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Polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are found almost in all components of the environment, where they originate from the production of energy, waste combustion, road transport, metallurgical processes, etc. The most serious impact of PAHs is their carcinogenicity, the main cause of lung gastrointestinal tract cancer, and in the event of a skin contact, they may cause skin cancer. The paper presents the results of the 2002 and 2013 soil monitoring in urban areas. The samples were taken from the layer under the permane...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the level of pollution of water collected from Snagov Lake. The water samples were collected during May 2017 from five sampling points (A, B, C, D, E) from three depths (surface layer, half of maximum depth, maximum depth). The subjected parameters were pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total hardness (TH), chemical oxygen demand (COD), nitrate nitrogen N-NO3-, nitrite nitrogen N-NO2-, ammonium nitrogen N-NH4+, phosphate phosphorus P-PO43- and some metals (Al, As, Ba...

Contribution of water use, other types of economic activities and natural features to the water pollution is still unclear. Previous researches outlines also that anthropogenic factors affecting water quality in urban areas differ from those in rural areas. The purpose of this study is to identify effects on freshwater resources from urban water use in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District as a part of Russian Arctic. The study is based on regional and federal reports on the sanitary-epidemiological situation and e...

In the hydrological area of Banat from Romania, 20 bodies of underground water were identified and delimited, out of which 5 are cross-border underground water bodies. The present paper characterizes the underground water bodies in the B?rzava catchment area, which has an area of 1202 km2, with an average altitude of 289 m. The B?rzava catchment area occupies the central part of the Banat catchment area, bordering the north and east with the Timi? catchment area, to the south with the Nera catchment area and to th...

The aim of the work is to study the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in a 20-cm layer of soils in the Novocherkassk energy plant (NEP) emission zone, based on the results of monitoring studies conducted in 2017. In order to study the PAHs levels in the soils of the anthropogenic emission zone an annual sampling of soil samples of 10 monitoring sites located at a distance of 1-20 km from the NEP was carried out. Samples of soils were selected from a depth of 0-5 and 5-20 cm. In the selected soil sa...

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...

Impact of the municipal solid wastes (MSW) landfills on the environment is caused by issue of a filtrate and biogas and also atmospheric transfer of material of waste from a surface. As a result an underground water and surface water, soils, unsaturated zone deposits, atmospheric air are exposed to intensive pollution. The most active and aggressive agent of transformation of components of the environment near landfills of solid municipal waste is the filtrate which impact, first of all, on underground waters. The...

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 paper examines the waste management issues in the villages annexed to administrative-territorial units of the Romanian cities which have been frequently neglected by urban waste operators. The lack of waste collection services in such peri-urban communities favored the illegal waste disposal practices particularly prior to EU accession. The extension of waste collection services from main cities to such areas is compulsory in order to mitigate the environmental risks and the public health threats. The paper es...

Bioavailable heavy metals have been extensively studied in recent years because of their toxicity to natural ecosystems. Even though there is a large number of studies, relatively little is known about the biologically available metal fraction. The current study analyses seasonal concentrations of heavy metals associated with reactive fractions (solvable in HCl) in the soil of three areas on West Jiu river. Concentrations of heavy metals identified in indigenous ichthyofauna (Salmo trutta fario) collected from eac...

Land contamination generated by non-metallic mining activities through inappropriate handling and storage of industrial wastes and mine waters that pass through these sites. The contaminated land is not just the surface of the soil but also the underground and underground water. This contamination has the potential to damage the human factor and the environment. For qualitative quantification of the activity carried out in the Brad mining perimeter, we carried out an assessment of the impact of pollutant emissions...

The monitoring data of groundwater quality in a vast area in north central Bulgaria indicates concentration of hexavalent chromium above the maximum contaminant level set in Directive 98/83/EO. Hexavalent chromium contamination of the groundwater is of a great concern, since this groundwater is the main drinking water source for more than 25 small villages in the region. Field tests were conducted in order to determine the mineral and chemical composition of soils and rocks near four of the villages. Exploratory d...

Arid ecosystems occupy large areas in the world and perform important ecological functions to maintain the biodiversity and stability of natural ecosystems. In this article, we present the results of the research on the change in the activity of catalase and dehydrogenases when the soils of the arid ecosystems of the Southern Russia are polluted by zinc: dark chestnut, chestnut, light chestnut, brown semidesert and sandy soil. Zinc was added to the soil in the amount of 300, 3,000 and 30,000 mg/kg (1, 10 and 100 m...

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 ...

This paper presents the problems of ship-generated waste management in port areas. The first part contains a classification and characterisation of ship-generated pollution, with a particular focus on waste and cargo residues. Further to that, the legal and documentation aspects of waste management in seaports are discussed, along with the basic principles of rational waste management. The second part of the paper presents a diagram of the waste management model within a port area and analyses each individual stag...

The Baltic Sea is suffering from extended surplus of phosphorus, nitrogen and other pollutants. It causes diminishing biodiversity and increased eutrophication (mainly due to nitrogen and phosphorous in various substances). The common effort in the region is environmental standpoint in sustainable circular economy. Oil pollutants, heavy metals, organic substances are being released to the Baltic Sea and consequences for maritime environment are serious. However, Baltic Sea Region is one of the most innovative regi...

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...

One of the major environmental problems that is currently being raised is the olfactory discomfort. At present, the odor parameter is not regulated in national legislation, rather than in the Odor Immission Directive - OID- edition of 21 September 2004. The lack of a legal framework in terms of odor immissions constitutes an impediment for health of affected population and might have repercussions also on the economic development of the areas. Odors are one of the most emerging issues related to odor immissions fr...

The aim of this article is assessment of the PAHs bioavailability and phytotoxicity on benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) example in model experiment with Haplic Chernozem and that spiked with various doses of BaP (20, 200, 400 and 800 ?g/kg) equivalent to 1, 10, 20 and 40 levels of maximal permissible concentrations (MPC) planted with spring barley (Hordeum sativum distichum). The main subject of this study is to research the bioindication of BaP contaminated soil in a model experiment to quantify the main features of BaP accu...

Modeling is used to predict the effects of chemicals at the a global or regional scale. Several models have been developed that describe the fate of chemicals in the environment, which are used to assess the mercury footprint of a country or even entire regions. For example, the following models are implemented in the form of software packages: CalTox, BETR, USEtox and others. However, imminent studies and models practically do not evaluate the spatial differentiation of the residence time of chemicals in the comp...

Recently the ecosystem services (services) have been increasingly considered in ecology and soil along with ecological (biogeocenotic) soil functions. This approach is justified by the need for a comprehensive assessment of soils, including the economic one. In laboratory and field experiments, the pollution of ordinary chernozems with heavy metals and oil has resulted in oppression of biological properties of soil: activity of catalase and dehydrogenase, abundance of the Azotobacter bacteria, the germination and ...

The waste water from the food industry consist of waters of transport and washing of the raw material, technological waters, the condensation or water cooling system, waters resulting from washing and disinfecting rooms of manufacture, machinery and packaging, waters of sanitary facilities. These contain significant quantities of solid residues, represented by the scrap of raw materials, discarded products, unusable tailings from products, etc. The waste waters from the food industry is characterized by a high con...

Soil pollution with heavy metals is a major global environmental problem for many ecosystems. The exploitation and processing of non-ferrous ores are one of the most important anthropogenic sources of soils contamination with heavy metals. Romania is a rich country in mineral resources, therefore it has a long history of their exploitation. In this regard, there are several areas for the non-ferrous ores extraction, and one of them is located in the Metaliferi Mountains, where the tradition in gold, silver and oth...