted. The vegetation was completely destroyed on more than 2,000 ha, leading to intense erosion processes. The forest vegetal cover was completely destroyed, and the trees had some dry branches, spots on leaves, bark burns and even completely destroyed, the oak ...

This paper presents recent information (period 2015-2017 evaluation) about the species with the most abundant development in the past years along the Romanian Black Sea coast, namely the green algae Ulva rigida and Cladophora sp. These two species are considered opportunistic, with a high reproductive capacity and a frequent distribution at the Romanian shore, with an abundant development between 0-3 meters depth, so it is considered accessible and easy to collect the algal material. In the present study the bioch...

This paper presents recent information (period 2015-2017 evaluation) about the species with the most abundant development in the past years along the Romanian Black Sea coast, namely the green algae Ulva rigida and Cladophora sp. These two species are considered opportunistic, with a high reproductive capacity and a frequent distribution at the Romanian shore, with an abundant development between 0-3 meters depth, so it is considered accessible and easy to collect the algal material. In the present study the bioch...

Humus comprises one of the largest reservoirs of carbon on the Earth. Nevertheless, humus and humus-derived products have been utilized to a relatively small extent in industrial applications. This is in contrast to coal, which was the basis of much of the chemical industry in the latter part of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth century, and petroleum which is the major raw material for much of the present day chemical industry. The purpose of this paper is to document an ability of a humus-like m...

The paper presents the overview of using the modification natural zeolites for heavy metals removal from aquatic environment. Zeolites occurred naturally as microporous materials. They are hydrated aluminosilicates with special ion-exchange and sorption properties. These minerals with special three-dimensional porous structure possess advantages over other cation exchange materials such as prize, the strong selectivity for different cations at low temperatures followed with loosen of non-toxic replaceable cations ...

The influence of fertilization with nitrogen (N) at doses of 40, 80, 120, 160 kg/ha and phosphorus (P) at doses of 40, 80, 120, 160 kg/ha was studied in a long-term experiment on a Haplic Phaeozems. The results obtained showed the following: the applied nitrogen doses did not significantly influence the humus content in the soil; simultaneous application of 80-160 kg/ha P and 40-160 kg/ha N generated distinctly and very significant increases in the hummus and total nitrogen content of the soil. Ammonium nitrate ca...

Mosses have been used for many years as bioindicators in the monitoring of environmental pollution by heavy metals. A meaningful constraint of this method is the lack of the possibility of sampling mosses in urban areas. In this regard, the active biomonitoring method, in which mosses are transplanted in the study area, is actively developed in recent years. However, to date no procedures for moss transplantation have been developed, which make it possible to obtain comparable results about the level of contaminat...

In spite of mining is a prerequisite for the economic development of any country, considering their harmful impact on the Environment, open pit mining is the most dangerous for the ecosystem, especially when ecological issues are neglected. Because of the production, a large number of toxic elements are released, which actively accumulate in the soil. The quality of pollution and distribution of heavy metals in the Brown Forest, Raw Humus Calcareous, Mountain Chernozems, Cinnamonic, Grey Cinnamonic and Alluvial Ca...

Economic activities in Jiu Valley, as integrated components of major geographical entities, are constantly degrading the area?s natural heritage by depositing large quantities of waste products resulted from coal extraction and preparation, abandoned buildings and poorly refurbished sites. In this respect, the current paper addresses these areas by identifying and classifying the potentially contaminated/contaminating industrial sites in Eastern Jiu Valley, depending on the type of activity carried out on site. Th...

The Murmansk region is in the group of the old industrial regions of the Arctic zone. Mining, metallurgical, chemical and other industries have been intensively developing in the region since the 1930s. The main environmental problems of the region include pollution of the environment and waste generation. Staff of the Department of Geoecology and Nature Management of St. Petersburg State University has conducted monitoring studies in the impact area of the Severonickel since 2001. According to the wind rise monit...

The studied area Central Spi? is located in Rud?any - Gelnica area, which is according to environmental regionalization included in the environmentally loaded and unhealthy areas in Slovakia. As a result of long and intensive mining and processing of minerals, the area is polluted with heavy metals and the landscape was altered by extensive anthropogenic forms. In the context of mining activity, surface water acts as a transport medium of pollution, thus expanding the area of the impact of old mining activities on...

The Northern Dvina River and Kyanda River of the White Sea basin are characterized by similar natural conditions ? long cold winters, short cool summers, podzolic type of soil formation, high wetlands (up to 20%) and wooded areas (about 80%). Despite a number of common features, the Northern Dvina River, unlike Kyanda River, experiences a significant anthropogenic influence from the enterprises of pulp and paper and wood chemical industry, heat power engineering, mechanical engineering and others. The Kyanda River...

This paper presents a recent study regarding choosing and optimizing of the appropriate test methods to characterization and analysis of used oils from different sectors of activity, in order to evaluate the heavy metal content. In the first step, the samples preparation stage for metal analysis, a number of preparation methods have been tested and finally chosen as optimal, a microwave digestion method. For comparison the metals were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and atomic abs...

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the negative impact of the impoundment Po?a on landscape adjacent to it. The impoundment is used for the deposition of coal ashes and other sludgy waste material from industrial processing of former Chemko Str??ske factory as well as the deposition of sludge water from waste water treatment plant. Both published and unpublished materials were used to support our research. The field trip involved data collection and was designed to find out the real condition of the impoundment ...

This paper presents the geochemical forms of arsenic that are present in bottom sediments of rivers and surface waters under various oxidative conditions. In summer, in the rivers with the high anthropogenic load the redox potential of bottom sediments varies from 78 mV to 255 mV (at a temperature of 16-20?C), which corresponds to oxidative and mixed oxidative-reductive conditions. It is shown that under these conditions arsenic is present in the form of insoluble arsenous acid, partially ionized arsenic acid and ...

The aim of the study is to determine the distribution of iron, manganese, zinc and copper, essential microelements in the soil - fruit system, in an unpolluted area from the west of Romania. The studied area soil is described by coarse texture, a moderately acidic reaction, low humus supply, moderate with phosphorus and potassium (mobile forms), and a low saturation degree. Theoretically, on such soil the mobility of the microelements is quite high, and they can be easily translocated into the plant. Iron, mangane...

The soil is the predominant environmental factor for the accumulation of pollutants, including heavy metals, from where, in time, they enter into the global plant-water-animal-human circuit. Some heavy metals with higher toxicity and mobility such as Cd, Pb and even Zn and Cu can be accumulated in large amounts in the edible part of the plant or animal organs, generating consumer illness, some of the worst. This paper presents two examples of cities in Romania, Cop?a Mica and Baia Mare, where, for a long time, met...

At present, biotesting methods are widely used to assess the toxicity of environmental objects. Priority environmental pollutants include heavy metals and phenolic compounds. The aim of this work is to compare the sensitivity of biotesting methods to determine the toxicity of waters containing heavy metals and phenolic compounds. To achieve this, biotesting methods based on the survival of Daphnia magna crustaceans, changes in the intensity of bioluminescence of the saccharifying bacteria (the "Ecolum" test system...

The article aims at analysing the content of heavy metals in plants in two rural administrative units of Psary and P?oki which are located in the western part of the Ma?opolska province in Poland. These areas have been heavily transformed by the mining and processing industries. It was found that the content of cadmium in the plant material slightly exceeded the permissible standard of the element for animal feed in accordance with the Regulation of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development [1], therefore ...

Dust and heavy metals pollution is the first-priority problem of Almaty city. The city is located at the foot of the Tien Shan Mountains in the Southeast of the Republic of Kazakhstan and has the following geographical coordinates: 77 E (east longitude) and 430 N (north latitude). As long as existing pollution monitoring system in Almaty city is represented just by chemical and analytical data acquisition, it is claimed to be inefficient. The purpose of this reseach is to employ the best mathematical toolkits in p...

The industrial activity of the last century has led to the severe environment pollution, especially in the areas where mining and smelting processes were involved. The impact of atmospheric emissions from the metallurgical plants was detected at great distances from the emission source. The main units for the processing of non-ferrous ores (in Romania) were located in Baia Mare (Maramures county ? MM), Copsa Mica (Sibiu county ? SB) and Zlatna (Alba county ? AB). In the Alba and Maramures counties there was and st...

As it is known from literary sources among environmental polluting agents, environmental pollution with heavy metals influences the most negatively at alive biological systems and human health. It was discovered that the plants express selective sensitivity to heavy metals. Our goal was to study such important pollution agents of environment as heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Cu). As it is known the pollen is a male gametophyte, the biological function of which is to participate in pollination process. It was discovered tha...

The purpose of this work is to assess the ecological state of the Moskva River on the content of heavy metals in bottom sediments by the method of L. Hokanson. The method of determining the coefficient of bottom accumulation (CBA) was also used. The content of metals was determined by the X-ray fluorescent method according to the approved procedure. The analysis of the obtained data made it possible to draw a number of conclusions. First, the average level of some heavy metals (zinc, nickel, copper, manganese) was...

The old Ervedosa mine (Northern Portugal) was intermittently exploited for tin by underground and open pit mining till 1969. The tailings were deposited on the ground. The mine was abandoned without any environmental remediation. Mineralization occur in quartz veins, and consists of cassiterite as the main ore mineral, and several sulphides (arsenopyrite, pyrite, sphalerite, pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite and stannite), matildite, bismuthinite, native bismuth and other minerals. The present study aims to characterize th...

The increasing anthropogenic load has a large impact on the ecological state of the steppe landscape. In particular, the emissions from the automobile transport: heavy metals, oil products and complex organic substances inevitably pollute the territories along the roads. The presence of forest belts in the roadside landscape reduces the negative impact of the traffic flow. The assessment of the consequences of the anthropogenic impact presupposes studying the changes in the physical and chemical properties of the ...

Monitoring soil contamination with heavy metals is challenging because of the large areas of contaminated soil and the high cost of laboratory tests. For these reasons new measurement methods of metal concentration in soil based on the Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) were tested. These methods include measurements made mainly in the near infrared region (NIR). Moreover the field implementation of these methods is considered. Previous results presented in the literature are not consistent and do not ...

Assessment of selected (trace) elements and nitrate along the 26.7 km long Radonja River (Croatia) was examined with the purpose of testing the ability for small rivers to serve as a model for identification of sources and dispersion of common environmental contaminants. The Radonja River rises and flows through specific geological region of the Petrova Gora Mt. (507 m a.s.l.). It is located in the middle part of Croatia, with the Vojni? town (~5,000 inhabit.) as the largest settlement along the whole river course...